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A lot of this is either taken from the DMG or will sound contradictory. but basically, it falls to how your players play. if they travel a lot, then it will be more important to set up routes and countries and stuff then any given location. if they like to have a central base then build up one town and expand from there.
Me, I went with the following: races-world map-general history-starting city-classes-religions-surrounding cities-politics-major events in local cities-repeat and refine.
If you have a map (i'm assuming of the world) then you have possibly the hardest part done in my books, but i kinda suck at mapmaking. and naming. most of my names are stolen from various sources. since i'm never publishing anything it doesn't matter. The next step is populating the map, and the most important thing to remember is who's fighting with who, and that everythign has it's place. there is no reason for humans and elves to share a forest if there is an unpopulated plain right next to it.
If you have more specific questions, then I could probly be of more help.
edit: it is also good to rmeember that the bigger things like planes and religions and especially a magic ruleset doesn't need to be strictly done in detail from the get go. even descriptions of places can be basic. Lamprey: city-state, run by gnomes, very xenophobic, exports grain, imports cattle. that's all you need at first.
edit2: I would post examples from my homebrew, but i'm really self conscious about the names. if you still want to see how i fit stuff together then i'll try to post them name-less.
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Me, I went with the following: races-world map-general history-starting city-classes-religions-surrounding cities-politics-major events in local cities-repeat and refine.
I have got some of that done. My base races are the core races plus Cat-Folk. I have had a thing for them ever since I saw the cat-girl of Star Trek: TAS. Other races exist, but are not playable because I haven't decided what I want to incorporate. My core classes are the basic core plus the duskblade to fill the arcane fighter role. Starting city is Culairn, which sits on the coast of the main continent and an as of yet unnamed ocean. Nearby are the Duskshadow Mountains and the Fairvale Woods. There is a colony of dwarves living in the mountains and a small elven city in the woods. The main setting is an island about the size of England which is largely unexplored, having only been settled about a century ago. Culairn was settled as a refuge for supporters of the Old Empire when the New Empire took control. (Those are placeholder names by the way. I hope to come up with something better when it becomes important.) I need lots of help moving from there of course.
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You also may want to look at this
Thanks.
Edit: Even though I have been playing D&D for nearly thirty years and have been a DM for ten, I have never actually done a home brew setting before.
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I have got some of that done. My base races are the core races plus Cat-Folk. I have had a thing for them ever since I saw the cat-girl of Star Trek: TAS. Other races exist, but are not playable because I haven't decided what I want to incorporate. My core classes are the basic core plus the duskblade to fill the arcane fighter role. Starting city is Culairn, which sits on the coast of the main continent and an as of yet unnamed ocean. Nearby are the Duskshadow Mountains and the Fairvale Woods. There is a colony of dwarves living in the mountains and a small elven city in the woods. The main setting is an island about the size of England which is largely unexplored, having only been settled about a century ago. Culairn was settled as a refuge for supporters of the Old Empire when the New Empire took control. (Those are placeholder names by the way. I hope to come up with something better when it becomes important.) I need lots of help moving from there of course.
Me, I went with the following: races-world map-general history-starting city-classes-religions-surrounding cities-politics-major events in local cities-repeat and refine.
Interesting. I used the 0one map for the great city for the starting city (again with the mapdrawing suckiness on my part). then i created the races list, which is basically PHB-Half orcs and Half elves+Thri Kreen, Half Giants, Magi Kin (hommade race, living magic), the cactus folk and winged ones. then I expanded from the great city outwards.
It seems like you have a lot of the core stuff required (i.e. race list, starting locale, brief history, surrounding area). My best advice is to start playing in that locale and let your players help you come up with stuff. A large part of it is in the refining anyway. come up with a generality when a player asks a question, like if they ask where the city gets its ore from, answer with a mining town on the mountains. general and answers the question.
