Kobold Guide to 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.

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.

This is a very well written book from an ensemble of who's who in US role-playing over the last twenty years.The book has nineteen chapters (including the intro), and each takes a slightly different look at the broad topic of world building.There are two clear audiences for the book, and it acknowledges and services the needs of each. First, there are the fantasy and science fiction (mostly fantasy) writers who are looking to create immersive worlds for their readers and computer gamers. The second category is game masters who are either servicing the needs of their own gaming groups, or aspiring game masters who are hoping to write or improve the material they write for consumption by gaming groups in the broader community.Mileage will vary from chapter to chapter, and the layout of the book is both logical and useful. The first chapter by Monte Cook talks through the various types of world builders and how each type has different needs. Good start!The inside out versus outside in approach is a restatement of the "bottom-up versus top-down" approaches to world building, and then the chapter on "how real" to make your worlds is a direct application of the Stafford Principle of world design.The provenance for the chapters is well defined and solid.This is not a book that you should feel compelled to read cover to cover. This is more like a buffet where you nibble at what is interesting to you at the time, and you might be interested in a different chapter or chapters the next time you come back to the book.All in all, this is a very good, practical book for both authors of books and games as well as across the spectrum of game masters.

I would have rated it higher 30-40 years ago (if it had existed then). Back then, before there was a World Wide Web and while I was a newish GM, I would have consumed it eagerly as it showed me things I hadn't considered or didn't understand well.Now, you can find broader or deeper discussions of these same topics online, and other world-building topics as well. You can look at various RPG systems for different approaches to world-building. If there's a target audience now, it's inexperienced world builders who'd like having these essays in one package instead of having to search for these topics separately.The essays mostly engage in generalities and conceptual discussions. The only step-by-step procedure is the chapter "Here Be Dragons: On Mapmaking," which walks you through some general steps for laying down terrain, weather patterns, realms, and so on, at a relatively high level.If you're expecting a "guide to worldbuilding" to have tables where you can roll up governments, cultures, religions, factions, guilds, etc., you'll be sorely disappointed. These are all essay questions, not multiple-choice.The essays often give you anecdotes about the authors' experiences or designer notes on their published works. That might be a plus for some, but for me it's just extraneous material. It's not why I bought the book.There's no integration between essays such that your "output" from one essay is your direct input to another. Off the top of my head, I recall only one essay even mentioning another. One author wrote seven of the 18 essays. Ten authors wrote the other eleven. That's a plus if you want different vantage points, or a minus if you were hoping for an integrated approach to world-building.Unfortunately, I don't think I found anything new (to me) about world-building in these essays. It's all stuff I've found elsewhere. The material I've found elsewhere was of more practical use to me as well.If you're new at this world-building thing and you're trying to wrap your head around it all, these essays could prove helpful to you. However, if you've been at it a while, or if you're diligent about searching the topic online, I'd say this isn't the book for you.

Bough the Kobold's guide to get more into World-building, in a novel context. While the information is good and useful, it aims more at game Masters, Game Makers and Designers of P&P and tabletop RPGs (like D&D, Pathfinder, Freeport and so on). For that environment, this is a great tool. For novel making, you will need to bend yourself backwards a bit to adapt content to your endeavor. A short book (110 to 120 pages long), with some illustrations here and there. I am giving it a 4 because I, personally, am keen on doing hat extra effort to milk the full contents in a format that I can use, but other writers may not be willing to do so.

This is a fascinating little digest from one of the best RPG publishers out there (and Kobold Press is often very far out there). Contributors include some of the most well known names in the industry. Every creatively-minded DM/GM would be well advised to read it.

This is a must-buy for any homebrewer. It is not the first book you will get, but you realize it should have been after reading it.

Fantastic book and a great aid to creating a new campaign a world of your own. Recommended for DM

Sono appassionato di scrittura, mappe, giochi di ruolo e cose del genere. Il libro tratta di come predisporre scenari di gioco e mondi magici tipici del mondo D&D e dintorni.Pensavo fosse un po' più generale nei contenuti ma è comunque molto interessante. Ne vale decisamente la pena anche perché tante cose possono comunque essere estese a contesti più generali.