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Jay R
2013-07-18, 12:18 PM
When you are about to create a setting for a new game, how do you start? What's the basis of all the decisions?

I always have a specific idea in mind. It often becomes a very tiny piece of the entire structure, but there's always a starting point.

Once I began with The Prophecy. For a week, every method of seeing the future gave the same answer - even the ones that usually don't work at all. "There shall come a slave across the great desert, and be met by a patron, who will help him to recover. As the ex-slave grows in power and strength, the patron will grow even more, until the patron outshines the sun in power and majesty." Then each PC started as a slave who escaped his master by fleeing across the desert. This gave a motivated patron to every PC.

I started a Champions game (comic-book superheroes) set in the early Silver Age era (very early 1960s). The PCsa heard about a rocket landing and aliens getting out, which led to them blundering into the origin of the Fantastic Four. I told then that they could assume the existence of any Golden Age hero "Except the most powerful - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, etc." The purpose was that the big villain group would be the Crime Syndicate - the evil counterparts of the five heroes mentioned above.

I started one original D&D world with the intent to make the fact that physics didn't work there like it does in our world so obvious that they could not miss it. The first major quest involved artifacts with powers of the seven plants - the moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Yes, the sun and moon are planets, and earth is not.

I ran a Flashing Blades campaign set in the Caribbean. The set-up was the 1620s, when the French settlers on the back of Cuba were being forced to steal to live, and were about to take their first ship and become the original buccaneers.

The next D&D or Fantasy Hero world I build will start in a ramshackle village on a lonely road in the middle of a dark forest. The PCs grew up there, and have only met a few non-villagers - travelers passing through. The old people talk about how much better everything was when there was a king. They will have to make their way through a goblin-infested forest to get to any other settlement, and it should take the awhile to learn the point - it is fifty years after the fall of Camelot, with England falling into barbarism and decay.

So what is the first step for your worlds? I'm looking for examples more than general principles.

Tridax
2013-07-18, 05:00 PM
Well I just took a standard fantasy setting. I thought: 'It should totally be grittier and there should be lesser magic. I also want the PCs enter a war. So I need maximum conflict.'

From there, I've made up the overall atmosphere: bloody, dark and harsh era where murder, rape and torture are more common than in a usual fantasy world. Then, I made up two kingdoms to fight each other. Then it all went easier: mapping the continent, making up history, races (those damn satyrs!), conflicts in the world... It came out even messier than I thought. Starting with an assassination of a king everything for the players went downfall. And they liked it, since we all love gritty drama. Though in such cases DMs should still be careful not to overestimate their powers of describing the cruel realm.

Now I somehow thought up the cosmology, the timeline, the consequences after so many wars etc. It all came up to me with time, drawing, listening to music and walking down the street. I usually write down every idea, even the most miserable. Something should eventually come up from it.

Crazyfailure13
2013-07-18, 08:59 PM
Whenever I start to make a world I already have a concept that sparked the idea and try to expand on it from there:

One world I made was split in two by a cataclysmic event, the two continents where separated by a large span of ocean that had almost constant hurricanes, one continent had no way to heat itself because the sun had gone out and was a frozen wasteland haunted by dark creatures rising from beneath them, the other continent had volcanic activity around the clock, the only livable area was protected by a druidic force field, keeping at bay the dangerous aspects of the volcanoes and letting in the heat and light.

My first step is always pretty simple, I wanted a split between fire and ice and that concept ended up pretty interesting.

Ozfer
2013-07-18, 09:52 PM
Ok, take a good look at your post, then shift your vision approximately 3 inches to the left. Click the link labeled, "Gaming" :smallsmile:.

DefKab
2013-07-18, 10:51 PM
Well, for my campaign world, I took a key piece of material from a popular story, namely, the Halo, from Halo...
Except I fashioned it into a fantasy world. 'What' I wondered, 'would a world with a ring that rotates around it be like?'
I developed my who campaign saga off of it, a game world consisting of several game types, able to be ran by multiple systems, off of a simple stolen idea...

Kol Korran
2013-07-19, 10:27 AM
Well, I haven't DMed many campaigns, and they sort of had a different approach. Here's a (hopefully) short sum up:
1) Many Facets of Darkness:First Campaign, was an Eberron high fantasy campaign. The idea was fairly simplistic- a sort of a race where the good guys try to discover and then stop the bad guys plans. I wanted to experience lots of different places, so this was a "travel by the red line" kind of campaign where they pretty much hopped from one exotic local to another, each with it's own situation to solve, and own complications. The party had lots of freedom in the locals, and deciding which local to go to.

The linking thread were a continuous battle against "The Dark Six" (a group of villains that took the name of the ancient gods to inspire terror). The Dark Six were supposed to return as repeating villains, and the group was to uncover their pasts to use against them.

Unfortunately the PCs kind of butchered the first 3 (Lousy villain planning) which caused the entire campaign to shift gear. Still, we had a blast. There's a campaign log (DM POV) in my link.

