038: Next-Level Worldbuilding for Every TTRPG – With David Northeast - Claim to Game

Episode Transcript
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>> Clint Scheirer (00:00):
So I dont normally make an announcement prior to the start of the episode, but

(00:02):
I felt like this was really important. If you want to build
amazing worlds for your games, make sure that you click on the link in the show
notes to grab your free 12 page ultimate world
building Guide. Inside is a comprehensive roadmap with
practical questions and checklists helping you build
vibrant, captivating worlds for you and your players. It
brings together many of the insights that youre going to gain by
listening to my guest and professional GM

(00:25):
David North, East. I I know you'll enjoy it. All right,
thanks.
And now ono the episode We Live.
In the World Our questions create.
What essential question should every GM and player
ask when crafting immersive tabletop role playing
worlds?
In this episode, I get to speak.
With professional game master David North, East and he
reveals the proven sperm framework.

(00:48):
That's right. You heard me right. S P E R M M.
It's a powerful system of targeted questions that
transforms ordinary settings into unforgettable
living worlds. And whether youre a new or
experienced game master, this conversation
delivers the exact tools youll need to refine
your world building immediately.
Welcome to Claim to Game. We help tabletop gamers have

(01:10):
a great time with friends to experience amazing stories.
It can be overwhelming to start and run great games.
Lets make it easier for you to play any game you want
to have fun with your friends. Im'm Clint Scheirer. Ive helped
thousands of students in my career find their way to
better themselves and better their game. With more than 10
years experience in leadership, coaching, live performance and

(01:31):
public speaking, I know I can help you create
immersive, low stress games youll never
forget. Its time for you to make your claim
to game.

(02:09):
So David, here's something that I have to ask right
you have a background in storytelling,
you have a background in performing arts
literature, and it clearly informs
your world building. When anybody goes on and looks at your bio,
looks at what you do when you run games,
it's clear that you have this in your your

(02:29):
repertoire. So what I want to know is how
do these experiences, the storytelling, the performing
arts, the literature that you've consumed, how does
it influence the way that you create immersive
settings when you're trying to whu for your
gamers, not just making great NPCs but
also the world that they live and breathe in?

>> Speaker C (02:49):
When you watch a lot of stuff online about
how to world build and how to, you know, create
your own campaigns, quite often the
advice start small, start with a single town and build
out My brain is very weird.
It likes to work it out in reverse
order. So I like to,

(03:10):
I like to see the lay of the land. I like to see where the
mountains naturally form. I like to see where the
deserts occur. And I try to create
this almost
geologically and
geographically
accurate world that makes sense. So when
you initially stare at it, it's, oh, there's nothing wrong

(03:32):
here. But then I start adding things
in. So for example, in my world of Eusia,
which I've got a 2000 year history for,
the desert is called the green desert because there's an
oasis every mile or so,
which is a really, really sort of
unheard of thing in the real world. but

(03:53):
when it comes to using my background in performing
arts and English literature
more. So when I'm world building, I sort
of lean on the literary side. It
comes down to things like, when it's writing
the story is things like symbolism. I
love symbolism in the world.
And everything is there for a

(04:15):
purpose. There is very, very little I put in my world that
is just random. Now occasionally
I will put random things in the world to
make the world feel organic and natural. So
you might sort of see just a passerby wearing a
green coat, for example. And I'll describe that to the
players and they're like, oh, okay, well, we'll

(04:35):
take a note of that. Okay. And, you never know, they might go and
talk to that NPC. And now I need to fill out that NPCs,
family, their history, their backstory.
I mean, you know how that goes. But
sometimes the random things are
just as important as the very, very
specific and story specific things. When it comes

(04:56):
to the performing arts aspect of things,
that is where my role play comes in.
I tend to always have my camera
on when I'm GMing a game because
I've obviously predominantly an online GM
and I'm very.
What's the word? Very performative with

(05:18):
it. And I try to make each
character have intrinsic and
unique characteristics that, ah, are both
visual and audible.
you know, whether it's the speed, the
pitch, perhaps there's
a, specific way

(05:39):
they pause in the middle of each sentence.
I mean, for example, one of my favorite
NPCs that I've ever made, and I won't go into too
many details just in case my players are listening.
is, is Hodo the Goblin. Now, Hodo the
Goblin has some very, very unique characteristics
rather than your sort of

(06:00):
impolit, politically correct, bulbous
noses and, you know, the, oh, he
Went my, go. That kind of. No. He is a pig
snouted, pig eared, greens skinned goblin
who wears a potato sack and has an oversized
bag that drags along the back of the floor the entire
time. He is a vendor for my
players. But he's always the

(06:22):
same similar character. He's always this
chaotic little. Oh, hi guys. How
you doing today? What can I offer you? Perhaps one
of my special Hoto potions. You know,
and he always has this really upbeat,
high pitched, irritating
voice. And I make sure it's as irritating as
possible for my players because I don't want

(06:44):
them to know how good he really
is until the very, very last reveal of
him.

