D&D 5E I'm writing a setting book. What are your preferences?

[Eyes of Nine]

This.

My ideal setting book consists of abbreviated text, key descriptors, one-liners about motivations, alliances, and the like. And a lot less long-winded prose.

I loved the Glorantha setting and the Inner Sea World Guide. BUT the nation descriptions were way too long-winded. Agree with Elfcrusher - needs to be more like bullet points and one-liners.


Who is important in this area
What is important in this area
Where is this area (man, it drove me crazy that most of the Inner Sea World guide countries didn't have a map showing where the country was in relation to its neighbors. That ONE thing would have moved it from 3 to 4 stars).
Why is that stuff important
How can I add it to my game (every country/area should have 6-12 adventure seeds, depending on the scope of the area)

 

[RangerWickett]

I loved the Glorantha setting and the Inner Sea World Guide. BUT the nation descriptions were way too long-winded. Agree with Elfcrusher - needs to be more like bullet points and one-liners.

So, here's two different entries talking about one of the regions from the ZEITGEIST book.

The first is in the book's intro, very brief:

Savagery, Liberty, and Dragons.
The youngest of the great nations, Ber, shook free in the past two centuries from the yoke of toppled dragon tyrants. Once a chaotic quilt of quarreling ‘monstrous’ races, Ber arose from an unlikely alliance of dragonborn, gnolls, goblins, goliaths, kobolds, lizardfolk, minotaurs, orcs, and others. United by a common devotion to personal liberty, they live in an uneasy peace as their rulers unite the disparate peoples with a shared pride in proving their civility to a doubting world.

A handful of the old dragon tyrants managed to avoid being slain by finding refuge in other countries. And in recent years hitherto unseen fey dragons have lain claim to some of Ber’s more wild frontiers. Their arrival is blamed on the tropezaros, a movement of survivalists and guerilla warriors who seek to reconnect their modernizing society with the wilds of nature.

The second is a one-page overview.

Ber
Competing dragon tyrants ruled this arid land for centuries, each commanding tribes of various races that most civilizations had deemed savage: dragonborn, gnolls, goblins, goliaths, kobolds, lizardfolk, minotaurs, orcs, and others. Though forced to war against each other for their tyrants’ territories, the disparate peoples were united in their hatred of their oppressing overlords. When the last dragon tyrant fell two centuries ago, what had been a crazed mass of competing fiefdoms slowly started to see itself as a common nation. Finally, sixty years ago the heroic orc Bruse Le Roye united the tribes and declared Ber a sovereign nation.

Beran culture actively rejects tribalism and savagery. In lieu of older traditions of armed raids as a trial of adulthood, every Beran town and city has regular festivals of eclectic competitions to let citizens of disparate species share a common rite of passage. The first great investment Bruse Le Roye made was in schools, and his second was the Executores dola Liberta, wandering lawbringers who violently ended slavery. ‘Who can be the most civilized’ became a competition, with foreign finery worn with as much pride as the war paint of old.

Ber has spent the past several decades proudly learning how to match the other great nations for civility and modernity, albeit with more than a few cracked skulls for those who wouldn’t unify. Imported industrial experts oversaw construction of factories and a national rail system, but when the locals learned enough to take over, Ber’s historical distrust of draconic wealth hoarding meant profits were widely shared among the citizens.

Ber today is a flourishing garden of multiculturally-conscious journalism, music, and philosophy. Berans are fiercely defensive of personal freedom, so much that they let a faction of gnolls along the southern coast effectively secede. The logic was that the inhospitable region would take in those who rejected the new ways, acting as a pressure relief valve, but instead the gnolls launched a coup. Even after being beaten into submission, they remain a thorn in the nation’s side, believing their long-dead dragon tyrant Gradiax the Steel Lord will return to lead them to glory.

In the past decade, the current Bruse Corta Nariz de Guerra tried to raise her nation’s standing by volunteering her military to defend Crisillyir against the invasion by Elfaivar, which embarrassed Ber when its inexperienced and overconfident military lost nearly every engagement.

The tropezaro movement is committed to finding the best ways to defend their country’s young revolution. Its founders splintered off from the Panoply, an artists’ philosophy looking to embrace foreign cultures and variety for its own sake. The tropezaros focused their interests toward individualist survivalism and guerrilla warfare. They sought techniques from around the world, and trained to use the land itself as a weapon, which in turn has made them the driving voices for protecting nature from over-exploitation and the risk of arcanoscientific disaster.

