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Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding
The Essential Elements for Building a World
Roleplaying games and fantasy fiction are filled with rich and fascinating worlds: the Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, Narnia, R'lyeh, Middle-Earth, Barsoom, and so many more. It took startling leaps of imagination as well as careful thought and planning to create places like these: places that readers and players want to come back to again and again.
Now, eleven of adventure gaming's top designers come together to share their insights into building worlds that gamers will never forget. Learn the secrets of designing a pantheon, creating a setting that provokes conflict, determining which historical details are necessary, and so much more.
Take that creative leap, and create dazzling worlds of your own!
Essays by Wolfgang Baur, Keith Baker, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, David "Zeb" Cook, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Michael A. Stackpole, Steve Winter, with an introduction by Ken Scholes.
Roleplaying games and fantasy fiction are filled with rich and fascinating worlds: the Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, Narnia, R'lyeh, Middle-Earth, Barsoom, and so many more. It took startling leaps of imagination as well as careful thought and planning to create places like these: places that readers and players want to come back to again and again.
Now, eleven of adventure gaming's top designers come together to share their insights into building worlds that gamers will never forget. Learn the secrets of designing a pantheon, creating a setting that provokes conflict, determining which historical details are necessary, and so much more.
Take that creative leap, and create dazzling worlds of your own!
Essays by Wolfgang Baur, Keith Baker, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, David "Zeb" Cook, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Michael A. Stackpole, Steve Winter, with an introduction by Ken Scholes.
126 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
139 people are currently reading
546 people want to read
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January 31, 2018
I'm unsure how best to rate this book. I got it to help me spark ideas and provide some guidance on effective methods, exercises, and organization techniques for world-building for use in writing speculative fiction, especially high fantasy. The book is marketed as a tool for building worlds for tabletop RPGs with the aside that it should be useful for purposes like mine as well. While the editors might believe that to be true, the book was mostly pretty useless to me as a novelist. As far as reviewing the book holistically, I wouldn't want to dock my rating too heavily simply because it wasn't that useful for my goals that are admittedly tangential to its primary purposes, though it does factor into my judgment. Still, as a long-time player of tabletop role-playing games and having tried my hand at the game-running and design sides a few times here and there, this book still doesn't seem great and I'm stuck between a 2 and a 3 star rating even on its own merits. Most of my reasons for giving it a 3 is based on a few essays that felt like gems stacked against the other 70% of the book that didn't seem nearly as useful. Since this book is a collection of essays, I will attempt to explore the different groupings of essays individually to more accurately examine the content that several different authors contributed to varying degrees of utility instead of vaguely assessing the many different topics discussed all at once:
The first five or six essays I easily could've skipped. I think they serve some introductory purpose, but they seem so vague and basic that I doubt anyone who is familiar enough with the term "worldbuilding" to pick up this book would really gather that much from them. But I suppose if your background is next to none, they may be useful as a long-winded introduction that takes up the first third of the book. There are some explorations of distinctions made between different forms of fantasy that while I think can be interesting, don't really seem to play much role in helping you to be a better worldbuilder. Things like that really bog down these essays and what's left isn't all that useful.
The next essay provides a pretty good quick guide to mapmaking that has some useful tidbits that could be helpful in designing a simple, but realistic and interesting map. While I've already used a similar guide in designing my own maps, I still learned some things and think this essay would've been quite useful if I hadn't looked up anything prior. This was one of the better essays in the book.
The next four essays are more generally on designing cultures, citystates, and technology for your world. This really feels like the bulk of what a worldbuilding guide should focus on. Yet these chapters end up comprising about 15% of the book and I can barely even remember them as they didn't offer too much other than a tidbit here or there that might be useful in thinking about how you can design your cultures. If you aren't looking to copy/paste some of the ideas from the book, I can't see them being all that useful. More concrete exercises would've been much more helpful to new and seasoned worldbuilders but at most, it gives you a few vague things to think about.
