This discussion is mainly about: “Should a World-Building section be made?” Any discussions appearing in this thread whose topic is not involving or answering the proposed question is “off-topic” and should not be entertained. When it comes to making “suggestions” for Guild Features, I could have posted this exact same topic in the Suggestions section, but seeing as it is role play-related and will require tons of feedback from players whether positive or negative, the RP Discussion forum seemed like a better place. In the end, if this idea is well-received, then I will post a link to this thread in the Suggestions section so the Moderators will be able to have the positive results for reference. If this idea is not well-received, then it just fades into the black.

Update: The "unofficial" world-building section has been the "Test Forum." Current discussion is now having the Test Forum renamed and its description rewritten to include RP as well as categorizing it properly in a Roleplaying section so as not to mislead players. The section can also have the Character Sheets section moved with it into its proper category. Seeing as Character Sheets is not "Off-Topic." While, moving Character Sheets isn't the main discussion, the concern for having a simpler layout was brought up on numerous occasions. Merging it would simplify the sleek layout of the site even more while also making its organization more sensible. But again, the main discussion is the World-Building Section needing to become a thing. A legitimate and actual thing.



So I asked about a World-Building section because for those of us who like building exactly that—worlds. It often requires time, patience, inspiration, and having a “canvas” ie. a blank thread or document where you can just design all of the pages, lore, maps, etc. that you would want to put in your game and basically, being able to design your game right there in the thread before you post it up. You could even design it with other players such as your co-GMs. Share the work.

I have mostly been using a Character Thread, which I would like to strictly use for my characters, but seeing how there isn’t a place for me to post up my world-building elements that has been the only place where I could post those ideas. So rather than clutter your character thread with world-building lore, maps, graphics, etc. Why not just have a World-Building section added to the Guild? They exist on other sites I role play on and they are constantly in use. People always have ideas and creative/artistic minds will always exist.

For one of the games I GM, I have a bestiary for all of the creatures that my players create. My players create very detailed descriptions for the different beasts found in the world. Rather than create a “Character Thread” for beasts, lore, maps, worlds, etc. This thread would go into the World-Building section and linked to my game for reference and I won’t have to worry about cluttering the Character Submission section with World-Building elements when it is specifically designed for character sheets. Instead, I can put the bestiary in the World-Building section because the bestiary is apart of my game’s lore.

Update: There was consideration for renaming the Test Forum to "World-Building" to encompass all overall ideas. If you have lore or multiple threads to post for your game spanning different sections, you should be able to do so without having to worry about clutter since that is the purpose of the section versus any other purpose.



Feel free to offer your thoughts on this. If this thread turns into an all-out flame war because of the immature players we have on this site, then I will ask the Moderators to step in and handle the violators. Let’s keep this thread clean, full of open ideas, and intelligent discussion without anyone getting “offended,” argumentative, or upset. I know that we can do this. It’s not hard. Just offer your opinion.

Update: Example design was removed for the renaming of the Test Forum was an easier and much-better idea versus creating an entire new section.

I take it the idea is for the players to have a more organized way of looking up the different maps and shiz? If so, what you could use could be an external wiki made specifically for that RP, since a thread in the World-Building section is bound to get pretty messy as well.

I sit firmly in the no camp on the basis of necessity, precedence and existing structure.

Worldbuilding can already be done with the existing structure perfectly fine.
> The Char tab can become the lore center for a roleplay. Use Post 0 as the index, if your lore spans multiple posts. So long as things are properly linked together, the Char tab is an infinite means of storing lore. It's simply up to you to make it work, and I don't think it's difficult to make a sustainable structure for it.
> The Character Sheets forum already contains worldbuilding. The site staff are liberal in what they allow to go into each section. There could be a little text latched onto the section to make it more expansive, but like the current roleplay sections, it is not strictly enforced. Just as the casual forum contains roleplays that fail to meet all of the minimum requirements, or contains many threads that would easily fit Advanced requirements, people can stretch the Character Sheets forum a little without causing issues and clutter.
--> The Character Sheets forum as it is was not designed for ease of navigation. There is no index, only a flat list for people who are curious to browse. Worldbuilding and character building are very similar themes, thus, it is not offputting to scroll past both of them. At any rate, people who use the Character Sheets forum use it by linking to their specific thread within that forum on their signature or whatever.
> Threads on RPG aren't even designed for worldbuilding, which brings up the point - why even have the worldbuilding on site if you can use a Wiki, something specifically designed for worldbuilding? Adding a new forum will not add a new system for thread creation, ie, a thread designed to operate as a mini wiki. It would probably have the same sort of threads as the other forums down here, which means you might as well just use the above suggestions if a line of posts with decent formatting and hiders is just fine.
> The Test forum has been used for storage before, and as long as people aren't excessive about putting it to use, it can be used for storage again.
> The Gallery is also a fairly fitting forum for this purpose. In fact, it may even be superior to the Character Sheets forum -

Come share your own art and literary work! (Includes shops & requests)

Worldbuilding sounds like a valid form of literary work to share. I made the case for the Character Sheets forum, but really, if you want specific text to cater to it, the Gallery does it best.

