World Building Minimalism

[Trog]

I'm all for minimalism in a lot of aspects of life. World Building is one of them. Thus I present my... well I guess you could call them guidelines? ... for building a setting or a world for an adventure.


A Setting - You need one. I'm a big proponent of creating your own from-scratch setting for each new campaign. Mainly because I enjoy making them. This can be accomplished with a few basic elements if you need to create one in a hurry. You need a Map, a List of Names, Races of the World, Common/Uncommon Monsters You'd Like the PCs to Fight, Nations of the World. But most of all, you should make your setting small.

Why small?

The adventure is essentially short. Travel time may be limited. And even if the PCs change the very course of history for their deeds they can do so for one small section of the world and still have it be very significant, right? The rest can be "Flavor Country" which lies outside the range of the adventure.

In Star Wars Episode IV, for example, there was a whole universe out there but really all that the "DM" fleshed out was Tattoine and the Death Star with a minor nod to Alderaan. And of that he only developed a small region Luke lived by, Mos Eisley, The Landing Bay of the Death Star, the Prison Level, and the Outer Surface for the end fight. So, see, you don't need a ton to pull it off.

So. Draw up a map. Slap some names on it. Decide where the races primarily live. Divide the map up into nations by imagining how the race would fight over time and pick an interesting point to stop at. Here, by doing so, you already have a basic history sketched out - all from a map! Your monsters list will allow you to plan in some local color into the adventure. Pic one locale and set your adventure there. Detail the area as needed.

The above is a slightly modified excerpt from my blog (full post here (http://trogshead.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-dnd-adventure-design-guidelines.html)). At least world building to the degree that it is necessary to show the players in an adventure. It's a bit like scenery for a play - only the parts that the audience sees are created in detail. The rest, behind the scenes or from a different angle, shows that there is very little holding up the interesting back drop. The audience's imagination fills in the rest.

Now I know that some people get very into detailing a setting right down to designing whole languages and such. And this is fine, though a lot of work that might not get fully seen nor fully appreciated even by very involved players in your campaign. Thus, I enjoy this method of world building for the time it saves and because it can still be very very effective in-game.

Using these same principles is also a handy way to keep on developing your game world. A new adventure means new scenery and perhaps creating a set piece that details a place that, in the previous adventure, was only something painted into the back drop.

So... where does everyone else draw the line at developing their own home worlds and campaign settings?

[Melayl]

I like your assessment of worldbuilding, Trog. I'm working on one now, and am tending to build more scenery than I might need. I may need to reduce things a little, but I already feel like I'm leaving so much "blank". Of course, if I actually spend more time working on it, I might not feel that way. :smallredface:

Would you mind giving some examples of worlds/adventures you've built?

[OverdrivePrime]

I'm all for minimalism in a lot of aspects of life. World Building is one of them. Thus I present my... well I guess you could call them guidelines? ... for building a setting or a world for an adventure.



The above is a slightly modified excerpt from my blog (full post here (http://trogshead.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-dnd-adventure-design-guidelines.html)). At least world building to the degree that it is necessary to show the players in an adventure. It's a bit like scenery for a play - only the parts that the audience sees are created in detail. The rest, behind the scenes or from a different angle, shows that there is very little holding up the interesting back drop. The audience's imagination fills in the rest.

Now I know that some people get very into detailing a setting right down to designing whole languages and such. And this is fine, though a lot of work that might not get fully seen nor fully appreciated even by very involved players in your campaign. Thus, I enjoy this method of world building for the time it saves and because it can still be very very effective in-game.

Using these same principles is also a handy way to keep on developing your game world. A new adventure means new scenery and perhaps creating a set piece that details a place that, in the previous adventure, was only something painted into the back drop.

So... where does everyone else draw the line at developing their own home worlds and campaign settings?

I definitely appreciate that style, and I wish I could do it myself, but... I'm a completist. Creating worlds is what I do for fun, and I really have a blast tweaking tiny nuances. Why does race A have pointed ears? Why is race B only 3 feet tall, yet very intelligent? I need to have answers.. just in case.
For my last major game world I mapped out the entire planet, political boundaries, cultural histories for 10 of the races and then maps, histories and political intrigue and NPCs for 5 of the great cities (anything pop 25,000+).
For my current world everything is very primitive (bronze age for the major culture, stone age for the rest), so I don't have as much work on cities to do, but I do have a lot of work put in on the two intelligent races, their various cultures and... the planet's tectonic plates. It's kind of a problem for me. >__>

[random11]

In Star Wars Episode IV, for example, there was a whole universe out there but really all that the "DM" fleshed out was Tattoine and the Death Star with a minor nod to Alderaan. And of that he only developed a small region Luke lived by, Mos Eisley, The Landing Bay of the Death Star, the Prison Level, and the Outer Surface for the end fight. So, see, you don't need a ton to pull it off.


That's all good for a movie, but unless the DM favors heavy railroading, players have a tendency of doing the unexpected...

What if the PC Luke would decide to try to go somewhere else?
Go to a different planet and encourage a rebellion there, decide to turn in the Han Solo NPC and get different allies form a different planet, immediately turn into a vigilante in the first minute he discovers the empire is responsible to his farm's destruction etc.

Of course you can't be prepared for everything and must narrow your focus on a few areas, but a DM should also be prepared to alter his pre-made plans for something else, and it will be better if there is at least some backup plan ready to give time and develop the unexpected plot twists.

[Kuma Da]

That's basically what I do, Trog.

If they players decide they want to focus elsewhere, then I still have my rough sketch of the world ready, and I can flesh out that elsewhere as I go.

I don't spend a lot of time on backup plans to keep players 'on track', because that might just be a more lenient way of railroading. Plus, my players tend to out-think my backup plans as often as they out-think the actual plot. :smallamused:

[Icedaemon]

That's all good for a movie, but unless the DM favors heavy railroading, players have a tendency of doing the unexpected...

What if the PC Luke would decide to try to go somewhere else?
Go to a different planet and encourage a rebellion there, decide to turn in the Han Solo NPC and get different allies form a different planet, immediately turn into a vigilante in the first minute he discovers the empire is responsible to his farm's destruction etc.

Of course you can't be prepared for everything and must narrow your focus on a few areas, but a DM should also be prepared to alter his pre-made plans for something else, and it will be better if there is at least some backup plan ready to give time and develop the unexpected plot twists.

I am also of this mind - the GM does not control the players. There should definitely be more plot hooks near to the starting world, but the players should for the most part be able to choose where they ultimately go. For example, in making Walufar, I have placed diverse locations where the adventure hooks are practically self evident in the location-specific design notes on the far sides of the continent, but only mapped out a handful of adventure paths for the immediate vicinity. For locations far from the continent of Walufar, only a couple of sentences exist, while the train of thought that began with 'say, blue dragons have incredible mental statistics. They should make pretty good overlords' led to a reasonably unique nation that I for one rather like and many interesting aspects. In making all the large coastal nations unique and interesting, I have ensured that the players would have to be very inventive or stupid to get into a position where I'd be stumped.

[101jir]

I am very amatuer at GM/DMing, so I would appreciate some comments and critisism on this approach. What about building one gigantic world and using that world over and over for different games, maybe not having the players not start on the same continent all the time. Maybe make it take so long to move significant distances that most games would only cover tiny areas of the map. Again, not making many of these due to the work involved, but one size fits all?

[Trog]

Would you mind giving some examples of worlds/adventures you've built?
Well the most recent world that I did was this one (http://trogshead.blogspot.com/2010/06/dnd-setting.html) with a "world map" for reference here (http://home.centurytel.net/jeffsjunk/MapRealistic2.jpg).

I started by drawing a basic map. Then decided where the political boundaries would go just... based off of the map. I gave each nation a basic characteristic (Torion: war-like and after territory, Denia: freedom-loving and chaotic, Hionia: religious and vengeful, Eldunmark: business-like, Acheria: corrupt and depraved). With a few broad brush strokes of history (where the main races came from) it was easy to construct a basic outline of history. At least enough to give the world and the nation a flavor for my players.

After that I had an opening scene (found at the end of that link above) for each nation to further flavor the world at the beginning of the adventure. I reused old PCs from previous campaigns for the NPCs which helped in writing the scene and in getting the players to sort of pay attention and listen to these, their old characters re-imagined in positions of power in this world. Instant NPC respect is nice bonus in using this technique.

So that was the basic world. I too like to dabble in details now and then because I geek out about them so I may have filled things in here and there.

The regional map was then made (found here (http://home.centurytel.net/jeffsjunk/ZoomInMap2.jpg)) and I detailed the area that the PCs would adventure in in more detail. Though most of these details were kept from the PCs so that each new area they traveled to could still feel sort of fresh and new. I'm all for the feeling of zooming in on an area and filling in the details once your there. Lets you work in surprises and keeps the overview easy for players to process since details are left out.

Side note: The adventure set in this setting was more of a choose-your-own-adventure style adventure with many different options for the players to pursue from the very beginning. People say they need to take into account their players wandering off the path of the adventure but there's nothing like having five available paths to choose from to get them to stay on at least one of them. More details on how I accomplished that are found here (http://trogshead.blogspot.com/2010/06/midlands-adventure.html).

Anyhow now this place was the only bit I really needed to develop. All the rest of the world had been broad-brushed already and for most purposes is complete enough that, should the players ask about something I can always fill it in fairly easily on the fly given that I have the basic regional structure/history to fall back on.

I did a similar technique in my previous campaign world, Unaria. A broad brush map (found here (http://home.centurytel.net/jeffsjunk/forumart/UnariaMap.jpg)) and basic descriptions of the nations and overall conflict. And then when the players visited each section there was a more detailed map (like this one (http://home.centurytel.net/jeffsjunk/forumart/LesserKingdomsMap.jpg)) and a more detailed on the nations and peoples and power players in the region, etc.

The interesting bit on the Midlands one I was talking about earlier is that now I am a player in an adventure run by a former player set in that same world only 100 years later. Some things have changed and more things have been filled in (a few basic organizations, for example) but the world lives on. I'm thinking of expanding the map southward and taking a couple of power player nations from the south and reusing them as the northern nations in a whole new area full of conflict after this adventure concludes. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Er... also there is this one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191423) I suppose, for an adventure since I see you asked about those too.

[Icedaemon]

I am very amatuer at GM/DMing, so I would appreciate some comments and critisism on this approach. What about building one gigantic world and using that world over and over for different games, maybe not having the players not start on the same continent all the time. Maybe make it take so long to move significant distances that most games would only cover tiny areas of the map. Again, not making many of these due to the work involved, but one size fits all?

If you do make your own world, I really suggest a 'if it ain't broke, keep it' continuity. Different adventures do not take place at the same time, but unrelated adventures will count the previous events as canonical history. This is especially fun if you have plenty of different groups, who you might impress by having so much recent history.

[101jir]

If you do make your own world, I really suggest a 'if it ain't broke, keep it' continuity. Different adventures do not take place at the same time, but unrelated adventures will count the previous events as canonical history. This is especially fun if you have plenty of different groups, who you might impress by having so much recent history.

So you are suggesting that I use previous adventures as recent history to later adventures? Neat, easier than I thought.

[Icedaemon]

Don't flood them with information on 'a prior group of advenshurdurs' though. Mark the historic events and maybe mention some things about the old adventure, but don't list their fights and possibly keep their early adventures unmentioned, unless the heroes became truly grand celebrities that the first village will get to boast about.

[The Giant]

I am very amatuer at GM/DMing, so I would appreciate some comments and critisism on this approach.

I would be happy to provide some. Not that what Trog says is in any way wrong, if it works for him. But I would say that there are different points of view from the one he is taking that are equally valid. Here are some things that I would argue are problems with his P.O.V.:

1.) You can't control where your players go. Period. Especially not in a game like D&D, where players can teleport to anywhere on the map in under a minute. If Luke Skywalker could teleport, he would have popped over to Alderaan, thus bypassing the Death Star entirely. If the DM hadn't decided what Alderaan was like because he planned on blowing it up, then he's screwed. So it's a fallacy to think you can control exactly when and where your game will take place, even if they're playing at low levels. "The adventure" is whatever happens to the characters, no matter where they go.

