I'm building a new homebrew world for a campaign I'd like to launch soon w/ my current gaming group. I've built 2 large homebrew worlds/campaign settings before, and I've moved on from them, but now that I look back on them for some sort of guidelines while creating my new world, I realize that there was a LOT of material that I created that NEVER got touched on by the players.
I created too much.
Now, it's certainly better to have too much material than not enough as it helps you prepare for the inevitable curveball the players are bound to throw your way, but when I think about the amount of time I could have saved (most of which could have been devoted to the actual gameplay itself!), I don't want to make the same mistake again.
When building a world, how much prep work do you do? How much should you do? What didn't you do that you wish you had done beforehand?
I put a lot of detail into the area where the players will start, and then I lessen the detail as I circle outward, about a page per country.
What I focus on are the cultures, the rituals, the day to day activities of the various races so that I can always ad-lib if the players go to a new area that I haven't fully detailed yet.
By really fleshing out your homebrewed world's cultures, it makes the descriptions of the farther out realms a little less important. Part of the cultures' description would be the major conflicts that are driving or have recently driven the politics of your world. By doing that your outlying regions can be described in just a couple of sentences:
(Example)
Duchy of Karam
Devastated by the Guild Wars of 789, Karam's primarily Barrakian inhabitants are trying to rebuild a shattered economy.
If that's all you have when the PCs enter Karam, if you've fully detailed what "Barrakians" are and how they live and you know what happened during the "Guild Wars" you can quickly paint a picture for the players and then do a little more prep work on Karam before the next gaming session.
*insert Jaws theme*
Dum dummmm...dum DUMMMMMM!
Check out The World Project!
*insert Jaws theme*
Dum dummmm...dum DUMMMMMM!
Check out The World Project!
Oh great demon queen Lilith, are you shamelessly promoting yourself again? ;-)
OK Lilith, I've had a look. I take it this is a collaborative world-building project using a wiki model for collaborative work. It's kind of intriguing--but potentially it's the mother of all three word games. It's a blank slate--where do discussions start about providing a basic framework for the world. Do you envision it being pretty close to standard D&D, or do you see it going off in interesting non-standard directions, like Eberron? (Obviously you're planning on getting input from other collaborators on this, but it helps to have a starting point--e.g. wikipedia used large chunks of the 1911 Britannica to create an initial set of entries, which are then modified as people see fit to work on articles that they are interested in.) It seems to me that some kind of basic parameters, plus a creation story, a general geography, etc. might be useful to getting the thing started.
Regarding Lilith's World Creation site I have a question. How does one submit articles to the main pages? I've shuffled some things around and have written some intros to get the ball rolling, but I'd much rather be submitting detail posts on different plants, animals, countries, gods, etc. So the question is how to submit an article? I know how to link it, I just don't know how to get a fresh page started. Thanks.
Regarding Lilith's World Creation site I have a question. How does one submit articles to the main pages? I've shuffled some things around and have written some intros to get the ball rolling, but I'd much rather be submitting detail posts on different plants, animals, countries, gods, etc. So the question is how to submit an article? I know how to link it, I just don't know how to get a fresh page started. Thanks.
Easy. Change everything after "index.php/" in the address bar and you'll create a new page. If you want to add something to a pre-existing category, add "[[Category:Flora]]" for plants, "[[Category:Religion]]" for a deity, etc. If you need an example, go the Races or Classes section, click on one of the articles there, and "Edit" to see how to link to a category. :)
Hey! Go check out Phoexia in the Geography section and tell me what you think!
Hey! Go check out Phoexia in the Geography section and tell me what you think!
Very cool. I have a map brewing in my head already. Nightworld is also very intriguing as well.
I have two stances on the issue of making campaign worlds:
the first is, if I plan to use it over and over, then im detailed from the start in almost everything
the second is: start the characters in an extremely detailed small area, however th rest of the world is mysterious and is discovered as they go or through lore or knowledge
an example of this is my current nameless campaign world
the characters start in a very poor region far from "civilization", heavily detailed maps handouts and all
other surrounding regions get about a paragraph each to be given to the characters, other regions are just names on the map nless ridiculously famous. an example of the famous, far away sites is a human dominated nation much like Eberros Karrnath but not; ruled by necromancers the land is staffed by the living dead and poverty has been all but eradicated due to this perfect labor supply. Outsiders view it as a dark and evil land yet to those inside, it just is and their is nothing wrong with raising grandmas skeleton for the good of society (very communistic outlook)