Worldbuilding: How To Start

[brian 333]

In this example I will discuss how I make the choices I make as I begin building a campaign. Feel free to use the actual worldbuilding material if you like it, but please discuss points related to the process of worldbuilding itself. For clarity, I am going to put the worldbuilding in italics and commentary in standard font.

Okay, so I have this idea about a fantasy world that is standard high fantasy but there are nine moons, most of shich are so far away that you can't see them except as fast moving stars. People can visit the moons by various means and each moon has its own character...

Wait. Calm down, 333. You are putting the cart before the horse. None of that will matter to a party of Level 1 characters. Now don't get me wrong, it's not a bad idea. It's just not going to be useful in your campaign for a while. So, what I am going to do is write a handout sheet describing what common folks know about the moons, then hang on to it for a time when I need a few minutes to look up rules or roll up a random encounter or take a break to get some Cheetoes.

The Moons Of Yavin (Hey, I just named my world!)
Common folk know three moons which they see in the night skies, but the wise know there are more. Some say there are five, or seven, or eleven moons (I know there ard nine, but keep it mysterious.)
The nearest moon is Luna, named for the goddess of tides and fishermen. Luna is the brightest of the moons, appearing as an off-white color marred by streaks and darker patches. Common folk say these features appear to be a fish when Luna is full. Luna's surface is covered in snow, if common knowledge can be believed. Luna's cycle takes 27 days to go from full to full moon.

The next moon is Selene, named for the goddess of the hunt. Selene is orange and featureless, except for white caps on top and bottom. Selene is said to be covered in forests of orange-leaved trees through which hunters and their prey run. Some say that in their grandparents' time Selene was green, but the long-lived elves deny this. Selene requires 82 days to wax and wane.

The third moon is Ceres, named for the goddess of fertility and crops. Although very small and difficult to see when not full, Ceres is a patchy blue and white which appears to have no set pattern. Folk claim that all of Ceres is a farm, with regular crops and natives who tend them. Ceres can be seen when full, every 277 days.

Other moons may be out there. Some say the stars Iric and Pratha are distant moons, and many other stars have been proposed to be moons, but if so, little is known about them. Folk do say that if an item is lost and cannot be found it has, "Gone to Merat," which is said to be "The Lost Moon." Obviously, no one has found Merat.

Okay, so I have a handout. I will make more as ideas present themselves, but this background and flavor will be hoarded for when I need to buy time in game. But for now I have wasted enough time on this; I need to focus on my first game session. So, what do I need?

A starting spot.
A place to buy gear and sell treasure. (2 places?)
A place to rest and recouperate between adventures.
A place to adventure.

All adventures begin in an inn, right? I could go this way, but I won't. The village I am thinking of is very small and off the beaten path. It can't support an inn. What it has is a Town Hall which serves as a place of worship, a government house, and an inn for travelers.

The Town Hall: When asking about lodgings the villagers direct the characters to their Town Hall. This whitewashed wooden structure has a single room 12'x20' with a single door and shuttered but unglazed windows on the other three walls. A nearby structure called The Parsonage by the locals is a kitchen used as residence by three widows of the village who offer to cook, clean, and mend for whomever seeks to rest in the town hall. On Friday evenings Decon Willowby calls the two dozen villagers to prayer by ringing a hand-held brass bell. Their service includes a short sermon and a lot of singing.

This spot offers both a starting point and a place to rest. It also gives some insight into the religious life of the village. Now we need a place to buy gear:

Hoskin's Merchantile: Three structures have been joined by building sheds between a barn, workshop, and home. The vast majority of available goods relate directly to farming and animal husbandry, but housewares and fabrics are available. While camping and adventuring gear is not advertised as such, a kit could be assembled from the available materials. For example, therd are no tents, but there is waterproofed canvas.

Hoskin is dead, but Thalis Mekko, a human with a broad, flat nose and badly aligned teeth, will be happy to help a paying customer.He is bald, fat, and grunts as he moves about the store.

Here we have the ability to buy anything in the Players'Handbook excepting arms, armor, and magical gear. There won't be much magical gear in the village. Also, the Merchantile is unlikely to purchase items it cannot sell. We need something else.

Crazy Morgan: Crazy Morgan is the village weirdo. He is also the only character in town with adventuring levels. As a level 5 character with three levels of wizard and two levels of expert tinkerer he is a valued member of the community. That is, when he's not wasting his time on pursuits which make no sense to his farming neighbors.

Crazy Morgan buys old and broken things which he fixes up for sale to the very few who come along to buy them. More commonly he is called upon to fix stuff his neighbors break or sharpen tools and knives. Neighbors say he collects old swords and armor, and he might buy or repair such items.

Crazy Morgan farms weeds and turns them into medicine and food flavorings.

According to my list, the only thing left to do is build the dungeon. Since this is going to be a level 1 adventure it need not be very large, but it needs to offer the potential to advance to level 2. So, let's float some ideas:

Pig hunt - a giant boar rooting up farmers fields. Could be interesting, but it could be a quick TPK.
Undead - skeletons and zombies offer less immediate danger, but it could be a monotonous grind to get to level 2.
Werebear - need magic to fight
Goblins - why haven't they wiped out the villagers by now?

Okay, instead of thinking of thd monster first, let's think about locations for the first adventure.

Hilltop fort in ruins.
Woodland glade.
Small cave.

Nothing is jumping off the page yet. Maybe I need to clarify what I want from the dungeon.
1) All character classes should have a moment to shine.
2) New players need to be able to survive and learn from mistakes. (example, no deadly traps.)
3) Time should not be an issue. If the party needs to retreat they should be able to come back and try again without penalty.
4) Each character class should be able to benefit from the dungeon.

Okay, now some ideas are beginning to gel. So, lets begin building the dungeon. I have chosen the ruined tower, but I want to modify the undead guardians a bit. We'll get to that in a bit. First some description.

From the village a broken drum tower can be seen atop a nearby hill. The villagers say it is haunted and aside from youngsters going there on a dare, no one visits it. Once it was a border keep occupied by a knight, but it was sacked in the last war with the neighboring kingdom and has been abandoned since then.

An interesting detail comes to light: the neighboring kingdom has been at war with the PC's kingdom. We'll use this later.

A road, cut by gullies and overgrown with weeds and small trees, leads up along a ridge to the tower. It ends in the rubble which was a gatehouse, and where a drawbridge once joined the gatehouse to the keep, a 20' deep, 15' wide gap is virtually filled with rubble from the breached face of the tower. Burnt and rotted stubs of the beams which once supported the two floors and roof of the 40' wide tower still dangle from their sockets and from a 10' diameter central support column.

With care the gap between the gatehouse and the keep can be negotiated. The outer walls of the round tower are 10 feet thick at the base, tapering to 5 feet at the roof-beams, and topped with a 2 foot thick crenelation which only survives on the opposite side from the broken gatehouse. Rubble fills the floor, and cracks run through the mortar of the intact walls. There appears to be nothing of interest here.

If a character climbs either the wall or the support column he is treated to a magnificent view of the pass through the rough hills. The whole valley from the road leading into the village to the distant neighboring kingdom can be easily surveyed.

However, the really important discovery is that the central support column is hollow!

Rusted bars and carved niches in the wall allow an easy climb down the 3' circular opening.

From the top of the support column the ladder descends for 70 feet.

At the bottom a rotted wooden door crumbles when an attempt is made to open it. Beyond the doorway is a circular room 15' in diameter with 6 foot high walls and a domed roof which is 15' high at its apex. Including the entry door there are six exits spaced evenly around the room.

Each exit leads to 5' wide, 10' tall corridors lined with irregularly spaced doors. Each corridor is straight and 100' long.

Most of the doors along these corridors are in a condition similar to that of the first door. Behind these are small cells with the rotted remains of four bunks and four footlockers. Each also contains 2 or 3 ruined suits of armor which animate and attack intruders. (Detail 1)

At the ends of these corridors are five different rooms. One is a dining hall with collapsed trestle tables and benches which adjoins a kitchen and large storeroom.

Another chamber is hung with rotted tapestries. At its far end an altar sits at the foot of an icon niche containing an armored figure. Four robed figures rotted to bones lie around the room. These are skeletons which will animate in 1d3 rounds and attack intruders. When defeated they will fall, but animate again in 2d3 rounds to fight again. These skeletons can be turned, and if destroyed this way they will not reanimate. Casting a Bless spell, using a Bless scroll, or pouring Holy Water or a Bless Potion on the alter immediately and permanently destroys these skeletons.

A third chamber is floored in sand, and the remains of archery butts and training dummies are scattered about. Along the far wall a small spring fills three stone-lined basins now filled with sand. The overflow from these basins runs along the wall to a privy bench which is rotted to uselessness, eventually escaping through a crack in the wall.

