63 - Lore with Peter Chiykowski

B01_14 - Lore with Peter Chiykowski === ​ Seth: Lauren worldbuilding is all about connections. It's like cooking. You don't just offer guests a pile of carrots, potatoes, meat, some bully on a tablespoon of oil at the table and say, eat up. You cook them a stew. The components are richer when combined greater than the sum of their whole, the different parts, compliment each other and work together to make something altogether unique. James: Let's talk about lore. We've known Peter Chiykowski for a little while. We interviewed him about his deck of worlds and innovative deck of combinable worldbuilding prompts to create micro settings. He even provided some vital counsel to us during The Worldbuilder's Journal Kickstarter. His tools are frequently used by Seth and many on our discord server. So you can imagine our excitement when we found out he was launching another product, the lore masters deck, which we'll be sharing today. Seth and Peter discussed the philosophy behind this new product, the need for forging connections in your setting and the power of leaning on your audience to render your world. And a break from tradition. This interview was also played on set's own YouTube channel and they'll billing for that in the show notes. We hope you enjoy. Seth: We are so excited to have Peter back on the podcast If you don't know who he is. He is the author and illustrator of the delightful web comic rock paper Cynic. He created the Story Engine. He. Has built a tremendous product in the Deck of Worlds, which is a just absolutely wonderful worldbuilding tool to help you sort of unleash your creativity. He's a master of short form stories, a crowd funding expert, if I can call him that, and he has coming out with a new product that we are just really excited to see. It's called the Lore Masters Deck, and I am so excited to explore with him the impact it's going to have on your worldbuilding. / Peter. Thank you for coming on. Thank Peter: you so much for having me. I enjoyed our last conversation so much talking about worldbuilding and I had one of those, like, I, I left that call, to go, like, I always, like, after I talk to someone, I'll go tell my wife about like, here's a conversation I had. I was just like, we had like these, this million conversations about like worldbuilding and the perspective of the visitor and how you make it compelling and make them feel like they're part of it. And, I always like, I remember the conversations that I leave with that much excitement. even, even years later. And, so it's, Really fun to be back. Excited to have another one of those. Seth: Yeah, absolutely. So you are about to launch and, if I get any of these details wrong, just jump in and be like, Seth, that's totally wrong. This is the true. The truth, but you're about to launch on June 24th. I'm sorry, you're about to launch on June 20th on BackerKit, this new project, the Lore masters deck. Talk to me a little bit about what that Peter: is. Yeah, so LO Masters Deck is a new deck of creative prompts that I've been working on to help like writers Worldbuilder's game Masters. Come up with the different types of little pieces of lore that make up a world and make it feel interesting and compelling. and then also that help them assemble those pieces into like a network or an ecosystem that really makes them feel connected and tangible and alive. cause I think that like one of those challenges we can have sometimes is like, We have this random idea and this random idea and this random idea, and then connecting them, we're making them feel like they're part of the same world becomes a challenge. And I think one of the things that was, both like the biggest design challenge when I was working on this deck, but also I think the biggest design opportunity and what's really made it something that's like fun and special and different is that it really organically helps you piece by piece, create a lore web so that every single part of it is connected to another part in. Way, that is either like meaningful or interesting or like tickles that lower itch of like, when you find out like, ah, the, you know, this, this modern order of druids was actually used to be this secret blood cult, and they're the same thing from history. Like those moments, uh, yeah, I, I really like being able to set, set up those like little connections that can be surprising to you as a writer or as a creator. And that then therefore end up being very like, satisfying for, for readers or visitors too when medium. Seth: Yeah, absolutely. There's, there's just such joy in being able to step into a setting, step into a world, and see the connections between everything, so it doesn't feel like you're just sort of stumbling into a bunch of disparate scenes. But instead, there's this sense of immersion. That appears now your Deck of Worlds, which I've played with myself, I've used with my kids, and it has just been a fantastic tool. So for anybody who's, who's listening to this or hasn't seen the Deck of Worlds, definitely check it out. But the way it works is you flip out a series of cards from a series of decks and you can use them to build, I don't know if randomized is the right term, but you can use them to sort of build out, prompts that can then spark ideas and you start building. That way. What I found though with the Deck of Worlds was that as I would do that I would typically get one or two things built and then like prompts built, and then from there I would start coming up with sort of the connections between them myself. Right. And it sounds like the Lore Master's deck shortcuts that process by adding that functionality. Are these decks designed to be used together? Or are they sort of separate Peter: pieces? I would say both. So I Okay. With all of my things that I design, I want it to be a standalone product. Like I don't want it to require you to buy a bunch of other things. I want you, like, you buy this box and it comes self-contained and it does the thing. So yeah, floor Master's Deck does the thing. You buy that and it'll, you can create locations with it. You can create, like functions of other decks that I've designed, like Story Engine Deck. You can create characters with it. this deck has that capacity as well. But what you can do if you have, say the story engineer or you have Deck of Worlds, is you can draw on those card types to supplement, the, a number of potential card draws and combinations in, Lore Master's Deck. So yeah, you can use it entirely on its own. If you already have the deck, then you just basically get like an exponentially larger number of potential combinations. And we're gonna include a little, um, section in the guidebook that explains like, Hey, you can substitute card type A for card type B, or you can like draft and pick between like, Three of you can draw three landmarks from the, the, um, mm-hmm. Uh, Deck of Worlds in place of like one location card from lower Master's deck. Ok. yeah, it just basically increases the number of, of opportunities that you have, when you combine them. And we're also working on a little bridge expansion that