I'm in the process of making a homebrew setting and adventure and I want to know what kind of role the setting should take in the story. I've asked my friends, but I want to get as broad of a sample size as possible as to what people generally like since, long-term, I'm planning to have some kind of module for this whole thing as I want to share the campaign with anyone who might be interested.
Whatever outcome the poll may be, I'm going to try as hard as possible to not compromise any attention to detail.
I think it's good to focus primarily on a fairly small setting, and just have a general idea of the world as a whole. You don't need to have an entire globe figured out to run a game... if you build it right, you can build a whole game in one city.
As an example... Skyrim occupies roughly 15 Square Miles of space. Even most official WOTC content is focused on the Sword Coast, which is a space around the size of California, and there's an entire worldmap that's rarely visited.
I don't have a lot of experience with this, but what would seem to me to be the best way would be to start with a relatively small area, and have the adventure gradually expand that area.
The best games I have run, or played all started small, then got bigger. It's important to have a "home base" I think. If your going to run across the world looking for the pieces of the predictably broken artifact to save the world, it helps to have a place you want to save. More over I think it's good to have a home for your character.
The setting needs to serve the story, not the other way around. Tell your story, and make the setting just large enough to accommodate it. Maybe a little bit larger so you can give hints of the larger world, but not too much, or you'll spend time on details that end up irrelevant or unexplored -- if the campaign is about stopping a goblin invasion, then the architecture of the planes won't really be needed, for example. But you might want to know the name of the next kingdom over.
The significance of physical distance is pretty subjective.
For someone in the UK, a 45 minute drive could mean an adult child never makes the trip to visit their parents. However, in Alaska, a trip to the groccery store could take 2 hours or more, and that's just part of a normal routine. The more there is to experience between point A and point B, the larger the space feels.
If you want an Urban campaign, then focus on city dynamics.
If you want a Rural campaign, simplify the towns, and focus on regional dynamics.
If you want a Wilderness campaign, simplify civilization, and focus on exotic terrains.
If you want it all, then do it all, but focus on pacing, so that you can build according to what the players will actually interact with.
Aside from that, people will usually be drawn to settings that imitate the media they consume. Asking your audience for popular movies/TV shows according to your theme will give you good inspiration.
My current campaign has started fairly contained, the party are in a single town, out in the outskirts of the starting Nation. There is a trade caravan from the bordering "hostile" nation (trade happens even during periods of cold war). There have been many things to fight as the tier 1 BBEG stirs things up in efforts to complete his goals. There is a Mine a 5 day trek from the town which has an Aboleth in it, who has been taking over the town with help of BBEG.
The whole area has been set up to take the characters from level 1-6 and started off as simply dealing with bandit attacks and a strange cult, to then finding they where all linked and now trekking to the Mine to try and rescue one of the party's Mothers who has been captured and taken to the Aboleth (or so they have been led to believe).
once they have completed this part of the campaign then they will go further afield and take in the wider continent, I have not populated or planned out large swathes of it, I still have loads of TBC's all over my map. I focus on Worldbuilding around the party rather then expansive world building of the entire world. I mean I don't even have a 1/3 of a pantheon fully defined.
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I'm in the process of making a homebrew setting and adventure and I want to know what kind of role the setting should take in the story. I've asked my friends, but I want to get as broad of a sample size as possible as to what people generally like since, long-term, I'm planning to have some kind of module for this whole thing as I want to share the campaign with anyone who might be interested.
Whatever outcome the poll may be, I'm going to try as hard as possible to not compromise any attention to detail.
I think it's good to focus primarily on a fairly small setting, and just have a general idea of the world as a whole. You don't need to have an entire globe figured out to run a game... if you build it right, you can build a whole game in one city.
As an example... Skyrim occupies roughly 15 Square Miles of space. Even most official WOTC content is focused on the Sword Coast, which is a space around the size of California, and there's an entire worldmap that's rarely visited.
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I don't have a lot of experience with this, but what would seem to me to be the best way would be to start with a relatively small area, and have the adventure gradually expand that area.
These also might help: https://www.dndbeyond.com/tag/worldbuilding
Specifically, this one: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/772-new-players-guide-building-your-own-campaign
Paladin main who spends most of his D&D time worldbuilding or DMing, not Paladin-ing.
My ideal campaign starts off with B and then progresses to A.
The best games I have run, or played all started small, then got bigger. It's important to have a "home base" I think. If your going to run across the world looking for the pieces of the predictably broken artifact to save the world, it helps to have a place you want to save. More over I think it's good to have a home for your character.
The setting needs to serve the story, not the other way around. Tell your story, and make the setting just large enough to accommodate it. Maybe a little bit larger so you can give hints of the larger world, but not too much, or you'll spend time on details that end up irrelevant or unexplored -- if the campaign is about stopping a goblin invasion, then the architecture of the planes won't really be needed, for example. But you might want to know the name of the next kingdom over.
The significance of physical distance is pretty subjective.
For someone in the UK, a 45 minute drive could mean an adult child never makes the trip to visit their parents. However, in Alaska, a trip to the groccery store could take 2 hours or more, and that's just part of a normal routine. The more there is to experience between point A and point B, the larger the space feels.
If you want an Urban campaign, then focus on city dynamics.
If you want a Rural campaign, simplify the towns, and focus on regional dynamics.
If you want a Wilderness campaign, simplify civilization, and focus on exotic terrains.
If you want it all, then do it all, but focus on pacing, so that you can build according to what the players will actually interact with.
Aside from that, people will usually be drawn to settings that imitate the media they consume. Asking your audience for popular movies/TV shows according to your theme will give you good inspiration.
My current campaign has started fairly contained, the party are in a single town, out in the outskirts of the starting Nation. There is a trade caravan from the bordering "hostile" nation (trade happens even during periods of cold war). There have been many things to fight as the tier 1 BBEG stirs things up in efforts to complete his goals. There is a Mine a 5 day trek from the town which has an Aboleth in it, who has been taking over the town with help of BBEG.
The whole area has been set up to take the characters from level 1-6 and started off as simply dealing with bandit attacks and a strange cult, to then finding they where all linked and now trekking to the Mine to try and rescue one of the party's Mothers who has been captured and taken to the Aboleth (or so they have been led to believe).
once they have completed this part of the campaign then they will go further afield and take in the wider continent, I have not populated or planned out large swathes of it, I still have loads of TBC's all over my map. I focus on Worldbuilding around the party rather then expansive world building of the entire world. I mean I don't even have a 1/3 of a pantheon fully defined.