TheRPGSite

My past few attempts at building a campaign setting have all sort of died right out of the chute. I realized that I end up getting hung up with large scale details and world wide histories. Essentially I'm too fucked up thinking about the forest to see the trees. I typically try to do a mix of small and large scale from the start, a brief world history some large assumptions about things and then flesh out a continent in brief and a kingdom in detail.

I just bought a copy of DCC though and it really got the creative juices flowing for me, so I've got the itch to build another setting. This time though I want to start small, like really small. However I have never really done that before.

How many of you start at the village level and work up from there?

I want to start at that level but I keep worrying about keeping the whole thing consistent if I don't have a larger picture of the world. Any particular pitfalls of this approach? Advice on building from the ground up?

we've done this before. I normally tagteam with Rob C when people ask this.  Since we have similar ideas with totally different ways of expressing them.

So, first, read this (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/60581028/Vreegs%20Rules%20of%20Setting%20and%20Game%20Design).
Then this (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html).

I put it this way since you can't stat from the very bottom without your campaign and world framework...but once you have the really big stuff, you can go to the really molecular level and build up.

I have a series on starting from scratch -- from indeed the village level up -- on my blog, entitled (quaintly enough) "Starting From Scratch." (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/starting-from-scratch-pt-i.html)  It's a six-parter.

Thanks for the input guys, I'll check out those links.

A few years ago, I was having a terrible problem getting a new campaign started.  I'd come up with all sorts of plans and do lots of work to get things ready, and then it would all just fizzle when it hit the table.  I went through this about 5 or more times, and both me and my gaming partner were getting sick of it.

Eventually, I just got tired of trying.  I just told him to keep his character from the last failed attempt.  I made up a single "hero" mecha type, and a single "bad guy" mecha type.  Then I just told him that his character was on a sky carrier with other people he knew.  He was the mecha pilot and defender of the ship.  Then I had some of my bad guy mecha attack.

And for some reason that stuck.  Years later, we're still playing the continuation of that.  That's what I spent last night running, as a matter of fact.

I've noticed that the longest running campaigns are always the ones started with tiny amounts of or no prep work whatsoever.  As a GM, I think the reason this works for me is because it keeps me working on the game world and interested in it rather than having it all in my head from the outset and getting bored with it.

Quote from: Arkansan;828186My past few attempts at building a campaign setting have all sort of died right out of the chute. I realized that I end up getting hung up with large scale details and world wide histories. Essentially I'm too fucked up thinking about the forest to see the trees. I typically try to do a mix of small and large scale from the start, a brief world history some large assumptions about things and then flesh out a continent in brief and a kingdom in detail.

I just bought a copy of DCC though and it really got the creative juices flowing for me, so I've got the itch to build another setting. This time though I want to start small, like really small. However I have never really done that before.

How many of you start at the village level and work up from there?

I want to start at that level but I keep worrying about keeping the whole thing consistent if I don't have a larger picture of the world. Any particular pitfalls of this approach? Advice on building from the ground up?

First: DCC is awesome for inspiring you to create a world, isn't it?

Second: I generally start with two levels.  First, the REALLY BIG world-picture.  Then, a very small detailed starting area.
It's the middle-part I leave fuzzy.

Quote from: RPGPundit;828777First: DCC is awesome for inspiring you to create a world, isn't it?

Second: I generally start with two levels.  First, the REALLY BIG world-picture.  Then, a very small detailed starting area.
It's the middle-part I leave fuzzy.

pretty similar here.

Pretty much.  Broad strokes (very broad) for the world, and a lot of detail on the local area.  Because, you know, that's the part that the players will be dealing with.

A lot of really old school settings started as just a city and a megadungeon, so there's a lot of precedence for that.

I'm skipping voice of personal experience and going directly to your approach. This problem will recur regardless of scale until addressed, IME. Let's shift your perspective so that you can recognize it.

I think you are struggling with getting lost in fine details over placing basic sketch lines. You see this in all sorts of arts, most visibly in drawing. At some point the outline must exist else the lack of frame will have the detail slipping around out of proportion.

Long story short, sketch the basics of what inspired you. Deliberately skip the details. Reduce to core and only retain that which is a clear summation of what inspired you. Upon that wire frame then fill in the empty space in manageable blocks.

Let's practice. Pitch me your village, what it is, its mood, and why players should care. At first do this in three sentences or less. We'll then reduce down to one snappy sentence. Sell me your village, Go!

Quote from: Arkansan;828186How many of you start at the village level and work up from there?

I want to start at that level but I keep worrying about keeping the whole thing consistent if I don't have a larger picture of the world. Any particular pitfalls of this approach? Advice on building from the ground up?

I find I can't start small and work up.

I can start big and work toward small.

Why?

1) I feel like the PC's need to have some basic idea about who they are and where they're from. I think you'd want the PC's to know things like where they came from, even if those stories were mostly at the level of myth

2) Large scale economic and political situation will inform the local situation. Granted this is more important the further you get away from a mideval world

3) I find things are more interesting if there's context

Now, all that said, you don't need a huge amount of detail about things that happened long ago or far away.

