Curious to know how other GMs go about designing and filling out their campaigns with different material like items, NPCs, locations, etc. I’ve traditionally gone very deep and sometimes even granular (much to my own detriment because I bite off more than I can chew sometimes), and try to build out enough material to establish the setting and make everyone feel “unique” to the campaign setting.
What do you find works best for you? How deep do you like to go when building out the setting and materials? Are there any specific elements you focus more on as opposed to others?
If I’m world building and not just borrowing, then I go into decent detail. I have a set table of information I try to have fleshed out for every capital city and then another important city in whatever country. So in terms of that, it can get granular.
Cities usually go something like
Some of these are left unanswered if they’re too much, but I generally try to at least get a handle on how strict the law is, how smart the people are, and the culture and food. This helps me get a clear enough image to envelope my players in any one city. I personally also have a lot of fun trying to think of the dishes, ice flowers drizzled with fruit juices in this desert city, while an underground settlement has fried mushrooms and cow beetle steaks.
I also prefer to leave the imagery of a certain city up to an image as that can really inspire me to go from whatever I’m looking at.