Creating a Campaign World (AKA Operation: Mortadelo's Cookie)
The second request I received on the blog is for a little on creating a campaign world. Creating worlds is why I got into game design in the first place - ever since I was a wee lad, I've made up my own places with their own rules. The first world I created was when I was 11, after I started making my own comic books - a world much like our own, but populated with flawed heroes who were just trying to escape the aliens responsible for their creation. From that it started to spin off into a metaverse; science-fiction planets where the DNA of the modern heroes was used to create the soldiers of tomorrow, fantasy worlds whose history ran into the history of today. I even started my first game along these lines, just after the first time I visited a game store, and saw my first box of plastic Space Marines (back in the day when you could get 30 'beakies' for $15 *sigh*). So I have always had a passion for imaginary places, and as I've grown, I've turned this passion to studying the world - both the real one and the imagined ones of others.
Getting Started
What do you want to accomplish? Ah yes, the magic question. First thing you need to know is what the purpose of your setting is. Anything you write should be created in order to enable players to create your intended purpose at the game table. What do you want the players to experience? What genres do you want to touch on? What should a player character go through as they develop in this setting? If you are doing something in d20, as so many people still are, purpose needs to be woven throughout your setting, as you have less options about using unique rules as a defining element in your setting (
Mutants and Masterminds is the rare d20 game that is very much defined by its mechanics, but is d20 on only the most elemental levels).
Does a campaign world need to be totally unique? Not at all. Part of what makes a campaign world accessible and interesting to most players is that it is somehow familiar, at least vaguely. This familiarity could be as simple as roughly copying the premise of a popular film or book (the world is: a pseudo-Roman land in which the players are gladiators; a land of twisted fairy tales; cyberpunk auteurs and glam robots; post-apocalyptic wasteland threaded by highways; etc.), or as complex as extracting major historical themes and applying them to concepts (for instance, Project Y draws heavily from the basic themes of revolutionary movements like the American Revolution, but twists them significantly). The more rules (social, political, physical) that you reinvent in your game world, the less accessible the world is immediately, as the players must invest more heavily in terms of time to learn these rules before they really dive in.
Does this mean you have to copy popular entertainment or history to have a good campaign world? Not at all. World-building is far more complicated than just aping an idea you got from a movie or video game; the power of RPGs is the fact that you can take that inspiration and bend it, or amalgamate it from a variety of influences into a greater whole. This is why I find licensed games on the whole to be the weakest/least inspiring of RPGS, if only because the iconics (Captain Kirk, Aragorn, Colonel O'Neill) are always the smartest, most heroic, world-defining characters in the setting. I'd much rather play a game like Fantasy Flight Games'
Midnight setting than the
Lord of the Rings RPG - you theoretically
can be the heroes of that world, rather than playing second-fiddle to some hobbits, a few men, an elf and a dwarf.
Defining the Campaign World?
Something to remember about a campaign world - it doesn't need to be a 'world' per se, particularly in homebrew worlds not intended for print (see below). Just as a child's world is confined to the home in which he lives, or a urban dweller's world to the city he calls home, stick to the details of the world within the boundaries of your game. For instance, I would never concern myself with the elemental planes in a DnD game, because my players have no interest in travelling there. It doesn't matter what color the house a couple blocks away is if your players will never leave their house to see it, right?
Hemispheres of the Game World
The campaign world has two distinct species or parts - the campaign setting (the theory, written down) and the world in action (the practice of the theory, played at the table). You'll find that most campaign setting books are of the former type, while homebrew campaigns are the latter. Both are equally important; after all, the theory must be practiced, and the world needs logical and consistent themes to come alive. When speaking of creating campaign worlds, I will touch on both of these halves, so you'll find some advice being more or less interesting based upon what you want to do - write or play.
Now we enter the realm of opinion. Please take these comments as my own personal guidelines I follow in world development and what I expect of others.
Musts of a Good Campaign World
Atmosphere - In my mind, atmosphere - the aesthetic definition of a campaign world - is the most critical element of any good campaign setting. Good atmosphere can elevate an elementary fantasy setting above its peers, while poor use of it can drag a fantastic idea down into the mire of the strictly average. Atmosphere used effectively penetrates all parts of your book or game, from flavor text to rules, textual layout to art.
Key factors in creating good atmosphere are a commitment to your purpose, consistency in communicating the major themes, and a careful attention to detail at all levels of the setting.
Commitment to purpose means there is a strong concept behind the game, one that the writers really believe in or the players can attach to at the table - your commitment and enthusiasm will radiate out of your setting into the minds of your team and audience. Getting your message across is just as importatn as the message itself, so
Consistency of communication is critical; as Walter Cronkite said, "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em, tell 'em, tell 'em what you told 'em." Finally,
attention to detail is the trick to drawing readers/players more deeply into a game and suspending disbelief, the hallmarks of good gaming and fiction.
