World Building: How Much Prior to Homebrew?

[DnDegenerates]

Hey there DnDers,

Our little podcast is on the last session or two of our Hoard of the Dragon Queen playthrough. Even though I've only just started editing and uploading episodes the last few months two or three at a time.

We're going to be starting over with a homebrew universe once we are done, with hopes of playing in a more sandbox style world that better suits the players creativity.

My question for you is this:

How in depth do you prepare/suggest preparing your homebrew world before delving into it?

As the DM, my hope is to have enough to facilitate sudden and unexpected plot changes. However, I think it's probably a good idea to have an overarching plot and perhaps subplots prepared beforehand.

Here are some ideas of advice I could use:

Do you go deep into the plot/potential detours?

Do you literally map out your entire world, town to town, city to city? Continent to continent, whew.

Do you change the races at all? Cultural differences can be fun to create.

What about the gods and planes of existence?!? Fewer of each may be better in my case.

Does magic come from somewhere other than the weave in your world? I like the weave.

In short... in your opinion, How far down the rabbit hole should one go before they should consider themself adequately prepared for a full campaign?

Thanks in advance,

-Dungeons & Degenerates crew.

[Nettlekid]

A lot of people say to do the minimum, only flesh out the starting area and surrounding towns/cities, and then expand when you need to.

I do not feel that way. To scratch the itch while I wasn't able to play with a group I started designing my own setting, mapping out continents and sprinkling in cities and writing a few NPCs in every town. Month by month I expanded on that world as inspiration struck, figuring out which organizations made sense where, who was colluding with whom, where were the monstrous threats, where are the plot hooks, all that jazz. I've since started playing with a group in this setting and I can say that I am so glad I did all the prep I did, because not only do I feel extremely confident about interacting with the players in the world but I can pepper in foreshadowing and sow seeds that I know won't come up for a long time but will be important down the road. Knowing how my world works, the way it ticks and breathes, means that I have no fear in letting the players do whatever they want to because I know how the world will react to the things they do. It's a very satisfying experience, especially if you're planning for a more sandboxy kind of game.

[Tiadoppler]

The following are all just my personal opinions/methods for creating a world.


How in depth do you prepare/suggest preparing your homebrew world before delving into it?

Know the wide-angle-lens view of the world: the major powers, the important players, the various international organizations. Know a lot about one region/nation/section of continent: the politicians and powerbrokers, the industrialists, the merchants guilds, etc. Know even more about one area of that nation: the cities and towns, the rivers, the trade routes, the significant NPCs. That focused area is your campaign starting location, and it should be designed that the players must travel continuously for at least a few sessions to get to an "edge" that you don't know everything about. That'll allow you time to write the new areas they discover.


Do you go deep into the plot/potential detours?

Overarching plot, sure, but I prefer to improvise detours/side quests based on what seems to interest the players. If they hang out by the merchants guild, the merchants guild will spontaneously develop something interesting going on.


Do you literally map out your entire world, town to town, city to city? Continent to continent, whew.

Continent to continent across the whole world. Nation to nation (with mountain ranges, major rivers, contiguous forests) across a single continent, city to city (with small rivers and roads) across a single large nation/region. Towns and minor terrain features across a small area in that nation/region.


Do you change the races at all? Cultural differences can be fun to create.

Yes, but at the end of the day I kind of accept that players will likely play the "common" races "normally". I prefer to have cultural distinctions between nations and regions, but less based on species.


What about the gods and planes of existence?!? Fewer of each may be better in my case.

Yeah, a smallish pantheon of the major deities and leave the minor deities/demigods for later (if anyone ends up interested). Other planes? I usually don't bother.


Does magic come from somewhere other than the weave in your world? I like the weave.

Depends on the world. It works just fine as is, and my campaigns have rarely delved too deeply into "where exactly does the magic come from".


In short... in your opinion, How far down the rabbit hole should one go before they should consider themself adequately prepared for a full campaign?

It's rabbits all the way down. You will probably(hopefully) never have time to fully develop a world such that a character can teleport to a random continent, walk to a random city, break into a random home at a random time, and meet a fully fleshed out character that you had prepared on one of your campaign notes hard-drives (Hard drive 16c, NPCs in the dockyard district of Nojisfjord, in the Kingdom of Bland, the Icerock continent). Figure out the overarching plot. Figure out what the antagonists would logically do (and where). Place the PCs in a location that is very well fleshed out, and start the story.


I find it to be very helpful to write a general plan for the antagonists of the story, along with an ingame calendar.

If not thwarted, Bob of the Magnificently Twirled Mustache will replace the Good King Boring on Feb. 42nd.
If they are not delayed, The Order of the Pink Flaming Go will invade the Lair of the Holy Cheese on Mar. 3rd.