2.) As mentioned by other posters on the thread, the minimalist method makes it more difficult to "wing it" when the players DO decide to go somewhere you didn't expect. Or, to be more accurate, it takes the process of world-building away from your desk with lots of time to come up with ideas and plops it down in the middle of the gaming table, with all your friends staring at you. If they want to go somewhere when the only decision you've ever made about that country is where it is and what neighbor they went to war with, then you have to invent those details on-the-fly while people are waiting for you to describe something. Is it possible to do this? Sure. Is it as easy for most people as deciding beforehand? No.

3.) There is an additional downside to creating setting on-the-fly, and that's the tendency to fall into familiar patterns and clichés when working without a net. Quick, think of an elf town! Chances are, you thought of a forest. And that's fine, for the first three or four elf towns your players visit. What makes the fifth one different, though? As time goes on, you'll find that every town that you create on-the-fly will start to be very similar, either to each other or to fantasy stereotypes. Figuring it out ahead of time gives you the space needed to recognize that sometimes, your first idea isn't the best possible idea.

4.) Another point is that what Trog is describing bears more resemblance to an adventure than a campaign. Using the Star Wars analogy, in the actual campaign the heroes went to Tatooine, to Alderaan, then to the Death Star, to Yavin, to Hoth, to Dagobah, through an asteroid field, to Bespin, back to a different part of Tatooine, back to Dagobah, to Endor, and finally to another Death Star. That's a campaign. 10+ different locales with radically different challenges and situations, taking the characters from low to high level. If you artificially limit your players to playing in the sand of Tatooine from levels 1 to 20 because you never wrote up anything about Bespin other than "It's a gas giant," then your players are going to notice. If you're creating a setting for a single adventure, then maybe minimalism can slide. Most of us who create settings want more than that.

5.) One key advantage of the created (rather than improvised) world is persistence. You can always play another campaign with different characters and use all the same places over again. It actually saves time in the long run, and creates a more believable experience for the players. Players like having their new characters run across proof that their old characters saved the day. It gives them a sense of immortality. Think about how much didn't have to be spelled out in the Star Wars prequels because we already knew it from the original trilogy--the existence of the Force, what a Jedi was, how hyperdrive worked, what a Hutt or a droid was. When Qui-Gonn landed on Tatooine, you could look at it and recognize it as a place that you had been before, and you understood what sort of element he was going to need to deal with. That level of familiarity with a place is pleasing to many players (and DMs) because it allows players to draw their own conclusions about what to do based on their previous experiences.

6.) Which leads to my final criticism, which would be that what Trog calls "minimimalist," I would call "disposable." One of the key reasons that a good setting is important is the same as why a good setting is important in a book or movie: it helps set the story apart from others of its kind. It keeps it clear in the mind of the player. A better setting leads to more vivid memories, and I'm not convinced that throwing together a setting that has no more planning than, "I drew a map, the adventure is in this town, let's go," is going to be remembered at all. If you can't remember the setting, then you're not remembering the story. Not really. And memories are all we really have of our adventures once the character sheets are put away.

Obviously, I'm not going to try and talk Trog out of his method. If it works for him and he has fun, then great. That's what's really important. And I certainly could mount just as convincing an argument for the idea that most DMs spend too much time creating facts that will never influence play. But somewhere between those two extremes is a happy medium, in my opinion.

[Demidos]

Well the most recent world that I did was this one (http://trogshead.blogspot.com/2010/06/dnd-setting.html) with a "world map" for reference here (http://home.centurytel.net/jeffsjunk/MapRealistic2.jpg).



This is a really cool map. What site (if any) did you use?

[The Giant]

Side note: The adventure set in this setting was more of a choose-your-own-adventure style adventure with many different options for the players to pursue from the very beginning. People say they need to take into account their players wandering off the path of the adventure but there's nothing like having five available paths to choose from to get them to stay on at least one of them.

Penn Station has 40 sets of track, but it's still a railroad.

[Trog]

I would be happy to provide some. Not that what Trog says is in any way wrong, if it works for him. But I would say that there are different points of view from the one he is taking that are equally valid. Here are some things that I would argue are problems with his P.O.V.:

*snip*
Giant. Dude…. you /actually/ made my horoscope come true today by noticing this post and replying to it. Who says things can't be controlled, eh? ;-P The stars have us all in their grip. o.o

Admittedly I might have more "control" over my group since we've been gaming together for over twenty years and we all sort of know how everyone in the group is and what sorts of stories they like and there's a feeling of cooperation, generally, no matter who DMs. Even for world building where everyone will chime in on what they feel should be included in the feel of the campaign. Though admittedly player solutions always pop up where you might least expect them but, in my experience, for determining where the group might end up either comes down to 1. Something you've prepared or 2. something you have only a vague idea about even if you prepared mountains of stuff.

As a DM you know what level your players are and therefore what powers they do/do not have access to. If your player has no access to, say, teleport, then many things are not needed in development. If they do have access to teleport you're screwed no matter what because there will always be somewhere they an choose to go that you haven't prepared. So you can detail every last place on earth or just go the slightly more sanity saving route and come up with generalities that get more and more specific towards the possibilities that are in line with, say, the current adventure, your player's motivations, their character's motivations, etc. Broad brush strokes on the outskirts, more detailed possibilities as you close in.

And yes what I am describing is, indeed, more in line with an adventure. I don't know of too many worlds that exist without an establishing adventure in them for the players to experience (not counting, say, a published world independent of an adventure or a campaign, as most DMs like to use the worlds they build with their gaming group if they can. I know I do. ) But as I said as events unfold (The Death Star is blown up and now the rebels are pursued and establish a base on Hoth, say) you can develop the next "set piece" as it were. Prior to them establishing that Hoth base there is no way for the player to know that Hoth exists. You as a DM might know this but you can save working out the details until later when it's relevant because for the first part of the campaign or what have you there is absolutely NO need to detail it out yet. In this way you can build a campaign world as you go, building just ahead of the players adventure by adventure. Possibility by possibility.

Are my worlds disposable? Possibly. Possibly they all are. I've got several from TSR sitting in a closet never to be used again save for pulling out and chuckling at ("I MUST HAVE THE CINNIBRIL NOW!" *Pew! Pew!* =P ) so even the best funded and most worked on settings and "unique" settings can still be totally unenjoyable to some, if not to many, because it deviates too much from what they like in their fantasy. My group tried out the very detailed and interesting world of Ebberon and it flopped with us because we didn't care for the feel of it, for example. *shrug*

I enjoy making up settings and that for me means making up new onesfrom time to time. I'll run a campaign in a setting for a couple of years or so and then make up a new one. My group tend to want vaguely-Tolkeinesque settings and the like because we all agree that's the type of game we all want to run. Have I deviated from this? Of course.

And I've detailed an entire city down to the personality and mannerisms of every NPC the characters would ever interact with and run a whole adventure simply within the walls of said city role playing every person they talked to consistently. It makes for an immersive experience. But outside that city didn't matter. The pressing problems of the adventure lay within it's confines. Could they walk away from the adventure entirely? I suppose. For some people their group and DM might enjoy a sand-box approach to gaming. For me there is always a place to draw the line. Where "adventure country" ends and where "flavor country" takes over in the background.

Now I never claimed that this was the only way to build a setting nor the best. It's merely what works for me, a DM and father who has only so much free time to prepare things but wants to cover the bases enough to give my players a fun session. If you have different circumstances then this might not be your thing. But it doesn't make this approach any less legitimate if it works for your gaming group. And it works for mine. YMMV.

This is a really cool map. What site (if any) did you use?
It was created from scratch using Photoshop.

Penn Station has 40 sets of track, but it's still a railroad.
Oh please. :smalltongue: A massive dungeon, a staple setting of traditional D&D sometimes praised for its large degree of player freedom of choice, has only so many limited choices too, in the end. Characters can go on an adventure and explore the entire thing given complete freedom in how they want to accomplish their goals, what paths they choose, who they ally with and who they destroy, etc. But no matter how many rooms it's still a dungeon. And by your definition it's still a "railroad." Every module published has encounters or villains they expect the players to defeat to accomplish their goals. Railroad. The choice has been made for them.

My point is sooner or later there comes a point where enough choices are available to the group where it feels like a enough of a degree of freedom to no longer feel like they have NO choice. It's never total freedom. So the whole game of DnD is a railroad unless you, as a DM and as players are 100% winging every moment with no plan at all. A practice, from the sounds of what you said earlier, that you disparage.

As a DM I prepare for multiple paths that they might choose to go down to accomplish their goal and by doing so I give my players choices along the lines of how to accomplish their goals. Even if players "jump the tracks" and go a different route every DM I know tries to gently lure/guide them back to at least some remote part of the adventure already prepared to keep things going. So the players can still accomplish their stated goal of stopping the Big Bad Evil Guy and his evil plan to run over the helpless victim tied to the tracks which will still go on as scheduled, on the railroad, unless the PCs stop them. Giving the players multiple avenues to choose from to get to the BBEG still lets them make a choice. - it still lets them steer and choose their own path. And that's not railroading.

[Jarawara]

I am very amatuer at GM/DMing, so I would appreciate some comments and critisism on this approach. What about building one gigantic world and using that world over and over for different games, maybe not having the players not start on the same continent all the time. Maybe make it take so long to move significant distances that most games would only cover tiny areas of the map. Again, not making many of these due to the work involved, but one size fits all?

This is the method I use, though don't segregate the areas by making the distances too far. Instead, just tell the players where you have and have not developed, and in later games you'll have a larger range of choices of where to go.

Example: Campaign 1, you develop area A, B, & C. Campaign 2, you develop areas D & E, but the adventure also ranges a bit into areas B & C. Campaign 3 starts in area B, but then heads south for newly developed areas F, G, & H. Campaign 4 starts in H and continues on to areas I & J. Campaign 5 plays entirely in area J. Campaign 6 starts in a new area, K, and maybe never makes it back to the earlier areas. But we find they do connect together in Campaign 7, when.... yeah, you get the idea.

And if your campaigns last as long as mine, somewhere around Campaign 12 you have a fully developed, integrated world comparable to real-world earth, and you die of extremely old age. :smallamused:

And now, I'm going to have to what I thought I would never do, which is to disagree with The Giant.



1.) You can't control where your players go. Period.

Yes, you can.

You simply tell the players "I don't have anything developed beyond areas A, B, & C, (and B and C are pretty sketchy, so beware), and if they are in any way a reasonable group of people, they simply choose not to go there.

In the Star Wars example, Luke starts on Tatooine, and learns he has to go save Alderaan. The DM really should have some details of Alderaan, even if he plans to blow it up, because the players might very well go there first. And also be prepared to have Alderaan survive, because while you *know* that the Death Star will blow it up, the players will find a way to find and stop it before it gets to Alderaan. Players do that sort of thing.

So Luke has already stolen a ship, learned of the Death Star early, learned that it's heading to Alderaan, and he thinks a moment, looks to the DM, and says: "I fly out to Joarmar, in the far reaches."

Wut? Joarmar?

Where the heck is Joarmar?

The player then digs out some obscure StarWars suppliment that you've never heard of, and points to some little dot on the far edge of the starmap, yep, it's labled 'Joarmar'. Player says: "I've always wondered what was out there. Now I have me a ship. I'm going to Joarmar!"

This is the point where you find out first, why he wants to go (does he have a plan to destroy the Deathstar that involves going to Joarmar?), then suggesting that no, buying concubines from the slavepits of Joarmar (which may or may not even exist, as we have no information on Joarmar), is not going to help defeat the Empire. Then you ask politely that the players stay on a semi-reasonable path, keeping somewhat in line with the established campaign.

