fully fleshed out d20 world?

[Deremir]

so basically i was considering attempting to create a fully fleshed out d&d world/area that's as complete and full as skyrim. that way the players could do anything they want without the dm having to railroad them back to something he has done. but seeing as this would be a pretty large project i wanted to ask if anyone knew of something like this that's already done. so does anyone know of something like this? thanks you:smallbiggrin:

[Narren]

For D&D or d20?

[Windstorm]

so basically i was considering attempting to create a fully fleshed out d&d world/area that's as complete and full as skyrim. that way the players could do anything they want without the dm having to railroad them back to something he has done. but seeing as this would be a pretty large project i wanted to ask if anyone knew of something like this that's already done. so does anyone know of something like this? thanks you:smallbiggrin:

I'm still in the middle of doing this for an upcoming sandbox campaign, and its one heck of a project

I highly recommend getting an organizational system in place first, either using something like microsoft onenote or the fantastic Realmworks (http://www.wolflair.com/realmworks/) by lone wolf.

I've been using realmworks for my project since it was released and it makes a monumental task far more manageable, the ability for players to access a web database of anything that's been revealed to them is also going to be a huge bonus for sandbox style play. price of entry is high, but you get what you pay for for sure.

[Peelee]

I did a pure sandbox style campaign once.

Once.

Everybody loved it, there were a ridiculous number of plot hooks and side quests and relationships between the players and NPCs that could be developed that would affect how even more scenarios would play out and there were machinations going on in the background that nobody knew about but could be uncovered if they happened to follow the proper threads and oh such wealth of possibility.

It was to date the most popular and well-liked stretch I've ever DMed. Also the most holy-crap time consuming to create. It was a logistical nightmare; I would never, ever, ever do it again.

So I applaud you trying to find someone else thats done it so you can just lift their ideas (no sarcasm here, I'm all for stealing good ideas for campaigns), and even then, if you think you can handle it, it's hard to go wrong. Be warned, it's also slightly maddening knowing just how many possibilities are being missed or skipped over or juuuuuust barely touched on and left alone.

[Amphetryon]

so basically i was considering attempting to create a fully fleshed out d&d world/area that's as complete and full as skyrim. that way the players could do anything they want without the dm having to railroad them back to something he has done. but seeing as this would be a pretty large project i wanted to ask if anyone knew of something like this that's already done. so does anyone know of something like this? thanks you:smallbiggrin:

Do you already have the group for this, and - if so - how familiar are you with their preferences? I ask because I've known Players that would call the scenario you're describing a type of railroading, which would make all the extra effort not have the payoff you're hoping for.

[VoxRationis]

I'll have to recommend that if you do such a campaign, you keep it to a small area, and ask the players out-of-character to find in-character reasons not to leave that area. Make the area sufficiently varied to compensate. Maybe it's a border region between the forbidding but lush mountains, filled with halfling villages, the human-dominated riverlands, and the elven cloud forests. Maybe it's an island in the middle of a period of colonization. Maybe it's a warzone.

[NichG]

Ptolus is an example of this sort of treatment done for one city. Something like 800 pages of detail for the one place. There may be other setting books along those lines, and of course there's also megadungeons.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Do you already have the group for this, and - if so - how familiar are you with their preferences? I ask because I've known Players that would call the scenario you're describing a type of railroading, which would make all the extra effort not have the payoff you're hoping for.
How on earth does that work? :smallconfused:

[Deremir]

For D&D or d20?

im sorry force of habit:smallredface: any d20 game


Do you already have the group for this, and - if so - how familiar are you with their preferences? I ask because I've known Players that would call the scenario you're describing a type of railroading, which would make all the extra effort not have the payoff you're hoping for.

yes i already have a group, and all of us (that actually might want to dm) are fairly new to dming, i just started back in july, and weve had a bit of a railroading problem to date so i figured a sandbox style game would be nice.


I'll have to recommend that if you do such a campaign, you keep it to a small area, and ask the players out-of-character to find in-character reasons not to leave that area. Make the area sufficiently varied to compensate. Maybe it's a border region between the forbidding but lush mountains, filled with halfling villages, the human-dominated riverlands, and the elven cloud forests. Maybe it's an island in the middle of a period of colonization. Maybe it's a warzone.

i was thinking i would just put "Here Be Dragons" on the map everywhere outside the area and leave it up to them.
I did a pure sandbox style campaign once.