In the last fantasy-world game I ran, "the known world" was fairly small -- a mesa about the size of Texas in the "Great Pacific Desert" (an ocean-sized desert), with five cities interconnected with railroads.

Everything beyond that was largely legendary (if you go out far enough into the desert... you don't come back) and inacessible.

But I needed

1) The creation myth
2) The major players and political political antagonists -- basically internal and external threats
3) Living history -- what the PC's would know, having grown up the world
4) Enough about the cities to give them the kind of character that you'd know about a distant city (one city known for its university; one known for some great heresy in the past, etc.)

I made a representational "map of the world." The characters were not highly educated and had not traveled -- the background represented 'common knowledge.'

I had a bit more for myself, but at that scale? Not much. To the extent that I'd need it, I figured I could develop it based on the framework I already had.

Note: REALLY IMPORTANT -- if any significant part of the culture is based on some HUGE LIE, it's probably important to think through the implications of that... you'll want lots of common-place indicators of whatever the culture is trying to convince itself of... and a few subtle clues that things are not as they are said to be.

Cheers,
-E.

I find the bottom up approach to be imminently more gameable.  Top down creates a world that makes much more cerebral sense, but closes off many gaming avenues.

I'm of the opinion that writing up "worldwide histories" is a waste of time and effort. Most people are utterly unaware of most history from more than a few generations ago anyway as it has almost no bearing on their current situations. Better to work up details of recent times in the area your game begins, and expand from there as need or as inspired by the course of game play.

Quote from: Matt;829348I'm of the opinion that writing up "worldwide histories" is a waste of time and effort. Most people are utterly unaware of most history from more than a few generations ago anyway as it has almost no bearing on their current situations. Better to work up details of recent times in the area your game begins, and expand from there as need or as inspired by the course of game play.

Completely agree.  I have run the Temple of Elemental Evil multiple times.  Never once have the players had any interest in the Battle of Emridy Meadows anecdotes I sprinkle around.

Quote from: Old One Eye;829349Completely agree.  I have run the Temple of Elemental Evil multiple times.  Never once have the players had any interest in the Battle of Emridy Meadows anecdotes I sprinkle around.

I usually just sprinkle a few "rumors" and see what the players are interested in and continue from there to decide what is true or false history or knowledge. Also sometimes the players connect things together for me with their ideas and make what were utterly unrelated events into a better plot.

Quote from: RPGPundit;828777First: DCC is awesome for inspiring you to create a world, isn't it?

Second: I generally start with two levels.  First, the REALLY BIG world-picture.  Then, a very small detailed starting area.
It's the middle-part I leave fuzzy.

Yeah the art alone in DCC really get's me going. I also find that if you use all the assumptions in the book a good deal of the broad cosmological details are clearly spelled out for you, but are there in a manner that is pretty malleable.

I think on further reflection the way you mention might be necessary, some degree of the wide outline has to be sketched out before you can zoom in to a much smaller area.

I think part of my problem is less a problem of approach and more of focus and time management.  I have a tendency to let my mind wander then get wrapped around the axle on some detail until I'm burned out.

Speaking of world building, I may be starting a new fantasy game soon and am figuring on allowing the traditional D&D subhuman races (elves, dwarves, etc.) since the new crop of players isn't going for the humans-only Conanesque vibe. I still want to avoid Tolkien tropes.  Anybody got good ideas on how to incorporate elves and dwarves and what not without it looking like goddam Middle Earth? Also want to avoid the stereotypical detached mystical elves and greedy dwarves in gold mines and hammering out special swords all day. I was thinking of making the elves more like ElfQuest and modeled on American Indian tribes of the Great Plains, nomadic and such. Or something.

So, just to clarify, Matt, are you still hoping to go for a sort-of Conanesque/S&S feel (only with some compromise thrown in)?

If so, Elves could be turned into an ancient, highly magical fallen civilisation of elder men. Atlanteans, Hyperboreans, whatever. Tall, unnatural hair and/or eye colour; hypnotists, summoners, necromancers, poisoners yet also uncannily quick and skilled with a blade; their diminished numbers wandering the halls of their long-lost cities aimlessly or lost in century-long magical lotus-dreams.

Dwarves could be a race of men forced underground millenia ago and adapted to their new habitat, with massive subterranean fortresses and ancient grudges towards their old enemies.

No, I was going to go ahead with Ye Olde Pseudo Middle Ages but with magic rare indeed and hopefully very few clerics and none of this "resurrection and healing potions available on every street corner" stuff. Haven't solidified or codified too much at this point, but I prefer actual risk of death and dismemberment. probably starting with a map of a region with some interesting places the characters may venture in search of money and adventure.

