Wanting to create a campaign setting but need advice

[jaekaido]

Hello i am new to creating settings, but i have this idea of a setting where firearms are a normal thing. they are powered by magic and alchemical means but are still firearms. i want to set up something like the dragon marks from Eberron but they would be significantly different. i have elements from Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Oriental Adventures, and even Dragonlance. but i don't know where to start in putting it all together. while i have basic one line notes for it i can't seem to figure out how to fit them in with each other. the firearms is the big deal that i want to have and it's easy to just throw them in with little work as i have done that already and have specific rules for it. but it's everything else that i am having problems with.

Is there anyone here who has some sort of system for creating a campaign setting?

[aimlessPolymath]

First off, I'd suggest having this post moved to the Worldbuilding subforum- just report your own post to get it moved- or even making a post in general Roleplaying Games, since this is somewhat of a theory question about how to build a setting.

In terms of organizing your notes, since it sounds like you have a lot of single-line notes, I'd suggest taking every noun you have referenced in your notes (nouns: factions, races, countries, cities, important figures, religions, geographic regions, cultural attributes), and making a list of all your notes involving that noun (many notes will be in multiple lists). Then, you can start putting together the relationships between the nouns: country X has relationships with countries Y and Z, has cities A, B, and C, hosts factions 1, 2, and 3, has races a,b,c, and overlaps regions i and ii.

[brian 333]

Start small and grow.

Creating a campaign setting is a huge task, but if you begin with a map, some notes about the big picture, and a single adventure, you can build up from there.

I advise nailing down how firearms work in your setting then examining their effect on a single culture. Then decide how that is different from another culture's experience.

[DeTess]

Is there anyone here who has some sort of system for creating a campaign setting?

I think just about everyone approaches things differently, and different approaches are suitable for different campaigns. I'm currently playing in a campaign where the DM has put an enormous amount of work in creating a world and a set of metaphysics for the campaign in advance, which is pretty much necessary given that the campaign is about discovering why the world seems to be ending.

I'm also currently DM-ing a game myself with a custom setting, but I hadn't done too much work in advance. I'd established the broad strokes of the world and the finer details of the starting location in advance, but everything else I've essentially been 'discovery writing' as the game went on. This helps in reducing the work I needed to do in advance, but it requires you to be good at improvising, and it means things won't always be 100% consistent, but that isn't as much of a problem for my game as it would have been for the game I'm playing in.

Anyway, what I'd recommend you do is establish the kind of game you want to run in your setting, and do the work necessary to support that, and no more. You don't want to burn yourself out on your setting before you even gets started, after all. If you're running a very sandboxy game, then you'd want to establish a bunch of organisations and people in the play area and work out all their relations. If you want to run a more standard dungeon-crawl then you need to work out the history of the dungeon as it will determine what the players will find.

[Composer99]

The World Builder's Guidebook from late in the AD&D 2nd edition product run recommended, if memory serves, to either work top-down or bottom-up as starting points to build a setting. Since you have referred to D&D campaign settings I'm going to assume you're building a setting for a D&D game.

Working top-down means establishing some major cosmological, geographical, and political facts about your setting first, for instance:
- Standard planar cosmology from the DMG or something different?
- "Water world", mostly-water-with-some-continents like Earth? More land? Broad-stroke stuff.
- What are some of the most notable political forces? Major nations or empires? Powerful "transnational" factions? Monsters that are important enough to bend politics around them?
- Which default D&D setting assumptions are you retaining as-is? Which are you modifying or even removing?

Then you work down from there, preferably emphasising the areas of your PCs' origins and the location where they'll start adventuring.

Working bottom-up means working more or less in reverse of the above process: start small and build up. For instance, in the area where the adventures will begin:
- Why are the PCs there? What is it about the region that could draw adventurers? And if it can draw adventurers, who else will it draw? (This can help you to come up with national/transnational/non-national political actors.)
- How settled is the area? Trackless wilderness? Sparsely settled? City? (etc etc)
- Who's in charge there, and why? Do they have any rivals? If not, why not? If no one's in charge, why not?

Then you work up from there, answering "big picture" questions if and when they arise.

Then, as others have noted, the kind of campaign you want to run, your DMing/GMing style, and even the players' choice of characters can shape how you run through your worldbuilding.

