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How much detail for published campaign settings?
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<blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 5828390" data-attributes="member: 6670763"><p>On that subject someone mentioned that you need some detail to showcase how the world works and what the reasons are for the current state of things. Giving the example that you can't describe life in an oppressive magocracy without explaining the mage lords who rule the county with an iron fist.</p><p></p><p>That got me thinking that a good way to handle such things is by giving examples. For example, such a realm could be ruled by a high council of 12 elder archmages, in which case you would make stat blocks and detailed backstories for maybe two or three of them. If a GM wants to use these offcial NPCs, he can chose to do so. However, if he has different ideas for how the high council affects the PCs, there are still lots of vacant seats that are not filled by the official material. Every GM can make up his own elder archmages with their own stats and backstories and have the ones from the official material not showing up in their game. Also even if you play in the games of differend GMs, their visions do not come into conflict with each other since the elder archmages one GM created could also sit on the high council of another GMs game. They just never appear or a called by name.</p><p></p><p>So the idea is basically "trace the outlines but only fill out half the space". The other half is left for GMs to fill. If they want to. They can also decide to use just the things you already provided and go with a relatively static world.</p><p>Great thing for the designer: Only half as much work, while still getting a greater payback! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yora, post: 5828390, member: 6670763"] On that subject someone mentioned that you need some detail to showcase how the world works and what the reasons are for the current state of things. Giving the example that you can't describe life in an oppressive magocracy without explaining the mage lords who rule the county with an iron fist. That got me thinking that a good way to handle such things is by giving examples. For example, such a realm could be ruled by a high council of 12 elder archmages, in which case you would make stat blocks and detailed backstories for maybe two or three of them. If a GM wants to use these offcial NPCs, he can chose to do so. However, if he has different ideas for how the high council affects the PCs, there are still lots of vacant seats that are not filled by the official material. Every GM can make up his own elder archmages with their own stats and backstories and have the ones from the official material not showing up in their game. Also even if you play in the games of differend GMs, their visions do not come into conflict with each other since the elder archmages one GM created could also sit on the high council of another GMs game. They just never appear or a called by name. So the idea is basically "trace the outlines but only fill out half the space". The other half is left for GMs to fill. If they want to. They can also decide to use just the things you already provided and go with a relatively static world. Great thing for the designer: Only half as much work, while still getting a greater payback! :) [/QUOTE]
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How much detail for published campaign settings?
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