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madlabgames · 2 days ago

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A Dungeon Master's Guide to Designing Fantasy World Geopolitics

Understanding the geopolitical forces at play in your fantasy world can transform it from a static backdrop into a dynamic, living entity. By applying real-world principles of geography, climate, and resource distribution, you can create plausible societies, enduring conflicts, and compelling narratives. This guide distills the insights from Baron de Rop's analysis of Faerûn to help you build a robust and believable geopolitical landscape for your own campaign setting.

Phase 1: Laying the Foundation – Climate & Geography

The physical world dictates the possibilities for life and society. Start by sketching out the fundamental geographical features of your world, considering their impact on resources.

Water is Life (and Society):

Identify Major Water Sources: Rivers, lakes, seas, and even massive glaciers are crucial.

Glacial Impact: If you have glaciers, consider their long-term effects:

Mountain Carving: Deep channels and valleys in areas below the ice.

Debris Fields: Scattered boulders and outcrops in lowlands, carried and deposited by glacial movement.

Floodplains/Bogs: Further from glacial foothills, where water accumulates.

Resource Distribution: Glaciers inform where arable land, stone, and metal ores might be easily accessed (e.g., runoff supporting fertile valleys, exposed rock formations).

Sea/Oceanic Influence:

Wind Patterns: Determine prevailing wind directions. Winds carrying moisture from oceans will drop it as rain when they hit elevated terrain.

Rain Shadows: The leeward side of mountain ranges will be arid or barren due to moisture being "wrung out" on the windward side.

Coastal Rainfall: Areas close to the coast will likely receive consistent sea-based rainfall, supporting lush growth.

Rivers and Lakes:

Fertile Land: River valleys and lake basins are often the most fertile areas, ideal for agriculture.

Transportation Arteries: Rivers provide efficient, cost-effective transport routes.

Terrain & Resources:

Mountains: Source of stone and metal ores. Act as natural barriers, influencing population movement and defense.

Forests: Provide timber for construction and fuel. Indicate areas of consistent rainfall.

Grasslands/Steppes:

Rainfall Indicators: Lack of trees or lush grass suggests arid conditions and lower rainfall.

Migratory Fauna: Consider if large herd animals (like bison or wildebeest) exist that prevent tree growth by trampling. If so, this explains why a fertile plain might remain a grassland rather than a forest.

Nomadic Lifestyles: Arid grasslands often support nomadic herding populations.

Swamps/Marshes: Impede movement and trade, making regions harder to access or develop.

Scale Matters:

Define Your Map's Scale: Understand the vastness of your regions. Is a "forest" the size of a national park or a small country? This influences travel times, resource availability, and the scope of conflicts.

Distance & Cost: Remember that overland travel is significantly more expensive than water-based transport (up to 20 times!).

Phase 2: Populating the World – Societies & Interactions

Once your geography is set, think about how different populations would emerge and interact based on these physical realities.

Cities & Settlements:

Harbor & River Mouths: Large cities often arise at defensible natural harbors or at the mouths of wide, navigable rivers, enabling trade.

Resource Access: Settlements thrive where there's easy access to essential resources: water, fertile land, timber, and building materials (stone, metal).

Strategic Locations: Consider choke points, defensible positions (e.g., mountains on two sides, flanked by water), or resource hubs.

Growth Potential: Cities with diverse resource access and good trade routes are poised for greater growth and wealth. If a prime location isn't a major city, ask "Why not?" (e.g., a historical disaster, a powerful magical threat, a societal choice).

Trade & Economy:

Water Dominance: Water-based trade is king. Settlements with river or sea access will naturally become economic hubs.

Overland Trade Routes:

Purpose: If roads exist, especially through difficult terrain, they imply a strong economic incentive (e.g., highly prized rare commodities).

Maintenance: Such roads might be remnants of fallen civilizations, or require significant ongoing investment.

Support Structures: Look for smaller settlements or outposts spaced about a day's travel apart to support caravans (like the Silk Road).

Resource Needs vs. Availability: What resources does one region have in abundance, and what do they need that another region possesses? This drives trade and potential conflict.

Security & Conflict:

Defensibility: Geography plays a massive role in a region's defensibility.

Natural Barriers: Mountains, large rivers, dense forests, or coastal cliffs can provide significant protection (e.g., Northern Italy's defensible position).

Open Plains: Flat, expansive terrain is notoriously difficult to defend and often becomes a historical "war-torn region" (e.g., Poland).

Threats from Neighbors:

Nomadic Warriors: Arid steppe regions can breed tough, mobile warriors (like the Mongols) who, when their populations grow too large for their land to support, may invade more fertile, settled areas.