The fourth room is a richly appointed meeting room which has two small and one large adjoining room. The small rooms are similar to the hallway rooms, including the presence of the animated armor. The large room is a richly appointed, though now rotted, bedroom and private lounge. This room is occupied by a suit of masterwork Half Plate armor which animates and attacks. (see detail 1)

The fifth room is divided between an alchemy lab and a workshop. There are three traps in this room.
Trap 1 is just inside the entrance. It will cause the floor to change into a sticky mud which re-solidifies after 1d3 rounds. Anyone within 10' of the door when the floor solidifies will find their feet imbedded in stone. The trapped victim may remove his shoes, but the shoes are set in the stone.
Trap 2 is near the mechanical workbence. It will eject a cloud of dust in a 10' radius which causes sneezing and coughing for 1d6 rounds to all who fail a reflex save. A masterwork Thief's Toolkit is found here.
Trap 3 is in front of a broken bookshelf behind the alchemist equipment. When triggered three glass spheres drop from the ceiling and shatter, followed by three Tindertwigs which spark and smoke before fizzling out. There is a rancid, acidic paste inside the broken glass which may have been flammable once upon a time. Among the debris of the bookshelf are d4 0-Level arcane spell scrolls, 1 Level 1 arcane spell scroll, and a spellbook containing 4 Level 1 arcane spells.

Detail 1:
80 of the armor suits are leather. These attack as Level 1 Warrior class characters weilding daggers.
8 of the armor suits are studded leather. These attack as Level 1 Fighter class characters wielding shortswords.
8 of the armor suits are chainmail. These attack as Level 1 Fighter class characters wielding broadswords.
3 of the armor suits are splint mail. These attack as Level 2 Fighter class characters wielding longswords.
1 of the armor suits is masterwork half-plate. It attacks as a Level 3 Fighter class character wielding a bastard sword.

At least one of each armor type is masterwork quality and will remain useful after the animating force is destroyed. The rest are rotted, rusted, and damaged by the fight.
The animated suits can be injured and destroyed by normal, non-magical weapons.
No more than 1 suit which is better than leather will be encountered in any group.

I leave it to you to draw the map and set the encounters. I didn't create details which may depend on the game system being used.

There is one more detail I need to add here: Why are the PC characters here? Well, now is the time for that original idea I said I'd get back to. How does this tie in to the larger campaign?

Here is a handout to give players at the start of the game session:

Two generations have gone since the neighboring kingdom of Thallmarch has been in slow decline due to its isolationist policies. Its former king squandered his armies in pointless wars fought for status and to thin the ranks of rival lords in his own kingdom. He died, hated and reviled by his subjects, who suffered under his rule. After a bloody succession, a new monarch sits upon The Red Throne of Thallmarch. His neighbors fear his militant policies which include building up his military power.

Baron Claudia, charged by her liege with fortifying her border with Thallmarch, has ordered her garrison commanders to determine where watchtowers and forts are needed. Captain Garratt assigned a team, the PC party, to investigate the state of the old tower with an eye toward its reconstruction as a watchtower.

While some of the PCs may be soldiers, if their player so chooses, they may also be civilians hired for the job.

So, ideally, this dungeon and the adjacent village should allow a party of PCs to advance from level 1 to level 2.

Additionally, it can set the stage for exploration of the valley and hills along the borders, with political intrigue, military missions, or monster lairs all being possible extensions from this initial adventure.

Finally, it offers a beginning to a campaign during which further worldbuilding can be done. For the adventurers, the months you can spend creating pantheons of deities and distant empires are wasted effort. It is more important that you flesh out the local merchants than it is to create a dynastic succession to the Granite Throne Of Rastaria.

If you do come up with such details, write a very short story, draw a picture, or write a travelog entry for it to offer as a handout when you need to buy time or are waiting on a late player. Keep your handouts in a folder for your players to browse. In a few short months your handouts will begin to stack up, and bit by bit the depth of detail will add up to rival commercial campaign settings, but all the while your focus will be to prepare for the next game session.

The game is played session by session, and nothing annoys players more than a DM who isn't ready for the game they came to play. The best setting in the world won't make up for you wasting half the session rolling up hit points for a goblin tribe. Be prepared for the next game session, and the world will build itself around you.

[brian 333]

Now I am going to point out emergent concepts which rise from building from the ground floor. Nothing here will be new; I created it in the previous adventure. But my goal is to demonstrate how I achisved the global goal by starting small.

The moons as aspects of deities. Three deities arose in describing the moon.

Luna, goddess of tides and fishermen. Selene, goddess of the hunt. Ceres, goddess of fertility and crops. I could go a bit farther by assigning them Elemental affiliations, water, air, and earth respectively, or I could make one a major deity and the others supporting cast or rivals. Or I could flesh them out any of a hundred ways. I could also assign other deities to aspects of the various moons, (I have nine to play with.) The thing is, I didn't set out to create deities, they simply emerged from writing about someghing else. Half the work of creating these deities is done before I even started creating deities!

I created another as well. Did you spot him? It is the armored figure in the icon niche of the temple. Who is this guy? If a player asks, inform him his character could check on that in the village, then assign that player to create the deity between sessions. Is it a demigod of war? A greater deity? Is it an evil conqueror or a good protector? I don't know. The thing is, the icon represents something. Perhaps the second episode will be based on this deity somehow. You can go virtually anywhere with this.

Another emergent concept is that Crazy Morgan is an herbalist and apothecary as well as a tinkerer. He may turn out to be a good source for healing herbs and alchemical preparations. He may also turn out to be a good source of information. Later game sessions might be builg around his sending the party in search of magical components or he may have old maps, or virtually anything you need an NPC for in a later episode. Right now he is a guy who has odd stuff for sale who is willing to buy junk, but whi,e his junk will quickly go out of style for your players, what he knows may be vital later on. Recycle him!

Speaking of recycling, what about a cave full of undead, a woodland glade which is home to a werebear, or a rampaging wild hog? Ideas can be used differently than your original intent. Suppose the PCs hear about the rampaging boar and go hunting? This could lead them to discover goblins and werebear. Do they work together? Well, who knows?

The ideas which emerged building the starting session begin to weave larger stories, not the least of which is the nearby menacing kingdom. Are they really evil warlords bent on domination? Or is something else going on over there? Whatever the case, you now have more ways to follow, which will add more details to your blank map. Where you began with a tiny hamlet you now have two kingdoms. Investigating them will necessitate creating more backstory, even if it only comes out a bit at a time.

[brian 333]

Does anyone else have comments on the build process? How would you do it differently?

To continue, I will start work on Session 2.

At this stage of the game I am beginning to need a map. I have some details from Session 1 to help flesh it out:
A pass through hills
A road from the village to a place with a military garrison.
Two kingdoms on a common border through the hills

I also have two NPCs, Captain Garratt, and Baron Claudia.

At this point I don't want to draw a mega-map of the whole continent. I want a map that the PCs can use. Since I have chosen the lands between the two kingdoms as the setting for the upcoming sessions one edge of my map will be the neighboring kingdom.

Since I plan to begin the session with a report back to the questgiver, I need to place his location on the map. I want to maximize the scale and I want to include a broad adventure zone which is unknown to the players, so I choose 5 miles per 1 inch (2cm). On a standard sheet of typing paper, this gives me a 40 mile by 55 mile zone. By road this equals 4 days march across the width of the map, or 5 1/2 days along its length. Where there are no roads progress is slower!

Villages tend to be within a day of other settlements, and towns tend to be where several villages can feed them. Now I need to get drawing.

I place Captain Garratt's location on one edge of the map. I want the rival kingdom to feel close no matter where the PCs are, so I choose the long edge of the map as the border. Captain Garratt will be centered on the opposite edge. From Captain Garratt's location I draw a winding road to the original village about 1 1/2 inches (3cm) from Garratt's. This leaves me with 5 inches of hills between the village and the other kingdom, or 25 miles.

I have already said there was a pass between the hills to the other kingdom, so I note that and draw in hills above and below this pass. On the PCs side of the map I draw a trade road running along the edge of the hills. Every inch or so along this road there will be a village. I decide none of them will be large enough to be considered a town, but one or two will have a satellite village in the edge of the hills.

Now I need names. I have eleven to fourteen villages, two kingdoms, and a hilly region. I may have a stream or two coming out of the hills, and they will need to be named.

And why is there an area filled with villages? I decide it is a fertile river valley, so it too must be named. The river is off the edge of the map, but the streams from the hills run down to it, and the various villages are tributaries to the larger settlements along its banks.

Now I have a well defined settled area on the border of two large blank spots on the map. For the next few sessions play will center on these blank spots. I will let the players fill in these spots as they adventure. I make a second copy for them and keep the original for myself.

Session 2 will begin by leaving the village of the ruined tower and returning to Captain Garratt. The PCs should have a good idea of the condition of the ruins so they can make their report. If one of your players likes to draw or paint, have her render the ruined tower to show the other players. But I need to start worldbuilding again, so I set the stage for the next encounter.

The dirt road from the village is heavily rutted and washed out, making progress slow, especially with full packs. It more or less parallels a brook which winds through a gulley. At its deepest this brook is measured in inches, and it is inhabited mostly by mayfly nymphs and minnows. Progress along the road is little better than one mile per hour, but the reed- and shrub-choked gulley and the dense pinewoods would be even slower.

