Do you ever reach a point of creating in your setting where it’s comfortable to step back and have it feel ‘close to complete’?
Or is it just a constant state of ‘Now THERE’S an idea!’ It never ends. In part because I've built it so it now has "a life of its own" (keeps chugging without me, so things happen that spark new possibilities in-setting), and in part because gamers, designers, writers, & artists never stop asking me Realmslore questions (which I love)
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 6, 2018
How do you deal with the anxiety of “not feeling finished”?
That feels like my biggest discouragement with world building.
The feeling that, though I’ve fleshed out this or that, there is another ‘thing’ and another and another.
Were there times you felt overwhelmed?…in this or that direction. Worldbuild to lead into stories (bolstering those directions) or to pull in other directions…which are always setting up other stories, down the road, in the future. Keep your focus on setting up story, NOT on worldbuilding as an end in itself. :}
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 7, 2018
…gameplay or adventure to be published or fiction), and tell it. Then STOP just for a moment to take stock: what lore "grew out of" that story (i.e. details you added DMing at a table when players queried). Add them to the worldbuilding. THEN look at what's most missing or…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 7, 2018
…neglected in the worldbuilding. Make a note, but only work on those gaps if they lead to the NEXT story. Build the next story. Then take stock, add the from-story lore, look at the gaps again, and work on the gaps. Everything you add, and every story told, "pulls" the world…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 7, 2018
I’ll have to keep that in mind going forward! It’s always enlightening to see different perspectives on the subject and is a good remind to take a breather for the sake of one’s own sanity! Thank you!! A pleasure! It's a road that never ends, but it's a glorious one! Like life, it's not the destination, it's the journey!
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 8, 2018