Anyone know of some good sources for world building. I am thinking books that give solid overviews of the development of political structures, culture, etc. I need to give myself a refresher course.

Are you talking about a specific period? The medieval perhaps? If so, I have some good recommendations for the high & late medieval periods.

For more general stuff, Chapter 2 in Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy is really good, but very general indeed (no lists of government types, etc.). I've heard good things about Gygax's Nation Builder, but can't vouch for it myself.

Quote from: loseth;461229Are you talking about a specific period? The medieval perhaps? If so, I have some good recommendations for the high & late medieval periods.

Really looking for the development up to that point. Probably going to take a variety of sources. I have my old college survey books on medieval history, world history etc. Really looking more for the theory behind how certain kinds of political structures develop and analysis of political structures in key periods I think.

QuoteFor more general stuff, Chapter 2 in Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy is really good, but very general indeed (no lists of government types, etc.). I've heard good things about Gygax's Nation Builder, but can't vouch for it myself.

I've read some of Card's books on writing. But haven't seen this one, so will check it out.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;461230Really looking for the development up to that point.

Well, I'm not sure about pre-medieval, but for an awesome survey of (Western) medieval history that tends to focus heavily on the hows & whys of the development of medieval institutions, I give 4.5 out of 5 stars to three TTC audio titles: Philip Daileader's Early, High & Late Middle Ages.

Daileader doesn't try to put things into a theoretical framework, but personally I've always found such frameworks a bit dodgy in this particular field and prefer a straightfowrard 'this how and why I think the institution evolved' approach. Daileader will, on occasion (usually at the start of a course), talk about competing theoretical frameworks for understanding the develoment of the period's institutions, but he usually refrains from structuring his narrative around them.

The only downside is, as you'll notice, the price and admittedly it's a big downside. All I can say is that, in years of obsessive reading about the middle ages, I've never encountered a better concise-format account of how the middle ages work and how they came to work that way.

Quote from: loseth;461233Well, I'm not sure about pre-medieval, but for an awesome survey of (Western) medieval history that tends to focus heavily on the hows & whys of the development of medieval institutions, I give 4.5 out of 5 stars to three TTC audio titles: Philip Daileader's Early, High & Late Middle Ages.

Daileader doesn't try to put things into a theoretical framework, but personally I've always found such frameworks a bit dodgy in this particular field and prefer a straightfowrard 'this how and why I think the institution evolved' approach. Daileader will, on occasion (usually at the start of a course), talk about competing theoretical frameworks for understanding the develoment of the period's institutions, but he usually refrains from structuring his narrative around them.

The only downside is, as you'll notice, the price and admittedly it's a big downside. All I can say is that, in years of obsessive reading about the middle ages, I've never encountered a better concise-format account of how the middle ages work and how they came to work that way.

Ouch that is pretty pricey.

I've always found it less useful to try to rewrite Genesis and more useful to start off with an idea about what kind of society or setting I want and to go backwards from there.

That said, here are some books that I return to for inspiration and ideas for every setting I create. These aren't endorsements of the veracity of their contents, since many of them are at the very least out of date.

The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels
Management by Peter Drucker

Marx and Engels were the first guys to really lay out the challenge that capitalism posed to the old feudal order. That transition is most succinctly explained in the CM. Drucker is de rigeur for understanding how large organisations function (or fail to function). His model is ultimately GE in the mid-20th c., but applying his ideas about how things fuck up to medieval kingdoms is incredibly fun and will give you tons of ideas beyond "an evil nobleman did it".

History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
The Iliad by Homer
The Anabasis by Xenophon

T. lays out the logic of a state gone mad, and provides dozens of episodes and examples of the use and abuse of power. The Iliad is the Iliad. The Anabasis is filled with strange peoples and is a great exploration narrative.

Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Durkheim
Athenian Popular Religion by Jon Mikalson
The Old Testament

The Old Testament is required reading for how religions get started, and how ancient people understood their own processes of state-formation (Ignore the prophets and Genesis and read Exodus, Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Samuel, all the "And then Samuel kicked those fuckers in the next valley over right in their hairy uncut dicks and their lame god couldn't do shit about it" stuff). Athenian Popular Religion is a fantastic education in the irrelevancy of formal theology to religious practice in pre-monotheistic cultures. Religion and the Decline of is about the same topic, but in monotheistic ones. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is about totemism and early religion, and is good for understanding how different that is than polytheism or monotheism.

