by torilen » April 20th, 2013, 9:17 pm
Not to get off on a tangent, but normally, when I would DM for a D&D group, I simply created a fantasy
world, offered a few beginning plot rumors, and just let the players run their characters around the
world looking for stuff to do. Very open-ended, very "sand-box" style of play. It did require a lot on my
part, creating the world and all. But...that was my main hobby for a long while - fantasy world creation.
The only problem was creating all the NPC's for the characters to meet. I started creating a not-so-real
world, where villages only had 10 people, towns only had 20 or so, and cities only had 30 people or so.
Allowed me to create very real people for the characters to encounter, while keeping things limited.
In my personal game system, I've actually encouraged this style of creation for the GM's. I explain that the
game world is a world, and should be some-what real...but we are, in fact, still playing a game. I explain that
creating only a limited number of people allows the GM to focus on creating real personalities without having
to work themselves to death. As long as you make proportions the same across the board, it doesn't really matter.
So...a village would have maybe 10 people...a town 15-20...cities maybe 20-30. There would still be orcs and
goblins running around, but ogres and giants and such would be limited in number. Instead of lots of dragons,
there would only be maybe 2 or 3 of each type throughout the whole world. Instead of lots of bad guys, there would
be maybe 10 or 15 throughout the whole world.
I have a whole system set up to make proportions correct. BUT...I'll stop there, as I've rambled enough for now.