Tabletop DMs: How much work do you put into your Worlds?

[Saelune]

So, I've been reading up on the origins of languages, mainly the differences between latin and various Germanic languages, and I learned that apparently English evolved from Germanic languages, but got the alphabet from latin which supplanted the old runic ones.

Why? For DnD.

My primary DnD world is based on our own, but obviously heavily fantasy. Ofcourse I have pulled away from being too 1:1, since well, our world didnt have actual dwarves and elves and hoards of clearly real Gods duking it out. But I still take alot of inspiration from our real world and history to better craft my own world. Too many fantasy worlds are just that, but I want my world to make as much sense as possible.

It also inspires me regularly to learn more about geography, how rivers form, how mountains affect civilization, why cultures develop as they do.

All to improve my DnD world.

Ofcourse that is just me, and maybe I go rather overboard for alot of things that my players may never realize, need to know, or even care about.

[Question starts here] But what about other people?

For one, do/did you craft your own world from the ground up (perhaps literally)? Do you just stick to an established setting? If so, what do you consider for it, such as changing things, or being accurate to its established lore and rules?

For your own world, do you have any specific inspirations? Do you try to be more like a specific setting? (I personally take alot of inspiration from The Elder Scrolls myself).

Do you not even care, just making a setting as needed from game to game?

In short, tell me about your setting and what lengths you go for it.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

I rarely do a setting as is, I edit events and some figures, but I keep to the general tone and premise.

My last setting I worked on was for a game called Feng Shui. I changed up the timeline somewhat, rendered a couple of factions relatively powerless, and made the meta-game conflict a cold war instead of a hot, but with a small yet powerful player stirring everyone else up.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

I haven't GMed for a long time, but when I did I tended to use established settings to take advantage of all the extended source materiel available.

 

[Elfgore]

Campaign that we only played for about... two weeks I think I probably put a solid month into designing it, since I did it all from the ground up.

Made up a Kingdom, made history of said kingdom, ruler of said kingdom, a pantheon of gods, a religious order, multiple governors, and twenty side quest in the first area.[footnote]This game was mostly meant to be side quests and the players would slowly learn more about the main villain as they played.[/footnote]. I then made some lore and a bunch of other stuff in the mountains just north of the kingdom where the second part of the game would take place. With rulers, cities, places, and it's own side quest. Both of these had a map I made in Inkarnate.

Inspirations vary in the moment. I honestly just took all of the major fantasy settings I know and picked and choose what I liked from each. Originally I had planned for this campaign to just be one part of the world and have the players do other full-length campaigns here as well. Sadly due to unforeseen personal events, this game is pretty much cancelled. So I'm not gonna bother now making more lore for the world.

 

[JemothSkarii]

I've been trying to make my own RPG - own world, own system, classes etc. Made five countries, with different rulers, currencies, demographics, laws, exchange rates, creatures, landscapes, languages (both currently spoken and dead - no actual words made yet), sub-cultures, superstitions... the whole shebang.
Haven't worked on it for a bit though, guess I'm a tad burned out at the moment.
It's... probably fairly derivative, but I do try to be original. Been working on the RPG for about two years by myself and I've really only got early game sorted. My 'playtesters' are sadly not very consistent.

As for your questions, it did get me to look into how things form, different kinds of governments and structure, even architecture and clothing. As for inspiration... it just kind of happened really, I didn't consciously set out to add influences by people but stepping back I see Terry Pratchett and Redwall stuff in there. The gameplay system is heavily borrowing from Dark Heresy and Iron Kingdoms. I'm a bit of a lore nut, and I have to remind myself that nobody I'll play it with will be invested in it as much as I am. So sometimes the lore gets broken and I have to roll with it.

I put a lot of effort in.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I've played primarily CP2020, WHFRP V1&2.

CP2020 doesn't need much work at all as it's our world with more cool toys and ramping up of corporate dickery. Even then there's lots of source material.

WHFRP I tend to play in the V1 setting (i.e before the Storm of Chaos & end times bullshit) with V2 rules, so it's generally a lot more like historical call of Cthulhu, or even just historical roleplay. Chaos is the unknown thing lurking in the shadows rather than the giant maniac in spiky armour sticking an axe through your face.
Being extremely heavily based on Medieval-Renaissance Europe it is fairly simple to fill in anything not covered by sourcebooks etc.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

I tend to put a lot of effort into the story. While I falter slightly in characterization and dialogue, but I make up for it by having intricate plots and lore with many threads that all weave together as events unfold. My form of story telling tends to involve a lot of threads being made, and one by one they're pieced together, and when you look back at the web that was created... it makes the group tend to say it's pretty intricate and well put together. Full of mystery for a good length of time, then it all chains together on the other half.

Apparently I also do situations really well. For example, several different groups I've played with say I always seem to have something interesting and unique for many combat situations. Very few are exactly the same. Maybe it's a new enemy type, a new strategy needed, new equipment the group has to combat against... And in my opinion, I tend to get pretty detailed with boss fights. I love boss encounters and thus have plenty of them, and I always make them have very standout attacks, strategies, designs, etc.

I also find it helps to have music in my D&D campaigns. I always have something playing unless silence suits it. It helps my mind flow, helps me come up with ideas, and sometimes entire plot threads or encounters just because of a song I wanna use in the campaign. I wonder where I could use a song, next thing I know I have a great new idea that gets weaved perfectly into the story or setting.

I guess you could say that's my inspiration, but that's only one of them. Video games tend to be my inspiration, but which ones influence it greatly. For example, the campaign before my most recent one was inspired by Ys: Memories in Celceta and Suikoden Tierkreis. My most recent one was heavily inspired by Xenoblade Chronicles X and other big, open sci-fi games with mecha, a touch of Okami, and some stuff from Ys Memories in Celceta and Suikoden Tierkreis as well (Since I put both campaigns in the same universe, just several hundred years into the future and in a different set of planets than the one used before). This week we're starting a Persona based campaign set in Japan (Obviously, for those who play it). So, that'll be fun~

I hope this post helped you a little!

 

[pookie101]

my last campaign i used gurps space and a mega traveler supplement to randomly generate a solar system from scratch and went from there.

a relatively dark world orbiting a red giant, seasons roughly 7 years long, every species has night vision and most settlements and towns had underground buildings in them due to storms and the ones that didnt had alters in the middle to the god of storms to protect the settlement.

had a whole country that was the victim of a war in which the bad guy used temporal magic. so areas even 20 years later were frozen in time, caught in battle, others slowed so walking through made it 10 years later or others speeded up so a day was 100 years.

table top gaming was fun when i did it.. crap 15 years ago.. i feel old now haha

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I've got a colossally detailed setting handbook that my friends all tell me is the Best Setting Ever and I should totally turn it into a book. I'm less optimistic; it's pretty derivative, the only noteworthy thing about it is that it's set in an Enlightenment-era period, so everyone is wearing those funny little wigs.