I'm a fairly experienced DM and player, starting in D&D 3.0 in middle school and keeping the faith through high school, college, and into my professional life. I have tended in the past to write and run very novel-like stories where the players are drawn into an epic adventure that takes them through several levels until the final big-bad showdown and then the campaign ends and the characters are shelved.
This has worked just fine with the groups I've run, but with post-school life I and my players need something more flexible. I have set to work on some world building to provide my players a setting where we can run some more episodic adventures as their characters are part of a more organized entity, like an adventurers guild. Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance, etc are all wonderful worlds, but I have a few players that are never going to buy-in and go out of their way to read lore, so I thought I'd involve them in the process.
At this point I have an origin myth and two continents with a few spots I know I want to fill in, like the Waterdeep/Sharn city I plan on starting the players out in. In your opinion fellow players, how much is too much? Should I be looking at 5 nations or 50? Should we maybe flesh out some places and fill in as we go/as is needed? I feel caught in the balance act of "Make the world believable for the players to anchor in" vs "Your wasting your goshdarn life on the type of pastries that exist in this fictional city."
First, a piece of advice. The only "too much" is whatever you personally feel like your limit is! While I don't suggest creating individual recipes for the [Food Shop] of [City], controlled by [Faction], by even thinking of the IDEA of creating the recipes, you make enough lore to go off of! With that, you have a name of a location, a city, and an entire faction to go off of.
- Magnifying Glass -
Think of your world as an ever-moving magnifying glass. In the centre, everything is in-focus and you can really look at the grime and dirt of the story. This is where your players are, or where they started! That's all you really need to pay attention to, until they start moving in a certain direction. When they move, you move the magnifying glass with them - and start to fill in the details of their location as it moves.
That said, not everything is in focus in the magnifying glass. The stuff on the outskirts is blurry and not really detailed at all. This, too, is like your story! You can have names of places to be mentioned, but things like the names of stores don't really matter until the adventurers come to them - if they never come within a mile of a city, why draw out the city streets? Instead, like the magnifying glass, create "blurry" lore for your nation or city. Write down a type of government, how large it is, their relations with other areas, and if they're good, bad, or neutral. If you keep the outskirts of the glass vague like this, you can spend a lot more time working on the stuff that really matters!
- Equations -
If you're gonna have a grand-scale world, 50 nations is okay, but if not - it may be better to scale it down to five or six. Regardless, I am here to help! If you're creating 50+ nations, you'll easily get tired of thinking things up for cities, nations, and hierarchies for so many places! For this reason, I've made you a chart you could consult when mass-producing lore-friendly places.
Every good nation that will captivate your players will require the following.
Government - Not so much the TYPE of government as it is the location. Every government will need a place where the social hierarchy will be at its strongest. This could be a church, a ministry, a castle, etc.
Social Hierarchy - This is where the ruling class gains its power. Is your nation an empire, where the king rules over vast territories? Or is it a tribal nation with a chieftain? Are there nobles & serfs? Slaves? Are people generally happy, or are they angry at the higher powers?
Religion - Not all nations need a religion! It can be anything from a grand death cult to an atheist culture. This just helps the nation seem more in-depth and give it a purpose.
Alignment - Same as the typical D&D alignment chart. Nations function similarly as people - a tribe hell-bent on murder could be Chaotic Evil while a religious order could be Lawful Good.
If you want a place to start, simply think things out from the lowest point, like I did in the beginning with the food shop example.
"Ivan [Character] works at the Blades & Steel Arms Company [Store] located in Astal [City], the capital of Verozia [Nation]. Verozia is a Lawful Good [Alignment] empire [Hierarchy] run by Salafra the Wiseman [Leader], who wants to bring the Light [Religion] to the neighbouring kingdoms of Alscae and Nimela through trade and royal marriages [Relations]."
Do that for every nation you make, and you'll find that it's really easy to build lore on each nation as they come up in your adventures.
