So a new edition of D&D is on the horizon; no longer merely a mirage, yet still distant and hazy. Before 4E, I was leaving D&D behind for M&M, but D&D4 pulled me right back. Currently, I was looking at adapting L5R for my games, but now I'm looking forward to D&D5. It's a strange thing, and I think I really need to embrace the fact that D&D was my first tabletop experience. My setting began with D&D in mind, and pulling away from it always ends up feeling foreign.
But working on mechanics right now is largely pointless; I don't want any work to be worthless right now. So I want to work on the fluff part of my setting that doesn't require the system to match it (though I still may end up having to make my own caster classes, but that's fun anyway).
I have found that I don't work well in a vacuum; I work best when I'm given a specific task. I also work well with structure, so I'd like some help from all of my friends here.
First, I know Gamer Printshop has been doing some work for Pathfinder. I remember seeing something about city stat-blocks, but I haven't been able to find it again. The main point of this is I need help establishing a structure to follow for different writeups.
Second, I would like some help with a bit of racial dynamics history. I have decided upon genesis points for each of my races, and now I need to play a game of Risk with them, decide how they migrate and use that to determine incidents of conflict to shape the history of the world. Yes, I'm very bottom up, but I like things to make sense.
Third, I need some guidance. Should I be writing the setting as a whole world, or should I focus on one region at a time? Is this just preference, or are there real strengths to one over the other? Looking at the entire world seems to weaken the impact of each area individually, but focusing on one region over the others makes them feel tacked on.
Fourth, especially for those who are familiar with my setting, I would like "assignments" of things to write about.
Any help will be greatly appreciated, and I'm more than willing to trade for help with your settings; that's half the meaning of this place after all.
QuoteSecond, I would like some help with a bit of racial dynamics history. I have decided upon genesis points for each of my races, and now I need to play a game of Risk with them, decide how they migrate and use that to determine incidents of conflict to shape the history of the world. Yes, I'm very bottom up, but I like things to make sense.
This is one of my favorite things to do and I will gladly help you with this. I think you'll find that questions begin to arise quite naturally once you actually start working on this - What happens when A and B meet for the first time? What are sources of tension between them, and what are sources of cooperation? What do they value, and what are they prepared to abandon? These things often don't come up until you actually come across a specific situation and wonder what happens thereafter. By the way, have you posted a map yet?
QuoteThird, I need some guidance. Should I be writing the setting as a whole world, or should I focus on one region at a time? Is this just preference, or are there real strengths to one over the other? Looking at the entire world seems to weaken the impact of each area individually, but focusing on one region over the others makes them feel tacked on.
In practice I don't think it's a cut and dry case of one or the other; if you focus on a specific region, sometimes you'll write something that makes reference to a place or event in another region and find that you need to add detail there. To attempt an awkward metaphor, you can't write the history of Spain without ever mentioning France. I often try to focus on a specific region only to be pulled over to another because of interconnected events or movements of people, and I've stopped trying to fight it. In my mind, the best practice is to get a general outline or skeleton of the whole world, enough to understand cosmology and the relative place of any given region, then pick a region that interests you and go from there (whether you end up staying in that region or not).
As for assignments, they are wonderful, aren't they? I'll try to read over EH this week and see if anything pops up. I like dealing with new-ish settings that aren't yet large enough to overwhelm my fragile mind.
Here's the map.
[spoiler](http://i441.photobucket.com/albums/qq131/Xeviat/Three%20Worlds/Terran.jpg)[/spoiler]
I already have some thoughts on locations for the various races, and what some of my end results are. I'll start a thread for it tomorrow after I can throw together some outline maps that may be easier to follow and edit. I'm trying to make sure there are two cultures/nations/groups of each race on each half of the continent, with different feels so that each half feels similarly weighted (thought when it's not possible, I'm not shoehorning it; valkyries only have three cultures, though one culture is present in both halves of the continent).
As for your suggestion, I think that's what I'll strive for: establishing a skeleton of the world and then flesh it out as inspiration strikes. The setting isn't new, but it's definitely sparsely filled.
Quote from: XeviatI would like some help with a bit of racial dynamics history. I have decided upon genesis points for each of my races, and now I need to play a game of Risk with them, decide how they migrate and use that to determine incidents of conflict to shape the history of the world. Yes, I'm very bottom up, but I like things to make sense.
I like this approach, too. It ends up in a pretty realistic picture of how the world looks, because you've shaped it from its origins. It can be a little more time-consuming, however, so you shouldn't be afraid to be quite broad and general when it comes to ancient history and tribes that may not have that much an effect on the modern age.
I've probably ranted about "race-cultures" enough in the past that it's fairly redundant for me to do so again, so, I'll just recommend that you not focus too strongly on the races themselves, and instead consider what sort of
nations would evolve. Any sort of unity among "the elves" or whatever is probably not that sensible, as they would instead break apart into various elven nations. As civilizations develop, members of different races that didn't have some sort of on-sight revulsion to one another could form into more ethnically diverse empires as well. Or maybe even if they did... it would create interesting internal political tension that way.
Quote from: XeviatShould I be writing the setting as a whole world, or should I focus on one region at a time? Is this just preference, or are there real strengths to one over the other? Looking at the entire world seems to weaken the impact of each area individually, but focusing on one region over the others makes them feel tacked on.
I think you should focus on one region, but always be mindful that it is part of a whole world. To me, it feels like the main thing that would make the rest of the world feel "tacked on" is if you developed the history of one region as a completely independent thing, without even any mention of what might lie beyond. It might be a good idea to have a very vague concept of how the world's history shaped up, but leave it pretty general, and then start developing a single region. If you've got some gigantic empire moving in from outside as part of the history, you might need to develop that outside empire a bit more, but only as it affects the region you're actually focusing on. And once that empire has receded/collapsed/whatever, you don't have to worry about it any more.
Definitely avoiding monolithic racial groups. With my current projections, I'm ending up with at least 24+ major groups spanning a continent that makes up more than 1/2 the continental landmass of the world (Eurasia, Africa, Australia); I'm ignoring the other half of the world as that's the "new world" and is filled with its own people. But I figure with multiple species that cannot interbreed, conflicts will be more severe initially, and there would have been some sort of racial insulation as groups tried to protect their identity. If Europe were made of 6 different species, I do think national politics would have been different.
I'm going to move this topic to its own thread, as it seems to have some immediate traction. Expect lots of maps, yay.