Once.

Everybody loved it, there were a ridiculous number of plot hooks and side quests and relationships between the players and NPCs that could be developed that would affect how even more scenarios would play out and there were machinations going on in the background that nobody knew about but could be uncovered if they happened to follow the proper threads and oh such wealth of possibility.

It was to date the most popular and well-liked stretch I've ever DMed. Also the most holy-crap time consuming to create. It was a logistical nightmare; I would never, ever, ever do it again.

So I applaud you trying to find someone else thats done it so you can just lift their ideas (no sarcasm here, I'm all for stealing good ideas for campaigns), and even then, if you think you can handle it, it's hard to go wrong. Be warned, it's also slightly maddening knowing just how many possibilities are being missed or skipped over or juuuuuust barely touched on and left alone.

is there any possibility you could send this to me? id really appreciate it!:smallbiggrin: (also it would help me to convince my group we shouldn't swap out DDO for D&D)

[Amphetryon]

How on earth does that work? :smallconfused:

Paraphrasing a couple Players I've known, combining their 'points' to a certain degree in boiling it down to a single sentiment:

"If the plot hooks are already there, then you've already scripted them and are just waiting to find out which railroad track we're going to follow out of the train station."

I'm not saying I agree with it. I am saying that - if several Players at a given table hold a similar opinion - presenting the world as the OP appears to indicate would not go over well.

[The Insanity]

Forgotten Realms is what you need. It's a published setting that has gathered many many material over the years it existed, from sourcebooks through adventure modules to novels, thus being reasonably well fleshed out.

[VoxRationis]

Paraphrasing a couple Players I've known, combining their 'points' to a certain degree in boiling it down to a single sentiment:

"If the plot hooks are already there, then you've already scripted them and are just waiting to find out which railroad track we're going to follow out of the train station."

I'm not saying I agree with it. I am saying that - if several Players at a given table hold a similar opinion - presenting the world as the OP appears to indicate would not go over well.

Those guys are hardcore sandbox fans. I am of the belief that the setting itself has to have some agency. It's silly for the world to just wait around for 4-6 people to make changes in it.

[maysarahs]

I'm not sure how much I can add to the topic, but there was once a reasonably well known article on DM encounter/adventure designing that had to do with streamlining the planning phase to make games seem more natural. While it doesn't help you with your world building, it might be a useful tool to help offload a lot of the work this undertaking would require.

My only other suggestion would be that it is reasonable to expect some latency between their decisions and your game. It is not uncommon to end sessions after your players have made a decision to go somewhere so you can spend the next week filling that section of the map. This way you don't necessarily need to have planned out the details of each and every village on the map until your players have actually decided to go there

I've found the article:
http://angrydm.com/2010/08/schrodinger-chekhov-samus/

[Dawgmoah]

i was thinking i would just put "Here Be Dragons" on the map everywhere outside the area and leave it up to them.

Depending on your players you run the risk of overload. They perceive so many choices they don't know what to do. The group falls to bickering over what should be a simple choice. There are dragons there? Great let's go. No, wait. Why wait? They might kill us... Let's go after the kobolds instead. Come on, we're 10th level! Those kobolds are mean....

And you don't need to build everything from the get-go. Use the branch and leaf method. Detail out the local area and what npc's and monsters are there. Throw in your plotlines, your noble families, the lost cousin of the king, the eccentric peddler screaming the world is ending, etc.
You mention "Garnoldian Wine" on the menu of your tavern. What is that? Well, it's wine from Garnoldia. It is very smooth and refined and brought here at great expense. What else do you need to know about Garnoldia? It's far from here and they make a good wine. You might want to give them a ruler and maybe some merchants who might show up selling wine. The rest of the nation doesn't impact game play at this time. Player's start moving that way: start fleshing it out....

[Deremir]

i think ill set up the campaign in "zones". each zone will be a sandbox and will have a distinct border between it and the other zones, this way while the players explore one zone and its plot lines i will have the time to make the next zone they eventually come across. any ideas for how i might do this? i have some but im afraid it might get tedious.

