How do you Location?

[Xathan]

Something that's always been a struggle for me with setting design is getting down do the details of locations. I'm (I feel, at least) great at doing broad overviews of entire continents, planets, planes or anything bigger, but when I try to get down to the level of nation/city/anything smaller, my brain just kind of freezes up.

So I'm wondering what steps you take when writing a city or nation or any other geographic region smaller than a continent? Does it just come naturally? Do you have a checklist you fill? What are some key points that every one of those needs to have? Anything you could suggest I read to help me get better at this, or any exercises I could do that might help me improve here?

[Gamer Printshop]

Honestly, I'm just the opposite to you. I hate to create the big picture; I hate to create worlds. I prefer to work by region - one nation or geographic region within a larger landmass, such as a continent. Probably because I'm a cartographer and creating the details is what matters to me, whereas creating a world map lacks the kind of detail I want to use for mountains and other singular geographic features. If you've already designed your world, and it seems like you are comfortable doing that - doing the individual regions and smaller areas should be easy. Do you have the general geography and landforms (mountains, deserts, etc.) defined? If so, look at areas within defined geographic region - areas between sets of mountain ranges, areas between large river systems, area between coasts and mountains, a desert region. Regions between geography is what can be easily conquered/settled by the local military/government entities. Then think of what cultures and nations you want to assign to those general areas. From there look at specific locations that are hubs to transportation, easily defendable smaller geographic regions, that could comprise the capital city for a given region. Then look to secondary specific points in a geographic region where you can place other towns and cities that aren't the capital. Once communities are placed, drop in some roads between them, access to major ports - and you'll be well on your way to determine the smaller geographic regions. I don't use a checklist per se, rather the above is the process (which can be seen as 'steps') I use to determine the smaller regions.

Does that make any sense?

[sparkletwist]

I may have mentioned this before (I probably have) but one of the most important things to me is to get the feel of just walking around in a setting, because that's the level that players are most often going to interact with the setting on. So, in order to get a more "ground level" view, maybe that would help-- rather than imagining yourself as the GM, imagine yourself as a player instead, and think about what kinds of things you might see if you're just going around in a setting.

What kind of people are there walking around? What kind of clothes are they wearing? Where do they live, and where are they going? What kind of jobs do they have? What do they like to eat, and how do they get and prepare their food? What else do they do with their time? What language(s) are they speaking? You can then sort of build from the ground up-- What kind of buildings do they need? What kind of transportation do they have? What kind of broad cultural trends exist? What is thought of as good manners, and what is taboo?  Each of those little hooks can lead to a few more questions and thoughts as to what the ordinary (or not so ordinary) people who live in the setting are doing. It might help to take some high-level feature of the setting and think about how it might work for a person who (either physically or conceptually) just walks up and encounters that thing, because that's ultimately what will happen with players.

Another idea is to imagine it's not just an ordinary day, but something special is happening, because this can help you think of further aspects of the culture and the daily lives of people. For example, what if it's a holiday? What are people celebrating? What do they do on this special day? Why is this day important to them? What kind of decorations are up? What does the importance of this holiday say about the broader culture; e.g., does it mean that religion is important to them, or that they revere their leaders, or they just are looking for an excuse to party and get drunk?

I wouldn't really call that a "checklist" as such but hopefully considering those questions will help you.

[Weave]

I'm like GP in that I work in pretty much the opposite way, but being comfortable doing what you're doing is the way to go and I don't want to give the impression that one method is better than the other.

I also agree with what Sparkletwist is saying. Imagine walking down a city street - what do you see? What about this city/village/town/whatever makes it markedly different from something in the real world? Is magic a technology? Is it widespread and used in people's everyday lives? If there isn't something like electricity, what might they have, if anything? For me, when I feel as though I could walk into a town or city in region X and tell it's different from region Y by the tone or culture or architecture alone, I know I've done well.