will like explicitly link them. So queues from one type of card will call for. Cards from the other set. oh, that's cool to, yeah, which would be nice. Cause then you can, like, if you're doing Deck of Worlds in your worldbuilding, if you have a card that reminds you like, okay, actually this location is gonna have a faction and then you build that faction with floor, master deck, it just creates a much more, dynamic and organic way to like, remember to incorporate all these cards. Cause there's enough card types now that it's, it's just like helpful to have that structure to remind you like, okay. Right. This place will be faction based. This place is gonna have a really interesting creature. this place is gonna to have like a particular deity that they worship. And then there's support for creating all those types of things using the, uh, Lore Masters Deck or its expansions. Yeah. Seth: Yeah. So a question for you, if you're in the process or like as, as you're building out these, what do you, what do you call them? So tableau is the word that came to mind, but like, what do you call the, what you build out? Peter: Yeah, so I've been calling each individual piece of a lore web, a lore prompt. okay. And, I often will call because, like a lore prompt can be for a faction or an historical figure, or an event, or a location, an object, a physical material, or a like creature or species. Because there's like a very distinct categories for these. I've been calling those like elements as well. So, a card type is like one element of your lore, and then when you flesh that out with a couple supporting prompts and cues, that might, you know, might provide some like, texture detail about this prompt. lemme give a concrete example just so that we're not trying to Sure. Oh. Imagine how these cards work. So let's say we draw faction and let's. Let's draw faction. Let's do this. Yeah, let's do it. Alright, so I'm drawing a faction card here. I printed on the card. There are four different cues. There are words mm-hmm. That you can pick between, that are gonna be like the basis of what our faction is. So our faction could be a church, it could be a mob, it could be a nation, or it could be a. Division, So like, we could do, I, I, I like church is a fun one. I always like doing churches and belief systems I find are really, really interesting. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with church for this one, but turn the word church so that it's facing me and that's how I know. And then I'll pull another faction card, but this time I would use the backside of the card, which has like these prompts that are providing details about what a faction might be like. Mm-hmm. So some of these are backgrounds, some of these are traits, and some of these are agendas or like what is the faction trying to do or achieve. on every card there will usually be at least two of these queues that have another, Icon, another symbol for another card type, which means that they could potentially connect to another card. So, so on this card, our church could be linked to a war crime. they could have an agenda to lobby for a specific political or social issue. They could have a trait where they consider a specific location to be sacred or, they could have a confusing or complicated constitution. any of those interests you? Seth: I like the war crime one. Peter: All right. We've got a church that did a war crime. We're starting. Yeah, we're going hard right off the bat. Seth: Yeah, we are. Peter: And then right off the bat, also because the, uh, war crime has an event card, we would pull an event to see what kind of crime this might be. So it could be a betrayal. Mm-hmm. It could be a deluge, it could be a hunt, or it could be a dissent. Seth: Oh, interesting. I think, I think that the war crime should be related to a betrayal. Peter: Cool. All right, so we've got a betrayal there. and then we'll grab another one of these. the background that they were recently betrayed by a figure, which would be interesting cuz we have lots of betrayals going on. A trait is that they're free spirited. A trait is that they have a specific taboo involving a material or a living creature or, that they have an agenda where they want to study or protect a text or document. Seth: What is so genius about this is like already in my mind is starting to build out these stories just from these few prompts, right? So the one that immediately stuck out to me was, they have a taboo about either a material or a creature, which might love it, fit into why there was a betrayal and they committed a war crime. Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Cause like especially if you have a really strong like no-go zone belief, then that gives you a boundary that if it's crossed, you're gonna be like, no, we're done. Seth: Exactly. Peter: Yeah. Seth: See, this is, this is really just a tremendous extension of sort of the core worldbuilding functionality of the Deck of Worlds, because you're starting to add Micro story To the world that you're building and now your background is in sort of short form story, isn't that right? Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of micro fiction writing, a lot of like, can I fit a little story or a little world onto something? The size of the postcard. Seth: How much did that influence the way you chose prompts? I think, or for this project, Peter: I think there were, I think there were two things that, from that experience that really contributed to the way that I write prompts and not just for Lore Master's Deck, but also for Deck of Worlds and Story Engine. Mm-hmm. I think the two things were one, because I was writing a new story idea or a new world idea, once or twice a week, I learned to not be precious about the ideas, like to understand like, if this one doesn't work out, the next idea might be better. So like, not being too obsessed with making it perfect was. Be able to work with prompts and let go of some of that like perfection, instinct that can sometimes make it harder to create. on that same note, I'd say that also by not being precious, it gives you permission to, change things. Right. If you're like so attached to the idea that, this has to be a church, that this faction has to be a church, and I wouldn't even consider that they're a division or a mob or a nation mm-hmm. That that's part of their structure, then, uh, you often miss other pathways that you could have taken to like tell a story where maybe if instead of a church they were. Like a particular sect of a church or they were like a division within a church or they were like a religious nation. by heaving yourself, unattached to like one interpretation and being more open to considering other ways of doing things, you just. You widen the, the palette that you can use to paint your world or your story. So yeah, not being precious was one. And then the other thing, that writing Micro Fiction gave me was, it gave me a lot of faith that, readers and writers are really good at filling in blanks by themselves. Yeah. you can't put a lot on a postcard, so you have to leave a lot up to the imagination The prompt