As always, have fun with it and don't stress yourself out over every little detail - show that you put effort into the world and the players will have a blast! Best of luck to you~
lets talk about your major map. You have ideas for planning nations from Kuvshinov, and they are awesome. Remember, a nation has more than just one major city. It has outlying farms, mines, small port cities, or maybe a major one. It has an Army, it has enemies, humanoid or otherwise.
Look at the map you are using/building. There is a reason each settlement exists there. Usually a natural resource of some kind, Make that a theme of the history of that city, perhaps the name, or the architecture. If you really want to go into unique dishes of the area, make the main ingredient unique to that area, so people may have a million takes on the same fruit, or animal that can't grow anywhere else.
Another great thing to consider is the quests and antagonists in the area. If there's a humanoid threat within the city, it likely isn't new, and it has already affected the city, either with an underground, the way people are guarded, or the level of patrols in the streets, or how they treat strangers like the party.
If the questing brings them to a dragon that lives there, then there should be battlements and defenses that would stand up to a dragon, and it would NOT be made of anything flammable. if the problem is hill giants, put reinforced walls to protect against thrown boulders, then trebuchets and catapults with the range to hit the giants before they could hit the city.
If there are nearby marshes, perhaps instead of a cobblestone or dirt street that gets mud and muck everywhere, there is instead a massive wooden boardwalk that makes up the main pathways of the settlement.
If there are two smaller settlements near enough to each other within a nation, they may compete with each other in good spirits, at local festivals and holidays. they would trade together and be overall courteous to each other. Men from one town may make a habit of going to the other town in search of a wife or employment. Or even to the major city, thinking of it as the biggest place in their world, and their ticket to getting out of their small town. The big capital city would protect the smaller settlements from raids, and collect taxes and conscripts from them, this would affect how they regard each other and bring animosity from the bumpkins and the city folk. So a major city would have a garrison, and smaller towns may have an outpost within them.
The point is, the characteristics of a settlement are reactionary to the hazards, unique terrain features, and proximity to other settlements. Make it all fit together, once you get a good framework of descriptive and cultural details within a location, making stuff up on the fly will still seem well thought out if it fits in with your overall scheme for the location.
Kuvshinov and FuzzyCheese really covered all the major bases, but one thing I find useful is to "map" locations and even NPCs and events from off-the-shelf modules into equivalents in my own world. For example, in my campaigns I usually have at least one big city where the characters can go for social intrigue, hard-to-find specialists, etc. Let's call it "Central City". It will correspond to Waterdeep in Forgotten Realm modules, Greyhawk City in Greyhawk adventures, etc. Likewise if the characters have a contact that sends them regularly in adventures, he will be the natural equivalent of the plot hook most modules present to introduce the story.
That way I can incorporate adventures into my world more or less seamlessly, and avoid a lot of the heavy lifting of creating the specific details and individual encounters. I still have to work on the links to the big picture, and do some name- and monster-switching, but it works really well.
Another thing to borrow from is literature. I once made Narnia's Calormen into the bad guys in a campaign by switching title names and ethnicity. A little shameless search and replace and voila, instant backstory for a whole society and lots of NPCs. One of the players figured it out, and played along with a few subtle remarks to let me know he was in on the ruse. Works for societies, villains, NPCs, anything. Depending on your players' taste, it can be done in a devious or obvious way.
Again great advice here. i started a new world in Mid February with an idea and one page and since then, we are now in our fifth week of play and i am nearing 20k words. How did I get here?
i started with a 6 page write up on the world (Google doc) and shared with 6 good friends. They helped me write thousands of words with ideas, proof-reading, and feedback.
Next, I started in Evernote. Created notes on geography, history, and current state. Broke down by races and regions. Much of this is in outline form. You can use other tools. My requirements included access from multiple devices, ability to read/edit offline, easy ability to add "snips" and pics from webpages, good spell check, and a solid tagging & search function.
The KEY piece of advice is work inside out. I started with one town of about 2,500 people. That is where the adventure starts. Then i worked with the players in writing backgrounds and as i designed adventures, to fill out other areas. To start, I worked in a spiral from the starting city; then adventure and travel locations drove where I focused.
