What would YOU like to see from a campaign setting?


Advice and Rules Questions

Sovereign Court

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Hello all, I'm Michael Riter, and I've recently went to work on creating an Urban Fantasy campaign setting which would detail a large city; the capital of an empire to be exact. Now the setting crosses elements of the Roman Empire, Victorian England, as well as the years Europe was stricken with Black Death. I have taken to calling this project Oxonia: Collapse of an Empire.

Now, I have gotten to work on what to include in this setting to really breath life into it and came up with a list of things to be added to keep me organized.

My list thus far:

An introduction to the setting

A summary of the roles various existing classes/races within the setting

Thematic base classes as well as archetypes and iconic characters for each

Crimes and Punishments

Cuisine

Holidays and Festivals

An expansive list of important people in the city including statblocks and descriptions for each

The various organizations/factions within the city as well as plothooks/boons for helping/consequences for pissing off each

A section detailing each district within the city as well as plothooks/rumors associated with each

A timeline of important events starting with the Oxonian Empire's foundation

A list of gods including domains, subdomains, and a description for how to worship them (unfortunately the deific obedience feat is not usable under the Pathfinder Compatibility License so this would be an alternate system to that)

Once I get further into this, I will be looking into mapping out each city district completely as well as having a complete map of the capital city. Not only that, but later down the line, I am thinking of even expanding by writing an Adventure Path taking place primarily within the city.

Now, here is the main reason I posted this: What do YOU look for in a campaign guide? More specifically, what do you feel helps create an atmospheric and enjoyable experience? Now, I know everyone is different and I already have that in mind, but I wanted to get a feeling of what people other than myself think about when looking at various campaign settings. Nothing specific of course (such as I think you should have a character/faction that does X), but more broad topics similar to what I listed above. This would be of great help to me as I flesh out the world and keep in mind the different styles of play for everyone.


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A solid theme, rather than kitchen sink - in the the world has a solid identity, including both unusual new things and familiar old things, and as much defined by what is left out as what is put in.

Sovereign Court

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That is a good point there. There are plenty of settings out there that do the kitchen sink approach, with many of them already being at the point where no one should try to replicate them.

In other news, I will be posting updates from time to time in order for others to keep track of the progress of this if they are at all interested.

EDIT: Right! And later down the line, once I've worked the kinks out these classes, I'll need to look for playtesters. Not yet though, the classes still have to be playtested by myself.

Sovereign Court

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Updates. The gods are going well. There will be about 30 total of various different alignments. For the most part, these gods are Roman in origin, using some of the more obscure ones such as Nox and Poena while a few such as Cernunnos have different origins.

There will be changes from the original mythologies these gods are involved in every now and then to better fit the setting, but they should remain recognizable to those who know about them.

By the ay, is this the best forum to keep this thread in? I'm thinking it might be best in the homebrew section since it isn't official... yet.


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To go with the coherent theme, a decidedly intricate look as much at the seedier end of culture as the socially-acceptable. To be blatant, when you get to the culture, history, and the vices as well as the virtues of the city, I'd hope a page was taken from Sword and Sorcery's Shelzar: City of Sin. Granted, in that case the focus was decidedly more on the vices, but the history of the city examines the Why of said choices as much as the Why of the more virtuous end of how the City-State works.

Sovereign Court

TheAntiElite wrote:
To go with the coherent theme, a decidedly intricate look as much at the seedier end of culture as the socially-acceptable. To be blatant, when you get to the culture, history, and the vices as well as the virtues of the city, I'd hope a page was taken from Sword and Sorcery's Shelzar: City of Sin. Granted, in that case the focus was decidedly more on the vices, but the history of the city examines the Why of said choices as much as the Why of the more virtuous end of how the City-State works.

Oh, I could definitely say that I am detailing the various philosophies of those within the city and try to keep a balance of showing the pros and cons of each different faction. I did this by painting nearly each NPC, and faction a varying shade of gray; seeing as the setting takes place during the first signs of a crumbling Empire, there is a definite problem with no clear way to fix it. This was intentional, to provide opportunities for conflict between different faction members, but also a sense of having to work together at the end of the day as EVERYONE is trying to deal with the same problems.

More specifically, as I have mentioned before, the idea of a plague is one such driving problem that everyone is trying to solve. What happens when a cleric's magic simply... Doesn't cure such a disease? Traditions are the only things keeping the entire system working, but it soon becomes evident that there might have to be a change due to said traditions simply not solving the problem.

In this setting I wanted to focus quite a bit more in the idea of Law and Chaos rather than good and evil. Granted, good and evil are present, but not to the same degree.


