How to write a campaign setting?

[HarbinNick]

-I have far more time than ability to game...since I'm very lonely and bored (end of real life) and feel a need to be creative!
-I want to write a campaing setting, single handedly. I'm not looking for ideas, I'm looking for advice. In other words, how to create a campaign setting in terms of writing and layout. I will be using pathfinder as my base for rules, but I will be designing EVERYTHING. Religion, races, regions, trademark monsters, you name it
-My difficulty is I'm a terrible writer of fiction. My education was in lingustics/history/area studies. So the idea of writing a novel or short story seems much harder.
-Lastly I have NO interest in publishing it, except as something for free of CCL.
-So what advice can you give me?

[Bruunwald]

Actually, being a student of linguistics and history is going to be a big advantage for you. Think of it on these terms: A lot of the creation of a campaign setting is in place names and backstory, or history of your lands.

I usually start a new setting with a particular idea already in mind, sometimes a single ruin or maybe a haunted coast, or river, around which I begin building the rest.

Typically, the first thing I do after deciding what my ruin looks like (for example), is name the place. And that place name will have a profound impact on the rest of the setting. I research various words that describe the ruin succinctly, then I chase down the etymology of those words until I find a root word that is suitably archaic. Then I do the same for whatever ghost haunts it, or monster lord rules it, trying to keep close to the same root language given the ruin while also settling on a good descriptor for those creatures.

As you can imagine, if the roots are similar enough, I start to get a feel for the whole region based on the sound of the language. This leads to more detail being filled in, new places coming up, and backstory based on all these names (places get their names for a reason, after all, whether geological, geographical, battles that might have occurred there, who discovered them, etc.).

Particularly with old towns and ruins, you are going to be working a lot on the history by filling in who those discoverers were, what battles were fought there. In particular, you want to know how an old battle resulted in ghosts and why they are still there, or when control fell from human hands to orcish hands, etc. Being a student of history, you have an advantage in probably having many similar stories at your disposal to adapt. Things like Vlad the Impaler's actions, or the Battle of Thermopylae, etc., are your friends.

[Jerry Wright 307]

I've created three or four different campaign worlds, and I always begin with history.

I start far enough back to plausibly create an age of artifacts and great power, that has crumbled into ruin, to provide an origin for the range of magic items and legendary stuff most game systems support.

Multi-cultural considerations are also important. Even in ancient times, the world was host to a number of peoples, often living within sight of each other (across rivers or over mountains). These people would have different customs, religions, languages, and sometimes genetic differences.

One thing to remember is that warfare is a shaping force in such a world, whether it is simple cattle-raiding/counting coup for sport, or sophisticated tactical maneuvering for conquest. This typically creates a warrior class of some kind, which in turn creates a peasant class to provide food for the warriors. With all of this comes a religious class, who direct the overall cultural identity of the people. Added to this religious class in a fantasy world is a magical class, a source of non-divine knowledge.

A pantheon of gods comes along with culture, because primitive peoples on the cusp of civilization usually develop anthropomorphic representations of the various forces that shape them and their world. The primary gods would represent the most important values of the people in question, usually war, weather, agriculture and the like.

By starting with culture, I find that the world tends to shape itself. After all, if you have a tribe of woodsmen, you need forests. Miners and metallurgists need hills and mountains to get their ores. Agriculture needs farmlands. And surrounding every civilization is a zone of wilderness, an area where the monsters and creatures of folklore and myth slink, slither and stalk the land.

The safest way to start is with one culture, with the people who become the core of your player-character base. Usually they are humans, but not always. At any rate, they represent the world-view that everything else is based on.

For instance, if the base culture is Norse, the elves of the land will be Alfar, a bit different than the pseudo-Celtic/Tolkienesque elves of D&D. They would appear more human, for instance, and they would have an overall culture more similar to the baseline human.

Dwarves won’t be a whole lot different. They would be great smiths, forging magic weapons and items for great heroes, kings, even the gods. And they would jealously guard their mines and treasures. The greediest of them might turn into dragons.

Halflings and the like will have to shoehorn in wherever they can fit (pretty much how Tolkien did it), and wouldn't be much different than the humans around them.

