What's your advice for world building? [Archive] - Wizards Community

What's your advice for world building? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DM_Rennick
06-01-07, 10:25 PM Hey gang.

I've been DMing quite regularly, once a week in fact, with a group of friends for about 3 years now, and a few of us have started a side game that's to be RP heavy and a little harsher with the rules. I'm experienced DMing but everything I've run has been set in a premade world (Star Wars, Forgotten Realms) so I'm looking for advice, any advice really on how to build a campaign setting?
Araes
06-02-07, 12:42 AM This is a rather broad question, so clarification would help, but in general I can suggest a strategy and some help. My advice will be a slight bit formulaic, but its a proven strategy that tends to work and get things moving.

First, ask yourself a general question of what a 10 second idea for a campaign might be. Come up with several, or many short ones if need be, and try mixing and matching them to find concepts that you like.

Second, since this is a world directly built for a particular group of players, evaluate against their styles of play whether these concepts would have ample opportunities for adventure, and whether they would generally like this style of campaign. Note that at this point I'm still thinking rather vague ideas.

Third, make at least a rough approximation about a couple of factors:

Would you feel more comfortable filling in some grand details about the world first, or maybe starting a bit closer to where the PCs will be and building up from there?
How much impact would you like the PCs / players to have on the canvas of the world. IE, how much of it will you really firm up before getting them started in it.

These two questions can help you decide where you want to start. If you feel more comfortable with some big details and then working down towards the smaller aspects of the PCs and their initial adventures, then you can start with what we call Outside - In development. If you instead would rather make up some initial details about the area where the PCs will be, and from there maybe create some larger picture details once you've found inspiration, then you could instead start with Inside - Out development. I won't go into these extensively, as the DMG has a nice section on them, and I could be here all night talking about this concept if I let myself. [For your reference, that section starts on page 135 in the DMG 3.5]

The other question can give you an idea on how much work you want to put into this before you really start playing. You say you have some experience DMing, but I don't know your personal style. Some people like myself are very comfortable, and almost prefer a more improv style of game, where you rough out some details for what you want, and then just drop the players in and let them spark off creativity in you. As they move and explore, you'll build details that are directly built off of concepts you improvise or only had roughly patterned out, and that they were interested in.

However, some people also prefer to build a campaign whole cloth before they put their players into it. This doesn't mean that they think of every minute detail before they play, or that they railroad their players with overwrought concepts, but they do like to have a lot of the background and immediate information ready so that they have things to draw on. This allows their games to be quite cohesive, and they can lay out patterns / plots more easily very far in advance.

Anyhow, hope that helps at least in a general sense, and from there you can ask more specific questions. Note that I haven't covered anything about mapmaking or all the technical stuff yet, as there's just too much of that without some guidance on information.

Other things that can help:

Open up prior campaign settings you've played (FR in your case) and look at the general elements that were included to complete the first campaign bible for that setting. I have a rather long list (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=12566488&postcount=4)that I tend to use myself.
Ask yourself some questions about the campaign. I've got a big list (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=854352)of them if you need help thinking of some.
Ask your players what they would like to see, or possibly even allow them to help in the design process of the campaign. Dawn of Worlds (www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf) (pdf) is an interesting idea in that regard that you might like to look at.

Its not quite a nuclear response, but hopefully it will help. My sig also has a few more topics.
DM_Rennick
06-02-07, 09:57 AM Thanks a lot man, this all helps alot. You're pretty good at these types of things.

As far as specific questions go, I'm a little in over my head since I've never flat out made a world before. I don't think I need advice on creating a plot, I'm fairly good at that and tend to give my players enough freedom that anymore than a basic plot outline tends to be wasted writing. So we should focus on the actual world, Let's try map building and city creation, any advice on those topics?
taradusis
06-02-07, 11:26 AM When making the map leave part of it blank for later exploration.Draw an unexplored island chain so you can set up a series of one shot adventures or a Pirate campaign.As a bit of shameless self-promotion may I reccomend my Aquatic thread?771660 has a few island descriptions you may find interesting.I find the episodic nature of island exploration to be like the voyages of the starship Enterprise?Just my thoughts.
Araes
06-03-07, 02:48 AM On city creation, it will depend a bit on where you want your players to start. A major city, or a smaller town or village. I like metropoli for the number and variety of easy plot hooks, but many prefer more wilderness flavor to their games. Plus, dungeons and that kind of thing are easier to find.