And if the players insist on going to Joarmar anyway. Use this line: "Well, have fun, tell me all about it when you get back. Shall we make new characters and continue with the campaign?" :smallbiggrin:

*~*

Now that might sound harsh. When used, it's phrased in a much nicer way. But the truth of it is still there. You're DMing this area, this campaign, and if the players are leaving the campaign, it's beyond your scope of what you signed on for, and thus it's the same as if they were getting up and walking out on you.

But of course, you *did* detail what was expected of the campaign at the beginning, right? If so, then your players won't try to go to Joarmar. I've been 'limited my players' for 30 years, and have never once had to use that line. I simply tell them where the campaign boundaries are, and they've stuck to it. And as the campaign boundaries expand, they can go out and explore these new areas over time.

If you didn't define your expectations, and got players who really weren't interested in defeating the Empire and destroying the DeathStar, then you really shouldn't have been running that campaign storyline anyway. A BBEG is only a BBEG if the players actually want to deal with him. If they don't want to deal with the BBEG, find out what they do want to do and develop that part of the campaign first.

In fact, one key resource you can use is to enlist your players in developing new areas. Tell the player who wants to go to Joarmar that you're not able to run a game there right now. But then ask him to develop Joarmar for later play. You have to surrender the intellectual rights on how it will turn out -- and you can certainly expect slave pits selling concubines -- but in the end you can run later games there without having to had to develop it all yourself. Your campaign world just got a little bit bigger.

*~*



4.) Another point is that what Trog is describing bears more resemblance to an adventure than a campaign. Using the Star Wars analogy, in the actual campaign the heroes went to Tatooine, to Alderaan, then to the Death Star, to Yavin, to Hoth, to Dagobah, through an asteroid field, to Bespin, back to a different part of Tatooine, back to Dagobah, to Endor, and finally to another Death Star. That's a campaign.

That is a very good point! However, it should be noted that as we all sat in the theater, watching the first movie dazzle our senses and incite our sense of wonderment, Yavin, Hoth, Dagobah, Bespin, and Endor did not exist yet. You can start the campaign with a more limited scope and then explore outward from there, adding areas as they are needed. The players won't say "I teleport to Degobah", if no such area exists yet. And if the players say "I travel out that-a-way, what do I find", return to point number 1. It's an undeveloped area, tell them to stay in the developed areas for the sake of gaming.

Of course, you gotta be working on these new areas ahead of time, to prepare for when they do go there. And yes, be honest with them. If they wanted to go to undefined area D, and you turned them away, tell them that the campaign might very well lead there eventually. Just please, not yet. If the conclusion is to be set there, it's perfectly ok to tell them not to go until you had a chance to write something up. It's NOT railroading to say "There is a wall here, until I've had a chance to draw something on the other side of the wall."

And besides, as the campaign develops, you might find that the conclusion is not going to be in 'undefined area D' anyway. The story will change as the players interact with it. They will write large parts of the story, and turn in in directions you never thought it would go. The players will find a way to skip right over Hoth and go right to Degobah. You'll never even develop Bespin once it becomes clear they don't have any reason to go there. (Yes, you could *force* the story back that way, but why, if they're already pointed back towards Yavin, and you can move the story forward there.)

And look at the good points allowing the campaign direction to change over time. For one thing, that means no Ewoks, as campaign events caused you to decide to put the second Death Star over Yavin instead.

Of course, there are downsides as well, as you can be certain that somehow, the grand campaign conclusion will now be set at Joarmar, as the players lead an army of concubines they bought there using funds they made by selling Condos inside the Death Star they somehow captured at Yavin, to fight against the BBEG who in a previous scene was permanent-polymorphed against his will into a Giant Pink Warforged Vampiric Hutt with Epic levels of Bard/Monk.

But such is life for a poor DM.

*~*~*

So we have established that there are reasonable limits to what the 'campaign area' can be, and that yes, you can ask the players to stay mostly within those areas.

But how big is that area?

Well, for starters, this is D&D, so you don't have space ships and you don't need to develop other worlds. Unless your players intend to point to a dot of light in the sky and say "I teleport there". If they do, tell them to read the Dragonriders of Pern series, to learn that these things will NOT END WELL for them. So you only need to develop one world.

Well wait a minute, do we really need to develop the whole world? Why not just one continent? If you're running the DragonLance saga, there's nothing wrong with simply saying "Yes, we all know that there's another continent on the other side of the planet, run by Minotaurs, yada yada yada, but I'm running the DragonLance saga. So don't go over there.".

But do we really need to develop a whole continent? How about just a part of one. Most published campaigns are only about a small area of a continent, with expansions available if the party wants to 'go exploring'. And if you state that you don't want them to go exploring, that you want to stick to the local areas, they won't. Or they'll refuse to play in your game. If you're new to DMing and they pull that, it's because they're an ass. Any reasonable player will go easy on you and not try to go to the other side of the planet/continent/campaign area first thing. They'll let you show what you *have* developed, and let that area expand over time.

So how about just one country? Well, if there's going to be any intrigue between this country and the next, you better develop the next country over. But what if the campaign you have planned doesn't actually require the actions of other nations? In fact, it might not even require the full development of all areas of this country, depending on the size of that nation.

Obviously, the small the area you confine yourself to, the more likely the players will inadvertently go beyond it. If the bandits are camped 20 miles to the north of the town, the players will somehow think they're to the west, and cut out that direction. Better have an idea of what is to the west. But don't think you have to develop a whole new campaign concept because they're going in the wrong direction. Either put the bandits to the west, put clues to lead them back to the north, or just tell the players that clearly after 100 miles and a few ad-hoc villages later, it's clear the bandits aren't here. Go back! (Any experienced DM will tell you the first two options are better, but you're new. It's ok to admit to your limitations, and it's ok to tell the players to go back and retrace their steps. Just make it fun along the way, and maybe a few side-quests will make the trip rewarding for them. Never punish the players for your own lack of preparedness, and the players will remain accepting of your newness.)

As an example of how 'limited' an area can be, and still work as a campaign...

I just finished up my Tiatia Campaign. It's a tiny little blip of an area, scarcely larger than Rhode Island, with a really low population, five small villages no larger than a 1000 people each. Add to that the Kargish hills with equally small roving bands of tribesmen (only two of which have enough permanent structures to be called 'towns'), and you've got yourself a really, really small campaign area. There were a few forays into the surrounding areas (I had to know enough of what they were to be able to ad-lib some quick trips in and out), but that was enough to run an eight year long campaign.

By the end of the campaign, we had fleshed that area out to extreme detail, criss-crossed back and forth so many times I've lost count, had twists and turns in the campaign that I never had expected, saved the whole region from the encroachment of Hell, and in the end, saved Hell itself.

Now the campaign is wrapping up, and the characters are saying their goodbyes. Harod and his new wife are going back to the Plains of Fire to see if they can find Sigaven, and then reunite him with his brother. Arom is returning to Zantia to run his new company. Jaran and Allis are staying in Tiatia, he to run the country and she to become a goddess. (Honestly, I don't know how that last part happened. How'd she come to believe she was a goddess? And the worst part, I'm not sure if I can stop her!) And Miranda is going to Nerevaln, to try to rally her people to rebel against the Raliskan, and finally free themselves of the shackles the great empires have always put upon her people.

Of all of those Epilogs, they are beyond the scope of the Tiatia campaign, and I don't intend to run them (well, I could probably run the Harod thing, but I don't know if I could make it exciting enough to play out)...

...except for that part about Miranda and the Liberation of Nerevaln. I think that might have some strong potential for a campaign, and I think I could run that. So we've decided to do that next, with Miranda as a leading PC (or NPC) to a new bunch of heroes. We might have to spend some time fleshing out Nerevaln more before we can run this, and I'm tempted to run a 'History of Nerevaln' campaign before tackling a 'Liberation of Nerevaln' campaign.

New areas will be developed, but with the benefit of all that come before. And if this new campaign requires more travel throughout the world (perhaps to find allies for Nerevaln), then my new players will learn that I've been doing this for 30 years now, and I have a veritable mountain of detailed areas that so dwarf Nerevaln/Tiatia, dating back to the early 80's. The campaign might... or might not, involve all those areas. It might stay entirely in Nerevaln, and maybe expand to new areas which we will develop as we go. One of my players has been developing much of Nerevaln for me, and has several years of work into it already, in preparation for this. That may be more than we'll ever need.


Though with my luck, I expect it all to end up in Joarmar, with an army of Warforged Concubine Ewoks. :smallsigh:

*~*~*~*

So in conclusion...

I don't know, I got lost in all this. But basically, yes, you can develop just a small area and then over time expand out and add to your campaign world. Years from now, you'll have a worldmap full of rich detail. And don't rush to fill in all the gaps. You'll have new inspirations 20 years from now, and you want blank areas still remaining on your map to accomodate the inspirations.

And one day, you'll have the perfect campaign world with dozens upon dozens of campaigns played and will have mountains of history built into every area of your gameworld and you'll die of extremely old age. Kinda sucks, but your great grandkids will have the perfect gameworld to use.

[Jarawara]

.... and of course as I took so long to write that, I should have expected to be Ninja'd. :smallcool:

[The Giant]

And I've detailed an entire city down to the personality and mannerisms of every NPC the characters would ever interact with and run a whole adventure simply within the walls of said city role playing every person they talked to consistently. It makes for an immersive experience. But outside that city didn't matter. The pressing problems of the adventure lay within it's confines.

Ah, see, I would make the argument that you DID create a detailed campaign setting, you just changed the definition of "setting," to mean "this city" instead of "this planet." But you still created a detailed immersive and pre-planned experience that allowed you to consistently portray situations. That's a setting, just as surely as Gotham City is the setting for Batman comics.

That's not what you were talking about in your first post, though. You were talking about drawing a map, slapping some names on it, and beginning to play. And THAT'S what I was responding to.


Now I never claimed that this was the only way to build a setting nor the best. It's merely what works for me, a DM and father who has only so much free time to prepare things but wants to cover the bases enough to give my players a fun session. If you have different circumstances then this might not be your thing. But it doesn't make this approach any less legitimate if it works for your gaming group. And it works for mine. YMMV.

Agreed. And I hope you didn't think I was telling you that you were Wrong. I just have a different viewpoint, and a new DM asked for different viewpoints. Personally, having a detailed setting usually saves me time because it allows me to show up to a session with nothing but my setting notebook and some pre-generated encounters that may or may not happen. For years, I used the same 3.0 world and wrote some adventure ideas on the subway ride over to the place we were playing. That worked for me then.


Oh please. :smalltongue: A massive dungeon, a staple setting of traditional D&D sometimes praised for its large degree of player freedom of choice, has only so many limited choices too, in the end. Characters can go on an adventure and explore the entire thing given complete freedom in how they want to accomplish their goals, what paths they choose, who they ally with and who they destroy, etc. But no matter how many rooms it's still a dungeon. And by your definition it's still a "railroad." Every module published has encounters or villains they expect the players to defeat to accomplish their goals. Railroad. The choice has been made for them.

Not true. As you said above, the most important choice is still available: the choice to not participate in that adventure. To not follow that hook, to not explore that particular dungeon. If there is literally nowhere else in the world but the one place you have detailed, then you've taken that choice away from them. If you and your players are OK with eliminating that freedom, then cool. But I can't, in good conscience, advise a new DM that it's a good idea.


My point is sooner or later there comes a point where enough choices are available to the group where it feels like a enough of a degree of freedom to no longer feel like they have NO choice. It's never total freedom. So the whole game of DnD is a railroad unless you, as a DM and as players are 100% winging every moment with no plan at all. A practice, from the sounds of what you said earlier, that you disparage.

Quite the contrary, I wing almost everything that happens to one degree or another. As in, I wing the events, not the places those events occur. Having the setting detailed in advance gives me the mental breathing room to come up with what happens next on-the-fly. It means when they walk through the gates of the new, there are already a few dozen facts about the place that I could grab onto and use as a hook, even if I have no idea exactly what that hook will be.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to offend you, just to point out that having five paths doesn't help you if the players take Option Six, or Seven, or Thirty-Nine. And in my experience, a well-fleshed-out setting will help in that situation. If only because you can stall the players with lush description of a dazzlingly unique locale while your brain frantically tries to come up with the next scene!

