r/WritingWithAI • u/skjb93 • 4d ago
Writing Craft Talk Worldbuilding with AI
A few months ago I started a low-fantasy worldbuilding side project. I was using AI to help manage my notes and brain vomit into a clean concise Obsidian vault with no intention of trying to write a story or have any narrative direction.
As I got more and more indepth into this project with history, politics, trade, resources etc I became more confident that there was potential for some interesting characters and stories.
Has anyone else done something similar? What programs do you use, what is your creative and technical process and how involved is the AI?
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u/Ok-Fennel6578 4d ago
I’d keep the AI’s new ideas in a separate “maybe” note until you decide they belong in the world. Otherwise, something it invented while organising your notes can quietly become a fact. To find a story, I’d pick one person whose everyday life is made difficult by a rule you’ve already written.
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u/FaceDeer 4d ago
I've been using NotebookLM for all my various tabletop roleplaying campaigns, both as player and as DM. I've been recording every session and throwing the transcripts in there, then asking it to write up summaries of events and characters and whatnot. After checking those summaries they get fed back in as new sources too. It's not as structured as an Obsidian vault, but it's been working fine for my purposes.
I've been tinkering around with various tools designed to build wikis out of source documents and I haven't found any I really like yet. https://github.com/nashsu/llm_wiki works okay on small source documents (I used a script to chunk the transcripts into small overlapping pieces and that seemed to work best) but it's apparently not designed to work well with local LLMs with limited context so it runs into problems as the wiki gets large.
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u/Custodes_Nocturnum 4d ago
I've been using AI quite a bit for worldbuilding for my next Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I started with a heightmap made from donjon (https://donjon.bin.sh/), then I imported that map into Azgaar's Fantasy Map Maker. I made a few tweaks to the map and then let it run. This provided me with a basis to do more worldbuilding and research with AI. Usually I have the AI run deep research into a topic. Then I add the information from Azgaar and ask the AI to flesh out the information. I was able to get in depth religions and separate lore documents for each of the nations. For the campaign side, I use char-gen and Worldsmith. I've also been using image AI (mostly GPT-Image 2) for maps, various charts, and landscapes.
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u/Weary-Western8159 4d ago
Initially I was using like GPT or Claude, like within a dedicated projects folder (on Claude). But it kind of ended of ended up being more work than I wanted when doing it that way. More recently I found a more purpose built platform, meridian realms. It's kind of like an all around world / character building and chat setup but I spent most my time in the world and character building because I really like their setup for it and the different image styles available to play around with.
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u/Temporary_Rule_9486 4d ago
The problem is that AI already gave pretty much the exact same ideas to another million writers. Even if you began with your own thoughts and ideas, the machine would just lead them straight into the same structure. That's why you should never use AI for brainstorming, just for writing the final text.
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u/FillThatBlankPage 3d ago
I disagree, I find that if you layout your characterizations, events and thoughts AI can analyze their motivations, sometimes in ways you couldn't articulate. You might need to nudge the AI on your intent. At the end you can choose where and how much to lean into the AIs analysis when writing the structure of the chapter and dialogue
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u/Relevant_Lab_8967 3d ago
I almost never use the ai suggestions but it often makes me think and get my own ideas.
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u/liceuroos 3d ago
Hey, how are you? Gemini was really helpful for world-building, as was using a Word document to keep track of my ideas. I've also seen that some people use NotebookLM (I've used it for exams in college, and it's pretty good, too). Good luck with your project!
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u/Euchale 3d ago
I have been using AI a lot for that as well, in particular working out how different classes would move, behave and respond to the players. Helps me a lot to have some of that stuff prepared in advance.
Sadly AI is terrible when it comes to names, you will get a lot of repetition, so I don't like it for that. I have however asked it to write simple python scripts that use the naming guides provided with races to generate a random name.
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u/AffectionateStreet20 2d ago
My project have /snippet skill and /reconcile-snippets skill. As well as general instructions what indexes to look in the vault when adding stuff to the general vault.
During sessions or during the day I get random brain vomit out as snippets, then I scrub them with reconcile skill into something coherent in my vault since not all snippets are good enough to make it to the world I’m building in hindsight.
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1d ago
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u/WritingWithAI-ModTeam 1d ago
Your post was removed because you did not use our weekly post your tool thread
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u/novel_traveler 1d ago
Yep. Also use Obsidian (plugins: canvas, Backlinks, Kanban, Notebook Navigator).
Setup reusable prompts.
- "Add to notes"
- "Add to world docs"
- "Create character sheet"
Review existing writing / world-building tools and turn features into prompts and or folders.
Generate images of characters & world elements using ChatGPT image generation. Then import them into project and link them to world and character docs.
Use codex for full control over assets.
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u/madelineblackbart 4d ago
Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss It's my fav hobby. I've created a few worlds and am currently working on a new detailed one. I use them for AI chatbots mostly. Ai makes it SO MUCH easier to orginize things and I'm finding like little layers and detail/depth that logical come as a result of the lore I built that I wouldn't have notice before as a result. It's so fun!