Posts belonging to Category Places
Posted by Ravyn on April 22, 2013
Most cities in fantasy worlds have a vested interest in people not getting into fights to the death at the drop of a hat. It isn’t that different from the real world in that respect, after all. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to limit access to weapons. So that got [...]
Categories: Cultures, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Places, World-building |
Tags: fantasy worlds, roleplaying, weapon control, World-building, writing | 
1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on December 6, 2012
The reruns continue. This one was originally posted on March 30, 2009.
One of the things that makes a world seem more like a world and less like a static backdrop is the presence of things that are suited to the location and aren’t directly relevant to the action. In some cases, this [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Places, Scening, Technique, World-building |
Tags: GM Advice, reprise, roleplaying, scening, World-building, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on December 4, 2012
Reruns due to Finals Week continue.
Originally posted November 18, 2009.
Into any story, a little epic scenery seems to fall. Okay, not fall exactly. More come crashing down into view at just the right moment to make everyone use it and take the audience’s breath away. Either way, it’s pretty much a staple of stories in [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Places, Scening, Technique, Voice and Style, World-building |
Tags: description, reprise, roleplaying, scenery, Technique, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on November 13, 2012
Yesterday, I talked about how nifty ruins were as a feature of a setting. But what does it take to make a good ruin? I’ve already talked about building, aging and abandoning cities in general, and these serve as a pretty good stopping off point. On the other hand, it might be that we’re going [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Geography, History, Places, World-building |
Tags: roleplaying, ruins, setting, World-building, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on November 12, 2012
Ruins are awesome. We’re all in agreement, right? We go tourist on them (at least, until some fool starts vandalizing the plinths or screwing under the altars or attempting to Life Imitates Action Movie through them, and then we can only admire them from a distance, not that it keeps us from trying), we write [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Geography, History, Places, World-building |
Tags: roleplaying, ruins, setting, World-building, writing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on July 19, 2012
This week, we’ve already talked about young cities and older cities, so let’s move on to the next common spec-fic city: the abandoned, most often ruined, city. After all, abandoned cities give all the architecture without any of the potentially intimidating politics (though if you can organically slip politics into an abandoned/ruined city somehow, I [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, History, Places, World-building |
Tags: cities, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 4 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on July 17, 2012
Yesterday, I talked about getting an overall visual appearance for young cities. Let’s face it, though, everything ages—and cities have a lot of time to age and a lot of factors to age them with. Think about these things:
Has it been changing hands? I’m not just talking about another group of entirely different people riding [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, History, Places, World-building |
Tags: cities, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on July 16, 2012
Even in fantasies that read like a travelogue and science fiction that spends most of its time moving out in the black, cities tend to stand out. And why wouldn’t they? One needs to go there at some point. That’s where the supplies are, where the interaction is, where the political powers meet. Some stories, [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Places, World-building |
Tags: cities, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 11 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 19, 2012
(Do I even need to tell you what prompted this post?)
When last seen, the broken walls of the old buildings had shimmered in the starlight, haunted by the soft strings and fluting of the lone musician; now the musician is gone, and in the sunlight the walls are merely ruined stone. The carnival last night [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Places, Scening, Technique, World-building |
Tags: locations, mood, roleplaying, RPG Blog Carnival, scening, the perfect version, World-building, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on January 18, 2012
My participation in RPG Blog Carnival: Fantastic Locations continues!
Light levels in a scene may be one of the most subtle ways of creating the mood for the perfect version of a location, but they’re not the most counterintuitive way; that honor goes to the people who create a location. After all, people aren’t part of [...]
Categories: Description, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Mood, Places, Scening, Technique, World-building |
Tags: locations, mood, people, roleplaying, RPG Blog Carnival, scening, the perfect version, World-building, writing | 1 Comment »