Quote:
Originally Posted by mlangsdorf
I ran my first 30+ sessions of Dungeon Fantasy without a map, more than a sentence or two of background material, or anything else like that. People delved and had fun.
So yes, while you could use a map of North American circa 1380 AD as a basis for a setting, I don't think you need to through that much effort.
Your background can be as simple "There is a Town on the edge of a wilderness." That's all you need before you write a dungeon and come up with some rumors and start playing.
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Honestly, this is where
I would start.
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1. "Make your characters." Okay, we have five PCs.
2. Now look at what they actually need to make sense:
One needs a robber baron in the vicinity,
one needs an ogre tribe and a warm southern forest with elves,
one needs pirates and tropical hardwood,
one needs a place with magic and moabi wood, and
one needs bandits and yet more ogres. Three have Code of Honor (Outlaw's); two have Social Stigma (Savage). Okay, so that tells us that a good setting would be subtropical coastal forest like the Kwazulu-Cape coastal forest mosaic. The major settlements are ports, and have the usual temples and guilds, but they're also pretty wild and home to all manner of scum and villainy. This is tolerated by the local rulers in part because they're corrupt and in part because it serves as a counterweight against ogres pushing in from the north and hostile elves to the south.
3. Pick a starting town. Any port will do, but since we have two half-ogres and zero elves or half-elves, let's go with a northerly one. Only the swashbuckler, thief, and wizard are likely to go into town, so we're looking at a rogue-friendly place with a Wizards' Guild presence (and probably a strong Thieves' Guild). Magic items and covert-ops gear will be easy to get; battlefield armor and weapons, not so much.
4. Pick a starting adventure. Everybody has six meals' worth of food, so a day's travel inland should do. They'll spend the morning fighting bandits and the afternoon dodging ogres. Then they'll get to the Forbidden Place, where those villains won't go.
That's all you need. Just let it build up over successive adventures and as new PCs sign on (these guys
need a healer!), each dungeon and character background adding places and story elements. Don't worry much about the names of barons or pirate ships or even towns until they actually show up on a quest. At that point, either make something up or
ask the players to make something up.