Dropping a few lines to request advice to the more seasoned DMs and Players. I have been DMing for quite a while and I wanted always to create/implement my own setting. Now with 5E and it’s modules and supplements I see that opportunity to do it.
My first question will be: Do you recommend me to start with every detail right from the scratch or do you think it’s easier to use an existing module like SKT and adapt it to my setting?
My second will be: What will you recommend as a minimum for running your own campaign?
So far I have the idea of my setting, the era, how many races will exist, how many powers in their cosmology, and a couple of main events. But haven’t nailed a map with every major settlements, rivers, lakes, seas, and Influential NPCs.
Creating your own setting and world(s) is one of the most satisfying and terrifying things a DM can do.
I will start by answering your second question "What will you recommend as a minimum for running your own campaign?" : if you already have the world in broad strokes, my suggestion would be to now go in deeper details on the area your party is going to start off in, like the kingdom or even just the hillside region within that kingdom. From there, you can build up everything else in relation to where the story goes (meaning either the way YOU would like it to go, or the way THE PLAYERS force the story to go :P). Don't be afraid of improvising if one of the players asks "Hey, what's a place that we'd consider exotic?" (just an example, any kind of thing that includes someplace you have not thought of through just yet); go with the flow, tell them of some far off land where it is said that this and that happened, or is happening, or where great and strange creatures are told to reside. Write down notes on what you tell your players, to then go back to them and build on them to define that far-off land better.
This is if you want the setting to still be "all yours", in the sense that you want to come up with everything on your own. If you happen to have a very stable and trustworthy group, though, I'd suggest to include them in the creation process, not just as "Hey guys, help me out to fill in this and that", but a much more interesting way could be when a player, for example, asks "I'm the bard, what kind of legends do I know of place xyz?" make the player themselves come up with one or more legends on place xyz, help them help you shape this new world. Either option (going solo or group worldbuilding) are equally valid and rewarding, imho.
As to your first question, I admit I am a bit puzzled: do you mean just as a campaign to play in your setting? If that's the idea, I am a bit divided on this. Whenever I come up with an original setting, I prefer to come up with an original campaign as well, in order to make sure to present thew world I thought of in the light I want it to be seen (initially at least) and to have the freedom to improvise as much or as little as necessary without worrying of forgetting one little detail here or there when adapting the adventure to my world that could then jeopardize the adventure itself later on. So, imho: go full original! :)
Hope my ramblings can be of help to you! o/
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I think a good general rule of thumb is "Keep it detailed, but keep it small, and only add the details you need".
Is the party adventuring primarily in one region, around one town? Great - detail that town pretty finely, but leave the rest of the world alone beyond some general sketches, and details that you expect people to know at a distance. ( How much do you really know about modern Greece? How much would you know without mass media? ): Names and general reputation of neighboring towns - the name and reputation of the nearest large trading city, the name and general structure of the nation/region you're in.
Do you have a Cleric in the party? Excellent. Detail that God(dess)/religion pretty well ( although make your Cleric player do some of the work as well! ). Maybe put a temple to a different God in the town. Detail that religion. As for the rest of the Pantheon? Names, general roles, reputation in the populace - nothing more.
The general idea is that wherever the Party looks, they see highly detailed, vibrant technicolor immersive detail - what they don't realize is that where they aren't looking, it's blank and undeveloped :D That way you don't have to write entire novels worth of background material, and you get to look amazing.
Modules are great - but also realize that the material of the module is going to change your world setting; you need to fit it into your world. If you're OK with that, modules are great for a new DM or group to get their feet wet.
One other thing - get used to the idea of improvising. If you build your world only where you think your players are going to go/look - I can guarantee that sometimes you're going to have guessed wrong as to what you needed to detail. and what you can leave blank. Be able to a) make up details on the fly and b) write those details down! You will need to make those spontaneous details part of the world after the session.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I think for the moment I will try to solo the setting. I tried to incorporate my players and they either were not interested in investing the time to do it or the ones who did couldn’t agree with each other, so I canceled the project. However they will be exited to try it out.
I will sit down and start thinking of writing a stand alone adventure and see how they like it. If it is well received, I’ll follow up with another one and so on... I will heed your advice and for the moment I will flesh out the areas that will be visited either that are part of the plot and a handful of locations along the way just in case the party gets derailed, like the famous Wizard X’ tower, the Abandoned Elven citadel of Y, etc...
