How to build a world

[Turtlejay]

Yeah. . .this is some awesome advice folks, I appreciate it, and future googlers appreciate it (hopefully). I am hoping to remain edition neutral right now, so that does kind of put me in a bind with the issue of Gods. I do want to try having a strong central religion, possibly having even the government influenced by it.

I like the three words idea. I might expand that to. . .everything. There is room for one mountain range on my continent, I think I'll go with 'Contested Primal Frontier'.

These ideas are super guys. Keep them coming!

Jay

 

[Gilladian]

In going back over time and stripping out the features of my borrowed pantheon that I didn't care for, one thing I found worked very well was to assume that ALL races worshipped the SAME pantheon of Gods. There's only one. They may call the Gods different names, they may believe they look different, but under the hood, they're quite similar, given cultural differences.

So Mikol the sun/light/fire god of the humans is Kol-Karthal to the dwarves, and is worshipped as the god of the forge/fire. Both end up with the same colors, domains, and favored weapon. And a dwarf feels quite comfortable walking into a human temple and praying to his version of the God. In fact, in all but the most isolated temples, there's a separate altar or niche for various aspects of the gods.

This means that you can easily say to people "in this region, the god you know as X is called Y, and they believe blah blah blah about him". I throw in many saints and regional lesser gods as well, but you don't have to.

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

What I do in my campaigns is to have a basic idea of what it involves, so I don't have to think everything up on the spot but then I zoom in on a particular part that the PCs are going through, or I know they will go through.

 

[Sunking]

I don't remember the name of the articles but some years back in dragon there was a montly article about just this subjekt, what I remember of my head is rule 1 and 2

1) Never force youself to create more then nesecery (it takes the bottom and up approce)

2) When ever you create somthing create a secret for it (aka plothook or mindblowing truth about it all)

number 2 I have found to be genial, if you create a minor npc, create a minor secret (the mayer of a small town, he was in his younght a highway robber)
If you create a important location, create a important secret (the abbandendt wizard tower of Nag-ogden, it was here the wizards first time breached the weil letting deamons into the world, lots of stuff about how to breach and how to repair the weil)
If you create a major kingdom, create a major secret (the kingdom of Khare, a peacefull kingdom which is know for its fair trade and great supply of iron and metal, they have a secret alliance with the dugar above supplying slaves for iron and metal)

this way there is always some hook or somthing to get the ball rolling when you look at your notes

above the from top/bottom approce it deppends but as some of the otters have stated if you go from top don't go to much into details befor its needet

 

[Amaroq]

Hmmm, I'm not sure "Top down" and "Bottom up" are the only ways to approach things.

I decided to create my story, and then shape the world according to it.

So, for example, I tried to figure out who the Level 30 villain might be, and from that, who the Level 20 villains might be, and from that, who the Level 10 villains might be ... then pegged a bit of "okay, who is opposing them?" ... and also "who is supporting them" ...

That got me onto the subject of conflicts between different gods, so I fleshed out my pantheon, theological history, and current conflicts between the gods. (Definitely using the 'everyone has a secret' idea.)

By that point, I had a lot of ideas for plot hooks, plans, repercussions from events of 1500, 1000, 500, and 100 years previous coming to fruition in the current year, and have a basic clockwork idea of how evil triumphs if the PC's do nothing. I fully expect them to throw a hundred wrenches into evil's plans, only three of which being things I'd thought of whilst world-building!

So, that's "top down" in one sense, but its a plot-driven "top down" not a map-drive "top down".

In play, then, I have some sense of the events that are unfolding on the larger world map, but I DM from the "bottom up" in that I'm not bothering to give any kind of game stats, world maps, etc, to anything until the PC's are close enough to conceivably get there in a single game session.