Tops and Bottoms

Having previously explored how the GM lavatory best tackle the roles of judge, storyteller, and antagonist, in my sunset column I introduced the function of world-builder, and discussed the call for to choose your genre and rules setting before you start building your world.

Now we come to actual world-building. And when it comes to world-building, there are deuce major schools of pattern that you need to be intimate about: "top pile" and "bottom up." Proponents of "top down in the mouth" design are world-wide-adjusted. They like to establish a framework for their ma, egg laying out the backstory, major characters, and points of worry front. The player characters, when they are created, are made to fit the world. In this way, the gamemaster achieves a holistic creation, in which each part makes sense in the context of the whole.

Proponents of "bottom up" design are player-focused. They start with whatever will be in the immediate neighbourhood of the role player characters, and flesh that area prohibited in great detail. They generally leave the framework of their world receptive, or at most very thinly sketched, feeling that prima characters and points of interest can best be developed over the course of play. Often he leave create sections of the world A needed to fit the needs of the player characters, or even let them be created by the players themselves. In this way, the gamemaster builds an open setting that is formed to the inevitably and tastes of the players as they evolve live.

Many early campaigns in the avocation began with bottom-upwards intention. Gary Gygax's famous Greyhawk setting, for 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons, was a bottom-up design. Greyhawk began with a town (the city of Greyhawk), with a nearby dungeon (the castle of a insane magic). The rest of the setting was full-clad over time in maximising detail. The same is unfeigned of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor and Erectile dysfunction Greenwood's Irrecoverable Realms. In contrast, many modern campaigns are designed from the round top-downwards. Dark Sun, Eberron, and Dragonlance, for instance, were all campaigns that began with a framework and backstory, and both Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun 1st edition were entirely top down, providing extensive details about the human race and backstory, simply a scant a couple of pages on the actual little-settings of the campaign.

Which is better largely depends on your personal preferences, just in that respect are some tonal factors to deliberate. Top-devour contrive lends itself to high fantasy, in which the scope of the adventures is potentially epic. Bottom-improving design lends itself to swords-and-sorcery, in which the adventures are of a more personal scope, and what matters most is the characters, not the world. Top-down design tends to resultant role in a global that is flavored and melodic line, but less pliable. If you don't write in a place for minotaurs into your high-perfect setting initially, they are very hard to add subsequently. In contrast, bottom-leading design worlds tend to be much more gonzo: Aztecs rub shoulders with Romans, and things incline to get added that don't fit into any bigger approach pattern, because there isn't any. Information technology's Frodo's Middle Earth v. Conan's Hyboria.

My personal pattern method falls in between the 2 schools. I squall IT "circus tent down, soar upwards in". The "top-down, zoom-in" approach way start with a light teetotum-dispirited framework, only creating increasing detail as you generate closer to the areas of the scope that the players are most likely to interact with. Ideally, you end up with a setting that has a great deal of the openness and playability as a bottom-upwardly campaign, and overmuch of the cohesiveness of a top-down setting.

Top Down, Zoom In starts with a incomparable-paragraph "high concept" that establishes the setting, the flavor, and the overall scope of the challenges. Here is an example from a late Runequest crusade I ran:

AURA, City of Dawn, supported on an island said to be at the center of the world, where the Light of Ammonar first blazed and rosiness into the sky. Its founders claimed to be descended from the Septenar Lords of Parliamentary procedure, whom they called their ancestors. Imbued with gifts of power by their divine lineage, the founders built a city of marvels and an empire that spread crosswise the illustrious world. For centuries, Halo's runic black art and punished legions have restrained the empire against the rebellion tides of darkness around it. But over metre the lineage of old has dilute and the bloodlines let failing. With fewer work force and women of power calved every generation, the antediluvian sorceries are future day to an conclusion. The great wonders of the city are dimming. Magic is slipping into oblivion. And terrible creatures of darkness are emerging in the conglomerate. Will heroes develop who rear end restore the glory and the splendor of the empire, or testament the human race immerse into an historic period of wickedness unmatchable 1000 years in the making?

After the high conception, the next step is to do a quick sketch of the brave mega-background, along with a unitary-page publish up to company the map, covering the major regions, their cultures, allegiances, and wars. Away "mega-background," I mean an area that is bigger in scope than the country the game volition actually take place in. For fancy games that is usually the "known world," just in other settings, the scope of the mega-mise en scene is going to rely on your particular choices. For case, in Classic Traveller, the standard mega-mount is the Imperium of Humanity, cover something like 10,000+ worlds. In Coyote Trails, a brave of the Wild West, the mega-setting is the 1870s American frontier, a setting littler than a single nation.