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Lack of statistics. Lack of economics. Only a minimal amount of history.

Tell me about the here-and-now. Tell me about individuals. Make me want to live there (unless you only want me to use the place for a one-shot). And above all make it so there's someone else in the city who can save it because it doesn't matter if I can save it today there has to be someone local who can save it if a crisis erupts and I'm away (or I can't be @$$ed to feel guilty enough).


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stuff I like seeing in settings and worldbuilding in general

- names that are based on conlangs, whether it is a full-fledged conlang with a functional grammar, or just barebones naming language that is little more than a phonology, a few basic grammatical concepts and a lexicon (which can be fleshed out into a full-fledged language later if needed). The less meaningless syllables slapped together and called a name, the better for me.

- I like when a setting has social, political and economic gears turning under the surface. even if I cannot see them directly, their presence help to make the setting more believable. Also, the market should make some kind of sense. If I'm in a village in an oasis populated by lemon trees, lemons should be cheap and readily available. If I'm in a city market in the middle of winter in the freezing cold north, lemons should be very expensive. If I'm in a remote village in the tundra, I shouldn't even expect to find lemons at all. Stuff like that.

- if a setting has fantasy animals, to have fantasy plants also.

- Dungeons with history and purpose, instead of just meaningless hallways and rooms and loot and monsters that don't have any kind of reason why they're there in the first place. Droskar's Crucible in Hollow's Last Hope and Crown of the Kobold King is a great example of a dungeon with a history and purpose. You can see the modules for more information on how to do a dungeon right.

- 'evil races' don't make sense to me. i dont want to see drow simply portrayed as all evil, that's boring. It does not make sense for all cultures of a race to be corrupt, and even within corrupt cultures it is possible for good people and dissonance to exist. Ideologies are many and complex.

- attention paid to climate and natural resources and how this will shape the culture of the local people

This is an incomplete list.

Sovereign Court

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These are all very good points, some of which I have already implemented into my outlining. One of the biggest roadblocks ahead of me might actually be "How much is too much"? The city should feel natural enough to stand on its own, but not so rigid that a potential GM could not chamge some of the details to their liking.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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My all time favorite campaign setting is Planescape.

For a plane-spanning campaign, it was nice and tight. It had a page per "territory" (plane, gate-town, ward, etc.) and was filled with specific, but versatile, plot-hooks.

I also liked how it didn't deal primarily with relatively mundane catastrophes, like war, famine, or plague. I like smaller scale plot hooks, like heists and capers and more personal crimes, like kidnappings. Especially ones that can have happy endings, like rescuing a person or recovering stolen goods.

I also really like the planar cant.

EDIT:

I also like easy to pronounce names, locations, etc. No crazy apostrophes and hyphens and other "weird" accents.

A tight theme is also really important.


Michael Riter wrote:
These are all very good points, some of which I have already implemented into my outlining. One of the biggest roadblocks ahead of me might actually be "How much is too much"? The city should feel natural enough to stand on its own, but not so rigid that a potential GM could not chamge some of the details to their liking.

i am very familiar with this roadblock c:

i am very particular about worldbuilding and sometimes that can clash with the interests of good game design.

Sovereign Court

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I could actually speak a bit to plothooks and the like. Riht no, I have a table filled with plothooks for each district within the city, and the overall feel changes depending on the part of the city. Obviously problems within an area where merchants live will be different than the ones faced by nobles, or more criminal elements. I wrote these up so that players could feel like they have a choice in things.

Do they wish to run a street gang, simply trying their best to survive? Or are they patrons of a Senator, delving into the realm of political intrigue? There is of course, the problem of the plague, but that could be tackled as a main plotpoint, or simply be used as the catalyst for a number of different quests. It really would be up to the person reading.

Community Manager

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Michael Riter wrote:
By the ay, is this the best forum to keep this thread in? I'm thinking it might be best in the homebrew section since it isn't official... yet.

Easier to keep it here rather than move it back later. :)


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Looking at the list you got on the first page one of the first things that jumps out to me as being 'missing' are important or notable locations. The major sites of a city can characterize it just as much as the people living there. Who doesn't think of Paris without thinking of the Eiffel Tower, or New York without the Statue of Liberty?