Most important is that I doubt any of these published settings, or even the oens peopel put up here on the boards was doen overnight. Come up with ideas you like, put them together like a spider web and then fill in the holes.
(again, I can only give advice to the best of my knowledge and from personal experiance. there is no right way to do something.)
edit: you know, this thread has inspired me to finish putting together my world and post it up here. I'm sure people would love the chance to criticize it.
There are actually some good resources out there for tips on world-building. A lot of the design will depend on how much fluff you want in the world. I'm a big fluff person when it comes to my own world building. :-D
Some things to check out
Giant in the Playground has a section ("The World") that has some (in-depth) ideas.
If you can find a copy of Richard Baker's World Builder's Guidebook, that may help. It may have been released as a 2e supplement, but it's "cookbook" style should be able to work for any rules-set.
Also, if you can track down the 2e Campaign Sourcebook and Catacombs Guide or the Creative Campaigning books, they have good tips on how to world-build. Heck, the 1e Wilderness Survival Guide has some good tips too.
The main thing that I have found in world-building however is to expect that your players probably won't dig into everything you design. Don't let that discourage you. Some of the design might just be for your own satisfaction, and that it just fine. Also, make sure you leave thing open enough to be flexible when players do things or ask things you may not have been expecting when you put it all together.
Steal liberally. Think about what inspires you. What do you think is a cool place/culture in the real world? What published campaign settings do you like? What do you like about them? Also, what don't you like about them? Find a way to combine what you want and eliminate what you don't care for.
"Not in my world..." It's your world. Not everything ever published has to be in there. Me? I hate new races; I loathe the thought of trying to find a place for them, I think they overpopulate the world, etc., etc. Can't stand them. Of course I don't mind if it's an obscure monster/NPC race which lives only in a single remote mountain chain, but I despise adding more races than those found in the PHB and some of the playable creatures in the MM. Likewise, there isn't really an Asian area in my homebrew. I just have no interest in putting one in, so there isn't. Ditto with psionics. So feel free to throw out any convention of the genre which doesn't sit right with you and just say that your world is different; you won't find any of those things there.
Good things take time. I developed the first incarnation of my homebrew in the seventh grade (and I'm currently a junior in college). It's been in a near-constant state of revision and refinement since then. Don't be afraid to redo any area of the world, no matter how large, or even the whole world itself, if you feel such an act is called for. It takes time to really develop a homebrew.
"This is for me." As said, your players are going to miss or not care about somewhere around 75% of what you design, most likely. That's okay. You're the one who feels the urge to create this thing. You're the one who's designing it. There's a lot of information. It's understandable that they know far less about it than you. I know full well that the overwhelming majority of the "fluff" I design isn't ever going to come up in a game, or if it did, the players will forget about it as soon as they've heard it. That's okay, too. I like coming up with that fluff, and I keep doing it because it's enjoyable for me.
Beyond that, it really gets into personal preferences. Come up with your own pantheon or use "core?" Change racial stereotypes or use "core?" Is the setting high, medium, or low magic, or a combination (one area is high, the other low, etc.)? More essentially, do you want a fairly "standard" D&D world, but simply desire more control than you'd have with a published setting, or are you going after something different, something outside the norm of the genre? All these are questions you have to answer for yourself.
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Alright, I have figured out two areas that you could halp me with.
1) I need a hook to get the players together. I don't want the usual "you meet in a tavern" beginning. I had considered using an idea like the Pathfinder Society, but that almost seems forced, especially if one of my players rolls up a barbarian like he usually does. Ideas?
2) I've been trying to design at least the basics of the gods for my world since it is inevitable that one of my players will want to run a cleric. My goal is to have twelve dieties. This will have an effect on the story later and has a classical basis. There were twelve chief dieties in Greco-Roman mythology, Jesus had twelve apostles, the twelve symbols of the zodiac, twelve knights of the Round Table, and so forth. Each would also represent an archtype. So far I have:
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Healer- N
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Rebel-CG
I need a LN and a NE god. Then I need three more beyond that. I would also like some name suggestions as well.
