What do you expect in a 3.5 d&d setting?

[Mangles]

I'm homebrewing up a 3.5 d&d setting at the moment which i will be sure to share once it is completed. However i want to know what people expect/want/need in a setting?

Based on peoples opinions i'll try to add more into the sections that may be lacking and stop focusing on sections that i may be putting to much into.

[jiriku]

Tastes vary widely. This is a question best directed towards your intended players.

A few basic items of interest:
NPCs should have names, defining traits, and goals. "The shopkeeper" and "the king" are boring, but Tav Miller, Adventurer Extraordinaire (retired) and Purveyor of Exotic Goods, is an interesting fellow, as is His Royal Highness Dalim Starshine, a king who is secretly trying to implicate his popular vizier in a fake coup attempt because he suspects that the vizier is boffing the queen.

[Masaioh]

Start by drawing a map, and fill it in piece by piece.

Also, make some crunch, such as a couple races or maybe a PRC.

[Mangles]

I already have a very basic map, some new creatures and a couple of varients people can take as classes. Also intend on having some regional feats as well.

What i'm really interested in is weather i need to put in religion, law, culture, things like that. When I play a setting i gloss over these details very berifly and tend to head for the crunch. But do other people find these things usefull or interesting?

[Pronounceable]

No gnomes. Or extinct gnomes, which is even better. Bonus if they were extincted by kobolds.

Elves too actually, but that might be a bit subjective.


What i'm really interested in is weather i need to put in religion, law, culture, things like that.
Yes you do. Although the exact amount would depend on prospective players.

[Mangles]

but how much would you expect/like out of a setting, both as a player and a DM. While i do plan to use this myself, i also plan for this to be useable by others if they wish.

[Temotei]

What i'm really interested in is weather i need to put in religion, law, culture, things like that. When I play a setting i gloss over these details very berifly and tend to head for the crunch. But do other people find these things usefull or interesting?

In my in-the-works campaign setting (most ideas are finished, but I need to put them down in type), weather changes drastically depending on location, but one month features weather such as flaming pillars from the sky, lightning earthquakes, death to flora and fauna (seemingly randomly), and general disorder.

For religion, I've got new deities, idols, and ways of worship.

Those are just a couple of examples.

So, yeah. I consider that stuff very important to a campaign setting. Without them, you lose a lot of potential to make a unique setting.

[Knaight]

What i'm really interested in is weather i need to put in religion, law, culture, things like that. When I play a setting i gloss over these details very berifly and tend to head for the crunch. But do other people find these things usefull or interesting?

Yes, to some extent. Culture in particular is massive, Law and Religion are essentially subsets of it. Local cultures, relations between them, and the technological/magical surroundings are the core of what makes an interesting setting, or at least a significant section of that core.

[Violet Octopus]

As a player or when thinking up adventure ideas, culture is most interesting to me as a way to describe the power relationships in a community or region. Since PCs are likely to interact with the established setting when they want to get things done, understanding who wields power and how is important.

'm less interested in how the particular gods of any setting (if it is polytheistic) divide up their domains than what role their churches play. Social bonding/leadership, theocracy, centres of resistance against a tyrannical (but secular) monarchy? This goes beyond a description of to what degree church and state are separated, or what alignment the dominant religion(s) is/are. If the king is also the head of the local religion, he could just as easily be a God Emperor who crushes all alternative institutions, or assured in their position as the big fish in the pond that they don't care how many cults of Heironeous, Kurtulmak or the like are running around.

Legal systems aren't just "OK, Nation X has unusual cultural norms around snakes, so have surprisingly harsh laws against any PC who kills a reptile". Other factors: to what extent laws are even codified, to what extent the judges/king/whatever is influenced by popular opinion, whether the system is corrupt or not. Say your characters meet a guild of wizards wanting to build a magical laboratory, near some place druids want to protect. Regardless of what side the players take, the DM needs to know not what the law says, but how the legal system generally works. Can the PCs bribe the authorities not to bother with an environmental impact assessment? Can they whip up anti-arcane sentiment in the populace to pressure the monarchy into supporting the druids, lest they get beheaded?

Interstate relations: the degree to which kingdoms/states threaten or are dependent on each other. A good campaign setting is something where it's easy for a DM to come up with consequences for changes to the status quo. What happens if the evil gnomish warlord's assassination plot against the king does work? It could just mean the gnome nation can finally invade. Or maybe the kingdom was getting into debt because their agricultural exports were affected by drought, and now the king is dead, the kingdom's creditors are panicking and taking action. Maybe that ties into the evil gnomish plans.
It doesn't matter whether the agricultural goods are turnips or wheat, what matters is the current trade relationship between the kingdoms.

OK, to summarise. While being unique and original is good, stuff that allows easy plot hook generation is better. And while detail is good, what's better is detail that lets you understand how something works, and whether it'll keep working or is about to collapse (thus generating adventure).

[Knaight]

Legal systems aren't just "OK, Nation X has unusual cultural norms around snakes, so have surprisingly harsh laws against any PC who kills a reptile". Other factors: to what extent laws are even codified, to what extent the judges/king/whatever is influenced by popular opinion, whether the system is corrupt or not. Say your characters meet a guild of wizards wanting to build a magical laboratory, near some place druids want to protect. Regardless of what side the players take, the DM needs to know not what the law says, but how the legal system generally works. Can the PCs bribe the authorities not to bother with an environmental impact assessment? Can they whip up anti-arcane sentiment in the populace to pressure the monarchy into supporting the druids, lest they get beheaded?

Interstate relations: the degree to which kingdoms/states threaten or are dependent on each other. A good campaign setting is something where it's easy for a DM to come up with consequences for changes to the status quo. What happens if the evil gnomish warlord's assassination plot against the king does work? It could just mean the gnome nation can finally invade. Or maybe the kingdom was getting into debt because their agricultural exports were affected by drought, and now the king is dead, the kingdom's creditors are panicking and taking action. Maybe that ties into the evil gnomish plans.
It doesn't matter whether the agricultural goods are turnips or wheat, what matters is the current trade relationship between the kingdoms.


Concerning legal systems, there are three main parts. What is enforced, how it is enforced, and by whom it is enforced. Concerning the first, there are general views that come down to varying degrees of personal liberty for varying people, with quirks throughout, the second covers methods of punishment, trial, and of course policing. The third is connected to the second, and very critical.

Concerning politics, why states threaten each other and how they are dependent on each other is very important. Furthermore, there are things like trade restriction, legality of travel, etc. To use a personal example, two nations, Aij and Esheni have continual tensions due to several historic wars. Aij desperately needs wood, and Esheni is forested, but because of the tensions Aij has banned Esheni imports, and thus pays a premium for countries further away. Of course, that doesn't preclude making a quick buck by smuggling, and that is somewhere that PCs could fit right in.

[Latronis]

you'll generally find most of the flavor of a campaign world comes from the cultures and how the various communities interact.

A dungeon crawl is usually just a dungeon crawl regardless so the tone is generally set by the 'normal' parts of the world as such i'd say its fairly essential to a setting otherwise whats the point of using your own?