2) The witchling isles campaign: We wanted to try a pirating campaign, but I also wanted to make this game about a clash between cultures. The two main cultures were the Islanders (From which the PCs hailed)- who were a ragged mix of numerous races, who didn't get along very well, and had a connection to devilish heritage, and voodoo like magic. Their power was their versatility. Their handicap was not being able to work together.

The other major culture were the humans- The Empire (TM) who were a far more unified foreign force who had their own sets of beliefs, values, technology and more, usually far surpassing the islanders. The two cultures clashed fiercely, and the Emprie conquered most of the isles.

There were two more new cultures to the setting, coming from far across the ocean- The cat like people Sebbicai, and the highly creative construct like Vizikian.

The main thing was that the cultures were very different, including in how some mechanics worked for them- they had different classes available (some specifically altered), different races of course, some nuances on how magic worked for each culture, what equipment was available and so on.

It worked SPLEDIDLY! It really gave the feeling of "different than us", rather than just "their bonuses are different, but still humanoids".

An idea in the works:
3) Nature of the beast: A spy games, frontier region, lycanthrope hunt game in Eberron: The idea is to have a semi sandbox- Their is a definite mission, and you're limited to a certain area, and the plots of various entities in the field are progressing all the time, but other than that you can go free.

The concept is that before the lycanthrope purge (a specific crusade like period in Eberron), some people were sent to explore these rumors of lycanthropes. The PCs are a team of elite spies of The Silver Flame (A religion a bit similar to Christianity in a way) sent to a remote frontier region, to find the truth about lycanthropes in the region, between the frontier people, the gnolls, centaurs, and the ogre lords, slavers of the orc population in the region. Oh, and cows can't subsist on these lands. This is pig country- lots of pigs, of all types and sizes. (The main power houses call themselves "The pig barons", and one especially takes pride in the title of "Kingpig!")

My idea changes the nature of lycanthropy quite a bit, turning it into a more philosophical point other than "if I get bit", and part of the campaign deals with understanding it. But the party deals with lots of issues here, most of them delving on the subject of "civilization vs. savagery" of a sort.

I'm not sure If i'll run it in D&D, or now that I've come to explore it- FATE core.

I hope this helps? :smallwink:

Joe the Rat
2013-07-19, 11:19 AM
If I've got a whole world or region to play with, I like to start with a story or setting concept. An outcast god wanting to return to power. What happens if we take humans out of the equation - what do the other races actually do if there aren't humans running around making friends and conquering the spaces in between? Making a bog-standard fantasy game with a more Classical approach? Who built all these ridiculously elaborate dungeons and ruins, and why aren't the elder elves talking about it?

But I rarely got the chance to bring a whole world into play. Mostly what I did was put the pieces of player backstory into a coherent block while they sandbox around for a few levels.

TheEmerged
2013-07-19, 12:41 PM
A few specific questions for a superheroic campaign.

1> Hound Power(s). How easy is it to determine whether or not someone has super powers? Do they all have a seperate node in their brains that can be detected with an X-Ray scan? Is this a powerset some superpowered people have (called, say, the Hound Power)?

2> How long have superpowers been around \ known? This will determine how prepared people are for the notion. Is a beat-cop going to look at a closed room mystery and shake his head, or is he going to start looking for evidence of teleportation, shrinkers, telekinesis, and so on?

3> Tights. Is there a reason people do this? Is it a good one? Or do people avoid it?

4> Super Employability. Give this more than just a passing chance. Let's say you just gained the power to create portals that allow instant travel up to 200 miles away. Why are you risking prison by robbing banks instead of dealing with freelance package delivery?

5> Mystery. There are a lot of superpowers with the potential to ruin a mystery - X-Ray vision, telepathy, remote viewing, and retrocognition being just a few. How are you dealing with them?

Jay R
2013-07-19, 03:53 PM
A few specific questions for a superheroic campaign.

Here are the answers from my most recent super-hero game, mostly from the introduction given to the players.


A few specific questions for a superheroic campaign.

1> Hound Power(s). How easy is it to determine whether or not someone has super powers? Do they all have a seperate node in their brains that can be detected with an X-Ray scan? Is this a powerset some superpowered people have (called, say, the Hound Power)?

"Most of the mystery men are not known to have any actual powers. In fact, most of them don’t have any powers, but it is also true that they are not really public figures. They’ve learned that it’s important that the crooks not know too much about them. Many simple people in masks are assumed to have powers even if they don’t. When designing your characters, remember that a power describes an effect, not a cause. A skills-based stealth hero could have Invisibility (only can be turned on when nobody’s watching). That doesn’t mean he has super-powers, but that his stealth and movement are so good that it’s easier to simulate that way. Similarly, heroes might be believed to have powers that they don’t really have. There are rumors of a half-man, half-flying-predator creature seen flying around the streets of Gotham at night. Don’t assume that that means the creature can fly, or even that it really exists."


