Sign In
Register
Help
I'll post it on here too if anyone's interested in it.
Quote
Campaign World Creation Workshop
<snip>This sheet will hopefully provide some useful information with which to found, design, and organize your own campaign setting. Some basic notes to think about:
Start Small – Remember that you are creating a campaign to be played within. Start by building things at a small scale but keep in mind their impact on the larger scheme of things.
But Think Big – Remember that you are creating a campaign to be played within. Take the things that you initially built and work out the larger interactions. Decide on a larger framework (see below) and build the details to fill it in based on what you already have created and imagined. Eventually, the city walls won't be big enough for your players.
Commit – Once you have decided on something, do what you can to keep it consistent. More to the point, make sure that it stays that way unless you have a good reason to change it as part of the campaign's course of play.
Keep the Players In Mind – This should go without saying, but players are an integral part of designing a campaign; a masterpiece setting is meaningless without players. Talk with your players about what they like, what they think, where they want the setting to go, etc.
Building a campaign setting from scratch is a major undertaking, but one that can be very worthwhile and satisfying. One of the toughest parts of designing a campaign setting is deciding where to begin and what's important. However, if you can answer the following questions you have the basic “skeleton” for your framework (see the point on But Think Big above). These questions are important, regardless of whether you are playing high fantasy games or a comedic game based on pulp sci-fi.
1. What is the basic layout of the setting? How big is the setting, how easy is it to move between major areas, how do the major areas relate to each other in terms of distance, time, size, etc?
2. What are the races of the setting? Do you have just Humans, or do you have 30+ races living on a single and rather crowded world? How do racial interactions shape the rest of the world? Remember that a lot of real world problems easily get tossed out the window when something as fundamental as 'what are you?' has more than one possible answer... and a lot more crop up.
3. Are there monsters? If so, why do the monsters exist, how many are there, how do they interact with the non-monsters, etc? If not, are there any dangers other than non-monster NPCs, what are they, and how do they interact with the rest of the setting?
4. Do magic or any other special powers exist in the setting? If so, how common are they, are there any special rules (beyond game-system mechanics) to use or gain these powers, how do they interact and shape the setting/equipment/abilities, etc? If not, how will you make it possible for characters to become special and distinguish themselves?
5. Are there any special features about the campaign's history (distant and recent) that can have an impact on the present? For example, was there a massive recent war, did aliens just make first contact, did Tim the Enchanter get eaten by the Black Beast of Aaaagh, etc. In the same vein, consider such fundamentals as religion and cultures with the same regard.
6. What opportunities for shaping the future are there? This is always a major point to consider that is frequently overlooked or even rejected outright by 'railroader' GMs – unless you are in a setting where the future is pre-ordained (a bad idea when players are involved), the setting's future should always be malleable and dynamic. Can the kingdom be overthrown, can the players build the first interstellar FTL engine, can the Deadites reclaim the Necronomicon, et cetera – but most importantly, what are the possible outcomes of these huge events, and what must be set into motion to make them occur/stop... and how do the players figure into all this?
<snip>This sheet will hopefully provide some useful information with which to found, design, and organize your own campaign setting. Some basic notes to think about:
Start Small – Remember that you are creating a campaign to be played within. Start by building things at a small scale but keep in mind their impact on the larger scheme of things.
But Think Big – Remember that you are creating a campaign to be played within. Take the things that you initially built and work out the larger interactions. Decide on a larger framework (see below) and build the details to fill it in based on what you already have created and imagined. Eventually, the city walls won't be big enough for your players.
Commit – Once you have decided on something, do what you can to keep it consistent. More to the point, make sure that it stays that way unless you have a good reason to change it as part of the campaign's course of play.
Keep the Players In Mind – This should go without saying, but players are an integral part of designing a campaign; a masterpiece setting is meaningless without players. Talk with your players about what they like, what they think, where they want the setting to go, etc.
Building a campaign setting from scratch is a major undertaking, but one that can be very worthwhile and satisfying. One of the toughest parts of designing a campaign setting is deciding where to begin and what's important. However, if you can answer the following questions you have the basic “skeleton” for your framework (see the point on But Think Big above). These questions are important, regardless of whether you are playing high fantasy games or a comedic game based on pulp sci-fi.
1. What is the basic layout of the setting? How big is the setting, how easy is it to move between major areas, how do the major areas relate to each other in terms of distance, time, size, etc?
2. What are the races of the setting? Do you have just Humans, or do you have 30+ races living on a single and rather crowded world? How do racial interactions shape the rest of the world? Remember that a lot of real world problems easily get tossed out the window when something as fundamental as 'what are you?' has more than one possible answer... and a lot more crop up.
3. Are there monsters? If so, why do the monsters exist, how many are there, how do they interact with the non-monsters, etc? If not, are there any dangers other than non-monster NPCs, what are they, and how do they interact with the rest of the setting?
4. Do magic or any other special powers exist in the setting? If so, how common are they, are there any special rules (beyond game-system mechanics) to use or gain these powers, how do they interact and shape the setting/equipment/abilities, etc? If not, how will you make it possible for characters to become special and distinguish themselves?
5. Are there any special features about the campaign's history (distant and recent) that can have an impact on the present? For example, was there a massive recent war, did aliens just make first contact, did Tim the Enchanter get eaten by the Black Beast of Aaaagh, etc. In the same vein, consider such fundamentals as religion and cultures with the same regard.
6. What opportunities for shaping the future are there? This is always a major point to consider that is frequently overlooked or even rejected outright by 'railroader' GMs – unless you are in a setting where the future is pre-ordained (a bad idea when players are involved), the setting's future should always be malleable and dynamic. Can the kingdom be overthrown, can the players build the first interstellar FTL engine, can the Deadites reclaim the Necronomicon, et cetera – but most importantly, what are the possible outcomes of these huge events, and what must be set into motion to make them occur/stop... and how do the players figure into all this?
The formatting doesn't translate but meh.
I thought this might be a good place to point people to if they're stuck on where to begin. God knows I've done enough thinking on the subject.
MultiQuote