The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
The Atom Bomb and You by George Orwell

de Camp's book is a history of technology, and is good for calibrating the technological and infrastructural sophistication of the societies you're creating. Kuhn's idea of a paradigm is useful for understanding how people deal with encountering radically different worldviews. The Atom Bomb and You is a great discussion about how weapons technology and military organisation interact with the tendency of a society towards either freedom or enslavement.

National Audubon Society Field Guides by various authors

These are good for rocks, trees, animals, etc. I have "North America Trees Eastern Region" and "Rocks and Minerals" and I find they cover everything I could ever need to know about either subject during world-building. "Insects and Spiders" will both give you nightmares and provide you with endless fodder for gruesome arthropod foes.

Anyhow, that's a start.

The TTC puts out some really, really, really excellent stuff and some utter crap.

I was extremely pleased with their "Great Battles of the Ancient World", which is much better than the survey course I was expecting. Actually, if you're interested in understanding ancient warfare for the purposes of worldbuilding, it's a great resource.

On the cultural side of things, if you are at all interested in ever knowing anything about music prior to rock, this is the best course available. If you have ever paid to go to university, this is excellent value for money.

Their philosophy stuff is mostly crap, as is their literature and rhetoric selection.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;461239I've always found it less useful to try to rewrite Genesis and more useful to start off with an idea about what kind of society or setting I want and to go backwards from there.

I can honestly go either way on this one. But I usually have more fun building from the ground up (sometimes with a vague idea of where I want the setting to go). I've also designed settings from a small area where the PCs are active and worked my way out as they explore. I haven't found one method more useful than any others in the game. The most important factor seems to be which approach gets me most interested in the setting at the time. But I can see how starting with a more concrete idea of what setting you want, would make it easier to have a playable setting.

Thanks for the suggestions.

For fantasy, Campaign Law from Rolemaster (2?) was the most useful source for me. It's written as a world-building guide specifically geared towards RPGs.

It was good enough that the setting I designed with it made it to the top 11 in the WotC contest.

Only Pseudo could be this ridiculous, as to recommend Marx... why not Andrea Dworkin while we're at it?

RPGPundit

For ancient world I'd pick up anything by the late, great, Sir Moses Finley (American born, naturalised Brit), which are easily found new or second hand in cheap paperback. He's one of the most readable academics on the subject you can find. The Ancient Economy is a good place to start, and nowhere near as dull as the title suggests. His World of Odysseus, whether you agree with him or not, is actually an exercise in world building, which is a rare thing to find from a serious academic. For a more recent example of world building, check out Travelling Heroes by Robin Lane Fox (incidentally he was the historical advisor on Oliver Stone's Alexander). Paperback recently released. TH tries to reconstruct the experience and world view of the first Greeks to venture across the Aegean after the collapse of the Bronze Age.

The creative bit is thinking about how a real world model is changed by the presence of magic that really works, gods that really exist and, in some settings, people who do the right or wrong thing because that is in their nature, rather than for some rational purpose.

Gary Gygax's Living Fantasy from Troll Lord.
Ultimate Toolbox from AEG.
Gary Gygax's Extraordinary Book of Names from Troll Lord.
A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture from Expeditious Retreat Press
A Magical Society: Silk Road from Expeditious Retreat Press

These should cover 99% of fantasy world creation.

Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;461410For ancient world I'd pick up anything by the late, great, Sir Moses Finley (American born, naturalised Brit), which are easily found new or second hand in cheap paperback. He's one of the most readable academics on the subject you can find. The Ancient Economy is a good place to start, and nowhere near as dull as the title suggests. His World of Odysseus, whether you agree with him or not, is actually an exercise in world building, which is a rare thing to find from a serious academic. For a more recent example of world building, check out Travelling Heroes by Robin Lane Fox (incidentally he was the historical advisor on Oliver Stone's Alexander). Paperback recently released. TH tries to reconstruct the experience and world view of the first Greeks to venture across the Aegean after the collapse of the Bronze Age.

Will have to check some of these out.

Oh yeah, I'll second Rolemaster's Campaign Law. Amazingly good reference.

Thanks Dan