[Lord_Gareth]

Honestly, if you're gonna do minimalism, the other thing you'll need is a set of brass ones. I typically take a minimalist approach, but I've also developed my Winging It skills to the point where I float while I DM, so be prepared to do some fast thinking.

[random11]

Oh please. :smalltongue: A massive dungeon, a staple setting of traditional D&D sometimes praised for its large degree of player freedom of choice, has only so many limited choices too, in the end. Characters can go on an adventure and explore the entire thing given complete freedom in how they want to accomplish their goals, what paths they choose, who they ally with and who they destroy, etc. But no matter how many rooms it's still a dungeon. And by your definition it's still a "railroad." Every module published has encounters or villains they expect the players to defeat to accomplish their goals. Railroad. The choice has been made for them.

In a dungeon setting you're probably right, although even there players can think outside the box.
But this is less about specific dungeons and more about an entire world (or even worlds). The players might want to go somewhere unexpected to reach the same intended goal.

I'll give you an example:
I was playing as a character in a game. The adventure was a classic "collect 5 crystals before the other side can".
When we got one, I suggested splitting up, taking the crystal to the king, so we can prevent the obvious problem of an ambush by the other side and store the crystal in a maximum security area, far away from the enemy's reach.
I was railroaded away from the idea because the DM did not think of anything except the pre-made areas, dungeons and encounters on the railroad track. We had options to choose which crystal to go for next, but that was it.

[The Giant]

Yes, you can.

You simply tell the players "I don't have anything developed beyond areas A, B, & C, (and B and C are pretty sketchy, so beware), and if they are in any way a reasonable group of people, they simply choose not to go there.

OK, yes, of course you can do this. But that is, again, simply defining the campaign setting as being areas A, B, & C. That is not the same thing as having a map that has A through F on it, showing it to the players, and then getting upset that they choose to go to E. If they can only go to A, B, and C, then their map damn well better not have Q on it. It becomes railroading the moment you show them another path and then don't let them take it.

Trog was suggesting in his first post that he draws a map with names on it and then doesn't bother figuring out what's there beyond the vaguest definition, and that this was as good or better than deciding in advance what exists in each place. I'm saying if you're going to do that, don't draw a map. It's a recipe for conflict to hand players a list of places that they're not allowed to go.

And again, it's fine if that isn't a problem for you or him or your respective players, but it's still terrible general advice to give to new DMs.


In the Star Wars example, Luke starts on Tatooine, and learns he has to go save Alderaan. The DM really should have some details of Alderaan, even if he plans to blow it up, because the players might very well go there first. And also be prepared to have Alderaan survive, because while you *know* that the Death Star will blow it up, the players will find a way to find and stop it before it gets to Alderaan. Players do that sort of thing.

So Luke has already stolen a ship, learned of the Death Star early, learned that it's heading to Alderaan, and he thinks a moment, looks to the DM, and says: "I fly out to Joarmar, in the far reaches."

Wut? Joarmar?

Where the heck is Joarmar?

The player then digs out some obscure StarWars suppliment that you've never heard of, and points to some little dot on the far edge of the starmap, yep, it's labled 'Joarmar'. Player says: "I've always wondered what was out there. Now I have me a ship. I'm going to Joarmar!"

First, this is a problem with published settings, not with the concept of settings themselves. And second, if you drew that map and put Joarmar there, that's your fault if they want to go there.


I don't know, I got lost in all this. But basically, yes, you can develop just a small area and then over time expand out and add to your campaign world. Years from now, you'll have a worldmap full of rich detail. And don't rush to fill in all the gaps. You'll have new inspirations 20 years from now, and you want blank areas still remaining on your map to accomodate the inspirations.

And one day, you'll have the perfect campaign world with dozens upon dozens of campaigns played and will have mountains of history built into every area of your gameworld and you'll die of extremely old age. Kinda sucks, but your great grandkids will have the perfect gameworld to use.

If you acknowledge that a persistent detailed re-usable campaign world is, in fact, a desirable goal, then we're on the same side of the argument. We're just quibbling over how long it should take to make one.

[The Giant]

True story time:

I once played in a game where in the first adventure, the PCs were thrown together into a situation that they needed to solve (I don't even remember what it was). They asked around the village for information, and somehow, one of the villagers mentioned something about the town to the south. We decided we would go to that town and ask questions, because we were getting nowhere here.

The DM said, almost verbatim, "OK, so you travel two weeks to the south and you're in the other town." We asked him to describe the other town, and he said, "It's a town." We asked people about the problem, and they all said they hadn't heard anything. The players looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to the first town. As it turned out, the DM had no information about that town written down but its name. It had no connection to the plot. He just mentioned it because it seemed unrealistic for there to not be another town down the road.

So, what I am saying is that you have two choices as a DM. One, have a detailed setting ready, such that if the players go south to the second town, you know enough about it to change details of the plot so that they occur there instead. Or two, don't have one of your villagers mention that there's a second town! Yes, it's unrealistic to think that the town exists alone, but if you aren't willing to put in the work to achieve realism, then own your lack of realism and make the first village the center of the universe.

Drawing a world map without detailing the setting is like having a hundred "second towns" waiting to happen.

[random11]

So, what I am saying is that you have two choices as a DM. One, have a detailed setting ready, such that if the players go south to the second town, you know enough about it to change details of the plot so that they occur there instead. Or two, don't have one of your villagers mention that there's a second town! Yes, it's unrealistic to think that the town exists alone, but if you aren't willing to put in the work to achieve realism, then own your lack of realism and make the first village the center of the universe.

Drawing a world map without detailing the setting is like having a hundred "second towns" waiting to happen.

There is also a third option:
Prepare some backup mini quests, or even just a few complex not-so-random encounters, basically just to stall the players.
Between sessions, you'll have enough time to plan the intended destination.

Save this option as a last resort though, it's hard to keep the world consistent if you create one town at a time.

[The Giant]

There is also a third option:
Prepare some backup mini quests, or even just a few complex not-so-random encounters, basically just to stall the players.
Between sessions, you'll have enough time to plan the intended destination.

Save this option as a last resort though, it's hard to keep the world consistent if you create one town at a time.

Yeah, and you can pretend to faint and be rushed to the hospital, too. It doesn't really solve the underlying problem, though.

Stalling and wasting more than a few minutes of your players' valuable time is not something I see as a solution to anything. It gets you out of the jam, but at the cost of giving your players a crappy experience they don't deserve, since it's your fault they even knew that second town existed.

[Serpentine]

So, what I am saying is that you have two choices as a DM. One, have a detailed setting ready, such that if the players go south to the second town, you know enough about it to change details of the plot so that they occur there instead. Or two, don't have one of your villagers mention that there's a second town! Yes, it's unrealistic to think that the town exists alone, but if you aren't willing to put in the work to achieve realism, then own your lack of realism and make the first village the center of the universe.Option number... uh...
There is also a third option:4: Make it up when they get there. Maybe have a few stock details and/or NPCs lying around, and wing it.
...Probably also write down what you come up with, to keep everything consistent, which eventually also helps flesh out the world anyways.

I'd guess that's the middle-ground between these two systems - flesh out what you can, then fill in the rest as you go? I don't know that knowing every single detail of a world is terribly realistic for most DMs, but it's also a good idea to have the outline of your world, particularly the large-scale and general geographic stuff, worked out in advance.

[random11]

Yeah, and you can pretend to faint and be rushed to the hospital, too. It doesn't really solve the underlying problem, though.

Stalling and wasting more than a few minutes of your players' valuable time is not something I see as a solution to anything. It gets you out of the jam, but at the cost of giving your players a crappy experience they don't deserve, since it's your fault they even knew that second town existed.

Think of it this way: While the stalling tactic is like a filler is a series.
It is intended to give time to work on the main plot without delaying the program's schedule, and the watchers will know it's just a filler.

Sure, it will be my fault if I'm forced to use it, and like any TV series, too many fillers instead of a main plot will get the watchers bored.
But players will always manage to surprise you, and while I enjoy the world building process, I can never plan the details of every town, character and possible area in the world, nor can I predict every action and decision of the player.
So at the bottom line, in case of an emergency, I prefer to use a filler quest and give the players what they deserve on the main quest instead of improvising on the main plot and ruining the experience of a good consistent world.

[Mayhem]

If they can only go to A, B, and C, then their map damn well better not have Q on it.
I like this, I had to point it out.
By the way sorry to get off topic, but I'm eagerly awaiting a sequel to The New World article :smallwink:.

For the next game I plan to run, I'm splitting the areas up, of all things, by the superior goods each place produces. If players want the best swords, they'll go to kingdom B, and if they want want the best steeds they'll go to kingdom A. The areas are being further divided by character associated with that area, eg area A has berserkers and area B has knights, but they fill the same role. Mechanically, there won't be a huge difference but the players should hopefully gravitate to the areas they enjoy the flavor of most. That's an oversimplification of course.
They'll start in a neutral territory and as I drop hints about the world, their adventure will start to shape itself. That's the plan anyway. I'm making a good amount of locations, but until the players go there all I need to know about an area is what I just told the players. From that point I'll pick up a pre-made area and slap it down, if they didn't bother to look beyond the inn I can re-use it somewhere else.

Is this a decent plan for another amateur DM? Will the PCs continue to explore indiscriminately or will they start to dig in? I'd preferably like to know this before they discover how mundane the world is outside of adventure hooks, which could take a very long time.

I like to believe the players shouldn't think in terms of "would my character" but rather "why would my character." By making a world where players choose their own path, will I be caught in players thinking 'what' rather than 'why'? The world needs to be made with this in mind, I'm not writing a story I'm writing a game.

[The Giant]

Option number... uh...4: Make it up when they get there. Maybe have a few stock details and/or NPCs lying around, and wing it.

Sure, but then you run into the problems I mentioned in my first post on this thread: difficulty coming up with ideas on the fly, high likelihood of cliché, lack of connection to previous adventures, forgettability, etc. If none of those things matter, then go to town. They matter to me, though. I don't really see the point of playing D&D if you're not going to try your level best to make it memorable for everyone.


I'd guess that's the middle-ground between these two systems - flesh out what you can, then fill in the rest as you go? I don't know that knowing every single detail of a world is terribly realistic for most DMs, but it's also a good idea to have the outline of your world, particularly the large-scale and general geographic stuff, worked out in advance.

Again, I think you're attributing a position to me that I don't have. I'm already arguing for the middle ground in response to an OP that I took to mean, "Spending time figuring stuff out about a setting is a waste." Knowing every single detail about a world is both impossible and a waste of time. Knowing the important details is what's, well, important. Given an option between no setting information and way too much setting information, I'll take too much. But I'd prefer to only have some.

[Eldan]

I definitely appreciate that style, and I wish I could do it myself, but... I'm a completist. Creating worlds is what I do for fun, and I really have a blast tweaking tiny nuances. Why does race A have pointed ears? Why is race B only 3 feet tall, yet very intelligent? I need to have answers.. just in case.
For my last major game world I mapped out the entire planet, political boundaries, cultural histories for 10 of the races and then maps, histories and political intrigue and NPCs for 5 of the great cities (anything pop 25,000+).
For my current world everything is very primitive (bronze age for the major culture, stone age for the rest), so I don't have as much work on cities to do, but I do have a lot of work put in on the two intelligent races, their various cultures and... the planet's tectonic plates. It's kind of a problem for me. >__>

That. I love to do this stuff. Déformation professionelle plays a role here, but also my inborn nerdery. I love looking at a map and thinking "Why would there be a forest here? What are this planet's rainfall patterns? What natural resources could be found in a mountain range like that?"
And from there develops the ecology, from which develop the races.
From the races and the geography develops the history.

[Yora]

I like your assessment of worldbuilding, Trog. I'm working on one now, and am tending to build more scenery than I might need. I may need to reduce things a little, but I already feel like I'm leaving so much "blank". Of course, if I actually spend more time working on it, I might not feel that way. :smallredface:
After about 6 years of not getting anywhere with the geography of my campaign setting, I realized that the outside-in approach doesn't get me anywhere and I'm finally switching to an inside-out approach.
Pretty much what said here: Start small with what you really need and expand on it as you go.