Maritime Threats: Island chains or coastal populations can pose significant threats to mainland trade through piracy, privateering, or controlling sea lanes.

Strategic Control Points: Identify locations whose control gives dominion over larger regions (e.g., islands controlling a coast, or a mountain pass controlling trade).

Societal Development & Culture:

Resource Abundance & Stability: When basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) are easily met, populations can pursue higher levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, leading to cultural advancements, art, science, and luxury goods (e.g., Renaissance in Northern Italy).

Resource Scarcity & Isolation: Regions with limited resources and difficult access to broader economies may foster:

Self-Reliance & Mistrust: People are isolated and have to make everything themselves.

Tribalism & Infighting: Poverty and limited opportunities can lead to internal strife.

Lack of Education/Advancement: Without exposure to external ideas, scientific and magical advancements may be slow or non-existent.

Toughness: People from harsh environments are often hardy and formidable.

Phase 3: Refining & Injecting Fantasy

Once you have a plausible baseline, it's time to layer in the magic and fantastical elements of your world.

The "Why Not?" Question:

For every real-world geopolitical expectation you've set up, ask if your world's magic, creatures, or lore provide a compelling reason for it not to happen that way.

Example: If a rich river delta isn't a major city, is it because a powerful dragon lairs there, or a perpetual magical blight makes it uninhabitable?

Example: Are roads through a perilous mountain range maintained by magically enchanted constructs, or by a specific group whose unique abilities make it feasible?

Fantastical Influences on Geography:

Magical Storms/Climate Control: Does a powerful wizard control the weather, influencing rainfall patterns?

Elemental Rifts: Do elemental energies shape terrain in unusual ways, creating impossible mountains or perpetually burning forests?

Divine Intervention: Did a god's act create a unique resource or transform a landscape?

Racial/Creature Geopolitics:

Resource Needs: Do certain races have unique resource requirements (e.g., dwarves needing specific ores, elves needing ancient forests)?

Environmental Preferences: Do they thrive in specific biomes (e.g., drow in underground caverns, minotaurs in labyrinths)?

Natural Defenses/Advantages: Do their innate abilities (flight, burrowing, magical resistance) change their interaction with terrain?

Predatory/Prey Relationships: How do dangerous creatures affect settlement patterns and trade routes?

Historical Layers:

Fallen Civilizations: Use ancient ruins, forgotten roads, or abandoned cities to hint at past geopolitical realities that have shaped the present. What brought them down? How did their fall change the landscape of power?

Long-Term Consequences: Consider the lasting impact of major historical events on the current geopolitical map (e.g., an ancient war that left a region barren, a magical cataclysm that isolated an area).

Phase 4: Testing & Iteration

Your geopolitical map is a living document.

Ask Questions: Constantly challenge your assumptions. Why would people settle here? What would they do? What would they need? Who would they fight?

Interconnectivity: Ensure that the choices you make for one region have logical ripple effects on others. A war in one area might disrupt trade for another; a new magical discovery in a third might shift the balance of power.

Conflict Drivers: Use your geopolitical insights to generate plausible conflicts, alliances, and rivalries. Resource scarcity, trade route control, defensible borders, and historical grudges all make for compelling story hooks.

By systematically applying these geopolitical considerations, you'll create a fantasy world that feels more grounded, dynamic, and ripe for adventure, providing a solid foundation for countless campaigns. Good luck, Dungeon Masters!

The Primary Source for this paper was an amazing video mentioned in the top, linked below.

youtube

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feministfangirl · 8 years ago

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Hey I just that evil smiling picture of you playing dnd. I was wondering what you did to become a good dm, I've been curious about playing the game for a while and I think I have to be the dm if I want people to play with lol. Thanks for any help

