World-Design tips, v2.0 ----------------------- Written by Eli Fenton, with help from rec.games.frp.dnd. Go to http://www.zioth.com/roleplay to get an updated version. Last updated 11/17/00. Geography * Shape of the land dictates where people live, what they do, how they do it. * Borders develop along geological boundaries. Climate * World and regional. * This leads to making dominant plant forms, seasonal precipitation, trade winds, glacial formation, etc. Ecology * Earth's works. AD&D doesn't. What do a whole bunch of rare predators in dark caves and artificial dungeons eat? Each other? Make a realistic ecology. People * Decide on an origin of Man, and plot migrations over time. That leads to realistic culture and language-family gradients. Technology and Civilization * Bronze age? Iron age? Steel? Steam? Electronics? How advanced are the world's cultures? * Where did civilization come from? How did it spread? These questions must be answered to realistically decide where technology came from. * What features to civilizations have? * Which cultures have grown, spread and died to lead up to this point? Culture * All factors of life from birth to death. * Magic * Medicine * Government * War * Names: What do they sound like? Where did they come from? Any famous names? * Languages * Major institutions * If there are two ethnicities around, where did they come from? * Culture can be influenced by geography -- mountain ranges produce climbers and sparse populations. Rivers imply fast travel. Swamps imply slow travel, and houses on stilts. Politics * Invent ideals and conflicts. * Make cities and towns, with roads along major trade routes. * Military forces. Naval powers. Mercenaries. * If there are pirates, where do they come from? * Most AD&D worlds are dominated by feudalism. Where did feudalism start? What is its current state? How complicated is it? Where does the real power lie? * Major rulers. Strife between them. Spies and counter-spies. Keeping this stuff in mind will make your world seem very large, as will any details that the PCs encounter only peripherally. * Secret societies. Economics * What do people use for money? * Where does the money come from? * Who produces what? Who buys it? * What natural resources are available in each region? Religion * Religion is a key element in all societies and cultures. * What are the religions, and where are they based? * With religion comes predjudice, so throw some of that around. * If there is more than one religion in an area, why do they allow each other to stick around? * If a religion doesn't look indigenous, where did it come from? Additional Ideas * Topographic maps are good sources to steal from. That way, you get geography, good distribution of places, flora, fauna, population density, languages, cultures, climate, etc. * Random rolls help. Make something up randomly, and then work on explaining it. * Make a map of the present. Go back in time, and make up a world. Then, create a history from the past foreward.