I would start with what areas would be reasonably inhabited (is there a surplus of corpus in one location? Perhaps it's in an area laden with arcane energies from an ancient battle of mages that the city uses as a source of tenuous power. Maybe it's just as simple as it being an area frequented by travel such as a bay or mountain pass). Then I would try and ask myself what separates this vista from the one before or after it, which usually ties into "what makes this spot interesting?" I tend to really like elaborate and bizarre cities layered with history because I feel like I can get lost in it, and I encourage you to feel that way too. Imagine a foreigner who knows nothing of this world stumbling into said location - what might stand out? Who rules in the sinking swamp city? Why is this town in the middle of the dunesea desert? Etc.

[Steerpike]

Maybe try writing a short piece of descriptive fiction from the POV of someone in the world, or even designing a small dungeon or town in the world?  This might help you focus on concrete details.

[Elemental_Elf]

I have always found it easier to start writing a description of a location if you imagine yourself to be Joe Peasant. Joe is new to this location. He is walking to the town, what does he see as he meanders to the city gate?  Once he enters the city, what does he see, smell and hear. When he asks locals what defines their town, what do tell him? When Joe visits the taverns, what are they like? What kind of alcohol and food do they serve him? What do the people look like, are they clean or dirty, what race are they. Does Joe notice an peculiar cultural traits?

Now imagine yourself as Bob Noble. What does he see as he rides his steed into town? After he travels through the city gate, what sorts of sights, sounds and smells do he experience? Do they offend his privileged nose? Do people react to his horse or his obvious noble status? Do people treat him with respect when he asks them for directions? Describe what it is like to walk into the largest church and castle. How do the other wealthy/nobles treat Bob. What do they eat and how do they entertain themselves?

I often find doing the same exercise from different character's perspectives to be a good way of really drilling down into what makes a place unique and interesting.

[Polycarp]

I do tend to operate top-down, covering states and regions before I detail cities, though I don't really find one level to be particularly harder than another.

While it's useful for you to know "how the city works" from the perspective of a common citizen, the things that a common citizen is interested in may not be the same things a visitor is interested in.  Players, their characters, and even readers on the CBG are always visitors to your locales, never natives (even a PC who is native to one of your cities, after all, is played by a player who knows less about it than you do).  For this reason, I often approach these descriptions like a travel writer - if you were going to spend a week in Polycarpopolis, what attractions would you want to see?  Where would you be likely to obtain special services, or encounter the city's power brokers, or just get a drink?  What would stand out to you as unusual, compared with any other city in the world?

Xathan grouped "nations" and "cities" together as examples of things "smaller than a continent," which is generally true, but I find that states don't follow the same rules as places like cities or landmarks (or even regions).  I tend to approach a state as if I were discussing a faction or organization rather than a place.  I've noticed that when I discuss geography or culture in the context of states/nations I tend to essentialize things and expose a modern bias that's not really appropriate in most fantasy settings.

[Xathan]

Thanks for all the thoughts! Since I'm just straight up quoting everyone, spoiler blocks inside of any quote boxes that are significantly longer than my actual response are being used instead of snipping, because I like nesting code like that.

[spoiler]Honestly, I'm just the opposite to you. I hate to create the big picture; I hate to create worlds. I prefer to work by region - one nation or geographic region within a larger landmass, such as a continent. Probably because I'm a cartographer and creating the details is what matters to me, whereas creating a world map lacks the kind of detail I want to use for mountains and other singular geographic features. If you've already designed your world, and it seems like you are comfortable doing that - doing the individual regions and smaller areas should be easy. Do you have the general geography and landforms (mountains, deserts, etc.) defined? If so, look at areas within defined geographic region - areas between sets of mountain ranges, areas between large river systems, area between coasts and mountains, a desert region. Regions between geography is what can be easily conquered/settled by the local military/government entities. Then think of what cultures and nations you want to assign to those general areas. From there look at specific locations that are hubs to transportation, easily defendable smaller geographic regions, that could comprise the capital city for a given region. Then look to secondary specific points in a geographic region where you can place other towns and cities that aren't the capital. Once communities are placed, drop in some roads between them, access to major ports - and you'll be well on your way to determine the smaller geographic regions. I don't use a checklist per se, rather the above is the process (which can be seen as 'steps') I use to determine the smaller regions.[/spoiler]

Does that make any sense?