In any case, if your setting features imply changes to the game mechanics, such as how magic works, that should be fleshed out before anyone starts creating characters.

[Tvtyrant]

Hello i am new to creating settings, but i have this idea of a setting where firearms are a normal thing. they are powered by magic and alchemical means but are still firearms. i want to set up something like the dragon marks from Eberron but they would be significantly different. i have elements from Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Oriental Adventures, and even Dragonlance. but i don't know where to start in putting it all together. while i have basic one line notes for it i can't seem to figure out how to fit them in with each other. the firearms is the big deal that i want to have and it's easy to just throw them in with little work as i have done that already and have specific rules for it. but it's everything else that i am having problems with.

Is there anyone here who has some sort of system for creating a campaign setting?

Is this for fun or to play a campaign in? If for fun I would make a big map and then detail all the ideas I have into different regions, start making a history, etc.

If to play in I would make three maps. One is the continent, which should be fairly vague. The second map is the region the campaign starts in, and then the base of operations you start within that. Make a list of problems the players will be facing, then back up a step and make a short history explaining the origins of those, then back up a step and make the bigger history.

If guns are the big focus of the setting going: Noble rebellion against king for restoration of their traditional rights, allowing monsters etc to fill in the frontiers of the kingdom. Guns implemented 100 years ago led to reduction of feudalism, divine right monarchy implemented about 50 years ago. Local issue is monsters appearing and nobles/knightly orders that dealt with monsters are gone, farmers can't afford enough guns to fight the monsters so need wild west style gunmen to move from area to area clearing them.

Then you just make the people and towns involved. That is how I usually write settings.

[KragBrightscale]

So the fact that guns are available, (common?) will likely indicate something about the way the world works. Looking at real history can give you ideas of how things changed with the advent of gunpowder. I’d recommend looking at historical texts or fiction set during napoleonic times.

Although your system uses magic/alchemy for the guns, they are still a relatively easy weapon to use. Unlike archers, swordsmen, wizards etc who all need years of training/experience, a wealthy noble could potentially arm+train a group of peasants to form battalion of riflemen and have them battle ready in just a few weeks/months. This could provide a huge advantage to the more populous/rapidly reproducing races.

Imagine kobolds with guns. Actually I like the sound of that

I could see powerful wizards disliking the ease of accessing the power of firearms, and Sorcerers scoffing at it and seeing it as a crutch for the less magically talented.

How do clerics or religious npc characters view guns?

Other things can be pulled from Wild West settings . Will every nov be carrying a gun for their own safety? Are there duels?

As mentioned by others, try to come up with some groups, figure out how the politics work, get a rough idea of the history, are there any significant event that shaped the world/country/culture you are creating. Maps are good, and can be fun to make. Start rough, plot out ideas, general locations of civilization hubs, and maybe a few areas of potential storylines. Details can be added as you go ( starting from where your players begin)

Recruit a friend to help if u like. Bounce ideas, or just have them draw on the map. Alternatively get the players involved with some big picture/landscape, they could help flesh out their characters’ home community.

[Xuc Xac]

I could see powerful wizards disliking the ease of accessing the power of firearms, and Sorcerers scoffing at it and seeing it as a crutch for the less magically talented.

Just like in Harry Potter! They can scoff derisively at the lowly muggles and their guns--while hiding in the shadows because they know a muggle with a gun could go *BLAM BLAM BLAM: two in the chest and one in the head* while a wizard is sneering out "expelli... Gah!"

How do clerics or religious npc characters view guns?

Like noisy crossbows unless they have some particular religious restriction on touching sulfur.

[Mechalich]

An important factor when considering the development of firearms is that you don't just get man-portable pistols and rifles. You also get cannon, and arguably artillery changed the nature of combat far more substantially than early personal firearms.

However, keep in mind that, within the context of D&D, firearms don't actually offer anything special compared to already extant magical effects. In fact, depending on edition, if you don't carefully manage the firearm price point carefully they may be economically non-viable due to the relatively low cost of wands.

