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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 5455388" data-attributes="member: 3887">Culture is part of Step 1, but I like to begin with a broad, overall premise. For example, my old 3e campaign setting started from the question: what all the great cities of the ancient world were within walking distance of each other? This led to CITY, a megalopolis made up of 9 far-flung cities linking by magical gates, the last surviving piece of an ancient empire which had mastered the art of teleportation (and the art of exploiting contemporaneous civilizations using their mastery of teleportation).  From there, details began to accrue. At some point I decided one of the linked cities resembled early Renaissance Venice and another was a kind of French/Indian mash-up (masala?). I came to gaming from SF&F literature, and I still think in terms of genre conventions/emulation first, and game conventions/mechanics a distant second (despite the fact I've played these games for over 25 years). I'm not much of a mapper. I scratch something out and leave the more advanced cartography to my setting collaborators and/or players. As for where the campaign's going to be based -- I try to leave that as open as possible. I have a thing for big fantasy cities --from Lankhmar to Ankh-Morpork and New Crobuzon-- but most of my settings contain a variety of places and potential campaign themes.I usually do a broad and very sparsely detailed history at the start, then fill in the details later, either as needed or as I feel inspired, often totally out-of-order. I might create a neighborhood's local color/history first, then a lost empire's ancient history 6 months into the campaign. It's probably right to say I keep system "in the back of my mind", but I don't like to feel constrained by game convention/mechanics when I'm dreaming up my frequently-derivative-or-absurdly-juxtaposed fantasy setting-wank.</blockquote>

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