I'm looking to create my own campaign setting for my own games, but I'm not entirely sure how to really get started. I have ideas, of course, but I'm a bit worried about putting them together coherently, or missing major details that would be better not to make up on the fly during a session.
Are there any good resources to assist in this process, and make sure I've considered everything I should? Would it be worth picking up the Inner Sea World Guide to dig through and deconstruct for ideas and an example of a fleshed out world set?
This is something that I refer to.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: GameMastery Guide
Yeah, I have a copy of the GameMastery Guide, though I'm still going through it. Seems quite nifty so far.
It'd be really cool if I could find a blog or something that basically goes through, "here's how I built up my current setting, and the how/why of the decisions made."
Does anyone have any comments about whether it'd be worth it to try to pick apart the Inner Sea World Guide?
This is just IMHO, but if this is your first time you might want to start small. Rather then try to build a world, take an existing world and select a spot far removed from published material.
For example in Golarion you could base your campaign on Arcadia
This allows you to focus on the stuff you want to make up and allow the campaign world to fill in the details you don't want to spend time on.
You could select a small group of established Dieties for example and then add in a few of your own. Rather then have to craft an entire pantheon. As you develop the world you can leave the borrowed deities behind or have them fade into smaller roles.
You can change the names of things. Just because the people in Cheliax call it Arcadia doesn't mean the locals use the same name. Much like the British called the capitol of China Peking.
As you expand and run future campaigns set in "your world" eventually it will become fully your own as the details connecting it to the established world are dropped out and replaced.
Just a thought, it's similar to how i've developed my own stuff over the years.
My advice: start even smaller than Cinderfist. Force yourself into a tiny space from which the big bang of your campaign will start. Force yourself to create detail, not fluff.
Example: make a town. Not a city, but not a tiny village the PCs will be dying to get out of. Just a town.
Once you've got your settlement's name, maybe the feel of it on paper, start with some details. Not history, overview or mundane stuff, but real details the party will need: a settlement stat block, some notable NPCs and resources they can expect to find.
Design with adventurers and their players in mind.
If you focus on your audience then when your mind begins to wander think to yourself: is this REALLY something my players need? Once that question is answered the situation will usually resolve itself.
Make decisions. This was a hard one for me. In all my homebrew efforts I always thought "yeah, but what if my player wants to be a barbarian? How would THEY fit in?" The fact of the matter is; sometimes not everything fits in. Stick to your guns and make decisions like what kind of races/characters are in the area and what ISN'T. Which religion (if any) will be accepted here?
Finally, add an element of pure fantasy. This is WHY your players are coming to the table, or at least part of it. They want things like alchemists creating golems out of corpses, an Undine district overlooking the river, or perhaps a grim inquisitor who hands out minor magic for free but only if entrants to his shop pass Judgement. In short; what sets YOUR creation apart from the millions of OTHER mundane settlements in every other setting.
I do this exercise when I need to get the creative juices flowing. Right now I'm working up the Town of Inderwick. I started with the idea of a holy site marked with a stone topped with a cold-iron rod, like an obelisk. This became a graveyard; Ironspire Cemetary. Since I use the Core PF gods, if you have a graveyard you need Pharasmin, so that's the town's patron. But I didn't want JUST another goth town, so I added a university. Ok, well that gives me studious wizards, so I'll add alchemists too. What are they studying? A nearby bog, a REALLY big one.
What do my players need to know: I made a dean, an arch-bishop and a lord mayor. I also threw in a mercenary guard the town employs; they are a chaotic bunch and they chafe with the tone of the town, but they get the job done. I also decided one of the prime resources of the town is bog iron, so there's dwarves and humans around.
Bog to me equals decay. Bog + iron = corrosion, so there's a force of entropy and decay there that fuels the enemies in the region. This also gives me an idea of what monsters I want to put there.
Last but not least...Laurefindel is a great resource for layout and articulation of detail. Her stuff there really helps capture how a bit of solid decision making and real detail help reinforce and realize your vision.
...and make a map too. My players are all over me for a map to their town and I keep putting it off. Hope all this helps!