You brought up a good point. Right. So when people think of
world building u, you started out saying that you kind
of backwards engineer what a real
world would look like. You were talking about
mountains, you were talking about. I thought of cartography
is what I was thinking of maps. And you know, there's
some really wonderful map making tools out there. I've used dungeon

(07:11):
draft for individual maps that I want to make
or world draft if I wanted to make something bigger,
more on a larger scale. but then
you shifted your response
to characters. Characters
are what make the world m. That is
fascinating. And when it comes to characters, I

(07:32):
think there were two things that I heard you say.
Consistency with the
character.
Right.
Hado always talks with the same pitch. He always has the
same Persona. He always shows up in a
very similar way. So he starts to become real
because he's familiar. They're not goingna come back later. And Hoto
has a really deep voice and you're like, what happened to you,

(07:52):
Hado? Did you have a rough
night, Auto?

>> Speaker C (07:57):
Well, I mean, occasionally, occasionally his voice
does change, but that's normally because he's
taken something that he shouldn't have taken that is
one of his own potions.

How do you do that? Like how do you make a
character consistent? Because
it's crazy how fast things can move.
You mentioned how your characters are brought
to life when your players
bring them to life. The person in the green coat wasn't
anybody until your player said that they were.
Somebody started talking to them. Can you tell me a little

(08:30):
bit about your process of one coming up on the
fly, if it is on the fly with how
you're giving that your breathing life into that
character. And then how do you remember
to keep consistent with them the next time they want to go to that
green coat person who didn't exist less than.

>> Speaker C (08:46):
10 seconds before so,
I have a few. I have a
few, like, almost like stock Personas.
So obviously, if you want to
use free artwork, for example, you normally go buy
some stock art from somewhere. I have
something similar. I have stock Personas that I don't

(09:07):
really use. I will thrust
them onto these characters until they
become intrinsically woven
into the. Whether it's the character
backstories, whether it's,
they, you know, on the fly, I say something stupid
like, oh, yes, I'm a really important member of

(09:27):
this town because of this, this, this, and this. And then I'm like,
oh, now I really have to give this person a
personiza. And very, very quickly,
the performer in me
builds this character up. And you know,
who's in his background, who's, you know, who's
talking and whispering in his ears. If he's a government
official, who's paying him off? You know, when it

(09:49):
comes to maintaining
a character's Persona, it's
easier. The longer you've known a character as a gm, the
longer you've known this character, the more that you've
used this character, the easier it becomes to
maintain them. So, for example,
in my Age of Dragons campaign, there are four

(10:10):
tyrannical dragons within the universe, and
I know each one of them very, very intimately. So
I know how I want them to come across.
However, little old lady number
one from down the street in the hallway,
I don't necessarily have that same level of
intimacy with her, so there will be small variations

(10:31):
between their meeting. But again, it is
trying to keep them to that
consistent level as much.

As possible when you take
notes. So, like, I'm a note
taker, I should say. If you take notes, I shouldn't
just assume that you're a note taker. I feel
like I run away from a session when I'm game
mastering. And whether I'm using, you know,
Scrivener, doing something digital, some people use,
like, Microsoft tools, or maybe they're using an

(11:00):
actual legal pad. You
know, when you're trying to capture quickly before they move
on something that you can come back to later.
What are your tools like? How do you,
capture what you created in the moment
so that you can bring that back later when it may not be one
of those stock Personas that you know so

(11:20):
well?

>> Speaker C (11:21):
I mean, I always get the players to do their recap anyway, ah,
at the start of the session, because then you know what
the players know. And if they've forgotten
little details, it's sometimes more fun to leave them
forgotten. And Bring them back later and have that. Oh,
crap, I forgot about that moment.
but ultimately,

(11:41):
I've come across a tool
that I was part of the closed alpha
for. And I can't say much more
because it's still enc closesed beta. But
essentially it is a.
An AI derivativeative tool. It's not
like fully AI. It doesn't like
steal information from the Internet or anything like that.

(12:04):
It literally just note takes
for you and it can
derive like different characters, different factions,
different locations and things and it writes out
the descriptions and gives you a session summary. I've been
using it religiously. Yes. Obviously
there's a few bugs in the background like you would expect with

(12:24):
beta stuff, but it's saved
me hours of work.

