Alternative methods of setting creation

[barsoomcore]

Back home, not so much here...

You mean if I move out East I'll find the players of my dreams?



This is a very good moment for me to be reviewing threads like this, as the big campaign that's dominated the last seven years of my gaming is winding down and I'm beginning to look around for my next campaign.

I'm pretty close to being fed up with Barsoom and its limitations are really standing out to me. A year from now it'll be the greatest thing I ever did but right now I just feel stupid about so many things I did designing the campaign.

There's no real religions. There's no holidays. There's no real history of the past two thousand years -- all my history pretty much takes place BEFORE that.

It's a world full of dinosaurs -- but it doesn't feel like it because I didn't sit down and think "So what does a world full of dinosaurs look like? What do people EAT? DRINK? WEAR? when the primary animal type isn't mammal, it's dinosaur? What do they ride? Keep as pets? How do they defend themselves against T-Rexes?" I STILL don't really have any answers to those questions and it's very disappointing to me. I basically took a typical fantasy world and added dinosaurs, which is fun in a "Hey, dinosaurs!" kind of way, but the world would have been more satisfying had I spent a little more time in thought on stuff.

I loved your ideas on mytho-poetic structure, fu, mainly because that's always been SORT OF what I do, only I never thought of it that way. I don't really know what my next "real" campaign is going to be like, but I'm not going to jump into anything -- I'm going to run a couple of short-term games, maybe an Exalted game, maybe an Iron Kingdoms, while I gather my ideas and spend some time actually developing stuff so that when I start I haven't backed myself into corners that I can't be bothered to beat my way out of.

Thanks for all the discussion and great idea-sparking. Stay tuned for further updates...

 

[fusangite]

Barsoomcore,

You have my e-mail; feel free to solicit advice.

 

[Nyeshet]

I work mostly top - down. I start with a general world map, decide the radius, determine where the plates and fault lines are, determine air and then ocean currents, climatic zones, biome regions, etc. After this I zoom out and determine planets and at least the names of the more readily seen constellations (and where they are in the sky). I also determine how many non-stars can be seen by the eye; this gives me an idea as to what numbers might be important to the resultant civilizations (such as 7: sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn; or 5, if only the planets are counted). I also, at this time figure out the general planar setup.

Then I zoom in. I determine where the races arose (if more than just humans exist). I determine how they spread throughout the world, assuming ice ages for jumps over small gaps between land masses. If the gaps are too large I assume little or no habitation. Once I have this in place, I'll look to where major rivers might form and find the ones in the most hospitiable zones that have been habitated the longest. Here I'll place the early civilizations. Civilization will radiate out from these points. I'll decide where the Iron age will occur (if different from the Bronze Age).

Now, once iron is firmly established over bronze in most areas, I'll jump ahead a few centuries and decide which areas look most interesting. I'll highly detail those areas, leaving the past and the other areas with only general coverage. The areas will often be in different parts of the world and will usually have very different cultures. I'll likely assume these areas became - or are becoming - empires. Perhaps I might jump again, allowing an empire to form or collapse. Then I will work out a few typed pages, detailing the few major areas and lightly touching upon the culturally similar areas nearby. The past will be given a brief overview, limited (on purpose) to what is commonly known in those regions.

Differing areas will have different pantheons, but other than the core dozen or so deities, I will only briefly touch upon the others (brief description, portfolio, rank, and little else). If someone is interested in the deity I may make up more info. I would do the same for regions only lightly touched upon. I would also make up a local world map for the players (once they have chosen what type of area they are interest in - from the typed descriptions). They will know that other areas exist, but they will not know where they are except in the general since. (Most middle age scholar could have told you China (or whatever they knew it as) was to the east, but they would not have been able to tell you much about australia - or the americas, for that matter.)

After that, local design increases as adventures occur and on the fly creation of NPCs, villages, etc are needed. Whenever curiosity and interest hit I might go back and add in more details to the generalized areas of the world even if the adventures had not headed in that direction, although if they were I would work to create at least a basic level of detail prior to their arrival.

 

[romp]

ahhh, great thread, i was going to jump in at first and reiterate the top-down system of creation, e.g. make a world map and start getting smaller, continents, countries, fiefdoms, cities/villages, castles/houses, and there sis your world, vs. the bottom-up system which is what TSweeney starts with, e.g, a dungeon or village, then fill in the next level of details as the players move about. I myself have evolved into something of a cross between the bottom-up and the thematic, I create or think of a few overarching themes for the game, such as the ambiguity of good and evil in a rebellion situation. (if the "rebels commit atrocities in the name of driving out a monarchy are they still "good" guys?) start out with a minimum of what I need for it in terms of the map (i.e. kingdom that is in revolt) detail the area(s) where the players start and then turn 'em loose and see where they go... like fuganite I need the randomness of dice and unpredictability of other people to make the games unique. I am a DM who likes to think on his feet and improvise, the interactiveness of the story is the rewarding part for me.

 

[MaxKaladin]

I've been thinking about trying a different approach that's sort of a combination of "top down" and "bottom up". I suppose it's sort of a hybrid. The "top down" approach starts at the highest level and then zooms in until you are at the local adventuring area. The "bottom up" approach just starts with a local area and them works its way outward. What I've been thinking of doing is starting with a very general framework similar to starting "top down" but then skipping directly to "bottom up".

