Jacob Lewis
Ye Olde GM
First, you find a genie...
What I aim for is gross oversimplification with the information players need to create a character. This usually means just a few paragraphs about the setting, the current political situation, and how that relates to the PCs (including PC motivation, and class/race options).
This is easier to explain via an example:
Now, we could go into a LOT more detail about the kingdom and its thousands of years of history and culture. Or we could get into the nuance of whether or not the Prince is actually a cruel tyrant, or just caught in the middle of a power struggle. Or we could define the pantheon of Saints more precisely, or maybe even name and describe all the known spellcasters in the setting.
But, none of that is really needed to make a character and start playing. So don't even mention it.
This is easier to explain via an example:
You are part of a rebel group, trying to free the people from the oppression of the cruel Prince John, who has usurped power from the true king. Political turmoil and war abroad have created instability among the Lords and Ladies of the kingdom, creating an opening for the Prince to seize power while the king is fighting overseas. Now the Prince is cracking down on those disloyal to him, punishing and tormenting the common people.
But a secret rebellion has sprung up against this tyranny. Your reasons for joining the rebellion may vary (defending the weak, loyalty to the true king, personal vengeance against the Prince, or maybe you are just seeking excitement and glory), but your mission is the same: undermine the Prince's power, thwart his schemes, and aid the common people who he has enslaved. Right now, the rebellion lacks the political support to act openly, but instead engages in guerrilla warfare and subterfuge.
The rebels are headquartered in Sherwood Forest, a wilderness area rumored to be haunted (rumors which the rebels themselves encourage). The nearest big city is Nottingham (the "h" is silent), capital of a small region known as Nottinghamshire, a rolling countryside of farms and fields that produces much of the grain, wool, and beer for the kingdom. The common folk of Nottinghamshire are known as good-natured and loyal, but somewhat superstitious. Unfortunately, the region is ruled by a corrupt Sheriff and his brutal enforcer, Sir Guy Gisborne.
The state religion is simply called the Church, an organized religion that is officially monotheistic, but venerates numerous Saints who fulfill a role analogous to gods in other D&D settings. Of course, some people still secretly worship the polytheistic Old Gods, a crime punishable by death. If you're playing a cleric or other religious character, feel free to make up whatever Saints or Old Gods you want for your character.
Any race or class is allowed, but this is a very low-magic, human-centric setting, so if you're playing a spellcaster or a demi-human, expect to get some weird looks and maybe be subject to curiosity and awe. Particularly exotic demi-humans (tieflings, dragonborn, tabaxi, goblins, tritons, etc.) are advised to wear disguises or at least a hooded cloak; you may be met with fear and distrust by the very people you are trying to help! Most monsters and magical creatures are only found in remote, isolated areas, or in the Otherworld (a sort of combination of Feywild and Shadowfell, depending on whether you're in the happy part or the scary part). Full spellcasters are rare, but not unheard of. They are often regarded as powerful but dangerous allies.
But a secret rebellion has sprung up against this tyranny. Your reasons for joining the rebellion may vary (defending the weak, loyalty to the true king, personal vengeance against the Prince, or maybe you are just seeking excitement and glory), but your mission is the same: undermine the Prince's power, thwart his schemes, and aid the common people who he has enslaved. Right now, the rebellion lacks the political support to act openly, but instead engages in guerrilla warfare and subterfuge.
The rebels are headquartered in Sherwood Forest, a wilderness area rumored to be haunted (rumors which the rebels themselves encourage). The nearest big city is Nottingham (the "h" is silent), capital of a small region known as Nottinghamshire, a rolling countryside of farms and fields that produces much of the grain, wool, and beer for the kingdom. The common folk of Nottinghamshire are known as good-natured and loyal, but somewhat superstitious. Unfortunately, the region is ruled by a corrupt Sheriff and his brutal enforcer, Sir Guy Gisborne.
The state religion is simply called the Church, an organized religion that is officially monotheistic, but venerates numerous Saints who fulfill a role analogous to gods in other D&D settings. Of course, some people still secretly worship the polytheistic Old Gods, a crime punishable by death. If you're playing a cleric or other religious character, feel free to make up whatever Saints or Old Gods you want for your character.
Any race or class is allowed, but this is a very low-magic, human-centric setting, so if you're playing a spellcaster or a demi-human, expect to get some weird looks and maybe be subject to curiosity and awe. Particularly exotic demi-humans (tieflings, dragonborn, tabaxi, goblins, tritons, etc.) are advised to wear disguises or at least a hooded cloak; you may be met with fear and distrust by the very people you are trying to help! Most monsters and magical creatures are only found in remote, isolated areas, or in the Otherworld (a sort of combination of Feywild and Shadowfell, depending on whether you're in the happy part or the scary part). Full spellcasters are rare, but not unheard of. They are often regarded as powerful but dangerous allies.