Yeah.
So technology such as AI
and before we started y you had a very
important question and I'm just gonna dive right into it because
it's on people's minds. Right. Like chatpt,
Claude, there's all perplexity.
AI tools are bumping up everywhere. And
one of the game types that I really

(12:50):
love and know, people can go back and
listen why I love it. If they listen back to episode
nine, should you play GM list or go with
a gm? they can go back and listen to some of the recent
episodes that I've done related to GM less
gaming. But I like GMless gaming.
Not because I don't feel like roles like your
own. A professional GM that

(13:13):
really adds such a colorful flavor that I don't believe
any sort of AI or simulation
can provide the soul of. But I like
it because it allows everybody at the table
when you play a GM less game to
evenly distribute the responsibilities of the
storytelling. And there isn't one
person who has to step up

(13:36):
and be that facilitator. So what you
brought up was when you say GM list gaming,
Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com, are you
talking about somebody speaking to an AI?
And the AI is really taking on,
the role of the game master. And I'm like, I don't know if I really want
that. I'm not sure if I like that. And you're like, well,
some people do play that way. Can you

(13:58):
elaborate on how that works if you were using
AI for a game master role when you're playing a role
playing game.

>> Speaker C (14:05):
So I will preface this
by saying AI is a tool
and not a replacement for anything
anywhere at any point.

Amen, brother.

>> Speaker C (14:16):
I am definitely of the mind that AI is
a very useful tool. Say, for example,
you know, I'm in the middle of
writing a Session or in the middle of
writing a campaign and
I just get writer's block. I can talk
to Chat GPT about something completely separate

(14:36):
away from my campaign and my D20 & D stuff
and you know, just, just mess around with it
and it can break that block. That's one way I use that as
a tool. Another way is a name
generator. Give me 15
generic names that I can put then
on a table. And if I need a name for

(14:56):
one of these NPCs walking down the street. So I'm not
stressing about, you know, oh my God, I't got
list of names, you know, and little things
that. But in terms of replacing
a gm, absolutely not.
Now I know there are some individuals than
some people who have things

(15:17):
like severe social anxiety.
And these people are using,
or I have seen them using
things like Chat GBT to be their game
master because their social anxiety is too
crippling for them to enjoy the game. And in that
instance it's actually in my
opinion a disability aid

(15:40):
rather than a replacement for an actual
gm. Some may argue that it could
make the social anxiety worse. I would argue
it gets them comfortable enough with the game, the rule sets
and everything else to then potentially extend
that and reach out to other groups
and other people around them to then
bring them into the game.

That's fascinating.
it's like allowing them to practice the social
construct of playing a game with other people
to then step into that when they feel ready.

>> Speaker C (16:13):
Yes.

That's awesome. I would say that maybe a
GM less game in my mind would be a step in
the direction of not necessarily playing
alone.

>> Speaker C (16:24):
Yeah.

Although there are solo gmless
games where you could play by yourself and in that
case. Oh yeah, when I say gmless game I
mean using oracles or
tables like you mentioned at gm. name
generator, a city name generator,
MPC ideas, things like that.

(16:46):
so I'm going to, I'm gonna spin it
right.
You run many GM LED games because.
You are a professional gm, which is so darn
cool that I'm talking to a professional gm.
And I have run games on my own, but they're always
social, they're always just with friends or people that I
enjoy, the company of. And gmless games
I've run in addition to that.

(17:08):
David, when I was thinking about
GM LED games versus GM less games,
one of the cool things about a GM LED
game for the GM is the GM has
full control over those worlds details.
At least before the players of Chaos come in and
wreck it to pieces. in a GM less

(17:28):
game, you're relying on mechanics, you're
relying on the oracle tables, you're relying on the
oracle tables, for making decisions, which
is also known as role tables. For those are like, who the heck is, you know,
what the heck is an oracle? What
techniques do you use to
ensure that your world
still remains authentic in

(17:51):
your GM led games? how do you
continue to make it feel,
like you, what you envisioned is still
happening regardless of your agents of chaos, your
players?

>> Speaker C (18:03):
My campaigns are, open sandbox.
Every campaign I write is a complete open world.
So I will give the players three or four plot hooks.
They can follow one to their heart's content. And then, you
know, perhaps they get distracted and go off that way.
So I start thinking, okay, well, what the consequences of this not being
done up here whilst they're intervening with something

(18:24):
over here. and
open world games are very, very interesting
because the,
your standard module assumes you go from
point A to point B to point C
doing these things. And obviously it's not
quite as near as that. But ultimately all roads

(18:45):
will lead to roam.
With the way I run games, if
you say, for example,
you fend off a dragon attack,
you managed to turn the dragon around and
send them away. Cool. And
the players then leave that town
and come back maybe a week

(19:08):
later for something. Well, what's
happened in that week in that town? Has the dragon
summoned an army to come along
and literally steamroll over it? Very
light, very possibly, you know, the dragon's been
fought off, the dragon's been deterred,
the players have left. Where if the dragon has

(19:29):
agents or spies in that city,
he's gonna come right back in and he knows
that the manpower level is
down. you know, or
perhaps the dragon doesn't have those spies and
that information network there, in which case the
dragon's not likely to come back for a little