The next four essays I quite enjoyed, focusing on pantheons and religious sects and practices in fantasy worlds (the fourth is technically on guilds, but I see guilds playing a similar function, at least in the sense they're using the term, so I group it together with these). I think all of these essays do a good job of outlining the role religions play in fantasy worlds, while recommending ways you could deviate or further explore those tropes in fun and interesting ways to fit your world. I also felt like these were some of the essays most translatable to worldbuilding for fiction writing and just generally the most useful worldbuilding essays in the book on actually making your world interesting and fun.
The next essay provides overview and explanation for what a world bible is and how you can go about building and maintaining one. I think this chapter is very useful both for RPG designers and fiction writers. It's succinct and to the point while offering concrete guidance and explanation that is easily applicable to your own work. I have directly referred to this chapter when working on my own worlds.
The last couple essays weren't great and could more or less be cut with very little being lost. The first discusses worldbuilding in another's universe, such as providing new content for an already established property like Pathfinder or the Marvel universe. I think the explanation of the business side provided would be useful for some people, but for the most part the message of the essay is that unless you're already huge in the industry (in which case I'm not sure why you're using this fairly introductory book), you're unlikely to be able to get any of this sort of work. I'm not sure why this essay really needed to be in the book other than to provide that warning which would only take a couple pages. The last essay is on the limitations of worldbuilding and realizing you can't (and shouldn't) do everything. Other than some common sense points, I didn't see how this essay was all that useful either.
Lastly, throughout many of the essay, especially Wolfgang Bauer's seven essays, there's a lot of what feels like self-promotion ranting about how awesome this or that property the author designed is in whatever arena is being discussed. I totally understand that some reference to the author's own works can be useful, if not necessary, for illustrating a point, but I left this book feeling a bit like I'd just read a series of advertisements that also gave me some advice here and there. The references just felt like they went too far beyond their purposes.
Ultimately, I don't know that I'd really recommend this book to a wide range of people. There are a few gems, but unless you could really use guidance on religion worldbuilding, mapmaking, or designing a world bible, I think this book won't be super useful to you and even then, probably not worth the price of a full book with other essays unlikely to help you. I will make the caveat that a brand new DM trying to design a tabletop RPG who could use a lot more of the very basic introductory information might still benefit a good deal from this. But I don't get the feeling that audience is especially large for the book.
The first five or six essays I easily could've skipped. I think they serve some introductory purpose, but they seem so vague and basic that I doubt anyone who is familiar enough with the term "worldbuilding" to pick up this book would really gather that much from them. But I suppose if your background is next to none, they may be useful as a long-winded introduction that takes up the first third of the book. There are some explorations of distinctions made between different forms of fantasy that while I think can be interesting, don't really seem to play much role in helping you to be a better worldbuilder. Things like that really bog down these essays and what's left isn't all that useful.
The next essay provides a pretty good quick guide to mapmaking that has some useful tidbits that could be helpful in designing a simple, but realistic and interesting map. While I've already used a similar guide in designing my own maps, I still learned some things and think this essay would've been quite useful if I hadn't looked up anything prior. This was one of the better essays in the book.
The next four essays are more generally on designing cultures, citystates, and technology for your world. This really feels like the bulk of what a worldbuilding guide should focus on. Yet these chapters end up comprising about 15% of the book and I can barely even remember them as they didn't offer too much other than a tidbit here or there that might be useful in thinking about how you can design your cultures. If you aren't looking to copy/paste some of the ideas from the book, I can't see them being all that useful. More concrete exercises would've been much more helpful to new and seasoned worldbuilders but at most, it gives you a few vague things to think about.
The next four essays I quite enjoyed, focusing on pantheons and religious sects and practices in fantasy worlds (the fourth is technically on guilds, but I see guilds playing a similar function, at least in the sense they're using the term, so I group it together with these). I think all of these essays do a good job of outlining the role religions play in fantasy worlds, while recommending ways you could deviate or further explore those tropes in fun and interesting ways to fit your world. I also felt like these were some of the essays most translatable to worldbuilding for fiction writing and just generally the most useful worldbuilding essays in the book on actually making your world interesting and fun.
The next essay provides overview and explanation for what a world bible is and how you can go about building and maintaining one. I think this chapter is very useful both for RPG designers and fiction writers. It's succinct and to the point while offering concrete guidance and explanation that is easily applicable to your own work. I have directly referred to this chapter when working on my own worlds.
