|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You've got a couple different ways to approach world building. You can start small or start big. Personally I'd say start big. Think of the tone of your world. Once you do that think up a pantheon, there are nine alignments so why not make nine gods to fill out each role. Once you do that figure out the races and types of environments you want to have. If you are just going to use core races you save yourself a step, personally I'd say change this up just a little bit to give your world a special feel. Next think of the environments, do you want an area that's Asian themed, or European, of Mezoamerican, etc? Or do you want custom themed areas? I'd say aim for both to give some variety of familiar and fantastic, plus you can mash it up a bit, such as Medieval french on top of Mezoamerican.
Once you have a feel for the world and what you want out of it, take some blank paper and sketch out the basic outlines. once you do that plug in your area ideas. This is the Asian area, this is the Middle Eastern area, etc. Once you do that figure out some basic details about each area. Are there local races there? Any special changes to magic or different gods? What about those border areas?
Once that is done, choose one area you want to focus on. Then draw a new map of just that area based on your larger sketch. Plop down some cities and town with names, it doesn't matter what they mean yet, and make some details about different regions. Think about all the different types of environment, society, culture, etc. Base this on real world examples if you find yourself getting stuck for ideas. Then work on some more details like local gods, organizations, etc.
Once you have done this zoom in again so you have just one region, and do all the steps over again. Perhaps even detail a city or two complete with power groups and such.
With these steps taken you can zoom in to anywhere in your world and do it all again as your need and fancy strikes. I'd say leave a lot of ground without detail until you start playing in case you have a great idea for an adventure of whatnot and it doesn't fit with the areas you have already detailed. Zoom in and detail little areas at a time.
I have found that this approach gives the sense of a large, vibrant world to your players even though you only have little bits detailed. This was my approach until recently when i converted over to Golarion because I was sick of drawing maps.
|
|
Alternatively you can do the opposite and start with a city, then detail the hinterland, then the region, then kingdom, continent, world and so on. I don't care for this method because I find it more limiting but lots of people swear by the start small and zoom approach.
I hope my rambling helps. :D
Hi, A friend of mine ran one campaign in which he had the world mostly fleshed out, but it was kept secret from us - other than the local area. The higher knowledge skills in Local, History, or Nobility - those players would have access to a little more information of that nature.
He allowed only core classes at first (and Cavalier), but as the party started exploring, questing, leveling, he would expose more of the world he created and open up other classes. So when characters died, they could roll up in one of the newer classes discovered in that region or area.
It was a lot of fun as it forced us, the players to communicate more with eachother (especially with players who ran more knowledgeable character) to learn of this world and societies the GM created.
He also said it made things fleixible to add, remove, and change things to make his world more interesting - based on the party's actions and progressions. I asked how he built his world, and he said he started with a small map area that concerned two to three kingdoms / countries......he fully fleshed these out and kept an outline of other things to add and build upon as the party advanced in experience. He also wrote up a lot of the religions, kingdoms, wars, etc - several months before drawing the actual map.....maybe that was easier for him - I dunno. But this is what I learned from him and it was a fun game.
Anyways, Good luck overseas!
Since you're looking to fill spare time, I'd definitely start big and detail downward. Getting the most important world bits done will take a while, and then you can start detailing specific areas as Joshua Goudreau suggested. Because you have an entire world, you can fill as many specific areas as you want/have time for.
Building inward out (which I generally favor) is a time-saver because you only build what you need; you may never have a complete world using this method, and that's fine. But like I said, it won't use up as much of that time you have to kill.
I prefer the big to small because I feel like it allows for a more coherent setting rather than the small to big model with often generates some distinct nonsense in terms setting realism.
Of course if you want a gonzo high-magic setting where "A Wizard Did It" is the excuse for world design having coherent geography can pretty much be abandoned.
If you want to do a relatively standard big to small world design using Earth norms it's really not that difficult and there are a ton of resources available.
Thanks everyone so far for your ideas.
I like the idea of doing a top down model due to having a lot of free time to work on it.
So far I have been thinking of trying to make a world where everyone lives on floating continents / islands due to the surface being some what unlivable. Using this idea though has had me run into a few problems.
1. How should I handle travel between land masses (make the continents so big that no one really does or completely rework airships since the standard ones we have would not work due to price and possible party size or some thing else entirely).
2. If I make air travel common I'm not sure how to handle what would happen if a party's airship gets destroyed / goes down with them in it. In a normal world you could just have the party washed ashore somewhere but in the air unless the are over one of the land masses they would most likely plummet and die. While I don't hand hold players I think it would really suck if due to some bad rolls during a airship battle that the entire party gets wiped out.