The Guild's structure is partially appealing to me because it does not suffer from clutter, unlike other roleplay forums or even our own discord. Is it perfect? No. Does it work just fine, and has it worked just fine for quite a while? Yes. Add a "World-Building" forum, and why not turn around to add an "Anime" forum and all sorts of other forums for topics relative to people's interests? You can stretch the Anime forum to be regarding Anime lore and its use in roleplaying contexts. I would consider it an absurd addition. Yet, I believe adding a forum for this niche purpose would give precedence to add more forums on looser standards, which opens the door to valid requests for every type of forum that you can justify with a couple paragraphs and maybe even a half dozen people saying "yes".

Adding such a forum, in my book, is entirely unnecessary and simply not something I would consider a priority. I'd look at the Expanding Horizons forum and adding new blood to the Contests forum long before something like this concept.

Apologies for the word vomit.

Sounds like what you want is already offered and, in fact, has been done before in any of the three main sections. I'm not really looking foreword to adding a dead-on-arrival subsection to a forum that already has 3 sections that under-perform on a near permanent basis. I'm going to dismantle your arguments one by one;

So I asked about a World-Building section because for those of us who like building exactly that—worlds. It often requires time, patience, inspiration, and having a “canvas” ie. a blank thread or document where you can just design all of the pages, lore, maps, etc. that you would want to put in your game and basically, being able to design your game right there in the thread before you post it up. You could even design it with other players such as your co-GMs. Share the work.

I am unsure what you are asking for. Are you asking for 'literal' world-building functions like a map designer in the forum? I venture a guess and say that you're not but the sentence 'being able to design your game right there in the thread' throws me off. Otherwise, I'm really unsure whether this even is an argument - a blank thread is a blank thread, whether it is in world-building forums or in test forums. You can already design it with other players namely through the 0th post (which is not an ideal function but whatever). Anything else can be substituted by careful planning and organization.

A new sub-forum isn't going to help you with any of that.

I have mostly been using a Character Thread, which I would like to strictly use for my characters, but seeing how there isn’t a place for me to post up my world-building elements that has been the only place where I could post those ideas. So rather than clutter your character thread with world-building lore, maps, graphics, etc. Why not just have a World-Building section added to the Guild? They exist on other sites I role play on and they are constantly in use. People always have ideas and creative/artistic minds will always exist.

You can make two character sheet threads or even make a bestiary in the guides section (which has been done before). Point in case. You don't need a new sub-forum. Just fall in line with the masses.

inb4 all of these can be placed in the new sub-forum!

Yes and your bestiary and whatever else can be placed in the guides thread.

As for the fact that it exists on these other forums - that's really cool. You know one forum I used to frequent had a payment system with made-up money that was arbitrarily handed out. Why not add that? Maybe it's because 'more more more' doesn't fit in my forum design philosophy but really, less is more. Not everything needs its own specific sub-forum. You can make due with what we have now, easily.

For one of the games I GM, I have a bestiary for all of the creatures that my players create. My players create very detailed descriptions for the different beasts found in the world. Rather than create a “Character Thread” for beasts, lore, maps, worlds, etc. This thread would go into the World-Building section and linked to my game for reference and I won’t have to worry about cluttering the Character Submission section with World-Building elements when it is specifically designed for character sheets. Instead, I can put the bestiary in the World-Building section because the bestiary is apart of my game’s lore.

Put it in a guide. A character thread will be the same no matter whether it was made in this new 'world building' sub-forum or in a character storage thread.

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It wouldn't inconvenience me in the way that that stupid 'Expanding Horizons' has inconvenienced me (under the impression that world building forum will be low, low, low in the list of RPG's frontpage) but I have to object to adding more dead-on-arrival forums. I predict if this were to be made it'd follow the same trend as EH - interest in the first week and then a very sudden death with only a trickle of activity after that.

@ArenaSnowYou listed three sections that could be in one section: the "World-Building Section;" and you talk about clutter. The World-Building section would reduce the need for all of those sections. It would also put those threads into a section designed for them rather than having writers put their world-building threads where they "think" would fit.

@ArenaSnowYou listed three sections that could be in one section: the "World-Building Section;" and you talk about clutter. The World-Building section would reduce the need for all of those sections. It would also put those threads into a section designed for them rather than having writers put their world-building threads where they "think" would fit.

There has not been an issue regarding confusion before, and I don't see the true issue now.