The last couple essays weren't great and could more or less be cut with very little being lost. The first discusses worldbuilding in another's universe, such as providing new content for an already established property like Pathfinder or the Marvel universe. I think the explanation of the business side provided would be useful for some people, but for the most part the message of the essay is that unless you're already huge in the industry (in which case I'm not sure why you're using this fairly introductory book), you're unlikely to be able to get any of this sort of work. I'm not sure why this essay really needed to be in the book other than to provide that warning which would only take a couple pages. The last essay is on the limitations of worldbuilding and realizing you can't (and shouldn't) do everything. Other than some common sense points, I didn't see how this essay was all that useful either.
Lastly, throughout many of the essay, especially Wolfgang Bauer's seven essays, there's a lot of what feels like self-promotion ranting about how awesome this or that property the author designed is in whatever arena is being discussed. I totally understand that some reference to the author's own works can be useful, if not necessary, for illustrating a point, but I left this book feeling a bit like I'd just read a series of advertisements that also gave me some advice here and there. The references just felt like they went too far beyond their purposes.
Ultimately, I don't know that I'd really recommend this book to a wide range of people. There are a few gems, but unless you could really use guidance on religion worldbuilding, mapmaking, or designing a world bible, I think this book won't be super useful to you and even then, probably not worth the price of a full book with other essays unlikely to help you. I will make the caveat that a brand new DM trying to design a tabletop RPG who could use a lot more of the very basic introductory information might still benefit a good deal from this. But I don't get the feeling that audience is especially large for the book.
March 2, 2013
The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding is a small book. Digest-sized and running barely 120 pages, the truly amazing thing about it is just how much good advice the writers have packed into it. It helps of course that the collective contributors would have, at a conservative guess, well over two hundred years experience in the field of professional game design and speculative fiction writing.
While the book is more or less focussed on the aspirant game-world designer - with a nod to those of use that do it as a sport and a pastime - much of the content would be equally applicable to fantasy writers looking to improve their world-building chops. Chapters cover the importance of maps to your world, developing a pantheon (and why monotheism generally doesn't cut it in fantasy writing/game design), designing believable, living communities from tribes to whole cities, and introducing magic and technologies without them feeling retrofitted.
Perhaps the most useful lesson to come out of the book, something repeated in differing contexts by a number of the contributors, understanding what to put in and what to leave out. A 'completest' streak seems to run through the gaming community and the fantasy fiction community alike, as my own collection of RPG supplements and favourite authors will attest. Wolfgang Baur, the publisher and chief contributor, and his fellow world-smiths present the best ways to approach the creation of worlds that players or readers will find compelling enough to return to again and again.
Note: I't really like to give this four-and-a-half stars, but the technology won't allow such niceties. Take it as read that The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding deserves the extra half-star.
While the book is more or less focussed on the aspirant game-world designer - with a nod to those of use that do it as a sport and a pastime - much of the content would be equally applicable to fantasy writers looking to improve their world-building chops. Chapters cover the importance of maps to your world, developing a pantheon (and why monotheism generally doesn't cut it in fantasy writing/game design), designing believable, living communities from tribes to whole cities, and introducing magic and technologies without them feeling retrofitted.
Perhaps the most useful lesson to come out of the book, something repeated in differing contexts by a number of the contributors, understanding what to put in and what to leave out. A 'completest' streak seems to run through the gaming community and the fantasy fiction community alike, as my own collection of RPG supplements and favourite authors will attest. Wolfgang Baur, the publisher and chief contributor, and his fellow world-smiths present the best ways to approach the creation of worlds that players or readers will find compelling enough to return to again and again.
Note: I't really like to give this four-and-a-half stars, but the technology won't allow such niceties. Take it as read that The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding deserves the extra half-star.
August 26, 2013
There's a lot of good ideas and advice in this collection of essays on worldbuilding. The focus is on worldbuilding for fantasy RPGs, either as a gamemaster or a game designer, but much of the advice could also be adapted for other settings or for worldbuilding a setting for fiction.