That's a very, very useful analytical way of breaking it down. I'm going to be making it into a bit of a checklist to make sure I hit all those points, which is going to be a huge help. It does make quite a bit of sense, actually, and it'll be something I keep in mind when laying out isles to use.

I may have mentioned this before (I probably have) but one of the most important things to me is to get the feel of just walking around in a setting, because that's the level that players are most often going to interact with the setting on. So, in order to get a more "ground level" view, maybe that would help-- rather than imagining yourself as the GM, imagine yourself as a player instead, and think about what kinds of things you might see if you're just going around in a setting.

That one's always been tricky for me, but that might be because I've always been trying to picture it from the GM's perspective, doing the whole top down thing. I like the idea of looking at it from the perspective (literal ground level perspective) of a player, so gonna give that a shot when I do my writing tonight.

[spoiler]What kind of people are there walking around? What kind of clothes are they wearing? Where do they live, and where are they going? What kind of jobs do they have? What do they like to eat, and how do they get and prepare their food? What else do they do with their time? What language(s) are they speaking? You can then sort of build from the ground up-- What kind of buildings do they need? What kind of transportation do they have? What kind of broad cultural trends exist? What is thought of as good manners, and what is taboo?  Each of those little hooks can lead to a few more questions and thoughts as to what the ordinary (or not so ordinary) people who live in the setting are doing. It might help to take some high-level feature of the setting and think about how it might work for a person who (either physically or conceptually) just walks up and encounters that thing, because that's ultimately what will happen with players.

Another idea is to imagine it's not just an ordinary day, but something special is happening, because this can help you think of further aspects of the culture and the daily lives of people. For example, what if it's a holiday? What are people celebrating? What do they do on this special day? Why is this day important to them? What kind of decorations are up? What does the importance of this holiday say about the broader culture; e.g., does it mean that religion is important to them, or that they revere their leaders, or they just are looking for an excuse to party and get drunk?[/spoiler]

I wouldn't really call that a "checklist" as such but hopefully considering those questions will help you.

It's not a checklist, no, but that list of questions is going to be a massive help. I'll probably treat it as a checklist until I get more comfortable with the general smaller scale writing in the first place! Breaking it down like that was a huge help, thank you.

I'm like GP in that I work in pretty much the opposite way, but being comfortable doing what you're doing is the way to go and I don't want to give the impression that one method is better than the other.

Oh, I didn't take it that way, but thanks for the clarification. :)

[spoiler]I also agree with what Sparkletwist is saying. Imagine walking down a city street - what do you see? What about this city/village/town/whatever makes it markedly different from something in the real world? Is magic a technology? Is it widespread and used in people's everyday lives? If there isn't something like electricity, what might they have, if anything? For me, when I feel as though I could walk into a town or city in region X and tell it's different from region Y by the tone or culture or architecture alone, I know I've done well.

I would start with what areas would be reasonably inhabited (is there a surplus of corpus in one location? Perhaps it's in an area laden with arcane energies from an ancient battle of mages that the city uses as a source of tenuous power. Maybe it's just as simple as it being an area frequented by travel such as a bay or mountain pass). Then I would try and ask myself what separates this vista from the one before or after it, which usually ties into "what makes this spot interesting?" I tend to really like elaborate and bizarre cities layered with history because I feel like I can get lost in it, and I encourage you to feel that way too. Imagine a foreigner who knows nothing of this world stumbling into said location - what might stand out? Who rules in the sinking swamp city? Why is this town in the middle of the dunesea desert? Etc.[/spoiler]

In addition to the added questions for the not-really-a-checklist, which is massively helpful, I like the important question of "Why is this inhabited?" Something that needs to be answered for any location, IMO, and you give me a pretty good breakdown with which to do that. :) Also, the visiting foreigner is a good idea for how to look at it.

