Episode 26 part 1: Creating Great Battle Maps (Even If You Can't Draw)

Welcome to a special Bonus Season! Enjoy these sessions from this year's Worldbuilding Con! 

Our panel of experts is ready to bring the magic! Join us as we think through the mechanics of magic systems. Consider how different magic systems affect combat balance and action economy in gaming. Learn how different styles of magic can contribute to your fictional world’s overall theme and premise.

• Where do you start with creating a magic system?
• What are the essential elements of a magic system?
• How can you balance your magic system?
• How to explain your magic system to your RPG players?
• Best magic system examples

🎙️Speakers:
Keith Baker is a game designer and fantasy novel author. In addition to working with Wizards of the Coast on the creation of Eberron, he has also contributed material for Goodman Games, Paizo Publishing and Green Ronin Publishing.

Celeste Conowitch is a game designer based out of Seattle. She is the producer, GM, and editor of the 5th Edition actual play podcast Venture Maidens. When not plotting behind the screen, she works as a senior game designer at Kobold Press and has freelanced with companies like Wizards of the Coast, 2CGaming, and MCDM Productions. To keep up with Celeste, follow her on Twitter @cconowitch.

Shane Hensley is the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group, and a former designer, writer, and Executive Producer on several triple-A video games. He has a MA in military history, was a long-time freelance game designer, novelist, and writer for TSR, West End Games, and many others, and is the creator of the Deadlands intellectual property, the Great Rail Wars miniatures game, and the Savage Worlds roleplaying game system. He lives in Arizona, USA.

Welcome to a special Bonus Season! Enjoy these sessions from this year's Worldbuilding Con! 

Geography is the literal foundation of your worldbuilding. Join us for this foray into the forests, deserts, mountains and oceans of your imagination. From mapmaking to natural disasters to unnatural landmarks, you won’t want to miss this groundbreaking session.

• Where to start with geography in worldbuilding?
• What are the critical elements of geography in worldbuilding?
• How to combine natural processes, historical events and fantastical elements?
• How can geography make stories and games more engaging?
• Tips for describing fantasy geography for readers & players
• How to balance detail in fantasy maps?
• Creating distinctive repetitive shapes in fantasy maps

🎙️Speakers: 
Caeora is an internationally renowned illustrator, designer and fantasy cartographer who has worked for, among others, the Critical Role franchise! They also hold a degree in game design, are an active tabletop RPG Game Master, and currently work as the Lead Designer for Foundry Virtual Tabletop! You can learn more about Caeora’s maps, illustrations, and TTRPG settings at www.caeora.com, or go support them on Patreon.

Andy Law is an award-winning tabletop games designer and cartographer, and an excitable teller of tales. He’s best known for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP), a game he has helped design, write, illustrate, map, and produce for longer than he prefers to remember. Andy has also freelanced extensively for many games companies including FFG, Green Ronin, Hunters Entertainment, Chaosium, and Critical Role, where he’s employed to breathe life into other people’s worlds with maps and words. Currently, Andy is the CEO of Rookery Publications, an indie RPG and board game company founded by passionate gaming veterans.

Welcome to a special Bonus Season! Enjoy these sessions from this year's Worldbuilding Con! 

Tone, mood and aesthetic are all elements that can be used to differentiate your world. Join us for a lively discussion on how to add a darker edge to your worldbuilding efforts. Learn how careful placement of the shadows in your world can add depth, and help your world feel more realistic - or more fantastical.

• Does genre affect worldbuilding? Are some naturally darker than others?
• What lures us to dark worlds as authors, readers & gamers?
• How do we create reader experiences in dark fiction that feel familiar?
• What elements of worldbuilding can establish a dark tone? 
• How to balance a dark, gritty setting with lighter elements?
  What are some mistakes in dark worldbuilding?
• Examples of great dark worldbuilding settings?
• How to handle sensitive subjects in worldbuilding? 
• To swear or not to swear? Do made-up swear words lose impact?
• Tips for adding humor in dark or horror stories

🎙️Speaker: 
Michael Williams | The author of fifteen novels, a number of stories and poems, and the late, lamented “Mythical Realism” travel blog, Michael Williams has been writing and publishing over the last thirty years. His most recent work, the City Quartet—four magical realist novels set in a city that is/is not Louisville, Kentucky—has received widespread critical acclaim. A native of Louisville, he has lived in a number of far-flung spots, but now dwells in sleepy & domestic Southern Indiana. Recently retired from a professorship at the University of Louisville, he is currently drinking bourbon and at work on a long narrative poem that ties to the novels in the City Quartet, because what is a quartet without a fifth?

Welcome to a special Bonus Season! Enjoy these sessions from this year's Worldbuilding Con! 

No genre is more closely associated with Worldbuilding than fantasy. Unfortunately, this can create a temptation to “play the hits,” following established tropes at the cost of innovation. In this session, we’ll discuss how to subvert audience expectations and deliver a fantasy world that’s both satisfying and surprising. Join Janet and Worldbuilding Con guests Gail Carriger and Amanda Hamon as they discuss fantasy worldbuilding: 

• What is a trope?
  
