Teflon Billy Posted May 10, 2005 Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 I'm working on creating my game world for a campaign that I'm hoping to get off the ground when I get back to college this fall. Right now I'm doing things awfully half-hazard, stuff that interests me, but isn't nessecarily what's important for an overall campaign world "gazetteer". Are there any online sources that have good, consistent, and detailed outlines for what to cover when creating a campaign world? (System isn't that important, campaign design is pretty much system agnostic) In particular, I'm looking for either a nice step-by-step guide or a well organized world that I can strip out the text and use the bullets as an outline. This will help me make sure I don't miss anything that should be fleshed out. Just to give some info on what I'm working with: Cosmology: Mostly AD&D 2nd Ed with the serial numbers filed off and my own stuff thrown in for seasoning. The World: An enormous "dyson" sphere that is its own pocket dimension (surface area of more than 2 billion Earths, radius out to Mar's orbital radius). It'll be in the ethereal dimension end of the house, either an off to the side part of the elemental plane of Earth (massive hollowed out area) or a pocket dimension in the deep ethereal. Tech: Initially, Greyhawk/Forgotten Realms level high middle ages tech, with standard wonky AD&D economics. But the campaign is really going to end up in the Space Opera (think Star Wars) range of tech, it'll span the gamut(sp?) Magic: The Sky's the limit on this, again, I'm shooting for an AD&D style (using Killershrike's wonderful spell lists, you're the best, man ) but I haven't nailed down what the game mechanics will be for the system. I'm leaning towards RP/5 with a Spell Skill roll (active point penalty) but also have Spell School Skill (with a less severe, to no active point penalty for the standard eight schools of magic) and Magical Rank Perks (to gain access to higher level spells) Religion: Gods, gods, and more gods (oh, and Elder gods). Spells will also be RP/5 with a Divine Skill roll. Characters will also have access to divine spell like abilities (turn undead, etc...) Well, that's it for the moment, any help would be greatly appreciated. TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fitz Posted May 10, 2005 Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help If you're looking at AD&D-style magic, there's a suggestion from FH which works well: Magic use is based on "college" skills (e.g. elementalism, illusion, necromancy etc.) and the individual spells themselves are free to the characters, with the caveat that they can only cast the spells they have access to from their spellbooks or scrolls and what-not. For example, if a wizard wants to create a zombie, he or she would have to have a Magic:Necromancy skill, but wouldn't then also have to pay for the "Create Zombie" spell they have in their spellbook. Skill levels would be costed depending on how specific they were, from 2-pt levels that might apply (for example) only to spells dealing with elemental fire, 3-pt spells that would apply to any elemental magic, up to 5-pt levels that would apply to all magic (or whatever cost range seems good to you). What I like about this magic system is that because the spells don't cost, players are much less reluctant to bother with those entertaining little spells that are completely useless a lot of the time -- naturally, if they had to invest character points in them they'd be resistant to wasting character resources with them. The skill rolls, coupled with a points-per-day limit (see below) keeps spell-use within acceptable bounds as long as you don't go overboard with giving them too much treasure You can further match AD&D magic by decreeing that all spells have to be created with a lengthy memorizing time, a single Charge per spell instance (so that if the wizard wants to cast the same spell multiple times, s/he has to memorize it multiple times) and a casting Trigger -- couple this with a spells-per-day limit of, say, INTx5 real points and you have a pretty close analogue of a bog-standard AD&D wizard. Assuming that's what you want, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pentoth Posted May 10, 2005 Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I don't know if this will really help or not however when I designed my own fantasy setting I found the best thing to help me was National Geographic. It helped me look into designing key areas on a global scale (Such as a gnome "piano" that percusses wires conntected to stalagmites. I can't take credit for inventing it. It is in the magazine.) Then you build around the area. Another really important thing is history. A area is defined by its history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Rose Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I've found http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/9329/wcreate.pdf to be very helpful for from-the-ground-up world building. Also, http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm is great for asking a lot of questions about your world and its details you might not have thought about. One recommendation I have is to choose a couple of minor details you wouldn't consider important - example: putting money on the counter instead of in the person's hand. Now, expand on this idea; what could it mean in a broader sense? Maybe it's a trust issue; putting the money on the counter shows you can't mess with it while the other person takes it. Or maybe placing something in another's hand (or similar assistance) implies they can't do it for themselves, or is a sign of closeness one doesn't make to a merchant you just met ten minutes ago. Maybe all the people in this society wear gloves, or have long sleeves covering their hands. Perhaps touching something that directly touches their hand on a regular basis, like a glove, is symbolic of touching their hand itself, and therefore a lady's glove is a true token of affection. Holding a woman's hand in public view is tantamount to screaming to all and sundry your intention to be her husband. Maybe... See what I mean? Grab a tiny detail, and run to the ends of the earth with it. Just think, I got all that from disliking people who won't hand me their money when I'm on a register. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help Just think' date=' I got all that from disliking people who won't hand me their money when I'm on a register. [/quote'] Holy crap! You might as well just make out with everyone who comes through your store! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krieghandt Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help If you can find a copy of Aria's Worldbuilder, that has an awesome system for building everything from counties to full empires. Secret is to "read between the lines" and only roll for stats you dont care about. Good luck finding it tho (Last Unicorn Games was the publisher) Krieghandt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korvar Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help Aria Worldbuilder was pretty cool - but as someone once said, it's like it was written by an unholy marriage between a lawyer and a Shift Key... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Rose Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help Aria Worldbuilder was pretty cool - but as someone once said' date=' it's like it was written by an unholy marriage between a lawyer and a Shift Key...