Today was one of those days where it doesn’t seem as if I did a lot, but I was constantly busy. There was the usual running about and the cooking of food and the drying of clothes, but for the most part I wrote. And I wrote a lot. But I wasn’t writing stories, which is something I’ve been working on the last couple of days. Nor was I working on this bit o’ electronic rambling, throwing my thoughts out to everyone like . . . we’ll I’m doing now.
No, today I was world building.
I’ve been helping set up a game–I think I mentioned that in a post a bit back. Since about a month ago I’ve been working on a forum-based game with another person, a school of sorts, one where kids go off to learn . . . you could say, “magical things”. You’re probably guessing what it is about now, so it behooves me to say that what I’ve been helping do is create a location in this particular world pretty much from scratch. And when I mean “scratch”, I mean we had a name to start with, a semi-location, and that was it.
And since then I’ve been doing the grounds layout, coming up with instructors, and, today, I’ve been describing different locations throughout the school. A lot of describing. Sure, there’s the names of buildings and when they were built and why, but I’ve also been coming up with names of people from 400 years ago, and their ages, and the years they were born and died, and why some of them died, and . . . you get the point.
It’s not simply a matter of throwing some bullshit together and going, “Oh, score!”. It’s a good sort of world building. I’ve got building that I gotta now do layouts on (yeah, I know, too much work, but I have a slave driver working with me), and I’ve figured out where some good hiding points are at, and where there might be good places to jump and kill yourself when you break up from the love of your life, and even the location of dead people, buried out where anyone can find them.
It’s fun to see something like this come together, to take something that was little more than a nebulous idea and turn it into a living location with a great feel to it.
Now, however, comes the question: where are the people?
I’ve put up notices for folk to sign up, but so far only a nibble here and there. Lots of visitors, but no one really stopping and saying, “Hey, I’m a part of the gang”. Sure, as a GM I’m always wanting to run for people, to get into the story and take it way and see where it goes.
However, with all the work I’ve done, should I be upset if it never goes anywhere? Should I get depressed if no one comes to party, and I’m looking at my pretty school, thinking about what could have been, but once again, like so many games I’d started and built up over the last 20 years, it all died on the vine?
I should be, but I’m not. It goes back to what I said about wanting to own this, to make it mine. It’s a lot of work, and it can be heartbreaking if, after a few sessions of gaming, everything goes to hell and all this work you did is for naught.
But I don’t care. I’ve got tones of ideas in my head, worlds all over the place that I want to share. And that, in time, I will
And once they’re out there, it’s not my fault if you miss them, bro.