Grounding - Grounding is simply whether or not if your setting is believable. Not believable in the sense of "Dragons really DO exist...you just don't know about it" but whether the actions of the world and the characters within it seem to show a progress consistent with our understanding of human nature, even if they are not human. That is because we are human ourselves, and can only understand a world from that perspective. Characters thus must still have motiviations, aspirations, and individuality, and the world should still be a cause-and-effect sort of place. Totally divorcing your setting in the hopes of throwing players off will only turn them off to it entirely.
Logical consistency -- As with any good piece of fiction, suspension of disbelief is absolutely critical for creating a 'real-feeling' campaign world. Like grounding, logical consistency is a key to maintaining interest and enabling the player to connect to the work. Events should have ripples that flow out from them, relationships, people should use the tools available in their environment, history should reflect on the actions taken in the current day. Ask yourself: what effects might major events realistically have on the mentality or actions of the people and organizations of your world, within the context of your setting? If, for instance, a door opened up between our world and another, what would people do: try and study it and explore it carefully until they were sure what it was about, or nonchalantly let anyone who wants to cross over to go without concern? How would governments react to this news? Would it change people's spirituality? If someone on the other side opened this door, why? Players must be able to apply human logic to the most alien of situations in order to beleive them.
Rules in service to setting - Now, working on Spycraft has made me a bit of a rules-monkey, but I think this is important no matter what type of game you run. The rules of a system - the way the game
actually plays - is a vital part of how the player engages with the setting;
Mage's freeform magic system reflected the inherent dynamicism of will-workers themselves,
Legend of the Five Rings' innovative character roll-n-keep system modeled a fantasy Japan well, and
Spycraft's action dice, chase system and less rigid combat captures the cinematic elements of d20. With a rigid system such as d20, you have fewer opportunities to create rules that purely serve the setting (as many companies who have converted their games to d20 have found out the hard way), but a little innovation and you can make something really sing. A particularly good example to look at is Fantasy Flight Games'
Horizon imprint, which models such diverse settings as twisted fairy tales (
Grimm), a fantasy version of
Deadlands (
Spellslinger), and the movies Tron (
Virtual), Mad Max (
Redline) and Transformers (
Mechamorphisis) using slightly but elegantly modified versions of d20 as presented in the Player's Handbook. Good stuff.
Bringing Your World to Life
Now that you have laid the foundation, chosen a purpose, and committed yourself to doing things right, you can get on to the easy part - writing! ;) Seriously, though, the homework up front will save you a ton of time when you get into it all. Since this article is so damned long, I'm going to try and keep this part as short as possible. So without further ado, I present key points for consideration when bringing your world to life successfully:
What are the world-defining events?: Every world does not start with a molten ball floating in space - worlds are created by events, the effect they have on people living there. World defining events might include numerous small events leading to a major change (repeated invasions by a neighboring kingdom, constant rotation of political leaderhip) or huge catastrophes (nuclear apocalypse, creation of AI). These events are the milestones of history, and help forge the releationships, everyday life, and attitudes of the people of today's setting. They ripple out into all parts of the setting, so consider that carefully when you are putting things together.
Who are the major players? - Now to decide who the setting's most important characters of the setting are. They should either be tied to (directly or indirectly) or affected by at least one of the campaign's world-defining events, to create a continuity of theme throughout. A politician dedicate to rooting out the Communist menace in a setting which featured a Soviet invasion decades before is as tied to world-defining events as the President who pushes the panic button during that invasion itself. For players, these characters become the human touchpoint, and their relationship a key link to the setting's themes and atmosphere.
What are the sociopolitical concerns? - It's a big word for the concept that there are rules, laws and interests bigger than those of the player characters. Though your game may not factor politics directly into your setting at all, players will be affected by them just the same. Is your setting a ruthless monarchy that crushes everyone in the realm, or a lawless anarchy in which the players must become the law? What about racial, social or political tensions - who's a rival with who, and why? Why has the society developed in the way that it has? Who has money and who doesn't? All of this ties back to politics and society, and is vital for setting mood and atmosphere.
Now include moral greyness - This is my personal bugbear with campaign settings, particularly fantasy ones. Known as the 'good guy/bad guy' syndrome, many campaign worlds devolve into 'forces of light struggle against forces of darkness' and ask players to play the good guys just to be good. But life is not a moral exercise and things are rarely cut and dry, as anyone who has lived it knows all too well. Motivations make the world go round, and good and evil must exist together in order to contrast, so mix it up!
*whew!* I think that's it for now. I'll add more comments as they come up I guess...Good luck!