system works because there's not that much written on the card, right? Like mm-hmm. There's a pretty minimal, I don't tell you what the, material or creature is. I don't tell you what the war crime is. the cards might, and they're gonna give you suggestions for what that could be, but you can also choose not to draw a card and just decide oh, I know what I want that to be, or I can already fill that in. Yeah. And I think having faith that, People are like inherently creative, they will use their imaginations to fill in gaps. Yeah. Um, yeah, and this is actually the topic that we've talked about, like leaving room for wonder, leaving room for the imagination and for the, the reader, the visitor, to do some of that work of filling in the world. Mm-hmm. Makes for good worldbuilding. And I think it makes for a good prompting system. Cuz like the, the lesson that I learned from, right, from the get go with even just the first story engine was, Don't try and do the work for the writer, like just leave them a lot of room to do the work themselves and mm-hmm. The results they get are gonna be better, the deck is gonna be more helpful and effective. Mm-hmm. learning to get out of the way and not overwrite the, the prompts was like the, you know, one of the hardest lessons and definitely required a little bit of ego death cuz the, you have to remember, oh, the point is about me being, the point is about the end user being creative and them having something to work with. Um, yeah. Yeah, Seth: that's, that's fascinating. So micro fiction is something that is very close to our hearts at the WorldCraft Club. We love it. And,the genius of giving people small building blocks, right? It reminds me of Lego. You know, each individual piece is very specific. It's not like when you look at a block that is, You know, um, two by two, like, it's what it is. It's not gonna change, but blocks can be combined to create just the most astounding things, you know, tapping into that inherent creativity in the writer and in the reader. This just is, man, I'm always just so impressed when, when I see it and when I think about Peter: it. It's, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to see people pick it up and use it, and like that moment where it clicks with like, oh, I can build what I want with this. Mm-hmm. and like with Lego, like I feel like, I don't know if this is just my experience as like a kid, but when I was a kid, we didn't have a Lego set that was designed to build one thing. It wasn't like, oh, this is like, now I'll see like, oh, you can like build a pizza shop or you can build a replica model of, um, uh, the castle from. Monty Python, I don't know if exist. Yeah. But like for instances, when I was a kid, we just had like one box of random Lego, like the most random pieces, and it required you to decide what you wanted to build and make and to build it yourself and model it. And I think what I like. Or what I think makes for the most effective, prompting and creative systems, not just like in the tools that I build, but in the tools that, that, uh, I, I look for out in the world are ones where they do not force you to end up with something that is this particular shape, but that are an open-end tool for like, Build whatever the heck you want. go ahead and just, and run with it and stick blocks on blocks and see what comes out. Yeah. And really it is like the shape that emerges from those larger structures that the writer chooses that are the ones that are gonna be interesting and compelling and useful to them, and that are gonna make the deck reusable. Mm-hmm. And that's the thing that I, I've found like, you know, story Engine Deck was released. In 20, I launched it on crowdfunding in 2019, and then it was out in 2020. I still have not made the same story twice with it. I just, every time I go to it, there's something new that comes outta it and it's because meaning emerges from the gaps between cards, from the spaces to interpret and from the context of one card next to each other and the way that they kind resonate off of each other. Mm-hmm. Um, and that kinda comb is just like really good for creative stimulation and I, it makes for. Useful product. Cause like something can just keep going back to it and finding a, they can draw from a new well, every time, basically. Seth: Yeah. And it also speaks to that idea of not having, not being so committed to your end goal that you can't organically make changes as you're moving through the process. I remember as a kid, you know, sometimes my spaceship would end up as a submarine. Yes, as I was building, I would, I would spark a cool idea halfway through and I would be able to shift, right? And so I think that with stories, with worldbuilding, that's one of those vital skills is the ability to sort of sift through the ideas and see what, see what emerges to the top, see what the cream. Of the, of the world or the setting really is Peter: Absolutely, I, that's such a good piece of, of advice, of like, yeah, just be open to that. you are getting to know your world. You are a visitor in it to a certain extent. yeah. And that, Seth: oh, I love that idea. Peter: And being open to what you discover there. Mm-hmm. Um, like I think, I think for anyone who's done tabletop role playing games, so many times you'll go in, you'll build a character, you'll go in and then when you start role-playing them, you discover that there's someone a little bit different than you thought they were on paper. And if you try to stick only to the vision that you originally set out with, you're going to find this weird tension between the character you think they're supposed to be and the character they're, and being a little bit open to like adjusting that game plan, being less attached to an idea and being open to like exploring that process is. Really important for like, good role play. I feel like same thing for worldbuilding, like being open to, um, the world, having its own kind of life, getting to know it, adapting to the ways that you find it. Um, and, and being willing to like acknowledge those changes and work with them leads to some like really interesting, fun and very organic results. Interjection --- (The space between the cards is where the worldbuilding happens. Though Peter isn't talking specifically about final written work, but rather the tool that he's creating, there is some gold here that I think you should pay attention to. In the creation of the Deck Peter leaves room for us to create, in the creation of your own settings, we'd advocate for leaving from for your visitant to create. This is the element of worldbuilding that we'd refer to as 'humility'. Holding your setting in an open enough hand that there's space enough for someone to import their vision on to your setting. In the coming section Peter begins to talk about the role of Lore in a setting and its interaction with time.z) Seth: So I'd love to talk a little bit about your philosophy on the role of lore in worldbuilding. Because we have the Deck of Worlds, which sort of builds the physical spaces of the world. We have, The Story Engine, which builds stories that happen