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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emerikol" data-source="post: 8241190" data-attributes="member: 6698278">I think the onion approach mentioned above is totally valid and is the original way it was done I believe.First, I create a map.  Typically at least a continent sized one.  Think of the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, etc...   I love maps and this truly is a labor of love but it is a labor and is often as much work as many of the succeeding steps combined.  Right now I use worldographer.   If I have educated people in my group, I will eventually give them a map though it may not be as detailed.   If I am going to deviate from the vanilla understanding of races, I do it here.  I don't always.  Last time I made the elves psionic instead of magical.  I tend not to use the newer races much.  So elves and dwarves are in all my campaigns but the rest are sprinkled in for variety.   I also tend to make some of the humanoid races into full blown national actors.  So you might see a hobgoblin trader in port.  The race might tend evil but they are always killed on sight.   I vary which ones.I often develop my cosmology and religions at this time.  I develop the various priesthoods and how they operate.  I love this aspect of the game as well.  Creating truly distinct religions is a lot of fun.  Then I work on the nations.  Typically I will figure out some history going back a few hundred years.  This is a medieval style world so much farther is probably overboard.  I just use broad strokes back from there.  Typically I detail out the economic details at this time in a broad way.  What does the nation produce, who does it trade with, how strong is it, how is it ruled, etc....  Think of the Greyhawk gazetteer but in my own style which perhaps in some ways is more verbose but less polished in the writing.I define the cities with names, populations.  I create a rogues gallery of notable personalities.  This would include notable monsters like a dragon.  I tend to play dragons differently than D&D.  They are practically walking gods who typically dominate a region for some time.  Only the very highest level PCs dare go after a dragon and when they do they put their affairs in order before setting out to do it.   So when I say cities, I do not mean fully detailed cities.Now all of the above can be reused so I might run several campaigns in a world before making another.Then I create my first sandbox.  Typically it is on some frontier area.  It is rarely near a big city.  As cities are a major creative effort.  When I do create a really big city, it is often the sandbox.  I will often start working on the details of the cities though while the group is mucking about in the city.   These details might be nothing more than maps.  I sometimes use maps of cities from third parties.Inside the sandbox, I create appropriate wandering monsters tables.  I create the NPCs of the local village/town.  Typically in a good bit of detail.  I then begin stocking the area with adventures and places of interest.  Most of them are small one session shots.  Others are fully developed dungeons.  I tend to vary things up a bit so I have the lairs of the major humanoid enemies.  I have forgotten tombs, etc...  I just vary things.  I tend to make stuff closer to the base easier and the farther out you get the more dangerous it gets.  Another alternative is to create a single large multi-layer dungeon like Gygax did with Castle Greyhawk.  I find this to be a good change of pace but not something I'd do all the time for sure.  The players kind of have to buy into this idea in advance of the campaign.I also prepare a lot of names, NPCs,etc... for those situations where I might be forced to ad lib it as mentioned above.  I try to avoid it but you can't always.  If you have enough of these ready to go, you can always use the ones that don't get used this campaign in the next.  These are just ready combat encounters.   I also like to use some kind of personality building tool for the NPCs.  I have over the years tried a variety of different things.  Even psychology tests.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />.   I want my NPCs to seem different and not just a monolithic version of me.</blockquote>

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