D&D 5E What do I need to build a world?
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KahlessNestor
Adventurer
I understand the appeal of the bottom up approach, but how do you have maps if you don't know what's "out there"? I have a home brew setting percolating in my head that I need to get down on paper and I'm kind of stuck on the map. I also want to allow player contributions, so I don't need everything detailed, but I would like a rough outline of things.
You just have a small map, with room for expansion. You get a piece of blank paper and draw a small shape off to one side. This is the "known world". All of the blank paper is "yet to be explored". If you want more you draw a general outline. Some adventurers from a continent to the south would let you know there IS a continent to the south. You don't know the size or shape, so you just draw a blobby land mass to the south, as a general indication that there is land in that direction.
EDIT:Ironically, the maps are about the only part I don't have questions about.
KahlessNestor
Adventurer
It just seems people would know more. But I guess it depends on the world. My idea is "fractured empire".
In that case you could have different maps of the world, each showing a different faction of this empire as being the dominant owner of the land, and excellent detail of that factions allied countries. The countries of the enemies of these allies would then be shown with little detail, and likely smaller in comparison to the friendly countries than they really are.
Mercule
Adventurer
Depends on how deep you want to get. IMO, the best way for a first-time world builder is to grab an adventure with enough of a map to cover what you need session 1, including a town and someplace to hack orcs (or whatever). For 5E, I'd go with either "Lost Mines of Phandelver" (Starter Set) or "Princes of the Apocalypse" because, well, they have that. In older editions, I started with a standard module and it was enough to get me going.
I can hear you saying, "But those are set in the Realms. I want to create my own world." Don't sweat it. You have a map. Nothing in there requires that you have certain things beyond the edges of said map. If it really bugs you, change the names of the towns and no one will ever look close enough to realize you ripped it off. If it really bugs your sensibilities, go ahead and rearrange things while you rename them. Boom! Now you've started world building for real.
The module that provided the first step for my longest running world was "Under Illefarn". I'm not sure I ever even ran the adventure, and I'm pretty sure the small map contained within his been lost to the ages. I do know that the name "Illefarn" doesn't appear in my world. Instead, it became Ilfandar, which is a pseudo-Viking area. I know nothing about the "real" Illefarn in the Realms because I despise the Realms with all the venom I can muster for an imaginary place that didn't kick my cat. It wouldn't surprise me, at all, to find out it was a small town in the tropics that hasn't been mentioned in publication since 1989.
Anyway, the point is that the rest of the world evolved pretty organically. One of the PCs decided that he was the refugee son of a noble line who found a cursed artifact and became evil. So, they moved south to find his homeland and I had to decide how far away it was, what it was like, and what they found on the way. That comes one step at a time.
At low levels, they need lighter challenges, so things stay somewhat local. The party needs to be able to beat feet back to town without having to camp. You probably won't even get off the map for a few levels. Once the world is a bit more established, you can put them on major roads, with lots of options, but we're talking about starting from zero, here. Just exercise your creativity by coming up with a couple of local side-treks. That'll help you get a feel for how deep to build the world. It also adds character to your world, which will give you something to draw on for the next step.
By the time they step off the map, it should be fairly intentional. Add a somewhat larger town, just a bit away, where they could get that full plate commissioned, a family heirloom sword enchanted, or research a particular spell (oh, how I loathe the automatic spell acquisition for Wizards -- so many hooks thrown away). You should really have a feel for what holes you want to fill in next (or what holes your players want filled in). Just don't rush this stage.
After you build a region, you work out from there. Sometimes, there's an element that calls to you and you add a foreign power (friendly or not), new race, etc. that is a ways away. Maybe you had names thrown out, early on, and you flesh them out, now. You don't even have to use those names for what you thought you were going to, originally.
History, gods, even magic can work the same as geography. Most people only care (or know, for a pseudo-Medieval world) what happened in their lifetimes. All you need, to start with, is the last skirmish with orcs (or barbarians, or the next town over). Let ancient civilizations show up when, and only when, you need them. Most towns only have a couple deities that matter -- ask your players what sort of gods their PCs worship and go from there. The baker might follow some random cult, but the PCs probably haven't had that conversation with him; it doesn't matter until it does.
On the other hand, if you really want to go big, this is an excellent resource: http://www.amazon.com/Aria-Worlds-Series-Canticle-Monomyth/dp/096459031X. I used it to flesh out bits of my setting, after it was fairly mature, and it's quite nice for doing so. You really have to be a special sort of world-building geek, though, to care. Which is why it's out of print.
