Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a site for designers, writers, artists, gamers and enthusiasts to get help creating imaginary worlds.
World building includes geography, culture and creatures for the world, not to mention magic and planetary physics, in short, everything from the physics underlying your reality to the entire universe you want to build. Links in the description below will take you to good example questions or more background information on the topic linked.
When asking questions keep in mind that the goal of the site is to help you build your world, not to tell your story.
If a system, event or element of the world is causing you problems we are here to help. If on the other hand you aren’t sure what a character (be it an individual or organization) should do, that is out of scope for the site, though we often have such discussions in Worldbuilding Chat.
General guidelines for all questions:
- Must be specific and answerable: What problem are you trying to solve?
- Must include context: What are you trying to accomplish? Context gives people writing answers an idea of what your end state will look like and why you want to get there.
- Must include restrictions/requirements: What will make one answer better than another? If any answer is equally effective your question is not properly constrained. How can this be executed? What tech, timeline, magic or other criteria apply to the situation.
- Should include research: What ideas have you considered, or what information have you already looked at or failed to find?
Sample topics that can be asked about on Worldbuilding SE (not an all-inclusive list):
- Flora and fauna
- Languages and cultures
- Buildings and infrastructure
- Religions and history
- Technology and magic (magic questions must explain how the magic system works)
Note: Questions relating to plot and character building are out of scope for the site
Keep in mind the following when asking about actions or events in your world.
- Events: Questions need to include the setting/situation and the event or, the result you are trying to get to and the setting/situation.
- History: History questions should NOT be about real-world history, unless asking for examples to construct a particular history for a world.
- Reality Check: Provide the relevant details of your world and a situation and we will make sure it remains internally consistent.
Site Resources for new and old users alike:
The Sandbox.: The sandbox on our meta site allows you to post a question and have others review the question prior to posting it on the main site. This allows you to refine your question/ideas prior, this can help avoid questions getting put on hold/closed.
The perfect question checklist.: Following the details in this post will help you write good questions.
Are real world questions on-topic?: This post outlines the community consensus on questions asking about real world topics. Towards the end it explains the expectations related to these questions.
Making a good question about actions or events. This post demonstrates what you need in a question from virtually any perspective.
Questions must be specific as well as answerable. If you are looking for discussion, brainstorming, or an overall process rather than specific questions and answers, the Worldbuilding Stack Exchange might not be a good place for your question. Such questions may however be welcome in Worldbuilding Chat. Also see Good Subjective, Bad Subjective for why this type of question is hard, and some guidelines on how to post good subjective questions which are less likely to end up being closed.
Please do not cross-post questions to multiple Stack Exchange sites. If you want your question migrated to a different site within the Stack Exchange network, use the "flag" action link below the question text to flag it for moderator attention, select custom reason, and request migration to your desired site. A moderator will then look into the request and take appropriate action.