[Peelee]

is there any possibility you could send this to me? id really appreciate it!:smallbiggrin: (also it would help me to convince my group we shouldn't swap out DDO for D&D)

I would love to. Problem is, it was mostly written out on an iphone (fun fact - IMAX projectionists have more free time than you would believe.... but that's another story for another day), which I no longer have any more. I'm pretty sure I saved it in some fashion, but that means I have to find it, so there's no guarantee, but I'll give it a shot. I would be pretty honored if you ripped off my game, I gotta say.

While I do that, two more bits of advice: If your players go into other zones, don't be afraid to recycle untouched hooks or ideas (ideally, yeah, you want nice and new and fresh ones for each area, but hey, no sense letting otherwise perfectly good ones go to waste, eh? Nothing wrong with a nice mix of new and old-but-unused, and trust me, it'll save yourself a lot of vexation).

Secondly, and this may sound either stupidly obvious or stupidly weird, but the most unexpected things can be the best and most memorable, so whatever happens, roll with it. The big boss of my sandbox was a rope. Not an animated rope or a magical rope or anything whatsoever other than a perfectly mundane, simple, ordinary rope just lying on the floor. Almost wiped out the entire party, everybody was (in real life) freaking the hell out and brainstorming and (in-game) breaking out everything they possibly could to stop it, one guy finally saves the day at quite literally the last possible second, and it is to date the most talked about and well-remembered anything of all my friends, including ones who weren't part of that campaign. The campaign didn't even have a boss. The players effectively made one for themselves, one that almost killed them all, AND IT WAS A ROPE.

Seriously. It can be the most glorious thing in the world with a little luck, a good group of friends who play well together, and a DM who lets things happen. Though I guess that would apply to most campaigns.

Anyway, gonna look for my notes on that.

[VoxRationis]

I have got to hear the story behind that.

[Peelee]

Bad news, vlad... it looks like either I didn't email it to myself, or purged it at some point. I'll try to look for an HDD-saved copy on my old computer, just to make sure, but I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. Sorry.


I have got to hear the story behind that.
Short version:

Players stumbled across a plot made by a cabal of some of the town guard - a massive bank heist. They were a little late, though, and ended up chasing the leader through the streets during his getaway. He ran into a warehouse, and locked the door behind him. The PCs split up - two went around the warehouse to try to cut him off at the back door, and two stayed and tried to get the main door open. After several strength checks, the two that stayed (lets call them the A-Team) they manage to push the door open about a foot - not enough to squeeze in, but enough to see that the warehouse was housing the magical and alchemical fireworks for the upcoming festival. It was a big city, and it was a big festival - equating to TONS of fireworks. They were the primary reason it was so hard to push the door open; the villain had pushed a rather large column over blocking the door. He'd also a fuse in the center of the room. The estimated blast would pretty much decimate the surrounding block, and cause random, indeterminate damage to an area 3 times that size. Villain ran out the back door right into the arms of the B-Team. Problem was, the back door only opened from the inside, and the A-team was still trying to get the door open enough that they could get in, but it was only opening inches at a time with the strength checks they gave. They tried throwing their flasks of water as makeshift grenades, throwing daggers, etc. Apparently, according to the books, a plain ol' rope has an AC of ~24. Nothing could hit this thing. It was glorious. I calculated the rate it burned, gave one of them an estimated number of rounds for their wisdom check, and watched the terror unfold.

Finally, a well-rolled strength checks and several balance checks (floor littered with fireworks) let the fighter make his way to the fuse, whereupon on the very last round before it would have finished, he very calmly stepped on it, and cut it with his sword as a coup de grâce (i'd have just let it passed if he said "I hold the rope and cut it," but at this point, he wanted to be damn sure. That was the last round before boom. Honestly, I was convinced they weren't gonna make it.

I'd like to think a tiny moment of dread now passes through everyone whenever they peruse the markets and see a spooled up rope hanging on the wall. Waiting to avenge its fallen brother.

[Deremir]

Bad news, vlad...

why.. why is my name bold?...am i in trouble?:smalleek:

[Peelee]

why.. why is my name bold?...am i in trouble?:smalleek:

When you quote someone, the system bolds the name. As that's the only way the system handles a name, to my knowledge, I go ahead and bold it myself when typing it out.

....imean, yeah, jerk! You haven't suggested any traps in my thread! I'm taking my ball and going home! TAKE THAT!