Ber’s overall ideology of refusing to be enslaved has maddened those who try to hold Beran workers to regular factory schedules or ensure materiel for infrastructure projects gets where it’s needed. And while the population loves to embrace foreign ideas, when Crisillyir's refugees came during the war and began proselytizing their gods, many Berans – especially among the poorer classes – were suspicious, since the Clergy has an old reputation for conquering the weak and forcing them to share their faith.

The tropezaros condemn what they see as hypocrisy among everyday Berans, and have actively courted the foreigners, creating syncretic deities that combine Beran folk tales with clericist gods. Indeed, tropezaros even reached out to the fey in the Dreaming analogue of Ber, thinking perhaps to find allies. Instead, they awoke strange dragons made of field and forest, causing many Berans to condemn the group as traitors.

Major Races: Dragonborn, Gnoll, Goblin, Goliath, Kobold, Lizardfolk, Minotaur, Orc.

Suggested Backgrounds: Entertainer, Folk Hero, Outlander, Sailor, Urchin.

Suggested Character Themes: Docker, Telemachian, Tropezaro.

Suggested Class Options: Paladin (oath of liberty), Warlock (genius loci pact).

[[Sidebar]]

At a Glance
These are the major figures, groups, and locations in Ber most foreigners have heard about.

• Bruse Corta Nariz de Guerra. A keen and beloved leader, daughter of one of the nation’s founders.
• Brakken of Heffanita. A famous minotaur negotiator who helped bring all parties to agreement on the Orithean Concordat (see page xx).
• The Panoply. A philosophy that looked for commonalities between cultures and sought to promote the best ideas while also celebrating diversity as its own merit.
• Executores dola Liberta. Predominately female cadre of traveling judges with a writ to punish any who abuse positions of authority or deny basic liberties to others. Famous for doling out punishment through beating concordant with the severity of the offense.
• Cult of the Steel Lord. Technologically advanced gnolls who worship a dead dragon, in long-standing rebellion against Ber.
• Seobriga. The capital city, sprawling and vibrant, with regular and encouraged civic protests.
• Citado Cavallo. City most closely integrated with Risur, and a defensible naval bastion.
• Ursaliña. A city once famous for its trained beast fighting tournaments, now with the dubious fame of having been the landing point of an extraplanar invasion by strange psychic beings.
• Karch. City of the steelmarked gnolls. Closely aligned with Risuri technologist Benedict Pemberton, and famously friendly to foreign industrialists.

[[End Sidebar]]

 

[RangerWickett]

Then in a later chapter there's a full 15 page write-up of the country.

 

[Mistwell]

If I had known this is the setting that ZEITGEIST takes place in, I'd have bought it to read long ago! That sounds awesome!

I'd want Machine Spirits, magical clothing, ancient streets which resist new buildings and magically alter paths through the city at random, time clocks which slow time subtly to get more hours out of line workers, rare magical bird feather hats, a magic-based communication system for the wealthy similar to a telephone network, contract oath packs which bind the signatories to agreements with magic, golem servants (and perhaps an underground free-the-golems society)...more later. Exciting setting!

 

[RangerWickett]

Mistwell, clearly our advertising game needs to improve.

Hm, lemme see, from your list:

Factories can certainly be haunted by workers who die there. And the way the 'feywild' (named the Dreaming in the setting) works is that different countries have different flavors of fey that match the national mood. One region is inspired by northeastern Europe/Russia, with dwarven gulags and a lot of old genocide nobody talks about these days, where whole villages can be forced to work in a massive subterranean factory complex. But in the right conditions, a pathway to the Dreaming can open up when the workers are all singing and toiling as one, and the factory's items can come alive.

Magical clothing: We have two different magical tophats, now that I look into it.

Streets with opinions: There's one city where a bunch of psychic creatures died, and the genius loci has begun reaching out to people to be its representatives, letting them make warlock pacts to fulfill its desires. In the physical world, though the actual geography doesn't move, but that's common in the Dreaming.

Time management: Hadn't thought of that, but if the workers found out they'd probably riot.

Communication: Not magical. There's actually a telegraph network, though in one country the thieves' guild controls it, in another fey sabotage it unless the wires are mounted on fancily decorated poles, and in another demonic spirits can possess the wires and tempt telegraphy operators.

Pacts: Hm, nothing specifically about that. Though there are a type of creatures called gestalts where seven or more people willingly (usually) merge their minds, though the process drives many mad. One nation has formed a governmental pact with the fey Unseen Court called the Rites of Rulership so that the monarch derives magical powers from the support of the public.

