Worldbuilding 4a - Setting

At last we've come to a place in our design where we can build something the players can actually run in.  If we've done our part right, there should be five or six interesting places in our opening continent that offer unique experiences for the player.  The time has come to pick one and settle into sketching out further details.

But ... I can't assume we've done our part right; so I've got to go into depth on what "our part" is.  That is, essaying to supply some idea of what a region might look like when we've finished.

I thought about creating template-like examples — when I realized they already exist, from a source as ancient as the old "Dungeon" game.  I've referred to it earlier on the blog and have used it as an example for other things; in this case, it's excellent because the different regions were deliberately created to be both unlike one another AND cliched.  So, perfect.  It's called Minaria.

So.  A couple of things.  First, regarding climate, this is not much better than Greyhawk.  Still, like I said, each kingdom has characteristics utterly unlike each other kingdom on the map.  The troll and dwarf "kingdoms" are scattered in an interesting way and there are two "wizard" kingdoms ... giving us some interesting points of discussion.  Moreover, unlike Greyhawk, I actually ran this map; in the late 80s, wanting time to fix my trade system, I had the players "phase" into Minaria, beginning an 18-month quest they had to complete in order to get back to Earth.  Worked fine as a campaign-changer; only problem was, I actually didn't fix my trade system.  That didn't get fixed until 2004.

Now I'd like to dig into the map above, and I intend to ... but ... we have an elephant in the room to talk about first.  Anything I'm going to say about building an interesting setting and making it grander and less shallow has to start with a caveat about traditional players and traditional game settings.  A subject I haven't addressed — and which beckons us before we move on from here.

Most table-top games, as we all know, hardly need a setting.  Players care about getting to the dungeon, getting back, buying equipment, healing, getting back to the dungeon ... and repeat.  Ad nauseam.  Which, for those who don't speak Latin, means until we're so disgusted that we throw up.  Which describes my level of patience with "traditional" TTGs.

If your players are traditional, and you haven't got the salt to run an a-typical game, then I'm afraid all I've said so far in these foregoing posts has been a waste of time.  We need some understanding of how rivers, towns, kingdoms and resources work; we need a comprehensive understanding how these things influence and connect people together, in sociological and economical ways.  If the reader hasn't got this, because he or she hasn't read enough books, or can't apply the knowledge of books to things, or just doesn't care, then a setting — any setting — is a total waste of time.

Traditional D&D doesn't need a setting.  It only needs a basic map with basic points — and to be dead honest, doesn't even need the map.  All of this can be done in the DM's head.

For this, I'm deliberately using someone else's version of a village, because it's closer to what "traditional" is than anything I'd make.  Starting at the bottom.

1. The road back to where the players came from: some small village, some tiny collection of houses.  A place the players are never going to again.

2. The gate where they get charged heavily at the start at the campaign, run by boorish, miserable guards who push them around and then are probably never seen again, no matter how long the players hang around.

3. The only place that really matters: the market.  Various shop fronts, stalls that appear and disappear whenever it's convenient for the game session.  Everything needed to enter a dungeon is available, though none of those things have any use for anyone living in this town.  What the hell are these people going to do with 50 ft. coils of rope?  As many as the party needs to buy, of course.  All dungeon-friendly items are inexhaustible.

4. The inn, complete with tavern, stable, yard, outdoor toilets, with access from all sides in case a thief needs to break into the players room or the players need to jump out of a window to chase down someone on the street.  The players stay here every time they're in town, but they never learn anyone's name, because it isn't necessary.

5. Up and to the left of (4).  The rich person's mansion, where the players visit to be told of the FIRST dungeon, and be given clues about it.  This person sends for the players when they arrive at the Inn; presumably, because the inn rooms can be watched with a spyglass from the upper floors of the mansion.

6. The guardhouse the players go through to leave the town to go somewhere bigger and more populated (7).  Usually, as far as the players get before the guards seize them and take them to (5), or explain that no one's allowed on the road to the big city for "reasons" ... or who simply stand around ignore the players as they leave.  When the players return, these guards will harass the players as if having never seen them before ... even though clearly there's only enough houses in this village for about 150 people (and that's being generous).

7. The road to the big city.  Not important.  If the players go there, it's just to get something so they'll come back here.

8. The entrance the players will use when coming back from the dungeon.  Chances are, the DM will forget to harass them, being so eager to get the players back to see (5) again.

9. The side road that takes the players to the FIRST dungeon.  The other road, not numbered, might take the players to a SECOND dungeon, or might not lead to anywhere.