in those places. And now we're adding a new layer. You're separating it out and saying, okay, now we have lore. So I'd love to talk about how you feel like lore is different from. the concrete world that is being built, and where the crossover is. Peter: Yeah. So interestingly, like the Deck of Worlds is kind of almost a abstract map making tool when you think about it. Mm-hmm. It really focused on mapping relationships in terms of space, what is next to what, where are those things positioned? And a lot of meaning emerges from what is. Next to something else, right? Like mm-hmm. A a city that is next to a lake has a water supply. It matters that it's next to a lake. A coastal city is gonna be different from one that's inland. The city with access to woods is gonna be different from one that has access to fields. Yeah. So those things matter. but it's not the only way of going about building a world, Lore Master's Deck was very much an exploration in what if we mapped worlds in terms of the relationships between the things in the world that are important and the, the points of interest that, that, like if you were gonna see this world as like an abstract painting, what elements would you render in really quickly? Mm-hmm. What, what really matters for anchoring and understanding what this world is? So how do we map those relationships between, Faction and say the founder who left that faction and is now an independent mm-hmm. And the city that that faction leader lives in. and, the primary like export resource of that city, and then the creature in the, outlying area and the ecosystem that, that resources harvested from like, what are those connections that map those things and how do we map those connections? Mm-hmm. so it became about mapping relationships in terms of like connections and causality. And then it also is a deck about mapping relationships in terms of time. One of the sort of features of it that I'm really excited about is that if you do a, event, deck based prompt where you just layout a bunch of events next to each other with some branches off of them to look at who was involved or, what locations or what objects or artifacts were involved in those moments. You can create timelines. You can do like a very, like a broad brush. Timeline map. so yeah, it, it really is a shift from trying to map space to trying to map relationships. Trying to map connections. Seth: That's, that's fascinating to think about lore as the connections between all of the different events that have happened I mean, it, it's not just mapping though the event itself. Right. But it's mapping the relationships between all of the parties involved. Yeah. Right. And parties, in that case, in this case, doesn't have to be, a person, like you said, it can be a, a resource, it can be a, a creature. Or a plant that only grows in a specific area. Right. Yeah. I think it's fascinating to, when you look at a world, or when you're exploring a world even as the creator to identify what is most important in it, because it's those pillars. On which our, our scaffolding for our world is created. Right. And you've mentioned that, that you've sort of learned to trust the, the author or the, the reader, the writer or the reader to fill in the blanks. Right. And that's a, that's a philosophy, a worldbuilding philosophy that we really embrace here at the WorldCraft Club. And so this, this idea of. Of lore being something that you add to the physical space of your world, do you think that there is a upper limit to sort of how much is good? Peter: Yeah, I, I think that there is, in terms of, um, Well, like I guess let's first, a second, let's talk about worldbuilding as an activity unto itself and then worldbuilding as a precursor to writing or running a tabletop RBG game or some other activity that, that's a great distinction cause I think that's a really good distinction. Yeah, I think it's an important one to talk about here, cuz if you're worldbuilding to worldbuilding then I'd say there's no upper limit. Do whatever you want. Be as detailed as you want, and if that activity for you is like gratifying and fulfilling, then like no one can stop you and no one should stop you just mm-hmm. Like run with. The moment you start looking at, am I gonna make this into a, a setting that I publish as a wiki or a World Anvil setting that I want people to be able to flick into and explore, then I think you start looking at, okay, well what are the most important parts of the world? What, what defines it? What are the highlights? And I, I would sort of make those decisions based on either what is most connected to other things. Like it clearly is a central part of all of the threads that hold your world together. and then what maybe doesn't have a ton of connections, but has one connection that's so important that, if you severed it though, you would actually see the gap left behind on the world. I think what you'll find is that some lore elements kind of can be replaced, like. You don't need 55 taverns. If, if the story that you're telling or the world that you're gonna tell, if there's gonna be one place that, it's the hearth that feels like home when your adventure is on the road mm-hmm. Then, don't worry about having a thousand taverns. You only need one that's gonna create that sense of home. So if home is one place or just a couple places, decide what places feel like home and then you can probably remove those other pieces because they would be redundant. I think this happens a lot, especially in screenwriting with movie scripts, you a lot down to get a movie down to an hour and a half and satisfying. So a lot of the time, like you'll start with more supporting. Characters. Mm-hmm. And they realize this character only needs one friend who's like the supporting friend who's gonna be there when things go wrong and support them. we can like, remove some of these characters and collapse it down to like one or two characters in that role. I think you can do the same thing with worldbuilding. if this city is meant to hit the beat of like a city that is like very militaristic mm-hmm. Then you don't need a bunch of different, military autocracy, cities. Just let that one be the one. Mm-hmm. And then, when it comes time to actually write, that's where I think deciding what you don't have to say and that people will get. is, a skill that's learned with time, but I think it's really important and fun and is one of those best flourishes of worldbuilding. And it creates those moments when you are inevitably successful and you have a movie adaptation of your amazing fantasy novel, you're like, hardcore fans they'll be the annoying person in the theater telling your friends like, you know, that the like, Sigil on that character's belt is because he was the warden keeper of the Kingswood, 300 years ago. And that's a little nod to like, that's what you want. yeah. To not have to explain in the story, but to have people piece together from the little threads you wanna leave them the, the room for like the detectives to have a lot of fun with that and figure that. Yeah. Seth: Yeah. Man, I, every time I talk about worldbuilding, it