I missed a few last time, so here are some more.
- Backstory is not very helpful, for the most part, and largely comes from a player wanting to write their own story, not play in an adventure game. If you must, don't handcuff the Referee, don't significantly worldbuild unless invited to do so, and don't expect anyone to read more than a paragraph or two. Remember that the only real value in backstory is to let the Referee know what general sort of game you want to experience, but a lot of that is better explained by character design choices like character class or selection of skills. Most especially for the pathological backstory writer, always remember that your character in most games is a beginning adventurer, so don't write backstory that over-glorifies your character.
- Skills in games should be more about giving characters options than enforcing "niche protection". Also, most skills don't need to have a roll for success. A character with a skill should be able to do the thing.
- Most game worlds don't really need non-human intelligent species like orcs, gnolls, and such, and they usually are uncomfortably incorporated into the settings they inhabit at best. Consider replacing wandering groups of humanoids with human groups, unless you have a pressing need for non-humans. Is "making violence against them more acceptable" a pressing need? Maybe? At least you'll be more honest about your motivations rather than just accidentally coding your prejudices into the setting. To look to a couple of examples from Japanese fantasy that illustrate the point, the predatory demons of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End/Sōsō no Frieren, whose use of language only serves the purpose of attracting their prey and subduing its fears rather than creating social connection as with other speaking beings, are a perfect example of doing it right. The goblins of GOBLIN SLAYER are perhaps less perfect, but at least they make the author's fetishes plain.
- While there is certainly value in sticking to the tried and true like Tolkien or D&D Kitchen Sink fantasy, it's also worthwhile to look wider for inspiration. I am particularly interested in Japanese fantasy lately, such as the aforementioned Frieren, Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin, Made in Abyss (which is particularly interesting from a D&D/Dungeon Fantasy perspective), Ishura (worth comparing to the Sine Nomine game Godbound, actually; free version is here), Clevatess/Clevatess: Majū no Ō to Akago to Shikabane no Yūsha, and the like can stand strong beside other non-Tolkien and non-Poul Anderson fantasy like Gormenghast, the works of Lord Dunsany, Barsoom, or Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty.
