First major attempt at world building.
I'v been running a 5e group and I decided that i wanted to work on making my own setting for future adventures. The only problem is I have no idea what I'm actually doing and could use some help with it. My first thought was to make it during a colonial era so I could focus on the land mass they are settling first and have something I could use sooner. Here is my brainstorming thus far.
The world is new.
- Much of the civilized world iscontained on a single continent, Inalum
- There are 3 known continents, Inalum, Kolaav, Toarba
- Inalum has entered a colonial era and the kingdoms are founding the first colonies on Toarba
- Magic is not widespread but not rare.
- Wizard universities and the like are just being established. most magic is either inborn talent or passed from master to apprentice with no real place for study.
Much of the world is untamed.
- The campaign takes place on the newly discovered continent of Toarba
- The only infrastructure is the fledgling colonies.
- Mostly just small towns and villages along coasts and rivers.
Any help would be great. I would really like to provide my players with a fun world to play around in(and probably destroy)
Re: First major attempt at world building.
First question to determine is always what kind of campaign you think you would like to run in this world.
The setup sounds a lot like jungle exploration, but what kind of exploration do you have in mind? Encounter the natives and fight huge unfamiliar monsters would be a quite different approach from searching for resources to build a productive colony that exports good to the people back home. What is the style of stories you have in mind?
Re: First major attempt at world building.
Have you put any thought into what your meta world IS? Or perhaps you didn't specifcally for some reason, which is cool to.
You didn't mention deities or religions, do you plan on them being a major influence in the world? Just going to use the DnD pantheon and leaving it at that?
That's usually my starting point - others differ for good reason.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
To be honest I haven't put much thought in to it I have just been doing some brainstorming on my breaks at work.
I really have no clue how to actually build this world. In the long run I want this to be something I can use over again and have previous adventuring parties be come the heroes/villains of the world. For my first adventure in the world I was thinking about more of the exploration type. I was thinking about having there be a native civilization of one of the monstrous races but have them be less evil than the variety they might have come across before coming to the colonies.
I would like to create my own pantheon. But I'm worried i might forget some aspect and names are hard.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
My first step in world-building is to draw a map. Outline the shape of the landmasses that the campaign takes place on, then put in mountain ranges, followed by rivers and lakes, forests and deserts, and finally important settlements and adventure locations. Having some sense of where things are is especially important if you're running a campaign with a significant exploration element to it.
When you're drawing your continents, it can be helpful to think about how you want the PC's to travel when they explore. At lower levels, geography is important: sailing will be the fastest, most convenient method unless the landmasses interfere with sea travel,--think about how Africa made the silk road necessary--so if you want dangerous mountain crossings and desert caravans, lay things out such that those crossings are necessary or efficient.
You don't need to plan all of this geography out to the n'th detail up front, but brainstorm a few set pieces that you'd like to include and make sure there's a spot on the map where they make sense.
Once you've got the skeleton of a world, the next step is to populate it. To start, maybe sketch out 3-5 groups, and go into more detail on 1 or 2 of them. When you're making cultures and factions, concentrate first on the basic pieces the PC's will interact with: How does this culture fight? How does it practice magic? Who does it pray to? Who's in charge? What kinds of gear does it sell? What major threats does it face? Answering those questions can help you think of the classes its notable NPC's belong to and some possible adventure hooks. Flesh them out by whipping up a handful of NPC's and pick out a few cultural highlights that make different peoples feel distinct. Real-world cultures are deep, complex things with centuries of history, but, luckily for you, the PC's are basically heavily armed tourists, not anthropologists. A couple of details--dress, musical instruments, food, titles, arts and handicrafts, deep-seated historical grievances--can help avoid the setting feeling like a samey pseudo-medieval sludge, and as you play in the setting, other details and customs will occur to you.
You don't need to drop these details in one big infodump, and you shouldn't. Weave a detail or two into other interactions or scene-setting.
"The Boyar greats you warmly. 'Come! Sit and have some picked duck beaks with me while we discuss this goblin issue.'"
"The caravan that has hired you is carrying a rich cargo of Vostashi brocades and persimmon brandy, to trade for the Mountain Clan's jade and furs."
