Reddit reviews Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding

I think it would be a lot of fun. I am currently making a world and it has been a lot of fun. I will say that I read kobold press world building guide which really made me consider a lot more than surface stuff.

I also haven't mapped anything out quite yet. Currently I do 1 on 1's with my wife and she is helping me build the world. Which brought me to this http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/ I read on a different forum that some DM's use that game to build the world with their players.

Here is kobold press:
https://www.amazon.com/Kobold-Guide-Worldbuilding-Wolfgang-Baur/dp/1936781115

Hope that helps!

I try to take the advice presented by Monte Cook in A Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding: Don't create lore for lore's sake.

Basically, he makes the argument that you can waste all of your intellectual capital on useless background information. Unless it's just a pet hobby, lore should only be generated if it applies directly to the experience.

For example, writing the biographies of all 47 Emperors leading up to the current one may be fun, but it isn't necessary--and it often does the opposite of what you intend with lore: it becomes constricting. Plot points you forget contradict themselves in unnecessarily detailed lore dumps.

For players, it's important to keep in mind that (in most cases) they just won't love your world as much as you do. They probably won't have patience for tomes of backstory just to set a plot hook--and really, that's bad storytelling.

In summary, lore is great, but background data should empower and guide the plot, not constrict and confuse it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding - There's a sub for everything. Feed off the brilliance of others.

http://www.amazon.com/Kobold-Guide-Worldbuilding-Wolfgang-Baur/dp/1936781115 - This was a pretty short read, and is a solid overview of what other worldbuilders have done in their work (ex. Monte Cook).

The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding is very good. Pen and paper RPG oriented, but applicable to all media.

If I've understood you, you are looking for a survey style text on the creative process of world building, and not books that facilitate or inform world building itself.

It looks like the following may fit your specification: Fundamentals of World Building. Or, though more role playing focused, the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding.

Also, though I'd bet you've already seen it, Wikipedia has the following overview Worldbuilding.

I agree with your assessment. I've been flipping through The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding and at least Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook seems to fall into the less is more category unless the situation explicitly calls for it. Keith Bakers essay is in the history camp however. Its probably wrong to call any one element the MOST important - characters have to damn come close though. Be it a novel a game or campaign.

Reading Rainbow

Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding. It's supposed to be a great read and useful tool.