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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GlassJaw" data-source="post: 7958993" data-attributes="member: 22103">My advice on creating a setting is don't.More specifically, don't create a setting just for the sake of it and without context. In my decades of gaming, I've learned that the success (re: fun) of a campaign, it's directly tied to how engaged the players are. And players are engaged when they are empowered to make meaningful choices, have agency to make those choices, and emotional attachment to their characters, NPCs, and world around them.Those things are not created by how much detail you put into the setting. They are created by what the players interact with directly and have control over themselves. The history of the various nations and long lost kingdoms and tensions between countries across the continent don't matter to them at all, and that information does not make your next session enjoyable.Now I'm not saying you shouldn't create that. But I wouldn't start there. The information you share with players when you start a campaign should literally be a 1-3 paragraphs, and that's pushing it.My mantra these days is "create hooks, not plot," although I should expand that to "create hooks, not plot or setting". Start with something cool. Maybe it's a town with dark secret, or some factions that are at odds with each other, or an NPC with important information that has consequences. Flesh those out first. Then slowly plug them into the "setting". Expand outward from there. I also borrow heavily from published material and make it my own. I love starting with cool maps. Look for adventures seeds everywhere. Take Saltmarsh for example: it has a cool town map, three factions each with their own motivations (5 if you include the lizardmen and sahuagin), a good starting adventure that results in multiple leads, a small wilderness region/sandbox that can be fleshed out, and some locations that can explored.That is literally all you need. Again, beyond a couple of paragraphs (at most), the players don't need much more info than that. For Saltmarsh, I might tell the players that the town has long been a backwater fishing village and commonly known to be a haven for piracy. Long ignored by mainland rule, the crown has begun to turn clamp down on piracy and make Saltmatsh a respectable port. This has caused tension in the region to rise, as some are resentful of the crown's meddling.Those few sentences tell the players that Saltmarsh has a long history and probably hides secrets. There is a larger world beyond, including a powerful kingdom that has interest in Saltmarsh. There are pirates and others that are opposed to the crown and others that want to see the pirates stopped. Boom, TONS of hooks and right off the bat, the gears in the players' heads will start turning about who's who when they meet NPCs and which side they are on.Definitely give the players a strong hook right from the beginning to get the action moving but after that, you can use a combination of dropping hooks/rumors and letting the player's interests guide what you create next.</blockquote>

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