For maps , I started with a large map of this section of the world (1"=60miles), a map of the starting town, and a map of the starting Inn. I then added maps of the region (1"=6miles), maps of many of the villages they traveled through, a second town, and the dungeons and other adventures. i try to add a map or two each week.
I organized into three categories villages, towns, and cities. For each, I had a template for the outline (Government, military & police, commerce/trading companies, commerce/major goods, guilds, organizations/factions, and taverns. By the time I filled out those categories, I had in my mind an easy and unique understanding of each community.
Focus on what makes it memorable. Most "shops" come out the same, but your party will remember the place run by the dwarf with the raspy voice, wart on his nose, and blue beard that tried to sell everyone a battle axe. Everything from an Inn to an entire county started with a memorable Flavor and then let tell me how it made the history, government, and culture unique.
Finally, i have a 3x5" journal that i carry with me at all times. It is basically a giant to do list. As questions come up, ideas spring to mind, and I get a chance to think, everything goes in the book. Then I sit down at the desk, and see how many i can check off in the hour after dinner each night.
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DM -- Elanon -- Homebrew world
Gronn -- Tiefling Warlock -- Amarath
Slim -- Halfling Cleric -- CoS (future Lord of Waterdeep 😁)
Start big is a way to shape continents and nations etc and later you go into details. a good way to get started this way is to make a map. dont be afraid to change the layout of the continent(s) if needed. i have changed mine many times and im still not done. a good and easy place to get started is www.inkarnate.com
Start Small begin with a tavern a town or city and build outward. who is the ruling class in the town? who is the king? is it a backwater? busy trading town? is it a border town to a neighboring nation? what does the town produce? farming? fishing? mining?
Pillars what are the major features of your world? if any.... did a huge cataclysmic event happen? there are 5 pillars of obsidian located around the world and no one knows what they are for and now one has cracked and what does this mean?
Events what major events have taken place in the past that have shaped the map or social structures in an area or that can serve as plot hooks.
i hope this helps you get started. never be afraid to rewrite as you progress and dont be afraid to use your unfinished stuff. it can help you come up with ideas and realise something is off etc
I have found that players will fill in a lot of the details as long as you give them a solid frame to work with. With your food example - in my experience, all you have to do is say pastries and they are likely going to come up with a name of one on their own. When this happens, I make a note and then I make sure to reference that again at some point. I use OneNote to help with this. Each region has it's own note where I keep track of little fluff things that come up. Then down the road, if the PCs come back, or if there's a trade port where a few different regions come together - as they're passing by I will mention there's a vendor selling those little bread bowl pastries you guys had at Fort Citytown. The world has a little more detail now and the player's enjoy it because it's a call back to something they did way back when.
I found that building off of old games goes a long way. Maybe the players old PC's have faded into legend (or infamy), a sleepy farming town they hailed from is now a sprawling Metropolis, the old capital is now a ruin, etc.
Often the actions of the players give you a lot to work with. Thanks to mine, dwarves are nearly extinct, a zombie apocalypse came and went, and depending on how this adventure ends there may be a new arch-devil in the nine hells.
Sounds like you've had a lot of experience reading and creating world's so I'd say start small and make it up as you go along. I'd even consider starting in a village or town and keep players there until they become the town's heroes at level 5.
For me as a player and DM there's one thing I think alot of people fail to see in the value in when it comes to world building, which is characters. I'd say make NPC's the players can bond with and build their own stories around. Those NPC's become the ones who spread the party's legend.
Don't forget to create villains who the PC's are just as connected to. If you go with the village approach have it wiped out by the villains army. It becomes the hook for the party to move into the world.
I honestly believe players will be more driven and engaged with your world if there are characters there they care about or wish to stop at all costs.
If you're looking for specific inspiration, I wrote up a little guide for my campaign setting with cool lore and stories. It's not amazing, but feel free to steal anything if it strikes you.