The basic warrior would be wilder, more fighter than paladin, if not a true barbarian. Loyalty and allegiance become much more important than law, and determining the succession of all but the most royal is a matter of a rough sort of democracy, through vote every August at the thing-meet.

Clerics would call upon gods of might and savagery using bloody sacrifice. The gods sometimes walk among mortals, testing their devotion and hospitality. The laws of hearth and home are paramount, because you never know when that old man at your door might be the all-father himself.

The arcane casters of the land would lean more towards sorcerers than wizards, because the civilized, book-weaned scholars of the middle ages have little place in a Norse landscape, where very few can read, and those who can are looked upon with awe. There are more wood- or stone-carved runes than ink-stained pages.

The monsters of the land would be giants and trolls, dark elves and dark dwarves, orcs and goblins... More humanoids than other types, with dragons and great serpents topping the list. Undead would be intelligent and powerful spell-casters, lurking in barrow-mounds and bogs, guarding their treasure, waiting to get revenge on the living for imagined wrongs.

The land would be one of deep fjords and high mountains, with thick forests and sparse farm-land, covered with heavy clouds and wintry winds, creating a poverty of arable land that forces the youthful warriors to venture out in search of plunder and, ultimately, conquest. Out of this comes commerce, trade in the form of goods and gold and slaves.

And, of course, a Greco-Roman culture would produce an entirely different world-view, based on a more civilized sort of savagery and more sophisticated monsters, with warmer, softer land-forms and a gentler climate, of olive trees and wine. Even the gods are more inclined to music and the arts.

An Egyptian culture would be mysterious, stretching far back in time, a civilization so old that ruins of it lay scattered among the current buildings. The original builders live on in the gods and their sons and daughters, the pharoahs. Magic hangs heavily in the air, even in the food and drink. Herbalism and potion brewing occupy the learned, and clerics rule the land.

A Chinese culture might be profoundly scholarly, and certainly rigidly ordered and documented, with vast resources and huge populations, even in a primitive era. Sorcerers and clerics are few, while wizards shape society with books and moveable block printing. Alchemy is very important, and medicine is more reliable than healing spells.

Or you might create a culture of whole cloth, something that is nothing like the cultures of our past.

The point is, by beginning with a single culture and expanding outward, you have the opportunity to enable your world to grow. Such a world can be the basis of a campaign before that growth is even apparent, and new cultures can be added as the PCs explore deeper into the unknown.

[The Emo Bard]

I'd like to dot this thread for further reference for my own campaigns.

[thenobledrake]

Bruunwald wrote:

I usually start a new setting with a particular idea already in mind, sometimes a single ruin or maybe a haunted coast, or river, around which I begin building the rest.

This is the way I would also suggest beginning the building process, as it is how I have built the home-brewed setting that I use from time to time.

Start as small as you can - a single location if possible - and only think of what you have to think of to get players at the table and enjoying an adventure, and write down all the important information that comes up. You'll find, if you are lucky, that the players asking questions during the adventure makes the process a whole lot easier - sitting staring at a blank page and wondering what information you should write first does not even compare to having someone that will engage with the setting tell you what they want to know.

[HarbinNick]

The problem is there are no players
...not one...I'm doing this because I live in a no game enviroment. I want to sit down and WRITE a whole Campaign setting guide from scratch.

[InVinoVeritas]

Start with some reason to grab the players' interest. It doesn't matter if you have players or not, start with the Rule of Cool and branch out from there.

What makes your world so interesting? Why would I say, "I wanna play/run THERE!" Start with whatever lets you answer that question.

Once you've answered the basis, ask yourself, why? Why is the world this way? And then keep asking why, again, again, and again. The world will grow from the central premise, and you'll find yourself filling in the details that matter most first.

[thenobledrake]

HarbinNick wrote:

The problem is there are no players

...not one...I'm doing this because I live in a no game enviroment. I want to sit down and WRITE a whole Campaign setting guide from scratch.

I am sorry to hear you haven't found any local gamers, that can be rough.

Have you considered virtual tabletop, play by post, or other forms of online play?