Ask all the help you need, we'll be here for you :)
A silly idea that just came to my mind: why not make your players unknowingly help you? Let me elaborate: as you plan on making a series of not necessarily connected adventures, why not make these one-shots that will then be actual legends in your new world? You could create pregen characters for each adventure, let your players decide which characters to use and then use whatever happens in the session(s) as base for a legend actually making the rounds through the land hundreds of years after. This is initially quite a bit of work from your part, but it also serves you two purposes: - "forces" you to populate the folklore of your world in a constructive and though-out way - your players are guaranteed to love it when they realise they are literally writing history
After you have a few of these sessions done, changing area as you see fit to flash out a particular legend or historic event you want to look into, you should have enough material to run a bigger campaign, using the legends and previous adventures as further plot hooks and side-quests (where did the pluderers of the Tomb of the First Mephit King go? what happened to the Tome of all Life that was found in the inverted tower of Ghel'Kolun?)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Well off to a good start, I like what LeK and Vedexent have written, time to chime in and give my view from an active world building process.
I have a campaign setting I've bee playing in for a little over 2 years now. I started with an idea, and nailed down the first town. I mapped out the town and starting area with the same kind of detail that I would use to describe my home town. I knew where most of the important stuff was, I had a general idea of what was around outside of my normal stomping grounds, and beyond that I knew a few details. That was the first step, from there I considered the map of the world, I know the basic map of America, I now the shape of my state, I have an idea of where the biggest cities are within about 50 miles. I have seen a globe, but in the game world, they don't have a globe...so no need to detail that yet. I know the the back roads to nearby towns, but if I want to travel further, I can only go off the major highways I'm familiar with. Then I let my mind wander.
I knew I had enough to start with, but I also knew my players would ask questions, so I created a rough draft of the map of the continent (photoshop), I created a few cities that would populate the different races, and treated them like hearing about Chicago even though you live in Los Angeles. They had names and a general location. I created a few geological locations which would be the equivalent of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone or the Rocky Mountains. Again these were named, but in the sense of knowledge, it was abstract and based off of the things heard while growing up. Now I felt I had enough to send in the players.
From there I had players introduce backstories, questions and interactions which required me to answer the things I hadn't looked into. The beauty is I could answer them because I had story arcs in place, I had their character and player interactions to provide details with. There's also the fun thing that we've been watching movies, reading books, and immersed in stories all our lives, I just borrowed from them. Once I made a decision, I fleshed out a few more details after the session and made it cannon. Due to one of my players I had to create the lore of my world which pre-dated the introduction of the races...silly players and their questions...
I hope that run-down helped a little, and good luck! You'll really enjoy when this creation of yours starts to come to life.
Ask all the help you need, we'll be here for you :)
A silly idea that just came to my mind: why not make your players unknowingly help you? Let me elaborate: as you plan on making a series of not necessarily connected adventures, why not make these one-shots that will then be actual legends in your new world? You could create pregen characters for each adventure, let your players decide which characters to use and then use whatever happens in the session(s) as base for a legend actually making the rounds through the land hundreds of years after. This is initially quite a bit of work from your part, but it also serves you two purposes: - "forces" you to populate the folklore of your world in a constructive and though-out way - your players are guaranteed to love it when they realise they are literally writing history
After you have a few of these sessions done, changing area as you see fit to flash out a particular legend or historic event you want to look into, you should have enough material to run a bigger campaign, using the legends and previous adventures as further plot hooks and side-quests (where did the pluderers of the Tomb of the First Mephit King go? what happened to the Tome of all Life that was found in the inverted tower of Ghel'Kolun?)
This is actually a good idea! I really like this... Thanks!!
Well off to a good start, I like what LeK and Vedexent have written, time to chime in and give my view from an active world building process.
I have a campaign setting I've bee playing in for a little over 2 years now. I started with an idea, and nailed down the first town. I mapped out the town and starting area with the same kind of detail that I would use to describe my home town. I knew where most of the important stuff was, I had a general idea of what was around outside of my normal stomping grounds, and beyond that I knew a few details. That was the first step, from there I considered the map of the world, I know the basic map of America, I now the shape of my state, I have an idea of where the biggest cities are within about 50 miles. I have seen a globe, but in the game world, they don't have a globe...so no need to detail that yet. I know the the back roads to nearby towns, but if I want to travel further, I can only go off the major highways I'm familiar with. Then I let my mind wander.