(Personally I have no use for elves and hobbits but people seem to expect it. )

This isn't going to quite answer your question, either (sorry), but have you considered creating several different stereotopical human "races" with mechanical differences, and offering those for a choice? Like "normal humans", Amazons, Faux-Vikings, Faux-Mongolians, Fallen Empire Guys, whatever? Each could have a +1 in some attribute and -1 in another, and some other minor mechanical bonus - extra proficiency in something (if you have a skill system), bonus to saves against cold for the Faux-Vikings or heat for the Faux-Arabs, etc..

Quote from: Premier;829486This isn't going to quite answer your question, either (sorry), but have you considered creating several different stereotopical human "races" with mechanical differences, and offering those for a choice? Like "normal humans", Amazons, Faux-Vikings, Faux-Mongolians, Fallen Empire Guys, whatever? Each could have a +1 in some attribute and -1 in another, and some other minor mechanical bonus - extra proficiency in something (if you have a skill system), bonus to saves against cold for the Faux-Vikings or heat for the Faux-Arabs, etc..

What on earth is a "Fallen Empire Guy"?

There have to be Amazons...the Xena kind, though, not the classical ones.

Although since I start out with the local region, no human "races" will feature until the PCs explore over the mountains and across the river.  Where they might find Vikings or Mongols or Bedouins and such.

Pitch your world, Matt. Is it just Conan+, now with elves 'n dwarves?

Easiest way is to switch up stereotypes or invert roles.

For example, dwarves are still master craftsmen but they specialize in boats and other watercraft. They are the coastal pirates and integral to every nascent state's navy. They "enchant" their (water) vehicles and gear with excellent craftsmanship and tend to build their ships' holds to their height specifications.

Elves are an invasive, hippy race-cult from across the seas, breeding fast, living long, and doing little but be-ins, camp outs, and drum circles. Thankfully they don't eat much and don't settle long, but their "save nature" proselytizing gets under everyone's nerves. However their major drum circle festivals are also the only known — though rare — form of magical healing and resurrection. Occasionally a tolerated pest, though often killed off like goblins.

Quote from: Matt;829533What on earth is a "Fallen Empire Guy"?

A guy from the standard ancient but declining, amoral, decadent empire which no longer has the same grasp on power as it used to and it's a nest of intrigue with lots of alchemists, poisoners, wizards of all stripes but a lack of strong, fighting vitality trope? You know, the reasonably common one?

Quote from: Matt;829348I'm of the opinion that writing up "worldwide histories" is a waste of time and effort. Most people are utterly unaware of most history from more than a few generations ago anyway as it has almost no bearing on their current situations. Better to work up details of recent times in the area your game begins, and expand from there as need or as inspired by the course of game play.

I think it entirely depends on the group.  Some players are interested in history; some aren't.

But a large factor, I feel, is in the kind of histories most gamers -- and gaming products -- produce.  To quote myself from the blog series I linked above, no one cares that Empress Lynessia III was the last monarch of Vallia to personally lead troops in war, winning the battle of Fourth Council Rock against the Avanari 174 years ago; it's enough to say that the empires of Vallia and Avanar are traditional enemies and have a turbulent, heavily militarized border, the last full-scale war being seventeen years ago.  

And that's the problem -- those histories are almost always vast spanning timelines, giving bulletpoints of events over tens of thousands of years.  That's meaningless to the player who doesn't give a damn about background, and worthless to the one who does.  What the one who does wants are bulletpoints from the last twenty years, and very few gaming "historians" bother with that ... when the last twenty years ought to have at least as much attention as the entire rest of recorded history.

It's like with today.  Anyone who claims that the outcome of the Battle of Kadesh or the deliberations of the Council of Constance has a meaningful and direct impact on the background and abilities of a modern-day PC is a moron.  But whether you served in Iraq?  That your PC was raised by hippie rejectionists on a commune?  That your PC lost family in 9/11, or in the Aceh tsunami, or at Fukushima?  Those events matter.  

Quote from: Matt;829481(Personally I have no use for elves and hobbits but people seem to expect it. )

They've told you they expect it, or you presume they expect it?  Different matters.

This is the point where you have a conversation with your players about what your setting looks like, and including something along the lines of "Yeah, look.  One of the things is that I'm so completely bored by the bog-standard D&D Tolkien ripoffs of hobbits, elves and dwarves.  You won't find those races in my game.  But you'll find these races/roles.  I think you'll find them more interesting; I sure do!"

If that doesn't work, then the problem you're facing is players who won't budge out of their comfort zone and prejudices.  And that's okay: they ought to decide for themselves what kind of gaming suits them.  Trying to force them out of their comfort zone won't go over well ... a player who demands to play in a game with hobbits because RPG Settings Have To Have Hobbits is an unquestioned article of faith is going to be even more pissed off that you've completely changed them than if you didn't include them at all.

My way of handling the syndrome is this: I run what I want to run, and then I find players who are willing to buy into my paradigm.  It sure beats resentment on your part because you're stuck running same old/same old.

Not to defend lengthy histories, because as fun as they are to read they aren't readily game-able material, but to point out one use I've had with them: choosing a different spot on the setting's timeline to play out certain key eras.