Maybe try writing a short piece of descriptive fiction from the POV of someone in the world, or even designing a small dungeon or town in the world?  This might help you focus on concrete details.

I hadn't considered descriptive fiction before! I've always tried writing fiction to figure out more details about the world, but I end up getting super bogged down in things like "Character" and "Plot." It's one of those things that should have occurred to me, but never would have if someone didn't point it out. Thanks. :)

[spoiler]I have always found it easier to start writing a description of a location if you imagine yourself to be Joe Peasant. Joe is new to this location. He is walking to the town, what does he see as he meanders to the city gate?  Once he enters the city, what does he see, smell and hear. When he asks locals what defines their town, what do tell him? When Joe visits the taverns, what are they like? What kind of alcohol and food do they serve him? What do the people look like, are they clean or dirty, what race are they. Does Joe notice an peculiar cultural traits? [/spoiler]

Hehe, Joe is going to see a lot in his travels! And even more imporant question to add to the checklist - it's getting mighty big. (Yes, I will be posting this checklist once I full compile it if anyone else would find it useful. :) )

[spoiler]Now imagine yourself as Bob Noble. What does he see as he rides his steed into town? After he travels through the city gate, what sorts of sights, sounds and smells do he experience? Do they offend his privileged nose? Do people react to his horse or his obvious noble status? Do people treat him with respect when he asks them for directions? Describe what it is like to walk into the largest church and castle. How do the other wealthy/nobles treat Bob. What do they eat and how do they entertain themselves? [/spoiler]

I often find doing the same exercise from different character's perspectives to be a good way of really drilling down into what makes a place unique and interesting.

Ooooh, I really like that. Especially since then I could also have Jane Goddess show up and do the exact same thing a third time, break it down those three ways, which would also help give me a good feel for how the setting feels depending on what the characters are playing and the kinds of things the NPCs would likely notice and overlook, which is an immensely helpful tool.

I do tend to operate top-down, covering states and regions before I detail cities, though I don't really find one level to be particularly harder than another.

I was beginning to wonder if I was an aberration for preferring top down. And the fact that you can do both shows in your stuff. :)

[spoiler]While it's useful for you to know "how the city works" from the perspective of a common citizen, the things that a common citizen is interested in may not be the same things a visitor is interested in.  Players, their characters, and even readers on the CBG are always visitors to your locales, never natives (even a PC who is native to one of your cities, after all, is played by a player who knows less about it than you do).  For this reason, I often approach these descriptions like a travel writer - if you were going to spend a week in Polycarpopolis, what attractions would you want to see?  Where would you be likely to obtain special services, or encounter the city's power brokers, or just get a drink?  What would stand out to you as unusual, compared with any other city in the world?[/spoiler]

That'll be a great guide to break down my list, especially since I worked for a little while as a travel agent and read a lot of travel writing during that - then my list can be "Things Natives know" and "things a visitor will notice" which will often be two different things. The first category would be great for PCs that want to be from a location and for informing adventure hooks and plots, and the latter will be a lot of what goes into the posted description here on the CBG. (Although I'll still include the former, it won't be the main focus).

Xathan grouped "nations" and "cities" together as examples of things "smaller than a continent," which is generally true, but I find that states don't follow the same rules as places like cities or landmarks (or even regions).  I tend to approach a state as if I were discussing a faction or organization rather than a place. 

That's probably part of the problem - I've been approaching "smaller than a continent" nations the same way I was approaching cities, and it makes sense in hindsight that doesn't work. Treating states/nations more as an organization than a location just makes so much more intuitive sense - like I said above, one of those things I'm gently facepalming for not thinking of before, and never would have thought of without it pointed out.

I've noticed that when I discuss geography or culture in the context of states/nations I tend to essentialize things and expose a modern bias that's not really appropriate in most fantasy settings.

I'm curious bout this - how so?

[Polycarp]

I'm curious bout this - how so?

Consider France.