seems to come back around to this idea that this is not, A, it's not just a solo act, right? As you said, there's, there's space for people who want to just world build for their own pleasure. They, they have an idea, they want to explore it and it's fun to do. I do that myself, right? I have notebooks literally filled with ideas and places that I wanted to visit, so I went and I visited them and I don't know that I'll ever share them with anybody, but. The idea that worldbuilding is just, that I think, it lacks something that the human connection, that worldbuilding can give, provides. And I really love this idea that as a worldbuilder we're not just building things for. Sort of the sake of building them, but we're building them because we can create connection with other people. And that connection comes through that exploration and that discovery. Right. And so as you're flipping out prompts and you're coming up with all of these ideas, what's genius about this is that given. Like somebody else given the same exact flips, like if we set the deck up exactly the same way, is gonna come up with a totally different and unique story, a different world for us to explore. And that is just magic. It's just pure magic Peter: I love, I, I think almost every deck I've released, there's been a game mode where a, you both use the same set of cards to build two different things, and then you compare how those choices are made. Mm-hmm. and where you use not just the same set of cards, but the same set of prompts, the same final set of prompts, and you both write from that and see how, how different it becomes. again, because there's enough room left for interpretation for the, the person who's visiting this world to bring something of their own. yeah, you can end up with two completely different takes on what a church is. Right? for some people a church will be a really benevolent presence that offers support and spiritual meaning. Mm-hmm. And for some people it will be, a colonizing force that, destroys and dehumanizes. And, and both of those experiences are correct to the people who had them. Good worldbuilding acknowledges that there's like a variety of perspectives about what each thing in that world means, because everybody's gonna have a different experience. In our world, this is why, I really advocate for not just doing like God's eye worldbuilding, where like this faction means one thing. name one political party that everyone agrees is the good political party. It doesn't happen because there's a huge diversity of opinions and mm-hmm. Some people love New York, some people hate New York. Mm-hmm. There's always gonna be these different takes and perspectives, and I think the more that you can lean into, whose perspective am I inhabiting with the narrative voice in this moment, mm-hmm. Who's, assumptions am I reinforcing? That's like a really good skill to have in being able to render a world that feels like it's lived in by a bunch of different kinds of people. Seth: Yeah, it's that humanizing element. Of saying life is not simply black and white. It is not so clear cut. You know, there are, there are a million shades of gray in between, and depending on where you're standing, they're going to look different. Yeah, I think that's a really wise way to go about it. And I think it's also really effective from, you know, a novelist point of view. Giving your characters that depth to make them human and acknowledging that even, you know, even acknowledging that sometimes their way of looking at the world isn't right. So we just built out this prompt with, you know, a church that's committed a war crime. Right? If you ask, like, if you pull any of the members of that church off the street, And stick a microphone in their face and say, Hey, what about that war crime? They're probably gonna be like, what are you talking about? Peter: That was our moment of greatest victory. Exactly. Achievement. Seth: Yeah. You know, and I think that story is found in those conflicts, in those moments, right? Peter: Yeah. Who decides what the world means is such a interesting question. both in The way you choose to frame your story. Mm-hmm. And in the power struggle for who decides within that world what the world means, who's controlling the narrative and the perspective within the world is also a really interesting question. Right. so yeah, I, I like, there's just, yeah, there's so much rich, rich material in those spaces and I like, you know, always, always be curious about those moments cuz there's so much you can discover if, like you are open to thinking about and, uh, and learning from it. Seth: You know, you said earlier in the conversation something that I think is just incredibly valuable and that is that the, the creator in a worldbuilding exercise is doing as much exploring. As the reader is at, well, you know, with the end product, whatever, whatever that end product looks like, your visitant and your worldbuilder are not so far apart in terms of the exploration that they're doing. And so I think, keeping that open mind as an explorer or a worldbuilder who's stepping in and not necessarily, prescribing how everything has to turn out, not necessarily demanding of the setting, that it go a certain way. I think that there's a lot of power in that to create settings that that really draw readers, that draw the visitant in. Peter: Right. Yeah. I, I had an experience with that recently in my, my home d and d campaign. My wife is Filipino and, I was grown up in Canada where like when Filipinos find each other, in, in any city in Canada, there's often like an instant moment of like recognition or connection, not in like mm-hmm. This is not to say this is universally true for, for all Filipinos, but it's a thing that happens a lot is like, Filipinos will find each other and they'll start a conversation about their experience in, in this city. and so when I was building, the setting that the game's taking place in, which is kind of a like great ship's age of exploration airtime setting with a lot of different, islands, uh, she decided to play in gnome and gnomes have a lot in common. just in like a checklist of like, with the Filipino experiences, immigrants where like mm-hmm. These diaspora communities, smaller, smaller, scattered groups in, countries where they're not the majority, uh, demographic, they'll often like uplift and support each other. Mm-hmm. And, um, All of a sudden, uh, I was looking at gnomes in an entirely different way. Yeah. And, and she kind of pitched just through the way that she was playing the character, an experience of gnomes, at least on the island, that our story was starting in, that was like really parallel to Filipino diaspora, of like being, seen as a certain sub community, having expectations placed on you and how you're gonna behave and, and whether or not you're taken seriously or, or at least. Seen in the way that you want to be seen by the communities that you participate in. and that was like not an element that I thought we were gonna be exploring in the game, but it was such a. A good, interesting and, emotionally complex experience to get to