I kind of run the opposite sort of game that The Shaman does . . .
You take the high road and I take the low road and somehow we both end up in bloody Brigadoon.
By the way, there's a space station in my
Traveller setting which is based on
Gormenghast's castle.
Names: I borrowed heavily from Gormenghast here in the sense that I wanted quirky names. Peake had Sepulcrave, Titus Groan, Flay, Swelter, Dr. Prunesquallor, Barquentine -- these are fantastic names, and you can see a pattern with them. The trouble with some fantasy naming conventions is that they're not intuitive for the players to anticipate. . . . In my case, I named characters stuff like "Spackleroot" and "Caddera Drupe" and "Sandgrief," names that didn't make a lot of sense -- but that hinted at the sideways, quirky logic that infuses the culture.
I gotta say, that's really awesome,
B.
The last time I ran a fantasy game I used real-world languages and names and applied them to different cultures for just this reason. For example, gnolls had Bantu names, which really added a lot of flavor to them.
Seasons and weather: I always wonder why I don't use these more, because it means so much to describe the city as full of fog after a heavy rain, or with slick icy patches and bits of unmelted snow in the shadowy corners. It can be only a line here and there, but having weather show up in more ways than just a storm for dramatic effect helps showcase the setting. If it's pouring rain outside, then the PCs and the NPCs taking shelter in the tavern have one more thing in common: a desire not to have to go back out in the rain until it lets up. That can have some impact.
It's winter in our game, and I remind the players regularly of that fact in small ways: a beggar shivering in a tattered blanket, workers breaking up ice floes collecting against bridge pilings, a non-player character blowing on his hands before drawing his sword.
Colors: It never hurts to tint a color palette in some way. Yellow causes anxiety, so it's fun to have potentially threatening groups wear yellow. A city whose stones turn bluish in the twilight has a different feel than one that turns rich and red-gold from reflected sunlight. Like weather, it doesn't have to be used all that often, but take a look at a game like Assassin's Creed sometime: they do a fantastic job with making each city feel distinct with just a nod toward a different color palette.
Peasants wear earth tones in whitewashed hovels, nobles bright silks in salons with red velvet wallpaper, soldiers wear colored sashes which indicate their nationality, servants can be identified by the colors of their livery.
Food: What do people eat and drink? It's a favorite question of mine. I've had tremendous luck with personalizing even the most generic of D&D campaigns with a few signature drinks and dishes.
One of the little things I really like about
The Village of Hommlet is the list of libations offered at the inn; they speak to a larger world.
I've added details on horses to my game for the same reason; being mounted on a coal-black Percheron gives one flavor, a chestnut Andalusian another.
Enemies: Humans and their ilk are, hands down, my favorite villains.
As a fan of no-monster settings, I couldn't agree more.
Limiting the monster palette and figuring out what will showcase the local flavor most is one of my favorite tricks.
Definitely.
I love it when it goes well enough that the players buy in.
Last night, one of my favorite moments of player buy-in apeared, when the adventuers went searching for an npc at a location they visited in the past, in order to invite him to join them at a meeting with another npc. There was no specific reason for them to invite Ferusac other than they trust him and consider him to be a friend.
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