Also, I've made a note to check my old desktop for that old sandbox for you. I'll keep you updated.

[Dawgmoah]

i think ill set up the campaign in "zones". each zone will be a sandbox and will have a distinct border between it and the other zones, this way while the players explore one zone and its plot lines i will have the time to make the next zone they eventually come across. any ideas for how i might do this? i have some but im afraid it might get tedious.

Okay, well, let's look a it this way. Before the age of mass communications the average person received their news word of mouth, or from posters, town criers, or fellow travelers. Let's say that you are starting your campaign in a village. Most of the plots, rumors, and bits of information floating around (gather information, hanging out in the pub, talking to the locals, what the player character as a local knows) is going to be at least 80% centered around the happenings in and around that village. The other 20% is going to be on the road to the nearby town, happenings important enough to carry over from other towns, news from the capital city, kingdom wide happenings (the King is going to remarry) and then finally international events (A red dragon is rampaging in far off... whatever the name of the place is.)

So your main concern is the local area. Where you want to put borders and how is entirely up to your preferences. There might be a decent sized swamp blocking travel between one town and the next. The swamp serves not only as a border but is a sandbox itself as many things can be happening in the swamp which only affect the swamp. Lizardmen have learned the hard way over the years that to leave the swamp is death. Other than times of famine or overpopulation the nearby towns may almost forget they are there. Or they may have a coming of age ceremony where their young warriors have to go prove themselves once a year or so. The locals would know the pattern and try to protect themselves perhaps, word would go out for adventurers to meet and stop the raiding lizardmen, etc.

Boundaries can be geographic; rivers, mountains, chasms, a sea, desert, etc. Natural obstacle like a swamp, forest, miles of steppe. Or political in that the border is guarded, a wall perhaps, and information and people are controlled going through. Perhaps there is a dragon or lich blocking access to a nearby realm, and it happens to be one of the high level quests the players have to level up to go fight.

There will always be those items that will seep from sandbox to sandbox over the boundaries though. Major news like wars, birth or death in a royal family, etc. There are plenty of charts and examples scattered around in the DND books as well as third party supplements, like the Toolbox, that you can draw ideas from.

[Amphetryon]

Okay, well, let's look a it this way. Before the age of mass communications the average person received their news word of mouth, or from posters, town criers, or fellow travelers. Let's say that you are starting your campaign in a village. Most of the plots, rumors, and bits of information floating around (gather information, hanging out in the pub, talking to the locals, what the player character as a local knows) is going to be at least 80% centered around the happenings in and around that village. The other 20% is going to be on the road to the nearby town, happenings important enough to carry over from other towns, news from the capital city, kingdom wide happenings (the King is going to remarry) and then finally international events (A red dragon is rampaging in far off... whatever the name of the place is.)

So your main concern is the local area. Where you want to put borders and how is entirely up to your preferences. There might be a decent sized swamp blocking travel between one town and the next. The swamp serves not only as a border but is a sandbox itself as many things can be happening in the swamp which only affect the swamp. Lizardmen have learned the hard way over the years that to leave the swamp is death. Other than times of famine or overpopulation the nearby towns may almost forget they are there. Or they may have a coming of age ceremony where their young warriors have to go prove themselves once a year or so. The locals would know the pattern and try to protect themselves perhaps, word would go out for adventurers to meet and stop the raiding lizardmen, etc.

Boundaries can be geographic; rivers, mountains, chasms, a sea, desert, etc. Natural obstacle like a swamp, forest, miles of steppe. Or political in that the border is guarded, a wall perhaps, and information and people are controlled going through. Perhaps there is a dragon or lich blocking access to a nearby realm, and it happens to be one of the high level quests the players have to level up to go fight.

There will always be those items that will seep from sandbox to sandbox over the boundaries though. Major news like wars, birth or death in a royal family, etc. There are plenty of charts and examples scattered around in the DND books as well as third party supplements, like the Toolbox, that you can draw ideas from.
Counterpoint: "Before the age of mass communications" isn't really applicable to a world where spells like ClairaudienceClairvoyance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clairaudienceClairvoyance.htm) and Message (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/message.htm) are a thing. Natural geographical boundaries and obstacles are similarly overcome at relatively low levels of play in a vibrant world where teleportation magics exist.

