How do you build your campaign worlds?
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Mouseferatu
Hero
Umbran said:I develop campaign worlds... haphazardly
I don't follow a single, set method. Sometimes I simply start with a single location where the first adventure is to take place, and build outward. Sometimes I have a pantheon idea, and want to develop teh world those gods built. Sometimes I have a few unconnected ideas I want to see in a world, and I start with those concepts and fill in the spaces between them.
I build a word in the manner that suits my needs, and the needs of teh game I plan to run. Which, of course, isn't terribly helpful
Ditto. I'd add that very often, I develop a world based on feel. Sort of "I want to run a steampunk" campaign, or "I want to run a chivalric campaign." So add those to the inspirations listed abve, and I'm sure a dozen others as well, and you have all the various methods and reasons I create campaign worlds.
And I've actually found that I enjoy the campaign less if I'm too thorough in my planning. I like the ability to add/make up stuff as it occurs to me, or as it seems appropriate. I prefer to flesh out only the basics before I begin play, unless I'm running a campaign in Selion (my decades-old setting).
Wombat
First Post
I tend to start with a mood I want to approach first -- Epic, Lighthearted, Gritty, etc.
After this, a general theme or course of Big Events. This will not be utterly Set In Stone, because I allow for a LOT of player interaction.
I usually also try to deal with a campaign aspect that I haven't played with before: make a very realistic city, develop changes in a culture over time, come up with a long history, decide what foods are appropriate and what menus might look like, etc. Each world (no matter what the system is) is a new challenge, each one a little closer to a feeling of share-reality.
At that point, I start writing. I come out with a series of shortish (1-5 pages) essays for my would-be players giving different background aspects to the world, well before I start dealing with House Rules and the like. I want them to get a "feel" for the world. After they start getting some notion of where the world is going, I ask them for feedback. At that point I start working on the "crunchy bits" (limits on classes and PrCs, limits on equipment, added or subtracted skills, etc.).
Somewhere along the line a map or two will appear.
I will know that the world I am working on is going to be sucessful if the players start adding bits to the world, extra races, names of fruits, a story or legends, maybe a counting game.
While I start the ball rolling, I want all my players to understand that this is a cooperative venture -- it is not MY world, but OUR world.
Eventually flavour wins over mechanics in all my games.
After this, a general theme or course of Big Events. This will not be utterly Set In Stone, because I allow for a LOT of player interaction.
I usually also try to deal with a campaign aspect that I haven't played with before: make a very realistic city, develop changes in a culture over time, come up with a long history, decide what foods are appropriate and what menus might look like, etc. Each world (no matter what the system is) is a new challenge, each one a little closer to a feeling of share-reality.
At that point, I start writing. I come out with a series of shortish (1-5 pages) essays for my would-be players giving different background aspects to the world, well before I start dealing with House Rules and the like. I want them to get a "feel" for the world. After they start getting some notion of where the world is going, I ask them for feedback. At that point I start working on the "crunchy bits" (limits on classes and PrCs, limits on equipment, added or subtracted skills, etc.).
Somewhere along the line a map or two will appear.
I will know that the world I am working on is going to be sucessful if the players start adding bits to the world, extra races, names of fruits, a story or legends, maybe a counting game.
While I start the ball rolling, I want all my players to understand that this is a cooperative venture -- it is not MY world, but OUR world.
Eventually flavour wins over mechanics in all my games.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
With Urbis, I started out with a big ideas:
- I wanted to take a good, hard look at all the D&D rules and figure out the actual implications on culture and society, such as: Where do all the magic items come from? What happens to a society when there are spells that can ressurect the dead? How will magic impact on warfare, agriculture, and so on? In short, I tried to get away from the pseudo-medieval paradigm that permeates most D&D campaign worlds and instead create a fantasy world that makes sense in the face of high-level magic. I wanted to adhere to the "Core Rules" as much as possible - a minimum of additions, a minimum of alterations.
- I wanted really, really big cities. Cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people. Cities are cool!
Soon, I got an idea that connected the two - the Nexus Tower, a magical construct that draws a small amount of life force from anyone who lives near and converts it into magical energies. This explains both why rulers would encourage big cities and why there is so much magic around...
Then I started to think about specific "sub-themes", and built regions around them. So now we have:
- A region reminiscent of the Dutch and Northern German lowlands.
- A region wracked by a huge magical storm.
- A nation controlled by a monotheistic religion.