Some of the included chapters cover map-making, creating and maintaining a world 'bible', creating religions, dealing with the impact of both magic and technology, and several other topics.
My personal favorites were the chapters "Why No Monotheism?" by Steve Winter, and "How to Make a High Magic World" by Keith Baker. The former discusses the reasons why monotheism is uncommon in fantasy settings, and then discusses some ways that it could be used. The latter discusses some of the problems and opportunities of a setting where magic is common enough to impact everyday life.
"Designing a Pantheon" by Wolfgang Bauer and "It's a Mystery: How to Design a Mystery Cult" by David "Zeb" Cook were also full of good ideas for creating fantasy religions. Although both made me wonder why the authors never mentioned the Glorantha setting when it contains many examples of the kinds of things being discussed. The former in particular laments the way that D&D has pantheons of gods worshiped as individuals rather than as pantheons, and then goes on to describe a system that is pretty much identical to the way that pantheons appear in Glorantha.
I have to mention that the chapter on working with licensed properties seemed a bit out of place, seeing as how it dealt solely with the professional aspects of doing so, and is thus useless to anyone looking to use an existing setting as a gamemaster rather than as a game designer.
Otherwise, I thought it was a good book, and deserving of the Ennie it recently won.
Some of the included chapters cover map-making, creating and maintaining a world 'bible', creating religions, dealing with the impact of both magic and technology, and several other topics.
My personal favorites were the chapters "Why No Monotheism?" by Steve Winter, and "How to Make a High Magic World" by Keith Baker. The former discusses the reasons why monotheism is uncommon in fantasy settings, and then discusses some ways that it could be used. The latter discusses some of the problems and opportunities of a setting where magic is common enough to impact everyday life.
"Designing a Pantheon" by Wolfgang Bauer and "It's a Mystery: How to Design a Mystery Cult" by David "Zeb" Cook were also full of good ideas for creating fantasy religions. Although both made me wonder why the authors never mentioned the Glorantha setting when it contains many examples of the kinds of things being discussed. The former in particular laments the way that D&D has pantheons of gods worshiped as individuals rather than as pantheons, and then goes on to describe a system that is pretty much identical to the way that pantheons appear in Glorantha.
I have to mention that the chapter on working with licensed properties seemed a bit out of place, seeing as how it dealt solely with the professional aspects of doing so, and is thus useless to anyone looking to use an existing setting as a gamemaster rather than as a game designer.
Otherwise, I thought it was a good book, and deserving of the Ennie it recently won.
April 10, 2013
I picked up the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding based on my interest in writing fantasy and running roleplaying games. While the content is definitely more geared toward the latter, the essays touch on some aspects of world creation that a writer must also consider, though with a fantasy slant. Fine for my needs, but a caveat nonetheless.
Not counting the light introduction by Ken Scholes, there are 18 essays in total, covering a wide swath of topics. Alas, the fare is hit-or-miss.
Over a third of the total offering is penned by Wolfgang Baur, who also compiled the whole thing. He is informative, if boring, and I often found myself hoping the next bit was authored by someone else. Maybe Wolfgang handed out the choice assignments, leaving himself to fill in the cracks. Topics such as - 'How to Design a City-State' or 'How to Design a Pantheon' read like history text as written by an academic.
Fortunately, there is better, more engaging stuff here too. Keith Baker's two essays are highlights - 'Bringing History to Life' and 'How to Make a High-Magic World'. The absolute highlight for me though is 'Here Be Dragons', written by Jonathon Roberts, a cartographer of some renown. Not only does he talk about how to create your own maps, but in doing so he also illuminates how this exercise helps to inform the world creation process itself. Great stuff.
Overall - uneven, but ultimately worth the read, as there are some real gems to be had.
Not counting the light introduction by Ken Scholes, there are 18 essays in total, covering a wide swath of topics. Alas, the fare is hit-or-miss.
Over a third of the total offering is penned by Wolfgang Baur, who also compiled the whole thing. He is informative, if boring, and I often found myself hoping the next bit was authored by someone else. Maybe Wolfgang handed out the choice assignments, leaving himself to fill in the cracks. Topics such as - 'How to Design a City-State' or 'How to Design a Pantheon' read like history text as written by an academic.