I can hear you saying, "But those are set in the Realms. I want to create my own world." Don't sweat it. You have a map. Nothing in there requires that you have certain things beyond the edges of said map. If it really bugs you, change the names of the towns and no one will ever look close enough to realize you ripped it off. If it really bugs your sensibilities, go ahead and rearrange things while you rename them. Boom! Now you've started world building for real.
The module that provided the first step for my longest running world was "Under Illefarn". I'm not sure I ever even ran the adventure, and I'm pretty sure the small map contained within his been lost to the ages. I do know that the name "Illefarn" doesn't appear in my world. Instead, it became Ilfandar, which is a pseudo-Viking area. I know nothing about the "real" Illefarn in the Realms because I despise the Realms with all the venom I can muster for an imaginary place that didn't kick my cat. It wouldn't surprise me, at all, to find out it was a small town in the tropics that hasn't been mentioned in publication since 1989.
Anyway, the point is that the rest of the world evolved pretty organically. One of the PCs decided that he was the refugee son of a noble line who found a cursed artifact and became evil. So, they moved south to find his homeland and I had to decide how far away it was, what it was like, and what they found on the way. That comes one step at a time.
At low levels, they need lighter challenges, so things stay somewhat local. The party needs to be able to beat feet back to town without having to camp. You probably won't even get off the map for a few levels. Once the world is a bit more established, you can put them on major roads, with lots of options, but we're talking about starting from zero, here. Just exercise your creativity by coming up with a couple of local side-treks. That'll help you get a feel for how deep to build the world. It also adds character to your world, which will give you something to draw on for the next step.
By the time they step off the map, it should be fairly intentional. Add a somewhat larger town, just a bit away, where they could get that full plate commissioned, a family heirloom sword enchanted, or research a particular spell (oh, how I loathe the automatic spell acquisition for Wizards -- so many hooks thrown away). You should really have a feel for what holes you want to fill in next (or what holes your players want filled in). Just don't rush this stage.
After you build a region, you work out from there. Sometimes, there's an element that calls to you and you add a foreign power (friendly or not), new race, etc. that is a ways away. Maybe you had names thrown out, early on, and you flesh them out, now. You don't even have to use those names for what you thought you were going to, originally.
History, gods, even magic can work the same as geography. Most people only care (or know, for a pseudo-Medieval world) what happened in their lifetimes. All you need, to start with, is the last skirmish with orcs (or barbarians, or the next town over). Let ancient civilizations show up when, and only when, you need them. Most towns only have a couple deities that matter -- ask your players what sort of gods their PCs worship and go from there. The baker might follow some random cult, but the PCs probably haven't had that conversation with him; it doesn't matter until it does.
On the other hand, if you really want to go big, this is an excellent resource: http://www.amazon.com/Aria-Worlds-Series-Canticle-Monomyth/dp/096459031X. I used it to flesh out bits of my setting, after it was fairly mature, and it's quite nice for doing so. You really have to be a special sort of world-building geek, though, to care. Which is why it's out of print.
I'm not so sure people really would know more. Look at maps from Ancient Rome through the Middle Ages, and they all kind of vary in accuracy and quality*. Not only that, but most people really wouldn't have access to those maps. So for the vast majority, it was good enough to know that "the big city is 2 days north, by road" and that's it. Hell, I think most people pre-industrial revolution spent their entire lives in something like a single 20 square miles, if I remember correctly.
* Ptolemy's Geography was republished in the 1400's I believe, and at the time it was considered an amazing find and highly accurate mapping of the world. What's interesting is his Geography only survived because it was in the form of tables, not maps (like the linked image below). So the maps of the 1400's generally used his data points to plot out where cities were in relation to one another, and sort of filled in things like coastlines and mountain ranges manually (or through reports). What's particularly interesting to me is these data points largely came from the Ancient Roman Empire, often via troop logs, so by the time they were "discovered" in the 1400's, it's not like it was new data.
TLDR: maps were highly inaccurate compared to the "fantasy maps" we associate with RPG's. Don't get stuck thinking that you need a map right a way by assuming the people in your world would have used them.
https://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/d-mathematics/images/math14.jpg
Sword of Spirit
Legend
One thing you should decide pretty quickly is if you plan on doing top-down or bottom-up design (or more likely, a combination of both).
While others will disagree, I strongly recommend starting your geography with a top-down skeleton (you can then fill in the details however and whenever you need to.)