No matter the city size, I recommend only very vaguely detailing the specific aspects of the town unless they're planned to be there for a Long time. In general, its better to just create a general idea of what there will be in your head, and then develop what they're interested in and use. For getting a general idea of those aspects, I recommend:

A Magical Medieval City Guide (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1678)

Its a free pdf that details all the aspects you could ever care to know about for city generation. In addition, the DMG has a fairly extensive section on the topic as well. Right now, I wouldn't bother with super extensive maps for the city / town unless you're planning on adventuring in the city, and instead just let your players be where they need to.

Now, as far as world map generation goes, if you've never done this before, then the easiest thing to do is probably just to start with one, not overly large continent and then build from there. Also, its easiest to assume that you're living in a relatively earth-like world as far as weather patterns and the like go.

Now, just start drawing the outline of a shape. When doing this, you want to make it look pretty fractal-ish. Fractals are basically geometric shapes that as you zoom in on them, keep revealing further and further levels of detail. The following picture illustrates the idea pretty well.

http://theworldbuilder.googlepages.com/FractalMap.jpg

Note how the terrain has this kind of jagged, wandering look to it. And whether you're looking at the very large details, or the really tiny ones, they all exibit that same random aspect in larger or smaller form.

Mess around. Create a few of these, as they're quick and easy to do. Then pick one that you like. Once that's done with, you can then start in on things like mountains. Depending on how complicated you want to be, you can either put these wherever you think they look good, or you can try to do this from a relatively scientific approach. If you go with the scientific approach, then you can approximate knowledge of what plates do with some more simple ideas.

Generally, mountains form on or near a major boundary between two plates.
Extending out from continents, and in line with mountains, you will often have areas of raised land like peninsulas or island chains.
Any mountains that aren't at the edge of currently moving plate boundaries can be in different orientations, but they are probably going to be older, more worn down mountains. (Appalacians are a good example)
In a few cases, you may also have mountain chains formed by volcanic hotspots in the planet that are slowly moving across the landscape. These are more rare, and in many cases, they will instead just produce several volcanoes that are somewhat separated.

Now, once you have placed your mountains, you will then want to figure out your climate. For now, lets assume you're northern hemisphere, and Earthlike weather. Depending on how close to an equator or pole you are, some areas may be warmer or colder. In general though, on the western side of mountains (windward), particularly the most westward ones on a continent, you will see heavy rain areas with verdant growth and forests. Rivers will also be more frequent. On the eastward (leeward) side of mountains, there will generally be a rain shadow, or area with little to no rain, and terrain like deserts, dry grassland / savanah will be more common. This isn't to say that's all there will be, just a trend.

From there, just start figuring out how far you want each of the groups to extend. Remember that rivers flow downhill towards larger bodies of water.

After that, its civilizations, if you want to detail that extensively. For now, you might just want to put the major town, and maybe some of the areas around it. If you do want to put them, they'll often cluster around rivers, and they'll choose things like mountains and other harsh terrain as natural borders. A good resource for figuring out how big they are, and how they are dispersed is:

Medieval Demographics Made Easy (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm)

Anyhow, that should give you a general idea, and I hope it helps some.
Dex
06-03-07, 11:55 PM When making a city, I find you need to take a couple of things into consideration:

1. A City must be defensible. Whether it's got a great big wall, or it's on the top of a plateau, the city has to have something to stop hordes of orcs or other gribbly things from eating the general populace.

2. All cities are unique. Think of something this city is famed for. This probably has more to do with the surrounding lands and geography than anything else. It might be the biggest, or the most traffic congested, or the most cosmopolitan. It might be right near the Dwarven strongholds, so it could be considered the "gateway to the undermountains" or perhaps the place to go if you want refined ore or raw iron.

3. Isolation. In a DND world, you probably don't have a cluster of megacities like you get these days. Large cities should be separated by a fair distance, like a week's travel. The smallest towns should be about a full day's travel apart.

4. Resource lines. Where does a city get it's supplies from? What trade passes through? How are they transported (road, sea, lightning rail, skyships)?