Now, we could go into a LOT more detail about the kingdom and its thousands of years of history and culture. Or we could get into the nuance of whether or not the Prince is actually a cruel tyrant, or just caught in the middle of a power struggle. Or we could define the pantheon of Saints more precisely, or maybe even name and describe all the known spellcasters in the setting.
But, none of that is really needed to make a character and start playing. So don't even mention it.
I have started 2 campaigns now, and both times I gave a little bit of detail. I am talking maybe a paragraph or 2 at the most. It's mostly just off the top of my head for the area. I started playing with very little context, and the DM at the time made everything up in his head, I kinda learned it that way.
He started by having an adventure from one cave to another, or town or what ever and the tables he used for generating NPCS were good. I have started with an adventure, and then the whole group comes together, and we create everything from there. If I start in Forgotten Realms, well it's easier because everyone is really familiar with the areas, and time lines.
I tried to start a campaign using Temple of Elemental Evil, but it quickly fell by the way side as there was just not the right setting, or the right information to utilize for a full campaign. It was just a guideline, and so it started one way and quickly moved to a full home brew campaign. I still need to revisit it at some point.
He started by having an adventure from one cave to another, or town or what ever and the tables he used for generating NPCS were good. I have started with an adventure, and then the whole group comes together, and we create everything from there. If I start in Forgotten Realms, well it's easier because everyone is really familiar with the areas, and time lines.
I tried to start a campaign using Temple of Elemental Evil, but it quickly fell by the way side as there was just not the right setting, or the right information to utilize for a full campaign. It was just a guideline, and so it started one way and quickly moved to a full home brew campaign. I still need to revisit it at some point.
pogre
Legend
IMC - I am very much on board with what Morrus advocated - learn about things while adventuring.
I teach history and love making campaign bibles, extensive maps, etc., but I realized a long time ago players mostly do not care. That is, they do not care until it effects them (their PC).
I love the idea of a story like Mad Max: Fury Road where so much of the world is conveyed through little things throughout the film. I endeavor to do the same kind of introduction to my campaign.
Example:
DM: You buy the armor from the Dwarven Armorsmith and he bows three times.
Player (90%): Cool! That jacks my AC! I'm off to the dungeon.
- End of conversation -
OR
Player (10%): Does my character know why the Dwarf would bow to me three times?
DM: It goes back to the times of the Metal Wars...
If I'm honest 10% is probably a bit high.
When I was younger it used to bother me, but now the details of the campaign are something I am interested in, and I don't bore my players with the details unless they seek them out.
I teach history and love making campaign bibles, extensive maps, etc., but I realized a long time ago players mostly do not care. That is, they do not care until it effects them (their PC).
I love the idea of a story like Mad Max: Fury Road where so much of the world is conveyed through little things throughout the film. I endeavor to do the same kind of introduction to my campaign.
Example:
DM: You buy the armor from the Dwarven Armorsmith and he bows three times.
Player (90%): Cool! That jacks my AC! I'm off to the dungeon.
- End of conversation -
OR
Player (10%): Does my character know why the Dwarf would bow to me three times?
DM: It goes back to the times of the Metal Wars...
If I'm honest 10% is probably a bit high.
When I was younger it used to bother me, but now the details of the campaign are something I am interested in, and I don't bore my players with the details unless they seek them out.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
This is great, but you're giving yourself a considerable advantage by using a known culture from a known period of real-world history as a foundation: much of the background and pre-history is already filled in for you. For example it wouldn't be out of place for the PCs to at some point stumble across a cache of Roman treasure, and if they do the players will already know the general history behind how it came to be there.
But if your setting is going to be completely homebrew (my preference) then you need to do all the background stuff yourself, and then decide how much to give to the players up front and how much to leave for them to discover through play.
I
Immortal Sun
Guest
This is more or less how I operate. I make rich backgrounds, detail in characters (at least who players are probably going to encounter), fill in the world the closer the characters come to it, but a couple comments really stuck me after I wrapped up my last campaign (the bad guys won, for context).
Basically, multiple players said "Well, there's information I wish we had known!"
I tend to be a talker. When players ask for information, if it's easily knowable information I'm liable to give them a little more than they asked for, if it's a roll, the better they do, the more they'll learn. So I stopped tried to analyze what I had and hadn't been telling them (I kept some cliffnotes) and compared them to the relevant information they had missed. At the end of the day I didn't really feel like I had misled them or not given them the info, but there was a LOT of information they had simply not bothered to look into.
I try not to put flashing red signs around everything they ought to pay attention to, but I was still left wondering if perhaps I needed to be less subtle. Perhaps I need to shut up a little more to get their curiosity piqued.