Actually creating deities has been my favorite part so far. I made 5 gods of civilization. 5 gods of the wild and then their opposites. Gave me a 20 god pantheon with enough diversity, good/evil and law/chaos but not too much hemming and hawing. Wrapped them up in the origin myth and I felt good to go.
Another good idea is using different creatures for something other than what their sheet says for instance, I've used harpies as couriers and sentient slimes as shop owners, get creative, you don't always need "dwarven blacksmith #3256" or "elven noble #502" mix it up, an undead could just as easily be a noble as what a construct can
Another good idea is using different creatures for something other than what their sheet says for instance, I've used harpies as couriers and sentient slimes as shop owners, get creative, you don't always need "dwarven blacksmith #3256" or "elven noble #502" mix it up, an undead could just as easily be a noble as what a construct can
Aside from this being a thread from mid last year... Most DnD settings a unusual creature as a shop keeper would raise some eyebrows unless they were actively hiding their origins. Deciding the shopkeeper is an undead that the people of the town 'just accepts' is sometimes stretching plausibility too much. Unless your world already has a much more open view of what is considered evil and so forth.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Why are the living-impaired always portrayed as evil? (Except by our chairman, Steven Erikson.)
Sakrish resurrected this thread, and it hasn't killed anyone yet, despite not showing much life. I have also been in quite a few shops where the staff may well have been zombies. You have far too limited a view, my friend.
On a separate, but related note - I purchased "The Lazy Dm's Guide" (or similar) from Slyflourish at the weekend and I would, indeed am, recommending it. It is very well written and full of seemingly good advice. At the end he interviews a bunch of 'professional' (Published) DMs, most of whom seem to advise the opposite of what Sly endorses!
This alone endears him (or her) to me.
Aimed at experienced DMs, not beginners, he covers world building, NPCs, encounters...an alternative view of how to run a roleplaying session/campaign. Worth a fiver of my money. YMMV. It is aimed at experienced DMs, not beginners.
Remember that D&D started out as a response to strategy games, making the INDIVIDUAL matter more than the overall theater.
Whenever I world build, I pick one terrain: farmland, coastal, mountain, tundra, lakeside, etc. You get the picture. I build from there. I then decide (Not name. I always name later. Naming conventions are fun, and for me are part of what I call H&D, History and Development). I pick a place for the major city. There's always one, and then ask myself: Council? Tribunal? Appointed Seat? From there, I have an idea about the kind of government that rules the major city. Then I start dropping in a few villages, farming/fishing communities, mills, and mines. About ten or so.
Remember: You are world building. As much as you are building the world so are your players and their characters. You don't have to know everything ahead of time. Some of the best table time I've had was when I was spontaneous and created on the fly. Sometimes the best pre-adventure workshops was when I had a few details written out beforehand.
Once I have those locations sorted out, then I start naming them. For naming conventions I use the following guidelines: Founded by Famous Hero? Started out as a Refuge Camp? Famous Adventurer built a Fort? Temple in the middle of nowhere? Secondary naming conventions I use: Color + Tree. Speed + River. Animal + Shelter, for example: Sparrow Hollow.
Once I have those locations named, I add the Drama, which always leads to an Adventuring Hook. For example: The village of Red Oak produces some of the finest lumber in the region, some say even magical. For the wood repels all manner of common creature and wards off the simplest weapon. The local mayor has hired of band of mercenaries to keep constant guard over the lumbar yards, the town's chief economic export. On occasion the mayor hires rangers and druids who understand the land better than most, and has been known to hire fighters and rogues skilled in swords and stealth to investigate rumors. Wizards are hired to improve the wood. Clerics are invited to assist the local temple and offer the commoner a place to break bread and celebrate customs.
Hello fellow players/DMs.
I'm a fairly experienced DM and player, starting in D&D 3.0 in middle school and keeping the faith through high school, college, and into my professional life. I have tended in the past to write and run very novel-like stories where the players are drawn into an epic adventure that takes them through several levels until the final big-bad showdown and then the campaign ends and the characters are shelved.