[sktarq]

I generally advocate a top down approach to worldbuilding for the simple reason that if you want to change something big later (want a magical effect or group powered ritual spells for example) they are harder to work in after. Especially when someone asks "if the society has X why did we see Y two adventures ago" where Y is a even or fact that disagrees with a logical consequence of X. Not having person "Ben" at a royal council meeting then saying important and close the king Ben is an adventure later would be an example.

Now it doesn't have to be detailed either. Just sketch it really needed and then you iterate off that (ask lots of "what are the consequences of" and "what drove that to be that way" questions about your previous choices...which leads to new choices and repeat)

But the first real question is what kind of stories to you want to be told in the world?
Its temping to make a kitchen sink-any story type in your head but those tend to drift into unfocused and generic things that don't get finished.
In a similar vein why use this new world vs an established published one? Avoid a gimmick (the setting is on spindle type world visited by 2e space manta ray magic ships for example) and focus on some ideas, themes, tone....perhaps you want something that has a cold war era feeling set in the fantastic middles ages, you want to pull from westerns more, or beowulf type migration age lore.

For example if you wanted to play with ideas of identity one could contrast elves from FR, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance. Or you wanted to just slam a bunch of goblins from various editions next to each other and have them fight for dominance. And or contrast them between editions. Each with their "one elf" ideas. And if you want to avoid a "right" but also in new conflict you'll need to have them both newcomerish...which could well be fixed by having them both be fragments of larger civilizations from different worlds that were dropped here a couple generations ago by a giant manta ray shaped spaceship that basically seeded the world from all over the crystal spheres. And now they are expanding into each other...all on a spindle shaped planet.

[DuctTapeKatar]

Start small and grow.

Creating a campaign setting is a huge task, but if you begin with a map, some notes about the big picture, and a single adventure, you can build up from there.

I advise nailing down how firearms work in your setting then examining their effect on a single culture. Then decide how that is different from another culture's experience.

Semi-related to this, but a personal rule of mine is this:

If your players aren't going to interact, discover, or see its affects on the world, you probably don't need it.

Making a world down to its molecular bases and pseudophysical anomalies can be fun, but at a certain point it just becomes irrelevant to what the players might want from your game. Especially in games that are more combat-oriented like D&D, there is a good chance that some of the stuff you might want to add as window dressing could just become a creative dead-end where you could have been adding a bit more detail something that the players could have interacted with instead.

Not to say that what you might want to add is pointless, nailing down how firearms change the setting is important to how the societies and people react to warfare. I think the largest thing to start with is to make a big draw, the hook which makes the setting something people want to play over any of the countless settings out there. If you're making a not!Ebberon, you need to ask yourself why any potential player wouldn't just want to play Ebberon first and foremost.

[KragBrightscale]

But the first real question is what kind of stories to you want to be told in the world?
Its temping to make a kitchen sink-any story type in your head but those tend to drift into unfocused and generic things that don't get finished.
....
perhaps you want something that has a cold war era feeling set in the fantastic middles ages, you want to pull from westerns more, or beowulf type migration age lore.

This.
Even in a game where you let the players freely decide what to do or focus on there is a benefit in having something bigger going on. As you figure out the big picture stuff in your setting, take the time to set up some groups: their relationships to each other (hostile/competing/friendly/neutral/complicated) their goals (maybe one group is actively trying to do something which will bring them into conflict with the players, like conquering their homeland, or getting a monopoly on something/banning or eliminating firearms/etc).

The Cold War setting is great: 2 (or more if you want) powerful entities (countries/guilds/races/factions/even merchant groups) that are not in an open direct war, but instead try to weaken the other, and indirectly battle it out by supporting different sides in any minor conflicts. This gives the players plenty of opportunities to take part in conflicts, whether covert missions, trade wars, land wars, other battles.

Having an overarching story of what is happening in the world can also give the players the experience of being part of something bigger than their own small goals. Tie the small encounters or conflict to big picture (secretly at first if you want) then slowly reel the players in and get them interested and invested in your world and it’s problems and wonders

[brian 333]

Keep in mind the experience level of the players and DM. A complex adventure in a massively detailed campaign setting is old hat to those of us who cut our teeth on Blue Box Edition, but massively confusing to a new DM and player group.

Advice for a new DM should be to keep it simple so it remains playable. Nobody likes games where things devolve into rules arguments or hunting through notes for the one detail you forgot to provide last session when the characters were at that point of the story.