Hope these inspire you.
Johnny_Angel
06-04-07, 12:36 AM One thing I always say is to not limit yourself to inspiration from fantasy sources. There plenty of good stories in other genres (sci-fi, historical fiction, etc) that can easily be adapted to work in a fantasy game. Many people seem to have the idea that only fantasy books and fantasy movies can be good inspiration.

One big example (and one I used myself once) was the XBox game Halo. I was already a big fan of the game, so it wasn't much of a stretch for me to be inspired by it, but I really think it has some good story/plot elements that would work in a fantasy setting. Other examples include the following: Battlestar Galactica, Smokey and The Bandit, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, and various others.

I'm sure somebody is going to at least think "How the hell can Smokey and The Bandit be inspiration for D&D?" Well, it's easy. You have a character trying to illegally transport something from point A to point B while trying to evade the authorities. One of the authorities has a personal grudge against "the bandit," and will stop at nothing -even disrespecting other authority figures- to catch the bandit. If you think about it, this really isn't that much different from Lord of The Rings - trying to get a certain object from point A to point B.

There are also a lot of fantasy based stories that are not considered for things such as D&D. R. Howard, Tolkien, and Jack Vance are commonly reference for fantasy games (and rightly so; they're excellent authors,) but there is an enormous font of fantasy content that is never used for inspiration. One of the most enjoyable campaigns I've ever played in was a campaign that the DM based on Alice In Wonderland. Some alternative sources for inspiration include the following: The Wizard of Oz, Romance of The Three Kingdoms, The Chronicles of Narnia (not just The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe,) and many others.

Also, one of the biggest kept "secrets" in DMing is that you can use Eberron, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms material outside of those specific settings. Why can't you have the Red Wizards of Thay battling against a nation of Warforged Barbarians? No reason why you can't.