This has worked just fine with the groups I've run, but with post-school life I and my players need something more flexible. I have set to work on some world building to provide my players a setting where we can run some more episodic adventures as their characters are part of a more organized entity, like an adventurers guild. Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance, etc are all wonderful worlds, but I have a few players that are never going to buy-in and go out of their way to read lore, so I thought I'd involve them in the process.
At this point I have an origin myth and two continents with a few spots I know I want to fill in, like the Waterdeep/Sharn city I plan on starting the players out in. In your opinion fellow players, how much is too much? Should I be looking at 5 nations or 50? Should we maybe flesh out some places and fill in as we go/as is needed? I feel caught in the balance act of "Make the world believable for the players to anchor in" vs "Your wasting your goshdarn life on the type of pastries that exist in this fictional city."
I welcome any words of wisdom ya'll can provide.
Hello!
First, a piece of advice. The only "too much" is whatever you personally feel like your limit is! While I don't suggest creating individual recipes for the [Food Shop] of [City], controlled by [Faction], by even thinking of the IDEA of creating the recipes, you make enough lore to go off of! With that, you have a name of a location, a city, and an entire faction to go off of.
- Magnifying Glass -
Think of your world as an ever-moving magnifying glass. In the centre, everything is in-focus and you can really look at the grime and dirt of the story. This is where your players are, or where they started! That's all you really need to pay attention to, until they start moving in a certain direction. When they move, you move the magnifying glass with them - and start to fill in the details of their location as it moves.
That said, not everything is in focus in the magnifying glass. The stuff on the outskirts is blurry and not really detailed at all. This, too, is like your story! You can have names of places to be mentioned, but things like the names of stores don't really matter until the adventurers come to them - if they never come within a mile of a city, why draw out the city streets? Instead, like the magnifying glass, create "blurry" lore for your nation or city. Write down a type of government, how large it is, their relations with other areas, and if they're good, bad, or neutral. If you keep the outskirts of the glass vague like this, you can spend a lot more time working on the stuff that really matters!
- Equations -
If you're gonna have a grand-scale world, 50 nations is okay, but if not - it may be better to scale it down to five or six. Regardless, I am here to help! If you're creating 50+ nations, you'll easily get tired of thinking things up for cities, nations, and hierarchies for so many places! For this reason, I've made you a chart you could consult when mass-producing lore-friendly places.
Every good nation that will captivate your players will require the following.
Government - Not so much the TYPE of government as it is the location. Every government will need a place where the social hierarchy will be at its strongest. This could be a church, a ministry, a castle, etc.
Social Hierarchy - This is where the ruling class gains its power. Is your nation an empire, where the king rules over vast territories? Or is it a tribal nation with a chieftain? Are there nobles & serfs? Slaves? Are people generally happy, or are they angry at the higher powers?
Religion - Not all nations need a religion! It can be anything from a grand death cult to an atheist culture. This just helps the nation seem more in-depth and give it a purpose.
Alignment - Same as the typical D&D alignment chart. Nations function similarly as people - a tribe hell-bent on murder could be Chaotic Evil while a religious order could be Lawful Good.
If you want a place to start, simply think things out from the lowest point, like I did in the beginning with the food shop example.
"Ivan [Character] works at the Blades & Steel Arms Company [Store] located in Astal [City], the capital of Verozia [Nation]. Verozia is a Lawful Good [Alignment] empire [Hierarchy] run by Salafra the Wiseman [Leader], who wants to bring the Light [Religion] to the neighbouring kingdoms of Alscae and Nimela through trade and royal marriages [Relations]."
Do that for every nation you make, and you'll find that it's really easy to build lore on each nation as they come up in your adventures.
As always, have fun with it and don't stress yourself out over every little detail - show that you put effort into the world and the players will have a blast! Best of luck to you~
This is FANTASTIC.
Thank you so much for all the thought and help in this post. I really feel like I have a way to move forward now!
lets talk about your major map. You have ideas for planning nations from Kuvshinov, and they are awesome. Remember, a nation has more than just one major city. It has outlying farms, mines, small port cities, or maybe a major one. It has an Army, it has enemies, humanoid or otherwise.
