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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 4636875" data-attributes="member: 29398">And one more: it should be mysterious, at least to begin with.What this means is that information has to trickle out slowly.  Don't let the players see a map of the continent until their characters are in a position to see one, for example.  That said, some general idea that Gnomes only live in the far south, for example, is also useful.Something else a good setting has is lots of obviously-different cultures.  This is one place FR, for example, really falls short; the humans all seem vaguely similar no matter where they're from.  If you're going to have Norse, make 'em Norse, dammit!  But have a place for a Greek-like culture, and Celtic, and Egyptian, and Roman, and dark-ages feudal, and tribal barbarian, and far eastern; or variants thereon that suit you.  And if the mood suits, do the same for Elves, and Dwarves, and other widespread races...and then put as many of them at war with each other as you can get away with.  Wars make for good adventuring. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Why?  Because if the mood strikes to run a Norse saga, your setting can handle it.  Ditto if you want to get into some Roman political intrigue.  Ditto if you want the party to get into some field action with the military.  The overall setting needs to have lots of different elements, which (other than the starting area) you then flesh out only if your party's actions take them there.I pretty much agree up to here.Overthinking the ecology of monsters can really get in the way of game play.  If I want a colony of Giants *here* because it suits a given situation that they be there, then that's exactly where they're going to be, and I don't care very much if there's no real way the land around could feed them.  And this is coming from someone who prefers things to make sense where possible. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />And as for describing a given culture positively in one place and negatively in another, what's wrong with that provided the base viewpoints are different?  An example from my own homebrew world: if I was writing up the Corvite Empire (similar to Romans) then the Corvite Empire would be the best thing going while most other realms and kingdoms would be described pretty much as barbarians.  But if I was writing up the Inadar culture (similar to Sumeria, if it had lasted longer) the Corvites would come off looking like boot-grinding invaders with no redeeming qualities at all.Lanefan</blockquote>

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