As for knowing the big picture: at first level the big picture is a distraction. Suppose, for example, the OotS knew about The Snarl at the beginning of the story. What could they have done about it? They might have tried something and failed due to lack of exp and gear. They needed the information to trickle in, not for it to be dumped at the start. And to continue the analogy, the author himself had no idea where the story was headed on page 1.

Start small so you can be intimately familiar with the material. There is no shame in revising later if you write yourself into a corner.

The biggest mistake you can make is to spend all your time on worldbuilding and never get around to building content for players.

Focus on what you need for your next game session and the world will build itself.

[sktarq]

Now I generally take the opposite view. build the world well and the next session will take of itself.

And also writing yourself into a corner or at least breaking belivibility can happen far faster than you think-often with a story blowing up in a poof of logic on the way. (i may have done a ton of this by accident)

But another question, and one that I think iskey on how to build the world is what kind of social agreement do you have with your players? If a patron offers them a job how likely are they to say "pass" and keep looking for more work? If the job is to disrupt a rival - how likely that they just skip the recommended - disrupt his next three shipments and do things like blow up his warehouse? Or when told to find three (doodads) from exotic (Magi-stan) how much are they prone to not steal them but go looking to find a boat going there and figure out a way to tag along? Are they likely to solve an issue by rigging up a quick job for the blacksmith that cuts out half the adventure?
The more flexible your adventures and more wandering your players the more space you as a DM need to have handy and how much you need to be able to take from a quick sketch to interacting with PC over a bathroom break. The more wideranging the PC's the more you have build out. But even a group of compliant dungeon clearing hack-n-slash can throw you....a treasure table turns up "spices, exotic" well exotic to who? Tumeric may be exotic to a European but is a staple to an Indian. . . So just by saying that Tumeric is an exotic spice you have said it does not get farmed locally, does somewhere else, and somehow can get from one to the other...which may need ships, long caravans, support people for those ships/caravans, shipwrights/sailwrights/mule breeders, knowledge of the world, and if the can trade with them there then they can with others since you have the support....congrats you made a major choice in how the world is organized and the freedom the PC's have to move around over a treasure table and some curry if you are not careful. Same goes for anything "exotic" if you don't understand the trade calling something exotic (which just means not-local) gets dangerous...make a reference to hobgoblins/cthulu/etc and a happy player can spin your whole world around it....which basically is how Alien vs Predator became such a thing.
And honestly a lot of this can be good. But when you do it twice and they conflict with each other it can blow the suspension of disbelief pretty hard. Its particularly easy to mess up with PC back stories...how does a mage get trained and what does it mean to be one may sound like aside detail but would be a major part of who does that training and even if Ben wants something a bit different knowing his character IS different is something that will effect how he interacts with NPC mages or those who know the local mage norms from session 1.

And its not like you need equal development...the tighter you get around the PC's the more detail you need. But every time they go to market what they can buy says a lot about places even far away (even by their lack of connection-that a choice), when your cleric casts his fifth cure light wounds spellof the week heis connecting with the gods and how they deal with humanoids and norms. Knowing that relationship ahead of time changes what is and is not appropriate behavior/reaction to that spell. Which can be an issue if the PC who should have known only finds the out later. Mostly such changes won't be incorporated into later behavior and the choice to make anything beyond the "generic DnD/Greyhawk" baseline assumptions your players had at session 1 will often become meaningless in play.your players interact with a lot of the just by existing in it. Every time they eat, buy something, or sell something you, the DM, are creating a surprising amount of the world by implication....and that can be a good thing or really trip you up. A larger sketch really helps keep those kind of things strait as you build.

But also don't get lost in it-make sure you have that first adventure locked in.

[brian 333]

Most of that stuff your players will never need to know. It takes many hundreds of hours to build even a region at that level of detail.

On the other hand, by building the next adventure you fill in details your players need and as you go the world gets built. In between adventures, in spare time after the next game session is done, one can tackle worldbuilding.

And if you find you have 'written yourself into a corner' you can revise what you have. I have never known players to be upset by this unless you spring it on them in the middle of a session when they wanted to take advantage of the revised detail.