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2) I've been trying to design at least the basics of the gods for my world since it is inevitable that one of my players will want to run a cleric. My goal is to have twelve dieties. This will have an effect on the story later and has a classical basis. There were twelve chief dieties in Greco-Roman mythology, Jesus had twelve apostles, the twelve symbols of the zodiac, twelve knights of the Round Table, and so forth. Each would also represent an archtype. So far I have:
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Healer- N
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Rebel-CGI need a LN and a NE god. Then I need three more beyond that. I would also like some name suggestions as well.
How about The Judge-LN, and it looks like you have a NE god (The assassin), and you're missing a CN god, perhaps The Anarchist?
When I started creating my world, I was watching Rome, the HBO series. It got me to thinking about all the intrigue that could be going on in a D&D world. So, as I created the different players in the town, they just naturally came out with conflicting interests. I think these tensions could lead to some good role playing situations. Corruption in the city watch, noble houses infiltrated by devils and the thieves' guild, etc.
The hook I used to get my players together was that they were each invited separately to undertake a certain quest. I had already worked with them as they created their background, so I made sure that once they finished the first chapter of the quest, they knew they all had a common interest in following through on the camapign, even though they were motivated by different things. The people who were threatening the town were also enslaving the barbarian's people, for example. And the badguys were also involved with a different group of thieves than the party's rogue.
1) I need a hook to get the players together. Ideas?
I'm always a fan of the prison set up. ;-)
But seriously, find out what the players want for their characters and who the cahracters are before you "hook" them. have each of them write up a quick backstory, and work their backstories into your hook. Plus, backstories may help you figure out which areas of your world to focus most of your development on.
2) My goal is to have twelve dieties. So far I have:
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Healer- N
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Rebel-CGI need a LN and a NE god. Then I need three more beyond that. I would also like some name suggestions as well.
Consider these:
LN - The Artificer (see the order of the world as a well-oiled and unemotional machine)CN - The Beast of the Wild (embodiement of the fury of the natural world)
LN - The Judge (an impartial, letter-of-the-law overseer ... think "Living Tribunal")
NE - The Undying (offers "eternal life" in the form of undeath in return for followers' souls)
Just a few thoughts
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How about The Judge-LN, and it looks like you have a NE god (The assassin), and you're missing a CN god, perhaps The Anarchist?2) I've been trying to design at least the basics of the gods for my world since it is inevitable that one of my players will want to run a cleric. My goal is to have twelve dieties. This will have an effect on the story later and has a classical basis. There were twelve chief dieties in Greco-Roman mythology, Jesus had twelve apostles, the twelve symbols of the zodiac, twelve knights of the Round Table, and so forth. Each would also represent an archtype. So far I have:
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Healer- N
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Rebel-CGI need a LN and a NE god. Then I need three more beyond that. I would also like some name suggestions as well.
I like the idea of the Judge. Also good catch on the other. I don't like the Anarchist because it seems to me to s/he would step on the Rebel's toes. How about the Wanderer or the Trickster instead?
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Okay, thanks to everyone's quick response here is the list of deities. So far, I just have the titles, not names or portfolios, but it's a start.
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Rebel-CG
The Judge-LN
The Healer-N
The Trickster-CN
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Builder-LN
The Harvester-N
The Beast-CN
Now I just need names and portfolios. I kinda like keeping the Beast simply called the Beast, but I would be open to any other name suggestions.
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Okay, thanks to everyone's quick response here is the list of deities. So far, I just have the titles, not names or portfolios, but it's a start.
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Rebel-CG
The Judge-LN
The Healer-N
The Trickster-CN
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Builder-LN
The Harvester-N
The Beast-CNNow I just need names and portfolios. I kinda like keeping the Beast simply called the Beast, but I would be open to any other name suggestions.