2> How long have superpowers been around \ known? This will determine how prepared people are for the notion. Is a beat-cop going to look at a closed room mystery and shake his head, or is he going to start looking for evidence of teleportation, shrinkers, telekinesis, and so on?

"The world has always had heroes. Gilgamesh, Achilles, Robin Hood, Scaramouche, Zorro, Phantom Eagle, Tomahawk, the Blackhawks, the Lone Ranger, the Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid, Cheyenne Bodie and Kwai-Chang Caine are all historical figures, well-documented in any history book. The super-powerful ones don’t exist (yet). You may assume the existence of any well-known Golden Age comic hero (except the ultra-powerful -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Captain Marvel, Spectre, etc.) if you have a specific need for him or her. (Your character was saved as a child by the Red Bee, which is why he wants to be a hero, for instance.)

1938-1950 is called the “Golden Age of Heroes”. It seems like every city had a masked protector, and some had several. It was a grand and glorious time, in which many gangs, mobs, spy rings and crime bosses were put out in jail. Unsurprisingly, business got much better, and the United States has pulled far ahead of other countries in wealth and prestige. By the late 1940s, crime was at an all-time low, and the mystery men slowly slipped into obscurity and retirement. No point patrolling all night if you can’t find any crimes. For the last ten years, there have been very few heroes, and very little need. But there’s a new breed of young adult with less respect for the establishment, older criminals are slowly getting out of jail, and the super-deterrent is no longer there. The crime rate is slowly creeping back up, and rumors of Communist spy rings are flourishing."


3> Tights. Is there a reason people do this? Is it a good one? Or do people avoid it?

I didn't deal with it. The real reason is that it's easier to draw. I let my players design their own outfits, but since it was set in the Silver Age, and I was using NPCs from the comics, tights were common.


4> Super Employability. Give this more than just a passing chance. Let's say you just gained the power to create portals that allow instant travel up to 200 miles away. Why are you risking prison by robbing banks instead of dealing with freelance package delivery?

Even as a kid, I wondered why Lex Luthor used massive robots to rob banks, rather than to build buildings or cars. Ignore it, or the game goes away.


5> Mystery. There are a lot of superpowers with the potential to ruin a mystery - X-Ray vision, telepathy, remote viewing, and retrocognition being just a few. How are you dealing with them?

I had a long set of specific rules. Each player could break exactly one of them. Also, no two players could break the same one. So there could be only one alien, only one magic-based hero, etc. A few of the rules nobody could break. Here's one of them:

"10 I reserve the right to put limitations on the following powers, to prevent game-warping effects: N-Ray Vision, Clairsentience, Desolidification, Extra-Dimensional Movement, Faster than Light Travel. (No exceptions to this rule.)"

Nobody used them. I would have limited when or under what conditions they could be used, and they would conveniently fail when needed to preserve the story.

Hope this helps.

TheThan
2013-07-19, 06:19 PM
This is how I generate my fantasy campaign settings. Granted this is not how I create campaigns mind you, just settings. I've spoilered it for length.


I actually start with a basic map of the game world.

There are lots of ways of creating maps, you can look online, you can draw your own, you can randomly generate your own (the method I use).

I create the oceans usually a solid layer of blue. Then i randomly generate the land masses, which are overlayed on top of the blue. Some times i'll even paint in the shallow areas near the shorelines. When I'm done, I move on the geography of each land mass. I try to make it as realistic seeming as I can, so rivers flow down from mountains, forest thin out to plains and then to deserts that sort of stuff. I move from one land mass to another, creating each as I go. Sometimes I’ll even put in ocean currents and trade winds if I feel it will come up in game. Often times I’ll randomly generate the terrain, so forests, mountains and the like will have a more “natural” feel to them. As humans are bad at making things look “natural”.

After I do all this, which can be a lot of work, I move on to creating civilizations. I randomly generate areas and overlay them (thank you transparency) over the map I’ve created so far, and see where they overlay on top of the land masses. From there I crop the semi-transparent layers down to cover just the land masses.

Once I’ve done this I begin writing, I create each nation. I write a brief introduction to the nation, describe the geography of that nation, list major points of interest like major rivers and cities etc. I describe its government, its military, its political position, its economics and its history. Looking at the location of each individual country will determine what the dominant fantasy race will be for that particular nation and usually influence government, military, politics, economics and history of that nation. I’ll even document out major political players such as kings and lord etc. however I’ll only really get down to the nitty-gritty when I start writing a campaign. I typically start in one location, then I move in a circular direction around it; creating each nation as I go. When I’m done I go back and create a new layer and place all these places of interest in the map, Castle Stonegate goes here, the cavers of the whaling woman goes over there etc. sometimes I’ll add this stuff as I write.

When I’m done I’ll have a map with three layers. The first is geography, the second is political and the third is places of interest. Sometimes I’ll turn each layer into it’s own map.