On Setting Building...

For me, a few basic elements make a good setting for a D&D campaign.

Map
Every home brew setting of mine starts with a map - you can't have lands to adventure IN until you have land to adventure ON. Never in my life have I made a full world map of the entire globe. Why? It's unnecessary. Why is that? Because the actual physical space that even a campaign needs to function is, really, very minimal.

When you look at the actual locales for even the widest sweeping of campaigns there really is only maybe a few dozen locales, tops. Some of these might be a specific as a city block or a single building, even, and they might be as wide sweeping as a continent but even then only certain locations within said continent being used and the map otherwise fulfilling the function of that map in the background of Indiana Jones films showing where our hero is traveling to to get to the actual action.

In a recent conversation/debate with Rich Berlew of Order of the Stick fame, he pointed out a good point. That if you don't want your players to go to a certain location that you shouldn't show it on the map. I had a thought on this. What would it be like to take different books, movies, etc. and minimize them down into solely their important visited area and to eliminate all the land in between? Obviously the setting would get a LOT smaller. And would, of course, accomplish the objective of distilling the setting down into only it's important component parts.

Now for a story like the Lord of the Rings where most of the series has people tromping across the vast space of the wilderness this obviously would cause problems because there is a certain pace at which events unfold in it and condensing that down would wreak havoc with the plot. But for DnD such a distillation would likely help.

Now you don't have to be a genius to see that, in some ways, WotC has done just this with their mini section of a setting found in the 4e DMG - the Nentir Vale. If you overlay that with a map of Middle Earth with the Dawnforge Mountains on the east equating to the Misty mountains you can see that they took the idea of distilling things down to heart. Hammerfast becomes Moria, Fiveleague House is Elrond's house, Thunderspire is Weathertop, Fallcrest is Bree, The Cloak Wood is the Old Forest, etc. with 500 miles becoming a mere 150. But most of it is still empty space, of course. And really empty space on a map is fine... if unlabeled.

So anyway, you need a map. One that is of a small region with only the parts labeled that you plan for the PCs visiting at some point (because you're going to have to make up anything labeled).

History
Sketching a timeline of the setting, taking into account the migrations of peoples and wars will help you establish a credible backdrop for your setting. And it will allow for unity across the setting and aid you in creating locales in the setting that take into account the background you have created, giving each place a sense of historic importance. Now maybe everyone doesn't do this for their settings but I have been the DM for a History major for many years and it has come to my attention that having a bit of a background, time-wise, for your setting is, indeed, appreciated by some players. There have been times, even, when I had described some clash or another that happened in the history of a setting and he's piped up with "oh just like the battle of sos and so where (insert explanation of how this ficticious battle is similar in motivation/outcome to a real historical battle here). Mostly this goes over my head but I'm always pleased to find that someone finds parallels in the real world with the stuff I make up in my head. So, pick a theme/feel for the past civilization(s) and scatter that about as you see fit. This will help unify your setting and make it feel richer.

Mystery
The unknown is always exciting when it comes to DnD settings. I had first realized this when talking things over with my fellow DM for our gaming group and he said something along the lines of this: "You know what was cool? In the original Legend of Zelda game, in the booklet that came with it there was a map. And the coolest part of that map were the upper corners." For those who don't already know, the upper corners of the overworld map were left intentionally blank. You had to explore there yourself to see what lay there. It was exciting to arrive there and to look around and to sketch it out so you knew your way around. In a way it's the same in DnD. Areas off the edge of the map mean that the PCs will be venturing into unknown territory. That's one way to do the unknown. But I prefer the following way instead. The "zoom-in/fill-in" method.

What do I mean by this? Well say you have a map of the setting and you have various ares labeled. Let's say the characters go north and enter the upper portion of the overall map. Then you whip out a second map which zooms in on that region.  And in addition to everything getting bigger on this more focused map, there is more details on it. New places the PCs didn't know about until they got into the territory. New options. A setting within a setting.

This sort of treatment is handy for when your campaign is broken up by geographic regions. You can adventure in the zoomed in map instead of the bigger one and the rest sort of gets forgotten until the possibilities on the small map are accounted for. Or you may work it the other way with the small map being introduced first and only when the region has had all the quests completed in it, the wider world opens up and only when sections of it are visited do they get a new regional zoom-in map of that area.