10. Lesser rich person with a stable of horses who's here to tell the players about the SECOND dungeon.

11. The Apothecary's shack.  The apothecary is here to sell potions, raise the dead (note, there is no church in the village), interpret symbols carefully copied down from the dungeon, or books found there, etcetera.  Basically, an expositional shoppe.

12. A place behind the Inn where the players can meet other people from outside the village, specifically mercenaries who can be hired.

13. Back door of the inn, leading into the open area.  Players are assassinated or backstabbed here, or as they pass they hear someone say "Psssst ..." so that a thief can tell them that either (5) or (10) is up to no good, shouldn't be trusted, etcetera.

14. This is an upper courtyard above the market where the players get lured and then beaten up by toughs, rakes, guards, whatever.  Area also functions as a "town hall" if the players need official permission to do something, or if they're brought here by guards so they can be warned officially to "get out of town."

15. This is where the daughter of (5) secretly arranges to meet with a member of the party so she can tell them about the THIRD dungeon (somewhere up river from 16), or why her father in (5) is up to no good, or generally explain the politics of the town, because obviously she's the only innocent person who lives here.

16. The place where two streams meet.  At some convenient moment, the party will find a body floating here.

17. This is where the party sees two persons meeting "in secret" beneath the trees, from a vantage point in (10)'s corral.  The two might be anyone from the town who have no reason whatsoever to meet in private — say, one of the toughs and (5), or the thief from (13) and the apothecary, or any other combination that makes the players go, "Hm."

18. A boat launch where the players are told to meet someone in the town who's ready to give them "very important information."

19. The cliff the players will need to climb when they finally decide to break into (5)'s house.

And so on.  This combination of clues and dungeons can easily keep a party busy for a year of Saturdays, so long as the DM can keep bouncing the people of the town against each other.  Mind you, none of this needs something as gauche as the deep secret under Hommlet.  Television shows like Lost, The Walking Dead and Pretty Little Liars prove that all you need is endless, meaningless doubt and accusation to go on, and on, and on.  And when that gets a little tiresome, insert a "guest star," who arrives in the village to talk to someone, or be mysteriously killed in the market place, or leave behind some dangerous talisman that reveals there's a FOURTH dungeon underneath the apothecary's.

Point is, traditional players won't care.  They won't.  So long as we tease them with a little mystery in the village that doesn't keep them from returning to yet another dungeon, they'll be totally happy.

For about two-to-three years.  Whereupon, they'll tire of the go around, and either quit D&D altogether or stumble into some other new-but-not-nearly-as-good version of the above.  20 years later, they'll talk endlessly on their blogs about "Wow, when we were kids, there was this guy who ran this amazing village ..."

Sorry.  Just threw up in my mouth.

To climb out of this ... I don't what you call it, a "ghetto?"  It takes an education.  It takes the ability to build a setting that isn't made of cliches.  It needs an ability to recognize that villages are not surrounded by grasslands and trees, but by farms and people working all day and night.  Medieval villages of 150 people are not laid out this tightly, unless its a fortification ... in which case, everyone's a soldier and there's no market, no inn, no nothing for outsiders.

And no village is going to build three gates!  Jeebus.  Travellers will go around the village and not buy anything here.  Three quarters of this town are repurposed to manning the gates!  A village is almost all houses, usually scattered, with each house having direct access to the river as a watersource.  A stream this narrow isn't provided with bridges.  Streams that flood have levees.  There are no levees here, so clearly this stream doesn't.  Green spaces are for animals to graze on; do any of these look like grazing places?

My point is not that the map is wrong; it's that the lack of understanding how the world would have to be, to support people, severely limits our thinking.  The village and it's layout isn't important at all.  We don't need it, because the game world isn't a "stage play" for an audience that wants plot points and stories.

In a richer game, the village is a game piece.  It provides access to information and goods for the players, yes, but ownership of the village, defense of the village, utilisation of the village are larger games to be played.  The villagers themselves are a resource against enemies; they are pawns to be exploited; they are territory to be obtained or lost, depending on the player's larger choices, when they want to stop playing Agatha Christie and start playing Tom Clancy.  Who gives a damn if there's a body floating in (16) or not.  This is a medieval game world.  A random dead body is far less upsetting than the local landlord raising the taxes, or a severe winter threatening everyone, or 75 dead bodies because there's a plague.

"Traditional" D&D loves to play at chicken little politics, because that's the measure of plot uneducated, inexperienced children raised on television and netflix shows can handle.  But there are bigger stakes to play for ... and that's why designing a solid, complex world offers a great deal more.