I have written lots of rules and am constantly tweaking them. I also have lots of have started ideas for campaign setting some more along than others. Campaing settings can be a tricky mind numbing business. You could write for years and not cover all the detail of just one small area of your setting. Yet mot designers are compelled to create that perfect and enormous setting to place your games in. Why? Has anyone else stopped to ask that question?
Is it not possible to have fun with a small world? Is it not possible to find adventure in small nooks and crannies?
After all it has worked in video games. I think some would regue against my view that video games with small worlds are successful. Maybe some would feel that by limiting physical scope we are limited our stories.
I want to come it world designing another way. I want to creater a small place and do big things with it. BUt how to go about it? I do not know of any models out there in pnp gaming. If some one does, please feel free to let me know.
What follows is a work in progress and is more an example of my ramblings than any true method as I try to sort through the maddness and actually come up with a coherent process. So forgive me.
Here are my thoughts on how to begin. Now first for now I am talking only about limiting the physical scope of the game, and expaning upon what exists within that. So that being said. Keep in mind KISS (in this case Keep It Small, Stupid!) For this I fell what every you think you need to create reduce it drastically, if you think your world needs 20 kingdoms and each should have dozens of towns, for this method you should only have a handful of kingdoms and even less towns.
I think keeping things vague and then expanding upon them is the way to go. Come up with a quick description of each place, no more than a sentence or two and leave it at that for awhile. Add to it as need be later. Perhaps adding a few questions to it to help your mind develop the place may be good too.
So I am going to call my world Nook, to help me remember. It is to be fantasy world, somewhre between a typical rpg fantasy, and a fairy tale. For now I am creating only 2 "kingdoms": Westhaven and the Eastwyldes.
Westhaven is your "good" Kingdom, civilized and just.
The Eastwyldes is not a kingdom exactly. It is an abandoned land, home to barbarians, greenskins, and other monsters. A place where evil reigns. Why is it evil?
Next I am going to sit down and think about 3-5 towns to add to what I have.