Bring your D&D world to life
What is it that brings a d&d campaign to life? What is it that D&D players find interesting and engaging? Of course the adventures, villains, quests and random events in a campaign matter but so do the small details.
Heroes will always have to exist alongside the day-to-day life of the world that is happening all around them (they stop being heroes if they don't exist alongside normality, which is a bit of a problem with high fantasy). When the PCs take their first step into a different world, they need to leave behind that ordinary world. One reason why we see Frodo Baggins drinking in the Inn of the Prancing Pony in the Lord of the Rings, is so we can contrast this with the extraordinary adventures he is about to go on.
Historical details and social conventions really count and should always be part of the world you are creating. The best campaign setting in the world (pick your favourite here) will always have a highly detailed culture or cultures, because this is what makes it a unique world.
In this blog we're going to look at what people wear, where they live and how their societies function. In later posts we'll explore language, but that's pretty much the biggest world building topic one can ever tackle.