Shared Worlds?

I think creating a world from the start takes all sort of people that have differnet strenghts. A mapper could be able to help a lot more in how a world works before anyone else.

I can commit to generating 3-5 potential world maps for a group to pick from, and then export slices and views as necessary for folks to start fleshing out. And I would probably also help work on smaller sections, but I won't guarantee anything just yet, since we're nowhere near that stage of development.

Right, need at least a handful of people before anything is started.

you could try recuiting here, on the WoTC forums:

http://community.wizards.com/go/foru...nture_workshop

Also, maybe Obsidian Portal? they provide campaign building wikis and so many people use it as a tool for writing out worlds - you could use that as the home for the project.

I've never heard of Obsidian Portal. I'll drop by the wizards.com forum too!

http://www.obsidianportal.com/

That said, the problem with shared world projects is that they usually die after an initial spurt of enthusiasm. You'll need to recruit a serious core of worldbuilders to keep it going past a few weeks/months.

I put together a shared world about 6 years ago with a group of writers. It was fun, though I think only me and one other person took stories from the world. But that was all right. I do want to see if there is away to really continue with a shared world for a long period of time. That's why I've been looking into the RPG forums, seeing if there is a market there.

I'd love to do a shared world some day. Maybe even turn some of my designs into shared worlds, using a set of loose rules for fiction similar to what they used for the Thieves' World anthologies.

I don't think there's much of a market for worlds. There's so many of them. Yeah you can probably sell some world books if you create something reasonably interesting, but you won't live from the proceeds. ;)

You need to come up with something different enough to sell it, and turly new unique ideas - or mixes of ideas, rather - are HARD because the market is so flooded.

That said, there's a market for related products - things that build on such a world, like fiction, game emodules, tv shows, whatever; and if they are successful the world suddenly becomes an IP. Big if, though.

I really think most worlds do lean toward something like the Thieve's world and such. More of a writing background rather then anything else.
And it's getting to be very hard to design something differnet in a world that's never been seen before. I think that's where a group comes in, more than one person can come up with something cool.

I have a website set up for this, 3 people strong so far. If anyone is sure they want to join, please send me a PM here and I'll send you a link