Lastly, starting from the ground floor means you can invite your friends to help build the world. While you're concentrating on the places they'll be adventuring in from session to session, the age of exploration theme makes it really easy for them to provide some details and inspiration for the "old world" via character backstories. It saves you work, opens the door to ideas you might not have thought of, and invests players in the world.
Edit:
Also, browsing art can really help you get a feel for people and places. Pinterest is great for this--there are a lot of D&D/Pathfinder pinboards, and the pin function lets you easily grab the images and organize them in one place. I also use a flickr account to host easy to navigate collections of art that players can browse whenever. That way, they can get a feel for NPC's or locations if they want to without a bunch of exposition during sessions.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mendicant
My first step in world-building is to draw a map.
That's a good way to start, but not the only one, nor always the best. (And in fairness, I doubt Mendicant meant to indicate that it is.) Some people prefer to think up some countries first, some elements of their cultures and the relations between them, then make a map to fit them into. And that works too. In your case, the map of Inalum may be far less important than the culture and relations stuff, even while the map of Toarba - especially the locations of various Inalumian countries' colonies are - is super important.
Quote:
[snip]
Flesh them out by whipping up a handful of NPC's and pick out a few cultural highlights that make different peoples feel distinct. Real-world cultures are deep, complex things with centuries of history, but, luckily for you, the PC's are basically heavily armed tourists, not anthropologists. A couple of details--dress, musical instruments, food, titles, arts and handicrafts, deep-seated historical grievances--can help avoid the setting feeling like a samey pseudo-medieval sludge, and as you play in the setting, other details and customs will occur to you.
You don't need to drop these details in one big infodump, and you shouldn't. Weave a detail or two into other interactions or scene-setting.
"The Boyar greats you warmly. 'Come! Sit and have some picked duck beaks with me while we discuss this goblin issue.'"
"The caravan that has hired you is carrying a rich cargo of Vostashi brocades and persimmon brandy, to trade for the Mountain Clan's jade and furs."
Lots of good advice here, both quoted and snipped. And this stuff can also be done at different times in your process. If you do countries then maps you can still do these cultural bits before or after the maps. you can even do some of them before the countries; how can I make up the nation's cultural habits or major NPCs before I even know what the country is? Simple: those things can help define the major elements. "I've got this great figure of an NPC who'd make a terrific warrior queen. I guess I'll make a kingdom that is ruled by a warrior queen." "The kingdom of Prain produces delicious persimmon wine and brandy. So what does that tell me? Well, they probably export it. Maybe it is on the verge of going to war with its neighbor, Prance, because Prance is imposing prohibitively large tariffs on through shipments of brandy to Permany." (I too have trouble with names.) And that gives you political and geographic points.
What I've been doing is a combination of passively letting ideas percolate, actively brainstorming, and reading this forum for ideas and making note of them all. Eventually, I'll pull it all together. Actually, I think I'll use that tariff dispute somewhere. (I've been doing more passive percolating than I should if I want to get a game started soon, but I'm not actually in a hurry at the moment. And I've started on the map a couple of times and end up stuck due to my shocking lack of artistic ability and the steep learning curve of software that helps but still doesn't do it for me. But I digress.)
Quote:
Also, browsing art can really help you get a feel for people and places. Pinterest is great for this--there are a lot of D&D/Pathfinder pinboards, and the pin function lets you easily grab the images and organize them in one place. I also use a flickr account to host easy to navigate collections of art that players can browse whenever. That way, they can get a feel for NPC's or locations if they want to without a bunch of exposition during sessions.
Cool notion, thanks.
As for pantheons, there is lots of advice both in print and here, so seek some out and follow it as closely or loosely as feels right.
You stated that magic is neither "widespread" nor "rare." How common is it? Be nonspecifically specific; within some range, what percentage of the population has magical ability? Arcane, divine, or something else? Will the PC classes have the normal spell caster options?
Finally, as Dr. Spock* said about child rearing, "Relax, you know more than you think." You've played this game before, you've run this game before, you know what's fun. If you don't go crazy then you almost can't screw it up. D&D worlds are like sex and pizza; when they're good they're really good, and when they're bad they're still pretty good.
* The pediatrician, not the Vulcan.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
I have a similar approach to Mendicant, but I have some other questions that I try to keep in mind. By no means does htat mean you HAVE to ask yourself the same questions though.
