Campaign Setting Development Advice

[muichimotsu]

Before I had the "bright" idea of a battle royale (which I can still incorporate into a broader campaign in the future), I was thinking of trying to make my own campaign setting, a mix of Faerun, Eberron, Rokugan and the like (albeit with many rules from each setting stripped away and things generally simplified)

So far, I'm trying to determine races to play (which I have a table of about 100, albeit a number are variants on the core), and a similar amount of classes. Even trying to simplify things to about 6 major continents (albeit that can always change with needs of another campaign with its own independent area)

One of the big things is having a variety of races that can satisfy my group, since they do tend to have a lot of unique ones.

Limiting classes is a bit iffier, but we're talking 3.5, I want to giver variety, but not too much

Anyone have advice in regards to this process?

[Gullintanni]

Developing a large campaign setting all at once can be unwieldy, not to mention unnecessary, and a whole lot of work. I've played games where the whole adventure's lifespan played out inside a single, sprawling city for example. Most of the work I'd put in building the surroundings didn't pay off. The lesson I took from that was that campaign settings can grow organically. That city still exists in that campaign world; and I've since fleshed it out a little more. Every time I run a campaign, that setting expands a little bit.

So here's my recommendation:

Have a general idea of what you want in your world, and then let your PCs fill in the blanks. If one of your PCs wants to play a Paragnostic Apostle, then you know that somewhere in the world, you need some sort of organization that will serve as a Paragnostic Assembly. Refluff both the class and the organization to suit your world. If a combat oriented PC wants to worship Kord - then pepper shrines dedicated to the god throughout the region your party will be playing in. Once the players have chosen races, lock those races into your world and build niches for them.

By doing this, your PCs character decisions will shape the world that you build around them. In turn, the end result should be a world where the PCs fit in and have a reason to get invested. It also means you can focus your writing and campaign world development on content that will be immediately relevant to the PCs and the world they are exploring. Also, save yourself some work: There's no reason to develop an island continent leagues away from the mainland if the PCs aren't interested in voyaging too far abroad. It's also pretty unsatisfying as a DM to put a whole lot of work into a region, feel really proud of your writing, and then have the PCs simply ignore entirely that part of the setting in favour of another.

...one more pro-tip:

Develop a local region with a few cities, villages, dungeons etc.
And then develop a few dungeons, cities and villages without deciding where they will sit on your map, that way if the PCs DO decide to voyage abroad, you can place cities or dungeons wherever you want as the need arises. This may feel a little cheaty because you can see what's going on behind the curtain - but the fact is, the PCs may end up somewhere in the world that you didn't expect, and therefore, haven't fully fleshed out. If you can pop a fully fleshed out dungeon or city in that location just because you haven't written a concrete location for it into the game yet, and reveal its location organically, then the PCs get to explore a finished product rather than you having to improvise. You should, by keeping a couple of locales in your back pocket, be able to provide the party a richer experience, even if they go off the rails of your campaign from time to time.

I also use cue cards for random encounters - the cards include full set-pieces, balanced monster party compositions across a range of CR levels, and they're modular enough that most of the encounters can be adapted for urban, wilderness, cave, or planar encounters. Random encounters can be memorable events if you build resources for yourself. They can be adventure hooks! And if you build in clues that point toward localities that you've already finished developing then so much the better.

EDIT: As an example of the former, I developed a set piece where a tribe of lizard folk had captured an Ogre and had it penned in a large cage. This encounter could have happened in a dungeon, or a wilderness. My PCs were exploring a swamp so I played this encounter out there. The lizard folk had made a small camp, and because the encounter occurred in a misty swamp, I added sentry towers and a small altar to give the encounter a more tribal feel. My party also included a wizard, so the lizardfolk shaman gained a small spellbook that would become loot for the party wizard. The encounter began with the sentries firing lit arrows into the mists to alert their brethren to the PC threat. As my PCs cut down the lizardfolk, one ran into the background, opened the Ogres cage, and released it to wreak havoc on the party.

Eventually the PCs defeated the majority of the small tribe and moved on to the altar, where they faced a few elite warriors and the lizardfolk shaman. As the battle concluded, I could see how invested the party had become, so I chose to populate the campaign world with other members of this tribe.

I take world building cues from my party - it's worth paying off what they enjoy, what they find memorable. And if you can bring some pre-built material, including in the form of random encounters, into your world, without having placed it already, then you can be flexible and adapt on the fly without having to improvise complex encounters.

[Mike Miller]

I've put a lot of thought into this. I am on my phone so I can't give the reply I want at the moment, but here is a short reply. What kind of game do you want? What kind of game do your players want? Make sure you all have an understanding before undertaking a project like this. Otherwise you may have a load of unused material.

It can be better to let the world develop organically instead of pregenerating it early. As the PCs gain quests and seek out locations, they can explore the world around them with you. That way you can decide what is where in a convenient manner instead of realizing later on there either isn't a location that needs to exist or isn't room for said location. Also, it can prevent places from being inconveniently placed later on.

As to races, what kind of world do you want? If you want diversity, just allow everything and just mention what is most common, rare, etc. Most NPCs don't have PC class levels, so it comes down more on what expectations exist for the campaign. Are you allowing setting specific classes? Homebrew?

Some points to ponder for now