3. Lastly while I like the idea I really don't have a lot of examples to go off since most games / books with this idea tend to only focus on a very small portion of the world or just be very small in general. The only good example I found was Skies of Arcadia for Dreamcast, the problem with that one though was for supposedly being a entire world the world population seemed to be extremely small and would not really work for more then one or two campaigns.
1) The methods you mention would work, though it's also possible for there to be teleportation. If the world is really large (like Jupiter sized) then it might be travel is only possible within a certain area. There could be huge unexplored regions.
2) You have flying continents, why not have it where the planet works like the elemental plane of air? It would explain the lack of surface and you could have some sort of area that acts like an ocean - for instance, an area of clouds. On the other hand, there's no reason a flying ship couldn't have life rafts or something similar.
3) There was a series called Stormhawks on television that also dealt with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_Hawks
You could have a great deal of diversity in the setting. If you're worried about sky ships falling you might want to consider whether races here have natural flying abilities. They would still create airships for the same reason we have trains, buses,and cars.
Thanks for the ideas Indagare.
1. I had thought about teleportation but figured it would not be good for mass use (maybe for a single kingdom but not everybody). So far I'm leaning to a mix of both options I said (have most land masses quite large but still make air travel decently common).
2. As for having the planet act as the plane of air honestly I had never even thought about that and is something I need to think on. I had planned to have a surface just make it extremely inhospitable (granted the common person would have no knowledge that it even exists), though still trying to decide what makes it that way (high gravity pressure, demons, covered in lava, ect).
3. Never seen that series and the wiki doesn't tell me much (not sure if its worth spending the money to try to buy it for reference material). As for having flying races, I was planning to have races that can fly / glide be allot more common but I also was hoping to use most of the standard races as well with just some lore tweaks. One of the reasons for using them is I would like to be able to use the same world no mater what rule set / edition my group may want to use (pathfinder, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, D&D next, ect) it's much easier to swap a pathfinder elf with a D&D next elf then making my own races that may not work with some rule sets or don't have rules in place to make them for other rule sets. And lastly on this topic I have no problem screwing around with standard lore but I try to keep to a minimum on how much I mess with rules on how thing are / works, makes it a lot less hassle to bring in new players to a group when I don't have to give them a big print out of info going over new world specific rules / changes.
Sorry for rambling on a bit there but thanks for the ideas. It really helps me to think about other options or even just other angles to my own ideas as well as to add, keep, modify, or just get rid of ideas. Well thanks again for the help and any future help people give.
1. Perhaps teleportation is used mostly for important things like trade? I imagine there would be some way to keep from teleporting an army from place to place.
2. I've actually pondered a setting similar to this once before and one of the ideas I had was for the planet to act like the plane of air. It had a stable elemental bleed at the 'core' of the planet, but this caused all sorts of nasty weather below the cloud line where the races lived.
In the Storm Hawks, the surface is much like the surface of Venus: mostly lava and toxic fumes. The terras are all above the cloud line, though they do not actually fly or float (they're more or less like the tips of very tall mountains).
3. This site might be of more help: http://stormhawks.ytv.com/
I can understand wanting to use the standards too. It's always easier to modify the wheel than to remake it.
Dot.
Thanks for the ideas Indagare.
1. I had thought about teleportation but figured it would not be good for mass use (maybe for a single kingdom but not everybody). So far I'm leaning to a mix of both options I said (have most land masses quite large but still make air travel decently common).
2. As for having the planet act as the plane of air honestly I had never even thought about that and is something I need to think on. I had planned to have a surface just make it extremely inhospitable (granted the common person would have no knowledge that it even exists), though still trying to decide what makes it that way (high gravity pressure, demons, covered in lava, ect).
This is just my two cents worth for number one and two. As far as transportation, I used the idea of ley lines that ran in eratic patterns around the world. Think of them like Stargates, a wizards guild that specialized in teleportation would activate them and control them (usually for a hefty price). Being near these lines people and goods can travel through the line to another gate. so a lot of major cities were on these ley line paths.....Naturally this guild was extremely powerful and rich. Things got interesting when the party destroyed one, trying to stop the guilds power and perceived corruption, lol a few bad apples can ruin the barrell.
But for the ground being inhospitable, why not utilize the Drow or Aboleths - something like that. One of these forces was finally able to take over the surface world and rule with an iron grip and slaves. Giants, Orcs, Hobgoblins, etc are in their employ. They fight amongst each other, as the Drow or Aboleths manipulate them to work for them and keep these creatures divided. The only catch about the surface being inhospitable is the good dragons (if you use dragons at all)
But try to find the old box set Night Below: An Underdark Campaign. It is an epic adventure from AD&D time when the Aboleths are trying to contruct a major artifact to control all intelligent beings as their slaves. The threat is so great that devils, Drow and Mind Flayers are willing to team up with the pary to stop the Aboleths and destroy the magical tower. This box set has the party starting at level 1 and finishing in the 17 - 20 range.
