World Building From the Bottom Up

[Don Beegles]

It seems like a lot of people around here have made a campaign world at some point of their lives. From what I've heard, they sound like a vast array of ideas, but they all seem to start the same way. Everyone takes an interesting "present day" scenario, fleshes that out, and then works out a history that makes it plausible.

That is obviously the most practical way to go about it; you are only ever going to play in the present day, so that should be the best developed. For a while, I've had an inkling, however, that it would be really fun to start the other way, to start with the big Empire that is inevitably the history of such a world, or even before, in the time when all of the tribes are crawling out of their caves, and try to figure out just how things would turn out if left the way they were, possibly with the addition of some Demonic invasions, apocalyptic earthquakes, etc. It would be feasible if you had a fleshed out starting point and some idea of cultural anthropology (or enough to bull-oney it).

Has anyone else ever given this sort of thing any thought, and does anyone have any suggestions on where I should begin/how I should proceed? I have nothing to do this summer so I wanted to try this, but some input would be really helpful.

[Emperor Tippy]

The very first thing you should look at when building a world is magic and its effects on the world.

With permanent Teleportation Circles (which you can get for under 10K each) you have effectively made sea travel pointless. Teleportation also makes traditional nations pointless, there is no way to hold your border.

Wall of Iron means that Iron mining doesn't exist and that Iron is a lot easier to get. This has drastic consequences when thinking about thinks like the bronze age.

The real big one is permanent Teleportation Circles though.

[Azerian Kelimon]

The very first thing you should look at when building a world is magic and its effects on the world.

With permanent Teleportation Circles (which you can get for under 10K each) you have effectively made sea travel pointless. Teleportation also makes traditional nations pointless, there is no way to hold your border.

Wall of Iron means that Iron mining doesn't exist and that Iron is a lot easier to get. This has drastic consequences when thinking about thinks like the bronze age.

The real big one is permanent Teleportation Circles though.

...Not. The real big one is of much lower level and it's name is Create Food and Water, At will item of. Say goodbye to agriculture and livestock. And to famine. With Prestidigitation, say goodbye to maids and the chef profession.

[Emperor Tippy]

...Not. The real big one is of much lower level and it's name is Create Food and Water, At will item of. Say goodbye to agriculture and livestock. And to famine. With Prestidigitation, say goodbye to maids and the chef profession.

Yes but that requires custom magic items. TC's are explicitly allowed.

Create Food and Water is the next big one (after TC's). Then comes the effect of magic on warfare.

[MeklorIlavator]

The effect of TC on warfare shouldn't be ignored either. They pretty much make any static defenses obsolete(if i'm reading it right, in that they can be set up remotely, and give no indication of the location they are linked to).

Also, large formations of units make blasting viable for once, as if there are no unoccupied areas when you launch a fireball, then its not as bad of a trade off. Plus, each one is likely to kill the target. Really, its large formations that become impractical. Thus, smaller groups of highly trained individuals are the real alternative, analogous to our special forces(and similar to a standard adventuring party).

[Azerian Kelimon]

I'd say the next big one is actually overland flight. With the power to take it to the skies, humanity experiences a quantum leap in advancement, particularly if continual items are crafted.

Especially since Teleportation circles in a permanenced fashion go only to one place and cost XP, which most casters aren't going to shell out when they have level 17.

PS: Another important one is the summoning of Planar Allies. Cheap super workers would provoke a massive change in infrastructure and design.

[Emperor Tippy]

I'd say the next big one is actually overland flight. With the power to take it to the skies, humanity experiences a quantum leap in advancement, particularly if continual items are crafted.

Especially since Teleportation circles in a permanenced fashion go only to one place and cost XP, which most casters aren't going to shell out when they have level 17.

PS: Another important one is the summoning of Planar Allies. Cheap super workers would provoke a massive change in infrastructure and design.

Only a fool (which no wizard who can cast TC is) pays XP for permanency. Scroll of Gate, Gate in a solar, it gets 3/day Permanency at CL 20 as an SLA.

Flight is just another form of transport. TC's are the ultimate form of transportation.

@Melkor
Yeah, TC's have a massive impact on warfare as well. But its effects on the economy and the spread of ideas are the big thing.

[Azerian Kelimon]

And in a setting with no Common, Tongues. Think about it's impact in RL.