I promise I didn’t ignore you! I’ve been real busy this week, and wanted to treat this question with the respect it deserves. Thanks for asking me…and assuming I’m a good DM, lol. I try to be good by following the cardinal rule: if you and your players have fun, you win! It’s easy to think it’s you v. the players as a DM, but really it’s a story you’re all making together, you help keep it going smoothly but it belongs to all of you. Once you look at it all from that perspective it gets less stressful, for me at least. Now I know it’s kinda weird since I did kill my players in that picture you saw going around… But that was a one shot. And there were ample opportunities for them to reverse the tide, but the dice were not on their side. Anyway. I’m sure you’re looking for more concrete answers. Here are the most important things I did in learning to DM. 1. Watch D&D gamesI watched Critical Role for a few weeks. After years of being afraid to DM, Matthew Mercer made it look easy and fun. He told fun stories and had varied characters and his players were so invested! The more I watched the more I wanted to play. And the best part about watching Critical Role is that there are 102 episodes and counting. Tons of material to mine for ideas. Another good one is The Adventure Zone podcast. It starts out a little slow for my tastes but once you get into it it’s AMAZING. I love the story in this one, it’s a great way to show you don’t have to stick to typical fantasy tropes to have a great game. Any genre can be a fun game. While watching, I paid attention to what kinds of rolls the DM called for in situations, how many monsters you could throw before combat gets hazy, how hard it is to DM for lots of people, how long combat takes, how to describe effects based on dice roll, and most importantly, when to stone face your players and when to laugh like the evil genius you are. 2. Get tips from expertsOkay, so, now you think you could probably do the thing, but you don’t want to screw it up right out of the gate. I spent years too scared to DM because it seemed like there was too much to know. I went looking for words of wisdom and found the aforementioned Matt Mercer’s GM Tips. It’s a great series of videos that are short and helpful, split up by topic. Another great series of videos is anything from Matthew Colville, whose Running the Game videos are probably the second largest influence on my work as a Dungeon Master (after Matt Mercer). I also read tons of articles from the official D&D website, like the Sage Advice column. I read every Unearthed Arcana article and thought about how those adjustments compared to the Player’s Handbook. I signed up for the Roleplaying Tips mailing list run by Johnn Four, whose advice is probably the third largest influence on my DMing. I heavily recommend it also because it’s great to get a reminder to work on D&D every few days when a new tip arrives in your inbox. Seriously the best mailing list I’ve ever been on. He also answers questions and solicits answers from the community, so he’s a great resource for obscure wonders.3. Join a communityThis kind of follows from the previous point about advice from Johnn directly. If you’re really struggling with the density of the Core Rulebooks and are daunted by the many columns and tables, a community can help explain things. For instance, I had a lot of trouble parsing how exactly XP adjusted values work. I asked online, and someone helpfully pointed out the reference and made an example so I’d get how to use it myself. Tumblr is good, but I prefer reddit for D&D things. Some great subreddits are r/DMAcademy, r/DMToolkit, r/DnDBehindtheScreen, r/mattcolville (yes, that same Matt Colville), r/UnearthedArcana, and r/worldbuilfing.

There are a number of other forums specifically for D&D that I have accounts for but never use, mostly because I am still recovering from my forum days… I won’t date myself and say how long ago.4. Google is your friend!I google everything I need for D&D. Sometimes, even though I know the information I want is in my PHB, the book is on my shelf and I’d have to search for the info. The internet can tell me what I need to know NOW. So! Here’s my advice for googling D&D stuff, along with some of my favourite links.

Rules: Include ‘5e’ or ‘fifth edition’ along with the keyword you’re looking for. This will reduce your chances of ending up on a site intended for players of another edition.Spells: Don’t google them, go to dnd-spells.com. Seriously. This website saves my life every time I play D&D. You can also make spellbooks for your characters and then generate pdfs before your game! It’s MAGICAL!Monsters: Homebrew monsters can be fun but be careful when implementing them in your game. If you need help building encounters (like I do), use Kobold Fight Club.Images: Google image search can get you really general or really specific stuff. If you want random images to inspire you you’re better off looking at something like The MET.Names: There is one site to end all sites for this. For all other generators, see donjon.5. Steal like an artistI have a lot of fun watching, reading, and playing other types of media and thinking, “I’m going to steal that for my game.” I love comic books for example. Recently, I decided to put Iron Man into my game. Not for any reason, just because it would be fun. I didn’t simply put Tony Stark as a rich human noble into my game and wait for my player to meet him so I could do my best Robert Downey Jr. impression. I thought about what makes that character exciting and recognizable and transported it into the steampunk world of my campaign. I changed his name and race. I made him an Artificer, a Gunslinger protective of his prototypes (*waves at Taliesin*), who could also build Mech Suits that are as much works of art as they are feats of magical engineering. I gave him an assistant with a romantic love triangle and let him loose in my world. It was so much fun to watch my player figure out my inspiration! Not every NPC needs this level of detail, but all your choices should circle back to 'How well would this work in MY world?’ By taking inspiration from the things you love, filling in the 'gaps’ to breathe life into your universe should come easily. I didn’t know Tran Intubi (Tony Stark) had a gallery of retired mech suits in his Tower but I described as such in-game. The description came naturally when I had a base inspiration to rely on.I hope that was more helpful than long-winded!

#dungeons and dragons #d&d #critical role #dungeon master #game master #dnd #DM

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