First off, I'm very much of the why-perpetuate-stereotypes thing, so a large part of my world-building comes down to emphasizing parts of cultures that are overlooked, and oppression isn't in my world just because, it's there to make a point, always. I don't want to just say "Oh, you can't play a black guy in my pseudo-Europe,", I want to be able to say "yeah, you can totally play an XYZ in here, and here's a handful of fitting historically-inspired roles that would fit their presence". You don't want to punish your players for wanting to play a female member of an oppressed race, unless that's the theme they're looking for.
I also fall into the "come up with an idea for a society and then figure out where it goes on a map later" camp. For example, when I was reading about the Buyid dynasty, a dynasty who took the rough-and-ready mountain tribes of northern Persia and used them to end up effectively ruling all of Persia, Arabia and Syria, I was inspired by the dynamics between various Arab and Persian ethnic groups in the region, and decided to play upon those themes for a large portion of my world.
With new-world themes, if I were doing the setting, I would ask myself how the situation I create plays into various colonialist myths. Is the place entirely uninhabited, as many of them though? Do the colonialists count the natives as 'inhabitants', or do they consider the land Terra Nullius despite the native presence? Do they even consider the natives 'people'?
When creating the natives, try to make sure that they're just as vibrant a culture as your colonizer cultures. If your colonizer culture isn't going to be single-note stereotypes, don't make your natives isngle-note stereotypes either. Noble Savage tropes are dangerous and have been done to death, come up with something new. Generic spirits-of-the-forest worship is a pale imitation of real-life native American religions seen from the point of view of the colonizers, as are the ideas of Natives living in harmony with nature; perhaps your natives are fiercely monotheistic, or do large-scale slash-and-burn agriculture? Put as much effort and originality into them as you do the colonizers.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
This is the open post of another thread that's active right now in this very forum:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Yora
I saw a link to
Jeff's Gameblog with a list of 20 questions meant to create a quick introduction to your campaign setting that lets people know what it is about.
- What is the deal with my priests's religion?
- Where can we go to buy standard equipment?
- Where can we go to get platemail custom fitted for this monster I just befriended?
- Who is the mightiest mage in the land?
- Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
- Who is the richest person in the land?
- Where can we go to get some magical healing?
- Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, curse, level drain, lycanthropy, polymorph, death, undeath?
- Is there a magic guild my mage belongs to or that I can join in order to get more spells?
- Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
- Where can I hire mercenaries?
- Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, magic is outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
- Which way to the nearest tavern?
- What monsters are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
- Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
- How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
- Are there any secret societies with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
- What is there to eat around here?
- Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
- Where is the nearest dragon or other monster with a huge treasure?
Thought it would be interesting to hear your answers to these. It seems a nice way to share a lot of basic information even when you don't have lots of text already written about it yet. (Also faster to read.)
As good as these questions are for helping to summarize a world one has created, they are also good leading questions to spur the creation process. Have fun with them.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
My art skill is like -5 so mapping is not a place for me to start. I made a very crude map and that is just some mostly shapeless blobs with names on them and no real features.
For my pantheon I was thinking about using the Dawn War one found in the DMG. It seems interesting and making a brand new one seems like even more work on this already massive project.
My world only has 3 empires at the moment a 'good' ish one, 'evil' ish one and a dwarf/goblin that is mostly merchants. I'm not sure how they should interact.
Most of the magic in the world comes from the gods priests are around and most temples have some one who can at lest do little magic. Arcane magic is rare however not many people have seem a wizard. If they have encountered a arcane user it was probably a sorcerer or a bard.
I've been trying to get some input from my players but so far the response has been "interesting" or "that continent looks like a dog"
I'm also unsure of how much info I should have to start a campaign or how to organize it. right now things are just all jumbled in a google doc. (I can provide a link if people are interested in seeking everything)
Re: First major attempt at world building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Draconisister
I've been trying to get some input from my players but so far the response has been "interesting" or "that continent looks like a dog"
I'm also unsure of how much info I should have to start a campaign or how to organize it. right now things are just all jumbled in a google doc. (I can provide a link if people are interested in seeking everything)
Some people are just unable to participate in a creative process I guess. Don't worry, you will be fine.
Anyway, you don't need that much for starters. You already have a general outline, now all you need to do is to elaborate on one place so you have a starting point for a local adventure. If the players go to a different location in the next adventure, you can make up the details between the sessions.
