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Backstory

I've recently been reading the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, a book that isn't so much a step-by-step guide to building a fantasy world (like this blog series) and instead essays on a variety of topics related to Worldbuilding. While I feel comfortable that my blog doesn't overlap entirely with the book, I was reminded a huge foundational topic I overlooked. Oops.

So I'm writing this and squishing it in between the first Part I: The Hook and Part II: Conflict.

Introduction

The continent of Westeros and Faerun are both fantasy settings. As are the Tablelands of Athas and the ringed city of Sigil. All have similarities: people earning a living, falling in love, fighting, dying. And yet, the differences between A Song of Ice and Fire, the Forgotten Realms, Dark

An often overlooked element of world building are organizations. Even if they are included, organizations are often limited to the role of antagonists. This might be to avoid heroic groups that might be seen as deus ex machina (or a dreaded Dungeon Master PC). This does a disservice to groups as they can play multiple roles in a campaign setting and have varied benefits for a setting.

There are innumerable examples of organizations in official worlds. Dragonlance is especially known for its organizations with the Knights of Solamnia, Knights of Takhisis/Neraka, the Legion of Steel, and the Wizards of High Sorcery. Dark Sun has the Veiled Alliance, Eberron has the Order of the Emerald Claw, and the Forgotten Realms has several such as the Red Wizards,

The is the first part on my new series on world building. In the introduction, I discussed Top-Down and Bottom-Up design, as well as some of the pros and cons of each.

Today I’m going to discuss “The Hook”.

Chapters

Below a links to the previous chapters in this series 

Introduction

Part 1: The Hook

Part 1.5: Factors

Part 2: Conflict

Part 3: Geography

Part 4: Races

Part 5: Nations

Part 6: Room for monsters

Part 7: Deities

Part 8: Cities

Part 9: Factions

Part 10: History

Part 11: Economics

Part 12: Culture

Part 13: Starting Zone

Part 14: Player's Guide

The Hook

Every new campaign world needs a “hook”: a concept or theme on which to base the world and differentiate

And now for something a little controversial: where 4e went wrong, and the mistakes WotC made.

This is a long one, be warned.

Now, this blog is not to bash the edition (much) or be unfairly negative to Wizards of the Coast. Instead, I’m viewing this as a way to establish what not to do the next time round, or at least what I think shouldn’t be done. It’s a “those who do not learn from history...” and such. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about WotC and their potential mistakes (as seen by the territory my review of the Chaos Scar blog meandered into) and looking at where the last edition failed seemed like a good idea and worthy of blogging.

But did 4e Fail?

Without sales numbers this is impossible to quantify.

If you count 3.0 and 3.5 as one