[Dawgmoah]

Counterpoint: "Before the age of mass communications" isn't really applicable to a world where spells like ClairaudienceClairvoyance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clairaudienceClairvoyance.htm) and Message (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/message.htm) are a thing. Natural geographical boundaries and obstacles are similarly overcome at relatively low levels of play in a vibrant world where teleportation magics exist.

I don't know his level of magic in his planned game so went with low magic. There is also the counter point that the mass of people in a campaign world don't have access, or cannot afford, the benefits magic gives the entitled few. No one is going to teleport or use a spell to inform someone across the country a localized tidbit of information of no consequence to the rest of the country. Well, unless its the USA Today!

Edit: Your point also helps illustrate my point to the OP about his boundaries not being completely sealed. News and information will permeate.

[Amphetryon]

I don't know his level of magic in his planned game so went with low magic. There is also the counter point that the mass of people in a campaign world don't have access, or cannot afford, the benefits magic gives the entitled few. No one is going to teleport or use a spell to inform someone across the country a localized tidbit of information of no consequence to the rest of the country. Well, unless its the USA Today!

Low magic is certainly a viable option, but it's hardly what I'd consider default for most d20 campaigns, particularly 3.5. Spells need not inform very many people across the country before rumor takes hold and spreads any tidbits worth Gathering Information on, assuming even default levels of magic in the world and a believable population interacting with the world where such magics exist.

[Dawgmoah]

Low magic is certainly a viable option, but it's hardly what I'd consider default for most d20 campaigns, particularly 3.5. Spells need not inform very many people across the country before rumor takes hold and spreads any tidbits worth Gathering Information on, assuming even default levels of magic in the world and a believable population interacting with the world where such magics exist.

True, but let's look at simple police reports. You may be interested in who was arrested for doing whatever in your town but will you care who was arrested for doing what in my town? Now a Sandy Hook or Ft. Hood shooting will grab national and international attention. But once again, most information will stay localized since only the locals really care.

Edit: In agreement with your point. I don't know how distinct boundaries like the OP was asking suggestions on would exist in a high magic fantasy setting. Short of something like Halaster's Teleport Cage?

[jjcrpntr]

My only other suggestion would be that it is reasonable to expect some latency between their decisions and your game. It is not uncommon to end sessions after your players have made a decision to go somewhere so you can spend the next week filling that section of the map. This way you don't necessarily need to have planned out the details of each and every village on the map until your players have actually decided to go there

I've found the article:
http://angrydm.com/2010/08/schrodinger-chekhov-samus/

This is good advice. As a newby DM I'm trying to create a world that is pretty open to my players. But at the same time I don't want to spread myself to thin, focus so much on creating the world that I don't plan out encounters, story arcs, NPC's or all the other stuff that needs fleshed out. It's common for me to stop the game when the players are at a point where they have to make a decision. We talk about stuff throughout the break (we play every 2 weeks) which gives me time to flesh out both possible options. I'm basically building the world around them as we go. I have the general continent lay out, kingdom set ups, and what not. I just don't want to delve too deep until I have to.

[VoxRationis]

Counterpoint: "Before the age of mass communications" isn't really applicable to a world where spells like ClairaudienceClairvoyance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/clairaudienceClairvoyance.htm) and Message (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/message.htm) are a thing. Natural geographical boundaries and obstacles are similarly overcome at relatively low levels of play in a vibrant world where teleportation magics exist.

All of those have ranges that limit them primarily to exploring dungeons; signal fires have longer communication ranges than Message. Whispering Wind is a little better, but still would require a large number of mages doing almost nothing else to reliably communicate over long distances. Animal Messenger, if used on a long-distance flyer, can prove useful, but that's not really any better than carrier pigeons save for handling a couple of the background details quickly.
Furthermore, if we assume that the mid-level spells that handle this process more thoroughly are widely available, we start getting into Tippyverse nonsense, and that's further than the default setting than low magic is. Remember that a section in the DMG specifically lists high-magic settings where spells and magic items are as prevalent as electronics in our world as an alternate idea that is probably better for an intentionally comedic setting.