- A nation inhabited by, essentially, Swiss halflings (complete with Survivalist attitude).
- An elven realm straight out of fairy tales (the nasty kind of fairy tale, that is...).
And many more.
And I'm still brainstorming, drawing maps, adding new locations, religions, details on the cosmology, and so on. You can see the results
here - 30,000 words so far!
Oh, and Urbis is "finished" when I can get it published - unless, of course, it is so successful that it is viable to write supplements... ;-)
- I wanted to take a good, hard look at all the D&D rules and figure out the actual implications on culture and society, such as: Where do all the magic items come from? What happens to a society when there are spells that can ressurect the dead? How will magic impact on warfare, agriculture, and so on? In short, I tried to get away from the pseudo-medieval paradigm that permeates most D&D campaign worlds and instead create a fantasy world that makes sense in the face of high-level magic. I wanted to adhere to the "Core Rules" as much as possible - a minimum of additions, a minimum of alterations.
- I wanted really, really big cities. Cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people. Cities are cool!
Soon, I got an idea that connected the two - the Nexus Tower, a magical construct that draws a small amount of life force from anyone who lives near and converts it into magical energies. This explains both why rulers would encourage big cities and why there is so much magic around...
Then I started to think about specific "sub-themes", and built regions around them. So now we have:
- A region reminiscent of the Dutch and Northern German lowlands.
- A region wracked by a huge magical storm.
- A nation controlled by a monotheistic religion.
- A nation inhabited by, essentially, Swiss halflings (complete with Survivalist attitude).
- An elven realm straight out of fairy tales (the nasty kind of fairy tale, that is...).
And many more.
And I'm still brainstorming, drawing maps, adding new locations, religions, details on the cosmology, and so on. You can see the results
here - 30,000 words so far!
Oh, and Urbis is "finished" when I can get it published - unless, of course, it is so successful that it is viable to write supplements... ;-)
The Spectrum Rider
First Post
I started small: a town (Brimiston), a nearby "dungeon" (under a deserted tower), some surrounding local geography. The town was on a coast, and 60 miles north was the great port city of Toster. There was some vague talk about the Sunlight Empire.
Over the last 20 years the campaign (more like, a single universe containing sequential campaigns) GREW its own themes, its own pantheon (50+ deities and going strong), its own cosmology and history. A throw-away comment by a player could become a kingdom; the followers of a god never mentioned before last month could grow powerful and change the world. Which was called "Gärd."
Sometimes the PCs would find a path out of the campaign world into another, one that looks a lot like RL but has superheroes. Their first visit their began at the St. Louis Arch, so they've always called that world "St. Louis."
It's been a fun, collaborative, cumulative process, spinning off other worlds in its wake. I'm still enjoying it.
The Spectrum Rider
Over the last 20 years the campaign (more like, a single universe containing sequential campaigns) GREW its own themes, its own pantheon (50+ deities and going strong), its own cosmology and history. A throw-away comment by a player could become a kingdom; the followers of a god never mentioned before last month could grow powerful and change the world. Which was called "Gärd."
Sometimes the PCs would find a path out of the campaign world into another, one that looks a lot like RL but has superheroes. Their first visit their began at the St. Louis Arch, so they've always called that world "St. Louis."
It's been a fun, collaborative, cumulative process, spinning off other worlds in its wake. I'm still enjoying it.
The Spectrum Rider
Buttercup
Princess of Florin
Yeah, me too. Which is probably why I'm never really satisfied with my campaign world.Umbran said:I develop campaign worlds... haphazardly
What I should do is start working on a new one. By the time my current campaign is over, in a year or two, the new one could be pretty fleshed out.
Hmm. Or just give up and run all my games in Kalamar.
Desdichado
Hero
I start with an idea or concept, and then develop small to start with. I'm not a fan of creating entire file cabinets of material before I even play.
Well, I have two ways.
From those two I start to map, mostly this is an area to set the campiagn in, then I start to expand my world out.
Thread of plot where I was expanding out, shows how I build...
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56172
- The Stain - this leads to the idea but I will see a coffee stain on paper and think about starting a would on it. It is not always a stain, it could be clouds in the sky or tree roots.
- The idea - This is just a concept of a type of story I would like to tell and run my players through.
From those two I start to map, mostly this is an area to set the campiagn in, then I start to expand my world out.
Thread of plot where I was expanding out, shows how I build...
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56172
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