France, today, is a state.  It has borders that are very well delineated, and - at least before the Schengen Agreement - were tightly controlled by agents of the French government to try and prevent any unauthorized person from entering.  Within those borders, the French state has unequaled control; while the government is not all-powerful, there are no competitors for its authority.  Its power is limited only by itself (as it is a constitutional government).  The people within those borders, excluding recent immigrants, largely consider themselves French and are also citizens of the French state.  Aside from a few enclaves, they speak French.  All these things are mashed together - "Frenchness" means being in France, being culturally French, and speaking French, in varying degrees.  While there are many different sub-cultures within France, a Frenchman could reasonably talk about something like "French culture" and not be ridiculous.

France, 800 years ago, was a very different state - if "state" is even appropriate.  It had borders that were poorly delineated and virtually uncontrolled; some frontier castles existed to hamper enemy invasions but there were no customs posts or border markers, in part because there was no good means to make a reliable map.  Within the ill-defined area of France, the French "state" did not have unequalled control, and was in fact regularly challenged by Dukes and Counts that were often more powerful and with more land than the French king.  Much of "France" was in fact controlled by the King of England, who was technically a French vassal for the land but in practice independent.  The state was not a bureaucracy with a budget or universal taxation, but a single man who personally owned things and controlled territory through personal relationships with other landowners (which today we characterize as "feudalism").  The people within the area of France did not necessarily consider themselves to be "French," and if you had asked them their identity the most likely response may have been "I'm a Christian."  These people were not "citizens" of a state, but subjects of a man.  Large regions did not speak French at all, but other languages like Breton or Occitan, and possessed their own cultures that in many cases were closer to "foreign" cultures than to ostensibly "French" culture, which was really the culture of a specific part of northern France.

We have a modern prejudice towards strong, modern states, because that is what we think of when we think of "state" or "nation."  When I tell you I have a country called Blargland, you are likely to assume - in a modern context - that there is a physical place called Blargland controlled by the government of Blargland in which Blargish-speaking Blargs live and celebrate their Blargish culture.  This is sort of the modern ideal of a nation-state, but it's terribly anachronistic for most of human history.  What if Blargland is literally just the personal domain of Lord Blarg?  What if there is a Blarg people but "Blargland" is a multi-ethnic empire that is merely dominated by Blarg lords?  What if Blargland is just a physical region that, in practice, is divided up into independent fiefdoms, and has little or nothing to do with culture or language?

Blargland might be a region, or a state, or a personal domain, or a cultural area, or a linguistic area.  These things are not the same, and they do not necessarily coincide with one another.  In my experience, when I sit down and say "I am going to do a write-up on the state of Blargland," it's very easy to conflate all of these things and start talking about a Blargish language and Blarg custom and the region of Blargland as if they all neatly overlapped, because that's what would be most convenient for my writeup about Blargland, and that's what my modern sensibilities prejudice me towards.

I feel that the best way to avoid this is to treat a state or nation as a faction or organization.  A faction might control land, but it's not the same as a region, nor is it automatically assumed to have its own language or its own culture.  When I tell you about the Masons' Guild, you don't automatically assume that the Masons' Guild is full of people who speak Masonic and practice Masonic culture and live in the land of Masonia.  They're just a group of people organizing for specific ends.  When you treat a state in this fashion you're less likely to get pulled into this homogeneity trap where it's assumed that state borders are strong, meaningful, and actually divide things like language or culture or religion.  Instead of states being neat little boxes of culture/religion/governance/language/land/etc., states are organizations of people seeking control, resources, legitimacy, and so on.

[Rose-of-Vellum]

Well said. Also, I now want a full write-up on Blargland and its rival state of Mehland.:)

[Elemental_Elf]

Ploycarp beat me to the explanation, aww. I should have replied yesterday.

Indeed, nation-states are a relatively new concept, one that has irrevocably altered our perception of how governments, leaders and the people interact.

