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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5492720" data-attributes="member: 3820">Group chemistry is so important. I kind of run the opposite sort of game that The Shaman does, with one of my weirdest takes on D&D being one that the players have gotten into the most. Now, it does have touchstones with inspiration like Gormenghast and Labyrinth, and my players are familiar with those sources, which helps. But it departs in many ways. I'm actually very curious about what I'm doing right (as opposed to what my players are doing right), and here are a few things I guess are important.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. But if you read enough Forgotten Realms, you get a sense for how Greenwood likes to name characters (with lots of excess vowels). Bog-standard elves? Use soft sounds like "l" and "r" and "m" a lot. Bog-standard dwarves? Harsh consonants like "d" and "k" and "r." That's part of the reason elves and dwarves are so successful in gamer culture. You feel you can come up with a name that feels right on your own, without consulting a chart. 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.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.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. 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. Enemies: Humans and their ilk are, hands down, my favorite villains. And I love monsters, don't get me wrong. But who you're fighting does a lot to stress what's singular and fascinating about your setting. For instance, I just don't use beholders when I run D&D, heresy though it may be, because the first and foremost thing a beholder says is "You are playing D&D." I use goblinkin all the time, though, because they can take on great customization. Blue-skinned, white-furred bugbears in the frozen North. Spidery bakemono-like goblins in a Mythic China game. Distinctly Froudian wicked bastards with names like "Tanglegut" in a more Western European setting. Limiting the monster palette and figuring out what will showcase the local flavor most is one of my favorite tricks.There are probably a bunch of other things I'm forgetting, but really, these are some of my favorite factors of world design: presenting things in the context of examples players are already familiar with, and being consistent about feel. I love it when it goes well enough that the players buy in.</blockquote>

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