Initial Thoughts

I've been gaming for many years now, and in that time I've had many great experiences and challenges, both as a player and as a GM.  But, there is one thing I've always wanted to do, but have never gotten around to actually doing--create my own game world.  Sure, I've created my own pieces of published game worlds, and I've even created a few stand alone settings for specific games.  But I've never sat down and created my own world--something like Greyhawk, Krynn, the Realms, or Eberron.

I've tried, I really have.  A half dozen times throughout the years.  I've found, and attempted to follow, a host of excellent advice I've found in books, online, and in magazines.  There's a LOT of people out there with excellent ideas for how to create your own world, but for some reason, I've never been able to actually complete it.  I tend to get halfway through whatever process I'm following (whether this is me following a "formula" or just trying to create freely) before I drop it.  This might happen again--life has a way to interfere with hobbies.

But, this time I want to try something different.  This time I want to blog about it, to put it out there.  It might be a quirk of mine, but I tend to perform better and produce more effectively if I'm writing to "someone"--even if that someone is just the ether.  So, that's what this is--my attempt to create my own homebrew world, using the format of a blog to help organize my thoughts, and motivate me to keep plugging at it till I'm happy with the end result--and then hopefully writing about the games that result in it.

And that's really the goal--to create my world to play the games I want to play in.  So, given that, here are my current parameters, goals, and random thoughts.

1) I'll be using Rich Bakers World Builder's Guidebook from TSR, published in 1996.  I have both a real copy of it, as well as a .pdf I picked up from Paizo a few years back.  I'm not sure about the legality of quoting it at length, so I'll be keeping any direct quotes from it to a minimum.  I'm not saying he has the best advice, or that his methods are the only ways to do it.  But I own it, I admire it, and it has lots of neat tables to roll on, which is always fun.

2) I know I want a "generic" world.  Previous world building attempts have resulted in worlds very narrowly focused, based on certain specific themes or conflicts.  They were fun, but inherently limited to only a single campaign.  I want something broader than that.

3) I want it to be centered around a Medieval European-style world.  Like I said, generic.  Since I'm planning on creating a whole world, there will obviously be a LOT more to it than that, but it's what I'm aiming for.  A place where knights and peasants would be the norm.

4) Specifically, I'd like there to be a Dark Ages vibe to it--small, splintered states, and a society slowly rebuilding after a period of destruction.  Again, with an entire world, there will be many other places, which I may develop later, but for the first really developed area, that's what I'm looking for.

5) Finally, I'll be using the 2nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for my assumed rules set.  It's my personal favorite, and generic enough that I can easily swap it out with other mechanics if need be.  Also, it's what the World Builder's Guidebook assumed would be the rules, so that makes things easier.