[Amphetryon]

All of those have ranges that limit them primarily to exploring dungeons; signal fires have longer communication ranges than Message. Whispering Wind is a little better, but still would require a large number of mages doing almost nothing else to reliably communicate over long distances. Animal Messenger, if used on a long-distance flyer, can prove useful, but that's not really any better than carrier pigeons save for handling a couple of the background details quickly.
Furthermore, if we assume that the mid-level spells that handle this process more thoroughly are widely available, we start getting into Tippyverse nonsense, and that's further than the default setting than low magic is. Remember that a section in the DMG specifically lists high-magic settings where spells and magic items are as prevalent as electronics in our world as an alternate idea that is probably better for an intentionally comedic setting.

Cantrips can be cast to other folks who cast cantrips, who can choose to continue the chain with another cantrip or a spell with a greater range (or, you know, mention it to a Bard who sings about it as early as that very night at an inn, spreading the word); that would seem to eliminate any short-term issues of distance unless you're presupposing all breaking news takes place hundreds of miles from the nearest person (in which case, it's an unusual definition of 'breaking news'). Why does the notion that they have the spell available when something notable happens force the notion that they're doing almost nothing else? Seriously, you're making an analogous claim to the notion that folks who communicate via cell phone sit around waiting for their phones to ring, or that those who have Twitter accounts do nothing but tweet all day long.

There is a wide gulf from "we have enough folks able to cast cantrips and low-to-mid-level magic that communication across distances greater than shouting isn't that big a problem" to "Tippyverse." If you honestly do not see this, then our understanding of how the game functions on a fundamental level is so vastly different that we may never be able to see eye-to-eye on the game.

[TheThan]

You’re in luck. I happen to have a system just for you (and well anyone else that’s interested).


TheThan’s 7 step guide to creating RPG settings.

Step 1:
I prefer to start with geography. Draw a map, and then make a copy or two of it. The first map is your geographic map, detail geographic features (forests, rivers, mountain ranges, plains, swamps etc) onto it. You can make this as random or as specific as you like. There are some key things to remember: Mountains tend to form chains. Rivers tend to flow downhill. Swamps tend to be found near water sources. Follow these basic guidelines and your map will seem a bit more realistic. Personally I like starting out with a randomly generated map (i can tell you how i do that later if you're interested). If you have no drawing talent or just don't want to create your own, don't be afraid to pilfer maps from other sources.

Step 2:
The second map is your social/political map. This is where you get to decide who goes where. Do the dwarves live in the mountains? If they do, draw out where their above ground territory begins and ends. How about the elves and the humans? Do they have multiple kingdoms? If so, map them out. Draw up boarders and label them (I prefer color coding, doesn’t really matter though).

Step 3:
After you’re done with the second map, then you go back to the first map and work out where cities, towns and other places of interest are. If you decide to make a change, don’t be afraid to go back and make them.

Step 4:
Now that we have two maps; it’s time to start writing. Pick one of your maps and start writing about it. Choose a continent and start detailing it. Write out the geography, the native species of plant, animal, magical beast and humanoid life. Detail events from the past. How did the ironwoods become a petrified forest? Why is the black rock black? Think these things out, detail them.

Step 5:
Now detail the history of the continent, was it settled by humanoids, or was it always settled? What about previous civilizations? What were they like? Write out the history of every major sentient race that is going to inhabit this area. If trolls aren’t going to be seen often, don’t write about them (You might want to scratch down some ideas in your notes though). This is where you get to be creative. If you don’t want say, gnomes, then don’t include gnomes.

Step 6:
Now you get to write about the current world, what are the current countries? What are their capitols? What sort of governments do they use? Who are their rulers? What sort of militaries do they run? What is the status of their economics? What do they import/export? What are their relationships with their neighbors?

Step 7:
Now you get to write out more details. Detail out cities, towns, and other places of interest, much like you did for step six. What’s so important about black rock? Why was that druid’s grove recently abandoned? That sort of stuff. This makes the world come alive, it fleshes it out, makes things more interesting. It also provides natural plot hooks for players.

Now that you’ve created a world, you can sit down and start creating campaigns for your players to participate in. The nice thing about this guide is that you can make it as large or as small as you want. The method is the same.

[Deremir]

Personally I like starting out with a randomly generated map (i can tell you how i do that later if you're interested).

yes please!