To elaborate, what I'd probably do is decide a few basic questions like size and shape of the world and get a view of where the continents are at, then pick a likely spot and start the game there and working my way out similar to the bottom up approach. I'd be skipping the middle part of the top down approach where you start zooming in on the area you want and just going directly to a local area and filling things in as needed. I intend to do this using the Fractal Terrains world generator from Profantasy to make world maps until one "clicks" with me and then picking a spot to work out from so the top-down phase is pretty short. This gives you some of the added structure of top-down with less work. You know where the oceans are and, depending on your method of making the world map, possibly where the mountains are but you haven't taken much time to fill in other details. Knowing where the oceans and mountains are is usually enough to figure out what you might need for a bottom up game and you can fill in detail from there as needed.

It's just an idea at this point though.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I just wanted to revive this old thread for a number of reasons:
1. I thought it had more posts, inc one by someone that makes a list of all the cool ideas they want for their campaign and then pick one now and then.
2. Wondering what the posters here (esp Afrodyte) think of the 'PoL' setting of WotC. Abstract for you?
3. I want to hear some other ideas.
4. I wish to add my ideas (Which I thought I had a long time ago - but now they would be different anyway.

Anyway, if you are still with us and those lengthy posts above haven't scared you off I hope the Gms out there find threads like this as informative as I do.

My camapign design.
I have worked from the top down on the Kage CS (sig) for many years. I LOVE creating. When a campaign starts we would pick an area and then kind of go local>out (fitting in with the big picture).

I rolled random races and kindoms and terrain to cover the world. Developed a detailed mythology and history too. I have now found some probs with this.
1. Many players simply aren't as interested in the history, etc as I am
2. After creating all the big fun stuff I no longer get to do my favourite thing - create (on the macro level anyway).

So for my first 4E I am going back to creating I am starting with a valley, but have created the kingdom of which it is a part and each of the surrounding kingdoms. That is it. Many of these things were based arond what the PC wanted to play. So this time I am using the characters to build around.

BTW I find the old Ray Winniger's Dungeoncraft and the 2E World Builder;s HB (Rich Baker) and the many random charts I have created to use in conjuntion as invaluable.

As a way to get player interested in the 'big pic' (well re the 6 regions I have created)....well I have developed a system (based off Ray Winniger's Countrycraft article from a Dragon mag) where a realm can be played like a character. I give each player a realm and we 'play out' the 2-5 years of each realm leading up to the campaign. This makes the backdrop for the campaign very real - the realm the are starting in might suddenly becomes a scarier place if the realm turns ended with a plague, or is at war, or has large predators roaming the lands, etc. Helpd for immediate hooks too. And on the last playtest - the players actaully liked the realms rules

So I plan on doing this well before 4E, so I can then work with how the realms finish up (Then I may repeat on a more micro level - where places within the valley are played out by the players for more local happenings).

So I have gone from a big setting creator (which I love) to more open-minded, add anything the players want in and base things more around them. Also more time for stories and adventures that involve the players - rather than metaplot that may never play a part in a game.

(One downside from moving away from an established setting like the one our group has used for years is the investment long time and interested players have in it. I do have some players that will regret playing in Kage b/c they have grouwn to like it and have other campaigns and characters to talk about).

Oh well, time for new heroes (for a new addition).

Sorry to add another long post.

Other new ideas for setting design - especially geared towards the new 4e now?

 

[S'mon]

Oh, I should have mentioned in the post Afrodyte quoted that I've stolen that method out of the excellent book Sorcerer & Sword, from Adept Press. Strictly speaking it's a supplement for Sorcerer, which is one of those icky "indie" games, but the setting creation advice is gold for anybody going for an old-school sword & sorceror setting a la Howard or Moorcock.

Yeah, I agree - for game purposes the REH approach is great: a large map with some sketchy kingdoms/areas semi-defined by a few evocative phrases: "Whose riders wore steel and silk and gold". This provides inspiring sparks to the imagination, but no limitations. Tolkienesque world creation with thousands of years of history can lay heavy on a game, REH type setting-sketching gives a jumping off point, but almost without restraints (adding orcs or elves to Hyborea would need to be done carefully, or it wouldn't feel right).

 

[S'mon]

With mytho-poetic worlds enjoyment is very much determined by buy-in; if the central myth has no resonance for me, I'm not likely to enjoy it much, even if elements of it are great. I love to steal bits of TeKumel, but I doubt I'd enjoy playing in that setting. Glorantha is fun to play, but I'm not sure I could GM it. And Middle Earth didn't use to resonate with me at all, growing up in Ulster, whereas Narnia (based on Ulster's topology) did, much more. Being older now and living in southern England I can appreciate Middle Earth a bit, especially as some of its themes of (eg) transience and passing away seem much more relevant to early 21st century Britain than they did to Cold War Britain of the 1980s.

Re puzzle/mystery worlds - generally speaking I don't play to figure things out, I like to relax, roleplay, and hit things with my sword. The occasional figured-out revelation can be cool, though.

I generally prefer setting books that set a strong mood/feel, like Midnight or Sovereign Stone, over the dry, heavy detail approach like Kalamar. Wilderlands of High Fantasy is great though as it has both.

 

[S'mon]

I just wanted to revive this old thread for a number of reasons:

You got me, Necromancer!

 

[WhatGravitas]

You got me, Necromancer!

On the other hand, people like me, who weren't around the first time, get to read it. And now I have to digest fusangite's mega-post.

Cheers, LT.