(19:49):
while until he is better prepared or she is better
prepared to take on, this town or city.
And so when the players return, the players
would be recognized, Certainly recognized.
Vendors will change, shops will have
new stocks, markets will change.
you know, they might come back, they might think, oh,

(20:10):
actually, that person from the marketplace
had some really, really cool items. We've got enough gold
now, let's go back and buy it. So they go back looking
for that vendor, only to find out that that vendor has moved
on. So they start asking around. They say,
oh, yeah, he's, he's on his way to that city up there
now. Oh, great. So now the Players

(20:30):
have to traverse without those goods, without those items, in
the hopes that they run into him again. Perhaps they try and
catch up to him on the road. Perhaps, you know,
they can't quite make pace. It's
all very. It's all very
fluid. And the more
flexibility and fluidity you allow yourself as a
gm, the better, you can make your worlds

(20:53):
and the more dynamic you can make them as well.

So your strategy to build the world that
you envision is to keep it as open and sandboxy
as possible so that you don't get
trapped into thinking it has to be a certain way.

>> Speaker C (21:07):
Oh, absolutely. If you, if you get to this
mindset. So quite often, there,
I mean, there's a meme going around, it was saying, oh,
the players don't want to go to the town that
they were meant to go to for this plot hook.
Well, this plot hook now appears in this town. And to me,
that's less interesting

(21:28):
then. Then going to the new town, finding
something interesting, interacting with something interesting there, coming
back a week later and hearing stories
of maybe another adventuring party
or perhaps nobody managed to find
the mayor's daughter that was missing. And now the mayor's gone
mad. And, you know, had somebody been here a week ago,

(21:49):
perhaps she could have been saved. And really
driving that point home to the players
that, you know, you not being there has
caused this to happen.

You know, their choices have consequences.

>> Speaker C (22:02):
Yes, yes. Every choice has a consequence.
Not just the big ones, but the little ones too.

And that's what makes it realuse. That's how life
is like real life.
All of our choices have consequences.

>> Speaker C (22:15):
And this actually brings me to another interesting
point. Sorry. Ahead. I don't mean to hijack.

No, hijack. Hijack away.

>> Speaker C (22:22):
One of my biggest pet peeves.
A gm. Now, as a professional gm, I let my players
play how they want to play the game, for the most part,
with, boundaryes set based in the world that they
choose to play in. But, party
composition, it is not the
player's job to ensure a balanced
party composition. Because

(22:45):
as a prime example, in real life, you didn't
know you and I would be having this conversation five years
ago. However,
when it comes to the game, if you want that
realistic feel, feel free to
have five bards that
run into each other. They have this rivalry
between them to the point that they cannot leave each other

(23:07):
sideize because they have to prove that they're the best
bard. You as the gm, then
take that energy, you take that party composition
and you build Balanced encounters around it.
Now that doesn't mean to say that you can't be
a bit of a bullyer with it either. You
know, if they've chosen as a
party to play five bards, whether

(23:29):
preemptively or whatever, or this bard has checked these
bars have chosen to go on an adventure together without
hiring any kind of muscle. Because don't forget, you
can put hirelings in the game, you can put
DPC's in the game. It
doesn't take anything away from the players. But this band of
traveling bards, if they're gonna fight a dragon, well, you

(23:50):
better hope that one of them is College of Swords
and one of them is College of Eloquence and you
know, whatever else in the context of D20 & D at the
very least. And you know, they have to
then manage with the tools that they have.
Again, make it a balanced but
challengingounter. Doesn't have to be
that the dragon must be defeated by a noble

(24:12):
knight, you know, or we must
have an archer in case he takes flight. No,
have, have the bards like running after a dragon
who's flying through the sky. The
entertainment value is endless.

You know, you're, I love
this, I love that you're saying this too
because I would love to play like
blades in the dark, right? So that's a game
that you are basically all
rogues and your job
is to be like thieves.
U, you have different abilities, different whatever, but you're all rogues and

(24:48):
I believe you could do that in D20 & D. I believe
that you can have all bards, I believe that you can have all one
class play to what you want to be, not to what
you think you should be in order to
successfully win at the
adventure. It's like a
Chinese finger trap. At that point you're not really winning, you're really
just sticking yourself with one. One story.

(25:10):
This leads me to another question
and what I'm thinking is, right, so you
have the player class or the
type of character they want to be, but you also have
the individual player themselves.
Like the individual is a human who has come to this
gaming table that brings their own unique

(25:30):
storytelling abilities.

>> Speaker C (25:32):
Right?

When you're running a game with multiple personalities,
multiple diverse people that are all coming together,
U how do you keep
that moving as a gm?
How do you, how do you manage somebody who may
be ready to impulsively
jump into a situation where another person maybe wants

(25:53):
to pause and think about it and talk about it? How do
you keep the adventure from becoming disjointed
while still honoring how that person wants to play and who they
are.