[Jarawara]

Edit: I quoted The Giant, but then evolved the post to where I was talking to 101jir. I figured I should clarify that, as otherwise it makes it look like I was referring to The Giant as a 'new DM'. He clearly is not. :smallcool:

*~*


If you acknowledge that a persistent detailed re-usable campaign world is, in fact, a desirable goal, then we're on the same side of the argument. We're just quibbling over how long it should take to make one.


Yep, we are definately on the same page here. The goal it to have the entire world. Though in my view of campaign design, the world should be endless, with remaining undefined areas, to allow for new ideas to be added in. Therefore, you *could* design the majority of it up front, and have it available to play right away, but 30 years down the road there will still be gaps on the map to allow for expansion.

And the beginner DM could develop only the tiniest fraction of that oneday-huge map, and that could be enough to run a campaign. The beginner should avoid getting bogged down trying to fill in a spaces on a map, if they won't be necessary (and as you say, potentially distracting, as players would then want to visit these places).

Which brings up another point...


If they can only go to A, B, and C, then their map damn well better not have Q on it.

The key words here are "their map". It's ok to have area Q on your map, either because you one day intend to use it, or because you used it once long ago. But if it's outside of the current campaign area, then the players should not have it on *their* map.

The problem arises when the players want to go explore, not an location specified on a map, but simply go 'that-a-way'. This might occur simply because they see an edge to a map and want to know what lies beyond, or perhaps it occurs because there are implied areas as yet unlocated on a map.

A player wants a Ninja from the Far Orient. You relent, and allow him to have his oriental Ninja. (Not to be confused with *ornamental* Ninjas. Dyslexia can produce some interesting character sheets sometimes.) So clearly, there *is* an Orient somewhere on your world, but that doesn't mean you have to draw it out, stat it up, and prepare plotlines and sidequests for when they visit there. The Orient is outside of your campaign area, beyond the scope of your intended game, it is Area Q.

The players will clearly know it exists, but it does not have to be, nor should it be, anywhere on their map.

And in fact, it need not even be on *your* map. Don't waste precious time developing an area that need not be developed. Minimize the workload, develop only the areas you need to run your game.

And back to the first case, of players wanting to go 'that-a-way', this is where you tell the players up front where the campaign boundaries are, and that you're not ready to go beyond them. Surely there *is* something out there, that-a-way, but you haven't developed it and they don't need to go there yet.

10 years from now, you will find yourself with huge areas developed stretching out in all directions, might find yourself developing the Orient for inclusion to the playable areas, and yet you might *still* not have developed anything 'that-a-way'. That's ok too. Don't fill the map just because there's a gap on the page. Inspiration will someday hit you, and you'll find the perfect thing to include there.

[Jarawara]

Story-time, as an example of 'Develop-in-stages, Minimalism Worldbuilding'.

Four score and seven failed relationships ago, which equates to roughly thirty some years ago, I started my first campaign. I grabbed a hexsheet for use as a map. I put a city on the map, naming it Cilencia. I decided it was a port city, and had extensive overseas trade, with the merchant's guild having some influence on the local government... which I didn't bother to design, so I don't exactly know what or who they were influencing. I figured the streets were filled with the washed-out and the poor, perfect breeding grounds for would-be heroes trying to escape the life of poverty.

I drew a road out of the city. I put in a forest, the road went through the forest. I didn't really know how far the forest went, I only drew the forest that was directly viewable from the road. And somewhere in that dense forest, there was a hidden side-road that led to the ruined city of Andre-Jeval. I put most of my design work there, both in the ruined city and in the dungeon beneath it.

Party collects together in a bar. Broke as they were, how could they even afford a beer? I don't quibble about the small stuff like that. Mysterious stranger approaches them, offers to guide them to a hidden pathway only he knows about, that leads to the ruined city. He wants 10% of whatever they find.

Players consider the offer, look over the map, which is only a dot for a city, a two inch coastline, and a road that goes into an undefined forest, and they say...

"We go north along the coastline. I want to see what's up there."

"No, no, no... There is *nothing* up the coastline, not yet. Nor to the south, either."

They look back at the map, at the road. "Where does the road go? I mean, there's got to be a reason the road exists, right?"

I respond, designing fast: "Hmmm... Well, how about... there's another town. Called Micran. They is a valley there, breadbasket of the world, they grow the finest grains, the merchants of Cilencia sell these specialty grains throughout the world. It's the major export of Cilencia."

"Can we go to Micran?"

"Sure. If you want to talk to farmers about advanced farming techniques."

"Ahh... ok, subliminal message received. So let's all head to the Ruined City, and find ourselves a Dungeon!"

Very limited, railroady even. But what follows was 8 months of the best gaming we had ever played, to the point that we still fondly remember the grand battles in the city and the hidden mysteries of the deep places of the earth. And then we ran some other adventures in the region, exploring the countryside way beyond my original dot-and-line map of the world.

By the time we were done, Cilencia had three cities, Zendol had four more, the Orcs had evicted the Elves from their home in the south, the Druids had enlisted the aid of the party to find what was poisoning the rich cropfields of Micran, they had discovered the note of how Ralisk had brought his army through here years ago, destroying the temples of the Brotherhood of the Serpent, they had then followed details of the note to find the Goblin Caverns (who's name eludes me right now, but it's a Moria knockoff), and found that the Talachade Empire was smuggling troops through the tunnels to build an army this side of the mountains, coordinating with slaver ships that were increasing their raids from the south.

So much of that campaign was left unresolved, as we continued to develop in different directions, but the unresolved threads led to further design idea of the many campaigns that were to follow.

Fast forward to present. Or more correctly, to eight years ago, when the present campaign began.

I develop Tiatia, five small towns. The Kargish hills are to the south, wandering tribesmen of the Kargish Freezone. To the east, the ocean. To the north, across the bay is Zantia. To the northwest, Nerevaln and Ralisk. To the southwest, the Tal'khed Empire.

I explain to my new players that the campaign map does not extend beyond that. While there might be limited forays into Nerevaln or Tal'khed, and occasional trips to Zantia, the campaign is really all about Tiatia and the Kargish hills. Don't go south of there, there's nothing there.

I even had one of my earlier players, hearing the exploits of the game, comment on how he was amazed I had scrapped all of my earlier work to start totally anew...

...but did I? Talachade? Tal'khed? Different cultures know things by different names. And Ralisk? They never found where Ralisk was in the Cilencia campaign. Well, here it is, up in Nerevaln. Heck, they even have a Goblin (from the 'Goblin Caverns') in the party, and the people they know as the 'Druth Lords' are the same Druids of the Micran adventure plot. If the party really had reason to go south, they would have found it all - Zendol, Cilencia, the Tri-cities, Kalifmorn, everything built up of 20 years of previous gaming.

And they might find later they *do* have a reason to go south. My new players are getting a little concerned on how the Zantia merchant companies are dealing in the slave-trade. The same slave trade that plagued Cilencia 20 years ago, from the previously unplayed regions south of the Tri-cities. (Areas I know are controlled by Talachade/Tal'khed, but are otherwise as yet undefined. I have some evil ideas.)

Or perhaps my players want to concentrate on defeating Ralisk's hold on Nerevaln, and we will continue another 5 years without ever needing to re-add "areas A, B, and C" back onto the player's map. Instead, they will develop area E... which just happens to be the homeland of some of the characters from the original Cilencia campaign. At long last, I could go back to my first players and tell them they can finally go home and I'll actually have something to show them.

And lost in the middle of this is a tiny little undefined smudge, called 'Bordesko' (or 'Vordesko', there are some language translation issues here). As the last surviving member of the Brotherhood of the Serpent, perhaps one day they shall rise again to threaten the league of nations, reaching into the hearts and minds of the leaders of the free world. And if the party has successfully destroyed Ralisk by then, who will stand against a resurgent Brotherhood?

Or maybe it'll just remain an undefined smudge on my map. I need not ever fill it in till it's needed.

*~*~*

*That's* what I mean by develop-in-stages. Only develop what you need to run a campaign, and let the rest fill in over time. Don't even show the players what you previously designed, unless it's pertinent to the current campaign. Only use the minimum needed, keep the rest in reserve to deal with the unexpected. Any more will just be a distraction to the current game.

And don't ever feel compelled to 'fill in the gaps' on your map. Every gap you leave is a mystery to be discovered later, a space where you can put a previously unknown idea, or a space you can lend out to players who want to contribute to your world.

[Yora]

I may be in the minority here, but I actually dislike complete worlds. Somehow settings that have blank spaces at the edges of the map are much more appealing to me than those that provide a complete world map. Once a world has been completely mapped, it's mysteries are solved and it becomes merely a low tech world with magic to me.
But to me much if not most fascination for a world comes from not knowing everything about it. Same things with deities or ancient empires. They are fascinating because you don't know exactly what you are dealing with. But then the deities get stat blocks that reduce them to high CR outsiders and the entire history of and society of the old empires gets explained. And at that point, I usually lose interest in a setting.
It basically comes down to a setting being pre-enlightened or post-enlightened. The unknown is what makes things interesting in the long run. When you already know everything about an ancient civilization, what fun is left in exploring an ancient temple? The players know who build it, when it was build, why it was abandoned; the symbols on the walls tell everyone instantly what deity was worshiped here and what rites it had, and so on. It's certainly not the only way to play an RPG and design a world, but leaving lots of blank spaces is very important to me.

As a creator, you obviously have to put some thought in almost any aspects of the world to create consistency. But in many cases, I leave lots of things open as well. My setting consists only of half a continent and that already includes the far away places where merchants go to get their wondrous goods. The rest of the continent, and the other continents of the world, are left blank. No knowledge of these places exist in the locations that are part of the setting, and if the players and also the NPCs are not supposed to ever hear anything about it, why write it down in the first place? Also history goes back only 4000 years at the most. Some general facts about earlier times are known, much like we have evidence of prehistoric times today. But nobody knows who exactly build the old ruins for what purpose, and there's no knowledge of the names of the builders or what they called these places. And as another example, there are no stats for gods. People worship deities and priests can cast magic spells. It's assumed that deities exist, but what a deity exactly is, is not answered. Some people in the setting will have their own theory, but as a whole, the setting does not provide a definite answer.

Which is, I think, another kind of minimalism. Intentionally leaving things open for interpretation. I think a setting becomes so much richer if the people inhabiting it have different ideas about the nature of the world, but the players have no way to tell which of these ideas are true and which not. And yes, most setting books are meant for dms, but many players read them anyway, and lots of people are both dms and players at different time, so you end up with meta-knowledge anyway.

[Icedaemon]

And the beginner DM could develop only the tiniest fraction of that oneday-huge map, and that could be enough to run a campaign. The beginner should avoid getting bogged down trying to fill in a spaces on a map, if they won't be necessary (and as you say, potentially distracting, as players would then want to visit these places).

As a corollary, if there are undeveloped regions, on a map, make sure that getting there is by itself a great feat. For example, it's OK to have only vague notes regarding a nation behind a huge mountain range or stormy sea, since the players will probably spend a long time getting past the mountain range or said sea, unless sufficiently high-level teleportation is readily available.


Which brings up another point...

The key words here are "their map". It's ok to have area Q on your map, either because you one day intend to use it, or because you used it once long ago. But if it's outside of the current campaign area, then the players should not have it on *their* map.

The problem arises when the players want to go explore, not an location specified on a map, but simply go 'that-a-way'. This might occur simply because they see an edge to a map and want to know what lies beyond, or perhaps it occurs because there are implied areas as yet unlocated on a map.

A player wants a Ninja from the Far Orient. You relent, and allow him to have his oriental Ninja. (Not to be confused with *ornamental* Ninjas. Dyslexia can produce some interesting character sheets sometimes.) So clearly, there *is* an Orient somewhere on your world, but that doesn't mean you have to draw it out, stat it up, and prepare plotlines and sidequests for when they visit there. The Orient is outside of your campaign area, beyond the scope of your intended game, it is Area Q.