Fortunately, there is better, more engaging stuff here too. Keith Baker's two essays are highlights - 'Bringing History to Life' and 'How to Make a High-Magic World'. The absolute highlight for me though is 'Here Be Dragons', written by Jonathon Roberts, a cartographer of some renown. Not only does he talk about how to create your own maps, but in doing so he also illuminates how this exercise helps to inform the world creation process itself. Great stuff.
Overall - uneven, but ultimately worth the read, as there are some real gems to be had.
May 5, 2014
This book features a large and wide ranging selection of essays written by the giants in the industry of Role Playing Game design. I have already put several of the tools to use in my own Homebrew RPG setting, and look forward to returning to this book for reference in the future.
Many people recommend this book for aspiring fantasy authors as well. I can see many of the tools, techniques, and recommendations working in literature though the book is clearly written for game design first and foremost.
Many people recommend this book for aspiring fantasy authors as well. I can see many of the tools, techniques, and recommendations working in literature though the book is clearly written for game design first and foremost.
December 15, 2023
Fun little book
September 3, 2014
Excellent guide to designing game worlds from a selection of top designers. Individual chapters vary in quality and usefulness, but the overall book is worthwhile no matter how experienced (or inexperienced) you are.
October 6, 2022
A pretty solid kick-start to worldbuilding and design. Though aimed primarily at RPG designers, I found this useful from a novelist standpoint as well.
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May 2, 2021From the Bundle of Holding "Worldbuilder's Toolkit" package, including
* A Magical Medieval Society - Western Europe (an examination of what the real medieval times would be like, which reminded me of that quip: "How can you tell your medieval fantasy novel was written by a Marxist? The ratio of serfs-to-lords is historically accurate.")
* Masks and Eureka (two book full of NPCs and plot hooks for fantasy, sf, or horror settings -- so generic (a haunted oil rig, getting the retired protector to fight evil one last time) that I can't imagine ever needing one of these to fill a hole in a game)
* Red Tide (a campaign about a world suffering a magical/ecological catastrophe, a little Asian-inspired, with its Shogunate and tongs; but mostly included in this bundle for the last section, on sandbox play, with lots of random tables and ideas for creating ruins, settlements, etc. on the fly, with some interesting ideas on descriptive tags and how they can lead to details or adventures for the PCs)
* Tome of Adventure Design (which is almost nothing but random tables for semi-generic fantasy adventure/locations, like what random thing could happen if you were adventuring in the sky? what's an unusual breath weapon for a dragon? A casual check online shows that this book is very popular among some gamers, but clearly not for me.)
* The Kobold guide to game design (a selection of essays and thought, first on game design; and second on enhancing adventures: how to run underdark, city adventures, mobs of foes, noir, Arabian tales, humor in adventures; and third on writing/publishing)
And this book,
* The Kobold guide to worldbuilding (a collection of essays, almost all by people who I would describe as names in the established RPG industry, all about the fantasy world -- how much magic, what about the gods vs. historical worship of gods, how much history does your world have, what style of fantasy is it)
All in all, one of my less exciting Bundle of Holding purchases, with some interesting little notes here and there. I should say also that I have recently been turned on to the idea of writing and selling Dungeons and Dragons-branded stuff through their online portal, so I've been toying around with ideas that make me interested, and wondering if they would make anyone else interested; but that interest in writing some rpg material is why I moved this bundle up in my review queue; and as far as using this stuff to spark ideas, I cannot say it was very successful.
* A Magical Medieval Society - Western Europe (an examination of what the real medieval times would be like, which reminded me of that quip: "How can you tell your medieval fantasy novel was written by a Marxist? The ratio of serfs-to-lords is historically accurate.")
* Masks and Eureka (two book full of NPCs and plot hooks for fantasy, sf, or horror settings -- so generic (a haunted oil rig, getting the retired protector to fight evil one last time) that I can't imagine ever needing one of these to fill a hole in a game)
* Red Tide (a campaign about a world suffering a magical/ecological catastrophe, a little Asian-inspired, with its Shogunate and tongs; but mostly included in this bundle for the last section, on sandbox play, with lots of random tables and ideas for creating ruins, settlements, etc. on the fly, with some interesting ideas on descriptive tags and how they can lead to details or adventures for the PCs)
* Tome of Adventure Design (which is almost nothing but random tables for semi-generic fantasy adventure/locations, like what random thing could happen if you were adventuring in the sky? what's an unusual breath weapon for a dragon? A casual check online shows that this book is very popular among some gamers, but clearly not for me.)
