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GameMastery Guide / Creating a World / Detailing Your World

The Heroic Details

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 142
First things first: What do the heroes do in this new world of yours? The first thing players do when you start a new campaign is create characters, so it’s a good idea to think first about what the heroes of your world need to know.

Look over the character generation rules of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook and see what jumps out at you. What do fighters fight? What principles do paladins champion? Who do clerics pray to? Where do rogues do their sneaking around? It may seem strange to think of these things first, but consider this—your players are probably going to start thinking about what characters they want to play long before they ask you about the coins in the Empire of Fulbar, or even if there is an Empire of Fulbar.

The questions don’t stop at character generation, either. What sorts of adventures are the new heroes going to go on? What are they going to run into? What can they do with all that loot? Even in an established campaign setting, looking ahead to the middle and higher levels of play can help iron out potential wrinkles before they start.

The following list covers 10 questions every hero is likely to wonder.

What’s my base of operations?

A pastoral shepherd village with farms and nearby wilderness is going to inform entirely different character concepts than a cosmopolitan city. While the characters might be outsiders or new arrivals, they’re still going to want to know where their base of operations is, if only in terms of size, profile, or geography. Is it high in the mountains? Is it on a trade route? Is it a mile beneath the waves? Pick a likely spot and be ready to give the players a sentence or two describing it. The details can be fleshed out later.

Do I look different from everybody else?

Adventurers are often just homegrown heroes, raised in unremarkable communities with ordinary backgrounds. Yet they’re just as often members of strange and mysterious races or outcasts from far-off places. You should consider what races and backgrounds your players might choose when the game begins, and how these will affect their interactions with the NPCs in the starting location. Allowing offbeat or colorful races that aren’t standard also means you need to understand those races and how they work in your society.

How do I make a living?

This question isn’t just asking for the list of allowed character classes, which you should decide in advance. Rather, it asks how the heroes keep themselves in room and board (or ale and companionship). Are heroes in your world paid to do what they do? Are they mercenary dungeon delvers, or is this a part-time gig for a group of city guards and scholars? The answer might differ from character to character, but once you settle on what the heroes are actually doing to put bread on the table, you have formed a clearer picture of the role of heroes in your new world.

Have I been doing this long?

A great many campaigns assume the heroes start off as 1st-level adventurers, but that’s not the only option. Consider whether you’re building a world for low-level heroes or higher-level veterans, because this choice affects the presence of wise mentors, young sidekicks, wealthy patrons, and ruthless villains.

Are we at war or at peace?

This is the basic level of political information the heroes need. Is some awful nation sitting at the border ready to invade, or does the world enjoy relative peace? You don’t need to tell them who the duke is, or if his dastardly brother is the wicked leader of that awful nation. Your answer could be as simple as, “There was a war hundreds of years ago, but everything’s been fine lately,” or “The country is constantly being raided by barbarians.” Players can then make the classic choice of playing dangerous foreigners, or if there’s peace at the start of the campaign, they can play up their characters’ backgrounds as innocents heedless of the threats that lurk on the horizon.

What am I doing with these other guys?

Do the player characters already know each other from their days in the Citizen’s Guard? Are they old friends from the College of Delvers? Perhaps they’re all related: brothers, sisters, or cousins. Or, as is often the case, maybe they’re complete strangers who meet in the bar in the first session and get thrown together by common circumstances. As a worldbuilding detail, these connections suggest organizations, guilds, mysterious patrons, or significant families, and can also determine a player’s choice of character. As hard as it might be to explain a dwarf PC in a family of elves, even that choice spawns plenty of setting conceits.

How are lives affected by magic?

Most fantasy game worlds have magic of the arcane kind as a staple. Players who are looking to play wizards or sorcerers need to know what it means to be a wizard or sorcerer, even if they don’t initially have to know the source or origin of magic itself. This is also true of the other heroes, who should have a fairly good understanding of what society thinks of people casting fireballs and summoning demons. You’re also going to have to tell the players whether they should expect to have access to healing magic, or if the world is more gritty and dangerous.

How are lives affected by religion?

You don’t need to go into much detail about the gods for the benefit of the players, but you should decide the basics and what this means for clerics, paladins, and other characters bestowed with divine power. Essentially, decide what divine patrons they can choose for their characters, even if the answer is just “There’s the goddess of cities, and the gods of the four seasons, and the god of thieves.”

Who or what is going to try to kill me?

It’s always good to know what the major threats are, but you don’t have to go into much detail for the players on this score. Primarily, you need to be able to tell the ranger player that choosing evil outsiders as his favored enemy is a good idea, or if he should instead go for something like goblinoids. In answering this question, you’re also making some decisions about mood and theme: if most of the bad guys are human or half-human, this suggests a different kind of world than one in which the villains are all Lovecraftian horrors and their unfortunate minions.

Where can I sell this loot?

Assuming your world is one in which piles of gems await the heroes in subterranean mazes, what do the heroes do with them when they get back to town? Is there a Crazy Yorick’s Magick Shoppe in every large city, or do the heroes have to craft their own magical wands, potions, and gear? Can they invest their winnings in stock or property? Is there some kind of fence or underground black market to move goods?

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