How much detail. - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How much detail.

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
phenom_sbbt_1985
Apr 26, 2009 17:38:13 I'm creating a homebrew campaign setting since I really don't want to spend money on a WoTC published one. I am calling it Enthinia, so far all I have is that the central city is called Ark and it is the centre of a long running Human Empire. There was a great war many years before the campaign starts where the wizard Ka'rashi, and Eladrin nearly brought the Enthinia to it's knees. Since then there has been an unspoken but commonly felt distrust of the Eladrin which is being healed now thanks to the union of the crown prince and his Eladrin bride.

My question i, how much detail shall I put into the world, should I change the lore in the Core rulebooks for the races significantly, how much should I design before the campaign begins? This is my first attempt at a proper campaign setting so any help would be appreciated.
#2
bone_naga
Apr 26, 2009 17:59:47 How much you design really depends on you. I like to make an overall map of the globe, then I zero in on a continent and get a rough idea of various nations, terrain, etc. Then I focus in on a smaller region and populate it with towns and such. Then I might focus on the town where the PCs start out, and work on that, and the surrounding area.

Other people just start with the town, and then expand the world from there as the PCs explore.

The important thing is to be ready for wherever the players want to go without spending hours fleshing out areas that they will never see. And if you name a place something like The Forest of Doom, automatically assume that they will travel there.

As for the lore in the Core books, that's up to you. It's your world, do what you want. You could keep everything as is, refluff all the races, or completely scrap the core races and make new ones. I prefer refluffing races myself. I don't like the standard lore for a lot of races, but on the other hand, most players expect that if they want an elven ranger, they'll be able to play an elven ranger.
#3
phenom_sbbt_1985
Apr 26, 2009 18:14:31 Indeed I am not limiting choice of race and class at all. I have just spent some time coming up with a general creation myth. It is fairly cliche, the Gods create the world then the evil gods try to fight them. Orcus will be mentioned in there somewhere too.

My plan is to create an overall world history and then focus in slowly filling in the lore of various areas then towns then people and places within the towns. I will probably expand outwards more as the party explores But I would say I have about 5 weeks before we are ready to play so I have time to create a fair amount of stuff.
#4
AbdulAlhazred
Apr 27, 2009 12:57:42 I would provide exactly as much detail as you need. If you're going to be running entirely straight highly directed adventures then I would basically just create as much information as is required for that adventure. I would avoid doing too much mapping up front as well. In fact I wouldn't do any.

There will obviously come up pretty quickly some questions PCs will ask about "where are we". I keep a TWiki for my campaign and I just construct topics to contain notes about different areas, etc. During the game and right after I'll make notes detailing exactly what I invented for that session. Then later I'll make it a topic of its own or move the information to whatever topic it relates to.

I like the blank map because if you suddenly happen to decide you really want to add a pirate adventure to your game you aren't stuck making the PCs trek 500 miles to the ocean just because you happened to draw the map that way. You'll always be wanting to add a town, castle, ruin, or whole kingdom or some mountains, etc. Not so easy when everything is filled in.

You may have to do a good bit more filling in to create a sandbox where PCs can pretty much go anywhere and do anything. Yet even here you basically only need to know facts 1 adventure ahead of the players! And you can wing it (Dungeon Delve or other such premade encounter collections are great here).

Now, after 25 or 30 years you're campaign can end up looking like mine, where there are maps for 1000's of miles in all directions. Even so huge grey areas still exist.
#5
bone_naga
Apr 27, 2009 14:57:08
There will obviously come up pretty quickly some questions PCs will ask about "where are we". I keep a TWiki for my campaign and I just construct topics to contain notes about different areas, etc. During the game and right after I'll make notes detailing exactly what I invented for that session. Then later I'll make it a topic of its own or move the information to whatever topic it relates to.