Just like people who want to play out WWII battles or Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the like, you can do similar things with regional event histories. Then the rest of the official history is discardable as the historical timeline has possibly been altered by the players. However, if the PCs had no meaningful direct impact the rest of the recent timeline might be workable agenda milestones and context to fashion the campaign's future.

They're useful, but it helps to do some prep and have a rather special table -- one invested in the setting's history is a plus.

Quote from: Ravenswing;829787I think it entirely depends on the group.  Some players are interested in history; some aren't.

But a large factor, I feel, is in the kind of histories most gamers -- and gaming products -- produce.  To quote myself from the blog series I linked above, no one cares that Empress Lynessia III was the last monarch of Vallia to personally lead troops in war, winning the battle of Fourth Council Rock against the Avanari 174 years ago; it's enough to say that the empires of Vallia and Avanar are traditional enemies and have a turbulent, heavily militarized border, the last full-scale war being seventeen years ago.  

And that's the problem -- those histories are almost always vast spanning timelines, giving bulletpoints of events over tens of thousands of years.  That's meaningless to the player who doesn't give a damn about background, and worthless to the one who does.  What the one who does wants are bulletpoints from the last twenty years, and very few gaming "historians" bother with that ... when the last twenty years ought to have at least as much attention as the entire rest of recorded history.

It's like with today.  Anyone who claims that the outcome of the Battle of Kadesh or the deliberations of the Council of Constance has a meaningful and direct impact on the background and abilities of a modern-day PC is a moron.  But whether you served in Iraq?  That your PC was raised by hippie rejectionists on a commune?  That your PC lost family in 9/11, or in the Aceh tsunami, or at Fukushima?  Those events matter.  

That's what I said. Just more succinctly.

Quote from: Arkansan;828186My past few attempts at building a campaign setting have all sort of died right out of the chute. I realized that I end up getting hung up with large scale details and world wide histories. Essentially I'm too fucked up thinking about the forest to see the trees. I typically try to do a mix of small and large scale from the start, a brief world history some large assumptions about things and then flesh out a continent in brief and a kingdom in detail.

I just bought a copy of DCC though and it really got the creative juices flowing for me, so I've got the itch to build another setting. This time though I want to start small, like really small. However I have never really done that before.

How many of you start at the village level and work up from there?

I want to start at that level but I keep worrying about keeping the whole thing consistent if I don't have a larger picture of the world. Any particular pitfalls of this approach? Advice on building from the ground up?

Start with an island, or an isolated valley. Detail the hell out of it. Restrict any detail about the outer world to two sentences. Make the characters strangers to the island. They are ship wrecked, or timelost, or marooned by circumstance.
In this way the setting becomes a mystery- the resoluton of which is a result of play and exploration; players are far more interested in mystery than history, ime.

Quote from: Aos;829846Start with an island, or an isolated valley. Detail the hell out of it. Restrict any detail about the outer world to two sentences. Make the characters strangers to the island. They are ship wrecked, or timelost, or marooned by circumstance.
In this way the setting becomes a mystery- the resoluton of which is a result of play and exploration; players are far more interested in mystery than history, ime.

Huh, now there is an interesting thought. I rather like the idea of players as explorers of a lost land, also resolves the bothersome task of dealing with what the characters should know about the setting.

Quote from: Arkansan;829856Huh, now there is an interesting thought. I rather like the idea of players as explorers of a lost land, also resolves the bothersome task of dealing with what the characters should know about the setting.

Think of the openings to Lost, Planet of the Apes, every old Dr. Who ever (the second adventure of the first doctor "The Dialeks" is a solid example) or A Princess of Mars.
I have done this a couple times now and it has worked really well.

Quote from: Aos;829861Think of the openings to Lost, Planet of the Apes, every old Dr. Who ever (the second adventure of the first doctor "The Dialeks" is a solid example) or A Princess of Mars.
I have done this a couple times now and it has worked really well.

I'll give it a shot, thanks for the idea.

Quote from: Ravenswing;829787I think it entirely depends on the group.  Some players are interested in history; some aren't.

But a large factor, I feel, is in the kind of histories most gamers -- and gaming products -- produce.  To quote myself from the blog series I linked above, no one cares that Empress Lynessia III was the last monarch of Vallia to personally lead troops in war, winning the battle of Fourth Council Rock against the Avanari 174 years ago; it's enough to say that the empires of Vallia and Avanar are traditional enemies and have a turbulent, heavily militarized border, the last full-scale war being seventeen years ago.  

And that's the problem -- those histories are almost always vast spanning timelines, giving bulletpoints of events over tens of thousands of years.  That's meaningless to the player who doesn't give a damn about background, and worthless to the one who does.  What the one who does wants are bulletpoints from the last twenty years, and very few gaming "historians" bother with that ... when the last twenty years ought to have at least as much attention as the entire rest of recorded history.

It's like with today.  Anyone who claims that the outcome of the Battle of Kadesh or the deliberations of the Council of Constance has a meaningful and direct impact on the background and abilities of a modern-day PC is a moron.  But whether you served in Iraq?  That your PC was raised by hippie rejectionists on a commune?  That your PC lost family in 9/11, or in the Aceh tsunami, or at Fukushima?  Those events matter.  