If you do let players play a filthy ninja, why make it a stereotypical faux-Japanease ninja? make a compromise, which leads to notes that imply that there is some form of bandit group in some region which, mechanically, is a bunch of ninjas, but has a different origin?


The players will clearly know it exists, but it does not have to be, nor should it be, anywhere on their map.

And in fact, it need not even be on *your* map. Don't waste precious time developing an area that need not be developed. Minimize the workload, develop only the areas you need to run your game.

And back to the first case, of players wanting to go 'that-a-way', this is where you tell the players up front where the campaign boundaries are, and that you're not ready to go beyond them. Surely there *is* something out there, that-a-way, but you haven't developed it and they don't need to go there yet.

Maybe this is just me, but stating 'I don't have anything there' utterly ruins immersion and makes the world look shoddy to me. For this reason, I rarely create settings larger than a big island or tiny continent, because there will not be many ways for the players to leave. Teleportation either does not exist or is not long-range enough to cross the sea and the vast majority of captains will not want to explore unknown seas, or even call sailing the oceans insane. There are plenty of high-ECL sea monsters in D&D, so if the players decide to purchase their own ship and try to sail to a land that you simply don't have any ideas for, place incredibly difficult no-treasure encounters on their path, perhaps even situations where escaping in a life raft can be counted as a partial success. Once the players are roaming the world, the borders of known regions should be difficult enough to cross that playing explorer would be at least as deadly and possibly less rewarding loot-wise than raiding some poor old king's mausoleum. High mountains where finding a pass safe to navigate without epic climbing skills requires many sessions of investigation among insular natives, vast deserts where finding any sustenance is next to impossible and other, more fantastic borders are fine too. If the players are given a map of the Known World then this probably implies that noone who has managed to cross beyond this territory has returned, or at least was not able to make even a rudimentary map.

Of course, if the known world is larger than the players' starting region... You will need enough notes on all surrounding regions to be able to have a consistent universe.


10 years from now, you will find yourself with huge areas developed stretching out in all directions, might find yourself developing the Orient for inclusion to the playable areas, and yet you might *still* not have developed anything 'that-a-way'. That's ok too. Don't fill the map just because there's a gap on the page. Inspiration will someday hit you, and you'll find the perfect thing to include there.


I may be in the minority here, but I actually dislike complete worlds. Somehow settings that have blank spaces at the edges of the map are much more appealing to me than those that provide a complete world map. Once a world has been completely mapped, it's mysteries are solved and it becomes merely a low tech world with magic to me.
But to me much if not most fascination for a world comes from not knowing everything about it. Same things with deities or ancient empires. They are fascinating because you don't know exactly what you are dealing with. But then the deities get stat blocks that reduce them to high CR outsiders and the entire history of and society of the old empires gets explained. And at that point, I usually lose interest in a setting.
It basically comes down to a setting being pre-enlightened or post-enlightened. The unknown is what makes things interesting in the long run. When you already know everything about an ancient civilization, what fun is left in exploring an ancient temple? The players know who build it, when it was build, why it was abandoned; the symbols on the walls tell everyone instantly what deity was worshiped here and what rites it had, and so on. It's certainly not the only way to play an RPG and design a world, but leaving lots of blank spaces is very important to me.

As a creator, you obviously have to put some thought in almost any aspects of the world to create consistency. But in many cases, I leave lots of things open as well. My setting consists only of half a continent and that already includes the far away places where merchants go to get their wondrous goods. The rest of the continent, and the other continents of the world, are left blank. No knowledge of these places exist in the locations that are part of the setting, and if the players and also the NPCs are not supposed to ever hear anything about it, why write it down in the first place? Also history goes back only 4000 years at the most. Some general facts about earlier times are known, much like we have evidence of prehistoric times today. But nobody knows who exactly build the old ruins for what purpose, and there's no knowledge of the names of the builders or what they called these places. And as another example, there are no stats for gods. People worship deities and priests can cast magic spells. It's assumed that deities exist, but what a deity exactly is, is not answered. Some people in the setting will have their own theory, but as a whole, the setting does not provide a definite answer.

Which is, I think, another kind of minimalism. Intentionally leaving things open for interpretation. I think a setting becomes so much richer if the people inhabiting it have different ideas about the nature of the world, but the players have no way to tell which of these ideas are true and which not. And yes, most setting books are meant for dms, but many players read them anyway, and lots of people are both dms and players at different time, so you end up with meta-knowledge anyway.

Obviously, the GM should not give out more information than questioning a local scholar about a subject would reveal to the players. For instance, when making Walufar, I made plenty of pages of GM notes that explain many details and hold references which in some cases are flat-out contradictory with information provided in the setting write-up, because the write-up itself is based on what sufficiently educated people in Lewarur might know, not certain fact.

[Yora]

I think it's one of the biggest faults of the published D&D settings, that all information is published in a single book. If the player want to learn more about the world, they have to use the same books that are meant to explain all the hidden secrets to dms.
The Player's Guides are some step in that direction, but get it all mixed up. The player guides are mostly crunch that is meant for PCs, but still leave all of the fluff of the settings out. Instead there should be basic setting books that include the publically known information that any character from those regions should have access to or that the PCs could gain by just asking some old folks at the local tavern. In addition there should be a GMs guide that includes the true secret motivations of the major NPCs, the actual power structures of secret organizations, and the answers what lies at the end of the famous dungeons. Some people might still want to read those even though they are only players, but I think for most players those basic informations would be enough and they don't actually want to know all the secrets their characters are supposed to discover.

Nobody knows that Kaius I is still alive and that the Blood of Vol is in fact an evil organization led by a half-dragon lich? Well, every player knows that and how are you supposed to introduce them and deal with them as if the PCs really have no idea what's going on?

[Jarawara]

If you do let players play a filthy ninja, why make it a stereotypical faux-Japanease ninja? make a compromise, which leads to notes that imply that there is some form of bandit group in some region which, mechanically, is a bunch of ninjas, but has a different origin?

Yes, yes you could do that. But the point of the Ninja example was that the player wanted to play a Ninja from the Orient. Not a Ninja from a local bandit group. And for the purposes of this example, it's presumed the DM accepted it, thus implying an area exists that he had not previously assumed existed.

And my point is further than you need not then rush off to develop it. Just because it exists in theory does not mean you have to put all your thoughts and ideas into making it living and believable, and most importantly playable, when with all probability they will never have reason to go there. And you can simply say 'no', don't go there. Or in your case, make an impassable ocean or other geographical feature that prevents them from going there. (The currents only go one way - so your PC might have come from there, but there's no way to get back at this time.)

Another example: DM makes a high range of mountains, a barrier to mark the 'edge' of the campaign world. He then details how Gnoll barbarians conduct raids from out of the hills, increasing in numbers and ferocity as the months go by. As the game progresses, the DM has to admit to himself that the Gnolls are coming from the other side of the hills, but at this point he still intends for the game to be on this side of the mountains, not over there.

Now a DM, realizing the campaign map just grew in size (there *is* something across those mountains after all), might feel compelled to design that area up as soon as possible. After all, the DM doesn't want his world looking shoddy, right? But I advise him to not, until he's sure what he wants there, and he forsees the players going there.

A friend of mine had this actual scenario, and once he realized there are Gnolls 'over there', put a bunch of time and effort into designing a whole 'Valley-of-the-Gnolls', including an extensive map, the culture, the religion, and interesting sights to see -- all of which went to waste because he also had a fricking mountain range that looked so treacherous that the party had no intention of trying to cross it. And the actual campaign area he was playing in suffered in detail, because he spent too much time designing the unused places of the Gnolls.

Later, when he finally did have a storyline clue for the party to follow, to reveal the secret pass through the mountains and provide safe passage to the other side... by that time he had come up with a new concept. The 'Valley of the Gnolls' did not exist, it was instead the 'Valley of the Giants'. The Gnolls had fled the area, which is why they had crossed the mountains in the first place, just looking for survival. It was a cool idea... but it meant that all that work he had put into the valley, all that work that had distracted him from the previous campaign, went to waste.

He should have just jotted down a few notes and waited for the time where inspiration and necessity converged, and then put his efforts into building the Valley of the Giants then.

*~*

Heh. "Filthy Ninja". My sentiments exactly!

[Trog]

Now that I am done being stuck at work and then cooking and shopping and attending a performance by my youngest at school this evening and have run to Coldstone for the traditional after performance diabetic coma-inducing snack I can finally respond to this like I've wanted to all day.


That's not what you were talking about in your first post, though. You were talking about drawing a map, slapping some names on it, and beginning to play. And THAT'S what I was responding to.

No the detailed city, indeed, wasn't what I was talking about in my first post but when a person reading this comes in the will likely already know of your credentials as a world-builder because your experience precedes you and for me, having a post that I made critiqued by someone regarded as among the most accomplished in the world at what we are discussing I feel the need to point out my own experience of varied levels of completeness for settings to ensure that I am not being pigeonholed in the role of "doesn't know what he's doing" by both you or anyone reading this. I just want to ensure I am representing myself properly is all. So please excuse that necessary aside. The maps thing is slightly off. I'll explain in a bit.


Agreed. And I hope you didn't think I was telling you that you were Wrong. I just have a different viewpoint, and a new DM asked for different viewpoints.
Nah, of course not. This is just a discussion of slightly differing opinions with both of us starting off on what appears at first glance to opposite sides but finding out that actually we might be quibbling over a finer point that it initially appeared.


Anyway, I wasn't trying to offend you
No offense taken whatsoever. If I appear defensive it's because 1. I'm a defensive guy sometimes. :smalltongue: 2. See above.

But aaahhhh I see the crux of our misunderstanding here.


Given an option between no setting information and way too much setting information, I'll take too much. But I'd prefer to only have some.

I may have mistakenly given the impression that I am advocating a 100% stripped down bare-bones campaign world a la "Orc & Pie," only with a world instead of an adventure. A world with, as you said, "no setting information." This is not the case. It's not what I do, nor what I advocate.

Though what I do back is that there are things in a campaign world that do not need detailing if you place them in the backdrop. I sort of see the argument here that by placing them in the backdrop they must be fully fleshed out or you, as a DM, aren't doing enough. To this point I disagree. And the following may help explain my position a bit better.

I'm going to start this with Disneyworld. Disneyworld is number one in the world at customer satisfaction and a good customer experience*. So much so that every other business, no matter who they are or what they do is compared to them in the minds of customers that have been there. What you are proposing is that everyone shoot for making their world and their game experience a Disneyworld in that it is a seamless and fully polished world in all its fine detail.

While this is admirable it also should be pointed out that to maintain that level of professionalism and customer satisfaction is difficult even for other professionals to adhere to. It's months and months of work even for a large team of individuals with tons of experience doing this sort of thing for a living.

Now each one of us as DMs at home in our living rooms and kitchens can take an element of adventure and polish that element until it's as shiny and as wonderful as something taken right from Disneyworld. But to create ALL of Disneyworld is something that simply is not often done. 99% of home-brew worlds will fall short of being a Disneyworld. Perhaps the DM doesn't have the skills to make maps or provide handout or conceive of a good history, geography, NPCs, etc. And perhaps there are aspects to world building that feel less like fun and more like a chore to do and so they are left unfinished. Perhaps, like me, there simply isn't the time in their lives to accomplish this feat.

And so these world are lesser theme parks but theme parks nonetheless. They did enough work to not just have the bare bones Orc and Pie carnival with the Tilt-A-Whirl and the smelly unshaven carnies, sure, but they stopped short at every last detail attended to like Disneyworld. They have a… oh… say a Six Flags experience instead - still a cool experience with a good overall feel… but you can still spot the guy dressed as porky pig in the closed off area behind one of the restaurants taking a smoke break when someone swings open the door back there and closes it quickly. Some of the people working are in a dour mood or seem flustered instead of being the "shiny happy people" of Disneyworld. But the people going to Six Flags still have a nice time even if now and then they can see through the veneer for a bit. They accept that they are still getting a good experience and they understand a bit of the enormous work it takes to pull off even as much as they do.

