Hello all, first post be a question.
When you guys make your campaigns, how big do they get? I made a plane that was supposed to be just 1 stop in a planar adventure and the group ended spending 95% of the game there, making it effectively the campaign world. When I read some of the already posted stuff I see pages upon pages of information and I assume that's the norm around here. How big should these be before posting them?
As long as you feel you need. Look at Datrik: I have maybe 5 pages. Look at my most recently posted setting, Sooth: it takes up 3 pages at most in Word. Length is not a requirement for posting. Settings like Sulos, Red Valor, Orden's Mysteries are huge, but not every setting posted here is.
So, to answer your question: As big as you feel it should be for posting.
I look forward to seeing what you have made. :)
There is never a "minimum" if that's what you're asking. Everything here is a work in progress, as all good worlds are, and everything that has vision and direction is welcome.
As for myself, my worlds grow over time so how big a world is is a function of how long it's been on my desk. I always try to make my settings small and deep rather than broad and shallow though. (Never try to make every continent at once. *shudder*)
Oh, and welcome to the group! :morons:
Small and incomplete settings are also much easier to digest and offer helpful feedback on. Big worlds tend to look too "finished" and too "overwhelming" to many potential readers who may or may not have limited time to read, digest, and review them.
Homebrews just naturally grow over time, but feel no obligation to duplicate the scope of a big setting. Short and sweet is good too.
-Peace Out-
My setting is just random ideas swirling around in a brainstorming thread. So my advice would be to go ahead and post as long as you have some idea of what your setting is.
There's no minimum, as far as I can tell. Even a short paragraph or two is more than enough, especially for the Campaign Elements and Design forum. In fact, that forum's a great place to go if you've got something short and sweet to post, or if you're looking for something short and sweet to read.
When it comes to campaign settings, mine tend to be very small (Vilydunn, though all of a sudden things have been made clearer...), or impossibly large (Aath). Even in my impossibly large campaign however, I don't try to fit everything in, only what I want. That's what you should do.
As for actual campaigns, I like to make them as epic as possible, at least until they actually hit the stack of epic levels with a sledgehammer. A campaign in Aath will probably comprise an encounter with a large number of different cults and creatures before it ends, and might travel to the very end of eternity and back.
It's all a matter of taste. You should design your world based on what you want and what your players want for a game. But YOU come first. Your world is your world. If your players don't like part of your setting, they can play other parts in their games. Or, if they don't like any of it, you can always find new players, especially if you play online.
Thanks for the replies. Don't give your hopes up, since my stuff probably isn't as deep as some of the things I've read here, but I'll try to post later tonight.