However, with that being said, don't start to feel like you have to include everything. Feel free to borrow from various sources, but don't make the mistake adding too much. Think of creating a world like making Kool Aid. Not enough sugar leads to a bland taste, but too much sugar isn't good either; you just end up with sugar water and the sugar is the only thing you can taste - it overpowers the color.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DM_Rennick 06-01-07, 10:25 PM	Hey gang. I've been DMing quite regularly, once a week in fact, with a group of friends for about 3 years now, and a few of us have started a side game that's to be RP heavy and a little harsher with the rules. I'm experienced DMing but everything I've run has been set in a premade world (Star Wars, Forgotten Realms) so I'm looking for advice, any advice really on how to build a campaign setting?
Araes 06-02-07, 12:42 AM	This is a rather broad question, so clarification would help, but in general I can suggest a strategy and some help. My advice will be a slight bit formulaic, but its a proven strategy that tends to work and get things moving. First, ask yourself a general question of what a 10 second idea for a campaign might be. Come up with several, or many short ones if need be, and try mixing and matching them to find concepts that you like. Second, since this is a world directly built for a particular group of players, evaluate against their styles of play whether these concepts would have ample opportunities for adventure, and whether they would generally like this style of campaign. Note that at this point I'm still thinking rather vague ideas. Third, make at least a rough approximation about a couple of factors: Would you feel more comfortable filling in some grand details about the world first, or maybe starting a bit closer to where the PCs will be and building up from there? How much impact would you like the PCs / players to have on the canvas of the world. IE, how much of it will you really firm up before getting them started in it. These two questions can help you decide where you want to start. If you feel more comfortable with some big details and then working down towards the smaller aspects of the PCs and their initial adventures, then you can start with what we call Outside - In development. If you instead would rather make up some initial details about the area where the PCs will be, and from there maybe create some larger picture details once you've found inspiration, then you could instead start with Inside - Out development. I won't go into these extensively, as the DMG has a nice section on them, and I could be here all night talking about this concept if I let myself. [For your reference, that section starts on page 135 in the DMG 3.5] The other question can give you an idea on how much work you want to put into this before you really start playing. You say you have some experience DMing, but I don't know your personal style. Some people like myself are very comfortable, and almost prefer a more improv style of game, where you rough out some details for what you want, and then just drop the players in and let them spark off creativity in you. As they move and explore, you'll build details that are directly built off of concepts you improvise or only had roughly patterned out, and that they were interested in. However, some people also prefer to build a campaign whole cloth before they put their players into it. This doesn't mean that they think of every minute detail before they play, or that they railroad their players with overwrought concepts, but they do like to have a lot of the background and immediate information ready so that they have things to draw on. This allows their games to be quite cohesive, and they can lay out patterns / plots more easily very far in advance. Anyhow, hope that helps at least in a general sense, and from there you can ask more specific questions. Note that I haven't covered anything about mapmaking or all the technical stuff yet, as there's just too much of that without some guidance on information. Other things that can help: Open up prior campaign settings you've played (FR in your case) and look at the general elements that were included to complete the first campaign bible for that setting. I have a rather long list (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=12566488&postcount=4)that I tend to use myself. Ask yourself some questions about the campaign. I've got a big list (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=854352)of them if you need help thinking of some. Ask your players what they would like to see, or possibly even allow them to help in the design process of the campaign. Dawn of Worlds (www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf) (pdf) is an interesting idea in that regard that you might like to look at. Its not quite a nuclear response, but hopefully it will help. My sig also has a few more topics.
DM_Rennick 06-02-07, 09:57 AM	Thanks a lot man, this all helps alot. You're pretty good at these types of things. As far as specific questions go, I'm a little in over my head since I've never flat out made a world before. I don't think I need advice on creating a plot, I'm fairly good at that and tend to give my players enough freedom that anymore than a basic plot outline tends to be wasted writing. So we should focus on the actual world, Let's try map building and city creation, any advice on those topics?
taradusis 06-02-07, 11:26 AM	When making the map leave part of it blank for later exploration.Draw an unexplored island chain so you can set up a series of one shot adventures or a Pirate campaign.As a bit of shameless self-promotion may I reccomend my Aquatic thread?771660 has a few island descriptions you may find interesting.I find the episodic nature of island exploration to be like the voyages of the starship Enterprise?Just my thoughts.
Araes 06-03-07, 02:48 AM	On city creation, it will depend a bit on where you want your players to start. A major city, or a smaller town or village. I like metropoli for the number and variety of easy plot hooks, but many prefer more wilderness flavor to their games. Plus, dungeons and that kind of thing are easier to find. No matter the city size, I recommend only very vaguely detailing the specific aspects of the town unless they're planned to be there for a Long time. In general, its better to just create a general idea of what there will be in your head, and then develop what they're interested in and use. For getting a general idea of those aspects, I recommend: A Magical Medieval City Guide (http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1678) Its a free pdf that details all the aspects you could ever care to know about for city generation. In addition, the DMG has a fairly extensive section on the topic as well. Right now, I wouldn't bother with super extensive maps for the city / town unless you're planning on adventuring in the city, and instead just let your players be where they need to. Now, as far as world map generation goes, if you've never done this