Work has been a bitch.  Or I would have responded sooner.

It does depend heavily on the game style and the setting.  

But the deeper the threads and underpinning, the more consistent they are.  And read the word 'consistent' with the subtext of 'helping immersion by allowing the characters to be able to count on things staying the same".

I run big, old sandboxes.  And frankly, the access database that contains the history has grow a lot.  But the main, ancient history of the world was written in 1982, and has been extremely relevant, at all sorts of levels, every since.  

Some of the original plotlines/large scale arcs are still going on, 30+ years later.  And the players often can glimpse deeper, hidden mysteries and after years of playing they start to put things together.  

I mean, yes, to a set of players who don't enjoy mysteries, who don'd get excited by long term puzzles, a huge, consistent history is useless.  Likewise to the GM who doesn't want to run that sort of game.

But I get to see players who've played in the campaign for 30+ years put pieces together decades os playtime apart.  And until you've seen it, don't knock it.  For some games, it works.  And is worth the time and effort.

He's talking about starting a new game in a new setting; you're talking about an ongoing game in an established setting with players who have been exploring it for years.

Quote from: Matt;829873He's talking about starting a new game in a new setting; you're talking about an ongoing game in an established setting with players who have been exploring it for years.

(nods)  Yep.  

I agree that in a rich-detail game that's been going on for decades, long-term players care and know a lot about that detail.  The players in my current lead group have been playing in my campaigns since 1985, 1991, 1992, 2003 and 2008 respectively, and they remember a lot of nuances and stuff ... in some cases, things I've forgotten.

But a case in point: just this past Saturday, during the food break, 1985 and 1991 were swapping an old warstory from my game from decades past, in some serious detail, and laughing over the fun they'd had with it.

I glanced over at 2003 and 2008.  Their eyes were glazing over as they ate their pizza, and one was fiddling with her laptop.  The tale had no relevance to their gameplay, and they reacted pretty much the same way any of us do when we have to be a spectator for other people's "Hey, do you remember when we ..."

A lot of campaigns aren't designed to do that nowadays - the DragonLance model of "the Big Damn Heroes on their Big Damn Quest" kind of makes settings disposable.

I'd be a lot more inclined to do heavy background work/etc. for a non-disposable campaign.  Right tool for the right job :)

Quote from: Ravenswing;829897(nods)  Yep.  

I agree that in a rich-detail game that's been going on for decades, long-term players care and know a lot about that detail.  The players in my current lead group have been playing in my campaigns since 1985, 1991, 1992, 2003 and 2008 respectively, and they remember a lot of nuances and stuff ... in some cases, things I've forgotten.

But a case in point: just this past Saturday, during the food break, 1985 and 1991 were swapping an old warstory from my game from decades past, in some serious detail, and laughing over the fun they'd had with it.

I glanced over at 2003 and 2008.  Their eyes were glazing over as they ate their pizza, and one was fiddling with her laptop.  The tale had no relevance to their gameplay, and they reacted pretty much the same way any of us do when we have to be a spectator for other people's "Hey, do you remember when we ..."

And a new campaign won't get to that point unless it is begun correctly.

Quote from: LordVreeg;830077And a new campaign won't get to that point unless it is begun correctly.

And I bet you know the correct way to begin. Possibly the One True Way. I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

That seems unnecessarily antagonistic.

If you look at at Rob C.'s series on creating a sandbox, he doesn't talk about endless detail at the world level. Just broad strokes. After that he says to focus on a relatively small area and sketch the history there.

I would be interested in knowing how much went into Vreeg's campaign before Session 1.

Quote from: Matt;829348I'm of the opinion that writing up "worldwide histories" is a waste of time and effort. Most people are utterly unaware of most history from more than a few generations ago anyway as it has almost no bearing on their current situations. Better to work up details of recent times in the area your game begins, and expand from there as need or as inspired by the course of game play.

Indeed.  OneTRueWayism....

Frankly, Matt, I apologize for not agreeing with you.  Obviously, you have an opinion,and mine is different.

And I am an overprepper and a huge believer in building verisimilitude through consistency.  As well as setting major plotlines in play, at all levels, and building the cosmology and underpinnings of history first, and then going micro scale.   One reason I love using a wiki is that you can keep adding onto the campaign as you play and build.  SO I agree with Matt there.

To Arminus' question, I realized, after building a ton of houserules to D&D and other games, and running a number of settings from '76 to '83, that a system and setting could be made better by matching them up.  Really.  Just using the systems of the day to represent the physics and cosmology of a setting they were not designed for would cause some level of dissonance.

so I drew up the cosmology and sources of magic, and a system to match it.  And the next thing is a drew up a timeline and map.  Then did the lighter histories in that map and timeline.
Then went micro, and made the local fauna and how the local histories worked and more local maps.

