D&D General What's a good resource for creating a campaign world?

[Ancalagon]

I highly recommend Yoon-Suin. Now the "problem" with Yoon-suin is that is has a very specific flavor that you may wish to change... but it's filled with good advice and tables to create your own version of the stetting.

For example, here is one table (I think one is "fair use"?). A local tavern. Now in yoon suin this is a tea shop, but does it have to be? When I ran my campaign, the first very adventure was caused by the owner complaining about a new local gang who ran a protection racket.

There are similar tables for noble houses, shrines, crabman fighting clubs, archives, secret societies, smugglers. Rivalries between them. You play with them, and soon you have a rich, interwoven world.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Worlds Without Number is the single best resource for this. There are free and paid versions on drivethru.

Agreed on WWN. The 2e product Worldbuilder's Guidebook is also quite good and available on Drivethru.

 

[Meech17]

The best resources for worldbuilding are IMO a) your own imagination and b) time.

And while I realize that the spiral-out approach advocated by @Meech17 can work OK, it also risks baking in some overriding inconsistencies that can end up undermining the setting in the long run.

And so, learning from experience, I've concluded that a far more functional approach is, in effect, "spiral in". Start with the big stuff - cosmology, pantheons, continent-scale map - and then work downward in ever-increasing detail, eventually reaching the town and dungeon with which you intend to start play.

That way, as-when the PCs expand their footprint and start exploring the world, you're already prepared; rather than having to make it all up on the fly.

So I have leaned more into a spiral out method because I ran into problems with spiraling in. I started exactly like you suggested. I am leaning heavily on Forgotten Realms so I just stole that pantheon. I made myself a nice map with a continent that would take several weeks to travel across. Plopped down some major factions, and then eventually started filling in the smaller towns within those kingdoms, until I got to my starting village.

Once I started playing however I ended up having to go back to the drawing board because in-game decisions made me need to change things quite a lot. The way I intended the basic plot of the story to work wasn't the way the players wanted to go so I needed to reshape the things around the starting area to better accommodate those. Fortunately I don't think any of my players ever looked over my map all that finely. They probably wouldn't notice the changes I had to make, but even if they did I could probably hand wave it as "medieval cartography isn't the most accurate."

So I think the best method is a blend of both, really..

 

[overgeeked]

Once I started playing however I ended up having to go back to the drawing board because in-game decisions made me need to change things quite a lot. The way I intended the basic plot of the story to work wasn't the way the players wanted to go so I needed to reshape the things around the starting area to better accommodate those. Fortunately I don't think any of my players ever looked over my map all that finely. They probably wouldn't notice the changes I had to make, but even if they did I could probably hand wave it as "medieval cartography isn't the most accurate."

So I think the best method is a blend of both, really.

Next time don’t plan a plot or story. Give NPCs and factions goals. Create situation the PCs can interact with. During session zero work with the players to discover their goals and the goals of their PCs. Set it all up and let the PCs loose. If they don’t engage with something, the NPC or faction attains its goal, the situation continues or changes the area. Don’t remove things the PCs ignore. That’s how you make a world that feels alive. It changes around the PCs.

 

[Lanefan]

Next time don’t plan a plot or story. Give NPCs and factions goals. Create situation the PCs can interact with. During session zero work with the players to discover their goals and the goals of their PCs. Set it all up and let the PCs loose.

And lay down the map and setting and say "it is what it is". Which means, if the players/PCs suddenly decide they want to go adventure in the jungle rather than in temperate forests they can; but rather than you moving the jungle closer to where they are, they'll have to travel a long way across the setting to get there.

That said, leave blanks in the map for later use. That bland-looking area of forest that's 1000 miles across could be hiding any number of things up to and including entire undiscovered cultures...

If they don’t engage with something, the NPC or faction attains its goal, the situation continues or changes the area. Don’t remove things the PCs ignore. That’s how you make a world that feels alive. It changes around the PCs.

Agreed.