As for writing something, I'm probably not the best to be giving advice... I have started writing, and abandoned before completion - sometimes simple without an ending but otherwise finished - over 20 novels and 5 campaign settings (I still have one I'm working at from time to time, though)... but anyway, the advice:

I always get the ball rolling by focusing on one thing - a town, what it's like to live there, what sort of things you'd see when taking in the sights... or a single person/creature/entity that feels "important" to the setting, their goals in life, and the people/places/and creatures they might encounter working towards their goals.

It may just be me, but I find that not thinking of things in order is also helpful - just find one period that is interesting and build in both directions from it, then find another period and repeat until they start to overlap.

[W E Ray]

You need to get a copy of The Real DMG -- 3.0 by Monte Cook.

It has a great chapter on Adventure building,
A great chapter on Campaign building,
A great chapter on World building.

Monte Cook is God.

The chapter on World building suggests two strategies: small to big and big to small.

Small to big is starting with designing a single site, village or dungeon and ignoring everything else, deities, nations, secret societies, what's on the other side of the river, etc., etc., until you face it. And then once you face it, focus only on what is in front of you right then.

It discusses the benefits and caveats of designing your world this way.
(The obvious benefit being you can play right away and leave things flexible; the caveat being you may play 6th months and then run into a big inconsistency.)

Big to small is starting with the overall framework of the whole universe and considering that and how it would manifest deity structure, planes structure, nations, religions, and so on, smaller and more specific each step. You may not name any of the actual deities, kingdoms or cities until after months of working big picture down, let alone the small village where the Campaign would begin.

Monte Cook is God.

Again, this the the REAL DMG. Honestly, the only DMG that has ever been any good in the history of gaming.
The 3.0

[cranewings]

Here is the best blog on this topic, the 34 steps to creating a fantasy sandbox: http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html

[Evening Glory]

Dotting for reference.

[HarbinNick]

What do you think would be the results of a world with no gods, but actualy Titans as the gods? In terms of game world, it would mean I'd have to think about divine magic...I guess.

[InVinoVeritas]

HarbinNick wrote:

What do you think would be the results of a world with no gods, but actualy Titans as the gods? In terms of game world, it would mean I'd have to think about divine magic...I guess.

Let me start with the obvious question: What's the difference between a titan and a god?

[Freehold DM]

Will for as well. I'm floundering a bit with my own campaign setting.

[Kthulhu]

InVinoVeritas wrote:

Let me start with the obvious question: What's the difference between a titan and a god?

Yeah. While the Pathfinder Bestiary titan obviously got the name from the Greek mythology, it's basically just a giant with a bit extra thrown on top. The Greek Titans were gods, just of the generation prior to Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, etc.

[HarbinNick]

So a CR 23 creature is the same as a god?
God can never die, do no evil, knows everything and is all powerful.
A titan is none of the above. seems pretty different to me.

[InVinoVeritas]

HarbinNick wrote:

So a CR 23 creature is the same as a god?

God can never die, do no evil, knows everything and is all powerful.
A titan is none of the above. seems pretty different to me.

It's vital to answer this question because the differences between titans and gods explain the differences between the titan-ruled and the god-ruled world. It's not enough to say, "Yeah, they're different." You have to understand how they're different and work out what the consequences are from there.

In many campaign worlds, gods can die, can do evil, can be tricked, and aren't all powerful. Therefore, it can be argued that titans and gods aren't different. The real issue is determining what you mean by "god" and "titan" and understanding the differences between the two.

So, the deities in your world are mortal, fallible creatures. Powerful, but not indestructible. Do they die of old age? If so, what is old age? What happens to a titan's portfolio and worshippers when that titan dies?

Where do titans reside? Do they live on the planet, where people can see, hear, touch, and worship them physically? Do they live on an alternate plane, with their influence only felt through their followers (that's pretty much identical to gods in most campaign worlds, by the way)? Do they all live in the same general place? Do they live far apart from one another?

[Laurefindel]

HarbinNick wrote:

-I have far more time than ability to game...since I'm very lonely and bored (end of real life) and feel a need to be creative!

-I want to write a campaing setting, single handedly
(snip)
-So what advice can you give me?

