How do you build your campaign worlds?
Fusangite,
You remember the post about how people only need the first and last letters of a word to be in the correct place when reading it, and how they then tend to figure out the word even though all the other letters may be mixed up? Yeah? Well, I have a feeling that may explain the common mistake of misnaming you....Not that Fungasite is too bad of a name or anything...
Just a bit on the moldy side....
As for creating worlds, I started mine off of a basic world map in which I decided a few major things about certain territories and cities (like "This Kingdom instantly became filled with undead several hundred years ago" and "Elves will allow no non-elves into the main city") and simply fleshed out the reasons why over time as the party came near to encountering things(ie "There is a sleeping god beneath the elven city that will consume all things mindlessly and will awaken if the feet of non-fey-blooded touch the earth above him" and "an old betrayal of an elven woman spurned by a human king who was already married brought out a bargain with a powerful secret undead enclave that loaned out an evil artifact to her that caused all within the kingdom to turn undead and cursed the king with false sight that made the undead look alive and the living look undead").
I think general things should be made at first and then be allowed to flesh out with interesting new ideas as the campaign goes on. As long as the players don't know the information of what caused something, you can always change it (as long as it still matches up logically with any clues you have already dropped!). That way, you are always open for better ideas as the campaign goes on, and have plenty of room to find openings to tying things all together in one big happy mess!
Saddest thing is, I just discovered that the big bang theory explains a lot in my magical medieval world and have fully implemented it along with the rest of its consequences. Ever seen the gods fight against the big bang? Yeah, sad....
You remember the post about how people only need the first and last letters of a word to be in the correct place when reading it, and how they then tend to figure out the word even though all the other letters may be mixed up? Yeah? Well, I have a feeling that may explain the common mistake of misnaming you....Not that Fungasite is too bad of a name or anything...
Just a bit on the moldy side....
As for creating worlds, I started mine off of a basic world map in which I decided a few major things about certain territories and cities (like "This Kingdom instantly became filled with undead several hundred years ago" and "Elves will allow no non-elves into the main city") and simply fleshed out the reasons why over time as the party came near to encountering things(ie "There is a sleeping god beneath the elven city that will consume all things mindlessly and will awaken if the feet of non-fey-blooded touch the earth above him" and "an old betrayal of an elven woman spurned by a human king who was already married brought out a bargain with a powerful secret undead enclave that loaned out an evil artifact to her that caused all within the kingdom to turn undead and cursed the king with false sight that made the undead look alive and the living look undead").
I think general things should be made at first and then be allowed to flesh out with interesting new ideas as the campaign goes on. As long as the players don't know the information of what caused something, you can always change it (as long as it still matches up logically with any clues you have already dropped!). That way, you are always open for better ideas as the campaign goes on, and have plenty of room to find openings to tying things all together in one big happy mess!
Saddest thing is, I just discovered that the big bang theory explains a lot in my magical medieval world and have fully implemented it along with the rest of its consequences. Ever seen the gods fight against the big bang? Yeah, sad....
Desdichado
Hero
Barsoomcore's "cool things" list is similar to how I start out with a high level idea and work it down from there. The setting I'm developing right now, for instance, started off as 1) steampunk is cool, 2) Mars is cool, 3) Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying is cool, with it's chaos daemons and the like, and then the rest of the world starting falling into place.
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