Actually, i like The Beast as it is.. dunno about The Nurturer though.. but, as i said before, it's your world :)
The Builder-LNThe Beast-CN
Now I just need names and portfolios. I kinda like keeping the Beast simply called the Beast, but I would be open to any other name suggestions.
Kewl ... I think "Builder" is much better, I just couldn't hit my nail on the head.
"Beast" is what I wanted to type first, but I didn't want it to be confused with "beast" as in demon.
You might check with players to see which ones they might prefer so you can concentrate on filling out those dieties first since they will be getting more "aire time".
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Okay, thanks to everyone's quick response here is the list of deities. So far, I just have the titles, not names or portfolios, but it's a start.
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Rebel-CG
The Judge-LN
The Healer-N
The Trickster-CN
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Builder-LN
The Harvester-N
The Beast-CNNow I just need names and portfolios. I kinda like keeping the Beast simply called the Beast, but I would be open to any other name suggestions.
The best advice I can give, is to mine the real world for ideas. Don't focus on the really well known and easily recognizable cultures - your players will spot that too quickly and likely bring in metagame knowledge. For example, in the PFRPG homebrew I will be launching after the Beta release I used the classical Mediterranean as my inspiration. I did not use the Greek or Roman gods, but went to cultures like the Carthaginians, the Caananites (very biblical), the Assyrians, and Hittites for inspiration. This gave me the benefit of pre-existing pantheons to model my work off of, as well as consistent sounding names. This gave the southern portion of my world a very different feel from the north, which was primarily Celtic and Finnish in character.
check out Encyclopedia Mythica for some ideas. Also wikipedia is your friend. Try searching for a cultural name and the word gods. Good choices include those above as well as Slavic, Lithuanian, Etruscan, Indian, and Persian.
Finally, If you are going to use a familiar culture's gods, try to find the more obscure deities to use. When I needed a sun god for the south, I did not use Apollo, but instead used Hyperion (a titan). When I needed a beast god for the Celts, I used Cernunnos, an obscure celtic satyr-like god from the NW of Spain.
Good luck!
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The Scarred Lands did something very much like this. Here's what I can remember of their setup;
LG - Corean the paladin. Blacksmith of the gods, shining knight (with four different orders of paladins, the mithril knights, silver knights (associated with extraplanar menaces), gold knights (healers) and iron knights (seigecrafters and smiths)), god of fire and metal.
NG - Madriel, goddess of mercy, healing, light, agriculture. Associated with the sun, medicine, farming, etc.
CG - Tanil the huntress, goddess of animals, hunting, archery and music. Associated with Bards and Rangers, freedom from slavery, etc.
LN - Hedreda the judge. God of cities and law, truth and knowledge.
CN - Enkili, god/goddess of storms and chaos, trickery and fun.
N - Denev, titan of the planet itself, nature, plants, animals, etc.
LE - Chardun the tyrant. Slavers, tyranny, discipline, ranks and heirarchies, war.
NE - Belsameth. Madness, lycanthropes, the moon, magic, assassins, poison, murder.
CE - Vangal the reaver. Barbarians, bloodlust, savagry, natural disasters (volcanos, floods) and disease.
They tried to squeeze most of the Domains and 'portfolios' in to a very limited selection of gods, which required that some gods served multiple duties, such as the god of chivalry also being the god of blacksmiths or the god(dess) of the storm also being the god of thieves.
Later they added a bunch of demigods, including, my least favorite concept, racial demigods, which, IMO, muddied up a very clean initial design. (On the other hand, I *love* Roger Moore's Demihuman Dieties from the old Dragon mags, with gods like Arvoreen and Aerdrie Faenya and Flandal Steelskin.)
The Crusader-LG
The Nurturer-NG
The Rebel-CG
The Judge-LN
The Healer-N
The Trickster-CN
The Slaver-LE
The Assassin-NE
The Destroyer-CE
The Builder-LN
The Harvester-N
The Beast-CNNow I just need names and portfolios. I kinda like keeping the Beast simply called the Beast, but I would be open to any other name suggestions.
