5 Pitfalls to avoid when making a Setting

Unless you really really want to.

Greetings, fellow warlocks! Today we are back into the “Setting-Making” area, but this time instead of talking about how to make a setting, we will talk about how you should NOT make a setting.
Well, you can still do these things if you really want to, I am not your parental figure.
But I would advise you do not.
But you can still do it.
ANYWAY, my fellow warlocks, here are the five pitfalls to avoid when making an RPG setting!

Before we begin, if you are interested in making a setting, I have a few articles regarding “Setting-Making” for TTRPGs, which detail my process of making settings, and my opinion about settings over games.
You can find them here if you missed them, you can find them in this very blog.


Now with that out of the way, let me make a big disclaimer:

You can totally do these things if you enjoy them, and they make you feel good about your setting. Take everything I say here as a simple suggestion, nothing too strict you should actually follow.

Got it? Great! Let’s begin!

1 - AVOID MAKING “FANTASYLAND”

This one is pretty specific, but it is also the biggest pitfall I see around when it comes to RPG settings.
”FANTASYLAND” is when a setting has the most common and classic fantasy tropes, all together, without any sort of peculiar twist or special thing whatsoever.

We’re talking about worlds where dwarves are classic Tolkien dwarves and elves have the lifespan of a Nokia 3310 (which means: immortal).
We’re talking settings where magic is either shunned or abused, but nobody cares and everybody uses spells and magic items.

In short: we are talking about classic, generic, and flavorless fantasy.

Don’t get me wrong, we all love fantasy (or at least I assume, since you are here), but if your setting is just another plain fantasy with nothing special attached to it, you simply can’t expect people to get excited or involved in it.
From the last 4 games I played with, 3 of them were set in original worlds created by the DM… which were all just FANTASYLAND.

THE FIX:

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix: add “The Spice” to your setting.
Add something that makes your setting not the same old plain fantasy world.
It doesn’t have to be something complex, sometimes just a little twist or peculiarity makes the setting a thousand times more interesting.

I know this may be quite hard to understand, so I’ll make some examples of “The Spice”, that maybe can even inspire you:

- In the D&D setting “Dark Sun” you have a classic fantasy world, but The Spice is that this world is completely ruined and ravaged, making it a scorched almost apocalyptic world, where life is ruthless and people living in it are… well, even more ruthless.

-In the video-games “Pillars of Eternity” 1 and 2, The Spice are these giant green crystals which are PROBABLY interconnected, PROBABLY tied to an ancient civilizations, and have DEFINITELY something to do with souls.

-In the book “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson we have a world that’s almost near an industrial revolution, which could also be considered The Spice, but the real The Spice comes in the Mist: a strange phenomena that appears only at night, which isn’t very healthy if you stay in it for too long.

-In the book “Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula K. Leguin, you have a world where mages follow pretty strict rules like any other job, but magic is quite powerful. However, The Spice to me comes in its geography: Earthsea is an archipelago made up of a gazillion of small islands, each with their own small culture.

I could go on and on about this (maybe we will in a future article), but the main thing you may have noticed is that The Spice is almost always a simple concept.
Simple things make a lot of difference, and let me tell you: they are a blast to work with, because they pose a good writing challenge!
What happens if your world is approaching an announced catastrophe?
What happens if at night all the dead rise again?
These are very small prompts that make your world compelling to explore, both to you as a writer and to your players! Don’t be afraid to get inspired by other media and mix and match ideas!

2 - AVOID THE NEVER-ENDING DISEASE

Let me get this straight and hurtful for you:
I used to think perfectionism was a quality, instead it’s one of the biggest flaws a creative person can have.
There. I said it.

Sometimes we can spend hours worldbuilding, and that’s fine. Than those hours turn into days, still fine. Then they turn into months, okay. And then years and years, until you are essentially realize this setting is never going to see the light of day.

Of course there is nothing wrong in taking your time to polish your work. However, if this means the setting you spent so much effort on must be relegated to your desk, then you must ask yourself if it’s worth it.