I knew I had enough to start with, but I also knew my players would ask questions, so I created a rough draft of the map of the continent (photoshop), I created a few cities that would populate the different races, and treated them like hearing about Chicago even though you live in Los Angeles. They had names and a general location. I created a few geological locations which would be the equivalent of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone or the Rocky Mountains. Again these were named, but in the sense of knowledge, it was abstract and based off of the things heard while growing up. Now I felt I had enough to send in the players.
From there I had players introduce backstories, questions and interactions which required me to answer the things I hadn't looked into. The beauty is I could answer them because I had story arcs in place, I had their character and player interactions to provide details with. There's also the fun thing that we've been watching movies, reading books, and immersed in stories all our lives, I just borrowed from them. Once I made a decision, I fleshed out a few more details after the session and made it cannon. Due to one of my players I had to create the lore of my world which pre-dated the introduction of the races...silly players and their questions...
I hope that run-down helped a little, and good luck! You'll really enjoy when this creation of yours starts to come to life.
This a great way to start fleshing out your own world. Thank you very much I shall start working with this concept, right away.
Making the players unwittingly help you is a good tactic; write world details around character backstories.
For example, I have a Warlock how has a notable aversion to non-humans with a nobility background in my campaign - so I started asking him questions about his Patron and his background, and let him spin out a backstory: his patron ( being a Great Old One ) is the core of a cult, his family has been involved in the cult for generations, etc. etc. etc.
So I took the backstory details he came up with, and meshed them into my world, tied them into the world's overall history, explained why his family - and his Order - may have prejudices against non-humans, etc. etc.
Of course, there are aspects about his background that I know now, that he doesn't - yet <evil grin>
It's collaborative, helps flesh out the world, takes some of the workload off of you, and helps the player-characters feel "rooted" in the world, not just tourists.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
So I took the backstory details he came up with, and meshed them into my world, tied them into the world's overall history, explained why his family - and his Order - may have prejudices against non-humans, etc. etc.
It's collaborative, helps flesh out the world, takes some of the workload off of you, and helps the player-characters feel "rooted" in the world, not just tourists.
I had a Dragonborn monk who wrote up a backstory about how his mother tried to kill him because some unknown entity started to tell her that she could gain power by doing as instructed. It grew into an entire region of the world which is corrupted by Vecna, which in turn caused a dragon to become enraged, and a city to become ruled by an unwitting 12 year old who controls the undead via a lost amulet created by the player's mother. Players can really do a good job at making my job easier and their lives miserable...
I had one player that his dwarven character killed almost anything thrown at him by a combination of tactics, skills and sheer luck... However one day that changed. After dispatching the main antagonist of the story arc there was only one Evil noche guard left. Overconfident, the dwarf jumped into action and tried to take him out, but no matter how hard he tried he kept missing and even rolled a nat 1, causing his precious battle axe slipp from his grasp. On the other hand the enemy guard kept hitting him and was able to knock him unconscious (on the dwarf’s defense he was wore out by fighting the BBEG) and was ready to deliver the killing blow with the dwarven battle axe the dwarf was rescued by his friends and teleported away. From then on he became the dwarf’s nemesis, and I had to create an Dark Knight order who tracked the party and disrupted their agendas.
I will take a look on the Tomb of Anihilation Module and their adventures from the AL for reference. I was told that the Yuan-Ti make an appearance there and they’re really important on my setting.
I do all my work in Photoshop, I've tried to use other apps and I feel constrained or, in the case of one set, buggy. It really depends on how comfortable you are in creating your own work or using something that will assist or pregen.
Unless I want to make player handouts, I typically make as minimalist a map as I can.
For terrain, I typically just use a hex grid in a paint program, and fill in the hexes with the colors which represent terrain types. This allows me to figure out travel time between locations, if I scale each hex to a "typical day's travel" ( just multiply by the terrain type for time needed to cross the hex ).