There are very few settings I can think of that are not unduly influenced by modern nation-states. It is just easier to say "There be Yaddayaddaland. Yaddites are all cruel, uncaring and self centered!" Rather than "Elaine is Queen of Yaddayaddaland but only holds one quarter of the realm allodially. The remaining three quarters are divided up into tiny counties and baronies, with a smattering of great land owning dukes. Elaine is also the Queen of Baldland, a title she inherited through complex genealogical happenstance after King George was assassinated at the dinner table. Baldland lies on the far side of Whoaland, itself a gigantic hodgepodge of virtually independent baronies owning only token allegiance to King Cosmo. Half of Baldland is held by King Jerry of Jokeland, which technically makes King Jerry a vassal of Queen Elaine but King Jerry would never bend his knee in fealty to such a woman. The racial make up of the sub-continent of Seinfeldia is a mixture of Seinish, Benians, Kramers and Costanians. Kramers inhabit the entire central portion of the sub-continent, with large swathes of their population being found in every realm. Half of all Costians live in the Kingdom of Jokeland, while the other half live in Baldland (who is ruled by Queen Elaine). The Seinish were originally the dominant peoples on the sub-continent until the Kramer horde came five hundred years ago. Since that day, the Seinish have had two major population centers - one in the east and one in the west. Queen Elaine's grandmother came from a distant land and conquered the eastern Seinish peoples. Benians are thus a tiny minority who rule over a much more massive population of Seinish."

I think the reason nation-states with secure-ish borders are favored in the RPG market is that they are much more easily defined and categorized. Its the reason we use races instead of ethnicities of humans as well. It is simply easier to say all dwarves are gruff and live in caves, than it is to write in detail the fifteen different ethnicities of dwarf all of whom have similar but slightly different beliefs, cultures and organizational differences.

There is only so much room in a player's head for information before they go cross-eyed. Better to work with stereotypes, then drill down rather than overload them with minor, almost insignificant differences from the very start.

[Polycarp]

Ploycarp

This must be my evil, scheming twin ;)

I think the reason nation-states with secure-ish borders are favored in the RPG market is that they are much more easily defined and categorized. Its the reason we use races instead of ethnicities of humans as well. It is simply easier to say all dwarves are gruff and live in caves, than it is to write in detail the fifteen different ethnicities of dwarf all of whom have similar but slightly different beliefs, cultures and organizational differences.

Yeah, just as the nation-state parameter comes naturally to us, it comes naturally to the people who are likely to read and play in your setting.  I also want to emphasize that having something like a nation-state in a setting is not necessarily a bad thing; they do exist today, after all, and you could probably point to some medieval polities that were more-or-less homogeneous within a certain territory.  Sure, if you take the nation-state thing too far, you end up with some of the more tired and boring conventions in fantasy - having an "elven nation" or any "country of [race]" is related to this, where a state's borders are the borders of not just a culture and language and people but a race as well.  Nevertheless, if there's a good reason for these borders coinciding, then go for it.  Maybe a certain group of people are isolated, either in a geographically forbidding region or an island - it would make sense for them to be covered by a certain state that also coincided with a specific culture and language.

I've also considered that simply having different races might make this phenomenon more likely in a fantasy world.  If a group of elves lives in the middle of the humanlands, they're rather likely to band together, and if they're able to carve out their own state it shouldn't be surprising that they try to attain some kind of cultural and linguistic identity within that state; they're surrounded by people that are not merely of a different culture, but a different species.  I've worked with this a little in my own setting, though CJ has rather few "states" of any kind, so this whole debate isn't terribly applicable there.

By now this is a bit of a derail, but all I meant to express originally is that the way people deal with states/nations often corrals them into a particular modern view.  This view is certainly not always bad, but it's worth some scrutiny, and in my experience treating states like organizations instead of expecting them to behave like modern states can help you shake things up a bit.

[Steerpike]

The Warhammer Fantasy world actually strikes me as a good setting for not doing nation-states.  The Empire is reminiscent Holy Roman Empire in all its fractious contradictory glory... provinces, elector-counts, scheming nobles, an emperor who's kind of elected and kind of hereditary.  Not nearly as complex as the real thing but certainly closer to how actual Early Modern states organized themselves than modern nation-states.