A Crusader god would make sense to be a god associated with justice, war, chivalry, horsemanship (and horses, and perhaps even the domestication of animals?), royalty and / or nobility. Glory and Nobility Domains, in addition to Law, Good, Strength, War?
A Nurterer would be even more likely to be associated with home and hearth, community, agriculture, domestication of nature, family, etc. The Nurturer and Healer might be related, a married pair or even aspects of the same diety. Community, Protection, Healing, Good?
The Rebel would be a god of independence, opposed to tyranny, slavery, etc. Liberation would be a logical Domain, as would Trickery, as the god would have to serve rebels and underground movements in oppressive regimes.
The Judge would be big on Law, but perhaps also Protection and Destruction? (The law shelters, but also punishes.)
The Assassin would be the murder god, would that make the Harvester, the Autumn King (or Queen), the ‘Burning Man,’ the god of death in general (as opposed to murder?).
The Builder seems a logical choice to have Artifice and Creation domains.
You’ve based your deities on what they do and how they approach the world, kinda, but not so much elemental or natural themes. I’m not clear where Domains like Darkness or Scalykind or Charm or Weather or Air/Earth/Fire/Water/Animal/Plant would go, since none of these gods scream ‘storm-goddess’ or ‘lord of the sea’ or ‘goddess of love.’ It’s all good, and I like the approach of diving them out by their persona, not their ‘super-powers,’ but it makes it harder for me to envision them.
The Builder, for instance, probably makes sense to have Earth, and perhaps even Fire (since Fire is important to forgework and stuff), but that might not necessarily be the case. (Obviously a lot of stuff is built from wood, and that doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily going to have the Plant Domain…)
As for names, I stink at those, and some dieties might have different names to different followers (elves and dwarves and men might have different names for 'the Builder,' for instance). I kind of like the idea of the Trickster god(dess) having a name like 'Mr. Trick' or 'Slick Ketta' or something that's less a portentous 'god name' and more of an irreverant nickname.
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More useful advice than I gave above;
If you are designing this game world for a group of friends, have them tell you what sort of god they would want to play a Cleric of, and how they envision that god(dess). It's way easier on you to adjust their ideas to better fit your vision than to come up with a dozen gods that your friends look at and go, 'Meh, can I play a non-denominational cleric?' or, worse, 'Nah, none of these are blowing up my skirt, so my Ranger will buy an extra Wand of Cure Lt Wounds and we'll muddle through without a PC Cleric.'
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Okay, I have names for them.
The Crusader-Laran
The Nurturer-Feronia
The Rebel-Abandinus
The Judge-Yazata
The Healer-Achall
The Trickster-Aide
The Slaver-Bran
The Assassin-Erge
The Destroyer-Aatxe
The Builder-Sethlanus
The Harvester-Darzam
The Beast
Thanks for the point tp Encyclopedia Mythica. Stealing historical names was a lot easier than coming up with them myself.
If you're bad at names, why not just stick with the titles? That way, you even have the flexiblity of having the different titles apply to one or more aspects of the same (or different) gods.
Or you can have a different pantheon for each region of the world. Maybe the barbarians of the north believe in a single, monotheistic storm deity, the cities in the temperate region worship the unnumbered nameless deities of the forest, and the tropical plains worship a holy family of Father, Mother, Sons, Daughters, and Grandchildren?
Maybe the whole pantheon is based upon different aspects of a single portfolio, like thirteen gods of death, each represented by a different method of dying: beheading, hanging, strangling, starvation, disease, old age, exhaustion, drowning, childbirth, mauling, murder, beating, burning, etc.
EDIT: I didn't see you posted names already!
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Who made the world? And why don't people worship that being?