* The Kobold guide to game design (a selection of essays and thought, first on game design; and second on enhancing adventures: how to run underdark, city adventures, mobs of foes, noir, Arabian tales, humor in adventures; and third on writing/publishing)
And this book,
* The Kobold guide to worldbuilding (a collection of essays, almost all by people who I would describe as names in the established RPG industry, all about the fantasy world -- how much magic, what about the gods vs. historical worship of gods, how much history does your world have, what style of fantasy is it)
All in all, one of my less exciting Bundle of Holding purchases, with some interesting little notes here and there. I should say also that I have recently been turned on to the idea of writing and selling Dungeons and Dragons-branded stuff through their online portal, so I've been toying around with ideas that make me interested, and wondering if they would make anyone else interested; but that interest in writing some rpg material is why I moved this bundle up in my review queue; and as far as using this stuff to spark ideas, I cannot say it was very successful.
January 15, 2025
Be warned that this book is a collection of essays and some are more on the philosophy of world building rather than a “how to” guide. Also, the essays are written by different people, who, in some cases, don’t 100% agree with each other. This book is aimed at three different users: writers, game designers, and game masters. The latter two are similar but there are some huge differences and some of the authors seem to be aiming their essays at only one of the groups, which can prove confusing. For example, Wolfgang Baur’s essay seems to be entirely aimed at professional (or would-be professional) game designers as is Janna Silverstein's "Playing in Someone Else's Backyard: Worldbuilding in Licensed Worlds." My favorite essays are Keith Baker's "Bringing History to Life," Michael Stackpole's "They Do WHAT Now? : On Societies and Culture," Jonathan Roberts' "Here Be Dragons: Worldbuilding Advice from a Professional Mapper," Baur's "How Real is Your World: History and Fantasy as a Spectrum of Design Options" and "Worlds and Technology." Also, excellent sections on creating religions: Baur's "Designing a Pantheon" and David Cook's "It's a Mystery!: How to Design a Mystery Cult." While the writers have a wide range of experience with various gaming companies, frequently the Kobold Press world setting of Midgard is held up as an example of good world design (not surprising). While obviously different sorts of world builders will appreciate different aspects of this book, as a game master, I found myself resenting the number of pages of this fairly slim volume taken up by marketing and legal advice for designers who want to sell their worlds. Strong 3 stars.
November 30, 2021
Solid guidance that covers a lot of ground
I really enjoyed this book. Experienced GMs and designers will of course recognize many tips they already apply, but there's something for everyone here. I switched back & forth between book and audiobook, and while listening to the audiobook I had to skip back often because the topics discussed would send my mind wandering into game design mode.
The book is more a collection of essays by a group of select designers, and less of a cohesive whole. It's well edited and there are essays that provide callout to others. Just don't expect a conductive thread from beginning to end. You can easily listen to the chapters relevant to what you're looking for, but I myself enjoyed it from beginning to end. Some essays can be a bit light on content, but that's relative on your expectations. Some chapters definitely could be expanded into an entire book, and I'd read it.
The book is very focused on fantasy settings and while the advice presented here can be used anywhere, you won't find many relevant examples if you're a sci-fi designer.
Another odd note: the audiobook is missing a chapter on "Technology and Magic" by Wolfgang Baur. It's otherwise completely unabridged. The audiobook is well read and the narration is friendly and approachable.
I really enjoyed this book. Experienced GMs and designers will of course recognize many tips they already apply, but there's something for everyone here. I switched back & forth between book and audiobook, and while listening to the audiobook I had to skip back often because the topics discussed would send my mind wandering into game design mode.