The reason I suggest this is because I've seen plenty of fantasy world with messed up geography because they did bottom-up geographical design.
Just take the Forgotten Realms. So they start with a Europeanish setting, and say, "hey, we want some Arabian Nights style stuff!" They stick it over on the edge of their world, and tada--Calimshan.
Then their world gets bigger. And bigger, and bigger. And you start getting other Middle-Easternish areas on other borders. Then they finally make the entire Arabian Adventures subcontinent of Zakhara, making a world that looks a lot better and makes more sense in a general sense...except that you now have Calimshan and other lands stranded off in the middle of places they don't fit. Oh, and this world that is supposed to be based on a Europeanish fantasy? Well it's now got about twice as much Middle-Easternish square mileage as it does Europeanish.
I call that a design failure--because it is contrary to the designer intent of having one type of setting with a dash of something else at the edges. (I personally enjoy Middle-Easternish areas, but I don't like the sloppy design failure of implementation.)
That is just one example from one world.
Now, if that sort of thing isn't a problem for you, then you can go bottom-up instead. But my recommendation to preserve design intent and continuity is to draw out an outline of your continent (even if it's just a coastline) with a scale and write stuff on it like Western-Europe, Classical Greek, Middle-Eastern, East Asian, Great Empire of the Dwarves, Orcish Hordes, Great Fey Forest, Petty Feuding Fiefs...etc. Whatever places you know you want (or might want) in your world--just point out where they are relative to each other and the continent so you don't screw it up unintentionally.
While others will disagree, I strongly recommend starting your geography with a top-down skeleton (you can then fill in the details however and whenever you need to.)
The reason I suggest this is because I've seen plenty of fantasy world with messed up geography because they did bottom-up geographical design.
Just take the Forgotten Realms. So they start with a Europeanish setting, and say, "hey, we want some Arabian Nights style stuff!" They stick it over on the edge of their world, and tada--Calimshan.
Then their world gets bigger. And bigger, and bigger. And you start getting other Middle-Easternish areas on other borders. Then they finally make the entire Arabian Adventures subcontinent of Zakhara, making a world that looks a lot better and makes more sense in a general sense...except that you now have Calimshan and other lands stranded off in the middle of places they don't fit. Oh, and this world that is supposed to be based on a Europeanish fantasy? Well it's now got about twice as much Middle-Easternish square mileage as it does Europeanish.
I call that a design failure--because it is contrary to the designer intent of having one type of setting with a dash of something else at the edges. (I personally enjoy Middle-Easternish areas, but I don't like the sloppy design failure of implementation.)
That is just one example from one world.
Now, if that sort of thing isn't a problem for you, then you can go bottom-up instead. But my recommendation to preserve design intent and continuity is to draw out an outline of your continent (even if it's just a coastline) with a scale and write stuff on it like Western-Europe, Classical Greek, Middle-Eastern, East Asian, Great Empire of the Dwarves, Orcish Hordes, Great Fey Forest, Petty Feuding Fiefs...etc. Whatever places you know you want (or might want) in your world--just point out where they are relative to each other and the continent so you don't screw it up unintentionally.
ThirdWizard
First Post
If you want to join a community all about world building, you can participate over on www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding
It's a nice group of people and offers a lot of variety in topics.
It's a nice group of people and offers a lot of variety in topics.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I'm a pretty outspoken proponent of DM Ownership of the world (it's my imaginary "house" to which the PCs are invited as long as they follow the etiquette), but I have no problem backing up this sort of player involvement.
In my current campaign, one of my players decided she wanted to play a warrior assassin from an order dedicated to defending those who couldn't defend themselves by assassinating tyrants and other corrupt leaders. I just straight up let her design the order, with only a little bit of input (since her character is conceptualized as LN and is from the Greyhawk setting, I let her know that St. Cuthbert would be a great patron for this order). I asked all the players to describe 5 people in their lives and three important defining events, and pretty much just worked with whatever they gave me. Being set in existing worlds (each character is from a different world) meant that a lot of work was already done, but in addition to this order of assassins operating in the Flanaess, I now also know that there were ships smuggling arms to occupied areas of Ansalon during the War of the Lance in the Dragonlance setting, because another character's father was such a smuggler.
I guess I'm big for working within an established boundary, no matter how big. Once I've drawn a clear top-down outline for my sandbox (whether that's drawing a world map or saying "the Multiverse"), I like to let players give me input through their characters, and build the details of the world through emergent play (or in my spare time when the mood strikes me).
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