Remathilis said:
Well, I have never run a typical D&D game, and I'm pretty sure that I don't want to start. Very possibly our taste in RPGs are quite dissimilar, and you will be spectacularly uninterested in what I think makes a good setting. However, you did ask, so here goes.
A map of some sort is probably necessary: it is a lot more efficient as a way of conveying geographical relationships than text.
Religious belief positively must be detailed. But note that they don't necessarily involve the existence of gods. Some societies could be animist or significantly influenced by non-theistic beliefs.
As for new races, I think that D&D is already marred by having too many. Make a selection of the ones that already exist, and create new ones only to fill significant gaps. My homebrew, for example, has only humans, leshy, divers, and flyers: and I am considering a re-write to cut out the leshy.
D&D has vastly too many different kinds of monsters. You will go much further towards making your campaign distinctive by cutting out monsters than by adding more indistinguishable trees to the forest. Of course, one of the best things to do is clear away nearly all the accumulation of blah monsters and introduce your own. For example, I use only wild animals (tigers, boars, leopards, wolves, crocodiles), ogres, giants, sprites, true dragons, sea dragons, various elementals (including four kinds of elemental dragons), harpies, zombis, werewolves, weretigers, gathin and a few other shapeshifters, and occasionally rocs. That is plenty: and distinctive. People make more interesting opponents than mnsters, anyway.
'Planes' are a very low priority unless interplanar travel has a large impact on everyday life. In fact, the same is true of distant countries. I have about 150,000 words of background material for my campaign setting, and nearly all of it is about one country.
I have as I said about 150,000 words of material in a format suitable for handing out to players. If you have that much it has to be oganised very well. Mine consists of an 18,000-word overview, an accumulation of prospectuses for various campaigns (about 1,000-3,000 words each) and a cross-referenced alphabetical encyclopedia-cum-gazeteer consisting of short entries (up to about 100 words each). I don't think any of my players have read it all, but they can easily master the framework and quickly discover any details they need.
I think that there are several things that a successful word-design needs that you have completely overlooked:
1. A society. What are families like? Nuclear? Extended? Patrilineal? Avuncular? Matrilineal? Extended? Nuclear? What sort of partners do people aspire to marry? What sorts do they get to marry? Who are they forbidden to marry? When do they marry? How centralised is family authority? How is it inherited? How is family property controlled and inherited? What do people admire in others? What do they aspire to for themselves? What do the poor do in their leisure time? Do the rich enjoy lives of leisure, or does convention require them to work at 'business' or in public administration.
2. An economy. How are the basic necessities (food, fibre, fat, and fuel) produced and distributed? What other commodities are important, who makes them? Who owns the land? The mines? The woods? Hunting and fishing rights? Capital (the manufactured means of production)? Do people own their own labour, or is there slavery and serfdom? Is trade signficant? Free, or trammelled by guild monopolies, tariffs, quotas &c.? How rich is society? How equal are the rich and poor? What taxes are there? Are they collected in cash, kind, or service?
Given these
3. A culture. What do people wear? What are their homes like? What public buildings are common? What personal and household effects do the rich and poor typically own? When are meals eaten, and what do they consist of? What public festivals are there? What are they like? What personal and family festivals are there (eg. birthdays, Christmas)? What are they like? What sort of parties are traditional? Where would you expect to find a prosperous merchant about sunset the day before a festival? Where would you expect to find a rich young man in the middle of the morning on a typical day? Where would you expect to find a smallholding-farmer's wife in the middle of the afternoon?
4. A government and other public institutions. Churches, established or otherwise. How are these things organised? What people are eligible to join the ruling hierarchies? How do they obtain office? Promotion? Election? Lot? Inheritance? What power do they have? How do they display their rank? Is public service enriching? Or impoverishing? To what extent are government and the churches servants and to what extent are they masters?
5. Laws and a law-enforcement mechanism.
For all this stuff to get started you need to know the climate, natural biomes, domesticated plants and animals, and any regular threats (monsters, hurricanes, pirates, war).
I know that a lot of D&D players think that all this stuff is unimportant, and that expecting players in a world to master as much as 8-12 thousand words of it ridiculous overkill. But I tell you from experience that it vastly enriches the gaming possibilities. The more you know about the opportunities available to characters and the incentives they face the more varied and interesting their motives and efforts will be. The more players know about NPCs' aspirations, homes, daily schedules, and special occasions the more alternatives they will discover to breaking in the doors, killing everyone, and stealing their stuff.
That's my approach. Tastes vary. You do what you damned well please.
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