And the very first sessions, as per the Sandbox thread, the players went totally rogue in the Bloody Cook incident of 1983, and had to run to Igbar (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955656/Igbar%2C%20Capital%20of%20Trabler)...totally sandboxing off the rails...and all these years later, I keep adding, and Igbar went from a set of notes and a point on the map to the third most developed city in the Cradle of Celtricia.

And here we are in 2015, with me still working heavily in Igbar, and that original timeline and over arching plot grouping written before game one still in place and as part of the whole framework.

But to quantify it, how many pages of notes before the first session?

Quote from: Arminius;830134But to quantify it, how many pages of notes before the first session?

We are going back decades.  So it is not a correct number, but no less than 2 dozen pages of notes.  Or more.

What I'm getting at is: that seems manageable, as Rob's outline provides a divide and conquer method of getting there.

I think for a successful sandbox you do want a sketched-out setting mateial ahead of play; probably at least 6 pages of notes, with an emphasis on player-facing material. I did run a campaign 'Willow Vale' 2008-10 with only about half a page of background notes to start with, it worked ok as a linear mission-of-the-week campaign, but I think might have been a lot stronger with another 5-6 pages up front.

I'm currently running GAZ1 Grand Duchy of Karameikos sandbox, it has about three times as much material as I needed/found useful in its 64 pages (eg most of the adventure ideas won't see much use), but of course Allston didn't know what type of campaign I'd be running. But I am finding that the titbits of history & culture, as well as some* of the NPCs, are very useful.

*Details on the ruling noble houses and the setting's top Clerics, Magic-Users, Fighters & Thieves are very handy. All the Mystara GAZes go crazy on Ambassadors, though. I really don't need 6 pages of Ambassadors!

Quote from: LordVreeg;830077And a new campaign won't get to that point unless it is begun correctly.

Well, look.  I'm an overprepper and verisimilitude fanatic myself.  

But you get a campaign like that not by "beginning correctly," but by creating a campaign to the players' liking.  I've got some of these freakish retention rates by giving those players a campaign with the level of detail they want.  At the same time, I have to accept the probability that a number of the players who fell by the wayside over the years weren't interested in that level of detail.

Quote from: Matt;829348I'm of the opinion that writing up "worldwide histories" is a waste of time and effort. Most people are utterly unaware of most history from more than a few generations ago anyway as it has almost no bearing on their current situations. Better to work up details of recent times in the area your game begins, and expand from there as need or as inspired by the course of game play.

"worldwide history" can be both useless and boring if done wrong.

The way to do it right is to be doing it, first, for the GM's sake and not the players, and second, not for the purpose of useless trivia of irrelevant things but to focus on that which explains why the situation on the ground in the campaign is the way it is now.

Anything from the 'bigger picture' should always be something that enriches the microcosm of where the PCs are actually playing.  If it's irrelevant, or meaningless to that, then it shouldn't be bothered with.

With history i tend to view it all as potential fodder. There may be something that could seem irrevelant but if I am able to draw on it for something in the game, it has value to me. So I don't mind there being a lot of details that can largely be ignored at first and mined later for artifacts, dungeon backstory, etc.

As a GM I like to have some "top-down" material done just because I enjoy writing it. World-building has always been part of the hobby for me. So sometimes there is a 10,000 year timeline.

I am conscious of what is relevant at the table though and will pick out bits of it that affects the actual game. I don't expect the players to care about ancient trade routes and dynasties for their own sake, or to read through pages of material, but it's fun for me and in the long term it often does add to the campaign.

Quote from: RPGPundit;828777Second: I generally start with two levels.  First, the REALLY BIG world-picture.  Then, a very small detailed starting area.
It's the middle-part I leave fuzzy.

This approach has always worked best for me. I need the ground level small view (usually where the players start out, to truly flesh out the details, but that needs to be complimented by a much broader understanding of the setting (or I just feel like I am building in a vacuum).

Quote from: RPGPundit;830652"worldwide history" can be both useless and boring if done wrong.

The way to do it right is to be doing it, first, for the GM's sake and not the players, and second, not for the purpose of useless trivia of irrelevant things but to focus on that which explains why the situation on the ground in the campaign is the way it is now.

Anything from the 'bigger picture' should always be something that enriches the microcosm of where the PCs are actually playing.  If it's irrelevant, or meaningless to that, then it shouldn't be bothered with.

Yes.
For the GM's sake.  And this is ignored.   But important.  No GM should force feed the PCs any info, especially stuff they would not know.  But in a longer game, the slow discovery of consistently created material that actually works together helps build a more playable, intriguing world.
My PCs found a wireframe insect statuette recently, and one of them mentioned it must be Venolvian.  
As a GM, this means I have succeeded in creating a history that is seen more from an IC perspective.

Quote from: LordVreeg;830701Yes.
For the GM's sake.  And this is ignored.   But important.  No GM should force feed the PCs any info, especially stuff they would not know.  But in a longer game, the slow discovery of consistently created material that actually works together helps build a more playable, intriguing world.
My PCs found a wireframe insect statuette recently, and one of them mentioned it must be Venolvian.  
As a GM, this means I have succeeded in creating a history that is seen more from an IC perspective.