Ancient societies often built more landmarks than we do today, as they filled a variety of functions in the ancient city. For one, they were actual landmarks - before the advent of the printing press it wasn't exactly easy to get a hold of a decent map of a city... if one even existed. Iconic and distinct buildings helped people navigate the cramped and maze like corridors so prolific in the time before detailed urban planning. Furthermore, the construction of such a building would bring a great deal of prestige to the commissioner - nothing like a giant statue with "commissioned by Bob" on it to make Bob seem like a way-cool dude. These locations should have both a cultural context within the city - as such things tend to develop overtime. (Think of all the stories and iconography surrounding the Colosseum in Rome, or the Forbidden City in Beijing.) The capital city of a major empire should be filled to bursting with important buildings, decorative constructions, and cultural icons. Make sure each of these gets at least some time in the sun within your setting descriptions.

Also, i'm not sure how closely you plan to tie the setting to historically accurate information for the setting inspirations you provided, but my preference would be to invest heavily in accuracy, or little at all... don't be stuck in between. As a lover of History it just frustrates me to see glaring untruths tucked in between well researched info. If it's all fantastical I hardly care what sort of dinosaurs your orc legionnaires are riding into battle.


By a remarkable coincidence, I just came from the Service Industry thread. I recommend checking it out.

Sovereign Court

Flanwaw wrote:
Looking at the list you got on the first page one of the first things that jumps out to me as being 'missing' are important or notable locations. The major sites of a city can characterize it just as much as the people living there. Who doesn't think of Paris without thinking of the Eiffel Tower, or New York without the Statue of Liberty?

I really should have clarified; when detailing the city districts, certain landmarks will certainly be important enough to gain their own personalized descriptions. One in particular that comes to mind would be the Forum.

Flanwaw wrote:
Also, i'm not sure how closely you plan to tie the setting to historically accurate information for the setting inspirations you provided, but my preference would be to invest heavily in accuracy, or little at all... don't be stuck in between. As a lover of History it just frustrates me to see glaring untruths tucked in between well researched info. If it's all fantastical I hardly care what sort of dinosaurs your orc legionnaires are riding into battle.

This, on the other hand, was something that actually didn't run through my mind. Looking over my notes, it certainly seems that though the setting material is inspired by what I had mentioned, I definitely am leaning towards keeping things on an original timeline rather than taking directly from history. To be more specific, here are my inspirations from history and where they will be prevalent.

Rome: A mixture of the Empire and the Republic as far as the political system goes, but the Emperor/Empress still has the majority of the power. Most of the gods come from this period as well.

Celtic/Gaelic Lore: One of the Empire's newest colonies is similar in culture, and their gods were added to the Pantheon just recently.[/ooc]

Victorian England This, I think, is where the meat and bones of the setting would come into play. As an urban setting, one would definitely find influences from this era in lower, middle, merchant, and criminals classes as well as in the various factions who may not necessarily be tied to socioeconomic classes.

Last and not least, there is The Plague. As I mentioned before, it is in it's beginning stages within the setting, and is causing more than just a few tensions in The Empire, especially in the capital city where it originated. This (along with one or two other surprises I won't spoil just yet) is a catalyst for events within the setting as well as a driving force between of the few main factions.


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Michael Riter wrote:
Flanwaw wrote:
Looking at the list you got on the first page one of the first things that jumps out to me as being 'missing' are important or notable locations. The major sites of a city can characterize it just as much as the people living there. Who doesn't think of Paris without thinking of the Eiffel Tower, or New York without the Statue of Liberty?

I really should have clarified; when detailing the city districts, certain landmarks will certainly be important enough to gain their own personalized descriptions. One in particular that comes to mind would be the Forum.

Flanwaw wrote:
Also, i'm not sure how closely you plan to tie the setting to historically accurate information for the setting inspirations you provided, but my preference would be to invest heavily in accuracy, or little at all... don't be stuck in between. As a lover of History it just frustrates me to see glaring untruths tucked in between well researched info. If it's all fantastical I hardly care what sort of dinosaurs your orc legionnaires are riding into battle.

This, on the other hand, was something that actually didn't run through my mind. Looking over my notes, it certainly seems that though the setting material is inspired by what I had mentioned, I definitely am leaning towards keeping things on an original timeline rather than taking directly from history. To be more specific, here are my inspirations from history and where they will be prevalent.

Rome: A mixture of the Empire and the Republic as far as the political system goes, but the Emperor/Empress still has the majority of the power. Most of the gods come from this period as well.

Celtic/Gaelic Lore: One of the Empire's newest colonies is similar in culture, and their gods were added to the Pantheon just recently.[/ooc]

Victorian England This, I think, is where the meat and bones of the setting would come into play. As an urban setting, one would definitely find influences from this era in lower, middle, merchant,...

Good to hear about the landmarks, just make sure you have some in there that don't fulfill a practical purpose. A city is just as much a product of its tacky monuments and pointless displays as it is political and cultural buildings.

