What's a good way to plan out a world?

[Gwazi Magnum]

This is half a project in hopes of DM'ing a campaign at some point, and half just for fun.

In my past DM experiences, I have had three main issues...

1. I cannot think of my feet quickly enough all the time to react to what players might do.

2. I am not the best at imitating/impersonating NPCs.

3. I try making open worlds to explore but I end up in a... mappers block? And it ends up looking very linear to the player.

This mostly focused on #3, but advice on the first two listed would be nice too.

Now, my main issue map wise though is I'm not exactly sure of the right process. How do I go about making it engaging? Are there any main things or a check list I should keep track of when making a world so I can have necessities covered?

Like should I focus more on the terrain of the land, the major cities, the history? At what point should I say the map is good enough and move on to other things like campaign general theme?

I'm putting the map first since I know how easily players can de-rail a story, but you can't exactly derail a world that easily.

I'm not sure if it helps at all, but the kind of world I'm looking for with this map will taking advantage of this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=286986) class I'm working on.

[Blightedmarsh]

Have you looked up the giants articles on world building? They are really rather good.

[Gwazi Magnum]

No, I haven't seen the article. I wasn't even aware they had one for this :/

All I can find is their sticky page telling people what to post and not post in here.

[Grinner]

Gaming articles. (http://www.giantitp.com/Gaming.html)

[Gwazi Magnum]

Gaming articles. (http://www.giantitp.com/Gaming.html)

Thanks, I'll go look at it now. :)

[Razanir]

1. I cannot think of my feet quickly enough all the time to react to what players might do.

2. I am not the best at imitating/impersonating NPCs.

3. I try making open worlds to explore but I end up in a... mappers block? And it ends up looking very linear to the player.

Try building a Metroidvania. Make an extensive dungeon that the players have free-reign over, but surround it with insurmountable waist-high fences. They're happy because it's a pseudo-open world, and you're happy because they can't spontaneously decide to ignore all plot hooks and travel halfway across the continent.

[Gwazi Magnum]

Try building a Metroidvania. Make an extensive dungeon that the players have free-reign over, but surround it with insurmountable waist-high fences. They're happy because it's a pseudo-open world, and you're happy because they can't spontaneously decide to ignore all plot hooks and travel halfway across the continent.

I don't have an issue with them wandering around the continent and exploring.
I find that to be a good thing, my issue is largely making the world to explore and having things for them to do when they show up to said place.

Plus, you lost me with the Metroidvania term...
I tried googling it but all I can tell is you're making a reference to an old metroid game, and I've never played metroid.

[Razanir]

I don't have an issue with them wandering around the continent and exploring.
I find that to be a good thing, my issue is largely making the world to explore and having things for them to do when they show up to said place.

Plus, you lost me with the Metroidvania term...
I tried googling it but all I can tell is you're making a reference to an old metroid game, and I've never played metroid.

Metroidvania (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metroidvania). Careful, though. TV Tropes will ruin your life.

And I agree with you that wandering and exploring should be a good thing. It's just my players typically like to wander aimlessly, whereas I want to have some semblance of a plot. And I'm bad at improv. So I've decided to cut a deal in the future and give them free reign over a smaller area.

(It's important to me, because my inability to improvise is what normally kills campaigns)

[Gwazi Magnum]

Metroidvania (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metroidvania). Careful, though. TV Tropes will ruin your life.

And I agree with you that wandering and exploring should be a good thing. It's just my players typically like to wander aimlessly, whereas I want to have some semblance of a plot. And I'm bad at improv. So I've decided to cut a deal in the future and give them free reign over a smaller area.

(It's important to me, because my inability to improvise is what normally kills campaigns)

Improvising is one of the issues I got too atm.

Something I'm trying to work on.
But I feel like I'm better at that atm than I am at world building so I'm tackling world building first.

[Mutazoia]

Honestly the easiest thing to do when desiging a setting is to start small. Get a general idea of where you want your campaign to end, such as foiling the resurrection of an ancient, evil God and saving the world and then flesh out your starting point. Just design the area where your players are starting out and where you intend to send them on their first adventure. That's really the only detail your going to need. For example, you could design a small village where your PC's are all childhood friends just itching to become adventurers, and the surrounding countryside. Next throw in an Orc raid that the PC's have to fight off...let them capture and interrogate a surviving Orc that leads them to investigate the next area, and so on.

You can do rough sketch outlines for other areas and flesh them out as needed as you steer your players toward new horizions, but trying to detail out your entire setting before hand is going to take way too much work and probably kill your entheusiasm long before you get to actually play your setting. Do a rough sketch map of the setting area if you like, to help you plot future adventures and, again, do rough sketch outlines of basic details for locations you may want your PC's to visit. For example:

Bumhaven:
Moderate sized city state
population: 40,000
located on the coast where Whet river flows into Suhmsutch sea
Hereditary rule by Prince Hoozits and family
Thieve's guild
Mage's guild
Chief export: dung
Chief import: soap

Don't worry about too much else unless you send the PC's there or they decide to head in that direction if your giving them free will to roam at random. You can always throw in some random encounters to delay their arrival until you can flesh out the area before they get there. Worse case scenerio you simply tell the players that you weren't expecting them to head that way and you need to pause to flesh out that area before the next session.

[themourningstar]

Have you looked up the giants articles on world building? They are really rather good.

I went and read those articles after I saw this post- are they unfinished, or did the writer quit working on them? Have to say, I enjoyed following the creative process.

[Blightedmarsh]

I think he is to busy these days.

[Weltall_BR]

In what regards improvising and creating stuff on the spot I think it helps if you have a general idea of where you want to go - not physically, but "<i>storywise</i>". For example, is this a horror-themed campaign or an epic fantasy campaign?

If the PCs kill a relative of someone in a horror campaign, this person may hold the corpse in her arms, cry, get blood on her clothes, yell "you killed my brother" at the PCs and finally swear revenge on them with a grim smile and a weak but stern voice. In the future he may raise his relative from the dead to take vengeance on the PCs, for example.

But if they kill the relative of someone in an epic fantasy campaign, the relative of the deceased could, for example, fall on his knees on the side of the corpse, shed a couple of tears while looking at it fondly and repeating a couple of times "my brother...", only to rise, sword in hand, and tell the PCs in a resolute voice to get ready, because his family or country will avenge the loss of their son gravely. This might lead to a family feud or even a war.

It also helps having a general idea of the wheels turning around the PCs. You may know that the King John just married his daughter Mary with Prince Ewain, from the neighboring kingdom, in hope of settling an old feud between them. Or you may know that crops are really bad this year because it rained too much in spring. When PCs arrive to a town you haven’t thoroughly planned, it may be a place by which Prince Ewain’s caravan passed by recently, distributing gifts to show his generosity; or it may be a place where people are starving. This may be a starting point to decide more about the place.

[Tragak]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227507) thread (or rather archive that people talked about) is my personal favorite.

Ultimately, I don't think it matters what order you come up with anything in. Sometimes you get a cool idea for a continent, sometimes a country, sometimes a city, sometimes a cult, sometimes a person; sometimes before anybody sits down, sometimes in the middle of a session, sometimes between sessions. Players are also better at coming up with cool scenery than a lot of Railroad-DMs give them credit for. (http://tpkblog.com/home/yes-and/).

As long as it ultimately has some semblance of rhyme or reason, any "anomalies" would be more likely to be viewed as good "how did that happen?" unusual rather than bad "that wouldn't happen" unusual.