Look at the map you are using/building. There is a reason each settlement exists there. Usually a natural resource of some kind, Make that a theme of the history of that city, perhaps the name, or the architecture. If you really want to go into unique dishes of the area, make the main ingredient unique to that area, so people may have a million takes on the same fruit, or animal that can't grow anywhere else.
Another great thing to consider is the quests and antagonists in the area. If there's a humanoid threat within the city, it likely isn't new, and it has already affected the city, either with an underground, the way people are guarded, or the level of patrols in the streets, or how they treat strangers like the party.
If the questing brings them to a dragon that lives there, then there should be battlements and defenses that would stand up to a dragon, and it would NOT be made of anything flammable. if the problem is hill giants, put reinforced walls to protect against thrown boulders, then trebuchets and catapults with the range to hit the giants before they could hit the city.
If there are nearby marshes, perhaps instead of a cobblestone or dirt street that gets mud and muck everywhere, there is instead a massive wooden boardwalk that makes up the main pathways of the settlement.
If there are two smaller settlements near enough to each other within a nation, they may compete with each other in good spirits, at local festivals and holidays. they would trade together and be overall courteous to each other. Men from one town may make a habit of going to the other town in search of a wife or employment. Or even to the major city, thinking of it as the biggest place in their world, and their ticket to getting out of their small town. The big capital city would protect the smaller settlements from raids, and collect taxes and conscripts from them, this would affect how they regard each other and bring animosity from the bumpkins and the city folk. So a major city would have a garrison, and smaller towns may have an outpost within them.
The point is, the characteristics of a settlement are reactionary to the hazards, unique terrain features, and proximity to other settlements. Make it all fit together, once you get a good framework of descriptive and cultural details within a location, making stuff up on the fly will still seem well thought out if it fits in with your overall scheme for the location.
it could be worse, you could be on fire.
Kuvshinov and FuzzyCheese really covered all the major bases, but one thing I find useful is to "map" locations and even NPCs and events from off-the-shelf modules into equivalents in my own world. For example, in my campaigns I usually have at least one big city where the characters can go for social intrigue, hard-to-find specialists, etc. Let's call it "Central City". It will correspond to Waterdeep in Forgotten Realm modules, Greyhawk City in Greyhawk adventures, etc. Likewise if the characters have a contact that sends them regularly in adventures, he will be the natural equivalent of the plot hook most modules present to introduce the story.
That way I can incorporate adventures into my world more or less seamlessly, and avoid a lot of the heavy lifting of creating the specific details and individual encounters. I still have to work on the links to the big picture, and do some name- and monster-switching, but it works really well.
Another thing to borrow from is literature. I once made Narnia's Calormen into the bad guys in a campaign by switching title names and ethnicity. A little shameless search and replace and voila, instant backstory for a whole society and lots of NPCs. One of the players figured it out, and played along with a few subtle remarks to let me know he was in on the ruse. Works for societies, villains, NPCs, anything. Depending on your players' taste, it can be done in a devious or obvious way.
Again great advice here. i started a new world in Mid February with an idea and one page and since then, we are now in our fifth week of play and i am nearing 20k words. How did I get here?
i started with a 6 page write up on the world (Google doc) and shared with 6 good friends. They helped me write thousands of words with ideas, proof-reading, and feedback.
Next, I started in Evernote. Created notes on geography, history, and current state. Broke down by races and regions. Much of this is in outline form. You can use other tools. My requirements included access from multiple devices, ability to read/edit offline, easy ability to add "snips" and pics from webpages, good spell check, and a solid tagging & search function.
The KEY piece of advice is work inside out. I started with one town of about 2,500 people. That is where the adventure starts. Then i worked with the players in writing backgrounds and as i designed adventures, to fill out other areas. To start, I worked in a spiral from the starting city; then adventure and travel locations drove where I focused.
