Walk your World

First, I apologize. No pun was intended. Now then, moving on.

When I work on a world setting, I used to find myself building lots of high-level structures (not in terms of character level but in terms of framework) such as government types, tax levels, demographics, etc. As a result, I often ended up with excess material that player's almost never needed and found myself having to flesh out towns and cities on the fly. Not necessarily a bad way to run, but if I'm running based on a pre-designed setting, I need more information from the ground up and less from the top down. Thankfully, I found a solution to this situation.

In order to reverse the design process, I created a character (NPC, PC, it doesn't really matter how you label it) and walked the world with him, asking myself what information he would need in order to successfully interact with the world, pursue his own goals and get into adventures of any variety. Certain things immediately become apparent; you don't need to know the population density or know off-hand how many farmers, blacksmiths, etc. are in the area. You need to know the general layout of the town, who's in charge and how they manifest their presence or control in the town (guards, secret police, wizard watchmen, etc.) the availability of quality blacksmiths, the range of tavern qualities, etc.

Also, and most importantly, what makes this nation, city or town different from all the others? This difference has to be more than just having a different name. Is the nation/city/town being constantly harassed by a creature of some sort (intelligent or not?) with constant raids on outlying farms and travelers on the road? Is there an evil cult or other organization in town, hiding beneath the surface? Has the town just been hit by the murderous rampage of a mad wizard and his companion?

Then again, some places may just be towns. Maybe the unique thing isn't an adventure hook, maybe the unique quality is a fancy inn, a blacksmith of renowned skill, a mayor/baron/what-have-you that is particularly friendly to adventurers, etc. By walking your world with a character, or at least looking at the world through the eyes of a character, you are better able to determine what information they need, and what information would be fun and relevant to include.

Creating an actual character sheet for this process isn't really necessary and it can slow things down if you're having a creative burst. But it can also make the process more enjoyable and help you start a creative storm if you're starting with clear skies.

Next time . . . how knowing the demographics can help with designing a nation, city or town.