[holywhippet]

Grab some paper and a pen/pencil. Begin making a map of your world. Draw in hills, plains, forests, rivers, lakes etc. As you do so your brain will begin coming up with ideas - big battle here, bandits infest this region, good farming lands here etc.

[Emperor Tippy]

Grab some paper and a pen/pencil. Begin making a map of your world. Draw in hills, plains, forests, rivers, lakes etc. As you do so your brain will begin coming up with ideas - big battle here, bandits infest this region, good farming lands here etc.

Your already failing to account for magic. Hell, with Greater Teleportation and Teleportation Circles your civilization can easily be spread across multiple worlds.

A "nation" doesn't need a contiguous piece of land (in fact its a hindrance).

[ahammer]

you need to also ask when and how was magic deloped.

remember arcane spells do would not all be known till some time passed and built up on what the last gen had done.

magic could have then a long time to show up or be useable.

wall of iron may not have show up till well after iron was being used.


and for devine maybe the gods were less free with magic till they needed to give it out to counter the magic of the mages.. so they could keep worshipers

[Emperor Tippy]

Sorcerers don't have to do anything for their spells.

[Yahzi]

Zone of Truth

Anybody who has ever dealt with a courtroom understand just how much that spell would change society.

Detect Alignment

Being able to classify people by moral nature, instead of merely by reputation, would have a major effect.

Remove Disease

Rewrites all of classic history.

Decanter of Endless Water

One isn't worth much. But dozens of them change what kind of land is considered inhabitable.


And that's just the low-level stuff.

[ahammer]

Sorcerers don't have to do anything for their spells.

my idea of how sorcerers cast is by seeing a mage cast a spell they understand the pincable behind it. if a spell has never been cast then they may not be able to inertly cast it.

[Avor]

This is why in my worlds Magic is not very common, Wizzard above level 5 are rare, and the super powerful wizards keep each other in balacne, work for kindoms, or get eaten by dragons.

Magic is tasty.

Clerics run around and heal people, but high levels are rare.


I perfere this low-mid magic game so I don't have to do a stupid amount of work to make thing everything protected from silly magic users. The game just gets silly when you have to fortify kindoms from crazy wizards, because they can do so much.

[Azerian Kelimon]

This is why in my worlds Magic is not very common, Wizzard above level 5 are rare, and the super powerful wizards keep each other in balacne, work for kindoms, or get eaten by dragons.

Magic is tasty.

Clerics run around and heal people, but high levels are rare.


I perfere this low-mid magic game so I don't have to do a stupid amount of work to make thing everything protected from silly magic users. The game just gets silly when you have to fortify kindoms from crazy wizards, because they can do so much.

You're pretty much in minority, though, because people who want low magic usually jump at Conan or Warhammer.

[MeklorIlavator]

Or possibly E6, but that would likely be the minority of the minority. Most probably just hand wave it away.

[Don Beegles]

I think maybe I wasn't really clear when I explained earlier, because all of the advice people have given is very good, but based mostly on a top-down approach. All of this magic can't come from nowhere, and I wanted to try, rather than figuring out how teleportation circles work and whether they had Create Food and Water commonly from the beginning, I wanted to design the roots of the culture, before they ahd any of this, and then try to use logic, what I thought made sense, and pseudoscientific BS to develop their culture naturally and figure out whether it would develop those sorts of things.

Maybe it would help if I gave you what I had so far. (NOTE: I know that all o the science stuff that follows is drastically improbable, and probably impossible, but it sounds cool.) I am trying to start from the very beginning, from the birth of the planet. It starts typically with a glowing hot lump of metals and minerals orbiting a sun. Then, several huge comets, made of ice and heavy metals, like most comets come around in their orbits. They collide with the planet and melt as they come inwards, dousing the core in water. We all know what happens when water meets hot metal, and the core cracks, releasing large chunks of rock. It's still very hot though, and these are big comets, so it coalesces and more water comes in, forming a huge sea around the inner core. Huge continents of the lighter minerals broke off from the core in the explosion, and bubbled with gas as they were rapidly cooled by the water. Now, they remain suspended in the water, some of them floating at the top, others at different depths, and the core, much like Earth's inner core, remains hot and solid because of all the pressure.

There we have the world, which I intend to map up, drop a few basic species on to and then watch how I think the species would interact; which ones would become dominant, and which would fade away, then keep working like that until I got really bored and decided to stop.