Anyhow you can see where I am going with this. Certain amounts of preparation and polish are enough. For a published world where any DM or player might pick up and run with something you need the level of detail you describe. For a home brew world tied to an adventure or campaign you often simply don't need that much detail and work to pull it off effectively.

Now, I think the area we are talking about here - the part that is in dispute, is what I term "the buffer zone." The area of the campaign slightly off the likely path of the adventure that is detailed to a lesser degree (but still has work put into it) in order to allow for PC straying. Beyond this is the no-man's land of "flavor country" where flavor background text and descriptions of the things in it exist but not much else. This zone sounds like one you advocate completely detailing. For me, this is the area of minimalism. And here's why.

Some areas the PCs simply will never go to unless the plot somehow dictates that they do. Example? The past. Past history can be broad brushed quite easily and no PC or player is often the wiser. The DM's ability to draw on some basic generalities when asked about it more often than not suffices. Thus a huge elaborate history of the world need not be detailed.

When I talked about making a map and slapping some PC races on it and names and such this is what I was talking about. I build my worlds by first drawing a basic continent(s) and making sure, before I do anything else, that I like the basic look of the world. In this way the peoples that come later adapt to the terrain, just like they do in real life. From here I put the peoples on it. By picking some basic elements like which race settled here first, and how they deal with newcomers that appear I am able to make a quick sketch of how the peoples of the world came to their current distribution. I can tack on a few names of old kingdoms to label some important phases and maybe include an important name or battle or two to draw on if pressed for a detail.

So again you have a basic background structure of your world from just a map and can develop it as you see fit. Hopefully this explains my original "draw a map and slap things on" statement a little more fully/accurately. It's an easy way to start to build your world if you are intimidated/lost at where to begin. And of course you develop details from there as your campaign dictates in both the main set pieces and in the "buffer zone."

Likewise you can have geographical locations that are beyond reach. Or at least off the edge of where you will be running the adventure. You advocate leaving those areas off entirely to avoid a pesky player asking to go there. Now it sounds like your players act differently than mine. Nothing wrong with this but it brings up an interesting difference.

In my group we all agree we are "going to Six Flags" because we talked about it and discussed outside the game over some beers, say. So when the adventure/campaign begins and the hook is there everyone knows to bite that first hook. No one decides to not go into the dungeon, in other words. Honestly, amongst close friends who share the game experience with you I consider this a common courtesy to the DM. A DM running things at a convention with a bunch of strangers might have to deal with all sorts of people who like being contrary and such but this basic starting point in my gaming group - whether I am a DM or a player - is not even a choice. And we're all fine with it. After the initial hook it's anything goes. But by starting down that path you save yourself as a DM a lot of extra stuff you need to make up just to cover the "what ifs."

And saying to your friends "I put a lot of work into his upcoming adventure that we discussed we wanted so I'd appreciate it, if you want to actually play anytime soon, if we can all bite the hook together at the very beginning and commit to solving the stated adventure problem in some way shape of form together. And if you don't like where the adventure is headed or want a different sort of experience let me know and we can discuss it outside of the game and see what we can do to make everyone here playing enjoy the experience." This sort of simple gentleman's agreement alone saves TONS of extra development time.

Anyhow, I hope you can sort of see what I meant in my original post. Never meant to mean "don't do the work" but more "recognize where broad-brushing can be good enough and minimize the work you need to do to build your setting accordingly."

*Someone out there no doubt has a story where Disneyworld actually fall short of this claim. Just run with this comparison for right now, it's for illustration purposes only. :smalltongue:

[Jarawara]

Basically it boils down to this: When that new DM is feeling overwhelmed at the workload, saying "I'm just not ready to run my game, there's still too much yet to prepare.", Trog and I are the guys saying "Nah, just run with what you've got. A town, an adventure, maybe a few details of the wilderness and a handful of NPC's to chat with, and you're good to go. The rest will come later."

*~*

Of course, I'm being hypocritical. I spent six years putting together detailed files for the Tiatia campaign before running it. But that's because I both had a clear idea of what I wanted to do with it, and I still had other campaigns to finish running in the meantime.

[Trog]

Basically it boils down to this: When that new DM is feeling overwhelmed at the workload, saying "I'm just not ready to run my game, there's still too much yet to prepare.", Trog and I are the guys saying "Nah, just run with what you've got. A town, an adventure, maybe a few details of the wilderness and a handful of NPC's to chat with, and you're good to go. The rest will come later."
Well kind of? But not really.

I mean to take the Giant's example of a town that wasn't developed here's how I solve for that.

I know that the town on the map is located in the east in a forest where the elves have settled when they arrived on the nearby shores. Prior to that it was under the dominion of men. Prior to that it was the cult of halflings ruled by dwarves that I had set up. So despite it being in a forest I know that there will be a lot of ancient dwarves stone work that was imported from the nearby mountains under the dwarves. There will have been some clear cutting resulting in a section of farmland surrounding it under the humans. The elves will have let a lot of the trees grow back. So I know I have a stone-walled city with a section of cleared farmland on one side and trees of a fairly young growth on another. Population 50% elves, 45%human, 4% halfling, 1% dwarf.

Now I look through my collection of fantasy maps I scavenged from all over online to find one that has both a town wall and a forested area. If I can't find one I modify one section of it with a marker to show the trees. On top of this I know that it is near a trade route meaning that the mercantile empire which is fairly distant will still have a showing here due to its location which is important to trade So there'll be a small outpost for them in town somewhere.

For more detail I'll go to my list of Inn names I keep on hand so I always have something as well as my list of NPC names in case they talk to someone. I see I have "The Flaming Whisker" as a name of an inn. Perfect. We'll say there was a huge stone head of a dwarf statue that tumbled long ago. Too big to move out of the town there was an inn built around it instead. The open mouth of the statue is now the fireplace in the common room.

Since I had 1. a bunch of maps to choose from to make it something visual for the characters and 2. a broad-brushed history to base it on and 3. an idea of how it fit into the current nations and 4. a few specific names to pick and choose from I can at least make sure that each town in each location is different. All this in the space of a short smoke break / time to get new snacks for the players.

[Yoritomo Himeko]

It was created from scratch using Photoshop.


Are you, by any chance, on Cartographer's Guild? It looks like the map style from there. Very nice map.

[Trog]

Are you, by any chance, on Cartographer's Guild? It looks like the map style from there. Very nice map.

:smallsmile: Well spotted. I am. Or was for a time, yes. Haven't been there in a long while now. I posted it there too I think when I was finished with it. I went off the tutorials on that site. A most excellent resource for all things mappy. :smallbiggrin:

[Lappy9000]

These seem like good guidelines for shorter campaigns; after all Star Wars probably didn't take more than 4-5 sessions to complete.

But what if you end up running your characters from level 1 to 20? (or 30 is 4e)? That one country you've fleshed out might do the trick with some finesse, but longer campaigns can turn into globe trotting affairs where the PC's see the entire world.

Of course, I'm jaded because I like designing overly-elaborate worlds. Even then, I don't hand out a 30-page pamphlet for my players. If they wish to learn more about the world to flesh out their characters, it's all there for them. If they just want to go around killing and looting, well that's fine too! Either way, they'll likely end up changing the very face of the world, and that's pretty much what PC's do, so mission accomplished!

Edit: Ah, seems like the Giant hit up on these issues already. However, I will say that I have indeed used this approach before for one-shot campaigns, and it does work quite well.

[Yora]

Of course, I'm jaded because I like designing overly-elaborate worlds. Even then, I don't hand out a 30-page pamphlet for my players.
I would, but it's futile since players never read anything you give them to read. :smallbiggrin:

[Trog]

These seem like good guidelines for shorter campaigns; after all Star Wars probably didn't take more than 4-5 sessions to complete.

But what if you end up running your characters from level 1 to 20? (or 30 is 4e)? That one country you've fleshed out might do the trick with some finesse, but longer campaigns can turn into globe trotting affairs where the PC's see the entire world.
Well you add on to the setting, of course. A neighboring country that was just mentioned in passing in part one might become the primary setting in part two. Essentially each section of the campaign becomes a part of the world and it all grows in the telling. Star Wars (Episode IV) took place in a few select settings. Empire took place in a few more. It's all the same universe (and therefore the same campaign setting) but your players discover it as you create reasons for them to want to go there in your campaign.

I for one am all for giving a basic overview of what's known (a full map of all regions planned for the upcoming campaign with few details) since the characters living in the world they're in would know at least that much (such-and-such nation lies to the north, this one to the east, sea is over there, etc.). Though Rich's idea of not including such things has merit as well if your group has a bad case of wanderlust and the like.

Then, after you build up a few sections it's nice to start to bring them all together and have players return to areas they were in earlier for other missions later in the campaign. Kind of like returning to Tattooine in Return of the Jedi. It allowed for further exploration/detailing of the world. They did this again in Episode one. Each new visit brought new details to life. Just as a DM might create more for the setting in between adventures in that region.

And of course after all of these areas have been detailed you can run a further campaign which builds upon all that you have already created, making for a world that can be jumped around in fairly easily since each nation or region or what have you has been detailed in-game and already known to your players.

This process makes for minimal up-front work for you as a DM. It spreads out the work over a period of time. Meaning you don't have to pop out a fully formed huge world from the get go. Which saves you a lot of prep time before the campaign, lets you get playing faster, and allows for the changing moods of your gaming group.

Say midway through the campaign some film comes out that has them all wishing they could adventure in a setting like in the movie: a vast city full of intrigue, a desert location with feuding tribes, the underdark, etc. With the build-as-you-go method you can add elements like that in on the fly (i.e. to the next big section of the world you are detailing) to keep your gaming group pleased, if you so choose and if it works in well with your ideas. It also allows you to do the same - build in time for you to geek out about some other aspect of world building and dive into that. :smallsmile:

[Lappy9000]

Snip'dI'd argue that's no longer minimalism, but hey, whatever works for ya.

It would just simply end up being harder for me to implement what with my convoluted DMing processes.

[Trog]

I'd argue that's no longer minimalism, but hey, whatever works for ya.

It would just simply end up being harder for me to implement what with my convoluted DMing processes.
In retrospect 'minimalism' might have been a poor choice of words, yes, as all world building is... well... building something. Not the first time I've chosen words poorly. Probably won't be the last. *shrug*

[Othniel Edden]

being minimalistic doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't be adaptive for a setting. If anything the ability to deal with things on the spot should be a larger asset. I'm sure even if you kept things to a lose outline, some creativity and your notes on the campaign you could do pretty well with worldbuilding as you need. Keep good notes and you should be able to avoid the redundancies Rich was talking about.

[Trog]

being minimalistic doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't be adaptive for a setting. If anything the ability to deal with things on the spot should be a larger asset. I'm sure even if you kept things to a lose outline, some creativity and your notes on the campaign you could do pretty well with worldbuilding as you need. Keep good notes and you should be able to avoid the redundancies Rich was talking about.
Adaptive is indeed a good trait for a DM to have. And the few basic types of structure/prepared details I keep on hand helps a lot with that I think, without making too much extra work for me as a DM.

You know, oddly, this whole conversation has made me stop and re-examine a setting I had created for a series of adventures. The setting had, in retrospect, those undefined cities like Rich was talking about. Cities that were little more than a name on a map and vague idea of the governing body and local commerce. There was no plot reason to go there, they were just included as adjuncts to existing cities. One was there on a trade route (and thus goods and services would pass to there instead of the vague destination of "East") and another was the ruins of a dwarven community that was included in the history of another city. Aside from that rather minor significance they could easily be cut as map locations altogether. And should have been.

The odd part about this is for all Rich's railing against setting minimalism... I would minimize my setting even more because of his advice. Remove those locations altogether and have an even sparser, leaner setting.

