Geography: First things first. Now that you've got an idea in your head, of what it is you're trying to build your campaign around, why don't you start by drawing a world that it all exists in. If it's a single island, draw it out, if it's a continent, Start an outline.

Terrain: Now that you have two dimensions, add a third! Add terrain and land masses that give your world a unique shape. add mountains, deserts, rivers, oceans... Whatever your setting has.

Climates: Now that you've added the shape of the land, it's important to have the basics of weather and climate. This will effect what sort of people live there, as well as people. Swamps grow in places where there isn't much wind, but lots of rain, and so forth.

Ecology: Finally, we can get to the fun stuff. Start taking notes on what sort of creatures live in different places. This will also effect where people and groups live. Remember this basic rule. The stronger, and rarer the monster species, the farther from civilization it will live.

Demographics: Now for the storyline of your campaign. Start by taking what sort of people live in which locations. Perhaps you have a desert where many tribesman and nomads live. Wood elves may be very numerous in a certain forest, or barbarians and vikings might live high in the mountains.

Generate Towns: One of the more time consuming tasks, is to generate towns around your map. I'd start with major cities or places, then work your way down to the basic villages and the places where your players will be venturing.

Landmarks: An interesting thing that might make your campaign unique, are the landmarks that you place in or around cities and settlements. Perhaps there is a statue of an ancient adventurers grave, that leads to a tomb that is a dungeon. Or something of the like. With enough of these, you will add a unique adventure with every idea you jot down.

Communities: Now that you have towns and places down, it's time to add some life to those locations. Start building NPCs to fill your world. Make them as memorable, or as featureless as you'd like. But where ever the players might have a chance to adventure, try to keep away from monotony. Come up with new and greater ideas with every chance you get.

Legal Issues: Now that people and communities are available for play, give those people some rules. What sort of laws effect your world. What is good, and what is not? And who takes care of those laws? The church? The local guard? Or perhaps it's something more devious or sinister.

Social Classes: With your laws in place, you can start making groups who have their own sets of rules and codes. Priests and monks, Nobles, Peasants. They each have their own lifestyles and you should fill them out as they are imagined. Here is also where you make your divisions of groups. (For instance, if you have two forms of knights, but both have very different teachings or fighting styles.)

Magic: Is magic rare in your world? Is it frowned upon, or unheard of? Or perhaps it's just the opposite! Maybe everyone uses it. Perhaps even peasants have a little access to it. Here, you will also build new spells that are only available in your world.

Religion: with magic stapled in place, you can start working on the little nooks and crannies. How do the gods work? Are they far and distant? Or are they present in all lives. Perhaps they've been dead for millinia. Or maybe people put faith in their ancestors.

Pantheon: You are almost there. Just think about the religions you just made. Now add their gods. Perhaps you made your own god of destruction and death. Or maybe you chose a real pantheon, like the norse or greek pantheon. Add your own little stories or flare, to make the pantheon fit your world.

Dieties: Now that everything else is in place, build the individual gods. Which gods are related to others. How do they react to each other? What do their followers believe?

Thank you /tg/ for letting me share that with you. Tell me your thoughts on this list and tell me if you think it should be reworked.

Also, tell me if you think it will help you out, or if it's not something that will assist you.

Wow, this is awesome Captain, I'm a newbie DM and I really hvae trouble building worlds, mostly because I work from the detail up. Your way, besides being rather intuitive, let's rookies like me plan encounters and quests easily and methodically.
+1 Interwebz

>>5481060
Thanks. I hope you can write settings easier in the future. Also, it always comes in really handy to read the DM's Guide section on Campaign writing.

And after you've gone through all of this work and painstakingly created every last thing, your players ignore your detailed descriptions, say "fuck you" to your intrigue-laden plots, and go get themselves arrested and executed. Then they bitch about it and demand another DM.

>>5481131
Heh, this is why it's important to use a setting that your players really would like to get interested in. If they like doing evil things and getting away with illegal activity, make them play in a region that doesn't have many guards. Consider also, a different type of game. Like a post apocalyptic setting, where there aren't law enforcement.

>>5481131
Get better players.

Nice work.

Of course, for me it's more of a reminder of "hey, did you put anything about this in? That could be a good idea" rather than an absolute order to follow - but that's largely a question of writing/world building style.