participate in as mm-hmm. Um, as a storyteller and a role player where like, okay, let's explore what it means to be, one of like three gnomes on this island, or one of, one of like a handful gnomes on this island. and the ways that you both lean into and try and push back against the expectations that are placed on you of that role. Mm-hmm. and that became like a really cool explosion again, because I was open, open if. What if we are not attached to what gnomes usually mean in fantasy, and what if we said, lean into or explore? Right. Like explore, right. Be curious about this particular aspect of, of, of the way that they could be rendered in a world. Mm-hmm. that's a, I think again, such a good example of how the visitant is a collaborator, right? Yes. And it's a little bit different in open role play where like, really they are creating story and creating meaning in the world directly. But even like, If you think about it, even just in a novel mm-hmm. the reader is your 3D render software that is literally rendering the environment of your world. That's right. What, what you have before that is just a script that is not in a computer being rendered. That's what you've made. It is the, it is really the reader who is the collaborator, who like renders that space and, and creates a real and subjective experience of it as they read. I think that, yeah, we've like undervalued, how much. work and participation that involves from a reader. Mm-hmm. and I think that's why like, it's so interesting. Every time there is a movie adaptation of a book, one of the things that we're all leaning in to see is what does this render look like? Mm-hmm. How does this person imagine middle earth? How does this person imagine Westeros? how does this person imagine Star Wars? Mm-hmm. And, you know, we've seen Star Wars rendered. A bunch of different times in ways, and it, it feels like servers, but there's also something that feels different and distinct about a number of the locations or takes or direct or director, looks at what the setting means. so yeah, I think there's very much a, a sense of participation that comes from that reader and I think that's always really fun to lean into. Seth: Yeah, man, this, I love talking about this subject. I do wanna shift the conversation very slightly. And I want to talk a little bit about once you've used this product, once you have, have set out your prompts and you've started to build your web of lore, I wanna talk about your experience of then taking that and doing something with it. Because I think that that the exercise of worldbuilding is really helpful, but I. One of the places it's most valuable is as a kickstart to producing something, right? Yeah. And so whether that is a TTRPG, whether that is a novel, whether that is a short story, you know, micro fiction, whatever it is, I'm curious about. Sort of your process and your experience of taking first of all the story engine deck, then the deck of worlds, and now the lo masters deck and taking them and turning them into sort of a product that somebody else can consume. Yeah. So, so can you talk me through that a little bit? Peter: Yeah, I would love to I the like how you turn, Pre-writing into writing and then now you turn writing into publishing are both like really interesting questions and and complicated ones. And it depends on what your goals are in terms of like taking, say, a web that you created with the Lore Masters Deck and turning that into writing. I would say let your relationship to the prompts that you've created. Be the relationship between a chef and then the contents of their cupboard. Mm. Um, you're not going to invite someone to your house and then just say help yourself and like, gesture to, your entire cupboard of like dry pasta and beans and Right vegetables and whatever. You're gonna like cook a meal and these are your ingredients. So I would think of the, that free writing, the worldbuilding, where like you've developed some interesting factions, some interesting. Characters, locations. You've developed like a couple of cool material resources that are important to this world that might be part of like the magic system. You've got a couple interesting creatures or species. Maybe you've got one big world destroying monster. These are now your ingredients. And I think the next step and something that will definitely include some support for in the guidebook is what kind of meal are you gonna plate? With this. and for there, that's where like thinking about your audience is helpful. Like if you're like trying to do something for like, say people who read horror, then focusing on the big world ending monster is gonna get you a little bit further than like, the like really happy fairy circle in the woods. Right. Um, so like figuring out like what's Yeah. Depending on what kind of genre you're trying to serve. Yeah. being able to think about that will be helpful. And I think the two sort of biggest questions that we're gonna focus on in support material will be, Who is the story about who are like the biggest stakeholders in this world? And that's where recommend looking at. Starting with with figures and factions, because those are the kinds of stories that just like we, as you know, we are not creature species. We are not physical material resources in the world. We are not locations we're people. Right? And we relate to stories about people or things that have people like motivations. So I'd say like, look at your figures and factions and specifically look at their agendas, like what do they want? Um mm-hmm. What are they trying to do in the world and what are the obstacles to them? Achieving that. Mm-hmm. So going through and looking at like, well, is this faction the obstacle to this character completing their character arc? Or, um, is like reaching this location? If that's, if that's their agenda, then, then what is stopping them from reaching the location? What does that journey look like? I would, do an inventory basically of your world to figure out like what is the. What the, what is the protein or the main event in this meal going to be? And, ultimately I think that you're gonna get the best material out of looking at, who are these, the stakeholders in this world who have, who feel the most connected or have the highest stakes in, deciding what the world means or who makes meaning in the world. Um mm-hmm. What do they want and what are the obstacles to that? And I think that's where your story's gonna be. and, uh, being able to, Adjust the elements to fit. Say like if a certain theme is emerging or if you are again, going for the horror vibe, then being able to like, even like adjust some of the choices you've may have made on the prompt. Cuz like, when we did the little sample here earlier, every card has multiple options. You get to pick an option. Mm-hmm. You can go back and make, change those choices later. You can completely ignore the card if the card. Was just a starting point to getting you to decide something else that's gonna be interesting or relevant. Mm-hmm. Or useful about the setting. The cards really are just like the starting line, and they