Golems: Actual honest to goodness golems with their powerful 'magic immunity' are expensive, but there are witchoil golems which use dark magic to create a type of oil that traps the soul of anyone who dies nearby, instead of letting it go to the afterlife. The oil can burn for months, making it a wondrous power source for rusting steaming constructs; if you're close enough, you can hear the screams of the souls in your mind.

 

[Laurefindel]

I'm editing the manuscript of E.N. Publishing's upcoming 5th edition setting book for ZEITGEIST, and I'm looking for some input.

sweet!

That's the quick sales pitch. But how much more information do you like when you buy a setting book?

I like setting books, but I'm not likely to sit one night and read the whole thing through in one shot. As such, I like when information is well compartmentalized and self contained. The right level of information is hard to achieve; too much and it becomes puzzling and hard to retain it all. Too little means that "filling the gaps" will be frustrating or energy-consuming.

I don't need to know everything about a region, but I should be given enough information to make-up what has not been described. The new Eberron: Rising from the last War is lacking in this regard IMO: it does not describe every single town (which in itself is not an issue), but I don't feel I have enough to work with in order to come up with a thematic description myself.

I like when section are well defined and independent from one another. For example, in the Faction Section, I shouldn't need to go back to a certain country's history to get the whole picture. Also, I'd rather have many short chapters than few chapters with many sub-headers each.

I appreciate when paragraphs are written in a way that each one can be read independently. I should be able to pick up my reading wherever I left it, and be able to learn more even if I don't perfectly recall the previous paragraph from where I left it a few days ago. Consequently, I can accept a minimum of repetition to make this possible.

I like when authors make judicious use of descriptive text boxes. When describing a culture or an area, keep it relatively short, and insert a few "nice to know" text boxes that aren't essential information, but help to bring it all alive.

What I did like from the Eberron book however is the "seven things to know" at the beginning of the book, and the "five things your character from (region) would know" in the nations' descriptions. I would have been able to deduce it all by reading the book, but having those things stated up-front was helpful. Also, knowing what the setting isn't is just as important as knowing what it is about.

hope it helps...

 

[robus]

Then in a later chapter there's a full 15 page write-up of the country.

I've got a bad feeling about this That 1 page Ber overview above was great. What more is coming in the 15 page write-up? To me it would be best to cover the lands of Ber: what are the topographical points of interest, where are the ruins of lost cities. If it's a more detailed write up of the history of Ber then that's where my eyes glaze over. But if it's a 15 page "Adventurers guide to the lands of Ber" - that would be cool.

 

[jayoungr]

I feel like you're not hearing from the people who do like a richly detailed history of a fictional world, because they are out there.

A setting introduction book I read recently that caught my interest* conveyed a lot of its information through documents, especially letters: a prisoner writing to a loved one, an apprentice mage writing home to family, an agent of a secret organization reporting back to HQ, etc. I really felt like those things added a lot of flavor and made the setting feel more alive.

I'll also pass on something @pukunui told me: he really appreciates the old-school practice of listing the demographics of each town, as in, 60% human, 20% elf, 20% gnome.

ETA: This one, if anyone's curious:

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[NotAYakk]

I can't imagine a book that gives the level of detail I'd want to set an adventure somewhere that covers an entire world.

Pick a region to focus on. Everywhere else can have brief descriptions, enough to talk about people who come from there, but not enough to adventure there.

Hang it on mechanics. For example, have "Arcana: Knowledge a player proficient in Arcana would have about this area".

Factions are great. Who are rivals to who, whose interests align with whose. A reason to become allied with the faction (what benefits, both unique and commonplace, do they offer that an adventurer might like?), their power scale, a reason to oppose it, etc.

Local rumors and dangers, true or not, for DMs to pick over.

Short NPC descriptions for each region to use. Not movers and shakers, but even a barkeep.

Myths and Legend sidebars, with no guarantee that they are true. Written in a conversational style to make the fact that they are just something someone believes, not raw facts.

Possible political imbalances and tipping points. Ways the world could suddenly change.

Subclasses tied to various setting-specific subcultures.

Ecology; the kinds of monsters in various areas. Economy, what are the trade flows and produced goods. Nobility, how each area governs, and what forms the basis for its politics. Culture, what makes each population distinct from others.

 

[jayoungr]

I have to say I'm baffled by the number of people saying "Cover a region in detail and not the whole world," when this is the same board that groans and moans loudly every time there's "yet another adventure on the Sword Coast."