Dump all your general ideas, proposals, suggestions, pieces of advice etc. for game development, writing and such in here. Don't be shy, no matter how big or small, at least someone might be interested in hearing them.
Let me start with a couple of mine, concerning settings:
1. Theming is the most important part of every project you'll ever start working on as it is a big part of immersion. If the player is not immersed, there can be no meaningful roleplaying.
2. Immersion goes hand in hand with the believability of your setting. Remember that in order for the world to feel real it does not need to be realistic but internally consistent.
3. There's nothing wrong with making "kitchen sink" settings i.e. throwing in every reference to pieces of media you like. If you wanna have medieval fantasy with space ships go for it as long as you can make it internally consistent.
4. Careful with adding every single fantasy race you can think of, lest you run the risk of redundancy. I personally would stick to the classics (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit) and add some regional variants. Yknow blacks, snow elfs etc. Add gender stat mods, with women getting minuses to things like STR, CON and DEX while men get minuses to WIS, INT and CHA.
5. If you insist on adding OC races, make sure that they are actually different from the races they are meant to replace. PoE had those weird orlan things or whatever they were called that were just furry hobbits. Githzerai and githyanki on the other hand are an example of a good OC race. Make giths, not orlans.
6. Be careful with how you handle the undead. If necromancy exists and is capable of raising skeleton armies then there better be a good reason as to why the world has not yet been taken over by necromancers. Because an army that can't be killed should be able to do just that. Maybe most undead just suck, being little more than twitching rotten flesh or maybe they are very easily destroyed by clapping your hands. Whatever it is, come up with something.
7. Don't make vampires mooks. Vampires have too much character potential to be used as anything less than a main villain.
8. Either have a reason why resurrection spells are not commonplace or do not have them at all. This is something that has always bothered me about D&D style settings. In a world where you can bring people back to life, death is meaningless. Do not limit the accessibility of resurrection to wealth or status because then you get immortal god kings who just get revived every time they die. I personally would just introduce permadeath in order to disincentivise frequent combat, giving combat in itself more weight and shifting the focus onto actual roleplaying.
9. Careful with any sort of Lovecraftian cosmology. The whole point of Lovecraft's writing is that we and the world are meaningless in the face of far larger things we cannot hope to understand. You however do not want your setting and adventurers to be meaningless. Feel free to have fish monsters, refrain from having fish gods.
10. Try to find a happy medium between low fantasy and high fantasy. High fantasy may suffer from magic ultimately feeling dull because it is so commonplace and low fantasy may feel a bit bland because of the relative lack of magical elements. Up to personal preference though.
Happy idea sharing everybody
Let me start with a couple of mine, concerning settings:
1. Theming is the most important part of every project you'll ever start working on as it is a big part of immersion. If the player is not immersed, there can be no meaningful roleplaying.
2. Immersion goes hand in hand with the believability of your setting. Remember that in order for the world to feel real it does not need to be realistic but internally consistent.
3. There's nothing wrong with making "kitchen sink" settings i.e. throwing in every reference to pieces of media you like. If you wanna have medieval fantasy with space ships go for it as long as you can make it internally consistent.
4. Careful with adding every single fantasy race you can think of, lest you run the risk of redundancy. I personally would stick to the classics (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit) and add some regional variants. Yknow blacks, snow elfs etc. Add gender stat mods, with women getting minuses to things like STR, CON and DEX while men get minuses to WIS, INT and CHA.
5. If you insist on adding OC races, make sure that they are actually different from the races they are meant to replace. PoE had those weird orlan things or whatever they were called that were just furry hobbits. Githzerai and githyanki on the other hand are an example of a good OC race. Make giths, not orlans.
6. Be careful with how you handle the undead. If necromancy exists and is capable of raising skeleton armies then there better be a good reason as to why the world has not yet been taken over by necromancers. Because an army that can't be killed should be able to do just that. Maybe most undead just suck, being little more than twitching rotten flesh or maybe they are very easily destroyed by clapping your hands. Whatever it is, come up with something.
7. Don't make vampires mooks. Vampires have too much character potential to be used as anything less than a main villain.
8. Either have a reason why resurrection spells are not commonplace or do not have them at all. This is something that has always bothered me about D&D style settings. In a world where you can bring people back to life, death is meaningless. Do not limit the accessibility of resurrection to wealth or status because then you get immortal god kings who just get revived every time they die. I personally would just introduce permadeath in order to disincentivise frequent combat, giving combat in itself more weight and shifting the focus onto actual roleplaying.
9. Careful with any sort of Lovecraftian cosmology. The whole point of Lovecraft's writing is that we and the world are meaningless in the face of far larger things we cannot hope to understand. You however do not want your setting and adventurers to be meaningless. Feel free to have fish monsters, refrain from having fish gods.
10. Try to find a happy medium between low fantasy and high fantasy. High fantasy may suffer from magic ultimately feeling dull because it is so commonplace and low fantasy may feel a bit bland because of the relative lack of magical elements. Up to personal preference though.
Happy idea sharing everybody