That sounds like a good idea. How do you get a TWiki started?
#6
phenom_sbbt_1985
Apr 27, 2009 18:28:03 yeah i was gonna ask the same question >.<
#7
gregt_314
Apr 27, 2009 23:19:21 For a first game try not to change the default flavour; you won't really have any clear idea of how far-reaching your changes will be. Most of the default flavour exists for a reason - it's pretty bland and you'll eventually want to change it but just to start with go with it as-written.

As far as detail goes, the advice I give is this: have detail driven by player focus. At every level of your campaign, just have five to ten interesting tidbits. Each one should be no more than one sentence in length. "There was a war a hundred years ago", "There are barbarians in the west", "Wizards are distrusted", "The ruling family are vampires". That's all the details you need. Then run them at your players as the game goes on. When they ask, "What's in the west?", say, "A vast barbarian empire." If they ask for more detail, give them more detail on the fly, and then come up with another ten lines about that topic between sessions. If they don't ask for more detail, never mention the barbarians again until the next time they ask what's in the west.

The reason for this is that 50% of your ideas are crap, and only 20% of the good ones will interest your players. There's no point in fleshing out ideas your players don't care about, and conversely you want to make the things your players are interested in as central to your story as possible. Think of it like a videogame, which only renders the part of the world the player is looking at. There's no point wasting processing power on stuff the player doesn't want to look at.

So as far as developing your world, have ten overall features of the world, ten cities, ten facts about the city your players start in, ten interesting NPCs with one sentence of distinguishing features each. It's going to feel under-developed but trust me that you'll see the benefit after the first session.

The other perk of this style of design is that simple ideas are more memorable than complex ones. If you can't make something sound cool in a single sentence then it probably wasn't cool at all.
#8
AbdulAlhazred
Apr 28, 2009 8:27:01
That sounds like a good idea. How do you get a TWiki started?

Well, you don't have to use TWiki, you can use other wiki software like pbwiki for example. I happen to be pretty much a web applications guy and have the necessary tech know-how to set up TWiki. I like it because it is pretty powerful software, but it can be rather more complex than many people are willing to figure out.

You can easily download the TWiki software from www.twiki.org or you should probably look at stuff like pbwiki (pbwiki.com) which is hosted and should work pretty well. There are quite a few other places you can set up wikis of various types too. Some may be even better suited to RPG use, I'm not sure.
#9
yellowdingo
Apr 28, 2009 9:59:28
I'm creating a homebrew campaign setting since I really don't want to spend money on a WoTC published one. I am calling it Enthinia, so far all I have is that the central city is called Ark and it is the centre of a long running Human Empire. There was a great war many years before the campaign starts where the wizard Ka'rashi, and Eladrin nearly brought the Enthinia to it's knees. Since then there has been an unspoken but commonly felt distrust of the Eladrin which is being healed now thanks to the union of the crown prince and his Eladrin bride.

My question i, how much detail shall I put into the world, should I change the lore in the Core rulebooks for the races significantly, how much should I design before the campaign begins? This is my first attempt at a proper campaign setting so any help would be appreciated.

You want enough detail so you and your players can write novels based on your campaing setting. its all about the storytelling. Use those brains to get the big roll of paper out and draw up that network of conspiracies and interacting assets that feature in your adventure.

Ruins, Battlefields, Treaty Lands, Trade Agreements, Child Brides, Memorials, curses, engines of war, The Bone Wraith (a Skeleton/bone golem of a Very big Giant size enchanted with a ruby in in its mouth that will fire an intense flash of light up to a three miles distant - and the impact is like a Nuclear strike) used by the Ealdrin Wizard.

I suggest you read the nausicca of the Valley of the Wind Mangas (you public library might have them on shelf). It will give you that survivors of a war feel that has reverted to Ceramic Swords, Armor and Aircraft -that no one know how to manufacture and fewer still know ho to maintain it.

They did this marriage of conveneince thing in the Greyhawk setting where the Groom was attacked by a Vampire to prevent the marriage and subsequent union.

You also might want to flick through the Belgariad -there was a marriage for peace treaty which led to the merger of two peoples who continued to fight amongst each other after the merger of their "leaders".

