How do you go about creating a campaign setting?

[Zappo]

There are, broadly speaking, two ways to design a campaign setting. Top-down and bottom-up.

You can design the whole world with very little detail, and then work down progressively increasing detail. This way, you can easily be very consistant and maintain a definite theme. On the negative side, it takes some time before the setting is playable, because you have to design the whole world before doing enough detail to game. Which also means that you'll have to wait before finding out if the setting sucks. 8)
This is better if you're going to first design the setting and then play, or if you aim for publishing, or if you have a cool concept for the setting.

Or, you can design a small area of the setting in detail, and then design more and more detailed areas as you go along, until you have the full world. This way, you can start playing soon enough, and you don't do work that you aren't going to use. However, it is harder to make a coherent world.
This is better if you just want to game.

 

[Lalato]

Zappo definitely has it right on the two broad ways of creating a setting. I would only add this...

If this campaign setting is for homebrew play only. In other words it is only for you and your players then you really don't have to worry about building the entire world. You only have to worry about building the places your players will actually go.

That doesn't mean that you won't have a vague concept of the surrounding world, but you don't have to put in every single detail. Think about it this way... I live in Florida. Florida is roughly 400 miles long and 300 miles wide. If i were only traveling by foot or horseback I probably wouldn't venture out of Florida very often. I might make it into Georgia or Alabama... anything beyond that would be fairly distant.

This is especially true for low level campaigns. As the characters levels increase, you have to add details to more things, but you shouldn't be too worried if you don't have a complete world a la Forgotten Realms or Scarred Lands.

Complete Homebrew settings are labors of love. Complete commericial settings are labors of several people working in concert to get the product out. Don't feel bad that you didn't create an entire setting overnight.

Good luck...

 

[EarthsShadow]

I'd put them in this order.

Desire, Will, Time, Patience.

This is some of the best advice I've heard in a while....

joe b.

Your order is best, I added two into it as I was writing this and I originally just started with Will and Patience, then realized that they were not enough and you must have at least these 4 to create a full fledge campaign setting.

I guess if you want to have it a commercial success of some kind, then add in Friends or Associates, cuz you just can't do it by yourself unless you can write real well, draw all the art by yourself, do all the layout yourself...etc. Plus they should be people you can trust and get along with.

 

[kenjib]

Were those Dungeoncraft articles that used to be on the Wizard's site ever moved anywhere after Paizo bought Dragon? Those were great for help on this topic. The basic premise is that you don't need to create tons of details that you aren't going to use. Just build it as you need it.

 

[SoulsFury]

Thanks for all the input guys. I think I'm gonna start building a world from the ground up and use the adventure path modules. I'll probably make another post for help with getting started.

Nik

 

[Cedric]

I start with one town, city or village. I decide what the people and place is like...basically what kind of town it is.

Is it a mining town? trade city? sea-side harbor?

Then I decide what the surrounding country-side is like. Trade routes? Fields? Mountains? Caves? Dungeon? old battlefiels riddled with the remains of war where ghosts walk the night?

Then, having this one pocket of the world created...I spin the web further out and create a whole world in which this little (or big) community fits.

*shrugs* I'm sure everyone has their own methods, but I like this one. I get one really developed area to start with when play begins, and have a lot of leeway to create the rest of the world as I go along...including molding certain aspects of the world to fit people's character concepts.

Cedric

 

[nsruf]

What seems to work best for me is the quick-and-dirty approach:

1. Start with a general idea/feel/genre that will make the world special. Write up a few general guidelines and a little backstory.

2. Decide on the rough outline of the first campaign and the nature of the PCs. This will tell you what you really need to plan out beforehand.

3. Create details on an as-needed basis, i.e. build the campaign world along with your adventures.

This method avoids unnecessary work, as you mostly create content which is actually used in play. Economics and population distribution may be nice to know, but most of the time none but the GM cares for them if there are no glaring discrepancies.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I always start with questions. What do I expect from the campaign? Who are the villians? Who are the good guys? Where is this and that?

There are a number of world building web sites that will help on this.

Check out this one...
http://www.io.com/~eighner/world_builder/world_builder_index.html
and this one...
http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/world.build.html

 

[Sam]

There are a number of world building web sites that will help on this.

Check out this one...
http://www.io.com/~eighner/world_builder/world_builder_index.html
and this one...
http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/world.build.html

Thanks for the links. Does anyone have any other links they would recommend on this subject?

 

[ced1106]

ced1106: In 2nd edition I did both, wrote my own or ran printed modules or dungeon adventures. Just depending on the campaign/time frame, etc. I haven't run a 3rd edition campaign except trying to get a couple of online games going but players disappear real easy with them.

Only replying to be complete, but I pretty much do what nsruf does:

1. Run an adventure.
2. Run a second adventure.
3. Mull on a backstory that would tie the adventures together.

Something that campaign settings **don't** do is to take the consequences of one adventure on another. I'll be posting a review of Caverns of the Ice Queen, in which I suggest that demise of one despot only leads to opportunities for another enemy.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^