Possible answer:
The universe is the product of the creator / shaper / destroyer triad of Hindu mythology, but the planet is not. The Twelve came to a desolate place in Creation, a bleak collection of rock drifting far away from any star, and each in its turn added some facet of the world, which they called the Prime Lands.
Sethlanus and Feronia made the First Folk, who had gifts from all the Twelve, and who knew all mortal things, and who never weakened or died. Even their shadows and thoughts were mighty things.
Do they sound like gods themselves to your reckning? So they did to their own.
And the First Folk made threats against the Twelve, and Darzam was astonished to find that they were so cunningly wrought that he could not make rid of them. Nor could Aatxe destroy more than one or two of them at a time, and they knew to band together, and their mocking made Aatxe grow great in his wroth, and so even to this day his aspect is of evil.
For, you see, the Twelve, flush with pride, had introduced their creations to the Holy Triad. And so, the First Folk bolstered their resistance through the authority of the Triad. For nothing, real or imagined, can stand against the will of its creator.
So Sethlanus made another planet, greater than the Prime Lands, richer in gems and magic and secrets, and greater too in one other thing. And Aide accidentally let this new land be known to the First Folk, who desired it greatly, and opened doorways to this new planet. Where they were trapped by the great gravity and strong connection to the Dark Planes. And the First Folk still do dwell there, and they do sleep till the end of days.
And so we are the Second Folk, and each god gave us a blessing and also a curse. We grow in strength for a time, but then we wither and age. We may learn the Earth's secrets, but only with great struggle, and sometimes we forget. We cast magic, but only through laborious spells and enchanted tools.
And we have never met the Holy, the gods of the gods, and if we prayed to them, they would not know us.
(Well, that was fun.)
I have a basic map drawn up and am working on filling it in. Where should I go from there?Don't.
Fill in the area where the campaign starts, then only expand the details shortly before your Players travel there. Save yourself a lot of headaches, but also maintain flexibility to adapt the setting to the campaign, as well as allow the campaign to build the world.
Major cities, kingdoms, empires, trade routes, mountains, rivers, etc. you can pre-define, but most of the map will be created as the PCs encounter it on an as-needed basis during play.
Paint in broad strokes, and don't go into much more detail for yourself than the PCs themselves would know.
Rez, I had to quote you here for truth. I have never played in anything but various homebrews. And As I began creating my own I was annoyed the players never touched anything but the surface of most of what I created. Thus wasting so much time. (But some GREAT story arcs which I still use today.)
Then due to an incredible lack of time, I developed just a city and out lying area. and colored it in as needed. This allows you to change things depending on your player and Dm styles. You also don't have to pigeon hole your adventures because you have a map.
Just work on the things that will directly have an effect on the campaign at hand. Let them fill in the rest.
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A Nurterer would be even more likely to be associated with home and hearth, community, agriculture, domestication of nature, family, etc. The Nurturer and Healer might be related, a married pair or even aspects of the same diety. Community, Protection, Healing, Good?
Interesting idea. They are both going to be female and I had intended them to be twins, but what if they were lovers instead. Nah, my players are a little too straight laced for that.
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I follow 5 basic steps...
1. write a paragraph for yourself on your vision of the world (this keeps you on track)...include the general information on the first campaign.
2. Sketch a rough map of the continent you'll be starting on with major features everyone would generally know...leave all the rest of the details off.
3. Create the general map of the starting area...only fill in whats important and only create whats neccessary...always follow the rule to not 'over create'....It can bog you down, and whats important to you, may never seem important to the players.
4. Create the beginning of the campaign. Stay with the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How approach.
To start a campaign you need the hook. A rough plot. names of the major players (in case you need them) and an idea what they are (example: Yellar of The Bloody Knife. Bandit Leader. Fighter/Rogue specialist with daggers). a couple Inn names and general notes for resting place and snooping. The contact name of who hires the party and what hes willing to pay. Locations and names of a priest at any temples the party may interface with. The local law enforcement agents name and general info. details of the first couple encounters...then let the players actions dictate what you create next...