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 phenom_sbbt_1985 Apr 26, 2009 17:38:13	I'm creating a homebrew campaign setting since I really don't want to spend money on a WoTC published one. I am calling it Enthinia, so far all I have is that the central city is called Ark and it is the centre of a long running Human Empire. There was a great war many years before the campaign starts where the wizard Ka'rashi, and Eladrin nearly brought the Enthinia to it's knees. Since then there has been an unspoken but commonly felt distrust of the Eladrin which is being healed now thanks to the union of the crown prince and his Eladrin bride. My question i, how much detail shall I put into the world, should I change the lore in the Core rulebooks for the races significantly, how much should I design before the campaign begins? This is my first attempt at a proper campaign setting so any help would be appreciated.
#2 bone_naga Apr 26, 2009 17:59:47	How much you design really depends on you. I like to make an overall map of the globe, then I zero in on a continent and get a rough idea of various nations, terrain, etc. Then I focus in on a smaller region and populate it with towns and such. Then I might focus on the town where the PCs start out, and work on that, and the surrounding area. Other people just start with the town, and then expand the world from there as the PCs explore. The important thing is to be ready for wherever the players want to go without spending hours fleshing out areas that they will never see. And if you name a place something like The Forest of Doom, automatically assume that they will travel there. As for the lore in the Core books, that's up to you. It's your world, do what you want. You could keep everything as is, refluff all the races, or completely scrap the core races and make new ones. I prefer refluffing races myself. I don't like the standard lore for a lot of races, but on the other hand, most players expect that if they want an elven ranger, they'll be able to play an elven ranger.
#3 phenom_sbbt_1985 Apr 26, 2009 18:14:31	Indeed I am not limiting choice of race and class at all. I have just spent some time coming up with a general creation myth. It is fairly cliche, the Gods create the world then the evil gods try to fight them. Orcus will be mentioned in there somewhere too. My plan is to create an overall world history and then focus in slowly filling in the lore of various areas then towns then people and places within the towns. I will probably expand outwards more as the party explores But I would say I have about 5 weeks before we are ready to play so I have time to create a fair amount of stuff.
#4 AbdulAlhazred Apr 27, 2009 12:57:42	I would provide exactly as much detail as you need. If you're going to be running entirely straight highly directed adventures then I would basically just create as much information as is required for that adventure. I would avoid doing too much mapping up front as well. In fact I wouldn't do any. There will obviously come up pretty quickly some questions PCs will ask about "where are we". I keep a TWiki for my campaign and I just construct topics to contain notes about different areas, etc. During the game and right after I'll make notes detailing exactly what I invented for that session. Then later I'll make it a topic of its own or move the information to whatever topic it relates to. I like the blank map because if you suddenly happen to decide you really want to add a pirate adventure to your game you aren't stuck making the PCs trek 500 miles to the ocean just because you happened to draw the map that way. You'll always be wanting to add a town, castle, ruin, or whole kingdom or some mountains, etc. Not so easy when everything is filled in. You may have to do a good bit more filling in to create a sandbox where PCs can pretty much go anywhere and do anything. Yet even here you basically only need to know facts 1 adventure ahead of the players! And you can wing it (Dungeon Delve or other such premade encounter collections are great here). Now, after 25 or 30 years you're campaign can end up looking like mine, where there are maps for 1000's of miles in all directions. Even so huge grey areas still exist.
#5 bone_naga Apr 27, 2009 14:57:08	There will obviously come up pretty quickly some questions PCs will ask about "where are we". I keep a TWiki for my campaign and I just construct topics to contain notes about different areas, etc. During the game and right after I'll make notes detailing exactly what I invented for that session. Then later I'll make it a topic of its own or move the information to whatever topic it relates to. That sounds like a good idea. How do you get a TWiki started?
#6 phenom_sbbt_1985 Apr 27, 2009 18:28:03	yeah i was gonna ask the same question >.<
