What makes a good Setting?

[Summer-Knight925]

I have been trying to make my own D&D setting, but I just can quite get it right...

What makes a world good to adventure in?
I have asked this question to myself over and over
sitting at my desk with a large piece of paper, trying to think up a map to atleast give me some sort of 'base' to work from

I know many people start small and work out, but how I DM and how the players are, we start 1st levels every where at any time. We could have just finished Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and then start a new group of 1st levels onanother adventure half-way across the world.
Its just how we play, starting big with a big picture so we can play alot of characters.

So if anyone has any methods they use to make a world (just the geography, not necessarily kingdoms and political boundiries) please post these methods here to help me.

-Thank you-
Summer-Knight925

 

[Wik]

Well, if you like the setting, that's the first step. Find something that excites you, and go from there. My advice would be to flip through a national geographic, find a photo that interests you, and build a setting around that.

Starting from 1st level every few months is a fine way to play, if that's how your group goes. My advice, if you follow this play style, is to pick up a prepub to save yourself a lot of work. Something like FR would work great, because there's a wealth of play environments out there, so you can always play something new.

 

[SilverSnake]

If you have a basic knowlege of geography, the rest isn't too difficult. If not, there are a few good sites, like About.com and of course wikipedia. I'd highly advise doing a little research into what makes landforms tick.

What I've done for my setting is taken my blank paper, and drawn some squiggly-edged shapes for my basic continents. I then put in a few mountain ranges, mostly near the edges. I assumed an air flow like in the northern hemisphere, mostly west to east, so I have a desert to the east of one of the mountain ranges, in the "rain shadow." Between the mountants I drew in river valleys, one of which went to an inland sea instead of the ocean at the edge. I've got a glaciated frozen north, a jungle at the southern edge. For fun, I put in a huge meteor crater, and of course I had to write something into my history and myths to cover it. Some of my political boundries use the mountains and rivers.

Be creative, have fun. And remember, in a fantasy setting, not everything needs to make scientific sense. Magic can do strange things to a world.

 

[Stormborn]

What makes a world good to adventure in?
-Thank you-
Summer-Knight925

A good world to adventure in is a world that produces adventurers. I know, any world could do that, but some settings are better at logicall producing such people. I just posted an old article over on my blog about just that.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I have started making a map
its somewhat 'invereted' when it comes to east and west
theres a desert in the west (where the dark elves/drow come from) and the east has a very 'Greek' feel to it

there are three continents, there is the main one where most low level adventures would start, then theres a series of islands that are all part of a single land mass, and one massive continent in the south, simply known as
THE SOUTHERN JUNGLES

there is a sub-continent in the north that looks like is 'budding' forth from the main continent, another glacial-island farther north that has a Norse feel to it, and another island i call the warped land (it all started with this idea, for the warped land) where all the abberations are from, it was created from a magical cataclysm that almost destroyed the world, had it not been for one powerful wizard who gave his own life to save everyone he could (many still died and the majority of architecture was destroyed, offering simple Dungeon Crawls.

Ive started spit balling ideas for the elves, and how the drow were created and all that stuff

but im thinking the dwarves will have a much larger role in my world than even middle earth... but im still working on races and such
i think thats really what i need help with,
more so than geography

 

[joethelawyer]

I have started making a map
its somewhat 'invereted' when it comes to east and west
theres a desert in the west (where the dark elves/drow come from) and the east has a very 'Greek' feel to it

there are three continents, there is the main one where most low level adventures would start, then theres a series of islands that are all part of a single land mass, and one massive continent in the south, simply known as
THE SOUTHERN JUNGLES

there is a sub-continent in the north that looks like is 'budding' forth from the main continent, another glacial-island farther north that has a Norse feel to it, and another island i call the warped land (it all started with this idea, for the warped land) where all the abberations are from, it was created from a magical cataclysm that almost destroyed the world, had it not been for one powerful wizard who gave his own life to save everyone he could (many still died and the majority of architecture was destroyed, offering simple Dungeon Crawls.

Ive started spit balling ideas for the elves, and how the drow were created and all that stuff

but im thinking the dwarves will have a much larger role in my world than even middle earth... but im still working on races and such
i think thats really what i need help with,
more so than geography

dare to be different. make one south of the planet's equator, where the further south you go the colder it gets.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Some video games have world creation features that create maps for you. It may not be realistic but I found it to be quite helpful.

 

[Wik]

IN Earthdawn, Dwarves were the dominant race. They controlled the trade system and most of the major cities were dwarven in nature. Could be a fun place to start - a dwarven empire, with humans and halflings as second-class citizens.

For the rest, take a race, and try to attach something to it to make it "stick". Here's a fun trick:

1) Take a race that you want in your campaign, and write down some of their key features. For example, if I chose gnolls, I might write down "Brutally Violent", "Chaotic", and "Worships an evil demon". Maybe I'll also write down "pack hunters" and "Accompanied by Hyenas".
2) Think of six cultures, like "Greek", "Aztec", "Native American", "East Indian", "Mesopotamian", and "Persian". Then, roll 1d6 - your race has characteristics of that culture. Try to match up characteristics. So, if I rolled "East Indian" (a culture that was very unorganized historically, divided into numerou merchant kingdoms and with a very chaotic religious system), I could get East Indian Gnolls - hundreds of warring clans ("Chaotic" works for both race and the culture, and the gnolls' "Brutally Violent" should kick in), each espousing the concepts of a specific demon god (The Indian "Polytheism" added to "Worships an Evil Demon"). They hunt each other, and any man foolish enough to stumble into their territory.

You can do this as a starting place. Sometimes, I like to take two different cultures and mix them, to see what would come up. One of my favourite campaigns started with the idea of combining imperial rome with China during the period of the ten warring kingdoms. An Aztec/Greek cross could be interesting, as well.

Also, imagine taking a culture and placing it in a new environment, and imagine what would result. How would land-locked, desert-dwelling vikings work out? Or an Arthurian Kingdom in a jungle? By the time you're done figuring out the basics, I can almost guarantee your players won't recognize where you got the idea from (unless you stick pigheadedly to the stereotypes).

 

[grodog]

Ed Greenwood's "Plan Before You Play" in Dragon 63 is a great campaign starting advice article, and is well-worth checking out!

 

[Betote]

The D&D tradition is pastiche at its finest so, in few words: draw a map, steal whatever you like from tv, novels, comics, videogames, other RPGs or even the real world, find those things a place on that map and work around the relationships between neighbors. For a twist, you could take two elements and combine them, or take a What if...? approach, in which you take one such element and change just one thing: What if Imperial Rome was ruled by devils? - Cheliax; What if Sauron won the War of the Ring? - Midnight, etc.

If you look at them a bit closely, every successful setting has been created by following these guidelines.