[Chugger]

None of it will stick without context - your worldbuilding (if done too much too early - or very little of it will stick).

Keep it minimal and mostly general to start - and mostly focused on the starting area - and/or the 'big' stuff.

Though if there is a moon so bright that night isn't usually dark - or if 100 years ago a Demon War caused much chaos and death - or if bad earthquakes are very normal - or w/e - do mention that sort of stuff - what they'd grow up knowing.

It's a waste of time to go into great detail early on because people need CONTEXT to remember anything. They also need to be invested to care and to want to know this stuff - so allow them to get attached to their characters. Then they'll want to know that. Too much too early is like a painful college lecture you find yourself listening to as you realize you just signed up for a class you should not have signed up for.

[Kane0]

When starting from scratch try no more than one double-sided A4 page, preferably one side being a map. Use bullet points where you can, they are more likely to stick to players.
Either start big and work your way down or vice versa, it comes down to taste.

The rest either keep to yourself for later as a pet project or develop once the game has started, depending on preference and time available.

[Cespenar]

One important thing to focus on in sandbox games: ask your players of their characters' goals, plans, etc. and build on them. Sandbox isn't necessarily fleshing everything out and just dumping your characters in them. So, very basically:

1) Outline the general setting and locations, spruce it up a liberal addition of potential hooks
2) Explain all that to your players, and ask them about their characters' goals/plans
3) Build more around what they just gave you

[bc56]

How in depth do you prepare/suggest preparing your homebrew world before delving into it?

When I created my homebrew setting, I already knew the players would do a lot of traveling, so I created an area on the kingdom scale and filled in the main cities and landforms. As the campaign progressed, I added detail, as in "There should be a village here. Now there is!"



As the DM, my hope is to have enough to facilitate sudden and unexpected plot changes. However, I think it's probably a good idea to have an overarching plot and perhaps subplots prepared beforehand.

Be very careful changing the plot.
http://theangrygm.com/false-starts-and-dirty-lies-starting-a-campaign-wrong/



Here are some ideas of advice I could use:

Do you go deep into the plot/potential detours?

I let my players create their own sidequests, by means of character backgrounds and their actions outside the main plot. They had dealings with this one elven merchant, then he sent them on a little quest related to his past. They messed up at the end of the quest, and the results were that the villains escaped and murdered the merchant.



Do you literally map out your entire world, town to town, city to city? Continent to continent, whew.

I lay out the major stuff before beginning, but then add in minor details later as I come up with them.



Do you change the races at all? Cultural differences can be fun to create.

I ban certain races, either because they don't fit in, or they encourage player behaviors I don't want at my table. However, I create homebrew races as well to fill out the world a little.



What about the gods and planes of existence?!? Fewer of each may be better in my case.

I don't use the gods much, but planes are fun. Unfortunately, planar travel is too powerful for low levels.



Does magic come from somewhere other than the weave in your world? I like the weave.

Weave's cool, though it's called Ley Lines on my world.



In short... in your opinion, How far down the rabbit hole should one go before they should consider themself adequately prepared for a full campaign?

A little bit. Too far will disappoint you when the players don't interact with everything you made or appreciate it.



Thanks in advance,

-Dungeons & Degenerates crew.

You're welcome.

[EvilAnagram]

How in depth do you prepare/suggest preparing your homebrew world before delving into it?
That depends. I do a fairly detailed quest development for the first area, plan out the starting area with at least a dozen NPCs, plan the cultural beliefs of the region, and plan two larger cities in great detail (maps, factions, culture, key players, and threats).

Then, I sketch out the larger world surrounding this region in much more broad strokes (who lives there, how are they ruled, what are they like).

My friend, on the other hand, planned out a single kingdom with a dozen towns and over fifty quests of varying level ranges and with hooks scattered across the world. Strokes and folks.



Do you go deep into the plot/potential detours?
No, that's liable to change. It took a while to figure out where the plot was heading.


Do you literally map out your entire world, town to town, city to city? Continent to continent, whew.
Only the known bits.


Do you change the races at all? Cultural differences can be fun to create.
Totally. Every race has a culture and a home region.


What about the gods and planes of existence?!? Fewer of each may be better in my case.
Nentir Vale planar system, severely trimmed down gods. One god per classical element, plus sun, moon, and darkness, sprinkled with a couple overgods of law and chaos (not good and evil). None are evil. None are good. They're just there.


Does magic come from somewhere other than the weave in your world? I like the weave.
Nah. The Weave is the best thing to come out of the Forgotten Realms.


In short... in your opinion, How far down the rabbit hole should one go before they should consider themself adequately prepared for a full campaign?
You do you, boo. If you're better at improv, prepare less. If you're not, prepare more.