Good to hear how you are mixing the three, it should prove to be an interesting combination at the very least. It may also be worth mentioning that a series of plagues, known as the Antonine Plagues, may have been one of the major reasons Rome fell. If you want to take your plague inspiration from more than just the black death it may be worth giving that a look-up.

Sovereign Court

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Why of course! Any setting needs a good mix of interesting and practical. And thank you for the reference, I know a bit about that specific plague but for some reason, it didn't cross my mind to use it as inspiration.


Flanwaw wrote:

{. . .}

Good to hear how you are mixing the three, it should prove to be an interesting combination at the very least. It may also be worth mentioning that a series of plagues, known as the Antonine Plagues, may have been one of the major reasons Rome fell. If you want to take your plague inspiration from more than just the black death it may be worth giving that a look-up.

Don't you mean the Plague of Justinian? The Plague of Cyprian and especially the Antonine Plague were much earlier than the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire.


UnArcaneElection wrote:
Flanwaw wrote:

{. . .}

Good to hear how you are mixing the three, it should prove to be an interesting combination at the very least. It may also be worth mentioning that a series of plagues, known as the Antonine Plagues, may have been one of the major reasons Rome fell. If you want to take your plague inspiration from more than just the black death it may be worth giving that a look-up.

Don't you mean the Plague of Justinian? The Plague of Cyprian and especially the Antonine Plague were much earlier than the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire.

Ahhh, sorry sorry - speaking of disliking historical misinformation. I always get the Roman plagues eras mixed up (why'd they have to tie them to the emperor names, I hate names). Yes - the Justinian plague is the one that corresponds most to the fall of Rome, and had the most devastating impact on the population.

Thanks for the catch, UnArcaneElection.

Sovereign Court

Small update ^_^.

The gods are still underway, with about four being removed because they were too similar to... well, a group of four divinities which I like to call The Harbingers. Introducing them now:

Mars, the Harbinger of War
Pluto, the Harbinger of Death
Ceres, the Harbinger of Famine
Minerva, the Harbinger of Conquest

Now, these four are going to be fully formed deities with their own descriptions, domains, inquisitions, etc. The only difference will be that they are not going to be part of the standard Pantheon for the Empire. They are something else entirely, but not necessarily what you all may be thinking. But that's enough information on them for now. ;)

In other news, the code of laws is under works as well. This includes laws we are familiar with today (murder, espionage), as well as those specifically for a fantasy setting (which would include the usage of magic) and most importantly, punishments for each crime. Good to have in an urban campaign setting, I think.

Other parts are being worked on as time goes on, but I feel that it is best to build everything together than focus on specifics. That way, every part of the setting can influence the other parts, like a well oiled machine.

Sovereign Court

I'd like to see a real medieval / feudal campaign setting, with all the cultural implications of the roles between emperor/king/noble/peasant/merchant/clergy adventurer done right, and being reflected in the adventures

That, and elves dragons ... too.

The closest one to fit the bill is Midgard, and even then it is not really focusing on that, being more renaissance.

I know there is another one whose name is escaping me, modeled closely after Europe, but I am looking for an original creation.

Sovereign Court

Well, since I am not going with a medieval/feudal setting, I'm sorry I can't help you there. ^^'

I can, however, say that I do have detailed relationships between the different social classes. The senatorial class, the patricians, plebeians, slaves, etc will all be detailed.


@Stereofm My style of worldbuilding is way more on the Iron Age -- Early Middle Ages side of things but it might be at least somewhat up your alley.

Sovereign Court

Michael Riter wrote:

Well, since I am not going with a medieval/feudal setting, I'm sorry I can't help you there. ^^'

I can, however, say that I do have detailed relationships between the different social classes. The senatorial class, the patricians, plebeians, slaves, etc will all be detailed.

I love the Roman Empire too. It's just it's also been done with Arcanis

Sovereign Court

Aniuś the Talewise wrote:
@Stereofm My style of worldbuilding is way more on the Iron Age -- Early Middle Ages side of things but it might be at least somewhat up your alley.

Why not ? I am interested

Sovereign Court

Wow, starting college really does kick your butt, huh? I have to apologize for not updating this for quite some time, I have understandably been busy with my first few weeks of classes. That being said, I am still working on this project! It's just... going to move on a bit more slowly than I would have thought.

Sovereign Court

Good news. A writer friend of mine has jumped on board to help me detail the setting. He made the brilliant idea to try and create an AP of sorts to go along right with the setting to pair together. That way, there is the setting itself with a practical application of this setting.

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