As noted above, a quick search in internet will reveal a few books (and a few free e-books) that have a lot of good advices for doing just that. Good advice is hard to give, but here's what worked for me (in no particular order):

Start large, then zoom-in.

Get the general feel you want out of this setting, then focus on that with regional variations. Think of the nature on conflicts that you want and then create cultures in function of that.

Set your 'level' of magic/technology.

The Pathfinder rules as RaW assume that technology allows that most of the equipment (including masterwork versions) can be made pretty much everywhere and by everyone, and that availability is more or less uniform. Same goes for magic.

While this is convenient, it does not have to be so. The breastplate might be the top of armor technology in your setting and the rapier might be an artifact from the upper planes.

Same goes with availability to magic. Be aware that this might be a slippery slope as it would affect RaW and some houseruling might be in order. But adjustments may be worth the trouble to fit the setting.

Regardless, these decisions have to be taken early in the creation process.

Use your own strengths

So you're not a good fiction writer. You claim that you have a background in linguistics and history. These can be good tools; use them!

Flavour your world with bits of made-up languages. Use your historic knowledge to recreate periods/patterns and port them to your fantasy world. Without recreating Europe, it might be interesting to have an Elven Louis XIV or Elizabeth the first. A dwarven Jeane d'Arc? Orcish Mesopotamians ... who fell in barbary after the fall of their own tower of Babel? A kobold Egyptian kingdom with a dragon king as its living god? Hobgoblin samurais with ninja goblins? That's going with existing races only, the possibilities of digging in history are endless...

Start with a rough map

At one point you are going to need a map (should it be for your own benefit of what lays where). Start rough and only when you are getting quite definite, make another one with detailed landmarks and narrow fjords. Be flexible about your map until the end; don't limit your creativity to a nice map that you made early and don't want to 'waste'.

That's long enough for a single post. There's more, but I'd start with that.

'findel

[Laurefindel]

HarbinNick wrote:

What do you think would be the results of a world with no gods, but actualy Titans as the gods? In terms of game world, it would mean I'd have to think about divine magic...I guess.

About that, divine magic doesn't have to come from gods. The only RaW points that need to be respected is that it is different in nature than arcane magic and requires a certain level of contemplation (which can take the form of praying to gods, whether or not that magic comes form the said gods). RaW also have domains, suggesting that divine magic is based around different concepts/aspects of the world.

You could have a world where Titans are seen as gods, but divine magic comes from a different source (unbeknownst to the priests).

'findel

[Freehold DM]

Homebrew setting is here, btw.

[Josh M.]

InVinoVeritas wrote:

HarbinNick wrote:

What do you think would be the results of a world with no gods, but actualy Titans as the gods? In terms of game world, it would mean I'd have to think about divine magic...I guess.

Let me start with the obvious question: What's the difference between a titan and a god?

The Scarred Lands setting had a very distinct line separating the Gods from the Titans; The Titans came first, created the core of planets and nature, then the gods were their offspring, catering more to the creation of mortals. The Titans got jealous, and started a war against the Gods. The Gods won, for the most part, but the battle tore the land asunder(hence where the name of the setting came from).

As for game mechanics, the Titans were much more powerful than the gods, but were far fewer in numbers. Titans represented primal forces, while gods represented specific themes in their portfolios. Clerics revered the Gods, but Druids revered Titans, since Titans were more responsible for the primal forces of creation.

It's been a long time since I played that campaign, someone help me out if I'm missing some details or got them wrong...

[GoldenOpal]

Maybe this isn’t super insightful... but I want to dot this thread so I’ll say it anyway.

Get a get the PF Inner Sea World Guide or another campaign guide book you like and use that as your formatting guide. The PF ISWG‘s table of chapters are basically: Races, Countries, Religion, Life(Society/General Culture), (International) Factions, Adventuring(Character Goodies) and Monsters.

I will try to come back with more later.

[heimdallsgothi]

If you need some cultural ideal, look at
http://www.everyculture.com/
This will help with general cultural ideas unless you're doing a medieval France variant (again)

For mythological motifs.. you'll need
http://www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/thompson/index.htm
Which is great for consistency

For the world itself
http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/
This is for writers so may be of some use to a beginner

Monomyth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
AKA how to design a campaign