Save my brain some hard work

[STARP_Social_Officer]

Attention, people with nothing better to do:

I'm in the process of organising my campaign world for a future project (you might call it 'pre-production'), which will be a "Next Generation" (that's its official name right now), following on from my longest-running and most successful campaign so far (six years, a dozen players, more than fifty PCs and NPCs, and 20 levels). The campaign setting is 100 years after the original. The main city, which had a million residents in the previous campaign, now has two and a half million, and is basically a world unto itself. To that end, I'm focusing very heavily on the city itself for the new campaign setting, with only some minor details about the rest of the world. The campaign will be set mostly in the city. The tech level will be Steampunk-ish, but there will be a distinct 1920s or 1930s 'feel' to the campaign - at this stage I want the PCs to run a private detective agency, but that's not so important for the actual campaign setting.

The point of this rather long introduction is that I need ideas for what I need to be fleshing out. I've designed half a dozen campaign settings but I want this one to be supremely detailed and comparable in scope to something you'd find professionally published. I'm making a big deal out of this. My question then is this: what should I include? Obviously I need chapters on the city's politics, culture, religious life, law enforcement etc, and I need a lot of landmarks and 'hot spots' to detail. I'm thinking along the lines of Shadowrun settings for a general format of how to describe the city. What do people think? Can I get some more ideas - what do I need to write about and include to make this a playable, workable and above all, interesting campaign setting? I've got plenty of ideas, but I'm mostly working on this on worknights, meaning my brain is pretty frazzled by the end.

Any advice?

 

[Herobizkit]

Start small.

Most published campaigns/supplements have a small to large number of contributors -- editors, editors-in-chief, playtesters, and so on -- and take a large amount of time and energy. To single-handedly create a massive city with the same quality of mainstream published works would take titanic effort and dedication.

Also, consider this: if this is going to be a playable city, in that you will use it in actual play, will your players CARE how much effort you put into the background information? Will there ever be a point where you present all the information you want to present? If you're making this with the hopes that youor players will be awed at your attention to detail, just run something already made... *LOL*

To make a playable, interesting campaign setting, you needn't look any further than your own backyard. Since you're going the 'punk route, just look around at major cities and see how they're laid out. Your setting should read like a tourist information guide. Pick one up or do some research on the net to get a feel for what should be available. And remember, for every attraction or city feature, there needs to be people to make that attraction or feature "work".

Hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[iwatt]

Any advice?

Get your players to help. Have them create NPCs, guilds, labor unions, crime syndicates (more than one for a city that size), politicians, the nobility, the craftsmen...

That will help your players feel linked to the city in a much closer way than if you just present them with it. If they feel they "own" part of the city, they'll want to see what happens.

If some of your players are good at drawing, have them sketch significant buildings and monuments.

 

[Gilladian]

In my opinion one of the things I've done with my campaign world has worked better than almost any other - I've described typical clothing, jewelry styles and customs, food and flavors that are preferred, and names - do people have first and last names, first name and nickname, or clan names, or what? Pulling names from different cultures in real world works well for different social groups or racial groups in your world.

Much of the rest of the stuff can slide, truthfully. Only create what you absolutely need - and you'll still be working constantly at it!