Man I have ran it three times and only once the party succeeded. It is a deadly, fun, and an unpredictable adventure. Maybe you can incorporate this idea into your world - have the aboleths build several of them all around the world.
How about a moon circling a gas giant....the lower levels are full of gaseous sulfuric acid and only the mountaintops are above that layer and have breathable atmosphere.
The cities on the mountaintops are connected bya a series of gates...ala Txn's suggestion...and their are airships that cater to mundane travel and bulk cargo transport.
You can put in magical domed cities down in the bottom that are connected to the tops by tunnels up and thru the mountains or by unknown secret gates.
Maybe the gatekeepers are allied with "demons" that live in the lower level...a toned down "Alien" with less acidic blood would make an onteresting foe.
So I was thinking last night and came up with 3 things I was wondering what your guys input was.
1. While I'm not sure if I want to do it or not but, what do you guys think about having it that the floating land masses actually drift around instead of being stationary. It makes travel between possibly more interesting but kind of kills the idea of making a world map.
2. Other then wind currents what else can I use to section off parts of the world. I like the idea of players discovering a new place in one campaign then have it be more common in later ones.
3. Lastly does anyone have any source material (not to concerned on edition just D20 system at least) that deals with airships and more specifically airship combat.
Also Txn I like your idea of guilds controlling transportation waypoints and will most likely make at least one area in the world have guilds like that running a country.
As said before any and all help will be appreciated.
1. A full world map might not be possible, but you could always have area maps of the islands. Certainly, if there are islands nearby they'll likely try to find some way of sticking together, possibly even using magic to keep them from drifting too far.
2. Well, there's also storms. Plus simple size would be enough. The entire planet of Earth is puny compared to Jupiter. A continent as large as Asia would be miniscule on such a world.
3. Not sure any of these will help:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/duad/20100715
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=52741
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Greater_Aerial_Combat_%283.5e_Feat%29
Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies has a world that might give you some ideas. An overview is located here:
http://www.evilhat.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/World-Of-S7S.pdf
|
So I was thinking last night and came up with 3 things I was wondering what your guys input was.
1. While I'm not sure if I want to do it or not but, what do you guys think about having it that the floating land masses actually drift around instead of being stationary. It makes travel between possibly more interesting but kind of kills the idea of making a world map.
2. Other then wind currents what else can I use to section off parts of the world. I like the idea of players discovering a new place in one campaign then have it be more common in later ones.
3. Lastly does anyone have any source material (not to concerned on edition just D20 system at least) that deals with airships and more specifically airship combat.
Also Txn I like your idea of guilds controlling transportation waypoints and will most likely make at least one area in the world have guilds like that running a country.
As said before any and all help will be appreciated.
1. might actually be a good thing because then you can worry about mapping the islands indiviually, not to mention the natural disaster of having an island either hit another one or break into two.
2. Having the islands move around helps section things off, particularly if the airships have limited range. Just move the island near somewhere you want to allow them to explore or far from places you dont.
3. Look at d20 star wars, the space combat is designed to allow 3d though encourages sticking to a 2d plane which is about right for airships. There are a couple different ways presented, so if you find the "distance track" one don't give up immediatly, not to mention the pilot feats could come in handy as well.
You could also consider having the islands float on water rather then in the air, similar feel but with already defined reasons to not go down very far (big monsters, cold, high pressure, no air to breath, etc) and thus transport is also easier while still being somewhat dangerous. And plenty of precedent to go around as well.
Also an idea for the floating islands would be to have them be created somehow so you get new ones. So I think sometimes when lava cools on the surface it becomes lightweight floating rock which is how new islands are made.
If the primary means of travel between continents in your world is by gates and teleportation then their physical locations don't matter unless your PC's are going to be those rare people who use airships or other means of transport.
One thing I'd suggest if you are going with the teleportation idea is to make your gates only go to a single location and make a transportation web rather than allow people to go to any continent at will.
For example, continent Alpha has three gates on it. They go to continents Beta, Charlie, and Delta.
Delta's gate opens onto empty space, the continent it connected to having crumbled away in some disaster, and Charlie's gate opens onto a continent covered in ghoul-infested ruins that has no other gates. But Beta's gate opens onto a continent with five other gates.
Control of Beta is therefore very important to Alpha, as well as to Echo, which like Alpha only has one gate leading to anywhere someone would want to go.
People who don't want to use the gates, or continents that don't have any gates, must to depend on dangerous overland flights in airships, or on the backs of giant flying beasts.
|
|
Or do like stargate. each gate can go to any other same type gate but add in a significant recharge time to the gate so it has to wait a day or two to open another link.
edit: the need to plan and cycle through gates would lead this to be for long distance and thus ships would be used for bulk and short distance trips. (not to mention private yachts)