Now that, I think, I have made more sense, does anyone have any idea of the principles I should use when deciding how the tribes interact, how I should determine where they settle, and what their general progress of technology should be.

[Draz74]

Sorcerers don't have to do anything for their spells.

They don't have to study magical theory in books. But they must have to do something, or else they could cast Level 9 spells at Level 1. Or learn an infinite number of spells. They have internal limits ... the game just leaves up to the DM what these limits are, rather than spelling them out.

Plus, if you follow the Core fluff that Sorcerers are descended from dragons, there might not have been Sorcerers for most of history. First you've got to have dragons ... then you've got to have humanoids ... then you've got to have conditions that entice dragons to mate with humanoids! ... then you've got to wait long enough for the bloodlines to dilute to Sorcerer levels, rather than Half-Dragon levels.

If your point is to show the OP that they have to include explanations of why magic hasn't shaped the history of the world too dramatically, then I agree 100%. If you're actually trying to say, though, that magic will have had a dramatic and thorough effect on every aspect of the world's history, then I say "No!" -- there are plenty of ways, as a world creator, to pre-empt these logical arguments you're making.

[King_of_GRiffins]

There we have the world, which I intend to map up, drop a few basic species on to and then watch how I think the species would interact; which ones would become dominant, and which would fade away, then keep working like that until I got really bored and decided to stop.

Now that, I think, I have made more sense, does anyone have any idea of the principles I should use when deciding how the tribes interact, how I should determine where they settle, and what their general progress of technology should be.

I love your idea. I'm thinking I might start something up on my own to figure this out; It'd be quite fun. For the first part, consider which species would be around first. Think about thier natures; Wold they attack other intellegent beings going after thier food sources on sight (aka. hunting their dear)? Would they raid and kidnap from other species (would that mean half species have always been around? Would this mean more hafl species?) If there didn't seem to be any danger in it, would they bother to stop and talk, and perhaps work out a way to trade? What would they do with others of their own species, but not of the same tribe? Assimilate? Destroy? Think about what early humans would have done, then try applying that in some manner to any intellegent species you intend on. Also consider what problems large andpowerful unintellegent creatures would pose.

[Zeta Kai]

Now that we're back on topic, I suppose this entire concept depends on which sentient races are "deployed" first. If every monster in the MM gets a spot on the starting map, as it were, then Darwinian survival takes place. In this scenario, barring an act of god or some confluence of humanoid-friendly circumstances, you'd probably end up with dragons & trolls ruling the planet.

Obviously, the starting factors are key in determining the enevitable outcome.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Obviously, the starting factors are key in determining the enevitable outcome.

Chaos Theory all over agian, huh? :smallwink:

[Rutee]

The very first thing you should look at when building a world is magic and its effects on the world.

With permanent Teleportation Circles (which you can get for under 10K each) you have effectively made sea travel pointless. Teleportation also makes traditional nations pointless, there is no way to hold your border.

Wall of Iron means that Iron mining doesn't exist and that Iron is a lot easier to get. This has drastic consequences when thinking about thinks like the bronze age.

The real big one is permanent Teleportation Circles though.
The first thing you need to do is ignore everything Tippy says, because if you follow his advice, you end up with a dystopian magocratic hell.

If you want to start from the bottom up, begin with the mythology. How did life start? Were the deities involved? How, in general, has life arrived to where it is, from whence it came?

[Yakk]

Every played Avalon Hill's Diplomacy board game?

Your tribes show up, and start geometrically multiplying.

Build a fantasy version of this. Various things grant knowledge of magic, which can be stolen and/or adapted from other peoples.

The problem is that a "typical fantasy" (multiple races, etc) isn't very likely to occur unless you work for it to occur. Multiple intelligent races, developing around the same time? Your "base rules" would have to be forced to do that kind of thing.

The same is true of magic -- if you want D&D esque magic, you have to shape reality before hand so that it produces that kind of magic afterwards.

Because if you don't have a goal in mind, the only large-scale running of such a model produced mundane human civilization -- ie, Earth.

On top of that, what is the purpose of this world? To adventure in. Finding a world that is fun to adventure in is harder than finding a world. :) Building the world with a kind of anthropomorphic principle -- "this will be a world to adventure in" -- just makes sense.