[Darth Ultron]

How in depth do you prepare/suggest preparing your homebrew world before delving into it?

Well, for the world you just do an Overview. Generally, as much as you want, though you should have 'a bit' made for the world as a whole. You really, only do detail for the set adventure.




Do you go deep into the plot/potential detours?

No, detours are made to be shallow.



Do you literally map out your entire world, town to town, city to city? Continent to continent, whew.

If your going to make a world, then yes, make a world map. You don't need great detail, but you should have a big world map.

You don't need to detail the whole world, just the area around the PCs and the adventure. In general only a city or two and a couple towns. The whole point of an adventure is focus.



Do you change the races at all? Cultural differences can be fun to create.

I'm not a big fan of changing races...like making 'Ice Dwarfs', but yes everyone everywhere has different cultures.



What about the gods and planes of existence?!? Fewer of each may be better in my case.

Again, make only what you need, but you should have a Outline.



Does magic come from somewhere other than the weave in your world? I like the weave.

I use the Weave, or more to the point ''don't worry about it''.



In short... in your opinion, How far down the rabbit hole should one go before they should consider themself adequately prepared for a full campaign?



You can never be fully prepared. You will need to create as you go.

[Hudsonian]

I quickly found that my world was boring because I did not include enough 3rd party factions in it. There was the party, and the bbeg, and unconnected yet notable NPC's... There didn't seem to be anything happening in the world and by the time I could add them into my world without the abrupt change from the players perspective they had almost lost interest altogether. There needs to seem like there is some sort of movement in the world or the party will start to be able to see the "No Man's Sky" effect as people and places pop up almost within sight that don't really seem to have a reason for being there before the players visited.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One piece of advice is to leave blanks for your players to fill. Either explicitly ("so describe the town you grew up in") or implicitly--I have taken a lot of the players' musings about things and made them canon.

I started out with Points of Light (4e's default "setting") with the serial numbers filed off. Then as players did things I expanded out from there. There's nothing wrong with knowing that there's something interesting over there and then figuring out why its there later.

The biggest mistake I see people make is making a novel setting, not a game setting. The biggest single purpose of a game setting is to be a place for adventures. If there's no room for adventures to happen, no new stories to be told, too many established powers and tightly-interwoven factions, why play a game in it?

[Nettlekid]

The biggest mistake I see people make is making a novel setting, not a game setting. The biggest single purpose of a game setting is to be a place for adventures. If there's no room for adventures to happen, no new stories to be told, too many established powers and tightly-interwoven factions, why play a game in it?

I disagree with this. No intersection of factions is TOO tightly knit for the PCs to have an effect. All you need is to have some antagonistic force which targets a faction and wraps the PCs up into it, and suddenly all the factions are vying for PC attention (seeing the PCs as people who can get things done, and unrelated enough that there's no paper trail) and it gives the PCs options about who to ally with. I have about 80 pages of content for my custom setting, and the early-game focus is on a big city that was founded by xenophobic templars who uprooted the native Elves, so now the Magistrate in charge of governing the city works in tandem with the Merchants' Guild who makes sure tithes to the templars are paid, using the wide reach of the Thieves' Guild to push common merchants into their fold, while an Explorers' Guild promotes individuality and protection for non-Humans who are targeted by the Thieves' Guild, and a rival association is trying to sow chaos to discredit the Thieves' Guild and is being hunted down by the City Watch working for the Magistrate thinking they're the Thieves' Guild. This is an intricate web, and my players have engaged with many facets while trying to piece out who has power where. The players' actions can absolutely have effects, and indeed those effects are more visible the wider you spin the web because there's a chain reaction.

[EvilAnagram]

One piece of advice is to leave blanks for your players to fill. Either explicitly ("so describe the town you grew up in") or implicitly--I have taken a lot of the players' musings about things and made them canon.

I started out with Points of Light (4e's default "setting") with the serial numbers filed off. Then as players did things I expanded out from there. There's nothing wrong with knowing that there's something interesting over there and then figuring out why its there later.

The biggest mistake I see people make is making a novel setting, not a game setting. The biggest single purpose of a game setting is to be a place for adventures. If there's no room for adventures to happen, no new stories to be told, too many established powers and tightly-interwoven factions, why play a game in it?