before, then the easiest thing to do is probably just to start with one, not overly large continent and then build from there. Also, its easiest to assume that you're living in a relatively earth-like world as far as weather patterns and the like go. Now, just start drawing the outline of a shape. When doing this, you want to make it look pretty fractal-ish. Fractals are basically geometric shapes that as you zoom in on them, keep revealing further and further levels of detail. The following picture illustrates the idea pretty well. http://theworldbuilder.googlepages.com/FractalMap.jpg Note how the terrain has this kind of jagged, wandering look to it. And whether you're looking at the very large details, or the really tiny ones, they all exibit that same random aspect in larger or smaller form. Mess around. Create a few of these, as they're quick and easy to do. Then pick one that you like. Once that's done with, you can then start in on things like mountains. Depending on how complicated you want to be, you can either put these wherever you think they look good, or you can try to do this from a relatively scientific approach. If you go with the scientific approach, then you can approximate knowledge of what plates do with some more simple ideas. Generally, mountains form on or near a major boundary between two plates. Extending out from continents, and in line with mountains, you will often have areas of raised land like peninsulas or island chains. Any mountains that aren't at the edge of currently moving plate boundaries can be in different orientations, but they are probably going to be older, more worn down mountains. (Appalacians are a good example) In a few cases, you may also have mountain chains formed by volcanic hotspots in the planet that are slowly moving across the landscape. These are more rare, and in many cases, they will instead just produce several volcanoes that are somewhat separated. Now, once you have placed your mountains, you will then want to figure out your climate. For now, lets assume you're northern hemisphere, and Earthlike weather. Depending on how close to an equator or pole you are, some areas may be warmer or colder. In general though, on the western side of mountains (windward), particularly the most westward ones on a continent, you will see heavy rain areas with verdant growth and forests. Rivers will also be more frequent. On the eastward (leeward) side of mountains, there will generally be a rain shadow, or area with little to no rain, and terrain like deserts, dry grassland / savanah will be more common. This isn't to say that's all there will be, just a trend. From there, just start figuring out how far you want each of the groups to extend. Remember that rivers flow downhill towards larger bodies of water. After that, its civilizations, if you want to detail that extensively. For now, you might just want to put the major town, and maybe some of the areas around it. If you do want to put them, they'll often cluster around rivers, and they'll choose things like mountains and other harsh terrain as natural borders. A good resource for figuring out how big they are, and how they are dispersed is: Medieval Demographics Made Easy (http://www.io.com/~sjohn/demog.htm) Anyhow, that should give you a general idea, and I hope it helps some.
Dex 06-03-07, 11:55 PM	When making a city, I find you need to take a couple of things into consideration: 1. A City must be defensible. Whether it's got a great big wall, or it's on the top of a plateau, the city has to have something to stop hordes of orcs or other gribbly things from eating the general populace. 2. All cities are unique. Think of something this city is famed for. This probably has more to do with the surrounding lands and geography than anything else. It might be the biggest, or the most traffic congested, or the most cosmopolitan. It might be right near the Dwarven strongholds, so it could be considered the "gateway to the undermountains" or perhaps the place to go if you want refined ore or raw iron. 3. Isolation. In a DND world, you probably don't have a cluster of megacities like you get these days. Large cities should be separated by a fair distance, like a week's travel. The smallest towns should be about a full day's travel apart. 4. Resource lines. Where does a city get it's supplies from? What trade passes through? How are they transported (road, sea, lightning rail, skyships)? Hope these inspire you.
Johnny_Angel 06-04-07, 12:36 AM	One thing I always say is to not limit yourself to inspiration from fantasy sources. There plenty of good stories in other genres (sci-fi, historical fiction, etc) that can easily be adapted to work in a fantasy game. Many people seem to have the idea that only fantasy books and fantasy movies can be good inspiration. One big example (and one I used myself once) was the XBox game Halo. I was already a big fan of the game, so it wasn't much of a stretch for me to be inspired by it, but I really think it has some good story/plot elements that would work in a fantasy setting. Other examples include the following: Battlestar Galactica, Smokey and The Bandit, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, and various others. I'm sure somebody is going to at least think "How the hell can Smokey and The Bandit be inspiration for D&D?" Well, it's easy. You have a character trying to illegally transport something from point A to point B while trying to evade the authorities. One of the authorities has a personal grudge against "the bandit," and will stop at nothing -even disrespecting other authority figures- to catch the bandit. If you think about it, this really isn't that much different from Lord of The Rings - trying to get a certain object from point A to point B. There are also a lot of fantasy based stories that are not considered for things such as D&D. R. Howard, Tolkien, and Jack Vance are commonly reference for fantasy games (and rightly so; they're excellent authors,) but there is an enormous font of fantasy content that is never used for inspiration. One of the most enjoyable campaigns I've ever played in was a campaign that the DM based on Alice In Wonderland. Some alternative sources for inspiration include the following: The Wizard of Oz, Romance of The Three Kingdoms, The Chronicles of Narnia (not just The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe,) and many others. Also, one of the biggest kept "secrets" in DMing is that you can use Eberron, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms material outside of those specific settings. Why can't you have the Red Wizards of Thay battling against a nation of Warforged Barbarians? No reason why you can't. However, with that being said, don't start to feel like you have to include everything. Feel free to borrow from various sources, but don't make the mistake adding too much. Think of creating a world like making Kool Aid. Not enough sugar leads to a bland taste, but too much sugar isn't good either; you just end up with sugar water and the sugar is the only thing you can taste - it overpowers the color.