The Campaign Builder's Guild

[note=Got an Topic Idea?]Send me a PM. Remember, we are discussing any topic relating to world design (but not system design), so fire away.[/note]
[ic=Philosophy Archive]
Week 1 - The Cost of Magic
Week 2 - Villains
Week 3 - Genre Conventions
Week 4 - Design Method
Week 5 - Characters
Week 6 - Theme
Week 7 - PCs in the World
Week 8 -  Politics
Week 9 - Government
Week 10 - Alignment
Week 11 - Magic Items
Week 12 - Philosophy
Week 13 - Races & Ethnicity
Week 14 - Tone
Week 15 - Content
Week 16 - War & Crime
Week 17 - Names and Language
Week 18 - Cosmology
Week 19 - Transportation
Week 20 - History
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History
Do you enjoy writing a history for your world? Do you enjoy reading histories for other setting? How much do you write? How far back do you go: the beginning, or only recent, or somewhere in between?

How much detail do you prefer? How much impact does real world history have on your homebrew timeline?

If you are running a game, do you make up the world history as you go along, based on the needs of each session, or do you plan ahead?

History done right can be intriguing. Done wrong it'll be boring. I think the key to avoiding the latter is to focus on the most interesting and important things about the past, aggressively highlight them and not let them become lost in a haystack of boring minutiae.

One should also be careful not to make bloated histories. Keep them short and simple where feasible, or divide them to more easily digested sections. Eg. instead of a single huge world history, write separate histories for each kingdom - each from their own point of view, omitting events that don't affect them.

Another good technique is to tie history with present-age events. That way it won't be just a collection of random lore, but will be adding to the flavour of people and places. A character simply spending a night in an old manor doesn't warrant a detailed history of that place. A character caught up in a horror plot intrinsically tied to past events in the manor does.

As a History minor I can tell you I *love* history. In real life there is no such thing as too much history nor too much detail. However, games are a very different beast.

In games you need to emphasize depth but present it in a succinct easy to read format. You cannot drone on about Captain Kirk's third Orion mistress for 6 pages and expect it to hold the attention span of the average gamer. Having said that, History is deeply important to all worlds, even ones that suffer from global amnesia.

I like history, too. :D

I like reading about it in games, as long as it's interesting to read. I know that sounds a bit obvious, but I think the point is still relevant.

The storytelling is everything, with stuff like this. When working with history, it's easy to get swept away by unwise notions.

For example, consider the irrational urge to make timelines, which-- as far as science has yet determined-- no one ever actually reads.

Quote from: Luminous CrayonFor example, consider the irrational urge to make timelines, which-- as far as science has yet determined-- no one ever actually reads.

*(^%^$#^%*&$*)_)_(BOU%(%%(
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo.....!!!!!!!

Quote from: LordVreeg

Quote from: Luminous CrayonFor example, consider the irrational urge to make timelines, which-- as far as science has yet determined-- no one ever actually reads.

*(^%^$#^%*&$*)_)_(BOU%(%%(
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo.....!!!!!!!

Quote from: Luminous CrayonFor example, consider the irrational urge to make timelines, which-- as far as science has yet determined-- no one ever actually reads.

I must be weird because I love reading time lines...  :-|

Perhaps no one but history majors/buffs read timelines.

I tend to be bored by them as reading material but they're probably quite important and useful for cohesion/world-building purposes.  The only really enjoyable timeline I remember having read was one of Salacious Angel's Dystopia timelines, replete with dozens of his esoteric allusions.

I enjoy writing history; I try to write history that is important to the setting and interesting to read, but what interests me is not necessarily what interests other people and I realize that a great deal of it is probably just for my own benefit.

Timelines are critical for me, but more as a tool to organize my writing than as the focus of my presentation.  I find it hard to visualize a setting's history without a timeline, but usually this isn't a problem unless it's my own setting's history that I need to make sense of in order to avoid massive contradictions later on.

I love timelines. They are possibly one of the most entertaining things to read about a world for me. I'm slowly working on a sort of timeline system for Vibrant where most of the history that will be posted is based around specific factions, and they get split up into sections where the factions were under specific command or experiencing buildups to conflicts and whatnot.

Quote from: SteerpikeThe only really enjoyable timeline I remember having read was one of Salacious Angel's Dystopia timelines, replete with dozens of his esoteric allusions.