The most change I'd be in favor of is to perhaps add the text "world-building" to one or the other section, which sounds like it would be fair. However, I don't think it would justify the creation of a unique section - just an addition to the text of an existing section to help curious individuals decide where to point their lore dumps.

As someone who uses a test thread for worldbuilding, I would ideally want the character sharing area to be expanded to include worldbuilding instead of creating a new section, since they aren't that structurally different TBH

You have the "Expanding Horizons" section. Similarly, there would be a World-Building Section and the Character Submission forum would be a subsection within it.

Here's an example of what it would look like. It should be in the "Roleplaying" section and not in "Off-Topic" like how Character Sheets randomly is. The Character Sheets section would be moved as a subsection to the World-Building section. So instead of people posting in three different sections or any other sections because they have no idea what is the best or most appropriate section for their ideas, they don't have to fret anymore and can post it in the World-Building section.

/tg/ on 4chan (despite what one thinks of it) handles this well. Just make a topic for it that everyone can post in asking for advice, most likely in roleplay discussion. Otherwise just post your world-building stuff in the test thread or guide sections.

Here's an example of what it would look like. It should be in the "Roleplaying" section and not in "Off-Topic" like how Character Sheets randomly is. The Character Sheets section would be moved as a subsection to the World-Building section. So instead of people posting in three different sections or any other sections because they have no idea what is the best or most appropriate section for their ideas, they don't have to fret anymore and can post it in the World-Building section.

Nope.

Plenty of people don't have an interest in worldbuilding, they simply throw out the characters they have and then reuse those characters for whatever world comes by. While I think they can coexist, I think it is a bad idea to rewrite existing structure for the sake of appeasing the phrase 'World-Building' when it can go into an existing section with less editing involved.

And really, nobody has been fretting, and nobody that has posted so far is fretting. It's not solving any issues, as indicated thus far, except your own, which leads me to think this is merely a change to satisfy either an individual or statistically tiny group. Even if you pulled up six random guys and stuck them in this thread, it wouldn't be representative, unless there is a better case for making a split or remodeling the forum.

I don't see there being a legitimate problem, really, and making a simple change to a forum description would eliminate the non-issue that there is now.

More pointless sections?

pls no

Would a tab in the RP thread (like the IC/OOC/Characters tabs) be a viable compromise? Could be 'References' tab? Can be used for world-building, linking to other RPs in the same "series" or world, linking to outside references etc without needing a new sub forum/section.

Would a tab in the RP thread (like the IC/OOC/Characters tabs) be a viable compromise? Could be 'References' tab? Can be used for world-building, linking to other RPs in the same "series" or world, linking to outside references etc without needing a new sub forum/section.

That can easily be done by making a post in the OOC/character tab, or even just using the 0th post feature. I just don't think it warrants the need for an entirely new subsection.

Would a tab in the RP thread (like the IC/OOC/Characters tabs) be a viable compromise? Could be 'References' tab? Can be used for world-building, linking to other RPs in the same "series" or world, linking to outside references etc without needing a new sub forum/section.

Like Poi said, just use the OOC. Or like ArenaSnow previously said, just make a wiki or something. There's no need to add any tabs or subforums or anything.

<Snipped quote by Yahrlan>

Like Poi said, just use the OOC. Or like ArenaSnow previously said, just make a wiki or something. There's no need to add any tabs or subforums or anything.

This +100000

Honestly, if you need a place to world build, just do it in one of the several places already mentioned in the thread. Test forum, gallery, wiki, etc. and so on.

@Poi@Mara I was just wondering since Holy Soldier didn't seem satisfied with those options and HokumPocus sounded like a similar suggestion to the tab, but I may have misunderstood.
I think I got linked in to this thread by mistake, but thought I'd share the idea anyway.

I was helping organize the site. The truth here is, if the Moderators decided to implement this idea, the people who are bemoaning it happening would still continue to write on this site regardless. It doesn't affect them in any way. As for the writers, it gives the people who "actually" world-build and who actually role play on this site a section for their drafts, ideas, and where they can place their concepts without having to choose from multiple different sections that really aren't meant for world-building. We're literally just "making" it a world-building thread because there's no real place to put the ideas. So you have world-building appearing in multiple sections for no reason. All you have to do is make a section for it.

To think this could've just been a thread for building a world instead of this

I was helping organize the site. The truth here is, if the Moderators decided to implement this idea, the people who are bemoaning it happening would still continue to write on this site regardless. It doesn't affect them in any way. As for the writers, it gives the people who "actually" world-build and who actually role play on this site a section for their drafts, ideas, and where they can place their concepts without having to choose from multiple different sections that really aren't meant for world-building. We're literally just "making" it a world-building thread because there's no real place to put the ideas. So you have world-building appearing in multiple sections for no reason. All you have to do is make a section for it.

People may still write, but you asked for their thoughts. It seems that the majority people disagree with it just from what I've read within this thread.