And of course there are mysteries of other sorts such as filling in events of the past, understanding the power players of the present, and of course more pressing mysteries involved in your campaign.

Motivations
This one is... rather important. And sometimes overlooked. Most DMs will be good about putting in motivations for various NPCs and organizations and perhaps even for nations altogether. And these are all points to consider and to develop, of course. But as I tend to make a setting based on a particular adventure/campaign I take that into account too. But even that isn't the key point. The biggie in motivations is still missing.

The motivations of your players is the THE most important thing you can take into consideration when building a setting. Why? Well consider the following: The PCs are asked to undertake a quest that involves the protection of the weak against the forces of darkness which are corrupting the setting from within. If the adventuring group is one to bite on these sorts of hooks and fight evil then all is well. If, however, your group would be more concerned with, say, looting the place or poking around looking for side quests or joining the forces of darkness then... yeah.

For "out of the box" settings such as the Forgotten Realms or Eberron or what have you you won't find this sort of issue because these products are designed without a campaign in mind. A setting like Dragonlance, however, was a world clearly built for the adventures that spawned it - with all aspects being defined by the war as well as the more typical local regional politics, and the cataclysm that happened long ago. But mostly it's about the Dragon Armies and how they need to be defeated by the players. Had the group that ran through it been of a different mind set (a bunch of people with wanderlust who wanted to see what was up north instead of biting on the plot hooks, for example, the adventure might not have worked in the first place. Which brings me to...

Theme
This is what most defines your setting and makes it unique. If you create an entire world or use a pre-published one you can pick and choose which region to play in to define your campaign. But in making a from-scratch setting for a campaign you get the unique opportunity to draw that distinction yourself.

For my adventure setting, Unaria, I essentially made a bit of a Dragonlance type ripoff with a unified villainous organization in several flavors, modified for the region each section took place in. Combined with the idea that the PCs were bringing back the 'white fire of the elves' to battle the draconian armies that threatened to wipe out all of humanity. Their goal was to unite the forces of men and dwarves and others to stand against the coming storm. Hence the setting name: Unaria - a play off of 'unite' along with 'aria' - a component of many operas, playing off the idea that the adventure would be sung about and that the entire 'opera' of the campaign would be broken down into many separate 'arias' or regional adventures.

The issue with theme, however, is that once a campaign is finished the setting is often useless. As in the case of the Dragonlance settings once the war against Takhisis was won. Yet another reason to keep your locales small if you make them disposable.

If, however, you want to choose a theme that will last for more than one campaign it certainly can be done. It's all about what theme you choose.

In my latest setting, The Midlands, detailed elsewhere in this blog, the theme of the adventure that had been gone on was defined by the villain in that region in part. But mostly the overall was defined by the different machinations of the major nations involved in the struggle (through their representatives, the PCs). And so the theme could be better described as one of political and the aspirations of expanding an empire for varying reasons both good and evil. One of dominance and the struggle of man against man - a theme that can easily be continued from adventure to adventure if need be. Variations on the theme can be seen in each nation of the world taken individualy as well. In Denia there is the struggle of elven noble house against noble house. In Hionia there is the struggle for resources and an encroaching human population in lands that can scarce support them and the concepts of a religion directing a people. In Eldunmark the struggle of the senate with one another as well as the influences of modern commerce rule the day - government versus profit. In Hionia you have a kingdom and the idea of uprisings against the king that occur within its borders. An in Acheria you have the ultimate chaos of powerful, corrupt individual against other powerful, corrupt individuals.

In conclusion, these five things: Map, History, Mystery, Motivations and Theme, if developed, can lead to a fine setting for your adventures and campaigns for years to come. The more detail you add the richer the experience will be for your players, of course, but having these underlying things built into them as well can aid you as a DM in developing your setting.

Hopefully this article will have given you some things to think about in developing your own setting to game in. Or some new ideas to ask yourself of your existing campaign setting to help solidify it more. Thanks for reading!