[Vortling]

Maybe it would help if I gave you what I had so far. (NOTE: I know that all o the science stuff that follows is drastically improbable, and probably impossible, but it sounds cool.) I am trying to start from the very beginning, from the birth of the planet. It starts typically with a glowing hot lump of metals and minerals orbiting a sun. Then, several huge comets, made of ice and heavy metals, like most comets come around in their orbits. They collide with the planet and melt as they come inwards, dousing the core in water. We all know what happens when water meets hot metal, and the core cracks, releasing large chunks of rock. It's still very hot though, and these are big comets, so it coalesces and more water comes in, forming a huge sea around the inner core. Huge continents of the lighter minerals broke off from the core in the explosion, and bubbled with gas as they were rapidly cooled by the water. Now, they remain suspended in the water, some of them floating at the top, others at different depths, and the core, much like Earth's inner core, remains hot and solid because of all the pressure.


If you intend for gods to exist and not be created by belief, you may want to start differently, or before this.

[Azerian Kelimon]

I think maybe I wasn't really clear when I explained earlier, because all of the advice people have given is very good, but based mostly on a top-down approach. All of this magic can't come from nowhere, and I wanted to try, rather than figuring out how teleportation circles work and whether they had Create Food and Water commonly from the beginning, I wanted to design the roots of the culture, before they ahd any of this, and then try to use logic, what I thought made sense, and pseudoscientific BS to develop their culture naturally and figure out whether it would develop those sorts of things.

Maybe it would help if I gave you what I had so far. (NOTE: I know that all o the science stuff that follows is drastically improbable, and probably impossible, but it sounds cool.) I am trying to start from the very beginning, from the birth of the planet. It starts typically with a glowing hot lump of metals and minerals orbiting a sun. Then, several huge comets, made of ice and heavy metals, like most comets come around in their orbits. They collide with the planet and melt as they come inwards, dousing the core in water. We all know what happens when water meets hot metal, and the core cracks, releasing large chunks of rock. It's still very hot though, and these are big comets, so it coalesces and more water comes in, forming a huge sea around the inner core. Huge continents of the lighter minerals broke off from the core in the explosion, and bubbled with gas as they were rapidly cooled by the water. Now, they remain suspended in the water, some of them floating at the top, others at different depths, and the core, much like Earth's inner core, remains hot and solid because of all the pressure.

There we have the world, which I intend to map up, drop a few basic species on to and then watch how I think the species would interact; which ones would become dominant, and which would fade away, then keep working like that until I got really bored and decided to stop.

Now that, I think, I have made more sense, does anyone have any idea of the principles I should use when deciding how the tribes interact, how I should determine where they settle, and what their general progress of technology should be.

First question. In WHICH time period are the players going to play?

[Morty]

I belive the best way to start making a world is to ask yourself what kind of world do you want. Do you want a world like D&D settings, full of magic and heroes, or perhaps one where magic is neither common nor powerful and mortals are down to earth in their capabilities? Are the dieties of the world active and undeniably exist or not? When you have such general idea, you can start to develop the basics of the world with this goal in mind as now you know what you're standing on.

[Flickerdart]

Consider this: magic had to be discovered too. At the beginning of time, Wizards didn't have access to the entire spell list (especially not the named spells, Bigby and Tenser would have to have been around for those). Spells had to be researched, tested and so forth. In the same way as we had to invent the wheel and the plane, people would have to THINK UP what the spell could do before making it, and had to be powerful enough to cast it. Since the lowly wizards would only have basic spells (a bolt of energy that blows stuff up would not take long to invent) this would be an arduous task indeed.

...oh, I was beaten to the punch already. Bah humbug.

Regardless, without an incredible repertoire of spells, wizards could never level up enough to make new good ones (Teleportation Circles? They would rarely even get to Fly). We'd have a number of low-level casters knocking down doors of their kind to raid their spellbooks, while the Fighters and Rogues of the world would reign supreme. The wizards would eventually have to develop a college of sorts to share their spells, which means a single "source" of magic.

Now clerics and druids are a different people altogether. Clerics may need civilization and worshippers for their gods, but Druids (and Clerics aligned to a alignment rather than deity) would be granted spells simply for prayer. The second they'd hear of a spell a wizard made up, they could just ask their god for it (we're assuming gods with some decency that don't give their followers Wish as a first level spell here) and more likely than not they'd get it. Therefore Druids would, while keeping up well spell-wise, not be powerful as a people: their lack of society and innovation will stagnate them against a unified, researching Wizard community.