[Icedaemon]

One could state that one would assume 'minimalism' to refer to a world where only plot-significant things exist, but this sort of world could only exist if the GM makes the plot first and then thinks of the world, something not all that easy to do.

[Trog]

One could state that one would assume 'minimalism' to refer to a world where only plot-significant things exist, but this sort of world could only exist if the GM makes the plot first and then thinks of the world, something not all that easy to do.
Or develops them in tandem. That's how I've usually done it. I think of a plot I'd like and I develop the world around said plot. because, I've often found that the conditions I need to set up my plot are often not found in any spot that is in a pre-released world. I either have to bend the world to suit my plot setup or, as I used to do in the past, rely on getting the inspiration for my plots based off of the published world. Any of these methods can work it mainly about where you get your influence.

You can save yourself a ton of work by setting your adventures in an existing setting that is already made up for you but the payoff is that you are bound by what that setting dictates are the regional elements for you to pull that off. After having DMed in the Forgotten Realms for many years back in first and second edition I felt like I had tapped all that I could from the existing setting and so began the search for a new one. All sorts of things were tried. Greyhawk, Birthright, Dark Sun, Eberron, etc. Each time there have been new and interesting setting conditions which inspired me enough to create something in them (Trog's Tavern, for instance, found in the FFRP section here on the forums had it's look and feel (in my head, anyway, when I created it) in a predecessor located in Q'barra in Eberron for one adventure I had created for that setting). So there's stuff to be gleaned from existing settings. But sometimes that just falls way short.

Really what I wish WotC would do (while I'm on the subject here) since they have said that they weren't going to have a setting for 4e and then went and created the mini setting of the Nentir Vale anyway, creating all sorts of supplements for it essentially filling in the mini setting. 9_9

Anyway, what I really wish they would do was put out cities and ruins and whatnot that were purposefully separate and independent of ANY setting altogether. So any DM anywhere could pick it up and plop it right down in their world.

Give the basics for DMs to use as a rich setting but let it be modified in basic ways to change its location or inhabitants. I mean how many DMs out there have lifted something like Waterdeep and set it down somewhere else in their world and said that this city was really the city of such and such? Probably a hell of a lot of them.

They might as well go the final step and cut these sorts of products loose from a setting altogether to make them that much more adaptable to home brew worlds. Or hell if WotC didn't do it I'd hope some independent publisher out there would do the job. Like they once did back in First Edition, in fact.

Old school shout out to the City State of the Invincible Overlord!! (>.<) \m/

[Samurai Jill]

EDIT: As it appears I poison dialogue like arsenic, I suppose I'll just leave it at that then.

[Raunie]

I really liked this part:


I know that the town on the map is located in the east in a forest where the elves have settled when they arrived on the nearby shores. Prior to that it was under the dominion of men. Prior to that it was the cult of halflings ruled by dwarves that I had set up. So despite it being in a forest I know that there will be a lot of ancient dwarves stone work that was imported from the nearby mountains under the dwarves. There will have been some clear cutting resulting in a section of farmland surrounding it under the humans. The elves will have let a lot of the trees grow back. So I know I have a stone-walled city with a section of cleared farmland on one side and trees of a fairly young growth on another. Population 50% elves, 45%human, 4% halfling, 1% dwarf.

Now I look through my collection of fantasy maps I scavenged from all over online to find one that has both a town wall and a forested area. If I can't find one I modify one section of it with a marker to show the trees. On top of this I know that it is near a trade route meaning that the mercantile empire which is fairly distant will still have a showing here due to its location which is important to trade So there'll be a small outpost for them in town somewhere.

For more detail I'll go to my list of Inn names I keep on hand so I always have something as well as my list of NPC names in case they talk to someone. I see I have "The Flaming Whisker" as a name of an inn. Perfect. We'll say there was a huge stone head of a dwarf statue that tumbled long ago. Too big to move out of the town there was an inn built around it instead. The open mouth of the statue is now the fireplace in the common room.

I think that Giant's point is very valid (about the Town that existed for the sake of existing). It comes down to how DM actually responds on the fly. If You are truly able to improvise on pressure, then go for it. Or like Jarawara showed: He railroaded at that moment, but later on built upon the unknown, and was happy with the result looking back.

I don't know the ultimate answer to the question minimalist-completionist, so I steer away from that topic, to the example I quoted from Trog.

People think differently. You said "minimalist", but included lot of links in Your second post which rival the length of this thread. (Did not read those, only skimmed, sorry).

You said that You started up with map and then developed from there. But what's more, You also thought up some recent history and it seems that You thought up enough to make the world "click". In the paragraph where You explained, how You would come up with a forest town, the result was impressive: recent history of town, current populace, different races changing the landscape, how trade routes affect the town and finally the part about the statue-turned-to-fireplace. (Of course, only You know if You actually could pull this in a campaign.)

I wanted to make the point that different people think differently. I think the general rule is to have enough (proto-)setting ready that if needed, You can produce such background and setting on a moment's notice, that later You will be happy with what You created.

If that means create-to-finest-detail creation for one DM and create-only-what's-needed for other, and create-everything-on-the-fly-and-add-salt-and-pepper-if-needed for the third, then why not?

[Trog]

(Of course, only You know if You actually could pull this in a campaign.)
Well I pulled off that much in the course of writing the post. I was thinking of a city in a world I had developed but hadn't used ever in game. That's how I build settings anyway - draw map with landforms, determine vegetation, determine initial populace, stage simple migrations, build history based on the conflicts.


I think that Giant's point is very valid (about the Town that existed for the sake of existing). It comes down to how DM actually responds on the fly.
He's does have a very valid point, yes. The tricky bit with settings - especially big settings - is that there are bound to be cities here and there. As a DM I will include these towns on a map even if the adventure will not go there as an aid for the players to get a sense of the world. If I create a nation in, say, this desert over here I better have at least one town on the map so that if I need to refer to a location in said nation (a PC decides his character once had business with that nation or the PCs meet a traveller abroad who hails from that nation, say) I have something to fill in and it makes sense if it's on the map. If I give any details I make note of them so that those details get incorporated into a more broad picture of the location if I need to fill in the details later for some reason.

What I do to minimize this process is only create cities on maps in remote enough locations that they can develop from a unique combinations of things. I don't place two cities in the same general vicinity unless I have a story/plot reason to do so because it makes for two cookie-cutter cities. This spreading out process aids in making said city unique in the world at large (not to mention building on the whole "points of light" idea of a 4e setting, say). Plus I just don't like a world map with no cities on it. It feels incomplete. TOO minimal, if you will.

So I guess I try not to end up in the "extra town" dilemma that way and I can construct it on the fly if needed. With an extra night's consideration I could break down the power groups in my previous made-on-the-fly town example and decide some possible adventure opportunities I suppose if my group really feels like wandering away from stuff that has that more "plot point" feel to it.

I probably never should have used the word "minimalism" in this thread as I can see now that it gives an impression that wasn't the one I wanted. I think of worlds more as one would the scenery and stage dressing of a play. The players are the audience. They never need to walk behind the backdrop (or the screens) to look at my notes - all that matters to them is the picture of the place I paint in their heads. If all I need is the front of the building they will never have a need to walk into there's no reason to make the back or the insides of it. In that sense it's minimal. It's all surface, mainly, with a skeletal structure behind it which is based off some simple principals (environment, population, history).

I mean think about your own life in the real world - there's all SORTS of places that you pass by everyday that you have never been in and have no need to. For your typical adventurer you may need the following:

-List of taverns, stores, inns, and NPCs.
-A basic list of the key power groups in the area and their general agenda (usually a sentence at most will do if pressed).
-Perhaps a map for help PCs visualize their surroundings
-a few rumors and leads related to the main plot line and a few minor adventure leads and rumors which lead to dead-ends, plot-wise (kill the monster destroying the flock, get reward, end of line, say).

Once you have this you have 95% of what adventurers would have interacted with in a tiny out of the way city in the first place. Side plots are easy to do off the top of your head and rarely need to be unique or in depth. To a certain extent it helps you as a DM if they aren't interesting. Helps lead the PCs back to the more interesting bits which are part of the central plot line.

If you really wanted to give PCs some freedom you could develop a side plot line which involved killing creatures and NPCs in order to lead to something worthwhile later (I'm thinking along the lines of the trading sequences in the Legend of Zelda video games for some reason though they certainly can be more varied and cerebral that just that). As a DM you can seed these amongst the side plots to make it seem like they can get somewhere by straying off the path now and then but it makes you the DM look like you are on the ball if the second bit of the 7 shards of of the Celestial Sword just s happens to be lodged in the mouth of the young dragon as a makeshift spare tooth when they kill the beast slaying the livestock. That sort of thing.

All of this makes the game fun for the players, makes the DM look prepared without having to come up with every blade of grass in the land sort of thing. That's how I do it and how I think it works best, at least for my group. Then again I've been DMing for the same set of players for 25 years so I might be a bit of a Galapagos Island DM - developing differently than others due to my isolation but fitting perfectly in with my little environment. I am the Blue-Footed Booby DM. :3


If that means create-to-finest-detail creation for one DM and create-only-what's-needed for other, and create-everything-on-the-fly-and-add-salt-and-pepper-if-needed for the third, then why not?
Well said. To each their own. In the event that someone is looking to DM and doesn't have the time to create everything in detail I offer my viewpoint. Take it or leave it as it suits you.

[Tzi]

In theory I'd say Minimalism is the absolute best, but in actual practice it can be a problem.

The players may not want to follow your exact charted course. They may go off the tracks and want to go somewhere else. They may want to do any number of things that generally you can not predict. There are tricks to keeping players within a general area but in the end I'd be to afraid to use a minimalistic approach for fear of just railroading the characters into one thing after another.

Now, I may want my players to head east into the great savannah because I have so much lore and quests, but on the other hand they may want to go south to the jungle. I best have something for them to do down there or I am going to be scrambling pretty fast.

[Trog]

In theory I'd say Minimalism is the absolute best, but in actual practice it can be a problem.

The players may not want to follow your exact charted course. They may go off the tracks and want to go somewhere else. They may want to do any number of things that generally you can not predict. There are tricks to keeping players within a general area but in the end I'd be to afraid to use a minimalistic approach for fear of just railroading the characters into one thing after another.

Now, I may want my players to head east into the great savannah because I have so much lore and quests, but on the other hand they may want to go south to the jungle. I best have something for them to do down there or I am going to be scrambling pretty fast.
See, this is the bit that I don't get. :smallconfused: And I think it may have to do with the overall nature of the adventures I run which are anything but lacking in PC and player buy-in, usually. If the BBEG is over in the desert what kind of PC would ignore the obvious evil threat that perhaps only they can stop and head off instead into the opposite direction? :smallconfused:

I just completely disagree with the idea that a good objective for the PCs which is established early and has the buy-in of the group and whose path has many different options to choose from in its pursuit would lead to a player at the table knowing this to say:

"I know I have The One Ring and that I need to get it to the Fires of Mt. Doom but gosh darn it I really think my character should trek up to the Ice Bay of Forochel instead because I want to get some mukluks and let the world of men fall instead."

Are there lots of players like this out there? :smallconfused: If there are I'll go to bed at night thanking my lucky stars I never got saddled with any of them in my DMing career save early on when I didn't know enough to have compelling hooks for an adventure and people just meandered about looking for some non-existant goal to pursue.

[Icedaemon]

I believe there are plenty of players who would rather look into methods of taking control of the One Ring, which might range from heading far away from Mordor to buy time to learn how to safely use the ring, allying with Saruman, taking the ring to Gondor and hoping for the best and so on.

[Trog]

I believe there are plenty of players who would rather look into methods of taking control of the One Ring, which might range from heading far away from Mordor to buy time to learn how to safely use the ring, allying with Saruman, taking the ring to Gondor and hoping for the best and so on.

Ah see but that falls under the idea of what the adventure will be about, to me. Having a discussion around the game table and saying "let's adventure in middle earth as the fellowship - what sort of things shall we do?" If the discussion leaned towards having a campaign of conquest using the ring then that would change how I as a DM would prepare the whole thing.