(Roll the dice)

As the party travels, the smell of smoke becomes apparent.

There will be a group of bandits. These are 7 outcaste commoners lead by a Level 1 Rogue. If the party takes any precautions they will take the bandits by surprise, and they will scatter. If the party ignores the cues, the rogue has time to set up an ambush. The bandits are armed with clubs and shortswords. Two of them also have slings. When three of their number fall the bandits scatter.

The point of this encounter is to let the party learn to deal with random encounters.

The bandits are dressed poorly, unwashed and unshaven, and riddled with lice. The goods they abandoned wouldn't be worth more than a copper piece or two.

(Have those who searched the body roll Fortitude Saves vs. Lice, DC:10. Lice can be removed with a simple divine orison.)

As the party travels on they eventually begin to run into the farms which support the village where Captain Garret is garrisoned.

Now we need to know what the garrison looks like. Building it should be similar to the initial village. Decide what you need and then flesh it out.

I want Captain Garratt to lead a 40 soldier company of two platoons and four squads. The soldiers are warriors equipped with spears, leather armor, and bucklers. There are a corporal and a sergeant in each platoon, (one in each squad,) equipped in leather armor with medium shields and shortswords. There is a chainmail clad Lieutenant with a broadsword. There are also two soldiers in each squad equipped with shortbows.

The company now occupies a field near the village, with four neat rows of two-man tents forming aisles leading to two officer's tents and a supply tent near a large cookfire. A spiked fence surrounds the camp, and soldiers can be seen walking the perimeter and guarding the entrance. Nearby the soldiers can be seen working on their future log fort, which is now little more than a space cleared of weeds and some ditches.

The village should include a small inn to care for the party and shops from which they can resupply. There should also be a low level healer if the party lacks a cleric.

After making your report the captain unrolls a map of the local area, (the handout,) and begins discussing the possibility of investing the ruins. He expresses great interest in the area of the pass itself. He gives the map to the PCs and tells them to continue investigating the pass, but to avoid any encounter with the neighboring kingdom. "I am not prepared to start a war here, this is an intelligence gathering mission."

He gives them a day or two to rest before they are to set out. He also dispatches a runner to take his report to The Baron.

Okay, I need to take a break here before I begin working on the adventure zone. My main questions are, what lives in the pass, and what have the other kingdom's troops been doing on their side of the pass? The answer to these questions will define the rest of Session 2.

But to relate this back to worldbuilding in general, I now have a river which may be a main transportation route through the kingdom, or at least the barony. I also potentially have another deity if I decide the village needs a healer. My campaign setting is growing!

[Lushaani]

This method is great for seat of your pants building. Which is the most likely case for a home brewed game, growing as its played.

I especially like your note at the beginning of "woah, slow down- big picture stuff doesn't apply to 1st level" That's an easy trap to fall into.

For the most part, world building for a game is sort of reliant on how many session 0's there are. Session 0's help a lot with the focusing in on a concept, and which central branches to focus on before letting the rest grow organically. I like to have a central concept for a world- be it cultural theme, cosmology, historical period, or prominent monsters. Something I really want to do.

Next, for a session 0 or even before then, I probe the players what kind of tone they want to play. Hack and Slash, means that monsters and enemy factions are more important. Intrigue and Mystery means that how a city functions is more important. And so on. If at all possible, try to probe them for character concepts they want to play, but that usually waits for an actual session 0.

So, for session 0, or the first official brainstorming world building session, this is when I try to get character creation out of the way. It's most convenient if all the players want to play similar things, all humans of the same ethnicity, all from the same city, etc. But this is a good way to get a lot of super basic notes on foreign races, species, or nations- if a player is gung ho about a specific archetype they want to play. (And the ways they want to play their character can be inspirational notes for later) I try to have a basic pantheon down, usually with the simplest God concepts. Around 10 Gods for the various alignments. But beyond names and domains, the rest is to be filled in later. A basic city or town is important to have, but for that, starting from scratch is harder. So a map for inspiration from an existing module or campaign setting is useful for starting. And reskinning to fit the concept.

In short, I'd say that having a central concept on a grand scale is important, a sort of star for the rest of the ideas to orbit around as the blank space gets filled as its needed.

[Max_Killjoy]

One thing I'd say is that whether the big picture stuff applies to the PCs right away or not, it can't be ignored until you get there.

I see far too many attempts at "seat of the pants" worldbuilding end with the GM or writer painting themselves into a corner, and being weighed down with a stack of mutually contradicting established facts that have to be retconned or painstakingly reconciled.

[sktarq]

Yes and no....

if the ability to go to the moons is going to be important later you can and should ask what effects those have on the society...and then ask if those secondary effects have implications at first level.

If traveling to the moons happens? how often? it is often enough that there are flights? if so satilite sourced items would be a thing. and fraudulent moon sourced items could also be a thing....heck a basic fetch quest for an antler from a Selene beast could be a just dandy 2nd level quest if things are rare or a patron or opponent may wish to show off their wealth by having a feast with selene hunted game.
Do those legends etc effect how people see being on the planet? is the planet seen as lowly in a similar way of the matter/spirit ideas found in real world religions? Does the ability to see the world where there are no boarders visible etc change international relations? Are their guilds that control access? if so they would probably be significant players in the political field...and if tools (like ships) are needed what are the outgrowths of that (what else can people do with this (if you can use X to travel to the moon can you use it to travel to the other side of Yavin? if so, what does that do to long distance shipping?...and if they don't why not (need a special location? fine but those are know key strategic points to guard with watchtowers and build towns near etc))....if it a heroes only thing just stuff in titles and whatnot could well be still a factor...it is why the 12th level ranger Mark has more social rank than the 12th level ranger David and thus who controls the boarder patrols that party will meet vs who is most experienced local ranger but who is found on the boarder not the court for example.

none of that may be relevant to a first level character but it lays the foundation for when things do happen.

and that is just what are the effects of being people being able to go to the first three moons.

[brian 333]

You can do big picture stuff all along the way, but only after you have set up your next session.

The big trap to avoid is getting so bogged down in the big picture that your next session is a bust. No matter how beautiful the cosmic setting, the game is built one gaming session at a time. No exceptions. Two flat sessions and players screen a Netflix instead of coming to your game.

[PaladinX]

I actually found this really helpful. I've been working on the big picture of my world, and it was taking for ever. Now I'm planning out my first adventure.

[Max_Killjoy]

Part of my ongoing emphasis on big picture is that I don't have a gaming group currently, or in the foreseeable future. So, my worldbuilding is for my own enjoyment, or even with the vague intent to publish something at some point.

[sktarq]

Yeah in my gaming group we know who is going to GM the next campaign months ahead of time and/or I keep a few half+ built ones laying about.

Because this style a different problem..when you do get to the "big' stuff it doesn't connect well to the world the players have already been playing in. Because the big stuff also can have small scale effects it is also a major driver in getting your even first level adventure feeling like YOUR world and not a generic one...and that is a big plus in getting your players engaged etc.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah in my gaming group we know who is going to GM the next campaign months ahead of time and/or I keep a few half+ built ones laying about.

Because this style a different problem..when you do get to the "big' stuff it doesn't connect well to the world the players have already been playing in. Because the big stuff also can have small scale effects it is also a major driver in getting your even first level adventure feeling like YOUR world and not a generic one...and that is a big plus in getting your players engaged etc.

Even if I were running a campaign, I'd still feel it absolutely necessary to always have the big picture in mind, to work from both ends (the personal / immediate experience of the PCs, and the overall world up to and including the cosmological scale) and meet in the middle.

[Mechalich]

In terms of the small-scale/large-scale divide, it's important for any world-building scenario that before you engage the small-scale, you need to have identified the large scale stuff that absolutely everyone in the world knows. You also need to know big picture stuff that absolutely everyone in your campaign area knows.

The first group includes absurdly basic stuff that will matter to everyone - like how many moons a planet has, how many days the year is, how the seasons operate, and so on. Now, in many fantasy settings, especially campaign-only ones as opposed to writing projects, those answers as going to be 'as Earth' most of the time, but that's still something you need to know, since it may have implications. For example: Resvier has a year that is 365 days exactly, down to the microsecond, because the elder deity who designed the world wanted consistency in the calendar.

The second group includes a variety of background things like how the calendar is structured, how many languages are spoken, what the sapient species in the area are, the local climate, what the governments happen to be, the local tech levels, known religions, and so forth. Note that you don't have to do this for a whole world or even a whole continent, just the operational region of the campaign (the lower your tech level, the smaller this could be). At the end of the day, you, the GM, need to have information in your head such that you could answer, in at least a cursory fashion, the questions a traveler from the next kingdom over might ask a random border guard.

[brian 333]

All of that is valid.

But you don't have to stop big-picture worldbuilding. As I pointed out, it can occur concurrently with building your campaign. That is, in fact, my thesis,

The question you should ask is whether you are building a campaign or a campaign setting? If the latter is your intent, you don't need to worry about adventures. Unless your setting is sold commercially, nobody will ever play in it anyway. If you are building the former, then the vast majoity of effort which goes into building the setting will go unused.

