Alright, so, BW is a story-game. A true collaborative world-building game.
What makes it that?
Well, I'm first going to tell you - maybe counter intuitively - what does not make it a worlbuilding game.
Perhaps you're aware; one of the core tenants of BW is it's session 0: where everyone is supposed to sit down together and create the world/campaign (ie world/campaign-burning)?
This
does not make it a collaborative worlbuilding game.
World/campaign-burning is just a lingo term that BWHQ uses to call out the fact that BW is designed - mechanically - to have a campaign that is built around the PCs.
Let's dive into this process, before we look at what makes the game a world building game (seeing as it comes in-play before playing).
World-burning doesn't mean you HAVE to create a new unique literal world/planet for every campaign, and there are no game mechanics attached to the creation of the world or campaign itself (which is why this element has nothing to do with it being a worlbuilding game - no mechanics, not a part of the "game").
That "world" that must be tailored to the PCs may just consist of a single village, or a Noble House, or whatever the
minimum "level" of detail is that is necessary to "house" the premise of the
beginning of the campaign.
Make sense?
Further more, campaign and world-burning are often (maybe always...)
directly intertwined. The two will be created at the same time, I think every time - hand in glove.
So let's look at our world-building thread.
thatguy2 says:
I was thinking a sort of Middle-Earth type setting but only humans and low magic
A Middle Earth-type setting has been suggested. Perfect. As you may or may not know, BW was designed around Tolkien's Middle Earth. We could use exactly Tolkien's M.E. for our setting if we wanted, BUT... we would still have some world-burning to do.
Did anyone want to throw out any other ideas for a world and/or campaign premise (please do throw something out there, if so, as it may illuminate or help illustrate some topics)?