[/quote'] No, it was a threesome between said lawyer, Shift key, and a combination thesaurus/poetry dictionary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korvar Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help It certainly Suffered from capitalising certain Words, giving the Impression that their Meaning was different from their normal meaning. But No, you'd get Words that Meant the same as normal... bUt I sUpPoSe It CoUlD hAvE bEeN wOrSe... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beetle Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I found this useful in creating my fantasy campaign, so it may prove marginally useful to others... Go the your local librarty and get ahold of an atlas, preferably an atlas of the middle ages or classical greece. Open it up and start going through it. You can clearly see how civilizations/nations expanded and contracted over time and most good atlases provide plenty of interesting sidebar information on what went on and why without having to take a college course. Why do certain areas get abandoned? Why does the population rise or fall? What sort of religious practices are there likely to be? How do the place-names change over time and why? You can absorb that information and steal... er, reinterpret it for your campaign world. Or just rip off Greyhawk like the rest of us... (Warning - this method may result in radical changes to your campaign world. It changed my setting from polytheism to monotheism.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korvar Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help Aria also had rules for running countries as characters, sort of, in order to generate history for your country. I always meant to run a Fantasy game where there was actually History going on, not necessarily part of the PC's Plot. Like maybe a civil war, or an invasion by a neighbouring country. A disputed succession to the throne! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teflon Billy Posted May 18, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I'm not having a problem coming up with ideas. I'm having a problem organizing everything. I want a detailed outline that'll run down the details. I plan on looking through my copy of Turakian Age, but all of my AD&D 2nd Ed stuff is in storage so I don't have access to those books (which many of them have good outlines for detailing worlds/countries/cities) This is more what I'm looking for. Black Rose's links were good. But I know I've seen more detailed outlines. I just don't know where to look. TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greatwyrm Posted May 18, 2005 Report Share Posted May 18, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I'm not having a problem coming up with ideas. I'm having a problem organizing everything. I kind of had the same problem when I did the campaign guide for my homebrew. I just pulled out the campaign guides I thought had been done well (at the time 3e Greyhawk and 2e Al-Quadim) and just tried to cover the same basic stuff they did in roughly the same order. Basically: important char gen info, new equipment, new magic, history/gazetteer, glossary. I figured I'd put the gazetteer info at the back where it could be conveniently ignored by the half of my players who I knew wouldn't care. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy Posted May 19, 2005 Report Share Posted May 19, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help HiYa, maybe these links will be helpful. http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/4905/index.html http://www.seventhsanctum.com/www/wwwfull.html http://www.dragondogpress.com/unclefiggy/fantasy/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Worldmaker Posted May 20, 2005 Report Share Posted May 20, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help When I was creating the Young Kingdoms, I divided up the information into Character Construction and House Rules The Lore of the World (which itself was subdivided up into The Common Calendar, Languages, Timekeeping, a Timeline of Known World History, Holidays, Metals and Stones, well-known Myths and Legends, Wordlore, the Night Sky, Flora and Fauna, Monsters, the Peoples of the Young Kingdoms, and Geographical notes, Politics, and Common Superstitions). Magic Religion That seemed to be enough organization for my players to understand it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 20, 2005 Report Share Posted May 20, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I put in a little science when I create a world, so that it will be at least somewhat realistic. If I decide to add magic, I modify the world as necessary. I don't much care for magic so powerful it can radically alter the world. Aside from that, I make a calendar, a list of cultures, and a rough timeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teflon Billy Posted May 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help I put in a little science when I create a world, so that it will be at least somewhat realistic. If I decide to add magic, I modify the world as necessary. I don't much care for magic so powerful it can radically alter the world. Aside from that, I make a calendar, a list of cultures, and a rough timeline. I'm doing this as well. An example is how I'm going to explain all of the non-magical wonder materials that are seen in comics/SF/Fantasy such as Adamantium, Vibranium, etc.. I'm going to say that there are parralel periodic tables, filled with hundreds more elements (mostly yet to be discovered). How this is rectified with regards to the mundane periodic table is that these alternate elements are different on the sub-atomic scale, that is to say, they are different from normal matter at the quark level (or even more basic, in my universe quarks may not be the end of subatomic particles). So, you can have wonder compounds that are chemically the same with normal matter but have physically ridiculous secondary qualities (such as vibranium's ability to break apart normal matter or adamantium's colosal intra-atomic bond strength) TB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted May 28, 2005 Report Share Posted May 28, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help Kingdoms of Kalamar is built pretty soundly geographically speaking from what I could tell (Admitedly, I'm a layman at that sort of thing) and has some worthy ideas to plumb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onyx Rose Posted May 31, 2005 Report Share Posted May 31, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help Kingdoms of Kalamar is built pretty soundly geographically speaking from what I could tell (Admitedly' date=' I'm a layman at that sort of thing) and has some worthy ideas to plumb.[/quote'] To call Kingdms of Kalamar geographically sound is an understatement. There is an entire Atlas that has every region mapped out, even the oceans. I'm not knocking the world it has some new races and such, but it is detailed. I would recommend reading the history of Kalamar if you have the time. Are you going to have different races? If you are, how well do they get along or don't they? This may be a "no duh" comment, but having a three ring binder and dividers for different sections (world religions, kingdoms, maps of cities, NPCs etc.) I'm new at this too so I'm sorry if I wasn't too helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lethosos Posted May 31, 2005 Report Share Posted May 31, 2005 Re: Campaign/World Building Help That's okay, I'm just starting out myself. Big project for a 250 page HERO sourcebook. It's the writing that gets to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.