[VoxRationis]

Cantrips can be cast to other folks who cast cantrips, who can choose to continue the chain with another cantrip or a spell with a greater range (or, you know, mention it to a Bard who sings about it as early as that very night at an inn, spreading the word); that would seem to eliminate any short-term issues of distance unless you're presupposing all breaking news takes place hundreds of miles from the nearest person (in which case, it's an unusual definition of 'breaking news'). Why does the notion that they have the spell available when something notable happens force the notion that they're doing almost nothing else? Seriously, you're making an analogous claim to the notion that folks who communicate via cell phone sit around waiting for their phones to ring, or that those who have Twitter accounts do nothing but tweet all day long.

There is a wide gulf from "we have enough folks able to cast cantrips and low-to-mid-level magic that communication across distances greater than shouting isn't that big a problem" to "Tippyverse." If you honestly do not see this, then our understanding of how the game functions on a fundamental level is so vastly different that we may never be able to see eye-to-eye on the game.

Unlike, say, a cell phone, Message requires that you be within close (i.e., less than half a football field) range of the target, and be able to point to the target. Whispering Wind and Animal Messenger both target a location, rather than a particular person, so you have to have this prearranged if you want them to actually receive the message, making the system closer to a pay phone that only calls one place. Furthermore, even the greatest of wizards can barely send Whispering Wind over the horizon, or make it carry more than a sentence or two worth of information. Thus, in order to get information across more than a tiny distance, you need a chain of spellcasters dedicated to the task, since they can't move from the 10-foot square that is the target of Whispering Wind or the spot where a Tiny animal would be noticeable that is the target of Animal Messenger. That implies a lot of spellcasters that have nothing better to do with their time than wait around doing the same job a guy with a signal fire and a mirror could do almost as well, and probably are under the thumb of some organizing body, such as a guild or government. These are not the conditions of the average D&D setting.
Believe me, I've been trying to work out ways for an NPC spymaster in my campaign to get messages over several hundred miles of terrain. It's not that easy.

[Amphetryon]

Unlike, say, a cell phone, Message requires that you be within close (i.e., less than half a football field) range of the target, and be able to point to the target. Whispering Wind and Animal Messenger both target a location, rather than a particular person, so you have to have this prearranged if you want them to actually receive the message, making the system closer to a pay phone that only calls one place. Furthermore, even the greatest of wizards can barely send Whispering Wind over the horizon, or make it carry more than a sentence or two worth of information. Thus, in order to get information across more than a tiny distance, you need a chain of spellcasters dedicated to the task, since they can't move from the 10-foot square that is the target of Whispering Wind or the spot where a Tiny animal would be noticeable that is the target of Animal Messenger. That implies a lot of spellcasters that have nothing better to do with their time than wait around doing the same job a guy with a signal fire and a mirror could do almost as well, and probably are under the thumb of some organizing body, such as a guild or government. These are not the conditions of the average D&D setting.
Believe me, I've been trying to work out ways for an NPC spymaster in my campaign to get messages over several hundred miles of terrain. It's not that easy.

Scrying - which is also a thing in D&D - makes the need to pre-arrange things considerably less difficult, and it's relatively easy to find a person you know well (like, your fellow Wizard from that Wizard's college, or the wandering Bard whom you're apparently ignoring in your response). You keep harping on the notion that Spellcasters would have to have nothing better to do at all times, when your examples don't hold up to even reasonable scrutiny of a Spell list available to a Character of above-average Intelligence or Wisdom, not to mention the notion that such insistence means that nobody could communicate news quickly back in, say, the mid-20th century, when those new-fangled cell phones weren't available, TV was rare, and yet, somehow, news still managed to travel place to place.

When the news is along the lines of "Crazy Hedgewitch Batsington's gone missing, with his alleged 50 pound bag of Platinum," news has a way of traveling quickly.

[TheThan]

yes please!

Alright, *cracks fingers*

This uses Adobe Photoshop.

1: Open a new file of any size, and make sure background and forground colors are set to black and white.
2: create a new layer name this layer “continents”.
3: create a cloud effect. In my version its’ filter-render-clouds, your version may be different.
4: next kick the contrast up to 100. In my version, it’s Image-adjustment-brightness/contrast. Yours may be different.
5: now you remove the white portions of the image you are looking at. There are a couple of ways to do it. to get them all select the color and delete it. In my version that’s select-color range. This brings up a mini box with an image of the image you created on it and your pointer turns into an eye dropper. click on the white bit once and hit ok. This automatically selects everything white. Then hit delete. You won’t notice a change because the background layer is still white.
Now you have a basic world fleshed out with continents and oceans. The black bits are continents, while the white bits are ocean. You can repeat the same process to create forests, mountains, countries; just about anything you really want to.

