Making a Campaign Setting.

[Doc_Maynot]

The group I play with has the policy of switching out DMs every weekend, alternating between the three major DMs (myself included) and the once in a while one shot. Now, the thing about it is whenever I DM there is usually a bigger turnout of players, mostly due to the setting I've made. The others in the groups said I should put paper to PDF and make a Setting Book based on my notebook of world info and previous quests. I have finally relented and now I ask the professionals on the subject of D&D on what subjects I should cover in performing this endeavour.

[Morgarion]

Well, what subjects do you cover in the material you already have? I'd say start with that.

[Doc_Maynot]

Well, the setting is a Tippyverse styled one. I have in my notes excerpts from the SRD, Races of Stone, Oriental Adventures, Cityscape, Dungeonscape, Stormwrack, Frostburn, Drow of the Underdark, some 3rd party materials, and others I may have forgotten to mention. I am already planning on just making these tables and excerpts be converted to only direct readers to the page in which it's found. Been working on converting my drawn maps to image formats, but they still need cleaned up. We sometimes use our table brewed gods, and I was planning on using those for the setting.

[Kol Korran]

Hmmmm... is this supposed to be commercial or for your group of friends? Anyway, some things that come to mind:
1) An opening that explains the major themes of the setting, what makes it unique, what makes it stand apart from other settings. What should the DM and the players readign the PDF expect. What is the setting good for, what is it bad for. This should set the tone for the entire book.
2) A general history of the world.
3) World geography and cultures.
4) Main powers and forces in the setting, and their relations.
5) the roles of religion, magic, technology and psionics in the world (What level, what is different from other settings, and such)
6) Races and classes unique to the setting.
7) Any setting specific house rules (Such as dragonmarks in Eberron, or Shadow weave magic in FR)
8) The planes and cosmology
9) Main unresolved issues in the world (This is quite important).
10)expanding and elaborating more on points of interest (Like a specific country, organization and such)

That's most of it I think...

[Doc_Maynot]

Not commercial, just putting it online.
And thank you for the list. I'm quite a fan of lists.