If you would like to have some ideas, here are some things you might want to consider (just a few ideas, you don't have to include everything):
- most common religion
- rumours/superstition (maybe in regard to wizards?)
- interesting laws (for carrying weapons or the use of magic)
- struggles (every country has some internal struggles, not always violent ones but still. maybe it's just a trade dispute among merchants, maybe a rebellion)
- customs (eating habits, art, a local tradition of leaving the last apple on a tree for the gods)
- standard of living (food, education, seasons, bandits/guards)
- stereotypes/general opinion (in this area, what does it mean to be a child / woman / merchant / mercenary)
I once heard that a good author is never really satisfied with their work, but eventually has to learn to just accept it. Don't be to hard on yourself, enjoy the creative process and remember that you can still change things later on.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Draconisister
I've been trying to get some input from my players but so far the response has been "interesting" or "that continent looks like a dog"
So, you ask them for "input" and all you get is feedback on what's already done. Not too surprising, really. This can be because they don't have ideas, but it also could be that they don't understand that you really want more ideas. I obviously don't know what exact words you used when asking, but it's pretty common for someone to ask for reactions and feedback on their work - so common that unless you're really explicit about it they may not get what you're asking for. (Or maybe you were super explicit and they still aren't coming across with anything. I don't know; it's just something to consider.)
As for "That continent looks like a dog," don't give it another thought. So it looks like a dog; sometimes clouds look like bunnies. Who cares? Maybe the players will nickname the whole thing "Dogworld" but it doesn't matter.
I just realized that all the responses in this thread, taken together, may not be very helpful. Collectively we've told you "There really isn't any particular way; just do it," and I'm at least as guilty of this any anyone. Henceforth I will try not to add to the confusion any further. (But be warned: I'll probably fail.)
Re: First major attempt at world building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jqavins
Collectively we've told you "There really isn't any particular way; just do it," and I'm at least as guilty of this any anyone. Henceforth I will try not to add to the confusion any further. (But be warned: I'll probably fail.)
Well, there is no particular way. Most people just start with what they have in mind: a map, a character concept, a town. And then they add ideas. Or do you disagree?
Sorry for making you fail already :smallwink:
Re: First major attempt at world building.
There's a lot of good info and ideas here, but I can understand feeling a bit overwhelmed by the project too.
The first thing you need to remember is that you don't need everything up front. You don't need a LOT of things up front. For instance, just like jqavins said, you don't need the whole world's map, but you do want a map of the place they're adventuring in. Don't worry too much about how it looks. You can punch it up later if you get the itch to.
Similarly, you don't need to have the entire pantheon worked out up front, either, or the relationships between each political entity. Focus first on what the characters will interact with on day 1. Campaign settings take time. Published settings usually have years of development and multiple writers behind them. You won't have all of that before you sit down to play.
As far as getting input from them, give them the elevator pitch and then ask them to make some characters with at least some back story. If somebody wants to make a cleric, you'll know what part of the pantheon you need to work on. If someone wants to play a dwarf from a merchant clan, your third empire needs a bit more focus.
Re: First major attempt at world building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Thrawn4
Well, there is no particular way. Most people just start with what they have in mind: a map, a character concept, a town. And then they add ideas. Or do you disagree?
Sorry for making you fail already :smallwink:
I do agree, and said as much earlier. There's a saying, though, "Go not to the internet for answers, for it will say both yes and no."
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mendicant
There's a lot of good info and ideas here, but I can understand feeling a bit overwhelmed by the project too.
And my concern is that we may be giving too much of "both yes and no," all good information but also adding to the overwhelmed feeling. I guess I shouldn't assume that Draconi Sister is feeling that way, but I want to try to avoid it.
Quote:
As far as getting input from them, give them the elevator pitch and then ask them to make some characters with at least some back story. If somebody wants to make a cleric, you'll know what part of the pantheon you need to work on. If someone wants to play a dwarf from a merchant clan, your third empire needs a bit more focus.
(And here I go again...) That's a good approach; another is to ask the players to make up two characters: one to play and one NPC to hand over. Not only will that get you some NPCs that you might use (don't promise them that their NPC creations will see the light of play, just that they're helping) but it will also get them thinking and could result in more contributions.
