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Using my search-fu I've found a discussion dating back in 2005 concerning thoughts of people who ran their own custom worlds. Most people tend to take a previous setting a tweak it. Others start from scratch and build up. I've found that in my workings of making a setting for players I can run into road blocks quite a bit when designing things. So to get over that writer's block of sorts I decided to do something fun and discuss other people's methods of world / setting creation.
This discussion while focusing on world creation, easily fits into adventure creation as well. Why Bad guys do what they do and how PCs intersect with those events and plans. The easiest type of adventure to make is the dungeon crawl. Give a reason for the BBEG to be there and populate it.
The more intricate adventures are further reaching and would love to hear people's thoughts on them as well!
Some methods or at linear reasoning I've seen are these:
1) Make a random town, populate it and build outwards as the PCs adventure.
The GMs I know who do this tend to make things between sessions and many times on the fly. Building the world as a adventure progresses.
2) Build a world, moving from a macro view to a micro view to the area the PCs are at.
I've seen this done with quite a bit of plotting. Can easily be overwhelming but keeps coherency much easier rather than a smattering of random things that don't seem to make sense.
3) Tweak what exists.
Golarion, Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron - Taking what you like about it and making your own universe. Most common.
People tend to like what they see or don't want to do the macro world building. They tweak it enough to keep it seperate ala alternate dimension or timeline.
When you develop a setting or even an adventure, how do you go about it? Move from the small to big? Big to small? Or just a big mish-mash to make things interesting? Do you write the events and fill things in as they come to mind (using say... history or BBEG actions to build a world instead of making it as the PCs adventure).
Player area to start with, picking a short list of 12 to 20 monsters for the area. ALL initial plotlines should wend their way through the first couple of levels. Missing farmers, kidnapped from the fields with a reward for their safe return (no ransom note) to get the players started. Goblins raiding the outlying farms for food and salt leads into the fight with slugmen who've taken over the goblin's caves. The goblins NOT stealing iron weapons and tools hints at the rust monster pets of the slugmen. The witch picks up on the Cursed aspect of the slugmen and we're off! I ran this for a intro game and had no more than a dozen monsters. The players were all PF players while I was not. A total Blast!
Now to the real game...
I had a continental map and while fleshing it out a little I find a spot or culture that I'd like my players in then focus down on that area.
That gives you some idea of what is around where they start so you can provide some ideas as to politics, monsters, areas of interest to provide to your characters to get them up and running.
Having blank areas on your world map allows the players the opportunity to help you create. When Player A says that he is from Worgenfeld, the city of goblins, you can place that where it seems appropriate and work with that player for details.
Player B says that his character is part of the Knights of the White Pine? Great! tell me a little about them and we'll work in a way to add them. (unless it's patently obvious that it's been stolen like Knights of Solomnia or similar).
Here is a nice article on fantasy world building. It is by Patricia C. Wrede, author of the Dealing with Dragons series of fantasy books, and a personal favorite. The article takes the form of a series of questions to help you define what you want in the fantasy setting. The site, SFWA, is also a great resource.
I find myself starting by obsessing over one thing - a spell, a monster entry, or whatever. I flesh it out to the max, and let it act as the foundation for the rest of the setting.
For example, I love the 3.5 Troglodyte race. I made a very complex campaign setting around them which ended up defining the entire history of the race, the underworld around them, their culture, Trog legends, and a subterranean ecosystem which they use.
I started a campaign in 1987 that went through a couple iterations but finished a few years ago.
I had played between 1980 and 1986, and most of that was just a lot of experimenting. In 1985 I started playing in Greyhawk and decided that the next time I DMed, my own "world" would have a lot more meat to it.
So, I started with one island. I picked the real world island of Tasmania for the rough size and shape, and filled it with my own geographical features. I decided it would have a handful of different rulerships, I worked out their alliances and enmities, the dungeons in various places within the kingdoms, etc., and went from there.
By 1989 the PCs really needed to go beyond the island itself so I created a nearby continent, and soft of fleshed things out as the characters explored. It wasn't until about 1992 that I ended up needing to really worry about anything else on the planet. And, around then, the players really wanted to try other stuff, so I took them to the planes.
Anyway, it's not a bad idea to start with something small and manageable, and radiate out from there--if you're going it on your own.
I've done campaigns a few different ways. Mostly though I start by brain-storming. Writing out things I think are important to the campaign, be it themes, particular elements, images in my head, interesting rules elements I might want to use. Some of these things won't make 'the final cut' but it's a good way to start.
I often take a few things in broad strokes to set a 'base' for the campaign. For example, the present campiagn I'm working on has a sort of 'Eastern-European Dark Fantasy' vibe to it. That was pretty much what started the campaign and I pulled a dozen or so other elements, some which start as simple statemnets like "Elves as Gyspy Analog?" or whatever and than they get fleshed out.
Really alot depends on how 'different' your world is going to be. I tend to develope 1 area to a really fine degree, the players 'home base' of the first campaign. I broadly define the outlaying area, and the neighbourhood as it were(so to use a RL example, if I'm starting a campaign in Berlin, than I'd define Berlin, have a good idea bout Germany, and rough sketches of Poland, Russia, France, Austria and Denmark) than some broad notes about other interesting lands(in my example, maybee a sentance or two about England, Italy, throw away idea's about India and Japan). This gives a good solid foundation at the start, but plenty of room to move around in.