Clerics, though, would have no such limitations. Divine magic would rule in this world as Clerics spread throughout the land in the service to their gods, using the very spells most people would believe to be evil in nature (when was the last time you saw a sociable, benevolent wizard?) to heal and defend. Nations would rise up pledged to gods, not kings. All but one, for the wizards would likely be too proud, or wouldn't care.

Wars over causes would reduce weaker gods to ruins, strengthening the Clerics. Wizards would stop giving out their secrets at all: if there's war going on, you want your Meteor Swarm exclusive. Eventually, the Cleric-led nations would turn on the wizards as the biggest heretics of all.

Now, this is the clincher. Do the clerics wipe the floor with the wizards and declare Arcane casting akin to witchcraft? Or do the wizards win this fight, seeing as how a city of Batmen is pretty hard to take down?

This is where I leave you to have fun with an Arcane/Divine World War and its results.

[Azerian Kelimon]

The first thing you need to do is ignore everything Tippy says, because if you follow his advice, you end up with a dystopian magocratic hell.

If you want to start from the bottom up, begin with the mythology. How did life start? Were the deities involved? How, in general, has life arrived to where it is, from whence it came?

Not really. I have a setting that makes Eberron's Steampunk look tame via the massive use of magic yet it works because on the top of the foodchain, there's a grossly powerful pair of Swordsage and Psion.

[Kalirren]

You know, sooner or later you're just going to run into the problem with most fantasy magic settings. They were created with the mentality, "I want a world in which X effect is possible" and disregarded the necessary physical consequences of X effect being possible.

My advice; if you're looking to build an internally consistent world, then use an internally consistent magic system. Define the way in which magic and other supernatural phenomena work, and how exactly these things can affect the world. Make the bounds of the power of magic clear. Then there will be things that it is impossible to do with magic, which is fine, because society only works the way it does because of scarcity in the environment. Only when you have defined the way magic interacts with the physical environment can you look at the structure of society and culture, which is just a set of adaptations to that environment.

In particular, scrap the D&D stuff; then you won't have to deal with dystopian magocracies being the only stable forms of societal power distribution just because your world's only limit on magical power is some arcane (pun fully intended) notion of "spell level". Gygax implemented the Vancian magic system (spells per day, spell levels) because it was easy to balance and easy to advance. It wasn't intended for world-building.

Just to drive the point home, I did the calculations, and if one could make a 6th-level spell to create as much energy as a single casting of Wall of Iron (a 6th-level spell) creates in mass by the relation E = mc^2, then a single elven mage capable of casting 10 or more 6th-level or higher spells perday with a grudge against catgirls could kill them all (as well as himself and all multicellular life on his planet) by creating that energy underwater and heating the world ocean to boiling temperature over 100-200 years. 10 human mages would be able to do the same within 20 years. I rest my case.

[Emperor Tippy]

I think maybe I wasn't really clear when I explained earlier, because all of the advice people have given is very good, but based mostly on a top-down approach. All of this magic can't come from nowhere, and I wanted to try, rather than figuring out how teleportation circles work and whether they had Create Food and Water commonly from the beginning, I wanted to design the roots of the culture, before they ahd any of this, and then try to use logic, what I thought made sense, and pseudoscientific BS to develop their culture naturally and figure out whether it would develop those sorts of things.
The problem is that if you keep the D&D rules then such things exist at the time the players play. If such things exist them your world is drastically altered. Just look at what ocean going vessels did to the Native Americans, there culture was drastically changed in a very short time period. Magic means that pretty much any idea can spread around the entire world nigh instantly.

So whatever the culture is like pre magic, it is very,very different post magic.


Maybe it would help if I gave you what I had so far. (NOTE: I know that all o the science stuff that follows is drastically improbable, and probably impossible, but it sounds cool.) I am trying to start from the very beginning, from the birth of the planet. It starts typically with a glowing hot lump of metals and minerals orbiting a sun. Then, several huge comets, made of ice and heavy metals, like most comets come around in their orbits. They collide with the planet and melt as they come inwards, dousing the core in water. We all know what happens when water meets hot metal, and the core cracks, releasing large chunks of rock. It's still very hot though, and these are big comets, so it coalesces and more water comes in, forming a huge sea around the inner core. Huge continents of the lighter minerals broke off from the core in the explosion, and bubbled with gas as they were rapidly cooled by the water. Now, they remain suspended in the water, some of them floating at the top, others at different depths, and the core, much like Earth's inner core, remains hot and solid because of all the pressure.

