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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scotley" data-source="post: 1567825" data-attributes="member: 11520">I do prefer to create my own worlds. I have been gaming for 25 years and started working on my first world after my 3rd session. I like to play and create characters, but I love to DM and create worlds. My gaming group is now a bunch of crusty old farts with jobs, families and mortgages. We don't get to play as frequently as we would like, so I get my dnd fix by world building. I don't have a formal methodology for creating worlds. I prefer to just write down (type up) ideas as they come to me. I keep a word doc of snippets--just a few lines that are enough to help me remember the idea. When I'm planning for a particular game I decide which ideas fit together and which ones to save for the future. I like worlds that have a logic to them. Most traditional historic settings don't really hold up once you add magic to them. I try to make sure that the presence of magic and Gods are fit into the world. For my most recent world I started with an idea I had for a cosmology and creation myth and then started adding pieces from there. We've played a lot of elves over the years and I decided that it might be fun to make a somewhat stereotypical elven forest nation the villians. I'm still trying to decide if an elf is an elf regardless of color or if the Drow could be potential allies or if they exist at all. However, at other times I started with a city I liked the flavor of and built out from there. Another game started with some assumptions about magic and gods and built down from that. Once I have some basic assumptions, a hook I suppose, then I look at the role of races and classes in the world. I don't feel obligated to make every race and class, especially prestige classes, available. Doing so tends to force one into using stereotypes. I usually try to throw in a few less traditional options to keep the players from feeling limited. I find that having a timeline and bit of history makes it easier for the characters to have an interesting background and it gives me a chance to make magic items more special once the players learn something about them. The different nations need to have a different feel and are usually based on more than just climate and dominate race in my worlds. Its important that the different powers in the world--nations, guilds, organizations, epic characters, etc. have some conflict to make a more interest backdrop for the stories the characters create. As far as the actual documentation of the world I tend go with whatever mood takes me as I'm writing. Some stuff is almost like a textbook or users manual, while other stuff is told by npc's in the world to give it more flavor. I do everything in word and have been working to master campaign cartographer for maps. I was fortunate enough to have a player with a good grasp of CC to do the maps based on the ideas in my head. It is far superior to any hand drawn maps I've done in the past. I used to keep everything in a big binder and everything was handwritten or drawn. I find that word and CC go a long way towards making the presentation of my worlds more appealing. I'm sure my players prefer typed spellchecked notes to the old hand written photocopied stuff I used to do. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. Hopefully, there are some ideas in here that your student can benefit from. Everyone has to find their own style and level of detail.Scotley</blockquote>

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