Case in point: the very successful Forgotten Realms Campaign setting. It detailed a hundred cultures, but virtually every game played in it centered around Neverwinter. Nobody played Mulhorand, or Chult, or Lake Of Steam campaigns. Those were all places characters came from to get to Neverwinter.

I'm not criticising FRCS, it's a work of art. But it does nothing to prepare the DM for the next group to visit his dining room table, break out the Cheetoes and Mountain Dew, and start warming up the dice.

As you build your campaign you will also be building your setting. That's what handouts are for. To let players know the world they are playing in exists outside their view. A handout on the barbarians to the south, the eastern hobgoblin hordes, or the ice people who take the shapes of bears and seals might inspire to create a character from there, giving even more depth to your world.

But focus on the next game session. Without the next game session, you won't have players to admire the richness and depth of the worlds you create.

[Mechalich]

Case in point: the very successful Forgotten Realms Campaign setting. It detailed a hundred cultures, but virtually every game played in it centered around Neverwinter. Nobody played Mulhorand, or Chult, or Lake Of Steam campaigns. Those were all places characters came from to get to Neverwinter.


Um...Neverwinter is actually a fairly minor part of the Forgotten Realms and while several video games were set there it was by no means the sole focus of tabletop applications of the setting. The Forgotten Realms is indeed too big, which is why each edition tended to break it down into sub-settings, and there were areas people generally did not bother with, but people did play in a wide variety of the core regions.

More importantly, regional detail is the thing you specifically don't need to have to start. The 3e FR Campaign setting book has a giant pile of regional detail - it also has a chapter called 'Daily Life' that includes a whole lot of functional information about how people living in the realms go about their days, how society is structured, how people relate to magic and monsters, weights and measures used, and similar information. All of which is important stuff to know when actually running a world in play.

[Max_Killjoy]

Um...Neverwinter is actually a fairly minor part of the Forgotten Realms and while several video games were set there it was by no means the sole focus of tabletop applications of the setting. The Forgotten Realms is indeed too big, which is why each edition tended to break it down into sub-settings, and there were areas people generally did not bother with, but people did play in a wide variety of the core regions.

More importantly, regional detail is the thing you specifically don't need to have to start. The 3e FR Campaign setting book has a giant pile of regional detail - it also has a chapter called 'Daily Life' that includes a whole lot of functional information about how people living in the realms go about their days, how society is structured, how people relate to magic and monsters, weights and measures used, and similar information. All of which is important stuff to know when actually running a world in play.

Agreed. And to me, it's that "daily life" and "social structure" stuff that too many settings ignore, regardless of how fantastic they are. I've read through multiple books for one setting and come away with no idea of what people there eat, what their houses are like, what their clothes are like, how comfortable or precarious their lives are day to day and year to year, how they end up married or celebrate births or mourn their dead, none of it.

[brian 333]

I can't emphasize this enough: you do not have to ignore big picture worldbuilding. You have to prioritize your building time so that your next session is covered. Once that is done, you have time for anything you like.

A valid point was made about common knowledge. I highly recommend creating handouts about daily life that your players can read and discuss. The point I would make here is that the players, not their characters, should be learning this. If everyone knows blue eyeshadow is only used by widows, for example, your players' characters will have always known this and acted appropriately. Daily life details are for the players.

A big mistake for the early worldbuilder is to allow the fascination of worldbuilding itself to overwhelm the builder. Worldbuilding is fun.

It also eats up time. Your friends come over to play a game, not to admire your setting. If you have spent your time detailing how folks get to the moons and have to create the next encounter while your players idly roll the dice and make Monty Python jokes, you have fallen into the worldbuilding trap.

Focus on the next campaign.
Next on the campaign's overall goal.
Next on ideas which emerge from these.
Next on what your local society and environment is like.
Next on big picture worldbuilding.

None of this is exclusive; ideas from one scale influence the next, but don't fly to the moons and leave your players stranded in Podunk.

[brian 333]

A Legend:

A thousand years ago a great king ruled a vast kingdom with such wisdom that all the realm was peaceful and prosperous. He traveled the land hosting tourneys and feasts, and folk turned out in crowds to see him pass down the highway.

But in one tourney the knight Roland struck him such a blow that the king's wits were scattered. The king's body recovered slowly, but his memory and wisdom were lost.

Half of the knights of the kingdom demanded Roland be executed while the other half sought to use the opportunity to enrich themselves. Wars broke out as knights fought their neighbors and as neighboring kingdoms sought to take advantage of the chaos.

Roland vowed to find the king's lost wits on the moon of Merat. His trials were long and arduous, beginning with the taming of the pegasus. He then flew to Selene who among all beings was the greatest hunter. If anyone could find the lost moon it would be her.

For a time he hunted for the goddess among the autumnal forests, but those are tales for another time. When he found Selene she informed him that he could only find Merat by following his own footsteps to where he had never been.

Many adventures followed before he came upon Urra, a crone who lived on a stone floating on the sea of night. She promised to tell him the way, but only after she became his wife.

As a true knight, Roland had sworn to do everything in his power to serve his king, so he married the crone and took her in her wedding bower.

The next morning he awoke beside a beautiful woman. She was Urra, she explained, but she had been cursed by a goddess whose husband had been smitten by her beauty. She was to live forever old and alone until someone married her.

But in her years she had learned many things, and she knew that Merat could only be found by walking straight backwards. She told him where to stand and told him if he even glanced over his shoulder Merat would not be there.

So he looked in her eyes and strode backwards and when he could no longer see her he found himself surrounded by forgotten things. He kept walking backwards and guided by his footsteps walked straight to where he found his king's lost wits.

But then many lost things begged him to take them with him. He could not take them all, and feared that in taking more than he had come for he would lose it all again.

Then he recalled Urra's words and glanced over his shoulder.

And Merat with all its lost tteasures was gone. Ahead of him was Urra holding the reigns of pegasus. They flew back to Yavin and Urra restored the king's lost wits.

Roland spent the rest of his life working to set the kingdom to rights, and his seven sons after him, but even the wisdom of the king could not restore the kingdom to its former glory, for once a thing is broken, even mending leaves its mark.

[brian 333]

I'm currently posting from a phone, so I can't do italics. But as you can see, worldbuilding continues. Rather than dry fact sheets, I opt for legends and sometimes 'songs' when I can work in verse. This is a stylistic preference, nota requirement.

However, by using prose and poetry you can add the illusion of history a simple data list cannot convey. For example, I have established one method of travel to a moon. You can tame a pegasus and fly there. This implies other flying beasts can go there, and there is no danger of asphyxiation on the way. It's also implied this is not going to be a low level quest.

When you are worldbuilding for a campaign, giving the illusion of history via fables and legends beats a list of dry facts. Look at how Tolkien did it. Or the other R.R. in Song Of Ice And Fire. Those worlds seem deeper than they really are because people in them refer to Beren and Bran as if everyone already knowd the tales.

Imagine Aragorn and the King Of The Dishonored Dead, for example. How much more effective was that scene because Aragorn had a ghost story to go with it? It could have been: A few hundred years ago a king broke his oath of allegiance so Isuldur put a curse on him. An heir of Isuldur could remove the curse, and Aragorn is the last, unless he should have a son.

I like Tolkien's version better. A legend makes the game world come alive. And it helps to illustrate the worldbuilding choices you have made in a form which allows players to percieve the depth of history in your world.

[Yora]

Because this style a different problem..when you do get to the "big' stuff it doesn't connect well to the world the players have already been playing in. Because the big stuff also can have small scale effects it is also a major driver in getting your even first level adventure feeling like YOUR world and not a generic one...and that is a big plus in getting your players engaged etc.

I've been struggling with this for 7 years now. And I feel that I improved greatly on it since I decided to no longer bother with a world map, a world history, and detailed top level history.

Big global politics matter in campaigns that are about big global politics. Something like The Lord of the Rings. When your campaign is about discovering ancient forgotten ruins in the forest, then none of that matters.

But what always matters is how people behave and interact with PCs in the places where players spend most of their time, and what special rules make life in this world different from 21st century Earth. This is relevant both in the halls of the Galactic Senate and in a fishing village on an idolated island.
"The map is not the territory" someone said, and the map isn't the setting either. "Setting" is the social environment and situation in which a story takes place.

[King of Nowhere]

Worldbuilding can be either top-down, where you decide the big picture and then you figure out the big picture affects the small setting, or bottom-up, where you decide a small setting and then figure out how the big picture must look like to be consistent with the small setting. The approaches are not mutually exclusive; in fact, one should go both ways, checking both large and small scale to see if it's consistent.
In my experience, you don't need to have nailed down political details at the first session, and you can probably ignore what are the main powers of the world (in fact, you are probably better off ignoring that part and establishing it better later, when you know more of the kind of campaign you're playing), but some questions you need to address are related to npc adventurers and power levels:

- how many powerful people are around for hire? What level do you need to be to, say, insult a citylord without repercussions? How about a king?
- if the party set fire to a town, can they expect to just move on without consequence, or there is an organized power that is capable of hunting them?
- if there is such a power, why is it not already solving the problem that the pcs are out to solve? If there is not such a power, why isn't the world in anarchy?
because those questions will be called early on. If you have the first mission be the party at level 1 saving a city from goblin raiders against which it was powerless, and later you establish that the city is full of mid-level adventurers, observant players will wonder why those mid-level adventurers didn't fix the goblin problem, and it will be a blow to their suspension of disbelief.