After establishing the mega-setting, the next step is to write a two page backstory to accompany it, with a timeline of major events. A good backstory inevitably to provide for the undermentioned historical periods: (a) Recent chronicle; (b) Modern history; (c) Definitive history; (d) Ancient history; (e) Forgotten history. Holocene epoch account is what's happened so recently that people are still speaking about information technology – an encroachment of orcs, a discovery of gold in the hills. Modern history is the history of the dominant culture of your setting. Graeco-Roman history is the history of the culture that directly led into the modern one. For instance, in a Dark Ages Europe setting, standard history would be the Roman civilization directly previous the fall. Ancient history is the history of culture(s) prior to the Classical. Lost history is the secrets that no one living remembers. I broadly speaking do about a paragraph for to each one.

Exactly how you write up your backstory is, again, going to depend on your choices of genre and mount. E.g., if you're running Call of Cthulhu set in 1920s Europe, in a way the backstory is already written. In that type, what you are writing are the counter-factuals of the mount: Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by agents of Enthusiastic Cthulhu who sought to bring about worldwide bloodshed. On the else paw, in a space opera or fantasy setting, you'll truly be spinning something out of whole cloth.

After the backstory is written, next turn to whatever the primary culture or neighborhood of the game is going to glucinium, and write three pages about its culture. This material, along with mega-setting mapping and overview, and the recent and modern history, is ultimately going to be provided to the players for use in creating their characters, so I focus on things that people need to know to produce characters: How people take care and dress, what weapons and armor are victimized, what tools and technologies are for sale, how they get around, what their general state of noesis and learning is, their religion and government, and any important discernment attitudes. Straight if you're running a pseudo-historical campaign, IT's worth winning the time to compose this heavenward. You would be surprised how many of your players won't really know what firearms were available in the 1870s Old West, or whether or not women wore corsets in the 1920s, or what the standard kit was for a soldier in Vietnam.

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At this indicate, it'll be clock to address the micro-setting of the campaign. The "micro-background" is the reach of the place setting that the players will really interact with. Again, the size of the micro-setting can vary widely from a city to an heavenly body domain; it all depends on the genre, tech, and style of the game. In Cyberpunk 2020, the micro-setting is unremarkably a particular city, such American Samoa Night City or Neo-Tokyo. In fantasy, the little-stage setting is usually a kingdom Oregon duchy, such As Dragon Long time's Ferelden. In Classic Traveller, the micro-setting is normally a sub-sector of space, covering a dozen or more major systems.

When information technology comes to the micro-setting, you'rhenium essentially going away to follow something non excessively different than the steps you just followed for the mega-setting. You'll start with one paragraph "area concept" describing the micro-scope. Here's my micro-setting area construct for my Auran Empire campaign mentioned earlier:

Straddling the 100 miles betwixt the Empire and the Neat Waste on the far side, the Borderlands have been contested throughout recorded chronicle and its landscape is littered with antediluvian fortresses and battlefields. The eager fortress of Türos Orn was built a millennium ago, during the Welkin War, on the shores of Lake Laman by the great warrior-king Valerian Bellësareus. Eastern of the Krysivor River are 400-year old keeps and watchtowers stacked aside Audarius Tarkaun to watch the Dark Wall during the Two Centuries War. In the remnants of the elder forests, elven keeps lost during the Argollëan State of war, ii centred years ago, lurk hidden under vine and leaf. Along the Mirmen River, doughty forts from the Krysean Wars of last century still face westward. And along the western bank of the Krysivor, newly constructed strongholds guard against the latest threat from the Wild – the Smashing Invasion. For the past fifteen years, waves of beastmen barbarians have invaded the Borderlands, many breaking through to raid and pillage the Empire. Twelve major battles suffer been won against the invaders, but each victory has been by a narrower border, against larger numbers. Monsters continue to pour into the Empire, and the margin forts grow increasingly isolated and out-mated. Travel has grown perilous, and the power structure of the Imperium has begun decentralizing to topical anesthetic warlords and private armies.

The dates and references are, naturally, drawn from the mega-place setting backstory previously written. Afterwards the area concept, the next step is a survey map of the setting and a one page spell prepared of the geography covering the major terrain features and settlements, and a 2 page sketch of the recent history of the micro-setting.

Look-alike the mega-setting information, this material should be largely information that can be shared with the players, and in fact at this signal, you testament have reached a good stopping point. You should have about 10 pages of reincarnate. Go through and remove anything confidential or sensitive, and hoard information technology into a document. This is your "Participant Denotation Guide," which is the starter packet you can give to your players to produce characters for your new campaign. Patc they are busy doing that, you'll be starting ferment on your Gazetteer – which we'll discourse next pillar.

Alexander the Great Macris has been playing tabletop games since 1981. Additionally to carbon monoxide-authoring the tabletop games Modern Spear-point and Blaze Crossways the Littoral, his work has appeared in Interface, the Cyberpunk 2022 fanzine, and in RPGA Advertizing&D 2nd Edition tournament modules. In addition to running two weekly campaigns, he is publisher of The Dreamer and president and Chief executive officer of Themis Media. He sleeps on Sundays.

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