Let me tell you: 90% of the time, it isn’t.
It’s way more worth it to put out your work in the wild, instead of constantly adding things and never letting the setting out of its cage.

THE FIX:

You can do two things to fix this: the first one is giving yourself a plausible deadline, and the other one is making a list of what you need to play your first three games in the setting.
The first one can be “finish it before winter” or “in three months”, and will help you focus. The second one serves to have a clear plan of what you need for the setting to be functional. You can add things later, trust me!

These two guidelines will help you defeat the “never-ending this” disease if you stick to them!

3 - AVOID HAVING TOO MUCH ON YOUR PLATE

This may look counter intuitive, but while it is great to have a lot of depth in your world, throwing it all in the face of your players/readers in the first session may feel a little daunting.

It’s okay to plan each kingdom and how they work, religions and cultures; some would argue that it’s what makes worldbuilding fun. However, if you do a big infodump on your readers/players, you are going to lose their involvement really quickly.

THE FIX:

Fortunately this fix is incredibly easy: after (or before, however you feel more comfortable) you have written your piece of lore about a kingdom, faction, or religion, make a note near it describing it in less than 150 character.
If this comes up with your players or you feel you must introduce it, read the note, and tell them that if they want there’s more, but this is its summary.

This will not only lower the weight of information they are receiving, it also serves as a great reminder for you, the writer, if you need to check something about your own setting.

4 - AVOID MAKING THE HOME OF THE GOOD AND THE HOME OF THE BAD

You have encountered them too: those worlds with places where everyone is bad, like, Mordor-level BAD. And then there’s the land of the good guys, where sure there may be some bad apples here and there but this is CLEARLY the land of the good, which of course oppose the bad guys.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to have a region where most of the inhabitants have an allegiance with a blatantly evil faction. However, you should always consider that “evil” is never tied to a region, but rather to a faction dominating that region.
This is true both in fiction, that in pretty much all history of mankind.

This means that the place is also home to up to three categories of other factions:
Those who are neutral or sympathizers, who help the evil faction by not acting.
Those who are oppressed by the evil faction, who may also be enslaved by that faction to further their goals.
Those who wish to oppose that evil faction.

As you can see, there are actually up to four faction in a geographical area, and those are actually great hooks for narrative; like for a quest to support those revolting against their oppressors, or to undermine their support routes, or even to sway those neutral to your side.

THE FIX:

There’s actually a quite simple fix for this: use at least 3 of these factions when you create your big geographical zones, and always give them a strong motive. What does the neutral people fear? What drives the opponents to stand against the dominant faction?
Give these and more questions some answer and you will have quite believable geography and factions for your world.

5 - BE BOLD

This may sound a little controversial to some, but I feel it must be said once and for all:
Be.
Bold.

I have a feeling that because of very vocal (but quite the opposite of numerous) groups of people, who enjoy spending their time criticizing stuff online (but never ever spent 1 minute creating something), most people feel very timid about writing their own things.

THE FIX:

You should not.
Don’t be afraid of discussing your creations online. As long as you are not being a dick to anyone, you have nothing to fear.
Do your research, get inspired by stuff you like, and create.
Try to reach out to creators you enjoy! I always say that if you enjoy my stuff and wanna have chat about what you’re creating, you can shoot me a DM or a comment wherever you want.

Be bold. Don’t feel too restrained.
Take my grandpa’s advice, who always said a very wise (and italian) thing:

”Do whatever you want, because at the end of the day, while others may criticize you, it’s macaroni that fill your belly, not their opinion.”

I take this as absolute gospel, and it’s pretty true. Don’t be afraid to put out wild ideas or to share them around with your friends or online.
As I said in a previous article, most of the TTRPG community is the most welcoming you will find.

Well that pretty much sums it up. I am pretty sure there may be around other 10 pitfalls in the wild world of Setting-Making, so I clearly may have missed some. If you have one to share, please sound off in the comments!

With that being said, thanks for reading, we will see each other very soon, my fellow warlocks!

Oh and if you want to check out some of my games, you can find them on a sale right now! I suggest you check out the one with the heaviest setting: Hellgreen!

-Novecento