Another worldbuilding angle is "rules to world" against "world to rules". Basically, there are a lot of interactions of magic that affect the life of people, especially with low level magic, but also with stuff that is very expensive to set up but will go on forever afterwards. Some of those interactions may clash against your intended worldbuilding. Ignoring those interactions leads either to inconsistency, or to players breaking the game. So you have to decide if your worldbuilding will adapt to the rules, or if you will houserule any part of the rules that will create inconsistencies within your worldbuilding. That's something else that the players are more likely to accept if they know in advance.
As an example, if you follow rules as written as much as possible, you are likely to end up in a tippyverse. That's the "rules to world" approach. If you want a different world you can follow the "world to rules" approach and put some houserule or ban that will make a tippyverse impossible; for example, teleportation circle cannot be made permanent. But there are many more instances where you may have to deciide that a specific spell or a specific creature do not exist in your setting.

[brian 333]

A very good point was made by several posters about society and NPCs. I hope my example worldbuilding exercise demonstrated a focus on NPCs and how players might interact with them.

I think a point may have been overlooked about the intent of this topic: it is not a graduate level seminar on the worldbuilding process. It is one effective way to begin for a new DM who wants to create adventures for players.

Writing oneself into a corner is possible, but this method as I have presented it will insure that will not happen for many years. Indeed, the danger lies in the opposite direction: the method offers too many directions for the builder to follow them all. This is why I keep reiterating the need to focus on the next game session.

Once one has undertaken the worldbuilding process one can expand his efforts in any direction. The world may be a part of a vast cosmology, or it may offer an infinity of small scale adventure zones. Or both.

Your campaign may be designed around a border war between two small kingdoms or it may involve an epic clash between deities. But either way, the goal when you sit down to write should be to insure that you have what you need for the next game session.

The fun part of DMing is to bring your world alive for your players. If your effort is spent detailing the personalities and conflicts of the gods, you won't know much about the goblin tribe your players must defeat in the next game session.

Instead of rolling up hit points and figuring out the goblin's tactics on the fly, a prepared DM can roleplay the goblin king, if he has prepared for the next session.

For me, the most fun as player and as DM has been during sessions where the DM knew all about the details and was able to roleplay the bad guys. The least fun has been in sessions in which the DM had to stop the story to create major details on the fly.

[Max_Killjoy]

When I'm building a world, or running a game in it tomorrow, I need to know the big stuff. I need to know how the world works. I need to know what the skeleton I'm building on is like, and where borders are. I need to know the broad strokes on the map so that I don't end up with an impossible landscape.

[brian 333]

When I'm building a world, or running a game in it tomorrow, I need to know the big stuff. I need to know how the world works. I need to know what the skeleton I'm building on is like, and where borders are. I need to know the broad strokes on the map so that I don't end up with an impossible landscape.

I don't disagree with this in general. But:

Which is more important in your next session, the goblin king the party will face, or the clothing styles of far Cathay?
Which is more necessary, the quisine of the lands across the mountains, or whether goblins eat their prisoners?
Is it more important to know the heraldry of the Knights of The Octagonal Court, or that a goblin recognizes a white flag as a surrender signal?

Worldbuilding is an immense task requiring many many hours, months of hours, to complete, and yet the task will still be incomplete. It is not a task for the beginning DM to undertake because he will never get around to the actual job of the DM, which is to be prepared for the next game session.

Now if your intent is to say your overall theme is necessary for you to begin, then this is not something I have ever contested. Note my very first post: I began with an overall big picture, and I have had that in mind at every step of building.

If you want Gothic horror, my setting is unsuitable. If you want standard fantasy right out of the Monster Manual, it is. The overall theme does not require a whole lot of time to create, and it can guide your building on every scale.

But this topic is intended to show new DMs how to avoid the worldbuilding trap, in which many man/hours are invested creating content no player in your campaign will ever see.

A case in point: I once created a tribe of barbarian halflings who lived on the margins of a desert. They rode and herded ostriches, and their warriors trained axebeaks as war-mounts.

I never used them. I created them, right down to their daily lives, clothing, and food preferences. I worked on them most of the winter of 1984-85. They occupy a folder in a plastic bin now that a handfull of players have seen, but so far, nobody has played a character from or even encountered the tribe.

That winter was spent worldbuilding to no real point, other than that the idea interested me. It was a dead end. As I recall, that winter was spent playing my brother's Traveller campaign because I had nothing to offer.

So to say you require the big picture is an interesting observation. The question you should answer now is, how much of the big picture is absolutely necessary before you begin play?

New DMs want to begin playing now, not next summer.

[Mechalich]

Which is more important in your next session, the goblin king the party will face, or the clothing styles of far Cathay?
Which is more necessary, the quisine of the lands across the mountains, or whether goblins eat their prisoners?
Is it more important to know the heraldry of the Knights of The Octagonal Court, or that a goblin recognizes a white flag as a surrender signal?

You are contrasting adventure-level topics. Obviously the more important things to your next session are the adventure-level details relevant to that session. You should not feel the need to ever create adventure-level details for places the adventure is never going to go. How the guards at Graypeak Castle are stationed only matters when the party actually goes there.


A case in point: I once created a tribe of barbarian halflings who lived on the margins of a desert. They rode and herded ostriches, and their warriors trained axebeaks as war-mounts.

I never used them. I created them, right down to their daily lives, clothing, and food preferences. I worked on them most of the winter of 1984-85. They occupy a folder in a plastic bin now that a handfull of players have seen, but so far, nobody has played a character from or even encountered the tribe.

This is regional level material. Generally your entire campaign should take place within a discrete campaign region, and you should only use information that applies to the region in question, whether the region is a continent, an empire, a nation, a province, or even a single city. The regional level needs of your game will vary depending upon how your operational region is defined and what options characters have to travel through it. The greater the travel options, the harder it is to keep a campaign contained, which is a design challenge in settings that have high-end travel options (like teleportation or hyperspace).

When designing a campaign, obviously you should not apply effort to creating regional level material for a region you are not going to use.


So to say you require the big picture is an interesting observation. The question you should answer now is, how much of the big picture is absolutely necessary before you begin play?

It depends on the kind of campaign you are running and the kind of setting built to support it. In general, the higher the tech level the more big picture detail is needed, simply because the awareness of the residents in that setting to background phenomena increases with technological level.

For example, in a world like Yora's with roughly Bronze Age level societies at best, the average resident has almost no knowledge about anything beyond a couple days walk from their home and displays complete ignorance of an societies beyond their homelands. The average peasant may not even know the name of their ruler and have no idea what they actually do. By contrast, in a high-tech futuristic world where every character has an AI in their head that can google literally anything the PC asks for at any time like in Eclipse Phase, the setting needs an epic quantity of detail available to the GM at all times (this is one of the many challenges to actually running Eclipse Phase).


New DMs want to begin playing now, not next summer.

Determining the big picture material to world-building doesn't take that long, and gets easier with practice. If you're running an existing system, and you're willing to be easy an 'as Earth' the majority of the particulars, and especially is you're willing to 'as Culture A except in cases A, B, and C' your campaign region, you can throw together bare-bones outline very quickly and flesh out the necessary big picture details rapidly. It shouldn't take more than a week for a fairly simple setting.

[Max_Killjoy]

You are contrasting adventure-level topics. Obviously the more important things to your next session are the adventure-level details relevant to that session. You should not feel the need to ever create adventure-level details for places the adventure is never going to go. How the guards at Graypeak Castle are stationed only matters when the party actually goes there.



This is regional level material. Generally your entire campaign should take place within a discrete campaign region, and you should only use information that applies to the region in question, whether the region is a continent, an empire, a nation, a province, or even a single city. The regional level needs of your game will vary depending upon how your operational region is defined and what options characters have to travel through it. The greater the travel options, the harder it is to keep a campaign contained, which is a design challenge in settings that have high-end travel options (like teleportation or hyperspace).

When designing a campaign, obviously you should not apply effort to creating regional level material for a region you are not going to use.



It depends on the kind of campaign you are running and the kind of setting built to support it. In general, the higher the tech level the more big picture detail is needed, simply because the awareness of the residents in that setting to background phenomena increases with technological level.

For example, in a world like Yora's with roughly Bronze Age level societies at best, the average resident has almost no knowledge about anything beyond a couple days walk from their home and displays complete ignorance of an societies beyond their homelands. The average peasant may not even know the name of their ruler and have no idea what they actually do. By contrast, in a high-tech futuristic world where every character has an AI in their head that can google literally anything the PC asks for at any time like in Eclipse Phase, the setting needs an epic quantity of detail available to the GM at all times (this is one of the many challenges to actually running Eclipse Phase).