For maps , I started with a large map of this section of the world (1"=60miles), a map of the starting town, and a map of the starting Inn. I then added maps of the region (1"=6miles), maps of many of the villages they traveled through, a second town, and the dungeons and other adventures. i try to add a map or two each week.
I organized into three categories villages, towns, and cities. For each, I had a template for the outline (Government, military & police, commerce/trading companies, commerce/major goods, guilds, organizations/factions, and taverns. By the time I filled out those categories, I had in my mind an easy and unique understanding of each community.
Focus on what makes it memorable. Most "shops" come out the same, but your party will remember the place run by the dwarf with the raspy voice, wart on his nose, and blue beard that tried to sell everyone a battle axe. Everything from an Inn to an entire county started with a memorable Flavor and then let tell me how it made the history, government, and culture unique.
Finally, i have a 3x5" journal that i carry with me at all times. It is basically a giant to do list. As questions come up, ideas spring to mind, and I get a chance to think, everything goes in the book. Then I sit down at the desk, and see how many i can check off in the hour after dinner each night.
--
DM -- Elanon -- Homebrew world
Gronn -- Tiefling Warlock -- Amarath
Slim -- Halfling Cleric -- CoS (future Lord of Waterdeep 😁)
Bran -- Human Wizard - RoT
Making D&D mistakes and having fun since 1977!
there are a few ways to build worlds
Start big is a way to shape continents and nations etc and later you go into details. a good way to get started this way is to make a map. dont be afraid to change the layout of the continent(s) if needed. i have changed mine many times and im still not done. a good and easy place to get started is www.inkarnate.com
Start Small begin with a tavern a town or city and build outward. who is the ruling class in the town? who is the king? is it a backwater? busy trading town? is it a border town to a neighboring nation? what does the town produce? farming? fishing? mining?
Pillars what are the major features of your world? if any.... did a huge cataclysmic event happen? there are 5 pillars of obsidian located around the world and no one knows what they are for and now one has cracked and what does this mean?
Events what major events have taken place in the past that have shaped the map or social structures in an area or that can serve as plot hooks.
i hope this helps you get started. never be afraid to rewrite as you progress and dont be afraid to use your unfinished stuff. it can help you come up with ideas and realise something is off etc
I have found that players will fill in a lot of the details as long as you give them a solid frame to work with. With your food example - in my experience, all you have to do is say pastries and they are likely going to come up with a name of one on their own. When this happens, I make a note and then I make sure to reference that again at some point. I use OneNote to help with this. Each region has it's own note where I keep track of little fluff things that come up. Then down the road, if the PCs come back, or if there's a trade port where a few different regions come together - as they're passing by I will mention there's a vendor selling those little bread bowl pastries you guys had at Fort Citytown. The world has a little more detail now and the player's enjoy it because it's a call back to something they did way back when.
having players contribute to the world is great and will often make them care more about it and often makes it alot more interesting
I found that building off of old games goes a long way. Maybe the players old PC's have faded into legend (or infamy), a sleepy farming town they hailed from is now a sprawling Metropolis, the old capital is now a ruin, etc.
Often the actions of the players give you a lot to work with. Thanks to mine, dwarves are nearly extinct, a zombie apocalypse came and went, and depending on how this adventure ends there may be a new arch-devil in the nine hells.
Futuaris nisi irrisius ridebus.
Sounds like you've had a lot of experience reading and creating world's so I'd say start small and make it up as you go along. I'd even consider starting in a village or town and keep players there until they become the town's heroes at level 5.
For me as a player and DM there's one thing I think alot of people fail to see in the value in when it comes to world building, which is characters. I'd say make NPC's the players can bond with and build their own stories around. Those NPC's become the ones who spread the party's legend.
Don't forget to create villains who the PC's are just as connected to. If you go with the village approach have it wiped out by the villains army. It becomes the hook for the party to move into the world.
I honestly believe players will be more driven and engaged with your world if there are characters there they care about or wish to stop at all costs.
