People often marvel at the sheer amount of worldbuilding that is dedicated to things—specifically, SMPs here at LoreNews. Let’s attempt to pull back the curtain in this guide to worldbuilding, expanding past just Minecraft servers through interviewing not just the creators of these worlds, but also the participants. As this guide is meant to encompass more than just the SMP creatorspace, many of these interviewers are writers or creators!

Hopefully at the end of this guide, we will have a framework for worldbuilding that can be customized to the sky’s limit. This is not quite a step by step guide, but I hope you find it useful.

As this article touches on all nineteen interviews, people won’t be cited by name for the content.

Worldbuilding usually starts from a spark of inspiration, maybe a simple idea from day to day life, or maybe something a bit more subconscious. Existing media is also incredibly common, such as books and shows! Others also decide to tackle real world issues they may have experienced through stories.

On the topic of inspiration, many people who were interviewed used things such as etymology and mythology to help them in naming. For example, they might pick a series of words that fits the bill, and then work with etymology to find something fitting. Some other things people brought up are considering the context and culture in which these people may live, and these events may occur. Namesakes may also be the idea or animal in which you design a character around. You could also go more into foreshadowing, using the name as a representation of an overarching theme your character may experience. Mixing together names can also lead to new, unique names, especially if you like aspects of both. 

If you have a particular interest, or if the story focuses on something in particular (one example from an interview is cybersecurity, as an example), you can also use aspects of that for your names, whether its concepts or protocols. 

…Or just stick with whatever you used as a placeholder! Stealing names from a credits roll is… technically an option… (please do not get into legal trouble, and this is not legal advice).

A slightly more legal method is to ask others in your life, such as a friend or family member.

When it comes to meaning, you can either a) go with something that has significance in your lore, or b) not think too much about the meaning. Most people took a mixed approach, often concentrating their time on characters, events, or places with high significance, although not having meaningful names does not make or break your worldbuilding. 

One suggestion is to not overcomplicate it too much, as names are only one aspect of your world.

Another point to consider is that names are often picked by those in your story—so what are they thinking, and why might they pick a name? What are their goals that they want to achieve?

Something else to consider is that the significance of names in lore can also be another form of story telling, and names can have meaning to the reader (past the fourth wall), those in the story, or both. Names are inherently part of identity, which is a theme often explored in stories.

To help with names, some suggest a running list of names you like that you can pull from in future projects.

While we aren’t going to be analyzing Ulysses by James Joyce, themes are often what permeates below the surface. Some choose to establish them early on, and some discover them later. They seem to be most heavily influenced by lived experience, subtle given their overarching nature. 

Some themes people see in their own creations are: divinity, religion/faith/belief, angels and demons, real world issues (ex. sexism, discrimination, abuse, queer horror and being unable to escape, oppression and capitalism, ableism, loss of autonomy/coercion, assault), history repeating, “truth” —or rather a lack thereof, dystopias, fantasy, science fiction, modern fantasy, lightning, bees, mythology, loss and grief as well as moving past it, the sun and the moon, the human experience (such as being out of place, finding a purpose in life, and self acceptance, self discovery, family, positivity and kindness persisting through harsh circumstances, the horrors of being human, shapeshifting and identity, self consciousness, social hierarchies), justice, and comedy

In lore based SMPs, it’s important especially to trust your players and allow them to progress the server lore as whole, which helps in also keeping them involved as they are your first audience, before the viewers from videos or streams. While lore can feel all encompassing, overcomplicating and overthinking a world to the point of being swallowed by your own creation (...Don’t look at any of my projects…) is often counterproductive, and it’s important to keep your end goal, both for the server and for a character, in sight. Planning every detail limits the amount of organic interaction that can happen, which often is what best develops your world. Typically, it’s best to keep background lore from overshadowing present lore, depending on the relative importance of each. On the topic of relativity, keeping the relative significance each thing has in relation to each other can help set the tone of the scene, such as a low stakes hangout or a high stakes rescue operation.

If you are struggling with relating background lore to the present, suggestions were to base your lore on questions: “Why does this happen?” “What is the goal or motivation behind this?” and just generally digging into the cause and effect of the past, present, and future. By starting small, you can slowly build up your world. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say. Asking others for questions can also be an effective way to build up your world, alongside asking for another set of eyes to help toss ideas back and forth with.

Something simple that has been suggested is to make a skin. Minecraft skins are something that may be considered simple, but can add depth to (and be a way to show tiny details about) your character. Additionally, find others who are willing to help with your server and story! This could mean players, but could also mean actors and other admins who help tell the story, whether it's dropping hints or showing the effect of something in the world. Inspiration from well known things can also provide something players can easily connect to, especially if there is existing lore already.

Some things our audience of worldbuilding (meaning players of servers, readers, viewers, etc.) want to highlight are: 

Flawed characters, irredeemable characters (Ex. Jax in TADC)

Overall, it seems that lore can separate into two main categories: major and crucial points, or smaller details. Things required for understanding typically do best when told, but leaving smaller details and easter eggs hidden provides things for the audience to dig for and theorize on, which is half the fun of lore. 

But you don’t have to tell the “truth” either, and if you feel particularly evil, you could always spread a bit of… misinformation. 

Something that came up a lot is the idea of tailoring the level of detail hidden to your audience, and using social media as a way to keep an eye on what adjustments you may need to make to get the story across in the best way possible. Of course, this varies based on the type of server, writing, or content you wish to make as well.

Something everyone had in common is that there seems to be no strict process to follow for worldbuilding. While there are varying degrees of structure, no one has their entire end result planned out from the conception of their idea. So really, there is no way to worldbuild “wrong,” and if you have an idea, you may have started worldbuilding without even realizing. 

General advice:

This guide was created through a series of interviews, and will be part of a series of articles that will spotlight some of the interviews. 

[Unbold when person has approved-do not translate this line please!]

People interviewed (via text) for this project: Aika (Tiktok), Annie (Twitter), Andrenidae (Twitter, Twitch), Bubvy (Twitter), Danny (Twitter, Tumblr, Tiktok), Daybreakingtree (Twitter, Twitch), FourLeavedTree (Twitter, Twitch), Ghosty (Twitter, Tumblr), iZombby (Twitch), Jampoint (Runs TimeKeeperSMP), Jetsplicer (Twitter, Youtube), Milkway (Tiktok), muttdogzz (Twitter, Tiktok, Tumblr), Northiuss (Twitter, Twitch), Odyssey (Twitter), Rothby (Twitter, Twitter Lore), stupid_soggycat, Theseus (Twitter), ZENOSLOTS (Twitter)

Thank you to everyone who let me “interview” (throw questions at them for anywhere from 90-180+ minutes) them!

Keep your eyes out for yet another series of Lore Guides by Vi!