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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wil" data-source="post: 2768145" data-attributes="member: 3502">What I really like to see is a map of the world as it is seen by the world's cartographers and then, if appropriate, a straightforward map (or at least a map that has all of the detail on it).  If the structure of the world and the mapmakers' understanding are one and the same (like Exalted, where the world really is flat, the Blessed Isle is at the center and the edges really do turn into endless expanses of the appropriate element) than one map will do - but it is really nice to have a second map that has all of the unknown and secret areas on it.  This is, of course, granted that I am probably in the minority that I don't count the miles from city to city - I much prefer to deal with how long it takes, versus how far it is.  Subtle difference there, but just because you can make it from point a to point b in a week (especially on foot or mounted) does not mean it will always be that way.Granted, the average peasant's life is going to  be similar nearly anywhere, but touching on the kinds of food that they eat, what livelihoods are available to them, is there social mobility, how much does religion play in their day to day existence.  Birth ceremonies, marriage ceremonies (do they even have marriage?  Are they monogamous?), death rites.  Do the different social classes have marked differences in these things?  Essays on the sociocultural structure of a society is probably overboard - a lot can be said in a couple paragraph narrative  (which I am fond of, if done well) over a straight encyclopedia entry works best.  Tribe 8, at least in the first edition, did this by following a scribe who was tasked with chronicling details about each of the Tribes (in fact, much of the world information is written from her point of view - although I liked the presentation, many complained it was too subjective).I don't have a lot of experience with d20 settings.  I think that the legacy of Tolkien has left a very strong mark on fantasy gaming, where there is a tendency to write these long, dry histories with languages and whatnot, include Elves and Dwarves "just because", etc.  A decent example might be a gameworld I never finished creating where the "multiverse" consisted of a series of layers, like an onion.  The "good gods" had warred with the "evil gods" and had won - however, since they couldn't destroy them they imprisoned them, wrapping them in layer upon layer of rules and restrictions until they could not move.  This resulted in universe that as you moved up and down the planes, the laws of reality became less or more fluid.  At the very center, where the gods were imprisoned, the laws of reality were so restrictive as to make everything stagnant - no atomic motion, no time, no anything.  At the uppermost layer, where the gods lived, it was pure chaos - anything could happen.  The level the game world was set on, which was very Earthlike, was somewhere in the middle.  Elves, which were fairly typical elves in terms of how they looked, acted, etc.  had been in the distant past servants of the gods and had lived on a layer higher up than the game world.  However, through their hubris and arrogance they were cast down to the game world's level, tasked with looking after the inhabitants (i.e., humans) there because the gods had some plans for them.  So while the Elves are superior to the humans, they're also the humans' caretakers.  Dwarves (as might be guessed) came from a layer just below the game world's, where the laws governing reality are a bit stricter.  Hence, and Elves and Dwarves don't like each other much; Elves are better with magic (their native reality is more fluid) while Dwarves are resistant to it (because their native reality is more static). I was able to keep those tropes of fantasy rpgs and literature, but give a different explanation as to the reasons why.I don't really use mini-adventures that much, sense I tend to write my own stuff.  So I guess for me it's  balancing act between providing some neat hooks that I can use vs. taking up too much space on stuff I won't.  Usually it's the setting text itself that provides the hooks for me...like in a section about a city, reading the sentence "Over recent years, the trade war between these two houses has escalated to the point that both are on the verge of collapse".  That's a hook to me...however, as a more direct answer my favorite presentation has always been an adventure seed in a sidebar, that gives a short summary of a potential scenario based on what is being discussed in detail on that page.  So in the example, the section may be about the trade houses of a city, and the sidebar might have an idea for how the PCs might run interference against one house for the other.  The opposite (or following) sidebar might have the stats of the two house leaders, and maybe another prominent NPC or two.  Having the scenarios in the sidebars allows me to finish reading the main text, and then look at the sidebar without breaking my "rythmn" as it were.</blockquote>

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