The X-Notes: The Future of Xathan Designs (Feedback Needed)

Xathan · June 25, 2012, 11:01:41 AM

So it's come to no surprise to anyone, I'm sure, that I am chronically incapable of finishing a large-scale non-system project – and I've come to realize that I don't like trying. I have been DMing for a while now, and actually finished several games I was running, and all of my best experiences as a DM have come from when I started the game with only a vague idea of the world and a few major meta-plots in place. I've never run a game in a setting with the level of detail of, say, Jade Stage or Cadaverous Earth, and I think if I tried I'd overwhelm my players with trying to get them to see EVERYTHING that I had put into my world. I'm not saying that large, detailed settings are bad for DMs – this entire forum and my love of it is founded on the idea that it's not – I'm saying that they are bad for me, personally.

Therefore, I'm not going to try.

Instead, I'm going to work on concepts as they occur to me – it might be a culture, it might be a creature, it might be a magic system (not in the game-system sense, but rather in the voodoo or witchcraft or ritual sense), it might be a race, it might be a setting – but not a "Here's a hugely detailed world I want to build" setting, but rather "Here's a broad concept I want to share and need help fleshing out enough to run a game in" –or- "here's a concept for a game I want to flesh out – major players, major regions, and some other major salient details." If enough individual ideas line up where I can mash them together into a single setting I will, but I'm not setting out with mashing as an end goal in mind.

The problem I'm running into is how to share this here. I have a huge stack of ideas (written down and in my head both) that I want to start sharing, but I also don't want to flood the CBG with threads and brief blurbs. Therefore, what I'm looking at and want feedback for is how to best share these ideas. I've come down with a couple ways of doing so, and would like to know what you all would prefer to see – the purpose of this thread is not for my benefit, since I'll be posting these regardless and the organization that matters for me will be on my hard-drive. This is for you all – Xathan's going to be dumping a ton of ideas on y'all and would love feedback, but wants to find the way that's least annoying for the CBG.
1) Genre Threads. There would be a thread for X-Fantasy, X-Horror, X-Sci-Fi, X-Post-Apocalyptic, X-Historical/Modern. Every time I want to share and discuss an idea I post it in the relevant thread for feedback. This has the benefit of avoiding cluttering the CBG with new threads but still allowing me to share ideas at my own pace, but the downside is that each individual thread would become cluttered (even with an index) and hard to follow.
2) Individual threads, but limited. This is the idea of "each idea gets its own thread where it's worked on," but I limit myself to a set number of active projects so I don't fill up the newsfeed. This has the benefit of easier to follow ideas and less clutter inside the thread, but does mean more threads overall and it limits my pace – I'd have to backlog ideas more frequently to avoid overstepping my thread limit.
If another option occurs to anyone I'd love to hear it. Thanks in advance for the feedback, and it's good to be back!

sparkletwist · June 25, 2012, 12:43:34 PM

I'd suggest approach #2. I'd be much more interested in viewing a thread on a specific little thing you're working on, rather than some bland genre-related thread that's just going to be a bunch of random ideas. Actually, you could always revive the "Xathan's Brain" thread if you want a dumping ground for those kinds of things. I personally would encourage liberal mashing instead, even on a smaller scale, because one deep and compelling idea with lots of neat stuff is always going to be more interesting than two random little snippets that don't really connect to anything.

Unless you plan on having like five active threads open at a time and keep creating new ones or something, I wouldn't worry too much about thread pollution. :D

Xathan · June 25, 2012, 01:18:58 PM

Quote from: sparkletwist
I'd suggest approach #2. I'd be much more interested in viewing a thread on a specific little thing you're working on, rather than some bland genre-related thread that's just going to be a bunch of random ideas. Actually, you could always revive the "Xathan's Brain" thread if you want a dumping ground for those kinds of things. I personally would encourage liberal mashing instead, even on a smaller scale, because one deep and compelling idea with lots of neat stuff is always going to be more interesting than two random little snippets that don't really connect to anything.

Small scale mashing will almost definitely happen even unintentionally - when writing up an idea for culture B, I'll start wondering how it'd interact with culture A, and mini-settings will be born from that, and then I'll look at the interaction of culture B, A, and C and wonder how they'd function if placed in geographic location A and put race A, B, and C in them and then put that next to geographic feature B on world A and suddenly I'll have a setting, but I'm not going to try and mash initially - I'll let it happen organically. And I doubt I'll reach the five active and keep creating new one phase - if I get that many active threads going, I'll probably start seeing some of those organish mash-points arise before I get ideas that would spin into new threads.

And thank for for the reminder of the Brain. I can dump really small ideas - a single creature, for example - into the Brain.

Thanks for the thoughts. :)

Unless you plan on having like five active threads open at a time and keep creating new ones or something, I wouldn't worry too much about thread pollution. :D
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Xeviat · June 25, 2012, 05:35:52 PM

I'm with you on the whole inability to finish a project. I've been especially bad about it lately. I'm going in the opposite direction, though, and trying to only focus on two things at once.

I can't wait to read more of your small scale ideas. You could also write things for other people's settings. And I agree with Sparkle; do individual threads for each idea.

Lmns Crn · June 25, 2012, 06:08:39 PM

Advice (cheap):

1.) go with your strengths,
2.) make all the threads, have all the conversations,
3.) don't commit to a project that's not working for you,
4.) adapt everything,
5.) the only prescription is more writing

You're a person with great ideas. I am optimistic about your new directions. Large, detailed worlds are not for everyone-- they can be intricate, gilded clockworks, or they can be cumbersome, self-important albatrosses.

Humabout · June 25, 2012, 07:04:08 PM

I totally feel ya, man. I've had serious issues with "finishing" settings, and have come to the conclusion that no setting can ever truly be finished. To that end, I've largely done what you propose and find it works miracles. I've also found that eventually, you find you can mash a few of those threads/ideas into one larger setting and greatly compound the material you have for it. Just keep at it, man. I look forward to reading more of your stuff!

Xathan · June 25, 2012, 10:01:36 PM

Thank you, everyone, for the support. The encouragement has definitely hit my motivational button, and I'm jotting down/cleaning up ideas as we speak. :)

Tangential · June 28, 2012, 01:50:55 AM

I must echo Humabout.

Echo. Compound them, X.

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The X-Notes: The Future of Xathan Designs (Feedback Needed)

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