For conworlding:
http://www.imaginaryworlds.net/category/shakespeare-and-dragons-podcast/
A podcast is produced here that concentrates on worldbuilding and, while it includes for storywriting and RPGing, the information is great. Its less a resource for flat data and more a class on how to build from scratch.
I'm only a few episodes in.. but so far they're pretty good. The first two episodes concentrated on character creation and tone. The tone episode gave me some good ideas for Savukk's development. the third episode is great and discusses economies.
Definitely worth looking into, even if you're not up for every of the 13 hour-long episodes.
Since the site is a little wonky, I direct-linked all the episodes for convenience:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode001.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode002.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode003.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode004.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode005.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode006.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode008.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode009.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode10.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode011.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad-episode012.mp3
http://media.libsyn.com/media/imworlds/sad_episode013.mp3
The Zaharam-Chapelle-Parunas Ethnographical QuestionnairePadraic Brown of Yahoo!'s egroup "ConCulture" has come up with the following questionnaire.
I think it's a worthwhile project to combine the two questionnaires, as they both ask some really good questions that world builders and conculturers should be aware of. Therefor, I've taken the liberty of combining them: I've weeded out some redundant or overly detailed questions; made some of the very focussed questions more general and have added a few new ones. I've also removed all of the "how do they feel about" questions -- I thought it was a bit too cluttery, and anyway, such an opinion based question can always be tacked on to any of the questions already there.
Let me know what you think! I'll put it up on Conculture once I've gotten all the minor spelling errors and such sorted out. If I've forgotten something obvious, please let me know!
===============================================
The Zaharam-Chapelle-Parunas Ethnographical Questionnaire
Introduction:
For several years, the standard questionnaire used by anthropologists studying various cultures in the Eastlands has been that of Dr. Ellandwine Zaharam of the Univ. of Auntimoany. While it has proven itself in the field, many philosophers have thought that it could be satisfactorily amplified by creating several new categories not addressed in the original and expanding some of the old categories with new questions. A committee of eight faculty and students worked to add questions to the questionnaire, the result of which is the following Zaharam-Chapelle-Parunas Ethnographical Questionnaire.
At nearly double the size of the original (and considerably larger than similar tools), concerns have been raised about the possible unwieldiness of the tool. In order to maintain the general utility of the questionnaire, several related main categories have been compressed, while new ones that were not addressed in the older questionnaires have been created. Individual related questions have often been compressed into a single multipart question; it is felt that this practice in no way affects the practicability of the tool. Also, several very good but extremely focussed or detail oriented questions have been left out. While it is keenly felt that persons living in a community can offer great insights into the various topic explored in the questionnaire, it is felt that questions along the line of "how do people feel about this" are best left out, as any of the questions herein explored may be reasonably followed up by this sort of perceptive interrogation.
The format of the new questionnaire is the same as the older verion, namely, a number of broad categories in which several related questions about a country or region or tribal structure may be explored. The main departure from the older format is in the elimination of the question numbers. It is felt that poorly worded or redundant questions could be more easily excised and new questions could be inserted if the numbers were eliminated. It has been made abundantly clear that no such questionnaire could ever be seen as compleat, however, the committee have striven to produce a workable and comprehensive tool rather than an absolutely compleat one. It is hoped that, as the needs arise, new main or subordinated categories can easily be inserted into the structure of the present questionnaire without disrupting the flow of questions or the layout of the questionnaire. The order of main categories is roughly from the broader concepts of Nature to the more specific aspects of the culture under consideration. It was felt that the questions should be left somewhat broad rather than focussed, as it is always possible to follow up an interview with questions seeking further detail. If highly detailed questions are asked from the outset, the interview can easily get bogged down in minutiae, for we would risk missing the forest for the trees.
The chief categories of the Questionnaire are:
I. Questions of Place;
IJ. Questions of Time;
IIJ. Questions of Race and Ethnicity;
IIIJ. Questions of Family;
V. Questions of Customs and Social Life;
VI. Questions of Manners;
VIJ. Questions of Faith;
VIIJ. Questions of Labour;
IX. Questions of Art;
X. Questions of Marriage;
XI. Questions of Health;
XIJ. Questions of Sex;
XIIJ. Questions of Education;
XIIIJ. Questions of Technology;
XV. Questions of Transportation and Communications;
XVI. Questions of Economics;
XVIJ. Questions of Death and Burial;
XVIIJ. Questions of Government;
XIX. Questions of Warfare.
http://wiki.frath.net/Dr._Zahar%E2%80%99s_Ethnographical_Questionnaire
ER, If that has a link, please post it, otherwise, that post is way too big and I will need you to edit it down.
ER, If that has a link, please post it, otherwise, that post is way too big and I will need you to edit it down.
I have found out that eventually it will be at
http://bethisad.com/conculture/questionnaire.htm,
but it's not there yet. When it is I'll edit my post above to only the outline and the link.
A whole mess o' questionnaires for language description that are useful by degrees:
http://www.ling.udel.edu/pcole/fieldmethods/fieldwork_tools_and_resour.htm
Oh, and if you ever wanted to write an entire book describing your lang, try the first link (The Lingua Descriptive Studies Questionnaire). Its 58 fun-filled pages of questions to answer about your lang. oi :)
A whole mess o' questionnaires for language description that are useful by degrees:
http://www.ling.udel.edu/pcole/fieldmethods/fieldwork_tools_and_resour.htm
I very much appreciate this link and this list of questionnaires. Thanks for posting it.
http://bprhad.wz.cz/awkwords/index.php
An amazing word generator that will greatly increase your ability to create vocabulary at lightening speeds.
^^ Beware though, it does not filter duplicates... :)
^^ Beware though, it does not filter duplicates... :)
Yeah, but that's what the alpahbetic sort function on MSExcel is for! :D