5. Always add one mystery to anything you create...a twist. It gives the players a sense of wonder when they discover those little easter eggs. Also makes you look like one helluva designer :D
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Only the DM knows what the world looks like - you only need Maps for you. Global, Continental, regional, local, very local. The PCs have no idea where they are until you get to level 5 (very local).
GEOGRAPHICAL
1. Global - I map this onto a d20 of overly large size, in pencil and colour, then scan to PC. Seas and land dominate at this level.
2. Continental - I map a single triangle that covers 4000 miles on each side. Here I throw in huge features like huge forests, large rivers, Forests, Large Islands, small continents.
3. Regional - Everything scattered across the Dragonshead Peninnsula...Forests, Mountains, Deserts, kingdoms.
4. Local - Firestoke mountain, Jumbas Wood, (8 mile hex maps), Capital cities, Communities, ect.
5. Very Local - Mutter's Vale (the village of Dirtkickers (the PC home), Caves of Oopsnearlyfellin (some place to explore), the bog of Eww! (a place to visit for Peat and dig up that magic iron bogweapon of legend)
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Play.
Its never to early to begin a campaign. Trust me, I am a master at getting lost for months in worldbuilding... play! Let the campaign evolve with your players if you can, but, of course, its difficult for me to take my own advice on this matter as I spend far too much time developing the equivalent of campaign source guides for my games.
So I had my first session today. After trying to come up with a good hook, I asked the players how they wanted to get together and they said "why don't we go to a tavern and find out if someone has a quest for us. Go figure.
You should make the Inn the monster.
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So I had my first session today. After trying to come up with a good hook, I asked the players how they wanted to get together and they said "why don't we go to a tavern and find out if someone has a quest for us. Go figure.You should make the Inn the monster.
That would be funny, but instead they ended up being hired by the half-orc bartender to recover the perephat of mystery from the sorceress Lustspawn.
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So I had my first session today. After trying to come up with a good hook, I asked the players how they wanted to get together and they said "why don't we go to a tavern and find out if someone has a quest for us. Go figure.You should make the Inn the monster.
Better yet, they go to an inn that at first, seems normal, but they later discover its haunted, and all the patrons they've seen are the ghosts of those whom the inn has killed, trapped inside in a state of unrest until someone can free them from the inn. Let the players actually leave the inn a couple times, but something brings them back. The more often they're there, the greater the pull is to return.
Heh, I'm so gonna pull this in my campaign world when it gets up and running.
Fryer, a link to a thread of mine on this form is in my profile, feel free to pillage anything of interest. The only thing I can add to what has been said so far, is try and find two or three central themes that set your world apart from others. One of mine is the difference in the elements, and the pantheon is quite new, on the cosmic level, that is. Another would be that science and magic both exist, and are basically two sides of the same coin. They can accomplish the same goals, but they do so in different ways.
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So my cleric player decided the deity that most interested him was Abandinus. That was very interesting to me since for as long as I have been throwing dice with him he has always played Lawful Awful clerics. So CG is almost as much of a departure for him as if he were to actually play a new class. So I did a quick sketch of Abandinus in the vein of the descriptions in the PHB or the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetter. Let me know what you think, or any improvements I could make.
Abandinus
The Rebel
The God of Adventure, Freedom, and Protection
Alignment: CG
Domains: Chaos, Charm, Good, Liberation, Luck, Protection, Travel
Favored Weapon: Longbow
Holy Symbol: Two arrows crossed in the shape of an x
If one word describes Abandinus, it is excitement. He is dedicated to the idea of freedom at any cost. Whether he is freeing slaves or “liberating” gold from a corrupt noble, he is always at the forefront when an underdog needs championing.
