Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do you go about making your own world?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="MoogleEmpMog" data-source="post: 3066326" data-attributes="member: 22882"><p>I start with a 'hook' - this is usually a genre element that I want to play up for the campaign.</p><p></p><p>Let's say I pick 'airships' as my hook. Then I create a world where airships will play a major role in society.</p><p></p><p>On the one hand, this could mean that airships are new/prototypes and that the first one to launch will play a central role in the storyline. What role? Perhaps the creators of the airship are a small nation with late Rennaissance tech, threatened by a considerably larger nation or coalition with lower tech but greater numbers. The airship, with its immense strategic significance (it's of the floating battleship variety, complete with bombs), represents the turning point in the war.</p><p></p><p>This leads me to develop the factions involved. On the one hand we have a small country, higher than average tech, perhaps with a more scientific worldview. The default assumption would be to make them the 'good guys' because they're losing - so instead, I make them the bad guys. Like the Nazis in WW2, they thought their superior tactics and equipment would allow them to defeat all their neighbors, but they ended up biting off more than they could chew and the counterattack has broken their ground forces. The airship is their 'ultimate weapon,' their last-ditch attempt to reverse the war's course and resume their drive to world domination.</p><p></p><p>I'm getting a picture of a driven people, highly organized, progress-minded, convinced that their philosophy is worth 'bringing to the world,' even if they have to bring it by force and conquer everyone to do it. Their leader is a mad scientist type, immensely intelligent and charismatic as well as completely nuts. With his ideology of enforced enlightenment, he's an antagonist the players may feel some sympathy for - even as they want to smash his face in with a steam-powered hammer for what he's done to their characters in the name of his ideals.</p><p></p><p>The rest of the world, in contrast, is lower-tech, more late medieval or early rennaissance, insofar as the two can be separated in any meaningful way. More magical/spiritual than technological, perhaps with a strong unifying faith that the antagonist is opposed to. Most of the allied countries probably boast a feudal system complete with knights who have good reason to wear full plate. So far, they've successfully counterattacked based on numbers and personal courage/skill - until the insurmountable power of their enemy's technology puts them in grave danger.</p><p></p><p>For the airship to be so dominant, domesticated flying creatures (griffons and giant eagles and the like) will have to be excised. Likewise D&D-style dragons with their inborn 'firepower.' On the flip side, wingless land dragons or sea dragons could still have a role. In general, monsters won't play much of a role in this campaign, with most being one-off 'magitech mutations' unleashed by the antagonists or summoned celestials/spirits bound to the protagonists' church.</p><p></p><p>From this basis, I would detail the regions the PCs were actually operating in, perhaps even getting away from the airship hook as anything other than a looming menace/final dungeon.</p><p></p><p>Now, even though this whole world is built up around a single genre convention, I could easily develop it in such a way it could be used for multiple campaigns. It would be easy to tweak a few elements to make it playable from either side, particularly by setting it at different time periods. A post-war 'inquisitors hunting down renegade engineers' game with the PCs being survivors of the defeated technocracy (or inquisitors hunting same), for example.</p><p></p><p>For that matter, the genre convention 'airships' could easily go in entirely different directions, say, by focusing on a whole world where airships were the main means of travel. Floating continents, perhaps? Or islands stranded by a greatly increased sea level?</p><p></p><p>Anyway, that's my world-building process of choice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MoogleEmpMog, post: 3066326, member: 22882"] I start with a 'hook' - this is usually a genre element that I want to play up for the campaign. Let's say I pick 'airships' as my hook. Then I create a world where airships will play a major role in society. On the one hand, this could mean that airships are new/prototypes and that the first one to launch will play a central role in the storyline. What role? Perhaps the creators of the airship are a small nation with late Rennaissance tech, threatened by a considerably larger nation or coalition with lower tech but greater numbers. The airship, with its immense strategic significance (it's of the floating battleship variety, complete with bombs), represents the turning point in the war. This leads me to develop the factions involved. On the one hand we have a small country, higher than average tech, perhaps with a more scientific worldview. The default assumption would be to make them the 'good guys' because they're losing - so instead, I make them the bad guys. Like the Nazis in WW2, they thought their superior tactics and equipment would allow them to defeat all their neighbors, but they ended up biting off more than they could chew and the counterattack has broken their ground forces. The airship is their 'ultimate weapon,' their last-ditch attempt to reverse the war's course and resume their drive to world domination. I'm getting a picture of a driven people, highly organized, progress-minded, convinced that their philosophy is worth 'bringing to the world,' even if they have to bring it by force and conquer everyone to do it. Their leader is a mad scientist type, immensely intelligent and charismatic as well as completely nuts. With his ideology of enforced enlightenment, he's an antagonist the players may feel some sympathy for - even as they want to smash his face in with a steam-powered hammer for what he's done to their characters in the name of his ideals. The rest of the world, in contrast, is lower-tech, more late medieval or early rennaissance, insofar as the two can be separated in any meaningful way. More magical/spiritual than technological, perhaps with a strong unifying faith that the antagonist is opposed to. Most of the allied countries probably boast a feudal system complete with knights who have good reason to wear full plate. So far, they've successfully counterattacked based on numbers and personal courage/skill - until the insurmountable power of their enemy's technology puts them in grave danger. For the airship to be so dominant, domesticated flying creatures (griffons and giant eagles and the like) will have to be excised. Likewise D&D-style dragons with their inborn 'firepower.' On the flip side, wingless land dragons or sea dragons could still have a role. In general, monsters won't play much of a role in this campaign, with most being one-off 'magitech mutations' unleashed by the antagonists or summoned celestials/spirits bound to the protagonists' church. From this basis, I would detail the regions the PCs were actually operating in, perhaps even getting away from the airship hook as anything other than a looming menace/final dungeon. Now, even though this whole world is built up around a single genre convention, I could easily develop it in such a way it could be used for multiple campaigns. It would be easy to tweak a few elements to make it playable from either side, particularly by setting it at different time periods. A post-war 'inquisitors hunting down renegade engineers' game with the PCs being survivors of the defeated technocracy (or inquisitors hunting same), for example. For that matter, the genre convention 'airships' could easily go in entirely different directions, say, by focusing on a whole world where airships were the main means of travel. Floating continents, perhaps? Or islands stranded by a greatly increased sea level? Anyway, that's my world-building process of choice. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How do you go about making your own world?
Top