Lessee... I'd consider making magic a bit more general. You might want to consider tie-ins with ecology (does magic allow for flora and fauna not normally possible? What does the magic compensate for? - if so, those living things should have that magic ability/ies as innate such.) or geography, terrain, et al (does the magic in the world enable any crazy-ass-shit with weird towns/landmarks/terrain etc?)

Just feels to me like there's almost only spells mentioned here. I'm guessing this might be good for quick building with a D&D(or D&D-like) rules set, where these things are discrete parts (rather than composed of base forces mixed a bit like in, say, Mage or that old RPG Gemini).

You can also consider, though this is a matter of personal preferences, things like the mood of the setting, or a setting concept. Setting concept is pretty vague, but basically the core idea of the setting. Al Qadim _might_ (though I am no authority on the setting) be described as "A Thousand and One Nights". Vampire is basically the concept "Our world but a little darker and with Vampires" with the mood "bleak"(ish) or somesuch.

I'm not an authority on world building, but you can probably get some ideas from dramaturgical terms and aspects when you want more ideas - Land marks, btw, I felt had a strong vibe of this. It's stuff which both signifies history and breathes life into a world, making it cooler.

If you're stuck for placing settlements, choose a few major cities and towns for fixed locations and stick villages and hamlets down wherever you need them. Just remember to note where they are afterwards. If they're still there after the party have left.

>>5480720

Is dat sum handlinger?

Thank you Captain, you've thrown me a rope. A REALLY Helpful rope.

>>5481586
It might help you to consider why the town is placed where it is. Is it near good natural resources? Trade routes? On/Along a river? (Which were a good way to travel back in the day, with other routes being significantly slower and more dangerous). Are there religious reasons? Traditions? Sky's the limit. But, as I said, this is something which should be used to help your building, not limit it. In other words, if worrying about this makes you not get anywhere when writing, skip it.

I'm also of the persuasion of playing by the seat of my pants, of course. Taking notes help. In this case, having a general idea of how the region and the populace in it are might be benificial.

This thread is now archived.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5480720/

>>5481630
That's why I'm here. I really like /tg/. I've been here a while. But recently, I have decided that it should be more so a resource tool then a playground.

>>5480983
It's a great checklist for the nitty-gritty of world-building, but at the same time I'd feel compelled to throw in a note for the DMs that are just making a setting for their own personal campaign. One that points out that the world which matters for their game is the player's world, which in practice could be an entire planet or just a single city. I would avoid investing huge amounts of effort into fleshing out aspects of the setting that are unlikely to be relevant during play, and focus on the small details that will really matter.

Similarly, I've always been of the view that the first step for a setting is coming up with a concept for what the games in the setting will be about. If you set out with a strong concept for the nature of the world (paradise, gritty and filled with conflict, dark and mysterious, or something more varied), the result will be much more flavorful- even if your finished result is something that evolved far beyond the original idea.

One of the most important things that you forgot to mention, Cap:

Interconnectivity.
How does everything tie together? What did Race A do to Race B? How do the different forms of magic mesh? Do arcanists see diviners as foolish chumps? How have the sentient races changed the world? Have they dug in huge rivers and manmade lakes? (Dwarfmade? Elfmade?)
What about the climate? How has it changed? How does the climate in one place effect the climate in another? How about the political climate?
Where did all the monsters come from? Did they get pushed out of one place and into another?
How does magic effect the landscape? Are there creatures running around that had ancestors who were created in an alchemist's lab?

This is the hardest part, bar none, but if you think about things, it's also the funnest, and it's where your hard work really shines. From personal experience, it's great to see over time how the world evolves as you create it, and how one thing that you do effects another. Just seeing things like how two completely incompatible magic systems became compatible as I slowly thought about "hey, couldn't they do this?", and seeing how the script I created evolved as I changed letters around and wrote them differently to get a more comfortable feel. Now I have the original language I created as the ancient version, and the current one the modern version.

>>5483643
Don't know about you, but I love worldbuilding for Worldbuilding's sake. It's also fun to just drop the PCs in there and let them have fun, and you even get to reuse it. Though, of course, if you use the same world five times, and in each time it was threatened with destruction, you might want to reconsider.