For cities, I typically block the city out in areas/neighborhoods/points-of-interest, and how they are connected in relation to one another. Something like the diagram below.
Now - these are not pretty - and they don't work as player handouts. But they are fast to create, the provide the information that you need to track, and they can be translated into more traditional and artistic maps.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I don’t have any cartographer’s tools, however I did find a couple of towns that I can redraw or use MS Paint for an easy fix.
So far I’m having fun implementing my childhood memories of my hometown in those towns! :)
Adventure-wise I thought about deconstructing one of the official generic AL adventure and replace with my own flavor, until I get more confidence and experience to create my own.
That's not a bad idea, I spread my wings by running Sunless Citadel and every time I'd toss my own flare into it, until I got the ambitious goal to create my own campaign setting.
I've been playing for close to 30 years, I've tried many modules, campaign settings, and homebrews by now. In respect to your question though: I have done ToA and Sunless, but Sunless is by far my favorite adventure. In every one of them, after I got comfortable in the DM's chair, I'd take some liberties in how the story played out and allow for some off the rails shenanigans. As you start down this road, pick 2 or 3 areas you want to explore such as politics, maps and plot lines, and work on those, then in your next adventure, pick 3 different ones. Get used to how they affect game play, and what you're really good at, and what you'll need tools for. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, find yours and you'll fall into a good rhythm.
Hi guys,
Dropping a few lines to request advice to the more seasoned DMs and Players. I have been DMing for quite a while and I wanted always to create/implement my own setting. Now with 5E and it’s modules and supplements I see that opportunity to do it.
My first question will be: Do you recommend me to start with every detail right from the scratch or do you think it’s easier to use an existing module like SKT and adapt it to my setting?
My second will be: What will you recommend as a minimum for running your own campaign?
So far I have the idea of my setting, the era, how many races will exist, how many powers in their cosmology, and a couple of main events. But haven’t nailed a map with every major settlements, rivers, lakes, seas, and Influential NPCs.
Will this be enough?
Hi Nheko, welcome to the forums o/
Creating your own setting and world(s) is one of the most satisfying and terrifying things a DM can do.
I will start by answering your second question "What will you recommend as a minimum for running your own campaign?" : if you already have the world in broad strokes, my suggestion would be to now go in deeper details on the area your party is going to start off in, like the kingdom or even just the hillside region within that kingdom.
From there, you can build up everything else in relation to where the story goes (meaning either the way YOU would like it to go, or the way THE PLAYERS force the story to go :P). Don't be afraid of improvising if one of the players asks "Hey, what's a place that we'd consider exotic?" (just an example, any kind of thing that includes someplace you have not thought of through just yet); go with the flow, tell them of some far off land where it is said that this and that happened, or is happening, or where great and strange creatures are told to reside.
Write down notes on what you tell your players, to then go back to them and build on them to define that far-off land better.
This is if you want the setting to still be "all yours", in the sense that you want to come up with everything on your own. If you happen to have a very stable and trustworthy group, though, I'd suggest to include them in the creation process, not just as "Hey guys, help me out to fill in this and that", but a much more interesting way could be when a player, for example, asks "I'm the bard, what kind of legends do I know of place xyz?" make the player themselves come up with one or more legends on place xyz, help them help you shape this new world.
Either option (going solo or group worldbuilding) are equally valid and rewarding, imho.
As to your first question, I admit I am a bit puzzled: do you mean just as a campaign to play in your setting?
If that's the idea, I am a bit divided on this. Whenever I come up with an original setting, I prefer to come up with an original campaign as well, in order to make sure to present thew world I thought of in the light I want it to be seen (initially at least) and to have the freedom to improvise as much or as little as necessary without worrying of forgetting one little detail here or there when adapting the adventure to my world that could then jeopardize the adventure itself later on.
So, imho: go full original! :)
Hope my ramblings can be of help to you! o/
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I think a good general rule of thumb is "Keep it detailed, but keep it small, and only add the details you need".
Is the party adventuring primarily in one region, around one town? Great - detail that town pretty finely, but leave the rest of the world alone beyond some general sketches, and details that you expect people to know at a distance. ( How much do you really know about modern Greece? How much would you know without mass media? ): Names and general reputation of neighboring towns - the name and reputation of the nearest large trading city, the name and general structure of the nation/region you're in.