There we have the world, which I intend to map up, drop a few basic species on to and then watch how I think the species would interact; which ones would become dominant, and which would fade away, then keep working like that until I got really bored and decided to stop.

Now that, I think, I have made more sense, does anyone have any idea of the principles I should use when deciding how the tribes interact, how I should determine where they settle, and what their general progress of technology should be.

Far too many imponderable variables. If 2 tribes meet in year X, when there is a drought and both have bellicose leaders, then they will most likely go to war and 1 will cease to exist. If those same 2 tribes meet in year X+3, when there has been a good harvest and one of the tribal leaders has died and been replaced by his charismatic son, then they will most likely become trading partners or allies.

And magic (which mostly replaces tech) is even more variable. And if your world has psionics it gets even worse (psionics being explained as genetic).

Or let's take elves. They have a natural life span of up to a thousand or so years. They won't loose advancements and will have very many, very skilled people. Even at gaining 1 level per decade they will end up being level 20 in 3-5 different classes by the time they die.

[King_of_GRiffins]

Alright, I like this idea of going from the bottom up, and I'm going to try building a world. I've limited the number of Intelligent creatures to 16, related by five groups form which they descended (Goblin, Reptilian, Human, and two 'Others'). I've defined how I want magic and deities to work. It's going to be as 'realistic' and self consistent as possible. Adventures will not be against giant, powerful monsters (there are 9 clearly magical creatures, 11 if you include two of the intelligents), but against other intelligent creatures. Magical creatures are more like omens then beasts. I'll start a thread once I have some things written on it, and I have some pictures of my map.

[Flickerdart]

Or let's take elves. They have a natural life span of up to a thousand or so years. They won't loose advancements and will have very many, very skilled people. Even at gaining 1 level per decade they will end up being level 20 in 3-5 different classes by the time they die.
Don't elves only have 300-500? Or I may be thinking of dwarves...

Either way, your point still stands. Even if it took an elf 25-50 years to gain a level (say, by hunting once in a while) they'd still hit 20 by the end of their life. And since an Elf has favoured class Wizard, that means almost every random Elf is likely to unleash unlimited arcane fury, or at least be a powerful enemy. That's every elf. Any random guy on the street with casting as a hobby.

[Waffles]

Hey. Hey.

It's his world.

Magic just doesn't work like that or no one has ever thought of the real-world applications of magic that you people seem to be mulling over, perhaps. Grit and realism don't necessarily equate a nuanced and interesting campaign world.

To make a world?

You pick a concept that you like, think of one. Now, no matter what you think of, it's been done before. You find what's been done before and you take wholesale from it and alter components in it and graft those things onto your creation to make something entirely new.

[Indon]

The problem is that if you keep the D&D rules then such things exist at the time the players play.

Making your own world necessitates you don't use most of the D&D rules, because so many of them are setting-specific.

If anything, it's a good idea to select what features of D&D you're using based on the world you have - so if you don't want the wealthy at least to have access to instant convenient travel to their summer homes, chances are your world has no Teleportation Circle spell.

As for the worlds I've made, they're all works in progress, taking bits and pieces of inspiration and concept from all sorts of places.

In my favorite world, however, I worked off of an economic concept - the idea of nonviolent, espionage-based conflict. So I built a civilization out of that.

[MeklorIlavator]

How are most of the rules setting specific? I can see the Gods section (PHB) and sections on Planar travel/specific planes in the DMG as such, but besides that I don't see rules that are setting specific. Fluff, yes, Mechanics, no.

And yes, once you cut out spells, the world changes, but what Emperor Tippy was/is providing is a internally consistent world based on the Rules presented by Wizards of the Coast, not a presented by Indon, Waffles, MeklorIlavator, or anyone else.