• What is your favorite or most hated fantasy trope? 
  
• What are the benefits of subverting or inverting a trope? 
  
• What are the drawbacks of subverting or inverting a trope?
  
• How can we identify and handle problematic tropes?
  
• How can you deliver a surprising yet satisfying fantasy world?
  
• When does a trope become a cliche?
  
• Final advice
  

🎙️Speakers:

Gail Carriger has multiple NYT bestsellers and millions of books in print in dozens of different languages. She writes book hugs - comedies of manners mixed with urban fantasy (and sexy queer joy as GL Carriger). She is best known for the Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School series. She was once an archaeologist and is fond of shoes, octopuses, and tea.

Amanda Hamon is a Senior Designer leading the production of Dungeons & Dragons books for Wizards of the Coast. An award-winning tabletop game designer, developer, writer, and editor, her work has appeared in dozens of releases from numerous publishers, including Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, and Kobold Press, and across many game systems, including D&D, Pathfinder, and Starfinder. The most recent title Amanda led is Wizards of the Coast’s Keys from the Golden Vault, an anthology of D&D heist adventures that released in February. She is the former Editorial Director for Kobold Press as well as the former managing developer and a co-creator of the Starfinder RPG by Paizo. She has appeared at dozens of events and on streams as a Game Master and player, and her weirdness knows no parallel. Amanda is absolutely not three opossums in a trench coat, though you can find her making screeching noises on Twitter at @amandahamon.

Welcome to a special Bonus Season! Enjoy these sessions from this year's Worldbuilding Con! 

It’s easy to get carried away by the desire to fully flesh out your fictional world. Our panel of industry experts will explain how much worldbuilding is enough - and how to deliver it for maximum impact, while avoiding the dreaded “exposition infodump prologue.”

• Why do we need to stop worldbuilding?
• What worldbuilding elements should be going on the page?
• What tricks create the illusion of deep worldbuilding without too much detail?
• Tips for guiding readers into a complex setting gradually
• To prologue or not to prologue?

🎙️Speakers: 
John Joseph Adams is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and is the editor of more than thirty anthologies, such as Wastelands, Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, and Epic: Legends of Fantasy. He is also editor (and publisher) of the Hugo Award-winning magazine Lightspeed and is publisher of its sister-magazines Nightmare and Fantasy. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award and an eight-time World Fantasy Award finalist. 

C.L. Clark is a BFA award-winning editor and the Nebula-nominated author of The Unbroken, the first of the Magic of the Lost trilogy, several short stories, and a few essays. When she’s not imagining the fall of empires, she’s trying not to throw her kettlebells through the walls.

Chris Fox is the Amazon bestselling author of The Magitech Chronicles, Shattered Gods, and The Dark Lord Bert. He loves RPGs, and is very proud to have one of his own in print, all to impress a girl, now his wife and mother of his son.

Jason Sizemore is the owner and editor-in-chief of Apex Magazine and Apex Books. He's been nominated for multiple Hugo Awards for his editing work. His most recent anthologies include DO NOT GO QUIETLY: STORIES OF RESISTANCE and APEX MAGAZINE: 2021.

... both other people's, and YOUR OWN! In this episode Janet sits down with the amazing DOMINIQUE DICKEY - a pro-RPG designer and writer, and also an INDIE designer and writer. They discuss:

• The advantages - and disadvantages - of writing outside DnD
• How different systems and game mechanics affect the way you write
• Tips for getting into designing professionally for RPG Publishers
• The process to get from RPG system idea to something ready to play test
• ... and more! 

Check out Dominique’s newest release "Plant Girl Game” - about a family of plant-kids working to prevent ecological disaster - on Itch and IPR! And for the best tools for worldbuilding in any medium, visit www.worldanvil.com!

... both other people's, and YOUR OWN! In this episode Janet sits down with the amazing DOMINIQUE DICKEY - a pro-RPG designer and writer, and also an INDIE designer and writer. They discuss:

• The advantages - and disadvantages - of writing outside DnD
• How different systems and game mechanics affect the way you write
• Tips for getting into designing professionally for RPG Publishers
• The process to get from RPG system idea to something ready to play test
• ... and more! 

Check out Dominique’s newest release "Plant Girl Game” - about a family of plant-kids working to prevent ecological disaster - on Itch and IPR! And for the best tools for worldbuilding in any medium, visit www.worldanvil.com!

What makes Epic Fantasy epic? Where did the genre come from? What are the tropes to rely on (or avoid)? And how can we sprinkle a little epic into other genres, too? Expert Celeste Conowitch from Kobold Press unpacks this knotty topic!

How can worldbuilding help your mental health? And how can you maintain your mental health in the face of imposter syndrome, perfectionism and competitiveness? We're live with art-therapist and artist Christina Christidou unpacking Worldbuilding and Mental Health!