Do you have a Cleric in the party? Excellent. Detail that God(dess)/religion pretty well ( although make your Cleric player do some of the work as well! ). Maybe put a temple to a different God in the town. Detail that religion. As for the rest of the Pantheon? Names, general roles, reputation in the populace - nothing more.
The general idea is that wherever the Party looks, they see highly detailed, vibrant technicolor immersive detail - what they don't realize is that where they aren't looking, it's blank and undeveloped :D That way you don't have to write entire novels worth of background material, and you get to look amazing.
Modules are great - but also realize that the material of the module is going to change your world setting; you need to fit it into your world. If you're OK with that, modules are great for a new DM or group to get their feet wet.
One other thing - get used to the idea of improvising. If you build your world only where you think your players are going to go/look - I can guarantee that sometimes you're going to have guessed wrong as to what you needed to detail. and what you can leave blank. Be able to a) make up details on the fly and b) write those details down! You will need to make those spontaneous details part of the world after the session.
Good luck, and have fun! :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Thanks guys this is really useful.
I think for the moment I will try to solo the setting. I tried to incorporate my players and they either were not interested in investing the time to do it or the ones who did couldn’t agree with each other, so I canceled the project. However they will be exited to try it out.
I will sit down and start thinking of writing a stand alone adventure and see how they like it. If it is well received, I’ll follow up with another one and so on... I will heed your advice and for the moment I will flesh out the areas that will be visited either that are part of the plot and a handful of locations along the way just in case the party gets derailed, like the famous Wizard X’ tower, the Abandoned Elven citadel of Y, etc...
Ask all the help you need, we'll be here for you :)
A silly idea that just came to my mind: why not make your players unknowingly help you?
Let me elaborate: as you plan on making a series of not necessarily connected adventures, why not make these one-shots that will then be actual legends in your new world?
You could create pregen characters for each adventure, let your players decide which characters to use and then use whatever happens in the session(s) as base for a legend actually making the rounds through the land hundreds of years after. This is initially quite a bit of work from your part, but it also serves you two purposes:
- "forces" you to populate the folklore of your world in a constructive and though-out way
- your players are guaranteed to love it when they realise they are literally writing history
After you have a few of these sessions done, changing area as you see fit to flash out a particular legend or historic event you want to look into, you should have enough material to run a bigger campaign, using the legends and previous adventures as further plot hooks and side-quests (where did the pluderers of the Tomb of the First Mephit King go? what happened to the Tome of all Life that was found in the inverted tower of Ghel'Kolun?)
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Well off to a good start, I like what LeK and Vedexent have written, time to chime in and give my view from an active world building process.
I have a campaign setting I've bee playing in for a little over 2 years now. I started with an idea, and nailed down the first town. I mapped out the town and starting area with the same kind of detail that I would use to describe my home town. I knew where most of the important stuff was, I had a general idea of what was around outside of my normal stomping grounds, and beyond that I knew a few details. That was the first step, from there I considered the map of the world, I know the basic map of America, I now the shape of my state, I have an idea of where the biggest cities are within about 50 miles. I have seen a globe, but in the game world, they don't have a globe...so no need to detail that yet. I know the the back roads to nearby towns, but if I want to travel further, I can only go off the major highways I'm familiar with. Then I let my mind wander.
I knew I had enough to start with, but I also knew my players would ask questions, so I created a rough draft of the map of the continent (photoshop), I created a few cities that would populate the different races, and treated them like hearing about Chicago even though you live in Los Angeles. They had names and a general location. I created a few geological locations which would be the equivalent of the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone or the Rocky Mountains. Again these were named, but in the sense of knowledge, it was abstract and based off of the things heard while growing up. Now I felt I had enough to send in the players.
From there I had players introduce backstories, questions and interactions which required me to answer the things I hadn't looked into. The beauty is I could answer them because I had story arcs in place, I had their character and player interactions to provide details with. There's also the fun thing that we've been watching movies, reading books, and immersed in stories all our lives, I just borrowed from them. Once I made a decision, I fleshed out a few more details after the session and made it cannon. Due to one of my players I had to create the lore of my world which pre-dated the introduction of the races...silly players and their questions...
I hope that run-down helped a little, and good luck! You'll really enjoy when this creation of yours starts to come to life.