[Dr Bwaa]

How To Build a World from the Bottom Up (At least, the way I did it):

Write a story. It doesn't even have to be long, and you probably don't have to start back the the time the world was created, because there is absolutely no way you can come up with everything. It's not possible. Pick a period in time, and start there, and then figure out the defining, world-changing events that lead up to now. Get more specific the closer you get to "present-day," and around any particularly significant events.
For a good example of this, actually, read something like the Eberron CS (probably a bunch of the other campaign settings, too, but I haven't read any of the other all the way through). essentially, it works like this: There was a continent, ruled by goblinoids (sort of). Eventually, humans showed up and became the dominant power. Then, they had a great, wonderful, powerful nation--which collapsed into civil war for the last hundred years! oh, no! That war only ended two years ago; here is how it ended, and here are detailed descriptions about who the major world powers are now, and what their goals/feelings are, and so on.
More details and so on are to be added, by you, when the need arises. If you need a barbarian tribe, hey, they've been here the whole time! Give them a history if you want, figure out what they've been up to, where they came from; their motivation. You get the idea.
That's approximately how I built my world, without giving details of it for fear that my players will read this and learn things they aren't supposed to. I think it's a reasonable way to do things, without having to deal with too much craziness that your brain wasn't meant to be able to process, ever :smallbiggrin: Hope it helps!

[King_of_GRiffins]

Lordhenry, that's an excellent way to build a world, and probably the most sane. However, for the sake of a challenge, I will be building a world from the bottom up, branching out and considering it's complexities. For the curious, I have started such here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81149)

[Cuddly]

It seems like a lot of people around here have made a campaign world at some point of their lives. From what I've heard, they sound like a vast array of ideas, but they all seem to start the same way. Everyone takes an interesting "present day" scenario, fleshes that out, and then works out a history that makes it plausible.

That is obviously the most practical way to go about it; you are only ever going to play in the present day, so that should be the best developed. For a while, I've had an inkling, however, that it would be really fun to start the other way, to start with the big Empire that is inevitably the history of such a world, or even before, in the time when all of the tribes are crawling out of their caves, and try to figure out just how things would turn out if left the way they were, possibly with the addition of some Demonic invasions, apocalyptic earthquakes, etc. It would be feasible if you had a fleshed out starting point and some idea of cultural anthropology (or enough to bull-oney it).

Has anyone else ever given this sort of thing any thought, and does anyone have any suggestions on where I should begin/how I should proceed? I have nothing to do this summer so I wanted to try this, but some input would be really helpful.

While fun for the creator, it tends to put a hamper on players, since they may want to play certain things that they couldn't, since it would be infeasible due to restrictions.

I like to come up with cool scenarios that I think the players would enjoy, but leave enough room for them to fully develop their character, their history, even the region they came from.

If you want to keep the world low tech (ie, why aren't all the commoners middle income suburbanites with magic), you need to come up with mechanisms that would prevent such things.

[Cuddly]

Every played Avalon Hill's Diplomacy board game?

Your tribes show up, and start geometrically multiplying.

Build a fantasy version of this. Various things grant knowledge of magic, which can be stolen and/or adapted from other peoples.

The problem is that a "typical fantasy" (multiple races, etc) isn't very likely to occur unless you work for it to occur. Multiple intelligent races, developing around the same time? Your "base rules" would have to be forced to do that kind of thing.

The same is true of magic -- if you want D&D esque magic, you have to shape reality before hand so that it produces that kind of magic afterwards.

Because if you don't have a goal in mind, the only large-scale running of such a model produced mundane human civilization -- ie, Earth.

On top of that, what is the purpose of this world? To adventure in. Finding a world that is fun to adventure in is harder than finding a world. :) Building the world with a kind of anthropomorphic principle -- "this will be a world to adventure in" -- just makes sense.

Multiple intelligent races were developing right next to each other here on earth only a few million years ago. We just happened to outcompete everyone. There's no reason why this has to be the case, though, especially since you're working from a sample size of one. An aquatic race allows for a surface dwelling race, etc.

[LibraryOgre]

Yes but that requires custom magic items. TC's are explicitly allowed.

Create Food and Water is the next big one (after TC's). Then comes the effect of magic on warfare.

First of all, Tippy, I love your new avatar.

However, I rather liked Steven Brust's take on why magic wasn't a big factor in army battles... usually, both sides had it, and the wizards would spend all their time negating each other*. Bear in mind that this is a society where almost everyone has a few cantrips they can cast, and what separates sorcerers & wizards from the rest of the populace is the amount of focus they put into learning new magics.