The book is more a collection of essays by a group of select designers, and less of a cohesive whole. It's well edited and there are essays that provide callout to others. Just don't expect a conductive thread from beginning to end. You can easily listen to the chapters relevant to what you're looking for, but I myself enjoyed it from beginning to end. Some essays can be a bit light on content, but that's relative on your expectations. Some chapters definitely could be expanded into an entire book, and I'd read it.
The book is very focused on fantasy settings and while the advice presented here can be used anywhere, you won't find many relevant examples if you're a sci-fi designer.
Another odd note: the audiobook is missing a chapter on "Technology and Magic" by Wolfgang Baur. It's otherwise completely unabridged. The audiobook is well read and the narration is friendly and approachable.
September 25, 2024
As someone building a fairly complex variation of a piece of Pathfinder's Golarian set during the recovery period after a cataclysm, this is a pretty good resource. I intend to come back to it here and there whenever I'm creating different parts of my story and setting. It's not the be-all end-all of worldbuilding for RPG settings, maybe not even essential reading, but it's certainly congestive and mostly comprehensive. The advice coming from seasoned, professional writers is certainly a very helpful perspective and expertise to listen to in contrast to YouTube advice from long-term gamemasters, and they synergize well together. I can confidently recommend this to anyone building a setting for a home game.
March 30, 2023
Great Overview on Worldbuilding
Even upon my first pass of this book, I see it’s value to writers and game designers alike. It has great advice from professionals, which hits every aspect of creating believable, exciting worlds and settings for projects, cautions against the pitfalls of over-explaining or getting bogged down in encyclopedic self-indulgence, and lists a treasure trove of writers, books, and games to research to one’s heart’s content how it is done, or simply to enjoy the great stories and games that have come before and are available for the escape, enlightenment, joy, and knowledge.
Even upon my first pass of this book, I see it’s value to writers and game designers alike. It has great advice from professionals, which hits every aspect of creating believable, exciting worlds and settings for projects, cautions against the pitfalls of over-explaining or getting bogged down in encyclopedic self-indulgence, and lists a treasure trove of writers, books, and games to research to one’s heart’s content how it is done, or simply to enjoy the great stories and games that have come before and are available for the escape, enlightenment, joy, and knowledge.
March 8, 2018
A great collection of short essays on designing fictional worlds. Most of the contributors are designers from the fantasy role-playing game industry, which biases the book towards advice for the design of fantasy game worlds. However, I could definitely see this book being useful for any creator who wants to design their own fictional world. (Two of the last essays also had pragmatic advice clearly aimed at aspiring industry professionals, which was a slight surprise.) A fairly fast read, and interesting too! (A-)
September 5, 2017
Una obra magnifica. Repleta de ideas y de conceptos que cualquiera que quiera crear mundos fantasticos en los que contar historias puede aprovechar.En principio esta pensado para el mundo de los juegos de rol, pero muchoa de los temas son bastante universales para la eacritura fantastica de todo tipo. Un burn punto de partida para dar un paso atras y pensar en como el mundo en que contamos nuestras historias puede afectar a las mismas.
Muy recomendado.
Muy recomendado.
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August 9, 2021This little books covers a wide range of topics of interest to people writing fantasy or building worlds for RPGs. I fall into the latter category. It is written by multiple contributors, all with proven industry track records. I will be using many of their ideas.
This book sets itself apart from most worldbuilding guides by including advice to people interested in breaking into professional game design, such as how to create a world bible and how to work with licensed properties.
This book sets itself apart from most worldbuilding guides by including advice to people interested in breaking into professional game design, such as how to create a world bible and how to work with licensed properties.
August 25, 2021
4 stars might seem a bit harsh but let's say for the sake of argument that any other worldbuilding book probably is closer to 2 stars than it will ever be to 4. A must for those looking at worldbuilding and inspiration. To be read with other Kobold guides, who have steadily been developing guides and instructional books that will make a worldbuilding out of anyone that has even just a gram of creativity.