Determining the big picture material to world-building doesn't take that long, and gets easier with practice. If you're running an existing system, and you're willing to be easy an 'as Earth' the majority of the particulars, and especially is you're willing to 'as Culture A except in cases A, B, and C' your campaign region, you can throw together bare-bones outline very quickly and flesh out the necessary big picture details rapidly. It shouldn't take more than a week for a fairly simple setting.

That's better than I could have explained it quickly. Short version, yeah, I think there's a difference between "spending months on really detailed stuff for a distant location my current campaign will never see or visit" and "what are the major details of this world that could affect any campaign set anywhere or going anywhere".

[brian 333]

Captain Garratt's new headquarters is in a somewhat larger village than the village of Broken Tower.

(I just named the first village, but I may have already named it on my map. Garrat's village may need a name too.)

In the village of Pear Grove there are almost one hundred permanent residents supporting four times as many farmers. In the peace following the last war the region has become prosperous.

The road along the border is used by regular patrols of Baron Claudia's army, but the village has few accommodations for them, other than the field currently being used by Garratt's company.

The village has a temple to Ceres, goddess of crops and fertility. It is administered by Danten More, an Expert class priest who has a variety of potions and scrolls but no spellcasting abilities. The Harvestor, (Danten's title,) also operates the village granary. He is the defacto banker of the community, tracking harvests and shares of the communal grain.

There is also an inn. It has a bar that sells home-brewed ale, cheap wine, and fairly good meals. There are two small rooms above the bar and barrel-storage area which are seperately accessible by stairs on opposite ends of the common room. Rado Viken runs the bar which is to the left side of the central fireplace and his wife Mirna Viken cooks. They are both old enough that their children have moved away but not yet infirm. Rado is gregarious while Mirna is sarcastic.

The village has a tool sharpener named Nin and her apprentice, Wes. Nin is a badly scarred woman with Rogue levels. Wes never speaks or looks directly at anyone, but does what Nin says. They will buy weapons, and have a small variety for sale, though seldom more than one of any kind save daggers.

There is a blacksmith in town, a dwarf named Chrome. She is primarily occupied with shoing horses, but can mend virtually anything cast or forged.

A hedge wizard and veterinarian lives just outside of town on a farm that grows trees for the lumber trade. Kaelindor Brightmantle is a blond-haired, blue-eyed gnome who has a half-dozen village boys in his employ. They use a complicated log-chute to transport their logs to the stream and then float them to market. Brightmantle can cast up to level 3 arcane spells.

The village is run by a council of aldermen who are elected for life by the village heads of households. They meet in a building built above the village ice house. In the cold of winter ice is harvested from a series of pools fed by the stream and stored for use in the summer. The Ice House is also the local jail where troublemakers are kept until the aldermen can decide their punishment. There are no police, but a group of farmers will gang up on a violator when needed and put him on ice.

At this point I have enough detail to make a map of Pear Grove. Just for fun I opt to not put a grove of pear trees in the village, but there is one pear tree in the center of town which is huge and grows hard green cooking pears. It is surrounded by an unmortared stone fence.

[brian 333]

That's better than I could have explained it quickly. Short version, yeah, I think there's a difference between "spending months on really detailed stuff for a distant location my current campaign will never see or visit" and "what are the major details of this world that could affect any campaign set anywhere or going anywhere".

And I have repeatedly said those details are easily handled in short and to the point handout sheets. I have also repeatedly said that your priority should be the next game session, and once that is prepared you can do any design or building you like.

My emphasis is on priority, not exclusivity. You don't need to know the shape or even the name of the continent to run an adventure on it, but that data doesn't hurt anything. On the other hand, knowing the shapes and names of all the continents won't help you if a geography quiz is not the next adventure for your characters.

I keep reading things to the effect that if it's common knowledge it has to be detailed. This is not true. The characters can know that all inns serve beans on Monday and fish on Friday, or even that weeks are eight days long without the players knowing. When the players learn these details it is easily assumed the characters have been living with those facts all along.

An example: how many players have detailed creating a latrine when setting up camp? They must be doing something about it, right? But it is easily assumed that eliminations occur on schedule without the players sketching out how their elimination plans are handled.

Another example: your world may have a unique take on how spellcasting is performed. A player, who has almost certainly never cast a spell in his life, doesn't need to know these details to cast a spell. When he learns this bit of fluff it is easy to realize the character has been doing it this way all along. This is not a retcon, just a detail that adds depth to your campaign without really changing anything about how the game is played. New info for the player, but the same old hat for the character.

The chartographer character might know the shape and size of the continent, and when that detail is important to the campaign a DM can give such a map to the player, as drawn by the player's character.

It is a classic mistake to assume that if the DM hasn't drawn it it doesn't exist. The average character knows thousands of facts which were never important to the campaign at hand. My characters never had birthdays, for example. If a horoscope was ever needed, though, I could D12/D30 and generate one. Then that would have been his birthday all along.

[brian 333]

Okay, now I have the second village plan. I still need some shops, but I have plenty of time. I might begin to make a list of shopkeeper characters to have on hand in case my PCs want to visit another village or in case I need a character to run Pear Grove's general store.

But now I want to srart the new adventure zone encounters so the PCs can begin to fill in their maps.

The first thing I need to decide is what type of encounters I will have. This is a question with many branches, so let's begin with some major worldbuilding issues and work down.

First, I don't want to exclude anything from the Monster Manual. Second, I don't want to seriously rebuild any of the MM races. This is a choice made for simplicity's sake, not a requirement.

Next, this adventure zone is a narrow wilderness between civilized neighbors, so unless the monsters are allied with one side or the other they are good at hiding, and if they do raid they are sneaky about it. So I won't have a Hall Of The Goblin King like in The Hobbit, but I can have small goblin villages.

Finally, I do want some links to the opposite kingdom to begin to set up for the phase of the campaign where the PCs enter it.

So, I begin with goblins to experiment with some ideas. Goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears are the common goblinoids. They have some cultural differences which can work to my advantage.

I decide that goblins build hideouts that rely on camouflage and that when game is scarce they steal sheep and other farm animals. They try not to do this too often because farmers will hire adventurers if the raids become too costly. This limits them to bands of less than fifty, so I decide a typical goblin band in the area will be 8d6 in number, or an average of 28 goblins.

Bugbears are naturally more isolationist, so I don't have to modify them at all. They roam in bands of 1d8, and never set up camp for more than a week or so in any one place. Bugbears are known to capture lone humans if they can, but tend to cowardice.

Hobgoblins are both militant and organized. A hobgoblin settlement rivals a human one for efficiency, so they do not generally hunt. So where do they fit in? It occurs to me that one way the neighboring kingdom augmented its military capacity was by offering border lands to hobgoblins, and now several hobgoblin fortified villages define the neighboring kingdom's border. They maintain contact with the goblins so they can force them to pay tribute and so they can maintain a spy network on the goings on on the PC's side of the border for their monarch. (One thing that comes to mind is that the goblins will notice and begin to observe sustained activity at the Broken Tower.)

Thus, hobgoblins will always be encountered in squads of ten, and they will fight in a disciplined formation. If their sergeant is killed they will flee.

Because of the competition between humanoids, the goblins will not tolerate other humanoid types. Occasional small bands might slip through, but no large humanoid settlements other than goblinoids exist in the region.

With this as my starting point I will begin to create encounters. I won't locate them on the map, though, because I have no idea which way the PCs will go. Instead, I will have a stack of encounters and for every five miles of travel I will roll a D20 for 16+. This indicates the location of the next encounter on the stack.

I will place some natural features, such as waterfalls, interesting rock formations, and scenic overlooks on my map. When the PCs get there they will discover them. Otherwise, most encounters will be fully prepared but not on the map. That way, no matter where my PCs go, I still have stuff for them to do.

There is one final piece I do want to set in place: the hobgoblin fort on the other end of the pass. This will be a village of one hundred well organized hobgoblins who live by farming. Their preferred livestock is swine, their prefered vegetables are roots, bulbs, and potatos, and they prefer to work mornings and evenings from planting to harvest. They will not attack armed humans openly approaching their village, but sentries and patrols will warn the village with loud whistles and the village will prepare defenses with military precision.

Now I can begin generating half a dozen 'random' encounters. When I have those it's going to be time to work on my pantheon a bit: that icon in the basement of the ruined tower has been tickling my brain.

[sktarq]

But what always matters is how people behave and interact with PCs in the places where players spend most of their time, and what special rules make life in this world different from 21st century Earth. This is relevant both in the halls of the Galactic Senate and in a fishing village on an idolated island.
"The map is not the territory" someone said, and the map isn't the setting either. "Setting" is the social environment and situation in which a story takes place.

Yup...and what makes those rules different than 21st century earth...is found in the big stuff.