are, they're really just meant to get you thinking about and a few solid points around your, uh, your lore. Mm-hmm. And from there you can just sort of pick it up and run with it. So the next step that I would do is like, Re-examining the choices that you've made in your lore web. And if you wanna change any of those to better support what you now think the like emotional core of your story is gonna be, then be open to that. Again, be be curious about your world, be willing to explore it, and the opportunities could provide, Yeah. And then from there, just, I think every, I think a lot of good stories can be diagrammed as, who is it about? What do they want? and what, what sort of shape does that want or desire or motivation take? what are the obstacles to getting it, or what, what price will they have to pay to get it? And then what will happen if they do? and I think you can find something really good there. And that's, that's more for like a novel for, for an open-ended, tabletop role playing game, sort of thing. You're creating a setting for your characters. I'd say like the next step is, Write up some of these loose notes, send them to your players, and then ask like, where do you see yourself fitting in this world? And being even able to highlight, Either interesting, factions or locations or belief systems that they might belong to or like current conflicts in the events that they might have a connection to is gonna be a really good way to like, plant their feet, the feet of their characters firmly in the earth of your setting. Mm-hmm. Um, and really give them like a place to stand for what their character is. that's connected to the lore. cause I think that you just get so much more. There's so much more storytelling material that you can really use to, to involve characters in the world when they have those established connections within it. Seth: Yeah. You're sort of creating a set of anchors that are going to, are going to cause them to invest, and then from that investment you get to tap into their creativity in how the world continues to expand. Yeah. One of the experiences that I have fairly often as I write is that I will start writing and then will find that my story is taking a different direction or a different shape than I originally thought it was. Right. Kind of going back to that idea of, well, I started out trying to build a spaceship, and now here I am with a submarine, you know? One of the things I love about sort of the practical elements of, of these, Of the Story Engine of, you know, the Deck of Worlds. And I'm sure when I get to play with, Lore Master's Deck, it's gonna be the same. Is the ability to adjust on the fly. The ability to say, well, this is going a different direction than I originally thought. I originally thought this was cosmic horror. Now maybe it's like dark comedy and I either want to adjust what I've already created or I want to flip out new. New prompts and because you're holding loosely these ideas, because you're not saying, well, the card said it's this, therefore it must be this. You're opening yourself up to, sort of this creative space of being able to make connections that you may not have, you know? Organically really been able to, to think of on your own. Instead, these pro, these prompts are driving you in specific directions. This is one of the reasons that with the WorldCraft Club, we, we speak so often about boundaries, right? Giving yourself a p a core, core concept, a place to start, which is sort of what these elements are, and then sort of setting some boundaries as you go. Well, the deck automatically creates, Some of those boundaries as you make decisions, you know, walking through it. Peter: Yeah, I think it's, one of the helpful things about having four options on the card and only four sides to each card is that you're not suddenly drowning in, like too much choice, but you have enough choice that you can find a meaningful option that's going to expand your world the right way. what I have found very organically, and I am curious to like discover through more play testing how this works for other creators, but what I found organically is that there comes a point. Physically on the table space that the prompt is occupying. Yeah. as well as in, just in terms of like the number of different connections that you can spread your attention across, where you're like, this feels like enough. Yeah, this feels like I can work with this. and I think something that we'll probably be doing in the guidebook, uh, which I have not drafted yet, but when I get more user feedback, I I'll start drafting is, you know, every three prompts do you check in and ask, like, do I know what the story's about? Do I have enough to, to create the next thing without pulling more cards? And if you do, then that is a good signal that you don't need to create more. You can if you want to. Right? Like, again, the, um, the pre-writing can be a, if, if your goal is not to publish and your goal is just to spend time, being creative with yourself in the same way that like, Spending time doing yoga is like, good for your body and mind then like, just keep doing, do that as much as you want and, and don't make the time limit. Like, is this useful? Um, right. But once you've reached the point where like, oh, this is useful for the other thing I wanna do, which is right, then trying to figure out like when, when does it feel like there's enough? And I think that'll be a, um, a like a self, a self-assessment that depends on what you're trying to build. Sure. But if you can answer the question for yourself, like what is this story about and where does it take place and who is it about? Then you probably have enough to start, Just to start the, the writing party and, and, and making that happen. So, yeah, I think that's, Yeah. And yeah, it's interesting cause like not just with worldbuilding, but like even just like when I'm plotting out a story or like thinking about what I want a poem to be about and I'm like scattering down a bunch of images I wanna put together in the poem or something. Like when have you done enough? Pre-writing is one of those like, yeah. Such a subjective question. And it's so hard to figure out and I don't think they'll ever be like a clear answer. Um, but uh Seth: Right, because it depends on your creative process. It depends on what you want out of it. Yeah. And it really is something you have to refine over time. So. I used to do a lot more pre-writing than I do now, but part of that is just because with practice, I've built a lot of sort of these frameworks and structures in my head that allow me to shortcut the process. But I know other writers who do way more pre-writing now than they did before because they find it super helpful to, you know, fully flesh out and explore all of these things. And I love that your tool is flexible in that way, right? It, it allows for the creativity of the author or the. The game master, whoever's using it, it allows for their creativity to be sort of the focal point and the thing that shines. It's not there to replace their worldbuilding. It's there to sort of set them off on the