>> Speaker C (26:03):
So I think it comes down to,
to an extent, the rule of yes.
so anyone who's had any kind of
experience in performing arts knows what the rule of yes
is. And the rule of yes is based in
improvisation. If you are
improvising a scene, the rule of yes

(26:23):
is yes. And
so I take what you're doing, what you've just
said to me, I will agree with it and not outright
shout no down to it. We're not doing that.
I will go yes and this
and then offer something to
give that more flesh, more meat.

(26:43):
when you've got diverse
personalities at a table, so you've got
the, you've got the dungeon
delvers, you know, the people who like to go on
the long, extended dungeons and
fight encounter after encounter after
encounter.

Kids that never got to completely beat
Zelda growing up.

>> Speaker C (27:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. they like to min max
their characters as much as humanly possible.
They're looking for all the loot and the gold and at
the same table, you can have
players like me. When I'm a player, I hold
my hands up. I'm a Chaos Goblin. I am
a literal Chaos Goblin. I won't tell you the things that

(27:25):
I did in 40k raath and glory a couple of
weeks ago. But my characters are always
suboptimal characters. They
tend to be not necessarily joke characters, but
definitely meme characters. you know,
the high intelligence barbarian. Excuse me, sir.
You seem to be pissing me off.

(27:45):
And, you know, going down that line of, And I think
of how I can mash different
personalities and characters and classes together
and have a bit of fun with it that way.
But when you've got those two separate
personalities at the table, sometimes it will
boil down to, you're really not right for

(28:05):
this group. So if, if the whole
group more les towards the sort of
mem characters, the silly characters and the, you
know, the chaos Goblins, and you've got the one
guy at the table who's basically trying to be dad to
the group, do serious role play, and
wants to go dungeon delving every other session,

(28:26):
they're probably not the right group. And
this is what I would say to any other professional
GM out there. And this is why I advocate so
hard for professional GMs
to stop the copy and paste,
stop copy and pasting your ads everywhere and
talk to people. Because you may not

(28:46):
be the right GM for that person, but that person
might see your advert for the Game, see, think, oh
that looks amazing and sign up to your game.
Well, you know, at that point, if that player
doesn't have a good time, they're gonna
think negatively about the profession.
you know, it could cause your reputation to come

(29:07):
down if people see you advertising again and
they leave a comment or they leave reviews and things like
that. It's very, very important that
we as professional GMs get the balance right.
I myself in the last three months have turned away
30 players because I know
I'm not the right GM for them.

(29:27):
Not because I couldn't accommodate them, because
I very, very easily could accommodate them at my
tables. But it's the tables. I currently have
players four and I know those players fairly
well and I know that they would
not mesh with the group. Yeah, if that makes
sense.

in my mind because we said this at the very
beginning. Part of world building.
Part of world building. I don't know if you heard that
there's thunder maybe.

>> Speaker C (29:55):
Id.

Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's
the impressiveness about what I'm about to say.

>> Speaker C (30:03):
Either that or'it's an ominous
warning.

Yes. Don't say it Clint.Scheirer@claimtogamepodcast.com. I
think we said it at the beginning that
NPCs and characters and
individuals in the world are a big
part of what makes the world believable
and real. That also
is appropriate to say for the players characters
as well. And if they are getting

(30:29):
caught in a out of game, friction
as you're describing, like this person wants to dungeon del,
this person wants to be silly and role
play and
have their hit. Well that's not
going to help create that believability
because now people are being drawn out of the story

(30:50):
to maybe the conflict that's happening at the
tableah.
Hey, quick pause in the episode everyone had to chat about tabletop
RPGs or share your unique insights or
just geek out about tabletop RPGs with someone who gets it.
Now's your chance. I'm opening up guest spots on the Claim to Game
Podcast and I'd love to feature you.
Are you working on an exciting project? Do you have a fresh

(31:10):
take on running or playing games or do you just want to
help others have an amazing time at the table. Lets make
it happen. If you got a mic, stable, Internet and
a passion for great games, claim your spot on
a future interview by clicking on the link in the show notes to
book your interview. Now lets talk about tabletop
RPGs and make something awesome together. Cant wait

(31:31):
to hear from you now.
Back to the episode. My question with you, you said something
interesting. They may not be the right fit for the table.
Has there ever been a time where you
had to have a hard conversation with a
player and said hey, I think you need to drop out of
the group? Or is that something that you try to vet
before it gets to that point?