#7 gregt_314 Apr 27, 2009 23:19:21	For a first game try not to change the default flavour; you won't really have any clear idea of how far-reaching your changes will be. Most of the default flavour exists for a reason - it's pretty bland and you'll eventually want to change it but just to start with go with it as-written. As far as detail goes, the advice I give is this: have detail driven by player focus. At every level of your campaign, just have five to ten interesting tidbits. Each one should be no more than one sentence in length. "There was a war a hundred years ago", "There are barbarians in the west", "Wizards are distrusted", "The ruling family are vampires". That's all the details you need. Then run them at your players as the game goes on. When they ask, "What's in the west?", say, "A vast barbarian empire." If they ask for more detail, give them more detail on the fly, and then come up with another ten lines about that topic between sessions. If they don't ask for more detail, never mention the barbarians again until the next time they ask what's in the west. The reason for this is that 50% of your ideas are crap, and only 20% of the good ones will interest your players. There's no point in fleshing out ideas your players don't care about, and conversely you want to make the things your players are interested in as central to your story as possible. Think of it like a videogame, which only renders the part of the world the player is looking at. There's no point wasting processing power on stuff the player doesn't want to look at. So as far as developing your world, have ten overall features of the world, ten cities, ten facts about the city your players start in, ten interesting NPCs with one sentence of distinguishing features each. It's going to feel under-developed but trust me that you'll see the benefit after the first session. The other perk of this style of design is that simple ideas are more memorable than complex ones. If you can't make something sound cool in a single sentence then it probably wasn't cool at all.
#8 AbdulAlhazred Apr 28, 2009 8:27:01	That sounds like a good idea. How do you get a TWiki started? Well, you don't have to use TWiki, you can use other wiki software like pbwiki for example. I happen to be pretty much a web applications guy and have the necessary tech know-how to set up TWiki. I like it because it is pretty powerful software, but it can be rather more complex than many people are willing to figure out. You can easily download the TWiki software from www.twiki.org or you should probably look at stuff like pbwiki (pbwiki.com) which is hosted and should work pretty well. There are quite a few other places you can set up wikis of various types too. Some may be even better suited to RPG use, I'm not sure.
#9 yellowdingo Apr 28, 2009 9:59:28	I'm creating a homebrew campaign setting since I really don't want to spend money on a WoTC published one. I am calling it Enthinia, so far all I have is that the central city is called Ark and it is the centre of a long running Human Empire. There was a great war many years before the campaign starts where the wizard Ka'rashi, and Eladrin nearly brought the Enthinia to it's knees. Since then there has been an unspoken but commonly felt distrust of the Eladrin which is being healed now thanks to the union of the crown prince and his Eladrin bride. My question i, how much detail shall I put into the world, should I change the lore in the Core rulebooks for the races significantly, how much should I design before the campaign begins? This is my first attempt at a proper campaign setting so any help would be appreciated. You want enough detail so you and your players can write novels based on your campaing setting. its all about the storytelling. Use those brains to get the big roll of paper out and draw up that network of conspiracies and interacting assets that feature in your adventure. Ruins, Battlefields, Treaty Lands, Trade Agreements, Child Brides, Memorials, curses, engines of war, The Bone Wraith (a Skeleton/bone golem of a Very big Giant size enchanted with a ruby in in its mouth that will fire an intense flash of light up to a three miles distant - and the impact is like a Nuclear strike) used by the Ealdrin Wizard. I suggest you read the nausicca of the Valley of the Wind Mangas (you public library might have them on shelf). It will give you that survivors of a war feel that has reverted to Ceramic Swords, Armor and Aircraft -that no one know how to manufacture and fewer still know ho to maintain it. They did this marriage of conveneince thing in the Greyhawk setting where the Groom was attacked by a Vampire to prevent the marriage and subsequent union. You also might want to flick through the Belgariad -there was a marriage for peace treaty which led to the merger of two peoples who continued to fight amongst each other after the merger of their "leaders".