Realtalk: Salacious_Angel could write a telephone directory, and I'd hang on every word.

Here's the thing about timelines, though-- I like to make waves with my controversial assertions, but I stand behind them, so I might as well clarify. I think you're insightful to bring up history buffs, but maybe for a different reason than you had in mind.

History is a narrative-- always is. It's a big, intricate story of near-infinite complexity. Different real-world historians bring out different elements of plot, different themes, different characters-- they're not writing history, but they're choosing what to shine the narrative spotlight upon. That's the sort of thing that makes history buffs exist. That's what gets people interested: the stories.

A timeline isn't history. It's just a list of things that happened one after another.

This can occasionally be useful for resolving crucial disputes in your setting, such as whether the Orphan Uprising of Arnesia or the White Chocolate/Dark Chocolate War happened first. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking this is anything other than index material, destined to be shoveled off to Appendix D, sandwiched between Non-Euclidean Noble Peerages of the Plainslands and Some Fundamentals of Moleman Grammar. If I actually want to read anything about either of the (admittedly fascinating-sounding) aforementioned historical conflicts, I'm going to ditch the timeline and reach for an actual narrative.

The timeline is the armature of the sculpture, and the narratives of history are the sculpture itself. An armature is ugly but can perform an important supportive function, but we should not confuse the armature with the sculpture itself, and many sculptures get along just fine without any armature whatsoever.

The White Chocolate/Dark Chocolate War sounds like something you could build an entire campaign around ^^
An the Armature/sculpture analogy is quite apt. A timeline is designed to highlight a series of events and not the context they stand in. It's useful as a reference, and can help to outline events or mention interesting anecdotes of science and politics which might not fit well into a general narrative. A timeline, though, can be expanded to include more text than just a title (essentially a long list of miniscule narratives) which might serve as a useful primer.
 
What do you guys do about ancient history? How aware are your setting inhabitants of their own past?

I think one problem about history in settings is that we look at history as modern human beings - scientific and explainable. A majority of settings take place in a world that is vaguely medieval (I think I can say that), and for people with that mind set to look back on history and NOT see myth, superstition, divine interference, and a gamut of un-scientific things is pretty boring. Some people in a setting may have access to the "correct" history - sages, scholars, priests, whatever - but I think most people should have no clue about what really happened and should instead believe in traditions, folk-lore, and zeitgeist.

as an example - the vast majority of Christians think Jesus was born on the 25 day of December, when that is hardly the case.

The timeline comment from myself was merely humorous.  My use of the Celtrician timeline in ongoing, less of a sculpture than as one of the skeletal underpinning that the rest of my fluff is laid on top of.  I keep the timeline as an access database, so that whenever I add a new event in, it is placed where it belongs.  Keeping this in place, and writing the little comments in each record, as well as the where and what it relates to, has kept the historical versimilitude somewhat believable.
This has also meant I can build onto it.  I can add notes on languages used, alliances, preferences...I recommend using something like this to everyone.


Ancient history is mainly unknown to 99.9% of the Celtrician Population.  For example, 95% of Igbarians know that Trabler Aptor liberated their country from the Empire of Argus some 18 years ago.  50% of the population has some vague idea that the Argussians took over Igbar and Trabler and turned it into the Northern Argussian Marches some 450 years ago.  10% of the population knows that Igbar was built on/near the ruins of an Astrickon Trader estate, and probably a few less know that Coth the Unworthy, the pirate who first settle it, was a renegade Venolvian Sea Lord, though the existence of the defunct Venolvians and Astrickons is pretty common knowledge.

Older stuff from the Age of Heroes shows up in some history books or religious texts, but mainly only larger events.  The Bard vs the Archlich Arbor, Lathe vs The Brother, The rise of the Dreadwing in the north, the Sauroid empire and it's fall, ...these very large picture, mythic happenings are known in some form or another by most current Celtricians...but it is viewed as mythic, legendary, and with garbled details.  There are Sage guilds which have better knowledge, but the Age of Heroes is shrouded in deep mystery.

Older still, and more shrouded, is the Age of Legends, when the Planars walked the Waking Dream.  More than that is beyond 95% of Current Celtricians, though the religious texts of every tenet hints at ancient truths mixed with words written to serve the needs of men, not the history of Gods.