>> Speaker C (31:52):
So primarily I vet players
anyway like as say I'm a direct sales
professional. I was in business to business
sales for years. I was in customer, business to customer
sales for years. I
will vet players through the skills that I've
learned in down that road,
which is very, very helpful. I can find out who the player

(32:14):
is, what their background is, what sort of
adventures they've played or what they're looking for,
what their expectations of a gmr.
you know, even as far as are they part of any sort
of diverse groups? You know, are they
a minority group? That kind of,
you know. Because first impressions really, really

(32:35):
matter. And for a lot of people in the current
climate, if you can't present yourself
as a safe space for certain
demographics, then you
may as well write yourself out of this game already.
you know, don't get me wrong, there are those of
the other side of the argument without
going too political, but for the most

(32:58):
part I think people see D20 & D as a
haven of escapism. And
you know, though certain groups need that
escapism more than others. I
have had to remove players from campaigns before now.
I've had to have hard conversations with people before
now. I have had.

(33:19):
So I have a two strike
rule within my games. You upset me
once, you get a strike, you upset me a second time, you are
gone. Obviously depends on the
extremity of what you've
done. but generally speaking, I'll have a
conversation with someone, ask them to curb their behavior
and if I see improvement, fantastic. If not,

(33:41):
then I will hit it like harder than a ton
of bricks. The two times I've only had in
since 2023,
2022, late 2022 when I started
this. Since then to
now, I've only had to have a
conversation with two individuals at the
table about their in game etiquette and

(34:03):
how it was not appropriate for the group or the
table.
and both times came the same result. And
I don't know if this is just a general thing
or these two people just happen to have the same
reaction. They
immediately upon me having that conversation
with them a couple of days later

(34:25):
messaged me and all of a sudden they've got A problem with my GM
style, they've got a problem with how I handle encounters,
they've got a problem with how I handle the roleay aspect.
They got a problem with this, they got a problem with that.
And having that conversation after, like
them sending those messages
after like, 15 to 20
sessions of gameplay because I

(34:48):
had to have a conversation with them about
one or one incident or an incident that
hasn't improved after a conversation before.
It just strikes me as convenience that that
is the moment they choose to unload.

Several words came to mind as you were speaking.
And one word is boundaries. Right?
Boundaries help people
feel safe. sometimes people
think boundaries are a restrictive thing, but
really it gives freedom. And
when boundaries are crossed, people don't

(35:24):
feel safe at the table. The story is going to be
affected. The world that you've created is going to be
affected. Fun is going to be
affected. People aren't going to be having as
much fun when they don't feel safe.
So everything that you're saying makes sense to me.
kudos to you for leaning into hard conversations
and having boundaries. Like, that's, that's a healthy thing,

(35:47):
dude.

>> Speaker C (35:49):
This is one of the biggest thing you'll find is
that people that don't like boundaries will call it
controlling. The difference
between a boundary and
controlling is a boundary is for
me, a boundary is me
saying, you do not cross this line.
Controlling is saying, this is

(36:11):
for you. You don't behave like
this. And a boundary is saying, you know,
you don't behave like this at my table.
You can behave like that, or you want elsewhere. You don't do it at
my table. My table is a no go zone. And if
you behave like this, there will be a consequence to
that behavior.

(36:31):
you know, and I'm very, very,
I'm quite lenient with people because I know
sometimes people can say things, you
know, the wrong way at the wrong time to the wrong
person. And I try to handle those
conversations with a level of maturity that isn't just, no,
you're gone, that's it, no, you said the wrong thing. I

(36:52):
tried to get a better understanding of what was
going through their mind when they said that thing, what
they said actually what they meant.
you know, there are some things that are like,
goodbye, but for the most time,
most times it's things like friendly banter
that has just landed the wrong way.

(37:14):
That kind of thing is this kind of stuff. You need to have a
conversation with and sit down with both players as
well. The player that was offended and the player that
has done the offending and you know, just
say to look, guys, it was a misunderstanding. Can we
move past this? You know, just make sure
that we're more cautious in future about how
we say certain things or how we approach this

(37:37):
subject.

I love this conversation. This is,
I told you before, I think what's going to happen is we're going to
be breaking this into two episodes. I
want to talk about the world building, which you've done a great job. Which
then leans into why
professional GMs can really create a safe space,
and make it easier. Cause you have a set of skills, a

(37:59):
set of strategies that you're facilitating, a
group that are really marvelous.
So before we move on more into professional gg.
Cause that's where I do want to lean the rest of our
conversation. Something that I like to do.
And it's okay if you need to take a pause for thisuse. I gave it to you like
last minute, but something that I like to do. And Eric
Newsom, who was formerly of NPR News and

(38:21):
did many shows for them before moving on to other things. He's a
pop culture freelance writer. He has a
strategy where for any business he starts, he
asks his people to create a 10 word
phrase that helps them remind
themselves of who they are and what they do.
And I'd like to take that strategy and instead of, you
know, what do I do? Who am I? If there was something that

(38:44):
you needed somebody to remember, specifically
our listener who's like, I want to create worlds
that are real, that feel real, and
that my players love or that I love. What
is a ten word phrase that you could give them to help remember
the core message of how worlds can be
built like that.

>> Speaker C (39:04):
Right, Got it. Sperm,
will get you a world.