If you're looking for specific inspiration, I wrote up a little guide for my campaign setting with cool lore and stories. It's not amazing, but feel free to steal anything if it strikes you.
http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/H1a8neKkb
that thing look so good... im working on something simular
looking at it brings up another thing
gods and demi gods etc...
dont be afraid to take what ever gods you want from the core books or make up your own or do a mix
some deities are really cool and some are really meeh or too small or irrielevant for your world
another thing are monsters
i like to have a reason for monsters to be in my world so im very picky about what kind of monsters i use
is there a reason to have ghasts ghauls and wights? if yes what is the diffrence in their creation and origin etc
if you have a reason for your monsters to be in your world it will make it feel more realistic and consistant
Actually creating deities has been my favorite part so far. I made 5 gods of civilization. 5 gods of the wild and then their opposites. Gave me a 20 god pantheon with enough diversity, good/evil and law/chaos but not too much hemming and hawing. Wrapped them up in the origin myth and I felt good to go.
Another good idea is using different creatures for something other than what their sheet says for instance, I've used harpies as couriers and sentient slimes as shop owners, get creative, you don't always need "dwarven blacksmith #3256" or "elven noble #502" mix it up, an undead could just as easily be a noble as what a construct can
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Why are the living-impaired always portrayed as evil? (Except by our chairman, Steven Erikson.)
Sakrish resurrected this thread, and it hasn't killed anyone yet, despite not showing much life.
I have also been in quite a few shops where the staff may well have been zombies.
You have far too limited a view, my friend.
Plundered_Tombs.
Roleplaying since Runequest.
On a separate, but related note - I purchased "The Lazy Dm's Guide" (or similar) from Slyflourish at the weekend and I would, indeed am, recommending it. It is very well written and full of seemingly good advice. At the end he interviews a bunch of 'professional' (Published) DMs, most of whom seem to advise the opposite of what Sly endorses!
This alone endears him (or her) to me.
Aimed at experienced DMs, not beginners, he covers world building, NPCs, encounters...an alternative view of how to run a roleplaying session/campaign. Worth a fiver of my money. YMMV.
It is aimed at experienced DMs, not beginners.
Roleplaying since Runequest.
Remember that D&D started out as a response to strategy games, making the INDIVIDUAL matter more than the overall theater.
Whenever I world build, I pick one terrain: farmland, coastal, mountain, tundra, lakeside, etc. You get the picture. I build from there. I then decide (Not name. I always name later. Naming conventions are fun, and for me are part of what I call H&D, History and Development). I pick a place for the major city. There's always one, and then ask myself: Council? Tribunal? Appointed Seat? From there, I have an idea about the kind of government that rules the major city. Then I start dropping in a few villages, farming/fishing communities, mills, and mines. About ten or so.
Remember: You are world building. As much as you are building the world so are your players and their characters. You don't have to know everything ahead of time. Some of the best table time I've had was when I was spontaneous and created on the fly. Sometimes the best pre-adventure workshops was when I had a few details written out beforehand.
Once I have those locations sorted out, then I start naming them. For naming conventions I use the following guidelines: Founded by Famous Hero? Started out as a Refuge Camp? Famous Adventurer built a Fort? Temple in the middle of nowhere? Secondary naming conventions I use: Color + Tree. Speed + River. Animal + Shelter, for example: Sparrow Hollow.
Once I have those locations named, I add the Drama, which always leads to an Adventuring Hook. For example: The village of Red Oak produces some of the finest lumber in the region, some say even magical. For the wood repels all manner of common creature and wards off the simplest weapon. The local mayor has hired of band of mercenaries to keep constant guard over the lumbar yards, the town's chief economic export. On occasion the mayor hires rangers and druids who understand the land better than most, and has been known to hire fighters and rogues skilled in swords and stealth to investigate rumors. Wizards are hired to improve the wood. Clerics are invited to assist the local temple and offer the commoner a place to break bread and celebrate customs.
Who might need such quality lumber? You name it.
Are you doing this for you?
if so great.
If if it’s just to create a world to play in, grab a pre built world and make it your own.
Matt Merced has a book for his world for critical world. Pick it up and modify.