Yes, that's the way to do it!

Quote from: The_Shadow;830675As a GM I like to have some "top-down" material done just because I enjoy writing it. World-building has always been part of the hobby for me. So sometimes there is a 10,000 year timeline.

I am conscious of what is relevant at the table though and will pick out bits of it that affects the actual game. I don't expect the players to care about ancient trade routes and dynasties for their own sake, or to read through pages of material, but it's fun for me and in the long term it often does add to the campaign.

Sure -- but you're realizing that.  In like fashion, I do a great lot of worldbuilding stuff the players will never see nor would care about if they did: who the hell gives a damn whether there are 15 25-ton capacity fishing boats in Seahill or 10?

The problem is when that takes away from the stuff the players DO need.  I've seen games with that 10,000 year history, and incomparably ancient BS -- often in surprising and irrelevant detail -- completely dominates: a lot of ICE timelines as a case in point.

By contrast, take Harn.  They, too, have events hundreds of years before ... but there's always at least a full page of events of the last few years, and generally at least a column of the last few months.

Quote from: RPGPundit;828777Second: I generally start with two levels.  First, the REALLY BIG world-picture.  Then, a very small detailed starting area.
It's the middle-part I leave fuzzy.

This is how I design settings when not doing IP stuff for others.

An overall theme or aspect as the basis. Such as post-collapse, low fantasy, exploration frontier, warring nations, environment or whatever. Sometimes playing off several for a basis. If the setting has a cosmology of gods or equivalents then now may be the time to think on how active or not they are in the setting as that can suggest other elements later.

Then I work out a start town of some sort. How big. How old, how active, location in relation to civilization, level of tech expertise. Work out some notable locales in town like shops and NPCs. The level of detail here that I devote depends on wether the PCs are going to be using the town as a permanent base. Or if they are going to leave it and move on. There is no point in hyper detailing everything when all they are going to do is walk out of the tavern, hit up the equipment shop and then hit the road never to return.

The middle, if I am not creating it totally on the fly, I work out some basic topography concepts and if there are any other towns local.

History and such I try to keep to "local knowledge" sorts of things and then add onto as the PCs range out and encounter the world.

Quote from: Ravenswing;830925Sure -- but you're realizing that.  In like fashion, I do a great lot of worldbuilding stuff the players will never see nor would care about if they did: who the hell gives a damn whether there are 15 25-ton capacity fishing boats in Seahill or 10?

The guy trying to make a small and very improvised naval blockade?

Anyways, the point is that this is at least a statistic of something there, in the place, and now.  Which may or may not be hugely relevant, but it is still better than "here's a 4-page essay on some detail of something that happened in the world 80000 years ago that will have no bearing whatsoever to your present game ever but I, the game designer and world-author, felt was too smartly written, by me, to leave out!".

QuoteBy contrast, take Harn.  They, too, have events hundreds of years before ... but there's always at least a full page of events of the last few years, and generally at least a column of the last few months.

This is funny given your boat comments above, because I've always found harn to be one of those settings that is full to the brim of focusing on minutiae without actually focusing on how to adventure or what the fuck is actually interesting about the world.  You get 17 pages on medieval agricultural methods and half a line on the ancient magical teleportation-gates; that's the problem with Harn in a nutshell.

Quote from: RPGPundit;831599This is funny given your boat comments above, because I've always found harn to be one of those settings that is full to the brim of focusing on minutiae without actually focusing on how to adventure or what the fuck is actually interesting about the world.  You get 17 pages on medieval agricultural methods and half a line on the ancient magical teleportation-gates; that's the problem with Harn in a nutshell.

I'm not sure you get it.  Harn is FOR the players who find such things important.  There are plenty enough games out there for players who don't give a damn about minutiae; I don't see anything wrong with ONE published game designed for the players who do.

Quote from: Ravenswing;831633I'm not sure you get it.  Harn is FOR the players who find such things important.  There are plenty enough games out there for players who don't give a damn about minutiae; I don't see anything wrong with ONE published game designed for the players who do.

I don't either, but I also don't see it as a paragon of "background trivia being focused on action".

Quote from: RPGPundit;831971I don't either, but I also don't see it as a paragon of "background trivia being focused on action".

It's not.
It's more world building for world building's sake.  I fall into this category all the time.  It's a long term approach that is only for a certain category; a demographic that has one major setting they work on for decades.  It does not apply to most games or GMs.

Quote from: LordVreeg;831991It's not.
It's more world building for world building's sake.  I fall into this category all the time.  It's a long term approach that is only for a certain category; a demographic that has one major setting they work on for decades.  It does not apply to most games or GMs.

Harn is useful in my experience for a certain kind of player as well. A lot of players won't ask probing questions about the history or cultural details, but if you have players like that, this kind of information can be handy. It can also be handy from the GM point of view for assigning occupations to NPCs, knowing where they fit into their environment.