Sperm will get you
a world. Tell me
more about that.
Hold on. Sperm will get you
a world. Oh, you're using,
you're using your acronym. Okay, tell me the
acronym of sperm.
And tell me how it's going to.

(39:30):
Get us a world. This is so exciting.

>> Speaker C (39:32):
Social, political,
economical, religious,
military. The five
basics of every
society ever to exist.

Did you come up with that or did you get that from somewh somewhere.

>> Speaker C (39:48):
A very long time ago and I cannot remember
where? I would love to credit them.

That's okay.
From now on. David North, East is
the one who coined the word sperm.

>> Speaker C (40:01):
O. I do not want to be known for that. Thanks.

Never mind.
Awesome.
So tell me more about all of those things. All those
things. I mean, obviously people may know those words individually, but what are
you considering when you're considering each one of those
acronym letters.

>> Speaker C (40:19):
So each one of those words,
social, political, economical, religious and
military, represents a
portion of a society. Now some
societies will have more of one and less of
others, but ultimately they are the five
key influences in, in
any society ever.

(40:41):
the social aspect, you think of things
like
local meeting places, for example, so
like your taverns, your inns, local events,
parties, these kinds of things. How, how
do they work within the society
that they live in? and also

(41:03):
you know, they bleed across sometimes.
But most, for the most part the social aspect
is the people. Who are the people here? Where do
they fit in society themselves?
Political is obviously, you know,
who's ruling. What kind
of

(41:24):
system of rule have you got in place? Is it a
tyranny? Is it a,
democracy? Is it
a autocracy?
Is it a technocracy? You know that
there are lot of
different forms of

(41:46):
leadership that have been around
throughout the years.
Economical. There are two types of economies. There is
the external economy and the internal economy.
The easiest way to explain this
is your internal economy. If
we speak in terms of America, is all the trade
that America does inside America

(42:08):
or the USA does inside the usa?
external economy is all the trade that
USA does with the rest of the
world. Like what do they bring in, what do they
export, and what's the balance of that look
like? Now this can be scaled
down massively to the

(42:30):
level of a village even. You
know, what kind of small shops exist in a
village? Well you know you have to have something at least
like a farm, you know, you perhaps
have something along the lines of a
grocers. You know, you'd have
someone that brings in the local news
to the village and that kind of thing, like a town crier

(42:53):
or that sort of thing. And these
economies, these two different economies, you've
got to work out how they link together as well. I
feel that's quite important because if
the, say for example, the local
farmer didn't get his feed for his animals
last week, you know, that's then going to

(43:13):
impact the quality of his livestock.
And you know, if the quality of his
livestock is affected, how's that going to affect
the rest of the village, you know, and
then what kind of knock on effect is that gonna have?
And you know you can really snowball with
that kind of line of thought.

(43:33):
next was the religious aspect. Now obviously D20 &
D has its own fantasy
pantheons in the, in
our world we have a number of main
Religions, Christianity,
Islam, Sikhism,
Buddhism. These are just a few that have come to the top of
my mind. And each one works very, very

(43:55):
differently. They each have their own set of beliefs,
they have their own set of rituals. you
know, for example, for Christians, their ritual is to go to a church on
a Sunday to pray and have
sermons and readings and that kind of
thing. Whereas in Islam, they
pray five times a day facing
eastward towards Mecca. you've

(44:17):
got the
Buddhists, fasting,
where they will only eat for a
certain period of time during the day or not
eat at all for a period of days. Or they fast
and you know, they restrict something in
their lives. All these different

(44:38):
rituals impact the lives of these people
differently means that these people all
have different lived experiences of their religions.
How does that apply in your world? Especially
when we start talking about fantasy pantheons.
If you go back to the ancient pagan
pantheons like the Norse, the Greeks,

(44:58):
the Romans, look at how their
pantheons influenced their
societies. You know, there
are stories and stories and stories and
I, I love Greek mythology. It
is so beautifully dark.
You know, when people think of Greek mythology, nine times out
of ten they will mention Disney's Hercules.

(45:21):
I promise you. Disney's Hercules,
romanticized is an
underestimate. What they did to the.

Well, maybe like most things
Disney with fairy tals.

>> Speaker C (45:34):
Yeah, yeah, but I mean this was like
next level romanticizing.

Yes.

>> Speaker C (45:42):
and lastly, military. And you
know, what does their military look like? Do they even have a
military? If they don't have a military, are they
hiring mercenaries to protect
them? Yeah, you know, and again, you can
scale it up and down. You can have a
countrywide military or you can have a very, very
small focused military.

(46:05):
you know, if you think of the different,
never divisions of the British military,
you know, you've got the sas, you've got the marines, the
army, the Navy. Each of these are specialized
in different things. They are
also of the varying sizes.
You know, we are a maritime warfare country.