June 4, 2023
本書是由Wolfgang Baur等一眾作者編寫的狗頭人出版構築設計教學之一，雖然是世界觀編寫的創作類目書籍，但實際提到桌遊、電子遊戲、叢書寫作方向的內容也非常多。
說實話我自從前開始就很排斥“教你怎麼做什麼”這一類的書籍，大約因為中文書目中該類內容往往都偏向心靈修習。但狗頭人系列打開了我新世界的大門，言之有物且通俗易懂。本書所面向的對象應該是已經有作為構成經驗的創作者與行業從業者，如果真的是入門新人恐怕看這個還是會有點早。
但它絕對是本十分優秀的解釋與說明工具書，我認為最好的用法之一是將一個你的寫作案例直接與讀書筆記對比，這樣可以很方便找到不足與思考差異。
如果你是愛好者並非從業者，則同樣可以在該書中找到自己喜歡的作品（尤其是歐美方向）的創作原則與解釋說明。
但值得注意的是，本書的技巧與內容包括對行業的敘述是歐美偏向的，在亞洲的工作方式非常不同。從許多對於行業與工作方式的敘述可以看到二者差別相當之大。
說實話我自從前開始就很排斥“教你怎麼做什麼”這一類的書籍，大約因為中文書目中該類內容往往都偏向心靈修習。但狗頭人系列打開了我新世界的大門，言之有物且通俗易懂。本書所面向的對象應該是已經有作為構成經驗的創作者與行業從業者，如果真的是入門新人恐怕看這個還是會有點早。
但它絕對是本十分優秀的解釋與說明工具書，我認為最好的用法之一是將一個你的寫作案例直接與讀書筆記對比，這樣可以很方便找到不足與思考差異。
如果你是愛好者並非從業者，則同樣可以在該書中找到自己喜歡的作品（尤其是歐美方向）的創作原則與解釋說明。
但值得注意的是，本書的技巧與內容包括對行業的敘述是歐美偏向的，在亞洲的工作方式非常不同。從許多對於行業與工作方式的敘述可以看到二者差別相當之大。
December 30, 2022
Torn between 3-4 stars. can't elaborate on why due to literal physical constraints on my ability to type lately. will update if that ability comes back anytime and i remember to do so. plan to reread again by the end of the year if there's a 'me' to be rereading by then.
recommended for beginner-intermediate worldbuilders & DMs/GMs
recommended for beginner-intermediate worldbuilders & DMs/GMs
June 30, 2025
Largely unhelpful.
Instead of insightful and creative instruction on worldbuilding, the book is mostly filled with examples of poplar IPs in film, games, and novels that the reader will already be familiar with. I am not by any means an expert on worldbuilding, but I did not learn a single thing from reading and digesting the “advice” from these various authors.
Instead of insightful and creative instruction on worldbuilding, the book is mostly filled with examples of poplar IPs in film, games, and novels that the reader will already be familiar with. I am not by any means an expert on worldbuilding, but I did not learn a single thing from reading and digesting the “advice” from these various authors.
April 29, 2019
An interesting set of essays on the basics of worldbuilding. It's ok, but very biased towards pen and paper rpgs and makes some really off assumptions about religions in general and in settings in particular. I was kind of hoping for something more in depth, but it's not a bad book overall.
June 14, 2020
Was an interesting read, with lots of good advice, but lacks a sense of direction. Sections are written by different authors, which is fine, but it lowers the cohesion. The way its presented makes it feel like the pieces needed to build a true fictional world are missing.
July 6, 2022
A good book on the creative process of world building. Would be good to have a wider range of examples on how to make good decisions, as well as medium-specific guidelines. I was hoping to learn about iterative design for gaming, for example.
November 3, 2022
Somewhat interesting worldbuilding guide from various designers in the D&D/Pathfinder-adjacent scene. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
June 26, 2017
Great set of essays about worldbuilding. Very deep understanding and great share of ideas from these well known authors.
January 13, 2018
Many very interesting insides...
May 31, 2018
Great book! So, so much good information in this collection of essays. I will be returning to this tome frequently.
November 13, 2019
This guide is invaluable to my fantasy writing process. I have learned so much! I'm getting all the other Kobold guides! The articles are short, but descriptive.
May 18, 2020
Some chapters were too narrowly-focused to be useful. Most were very interesting. Not bad, but not something you will find yourself going back to.
July 30, 2020
Wonderful essays by one of the best world creators alive !
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