That big stuff doesn't have to be super detailed in a lot of cases but you have a decent handling on it so that it can inform those day to day interactions that happen at 1st level.

and when you don't know if your players are going east or west...will investigate the ruins or not then all you have is the understanding of the big stuff and how that will effect the area/idea/ etc that your players chose to go.

[Max_Killjoy]

I can't put a lot of thought into it right now because of work, but (as noted earlier) I think some of this discussion is based on differing meanings of "the big stuff", different dividing lines.

[brian 333]

Yup...and what makes those rules different than 21st century earth...is found in the big stuff.

That big stuff doesn't have to be super detailed in a lot of cases but you have a decent handling on it so that it can inform those day to day interactions that happen at 1st level.

and when you don't know if your players are going east or west...will investigate the ruins or not then all you have is the understanding of the big stuff and how that will effect the area/idea/ etc that your players chose to go.

Notice in my latest example I pointed out how PCs tend not to go to the dungeon if you place it then give them free riegn to explore. My solution was given to me by a friend many years ago: no matter which way they go, that's where the dungeon is! Don't give it a location until the PCs stumble into it.

In my example I create a stack of encounters and as the players use up one I generate a replacement before the next session. Thus the players fill in the spaces on their map.

If your story is so detailed that this is not possible, you may need to bait the trail a bit. But in general, the more flexibility you have, the better.

The point about big picture versus small picture should be understood by all by this time. Yes, some details are wanted. As you will note, in my goblin breakdown, I made some big-picture decisions before detailing the various goblinoids.

The thing is, I am not advocating ignoring the big picture. I am saying that when it is relevant define it, but try to avoid getting so caught up in the big picture that you fail to get prepared for the next game session.

The new DM and Worldbuilder has a million things to do. Worlds are big. It is easy to get caught up in things which, while interesting, don't really help prepare for the next chapter of your story. Thus, my advice is to focus on session by session. When your next session is ready you have time to look into the bigger picture and plan the long game.

[brian 333]

In my first post I discussed several potential first level encounters, so why waste good ideas? My second level adventures could incorporate those, and so I begin by creating a wild boar encounter, a goblin encounter, and a werebear encounter. But I have begun to formulate a story as well. Let's think about our encounters before we delve into the story.

A party in the wilderness needs a place to rest. Werebears aren't necessarily evil and can be dealt with, by careful characters. So I determine the werebear will show up and lead the party to shelter, after much posturing, when the party is recovering from a tough encounter. Let's make him a druid so he can heal as well. And if you remember the bee hive from the first adventure, anyone who offers him honey can gain a bonus to the werebear's reaction.

That leaves us with a goblin encounter and a wild boar. We need more. Looking through the Monster Manual I see lots of high level stuff, but Lions, Oxen, Ogres, and Carnivorous Frogs jump off the page.

Certainly a pride of lions would defeat a level 2 party, but what about a solitary mountain lion? She attacks from surprise and flees in 2d3 rounds if she fails to make a kill. She prefers horse to man, and will attack a pack animal first. She will guard a kill down to 25% of her HP.

Oxen, cattle, or other herd beasts may be peaceful unless startled or molested, in which case d4 will remain to attack the party while the rest of the herd flees. After 2d4 rounds the attackers will flee.

A single ogre can challenge a level 2 party, so we have a solitary traveler who might enjoy a taste of man-flesh. He's too stupid to run and will die believing he can defeat the puny humans.

The carniverous frogs inhabit a watering hole. There should be skeletons around to indicate caution should be exercised here!

The boar is dangerous and attacks. It cannot climb trees. The werebear might enjoy some pork if the pig is killed.

The goblins are a scouting/hunting party of 3d3 goblins. They have a camp, and have a sentry during daylight hours when they sleep. They have been smoking meat and preserving hides with rock salt, which they also use as bait for herbivores.

This gives me six encounters. With an average of fifteen minutes per encounter and ten minutes between, that covers 2 1/2 hours of game time. It might not be a bad idea to make one or two more encounters. Maybe Orcs and a Hangman's Tree.

But that idea I had about a storyline could use a bit of work. We know that three generations of humans have lived here since the war, (75 years,) and presumably more before then. When I build ruins and temples later on, where did they come from? And why were they abandoned?

Let us say that the goblins believe the ruins were made by their ancestors, just for fun. But the goblins were minions of a big bad evil guy who, for now, will remain unknown. There is no local lore about this because the current humans are themselves invaders of lands conquered by goblinoids!

Now, in the center of the valley bits of an ancient highway can be glimpsed among the weeds, and what at first appears to be a rocky outcrop proves, to the dwarf in the party, to be the remains of a stone village.

[brian 333]

As you can see, at each stage of small scale advancement I pause to weave in bigger plot elements. This information might prove useful latwr on, or not. If the players have bad luck dealing with the neighboring kingdom, the adventure might become a war campaign. If they have good luck, the ancient civilization might get more development. At this point, creating the details of either scenario might be premature, but hey, if I have time I might do both.

[sktarq]

Notice in my latest example I pointed out how PCs tend not to go to the dungeon if you place it then give them free riegn to explore. My solution was given to me by a friend many years ago: no matter which way they go, that's where the dungeon is! Don't give it a location until the PCs stumble into it.

ROTFLMAO! okay...let me explain further...Don't assume you know what your players are interested in. Put ruins in their path. Watch them walk around them and keep going... or they hear of a passing mention of a guild somewhere in some far off land that has nothing to do with what they were focused on 10 minutes ago and watch them go off on a goose chase.


Don't assume the players are interested in the same stuff you are seems to be something you are repeating regularly....I just don't assume they will be interested in whatever I prepared for my "next session" the players control what their characters get up to the next session not whatever I happen to have planned.

[brian 333]

ROTFLMAO! okay...let me explain further...Don't assume you know what your players are interested in. Put ruins in their path. Watch them walk around them and keep going... or they hear of a passing mention of a guild somewhere in some far off land that has nothing to do with what they were focused on 10 minutes ago and watch them go off on a goose chase.


Don't assume the players are interested in the same stuff you are seems to be something you are repeating regularly....I just don't assume they will be interested in whatever I prepared for my "next session" the players control what their characters get up to the next session not whatever I happen to have planned.

I see we've played with the same crowd!

Sometimes when you build too much of the world, players want to go there even if it's not what you've prepared. There is almost a certainty that you will be forced to fly by the seat of your pants at some point.

This is where world-killing plot holes originate. This is the danger MaxKilljoy repeatedly warns about.

A very good DM with a deep understanding of his world can do this. A novice DM in his first world will be sorely challenged to keep his head above water.

This is why I stress preparedness. The DM who has his session ready to go has a much easier time guiding his players than a DM who wastes ten minutes generating a bandit camp.

Part of the role of the DM is to administer the game. That means guiding the players. Rewards are one way, but another is by talking to your players. Open discussion not only about where the players want to go but what you have prepared can help prevent choices by both sides which result in a failed campaign.

I have for many years held a " What did you think" session at the conclusion of the night's entertainment. While pizza boxes and soda bottles are being cleaned up and everyone is figuring out whose dice are whose, there is an opportunity for players to offer ideas, opinions, and critiques.

Never act defensive in these sessions. You want these sessions to be brutally honest feedback. It will help you guide your next session and your building between sessions. It will help to keep you focused and force you to constantly improve.

It will also give your players the feeling that they have a say in where the game is going. Players who have an investment in your game are players who will stick with you through your mistakes.

[sktarq]

I see we've played with the same crowd!

Sometimes when you build too much of the world, players want to go there even if it's not what you've prepared. There is almost a certainty that you will be forced to fly by the seat of your pants at some point.
That's not anything to do with building too much... it often comes from building too little. Then when more is built the first part locks you into choices that are no longer as supportive. Also DM's inherently imply that much of the wider wold exists without meaning too. Those iron tools had to come from somewhere. Caravan protection job imply not only sources of goods, markets, but raw materials, draft animal breeders, wagon makers, woodmen to get the wood for the wagons etc, groups with capital, farmers to feed all these specialized workers already mentioned, a degree of knowledge about these sources and markets to each other...etc. Now clever players will realize these things have to exist and may see them as potential tools in solving challenges...which can lead down a rabbit hole of weirdness (especially when you seat of pants rule that X is not available) and challenge bypassing if you are not careful....
I know this one because I apparently a horrible player in this way.


This is where world-killing plot holes originate. This is the danger MaxKilljoy repeatedly warns about.

A very good DM with a deep understanding of his world can do this. A novice DM in his first world will be sorely challenged to keep his head above water.
perhaps...I know I've become faster and better over the years with it but it is very possible. And training with published worlds is a very good idea. Because my point with knowing the big stuff is that when your players do haul you off to fly by the seat of your pants you can actually build something that matches up okay on the fly. It also makes building a lot of the world faster and easier in general.


This is why I stress preparedness. The DM who has his session ready to go has a much easier time guiding his players than a DM who wastes ten minutes generating a bandit camp.