(46:26):
Our navy is huge,
for the size of our country per capita.
And again, you know, how does
military impact your country? How does it
impact your town? Perhaps your town is in
a war torn country, but they haven't been affected
for some reason. Why have they not been

(46:47):
affected? What's lying around the town
that'stops the armies,
you know, had
I run a one shot not too long ago
and essentially the players. O no, it wasn't a one shot.
It was an actual part of my campaign. the
players had visited a town that had

(47:08):
recently been destroyed by
an ever increasing
curse. Basically these creatures
were being cursed by the land.
There was something inside the land itself.
And the people inside this town were
safe from this curse. The creatures could not get

(47:29):
in, but neither could anything else.
And they could not leave. If they left,
they would die because the creatures that had been turned
and cursed would attack them.
and then the players sort of went on
a huge like arc of digging down into the tunnel
and finding actually there were giant crystal formations

(47:50):
that were interacting with the ley lines,
creating this protective field where these cursed creatures
could not enter into the town. But it created
a problem for the town because the town couldn't self sustain.
They didn't have enough space to expand farm
or anything like that. And when the player, by the time the
players got there, there was only three people left in the entire
town. And so you know,

(48:13):
it's thinking about the wider and
the. You'got to think of the wide picture, but you've
also got to think of the small picture at the same time and you've got
to balance it out and really, really
think about how these five
sections of society interact with your
world.

Yeah, Sperm
man.
It's fantastic because as you were talking several
things came to mind. The questions that you're asking
are fantastic. The how and
the why. Why is this happening?
And then that leads to another why. there's
a strategy that was not, I don't think created by

(48:53):
this guy, but the founder of Toyota. They
had a process called the five whys. And they would
go and ask why is this problem happening?
And usually the surface level problem was not the
actual problem that needed to be
solved. And what you're, what you're doing here is
basically like the 18 y's

(49:13):
that then are all interconnected. You know, when you
were talking about the military I was like, yeah. And
every branch of that military in some way, shape or form has
a ideology that they live by that
might be different than that other military
which then has very interesting role playing and game
facets. If maybe some of the characters are a part of that

(49:34):
military or maybe they have
interacted and had a run in with them and they don't wanna have anything to
do with that faction or that military
body. So this is cool. I'm go goingna be using this
in my games. I'm gonna have
sperm on the brain.

>> Speaker C (49:52):
Feel free. Well,
as long as you don't tell people that I forcefully put it
there, we'll be okay.

Yepah. So I'm just going to
repeat it again for everybody. Gonna repeat it again.
Sperm will get you a world.
Marvelous.
Here's my u, final question. It's the
quintessential podcast question. Whenever you
finish. Where can people find you,
David? Where can they get connected? Where do you want them

(50:20):
to connect with you?

>> Speaker C (50:22):
So there are loads, so get
pens and papers ready. If you want to find me on
TikTok, it is at the Captain 91.
If you want to find me on Twitch,
it is SS Adventurer, Twitch
TV SSAD
Adventurer. If you want to find me
on YouTube, it's

(50:43):
YouTube.comsadvventureprod
productions.
they are my three Wayne ones, Blue Sky Socials.
I am the Captain 91 and
I think on X I am SS
Adventurer. But don't worry, I'm not on X all that
much.

Very good. And we'll have to connect on Blue Sky. I recently
was encouraged by Craig Shipman to get on
Blue Sky. It's a very, very cool way
to interact with the Tabletop community, in a
way that I haven't on any other platform yet.

>> Speaker C (51:16):
I have heard good things about Blue Sky. I do like the look of
Blue sky and the feel of it.

Well, dude, I will make sure that
you are available. cause I'm sure some people are
gonna love what you have, love what you're doing.
Thank you for connecting to me, connecting with me.
Thanks again.

>> Speaker C (51:33):
Thank you very, very much for having me on board. And
also if you are looking for any professional games
you can find me on Start Playing
games
forward/gm/ss
adventurer. However, you don't just have to come
and find me. There are many, many, many other
great professional GMs on start playing

(51:55):
servers. Feel free to
browse and I hope to see at least
someone come and join us.

Thanks again David and be sure to join us next time as
we find the best ways to have great times with friends and
experience amazing stories through Tabletop role playing. My
conversation with David was so good I had to break it into two
episodes. Be on the lookout for David'next episode
which revolves around the question, should you pay for
a professional gm? And dont forget if you want

(52:22):
to design immersive dynamic worlds for your gaming group,
download the ultimate guide for Tabletop Role Playing
World Building Experiences using the
Sperm Framework P Rm M.
Just click on the link in the show notes and youll be bringing your games
to.
Life in no time.
And may you keep having fun as you continue to make
your claim to game.

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038: Next-Level Worldbuilding for Every TTRPG – With David Northeast

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}038: Next-Level Worldbuilding for Every TTRPG – With David Northeast