*This is gone into in the book "Dragon"

[Emperor Tippy]

First of all, Tippy, I love your new avatar.
Thanks, Cuddly sent it to me a while back and I finally decided to change it.


However, I rather liked Steven Brust's take on why magic wasn't a big factor in army battles... usually, both sides had it, and the wizards would spend all their time negating each other*. Bear in mind that this is a society where almost everyone has a few cantrips they can cast, and what separates sorcerers & wizards from the rest of the populace is the amount of focus they put into learning new magics.

*This is gone into in the book "Dragon"

Oh, actually in combat use of magic is mostly negated and is largely irrelevant. Where it becomes important is on the logistics side. TC's mean that supply lines do not exist. They also mean that I can poor troops into your capital, on the other side of the world, as easily as I can get them to parade in front of their barracks. Permanent Telepathic Bonds provide instant communications between forces. Divinations make spying a lot easier.

And that doesn't even consider what you can do with golem's and warforged.

[Charity]

Thanks, Cuddly sent it to me a while back and I finally decided to change it.

No he didn't memo (http://www.memoryman.com/)

[Don Beegles]

Thanks for the feedback guys; I'm glad so many of you seem to like the idea, especialy KoG, some of whose ideas I will probably be stealing.

Vortling: I think I have a decent story for the gods. I need to work up the details better, but the creation of the world triggered a huge outbreak of magic, which simultaneously imbued sokme of the creatures of the world with sentience and created the Gods, who are creatures of pure magical energy.

Azerian: I don't know. They'll probably going to end up playing in the time period I flesh out the best before I get bored, probably one analogous to the time period of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. Theoretically, however, one benefit of this method of world creation is that any time period can be translated into a viable campaign setting with a modicum of extra effort, making it great for time travel campaigns, etc.

Emperor Tippy: Yes there are a ton of variables. What I think I'll do is try to pick the option that feels like it would make the best endgame scenario. I don't see how it is too much worse than making an endgame scenario, then trying to come up with a plausible history. Sure it's unscientific, but I'll enjoy doing it.

Cuddly: I'm going to try not to put too many restrictions on the players; I'm going to start with most of the intelligent races from the MM in it. I almost want to wait until I get the 4E MM but I'd lose interest before then. If it turns out to be a completely unplayable world, at least I had fun doing it, and I've got a more or less plausible world to write fiction in.

[Emperor Tippy]

No he didn't memo (http://www.memoryman.com/)
Doh, yeah. Stupid me.

[Yakk]

Multiple intelligent races were developing right next to each other here on earth only a few million years ago. We just happened to outcompete everyone. There's no reason why this has to be the case, though, especially since you're working from a sample size of one. An aquatic race allows for a surface dwelling race, etc.By that standard, there are multiple intelligent races around right now -- chimpanzees and humans.

The problem lies in sychronization, really. In effect, you need the earlier cause (say, a race) to cause the later races for multiple races to be around at around the same level of development at once.

But this is "bottom up" development, not top down.

I suppose you could run the history of a world through whatever means, and then try to look for an interesting time to play in.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Azerian: I don't know. They'll probably going to end up playing in the time period I flesh out the best before I get bored, probably one analogous to the time period of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. Theoretically, however, one benefit of this method of world creation is that any time period can be translated into a viable campaign setting with a modicum of extra effort, making it great for time travel campaigns, etc.


Then, screw all the neat backstory. It's gonna sound brutal, but focus only in making the current, storyless world. Truth is, most players don't give a damn about setting fluff, so you'd do best making that and THEN expanding on a neat concept. Else, you'll get things such as "I summon earth golems and convince them to dig the meteoric adamantine out for me so that I may sell it for tons o' moolah."

[Cuddly]

To get around the issue of teleporting everywhere: limit it. Breaks in the astral plane will prevent a person from teleporting from one place to another. These breaks will form naturally defensible territories, and so you will get nations and the like that form in places where a teleport spell couldn't ruin everything. Sort of like how rivers and mountain ranges form natural boundaries.


By that standard, there are multiple intelligent races around right now -- chimpanzees and humans.

Chimps are nowhere near Homo sapien or the Neandertals. Chimps aren't major tool users, they don't bury their dead, and they don't paint in caves.

[chiasaur11]

By that standard, there are multiple intelligent races around right now -- chimpanzees and humans.



You forget Dolphins and, of course, white mice.