I wrote it the way that I did to illustrate the practice of gross oversimplification: If this were a homebrew world, I would have written it the same way, but you (people reading this thread) would not have understood the depth of material that I was covering up. Even those of us who are not super-familiar with the history of Great Britain know that there's a lot more material there than what was stated in a few paragraphs. My point was that you should not reveal any more of that large body of material than is necessary.
If it helps, imagine it with the serial numbers filed off: cruel Prince Lohan, the haunted Wyrwood Forest, Dilleton County, the Count of Dilleton, Sir Manse Marhault, etc. It works just as well as a campaign intro, because the players know what terms like "Prince" and "kingdom" mean, and for D&D they are expecting a pseudo-European setting, unless you tell them otherwise.
Definitely. Here are some more techniques that can help with that:
1. Anyone can give themselves considerable advantage by alluding to a known culture from a know period of real-world history as a foundation. E.g., if you want to run a Robin-Hood-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off campaign, you could just say, "The kingdom is sort of like medieval England." Many fantasy authors do this reflexively -- throw in a few words from a real-world culture and the audience instantly gets a head-start imagining what the setting is like.
2. You don't have to do all the background stuff yourself; you can actually leave considerable chunks of the setting undefined. For this to work, you need to have a super-strong sense of what KIND of stuff can appear in the setting. This is informed by genre, theme, etc. For example, you might not know what the kingdom to west is like, at the start of the campaign; but then, you decide you need a desert for the next adventure, so you decide that there's a mountain range to the west, and on the other side is an ancient desert kingdom. In a grim and gritty setting, the desert is inhabited by ruthless nomadic warriors; in a high-fantasy world, you might populate it with honorable mystics; in an over-the-top semi-satirical world, you might fill it with lizard-people who sleep all day and party all night.
Doing this well can be tricky, and the best way to practice is to... do all the background stuff yourself. Once you've designed a dozen settings, it becomes a lot easier to come up with setting elements on the fly. But you still have to decide how much to give the players up front.
3. One good exercise is to start with the assumptions of generic, baseline D&D and then explain how your setting differs. In my "Sherwood Forest" example, I mention that magic is rare, and attitudes towards spellcasters and demi-humans are different. Also, it's a semi-political guerrilla-warfare campaign, not a traditional dungeon crawl. Players definitely need to see stuff like that before they start the campaign.
4. When I'm developing a setting in more depth, I like to separate out common knowledge from secrets. "Secrets" are basically anything that the PCs can't discover just by asking around or reading a book in the public library. Setting secrets really help make a setting come to life, and can reward players for efforts to learn more about the setting. More importantly, anything that's not well-known is usually juicier and more interesting. For example, if the Duke of Duenham won many tournaments in his youth, nobody cares and it won't really help you decide what's going on in Duenham. But if he cheated to win those awards and is now being blackmailed by the Assassin's Guild? That's a secret that can really drive the game.
For my current campaign I created two documents. One was an illustrated 4-page introduction to the world, the world map, some house rules and things that would impact the player's decisions when making characters and their underlying reasons why they exist. I also provided a one-page "TL;DR" document that just bullet pointed a few things. My players could read the one-page document and basically create a character without understanding why I set certain limits. If they wanted to they could then read the 4-page document and get all of the information they needed at their leisure (or find it out during actual play).
During play the players have also asked for more information on certain topics that I have written single page documents on (or longer if they want more).
I also have a game wiki that's more for my own enjoyment (and serves as my world reference documents) but one player has shown enough interest in helping with this that I have let him basically write up, and then incorporated into the game, his ideas on a specific part of the world.
Essentially I don't assume that any player wants to read my notes but if they do I provide it in a sliding scale of depth and leave it to them to decide how much they want to consume. So far it seems to be working out OK with letting each player decide on their own level of immersion.
During play the players have also asked for more information on certain topics that I have written single page documents on (or longer if they want more).
I also have a game wiki that's more for my own enjoyment (and serves as my world reference documents) but one player has shown enough interest in helping with this that I have let him basically write up, and then incorporated into the game, his ideas on a specific part of the world.
Essentially I don't assume that any player wants to read my notes but if they do I provide it in a sliding scale of depth and leave it to them to decide how much they want to consume. So far it seems to be working out OK with letting each player decide on their own level of immersion.
Here's an example of a handout I've been working on for an upcoming campaign: View attachment Privateers.pdf
There are only 2-3 paragraphs about the setting, and the rest is about the campaign (who are the PCs? what do they do? and what NPCs will they interact with most?). I deliberately haven't defined many specifics about the setting for this campaign. Instead I tried to lean heavily on pirate and sailing tropes to get players into the right frame of mind.
There are only 2-3 paragraphs about the setting, and the rest is about the campaign (who are the PCs? what do they do? and what NPCs will they interact with most?). I deliberately haven't defined many specifics about the setting for this campaign. Instead I tried to lean heavily on pirate and sailing tropes to get players into the right frame of mind.
