Quote from: Ravenswing;752564Funny thing, that ... I wrote a series of articles giving a low-key overview as to what to do:
...

Awesome sauce.

Also, I suggest picking up the Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding. It's a fantastic resource with essay's from a bunch of talented game designers. There's a whole series now (game prep, campaign prep, magic...). Worth checking out.

Quote from: Thanos;752433Maybe I'm just realizing this is going to take more effort than I thought, becoming more work and less fun.

Let me share something that I learned is true for me.  Maybe it's true for you, maybe not.

Don't worry about building a world.  I used to obsess over it.  I used to worry about getting every mountain in the right place, every bit of history just right.  I used to create pantheons, cities, calendars, and all sorts of things up front.

What I learned is that I didn't need to.  It was extra effort which didn't result in much.  I don't have to build a complete world to have a fun game session.  If I just prepare what I need and trust my improvisational ability, I can create something on the fly.  And since it will have player input, it will be much more fun.

I'm not going to write Lord of the Rings.  I've discarded the idea of writing some kind of RPG book based on my creation.  Ultimately, the only people my worlds have to satisfy are me and the people I play with, and that's enough.

My current campaign is a world that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.  There is no grand design to it.  I just drop in what I think will be fun.  Trying to make sense of it after the fact is often more fun than trying to figure everything out in advance.

Because here is the secret that works for me.  If the action is fun.  If the NPCs are likable.  If the subplots are interesting.  No one really cares about the world, so don't stress over it too much.

Quote from: RPGPundit;753669My own methodology runs a little contrary to what several here have suggested: people seem to think the best way is to start with a very small area, and then build the world up around that.
But for me, what has been by far more successful is to FIRST think of the big overall world or region in very general terms, and only AFTER that, focus on a more specific area and develop that area in depth as your campaign starting-point.

I find the best approach is to start with a very general theme, eg "Game of Thrones" "Song of Roland" "Thongor sci-fantasy" which sets the mood and tone for future development; but avoid doing anything early on that will constrain me. For instance a typical problem with big top-down worlds like Greyhawk is that everything is carved out into big states that are visible on the world map, leaving no space for micro-kingdoms. But micro-kingdoms let me run the kind of low level 'save the princess from the dragon' or 'overthrow the wizard usurper' type adventures that are ubiquitous in fantasy. And I shouldn't have to detail every such micro-kingdom on the map before I start the campaign.

Quote from: Thanos;752433I have a few ideas but don't know how to pull them all together.

I keep throwing ideas out there and fitting them together and taking them apart and changing them about until I hit upon something that is solid, that is good, that is right.

Then I use that as the nucleus of a setting or world or whatever.

I call it my One Perfect Thing. (Link to my blog.)

Since I like making maps, I started there. Then added some cities and cultural regions and added a few sentences of descriptions for each place. Then I asked my players what place sounded the coolest and they started their adventuring there. So far most everything else is literally just a name on a map but they've gotten excited about checking out different places based on whether they have cool names or not. So starting light and building out has worked really well.

A good map can be an excellent place to start, and often can act as a visual substitute for all kinds of setting-detail.

Quote from: RPGPundit;753669My own methodology runs a little contrary to what several here have suggested: people seem to think the best way is to start with a very small area, and then build the world up around that.
But for me, what has been by far more successful is to FIRST think of the big overall world or region in very general terms, and only AFTER that, focus on a more specific area and develop that area in depth as your campaign starting-point.

I think the key here is "in very general terms".  The overall region/world will certainly shape what's going on, and that should inform your town, who's in it, what's going on, etc.  The key (to me) is not overdoing the detail at the large scale.

A war between Farawayland and Notclosania can certainly impact local politics and is a good thing to figure out.  It's not necessarily important to drill down into specific people in those lands if it's not likely to impact the players (directly or indirectly).

My general rule is that the closer you are to the players, the more detail there should be.  "Close" doesn't necessarily mean in terms of just geographical distance, it also means in terms of influence/what the players are likely to deal with.  If the game is going to feature Kingdom Overtheria trying to overthrow the rightful rulers of Righthererightnow, then you'd better damn well know who the major players in Overtheria are, regardless of where it's actually located.

I am going to be very specific about what to do.
Buy or otherwise acquire a hard cover sketch book. Set it aside.
Outside of the sketch book make four maps, each nested within the other like Russian dolls.

1. World map
2. Region map
3. Sub region
4. Adventure site
5. Optional: settlement.

While making these maps, write everything that goes through you head down in the sketchbook. Don't worry about organization, just get it out. If you put a city on the map or a mountain range, or whatever, write a sentence or two in the book. Write sloppy, half assed sentences if you want. You are not married to these ideas.

Here is an example of such a progression. I've posted these up before, but I am going to do it again for the sake of the topic at hand.


1. World


2. Region


3. Subregion


4. Adventure site


5. Settlement:



Now you have a framework to build on. However, I suggest you begin the first session at the entrance to the adventure site and let your ideas as to the rest of the area cook in your subconscious for a bit.

One thing further, at this point, you need to think about how to disseminate setting information to the players. "In a huge, densely written document," is exactly the wrong answer, by the way.  

I will go into more detail later, if there is interest.

Of course, in a lot of my campaigns I start off by ripping off of history.

I've been tasked with "doing" a city for a campaign. I started with where the city is located. I then mapped the city making sure I had walls, roads, buildings (I did this with online tools).

The maps sat there for a long time... I have now split the map into sections for easier handling. I go through each section and name the roads. I then place the inns, and some temples.

The road names give me themes for areas, and sometimes names of historically important figures. I then place and name the inns which allows me to further build on the naming conventions and expand on the local history of the place. With those done I am currently Doing a quick two or three sentence write up for each inn. It might be used by locals, haunted, an old building, or have something of interest (a bit like a guide book for tourists).

Next I am splitting up the sections I have by theme: There might be a legal district, or a market/traders area. All these are related to the names I came up with and it is happening quite organically.

It helps that I spent a long time looking at places I have lived and how names and places develop and grow over time. That is something quite fascinating in its own right.

I am not putting NPCs in. Just names and place data. Things you might see or hear about if you went there. This provides seeds for later use.

I'm not a big fan of campaign maps as they seem to ground my imagination of the campaign to real world demographics.  I like to think of interesting things without having to worry about placing them within constraints.  I like a broad beginning skeleton that I can be fleshed out by will by myself and the players interests.  I've read many setting books were that type of demographic information doesn't really come up during play or at most merely as flavor.

Truth be told, I've started to fall off map creation -- and I love making maps -- because I don't think the players are really interested.  National maps, sure; people like to get a notion of comparative relations for long-distance travel.  But city maps, for instance?  The players want to know what district or neighborhood a particular business is in, and beyond that whether it's around the corner or two streets away from X business rarely comes up.