Making the players unwittingly help you is a good tactic; write world details around character backstories.
For example, I have a Warlock how has a notable aversion to non-humans with a nobility background in my campaign - so I started asking him questions about his Patron and his background, and let him spin out a backstory: his patron ( being a Great Old One ) is the core of a cult, his family has been involved in the cult for generations, etc. etc. etc.
So I took the backstory details he came up with, and meshed them into my world, tied them into the world's overall history, explained why his family - and his Order - may have prejudices against non-humans, etc. etc.
Of course, there are aspects about his background that I know now, that he doesn't - yet <evil grin>
It's collaborative, helps flesh out the world, takes some of the workload off of you, and helps the player-characters feel "rooted" in the world, not just tourists.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I had a Dragonborn monk who wrote up a backstory about how his mother tried to kill him because some unknown entity started to tell her that she could gain power by doing as instructed. It grew into an entire region of the world which is corrupted by Vecna, which in turn caused a dragon to become enraged, and a city to become ruled by an unwitting 12 year old who controls the undead via a lost amulet created by the player's mother. Players can really do a good job at making my job easier and their lives miserable...
Hehehe I agree on this.
I had one player that his dwarven character killed almost anything thrown at him by a combination of tactics, skills and sheer luck... However one day that changed. After dispatching the main antagonist of the story arc there was only one Evil noche guard left. Overconfident, the dwarf jumped into action and tried to take him out, but no matter how hard he tried he kept missing and even rolled a nat 1, causing his precious battle axe slipp from his grasp. On the other hand the enemy guard kept hitting him and was able to knock him unconscious (on the dwarf’s defense he was wore out by fighting the BBEG) and was ready to deliver the killing blow with the dwarven battle axe the dwarf was rescued by his friends and teleported away. From then on he became the dwarf’s nemesis, and I had to create an Dark Knight order who tracked the party and disrupted their agendas.
I will take a look on the Tomb of Anihilation Module and their adventures from the AL for reference. I was told that the Yuan-Ti make an appearance there and they’re really important on my setting.
One more thing guys, do you have a preferred map maker or do you draw your maps by hand???
I do all my work in Photoshop, I've tried to use other apps and I feel constrained or, in the case of one set, buggy. It really depends on how comfortable you are in creating your own work or using something that will assist or pregen.
Unless I want to make player handouts, I typically make as minimalist a map as I can.
For terrain, I typically just use a hex grid in a paint program, and fill in the hexes with the colors which represent terrain types. This allows me to figure out travel time between locations, if I scale each hex to a "typical day's travel" ( just multiply by the terrain type for time needed to cross the hex ).
For cities, I typically block the city out in areas/neighborhoods/points-of-interest, and how they are connected in relation to one another. Something like the diagram below.
Now - these are not pretty - and they don't work as player handouts. But they are fast to create, the provide the information that you need to track, and they can be translated into more traditional and artistic maps.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Thanks guys.
I don’t have any cartographer’s tools, however I did find a couple of towns that I can redraw or use MS Paint for an easy fix.
So far I’m having fun implementing my childhood memories of my hometown in those towns! :)
Adventure-wise I thought about deconstructing one of the official generic AL adventure and replace with my own flavor, until I get more confidence and experience to create my own.
Imitation is the best form of flattery!
That's not a bad idea, I spread my wings by running Sunless Citadel and every time I'd toss my own flare into it, until I got the ambitious goal to create my own campaign setting.
As a catographer tool, I can suggest Inkarnate. Easy to use and can produce quite nice results, with a little time investment :)
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
That’s good to know!
Did you run the whole set of Yawning Portal or only Sunless Citadel?
I've been playing for close to 30 years, I've tried many modules, campaign settings, and homebrews by now. In respect to your question though: I have done ToA and Sunless, but Sunless is by far my favorite adventure. In every one of them, after I got comfortable in the DM's chair, I'd take some liberties in how the story played out and allow for some off the rails shenanigans. As you start down this road, pick 2 or 3 areas you want to explore such as politics, maps and plot lines, and work on those, then in your next adventure, pick 3 different ones. Get used to how they affect game play, and what you're really good at, and what you'll need tools for. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, find yours and you'll fall into a good rhythm.