This is an excellent point. A setting succeeds when there are voids for players to fill. Giggity

[PhoenixPhyre]

I disagree with this. No intersection of factions is TOO tightly knit for the PCs to have an effect. All you need is to have some antagonistic force which targets a faction and wraps the PCs up into it, and suddenly all the factions are vying for PC attention (seeing the PCs as people who can get things done, and unrelated enough that there's no paper trail) and it gives the PCs options about who to ally with. I have about 80 pages of content for my custom setting, and the early-game focus is on a big city that was founded by xenophobic templars who uprooted the native Elves, so now the Magistrate in charge of governing the city works in tandem with the Merchants' Guild who makes sure tithes to the templars are paid, using the wide reach of the Thieves' Guild to push common merchants into their fold, while an Explorers' Guild promotes individuality and protection for non-Humans who are targeted by the Thieves' Guild, and a rival association is trying to sow chaos to discredit the Thieves' Guild and is being hunted down by the City Watch working for the Magistrate thinking they're the Thieves' Guild. This is an intricate web, and my players have engaged with many facets while trying to piece out who has power where. The players' actions can absolutely have effects, and indeed those effects are more visible the wider you spin the web because there's a chain reaction.

Let me be a bit more precise.

For an "urban intrigue" game (where pitting factions against factions is part of the main point), having lots of factions is important. For a more "traditional" game (where factions act as quest-givers and reward sources, mostly), it runs the risk of making the players wonder "why haven't they fixed this themselves? They're way more powerful and just seem to be sitting around".

Even with urban intrigue, there's the problem of inertia. Powerful organizations have lots of it. Mostly, people that try to make waves just get smashed without the organizations flinching at all. And if you have a bunch of them, the likelyhood that you're in a tightly-balanced tipping point (so that you can actually make changes) seems low, and thus that can seem like an artificial situation.

[othaero]

Hopefully I can answer you questions or at least give some insight into my addled mind. I just started a campaign in my own homebrewed world.

Not really no. I have my overall campaign goal with how the BBEG will acomplish that. IF the players disrupt it forces me (like the villain would have to) to react. Also I have seen to many campaigns get highjacked/solved in random ways to plan for everything.

Somewhat. I started out with 1 continent. Then I created a major city for the main races, and then a few additional cities for each. Having a small world helps my campaign due to it's somewhat post apocalypse theme. I then filled out each main city to the point where a player reading the info could get a feel of it. Finally I allowed my players to add/change stuff in the place they wanted to start out. It allowed me to focus more on other parts of the world/adventure while allowing them to get more involved in the world.

In my world I only have Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs as the main races. I then allowed tieflings, gnomes,
halflings,aasimar, and a few others that I'm forgetting. I also allow them to move around their racial bonus to better reflect their character. For a cultural example, Elves have a strict magocracy but only those who become wizards are actually allowed to perform magic in the open. One of my player's took this a created a Noble background Sorcerer who spent her entire life in a palace for fear of her being run out of the country.

What about the gods and planes of existence?!?
Fewer of each may be better in my case.]If anything I am lazy. I combined all the higher planes together (now called Heaven super original I know) and the lower planes together. (you guessed it Hell) For minor planes I have the Shadowfell (alt dim if the world decayed), the Feywild (unbridled growth) and the Elemental planes encircle the whole "wheel"I created a god//goddess for each of my main races. Then there is one fallen/evil god that my players are not not aware of yet.\I always got confused with DnD's list of 20-30 deities (imo) that changed depending on what edition you played in. And this is coming from a guy who has played DnD since 2007.

I use the weave as well.

Where the players are starting:
Go pretty far down. People, places, stores, local history, anything your players will need at day 0/1 and for as long as you expect them to be there. For everywhere else: enough that you know the motivations/interactions/relevant plot points. And also enough to answer questions about it.

[Tvtyrant]

I have gotten lazy over the years. I used to make really elaborate maps, continents and cities. Now I usually make one place, and if the party decides to go somewhere else I just change the name of something with a source book. Wilderness crossroads town becomes Solace, big capital port becomes Waterdeep, !Not-Australia just becomes a region in Dark Sun.

[mephnick]

It depends on a lot of factors. If you have a steady group and some time, I think Top-Down is the way to go. It's much easier to weave lore and depth into your sessions if it exists in the first place.

Creating a village and a few adventures and slowly expanding out as needed is definitely a valid way to form a setting, but it will never have the depth of something created as a whole.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It depends on a lot of factors. If you have a steady group and some time, I think Top-Down is the way to go. It's much easier to weave lore and depth into your sessions if it exists in the first place.

Creating a village and a few adventures and slowly expanding out as needed is definitely a valid way to form a setting, but it will never have the depth of something created as a whole.

This I disagree with. I've found much more depth in backfilling--reasoning backward from a conclusion. If this exists, why is it so?

Top down settings often feel one-note: there's this theme that's everywhere. They also tend to become the Creator's pet--less place for the players to leave their mark. It also depends on the Creator catching all the details in advance. Since my settings grow as needed based on what the players are interested in and do, it's much more organic than what I could do in advance.