Abandinus is a rogue and a scallywag who is always searching for a cause to champion, or a fair woman to woo. His libido is almost as legendary as his skill with a bow. He is also a master of disguise and he has a long running competition with Aide to see who can come up with the most inventive disguise. Usually he appears as a middle aged half elf with stormy eyes and chestnut hair. He always appears in the garb of the middle classes, often dressed as a ranger.
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One thing I'm thinking about incorporating into my setting is The Chainmail Bikini a dwarven strip club. I "borrowed" the idea and name from the Uresia campaign setting. I'm just having a little trouble figuring out what might draw the PCs there. In Uresia it is one of the best places to hire an assassin in the city of Shadow River. However, I don't envision them needing an assassin anytime soon. What would bring the PCs there.
The name "The Chainmail Bikini."
My suggestion would be to create one or more major antagonists at this point. Their attitudes, abilities and plans can move your campaign in great ways, even if the players only touch upon those things tangentally. They might run into a group of mercenaries on some errand for a baddie that the players spoil out of chance, and so gain the attention of said bad guy. Opposing bad guys can try to manipulate the players with quests against the other, so on.
My major antagonist is a half elf-half demon. Every living creature in my world has a true name given at birth, but he ripped his father's throat out before he was named. Without a true name he cannot be scried with accuracy, or dismissed with spells as the prime material is his home plane. Immortal, not nice at all, but impatient and arrogant. I have a campaign that may run into human character's children being player characters to finish the story.
Above all other considerations, have fun!
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A thought occured. Not only should you have one or two major villains thought up, figure out their motivations for why they're doing what they're doing. Also, figure out the conflict. In any good story there is some kind of conflict. What is the conflict, and how does it directly and/or indirectly the players. This was one of the first few things I did, and the conflict is very subtle at first, but will pick up as they progress.
My tips:
1. As has been said, borrow from the real world. Specifically history. Browse a few Russian cities (for example) on Wikipedia and you'll find intriguing details and events your players will never recognise.
2. Be open to different kinds of stimulus. Browse art sites like Deviantart and allow paintings and character drawings by others to throw your imagination in different directions.
3. Exclude. Exlude as many races and monsters as possible. And give those you keep more attention. Some may disagree, but this adds a lot of flavour. If, for example, the only magical creatures are dragons or, for a totally different flavour, undead - then you can better consider the impact on society, the schemes and ambitions, etc. Hell - look how much mileage they got out of 'Planet of the Apes'! Storyteller's have proved that we need only humans to cover the most amazing range of deeds, motivations and situations imaginable.
4. Exclude some more! I may be on my own, but I'd advise excluding Gods (unless you have some cosmology worthy of the Gnostics), Thieves Guilds and as many hallmarks of staple D&D as you can do without. Create awe and interest, by doing things differently. Invert fantasy traditions (read some Michael Moorcock, Matt Wagner, Gene Wolfe, R. Scott Bakker - and steal all there ideas!!)
Instead:
4a. Do a few things well. A warrior caste, an emperor possessed by his predecessors, a slave race... I don't know what rings your bell. Take a manageable handful of cool ideas and give them a lot of attention.
5. Devil in the detail. What kind of entertainment is available? What is the legal system? What prejudices exist? What technologies are available (throw in at least one technological curve ball and how it influences day-to-day life, even if it's a retarded sewage system).
Yep that's the best I can come up with... a retarded sewage system. Let the players really smell the sights of the city and they are immersed haha!
But just a handful of these 'detail' considerations, approached with imagination - can make the whole world feel full of wonder. Like arriving at Sigil for the first time.
6. Or - Disregard my ideas about exclusion and make it as diverse as possible. BUT think about it. A world as diverse as, say, Faerun, if it were real, would be largely in ruins, perpetual war, lacking stability or dominion, pyres burning, cities abandoned, strange allegiances and hideous unpredictable disasters. Yes it would be like the Internet.
Anyway I'll crawl back into my cave now, it's dangerous out there..