Harn isn't everyone's cup of tea, and it is just one way to build a campaign setting, not The Way (and a lot of time with Medieval Demographics people can sometimes become overly rigid in their thinking or think that medieval demographics apply to all cultures in all times----I can see Harn might play into that). For me Harn was something I came to appreciate when another player started showing me the material and some of the modules. I honestly probably would have ignored it and it just would have been another one of those games I recognize because I've seen it on the shelf at the hobby store but never seriously considered reading it. What I liked about it was they could create an engaging adventure over something as simple as a bushel of rye. And the dungeons were must more down to earth and simple, yet still had a lot of little things going on to engage players. I also liked that as a GM you could dip into the well of material, ignore what you don't need at the time, but extract what inspires you at the moment. The downside of it is there is this huge backlog of reading to go through if you want to master the setting. For a lot of folks, their time will be better spent building their own detailed campaign world rather than working to understand Harn. But I have to admit I really like reading the Harn material now that I've developed a soft spot for it.

With history in RPG settings, I can enjoy games that take a lighter approach (because they are easier to run off the bat and leave more room for the GM to create his own material) but I also like running things that go a bit deep and stray into the four page essay thing. With the later, the key is to approach it knowing you can ignore as much of the material as you want. If you don't find it helpful, just skip it. But what I've found is you often go back and look at it more closely and it find elements you can draw on in play (whether it is material the players find when they ask about those books on the library shelves or as a background for the dungeon). It is only really an issue if you have a canon lawyer in the group or something. That can definitely cause problems.

Simpler histories can be just as rich though in play. I used to run Ravenloft and the history sections are really simplistic in the early material. But you honestly didn't need much more than the timeline to run it. The setting was pretty simple too. It was a broad overview with a few areas fleshed out, but you just knew looking at it that the GM was expected to fill in a lot of the blanks as needed. They gave you just enough to inspire but not so much that you were a slave to the material.

I think where folks run into issues is when they think the approach that works for them is the ultimate in world building. GMs are just too varied for that to be true. Some GMs want stuff that is easy to find and read in play. Some prefer sitting with material between adventures and soaking it up. Some prefer a mix.

That's exactly why I said it was not for most games or Gms.  Not because it is bad.  But because it really fits a certain demographic.

One of the main problems isn't about what one puts in their world - it's about how one presents it. As people have mentioned, all too often (particularly in computer games) a game/GM will dump ancient history details on players, many of which are irrelevant to the current plot, and which couldn't be absorbed by the players who just arrived in the setting. In that case, it does more harm than good.

But if has been said, there are details and history which the GM has made up for his own sake, because he's interested or it helps him figure out how the world works, it can lead to inspiration for more content, and to content that's more interesting because of interrelationships. If the GM can learn to only describe the details when they're immediately relevant, then they don't get in the way. If the GM just describes what the characters see and know, but the reasons for it make sense, then the players may actually get interested in exploring and discovering those things, or not, and the background then can become immersive.

Personally, after the first year or two I was running my own world, I really wanted to know and understand for myself how and why things worked in my worlds, and to understand how it had gotten that way. And so did my players. Of course, many of the things I put in my worlds in the first few years were pretty challenging to come up with reasons for. Tip: If the players haven't been there yet, maybe the river than flows from one sea to another is a mapmaker's error, and the Forest of Nude Albino Psychic Hobbits is just a rumor started in a tavern.

Mind you, two of my games have/will-have both extensive past and future chronologies:  Arrows of Indra did it, and Dark Albion will do it.  I think for certain style of games there's nothing wrong with having those for a resource.

In fact, I think that its a lot more useful, in some ways, to have a detailed set of things that COULD happen in the future of the setting than to have a bunch of things that did happen in the distant past of the setting.

Quote from: RPGPundit;833952In fact, I think that its a lot more useful, in some ways, to have a detailed set of things that COULD happen in the future of the setting than to have a bunch of things that did happen in the distant past of the setting.

I'd agree with that.  I strongly feel that these timelines that obsess over events several thousand years ago are useless -- what, are any of us affected in the least direct degree by the events of the Third Dynasty, the Xia Dynasty or the Old Assyrian Kingdom?

Knowing how a designer envisions things going in the immediate future, even if I disagree (I would have had the Tsolyani civil war turn out differently, myself), that's of great use.

Quote from: RPGPundit;833952Mind you, two of my games have/will-have both extensive past and future chronologies:  Arrows of Indra did it, and Dark Albion will do it.  I think for certain style of games there's nothing wrong with having those for a resource.

In fact, I think that its a lot more useful, in some ways, to have a detailed set of things that COULD happen in the future of the setting than to have a bunch of things that did happen in the distant past of the setting.

I don't find it more useful to have.  Creating a future timeline without a past one is nearly impossible, frankly.  

But again, with larger campaigns, I'd agree that you have top understand the affects of past history and patterns and to know where they are heading without intervention.

Arrows of Indra had a very broad and general future timeline as an appendix.

Albion has an entire chapter of year-by-year chronology of potential events from 1454 to 1485 with point-form political, social, military and adventure-seed style events.