[VoxRationis]

your examples don't hold up to even reasonable scrutiny of a Spell list available to a Character of above-average Intelligence or Wisdom

That's not the main limitation of who has spell slots and you know it. Level is the main limiting factor here.

, not to mention the notion that such insistence means that nobody could communicate news quickly back in, say, the mid-20th century, when those new-fangled cell phones weren't available, TV was rare, and yet, somehow, news still managed to travel place to place.

When the news is along the lines of "Crazy Hedgewitch Batsington's gone missing, with his alleged 50 pound bag of Platinum," news has a way of traveling quickly.

Did I say there would be no means of communications? No. I said that the spells you listed were insufficient for advancing the rate of communication to a point where the phrase "before the age of mass communication" was no longer applicable. It's obvious that there are other means of communication. I even said as much, by pointing out one or two mundane methods of communication used in pre-industrial settings that work as well as—or rather, better than—the spells you mentioned for the purpose of communications.
Message has a range short enough that it's ridiculous to even consider it as a means of rapid communication—you could just tell people to line up and play "telephone" equally as well, for a fraction of the cost of the hundreds of casting of the spell you'd need.
Scrying a) takes an hour; b) requires that either the target have a crappy Will save, unlikely for a caster, or that you be familiar with them, and c) doesn't actually allow you to communicate, just to tell what their surroundings look like and what they're doing, which isn't always even good for telling you where they are. Furthermore, at that point we're getting to 4th level spells and thus a bit costly for people to be using all the time just to gossip about local affairs.
Scrying does allow you, potentially, to ascertain their positions well enough for Whispering Wind or Animal Messenger, but those travel slowly enough that by the time the message reaches the location you set, the target may well have moved. Thus, in order for them to be effective, the target has to essentially be sedentary, almost never traveling from their abode and returning to a predetermined "message spot." And they wouldn't just be doing it a little; the volume limitations, quite severe, mean that in order for your projected idea to work, they'd have to be sending and receiving all the time.
Whispering Wind, I might add, travels at a maximum rate of 6 miles an hour, slow enough that a pony express or fast ship could beat it with pre-industrial technology. Its main advantage is privacy and a lack of reliance on third parties, which is useful to lone wizards but not people working for some magical communication conglomerate like you suggest. Animal Messenger is just a fuss-free carrier pigeon; it doesn't actually allow you to communicate especially faster or more readily than people in the Middle Ages.
Dream is all right, but it's high enough level that the wizard could just teleport to the target and explain in person, is one-way only, doesn't work on elves or other sleepless creatures, and requires that you either have a lot of time on your hands or have a sleep cycle alternating with the people you're communicating with.
Sending, of the same level as Dream, has the problem of low volume that plagues Whispering Wind and Animal Messenger.
Crystal Balls with certain add-ons would work, but are terrifically expensive, as are Dream, Whispering Wind, and Sending, to implement on a large enough scale for what you seem to think occurs.
A wizard might do this for his own use. I have never disputed that mid- to high-level wizards can communicate over long distances. I dispute your assertion that the ability for a few individuals to do so, mostly with people they already know, implies that people will set up systems of communication that drastically change the day-to-day flow of information. What you'll get, since most wizards (particularly ones with the ability to summon demons and immolate squads of soldiers) are classically too arrogant and aloof to act as messenger boys, is a handful of people who communicate on occasion and a lot of people who never see the fruits of that communication. Even if all the wizards knew and liked one another well enough to communicate regularly, think about it: if the only people in the world with working cell phones, radios, etc. were, say, your graduating class, spread throughout the continent, would you use that to spend all your time relaying information to your neighbors?
As for that bard you seem to think is the greatest thing since sliced bread, his abilities aren't any better at this than the wizard's. His main advantage is the fact that he's more likely to go outside and talk to people, and that's not any better than pre-modern minstrels, merchants, or other wanderers.