journey and, and provide them tools along the way. (I Think this might be where we end it.) Seth: So, yeah, I think it's, it's really impressive. Peter: Well, thanks. Thanks a lot. I think that the, um, yeah. Making that possible through design really just meant thinking about like, the person who uses this is going to be creative and smart and be able to do mm-hmm. gonna be able to build with it what they want and just trying to leave it open-ended, so that someone who isn't, you can step in and do something fun. Interesting. With it is like Yeah, definitely. The, the, the core of the design challenge, Seth: So that makes me curious. At what point did you recognize the need for the lore master's deck? Right? Because we talked about how the, the Deck of Worlds really is about the space, building out the space of a world. at what point did you suddenly say, oh, wait, we also need something that's going to explore this web of relationships? Yes. Inside this space. Peter: So the Lord Master X started out as I was looking at releasing a bunch of, expansions that wouldn't necessarily be tied to Deck of Worlds or Story Engine deck, but I wanted to have like a little deck for building species, a little deck for building factions. I had all these different ideas and then the more I was playing with them independently and drafting material for them, the more I was like, well, what if this faction, was like an animal cult? Okay. And like this animal, it really matters where it lives. Mm-hmm. And so many of the prompts I'm writing for indicate where it lives. What if, rather than like having to, you know, in this giant bank of prompts that I'm writing about, like animal behaviors, their, their social behavior, their hunting behavior, their diet, their morphology. What if in this giant list, I didn't have to. Write out like all the different ecosystems they could live in. And instead there was a number of prompts that just said like, they live in this location. Mm-hmm. Um, how much more remix and layer and how much more material is there for someone to create connections? what if when I'm creating say, like, uh, objects as, using the anchor deck from store engine deck, what if those were specialized so that I could have like the locations separated out from the objects and we could learn about the properties of the objects and also the properties of the material and where those materials come from. And those materials can come from locations and creatures. Those materials can be stockpiled by factions. The more I realized that, the genres of, of prompts that I was writing, Didn't have to be limited when those prompts could call on other card types to fill in the blank. Mm-hmm. Uh, the more I realized like, oh, it's, it's about the connections, right? It's about what, what links the A to B. and that's where, um, just from a design perspective, that's where you can have so much more re relayer ability and remix ability and recombine ability. rather than having to like pick, I can only fit, you know, 12 prompts about where a creature lives suddenly. Every single prompt that I've ever created for a location can be the answer to where that creature lives. Right. And that's structured into the cards themselves. yeah, that was a very eye-opening moment. And then just figuring out how to make sure that those connections work and were balanced across the different card types. Mm-hmm. became like the, that longer drafting process, but once that was figured out it was like, oh, this, this is a lot of fun. That's so cool. And, and it's, it's neat cuz it like reminds you to, it reminds you that your world is connected, right? Right. It reminds you that each of these pieces has a chance to talk to another. you don't just have to have like a linear structure for like, okay, this lore connects to this or this, or it can be a web. things can cross connect and, and combine in surprising ways. and especially when you end up with like triangles of motivations where like, yes, this faction, is trying to hunt down this, def defector. But this defector, is under the protection of another allied faction that's connected to that faction. mm-hmm. How do you resolve a dispute like that? Like, I, I just love seeing when the threads get tangled and that's often where the story is, right. Is where you abs Seth: That is absolutely where the story is cuz that's where the conflict is. Yeah. And so immediately, I mean, you mentioned that and immediately a story is springing to mind of like, how would I resolve that? Yeah. And so that's, that's really, that's really cool. Well, I cannot recommend this enough to our listeners. Seriously, like these, these tools are incredibly effective and they are easy to use. Those two things combined together into something that is eminently practical. Right. I have, for most of my worlds that I have built, for most of my novels, I have flipped something out. And again, whether I use the entire thing or just pieces of it,the Deck of Worlds has sort of acted as this starting point. This kernel from which the garden is being grown. And I'm really excited to get my hands on the Lore Master's deck as well and check that out. Exploring the connections between the beings and the objects that inhabit a world is just so fun. And so I'm, I'm really pumped for this. Thank you very much for coming on and talking to us about it. where can people find you? Peter: my handle is usually at rock paper snack on social, most social media, but for Story Engine Deck, uh, stuff you'll wanna check out. We're at Story Engine Deck on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, I think that's pretty sure. It's our username on, on YouTube. that's, sure you can find us and check out things. Also, if you just like, wanna try out Story Engine, I always recommend checking out the free demo. if it, this is a good way to like, figure out, hey, does this fit my process? Same thing. We have one for Deck of Worlds you can download for free. you can find that storyenginedeck.com/demo. See you. Okay. Is this, is this a good thing for me? Is this gonna work for me? Seth: Well, Peter, thank you so much for coming on and talking to us. Thanks a lot. It's always, Peter: it's always a pleasure. It's always so much fun. James: So that about does it, we provided links to all the Peter stuff in the show notes. So you can link directly from here and find him on all his outlets. We always love talking with Peter and would encourage you to go and find him and support his latest project. The lore master stack, which is currently live as of June 20. And usual fashion I'll plug our fantastic community of creatives that we keep on the discord link in the show notes, where we frequently use the deck of worlds to craft miniature settings, which we then use for flash, fictions and other games to help practice your writing and worldbuilding skills. For Seth and Peter. I'm James. And this has been the WorldCraft Club podcast. We hope to see you again real soon. Seth: I like the war crime one. Peter: All right. We've got a church that did a war crime. We're starting. Yeah, we're going hard right off the bat. Seth: Yeah, we are.