Ah this is where we come to a basic disagreement. As a DM I don't consider it my role to guide the players to where I want them to go. I can offer ideas, have characters be tugged by obligation, fear, or desire but I don't see that as my role...It is the players story, not mine.


Part of the role of the DM is to administer the game. That means guiding the players. Rewards are one way, but another is by talking to your players. Open discussion not only about where the players want to go but what you have prepared can help prevent choices by both sides which result in a failed campaign.

On a very rough level I think we agree. I will flat out tell my players in session zero that a plane-hopping, or vampire nomad game is not what I'm interested in running but that is basically what session zero is for. Saying I have only prepped these three options (or only the goblin camp) would strike me a quite railroad. . . basically expect the world to fail if you don't go where I've planned is part of the social contract you are making with your players...and that I don't see as benefit.


I have for many years held a " What did you think" session at the conclusion of the night's entertainment. While pizza boxes and soda bottles are being cleaned up and everyone is figuring out whose dice are whose, there is an opportunity for players to offer ideas, opinions, and critiques.

Never act defensive in these sessions. You want these sessions to be brutally honest feedback. It will help you guide your next session and your building between sessions. It will help to keep you focused and force you to constantly improve.

A good idea on occasion but too much can feel like fishing for compliments but certainly a good habit to have to invite critique


It will also give your players the feeling that they have a say in where the game is going. Players who have an investment in your game are players who will stick with you through your mistakes.

See the above idea that when you pin down the big stuff first it allows the players to go anywhere because your prep work allows you generate internally consistent smaller stuff quickly? I find that a much stronger way to give your players the feeling that they have a say in where the game is going.

[brian 333]

Pinning down the big stuff first also excludes the potential for flexibility. Sure, it's good to be able to let your players go where they want and do what they want, but if your world is set within a Crystal Spheres universe, what do you do when your players want to fly in Spelljammers?

Locking down the big stuff can be just as plot-hole inducing as having nothing locked down.

This is the thing: I want this thread to be a guide for new DMs. If you have four or forty years of practice, you don't need this because you already have experience dealing with the issues of worldbuilding versus campaign building, and presumably you have a campaign setting well under way.

But for the starter DM world-building is a daunting task. It consumes many hours and often raises more questions than answers at first.

This is why I recommend beginning with an adventure and growing. Not because it is the best way possible, but because it forces a smaller set of choices from which to pick. (From infinity to hundreds is a huge reduction in choices!)

Once the DM has practice he will be better able to increase his scope. Creating a village teaches how to create a region, which teaches how to create a nation, which teaches how to create a continent, which teaches how to create a world, which teaches how to create a cosmos.

But if you begin with a multiverse, there are millions of things you need to do before you build your first Level 1 dungeon. A lifetime is to short for a million choices. And in the end, D&D is played one gaming session at a time. Why not start there?

[sktarq]

Pinning down the big stuff first also excludes the potential for flexibility. Sure, it's good to be able to let your players go where they want and do what they want, but if your world is set within a Crystal Spheres universe, what do you do when your players want to fly in Spelljammers?

Locking down the big stuff can be just as plot-hole inducing as having nothing locked down.
If your world is set in the crystal sphere you have two choices...A) figure out where the connections are and how they work. B)change it so they are not in a crystal sphere set. If there are spelljammers that changes things...people (or at least wise sages) would know there are other planets out there etc.

and it working out the big stuff later is far less flexible for a simple reason. The world as expressed will often be using assumptions you don't know you are making and when you go to add them you either are forced to choose something you don't like as much, shoehorn why that choice has not created local effect up until this point but now does, or just be wildly inconsistent.

A choice you know you are making can have the consequences examined before you lock it in. A choice you don't realize you are making can't.


This is the thing: I want this thread to be a guide for new DMs. If you have four or forty years of practice, you don't need this because you already have experience dealing with the issues of worldbuilding versus campaign building, and presumably you have a campaign setting well under way.

But for the starter DM world-building is a daunting task. It consumes many hours and often raises more questions than answers at first.
Now I quite agree that world building from scratch is a daunting task but it is by no means beyond a clever-clogs never DM/GM/ST'd before hopeful. I am mentoring two doing that right now. And while it does raise more questions at first over time of building it makes building the individual adventures and weekly preps much easier. Those big things become the raw materials to make the little stuff (they are local expressions of larger forces at times)


This is why I recommend beginning with an adventure and growing. Not because it is the best way possible, but because it forces a smaller set of choices from which to pick. (From infinity to hundreds is a huge reduction in choices!)

Once the DM has practice he will be better able to increase his scope. Creating a village teaches how to create a region, which teaches how to create a nation, which teaches how to create a continent, which teaches how to create a world, which teaches how to create a cosmos.

But if you begin with a multiverse, there are millions of things you need to do before you build your first Level 1 dungeon. A lifetime is to short for a million choices. And in the end, D&D is played one gaming session at a time. Why not start there? Now this idea of working on villages regions etc before building your whole world is a good one. And has a simple solution IMO the published settings. Build of Future LA in Gurps, Yomandry, Semphar or the Golden East in Forgotten realms, East Breland or wherever strikes your fancy. The setting book takes care of the BIG stuff but generally doesn't give you much beyond a sketch at the more local scale even you have a region book. That is a good thing in the development of skills needed for building your own world well. And also is far less work.

[Mechalich]

Pinning down the big stuff first also excludes the potential for flexibility. Sure, it's good to be able to let your players go where they want and do what they want, but if your world is set within a Crystal Spheres universe, what do you do when your players want to fly in Spelljammers?

It's very simple. You tell them that isn't possible in this game world. If it's something they really want, you can make a new campaign in order to do that (though honestly D&D-style spelljamming has never worked out, and if you want space fantasy you're better off just running Star Wars or Firefly or something).


This is the thing: I want this thread to be a guide for new DMs. If you have four or forty years of practice, you don't need this because you already have experience dealing with the issues of worldbuilding versus campaign building, and presumably you have a campaign setting well under way.

Most of what you're describing in this thread is adventure building or campaign building, which is different from world-building. Wold-building is the construction of the setting, campaign building is construction of the elements to be used in the course of the campaign. To use an example from published material: in Vampire the Masquerade the setting is the World of Darkness, and there's a truly massive amount of world-building behind it. At the same time, you still have to do work to be ready to play - you have to build your city - and that's campaign building.


But for the starter DM world-building is a daunting task. It consumes many hours and often raises more questions than answers at first.

It is entirely possible to do all the world-building necessary to run a D&D-style dungeon crawl campaign in about ten minutes.


Once the DM has practice he will be better able to increase his scope. Creating a village teaches how to create a region, which teaches how to create a nation, which teaches how to create a continent, which teaches how to create a world, which teaches how to create a cosmos.

No, it doesn't. Each operational scale has its own principles, issues, and design options and has to be approached separately. A region is more than a collection of villages, a nation is more than a collection of regions, and so on.


But if you begin with a multiverse, there are millions of things you need to do before you build your first Level 1 dungeon. A lifetime is to short for a million choices. And in the end, D&D is played one gaming session at a time. Why not start there?

You are describing a false choice. You don't need to begin with a multiverse, you only need to begin at the largest scale that affects people in your campaign world. Usually that's the solar system, but only in extremely broad strokes - like how many stars, how many visible planets, how many moons. Then you're down to planet scale - which is usually 'as Earth' for 99% of questions. After that, you're operating at the national or regional scale, which is where the bulk or world-building occurs.

[Yora]

I think even solar system scale is way excessive. Most of the time you don't even have use for a whole planet. Continent scale is entirely sufficient for almost all campaign. You don't need to establish a whole world, but only a known world.
What characters see when they look up at the sky is almost always completely irrelevant and will never be asked.

[Mechalich]

I think even solar system scale is way excessive. Most of the time you don't even have use for a whole planet. Continent scale is entirely sufficient for almost all campaign. You don't need to establish a whole world, but only a known world.


Historically, the position of the planets has actually been a matter of significant mystical importance and immense scholarly study, so it's worth noting down, even if the answer is 'not relevant.' Likewise, if a planet has a moon situation that is different from Earth's in any way whatsoever, that matters, since it impacts tides, light at night, and so forth. Krynn, for instance, makes a rather big deal out of having three moons. And of course, if your world has two or three suns, that matters a lot too. It's the same thing at planet scale. If all your answers are 'as Earth' then you're done. However, if any of them are different from Earth, then that's very, very important. For example, pretty much all the really big differences between Earth and Arrakis (which is probably the most famous world-building project ever conceived) occur at planet-wide scale.

Yes most typical fantasy occurs on a faux-Earth that functions in the same way as Earth, but they don't all do that and that's something you want to figure out from the start. Exalted, for example, has a whole bunch of issues that occur because it's set on a flat plane, many of them horrible. The designers of that game did that because they thought it was cool, but they would have saved endless trouble by simply building a normal world.

[Max_Killjoy]

I think some people just have different ways of thinking about this and different approaches that work for them.

Me, I need a framework of the whole setting before I can work on the "today's adventure" details, and before I do any "improv", in order to avoid contradicting myself and to have something to start from.