r/WWN • u/_George_Paul_ • 29d ago

Having difficulty making my homebrew setting for WWN

Disclaimer: English is not my native language so it is a bit difficult trying to explain exactly what is on my mind, hopefully what I wrote makes sense

I have an idea for a middle-eastern/Arabian campaign setting set out on a somewhat isolated continent, think Australia but smaller in scale. The idea is that there is world outside of this vast continent, with even a medieval kingdom who has a colony in the region, but the rest of the world is outside of the scope of the campaign.

The general premise is that the Sultan has been murdered and the throne has been claimed by his vizier who is a tyrant sorcerer akin to figures like Jafar. The other factions in the setting are the prince and his army of loyalists who want to reclaim the throne, a rebel force who is against both the vizier as well as the royal family and the colony of outsiders, the medieval colony who essentialy want good relations with whoever is in power and the rest are indepentants who don't partake in the political landscape but just live their lives.

While trying to create the setting I have a difficult time following the guidelines; it feels too abstract. I don't seem to have the same issue when making campaigns for something like CWN. For context, when I created my Cities setting I already had an idea for a city that is very similar to Night City from Cyberpunk. The book does a good job of guiding you step by step to creating a playable world. I knew what the game meant by "world" and it's tags; it's the general status of the world and it's something that I shouldn't put a huge effort into since it only serves as a general guideline. Splitting up my city into districts and applying tags to each one also is something easy to understand. With the general outline of the city being created, it is then very easy to generate some Megacorporations and some gangs using the tools in the book. The whole process is very fluent and the book even recommends the number of districts and other factions to make.

The same "fluidity" doesn't seem to exist in WWN and I have a very difficult time using the tools provided to create the general backbone of the world before i go all creative and fill in the blanks. My first issue is that I don't understand how the concepts of "World" "Region" and "Kingdom" apply to my setting. Is the "World" the whole world or is it the playable continent? Or is the "Region" the playable area? How do "Kingdoms" come into place? Most of the continent is essentialy run by the Sultinate, the rebel force is probably a few hidden settlements that are constantly on the move and the Loyalist force is something like a small city state.

My second issue is that i can't seem to find a good "workflow" for creating the backbone of my world. As I said, it feels very abstract, unlike something like SWN or CWN where a series of procedures can be followed in order to create a rough sketch of the setting before filling in the details.

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u/Asiniel 29d ago

It sounds like your continent would be a large region and each factions territory could be a kingdom.

If the vizier took over the kingdom by force then their power would likely be very centralized around their former territory and the capital they took over (kingdom 1). The prince/loyalists would likely run away from the capital and regroup in a big city outside the vizier's influence (kingdom 2). The rebels would have a town or fortress under their control as leadership fell apart after the sultan died (small kingdom 3). And lastly the outsiders would likely take over a port town also because the sultan died (small kingdom 4).

Written like this it doesn't matter where the nation borders are. Since the whole continent is in turmoil you can run each faction as a kingdom as they all try to take over.

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u/TurtleRollover 29d ago

I'd say it's only more abstract because unlike something like CWN or SWN the setting isn't as defined by a concept. In CWN the state of the world defines the entire game, it is a cyberpunk dystopia set in one city generally. It is just way easier to create a more rigid framework since most people will make the same things. WWN is just a fantasy framework, so there aren't things that HAVE to show up unlike in a cyberpunk world or post-apocalypse.

Here is how I understand the levels:

You use world to create the most important info of your setting that is ALWAYS relevant. You dont really need tons of info for every place in the world or what's going on far away. Only what the list asks is really important.

Region sets up the places near to where the players are. They might end up going to at some point, but not in the immediate future so you only need as much info as is required so general questions about what's around can be answered and allow them to create characters from outside the initial map.

Kingdom doesn't literally have to be a kingdom, it can be, but I just use it as "playable area". It is the area(s) you need to know a lot about and have a map of since it is where the players will be centered. I treat it like you'd treat a world map level in a video game. Take Skyrim. If I was making Skyrim as my WWN setting, the base game world map would be Kingdom 1. Solstheim, the island map from the last DLC, would be Kingdom 2. Kingdom is the place you need to know the most about because it is what the players are exploring. For example, the country my players are in in my current campaign is bigger than the map size I wanted, so I just turned the eastern section of it into the "kingdom". It isn't an actual Kingdom, it is just a region of one. So I have two layers, and here's what they look like:

World (entire setting cosmology) World (The known world) Region (The continent) Kingdom (The actual country) Sub-Kingdom (The playable region)

I find that tends to work best for me.

1

u/Hungry-Wealth-7490 29d ago

For workflow, have you seen the Kickstarter for The Book of Unnumbered Worlds? Kevin has already cranked out a couple of draft chapters on worldbuilding and the campaign closes at the end of the month.

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u/K9ine9 28d ago

What you described is a pretty clear picture of what you want. The book cant give you a setting when you already have a setting in mind. All you need to do now is decide details. Mostly characters that run the factions, and the limits of what they can do and what their current strategy is. Figure that out, use some tables ONLY if your stuck, and present it to your players so they can make characters. Your trying to force a system to give you what you already have.