Getting Started with Lenses

The Problem: Thoughtful, Evocative Worldbuilding

I'm going to start by describing a problem: How do we layer detail into our world or game universe without getting bogged down in irrelevant-feeling details?

Well, by adding systems! Systems that emphasize contrast.

Let's say we're designing corporations for a cyberpunk universe:

• Mandolin Manufacturing
• Zeppo Heavy Industry
• Lentellus Astronavigation
• Supranational Broadcast Corporation

Before long that just starts to read like a list of names, ungrounded in any metaphor that we could use to quickly understand them.

So, we layer in subtle elemental associations:

• Mandolin Manufacturing - earth, solid, reliable, slow-moving.
• Zeppo Heavy Industry - fire, shoot first and ask questions later.
• Lentellenus Astronavigation - water, flexible and fast-moving.
• Supranational Broadcast Corporation - air, everpresent and hard to pin down.

All of a sudden these corporations start to feel flavorful, more well-developed, and in better contrast with one another. Plus, that system is also an easy metaphor for readers to quickly digest.

So, this system has improved our world design!

It goes deeper, though, we could add more systems!

Each corporation could also have an associated kind of instrumental music: waltz, polka, cha-cha, dirge.

That gives us theme and flavor whenever the corporation is referenced in the story. If we hear a waltz, we'll think of Zeppo Heavy Industry.

Now, to start out with, that's quite easy to do, but not terribly satisfying: okay, now we have a corporation that has "cha-cha" and "Earth" associated with it, but what good is that? Why does that matter?

Hopefully the fun part of this book is that we can develop an interesting interplay between the systems at play: the element "void" would associate well with the musical style "dirge", so we pair them up.

As an example from the world of Avatar: the Last Airbender, the four elements were stacked with four different styles of martial arts: Fire was a broad and flashy shaolin-style kung fu, whereas Water was paired up with the soft, control-focused Tai Chi, and these connections felt satisfying and resonant because they matched up cleanly with their elemental associations. On top of that, the elements were also stacked with emotional connotations: Fire characters tended to be passionate and hot-tempered, Earth characters stable and solid, and so forth.

This "systems-first" world design ends up feeling very coherent and cohesive.

The more systems we stack and try to keep consistent with one another, the more rich and detailed our world becomes. It invites a kind of pleasing interconnectedness that feels satisfying to interact with.

Throughout this book, I call each different "system" that we could apply to a world design a "lens".

Using This Book

This book contains a wide variety of different systems (lenses) that stack with one another - some of them rich and characterful (like the characterization lens) - others totally cosmetic and easily disposable (like the color lens).

When we tie all of the lenses together, we end up with something that feels comprehensive and detailed, and I illustrate them all with the complete wheel:

Whoa there! That's a lot of information! And it's in a wheel, a format that's notoriously hard to read on a digital device without craning your neck way around.

That's a bit dense and inscrutable at the moment, which is why we can unpack it by looking at it through each of our lenses.

It starts much more simply:

Just a blank template, names to layer details over.

As an example of how this plays out, it develops our initial blank archetype, Blit, and connects it to:

• a broad idea: the artist.
• a characterization: dour and cynical, but secretly hopeful and brave.
• a role in the story: as a vector for "darkest before the dawn" moments.
• an elemental association: void, plague and gravity.
• game mechanics: removal, spreading, and vastness.
• a color: dark purple.
• connected visual symbols: space, art, moons.

Hopefully this collection of thematically connected details starts to make the "Blit" category feel thoughtful and well developed: but also, these thematic associations are not prescriptive about story or setting. A Blit could just as easily exist as a dour plague religion in a fantasy story, a hole-themed superhero in a comic-book setting, a gothic art collective in a contemporary modern tale, or a profit-seeking human-recyling corporation in a cyberpunk universe.

As an example of a more fully realized world built in the Groovelet framework, I've provided the Sample World: Harmony in the Homework section.

This book is organized:

• First, with an in-depth look at each individual lens.
• Then, with "the complete wheel" and indexed examples, per archetype, of what each archetype looks like with all lenses applied.
• Finally, with homework: suggestions for things you might do with the lenses, as well as examples of worlds and art designed with the lenses in mind.

The Lenses

By Characterization

Start Here if You're Developing Characters

Each archetype has a distinct characterization or set of characterizations that can be used to develop this archetype into a more well-realized character.

This is a foundational, load bearing lens: everything after it connects to these fundamental twelve characters.

While each lens is optional, this lens may be the least optional.

By Role in the Story Cycle

Start Here if You're Developing Plot Outlines

Each archetype in the Groovelet: Portable Mythology embodies one phase of the story cycle.

It's a good way to help imagine when in your story these archetypes may be useful.

By Element & Game Mechanic

Start Here if You're a Game Designer

Each archetype corresponds to an element and set of game mechanics.

This is where we start to tie our loose, emotional, abstract characters to concrete elemental associations and ideas.

Really, up until this point our lenses offer very little guidance on what characters might look like, or what they might be able to do, and this is where elements and mechanics start to help.

By Thematic Symbol, Color, & Glyph

Start Here for Visual Reference

This lens is aesthetic, and optional.

Each archetype is connected to a thematic symbol, like "Chains" for Oth, or "Puppets" for Zariel, as well as a color, and an easy-to-draw glyph.

These symbols provide quick, easy to understand visual analogues for some of the concepts we've already explored.

By Suit and Court

This lens is pure flavor.

Like in a deck of cards, the archetypes are split into suits and courts: four suits (Keys, Wands, Swords, and Moons), and three Courts (Roots, Agents, and Crowns).

Leitmotif and Music

Each archetype has a unique position on the wheel of fifths, a leitmotif and style of music.