Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 2808873" data-attributes="member: 11">Just as an opposite point of view - I have always preferred starting at the  macro level and then focusing in on small areas to detail and then zooming back out to make whatever changes/additions that inspired and then zooming back into another small area.That is I make a big map, maybe mark some villages, towns, cities, landmarks, etc. . . decide some of the over-arching cultural/societal/environmental conditions that bind the larger area together and then "zoom in" on the village of X and detail it and the basic surrounding area and maybe while I did that I came up with the idea of the "gravemaster" (this is just an example) - a cultural role regarding a person who guards the stone cairns people are buried under and oversees worship and prayer in this "stone gardens" and decided this is a cultural aspect true to all the surrounding villages - so I zoom back out - make a note of this for when I am detailing other places and then zoom in to the next village or city. . . maybe that gives me an idea for a city guarded by these cairns that take the place of walls, creating a maze of great graves that help make entering the city more difficult - so I make a note of that to develop later, etc. . .But still I have more macro stuff to deal with - how does the neighboring country see this kind of thing?  The interplay of culturals and tension and reaction between then can help develop cultural and societal attitudes that can have a large effect on how you develop places.My point is, working from the bottom up only is as bad as working from top down only - you can lose the sense of interdependence and the sense of flowing tapestry of setting - and end up with "the asian-like place", "the stone age-like place", etc. . .</blockquote>

Verification