DnD4 countdown 29 - Starting settings simple

When I was younger, I had a tendency to try to create elaborate worlds and settings. I preferred starting drawing this big map, and then I added cities and states to these. History was deep and detailed and the relations between the actors in the world where comples.

And 9 times out of 10 one of two things happened:

• Somewhere along the I sidetracked and lost interest
  
• Just a small fraction of my work actually showed up in the campaign when actually playing

Lately, I have approached setting/adventure-design in another way. Basically I have gone from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach, although I don't think that I'd fit in any of those two categories to a 100%.

Basically what I do nowadays is to find a starting place, define what's around the starting place, add some far-away rumours and finaly some drama/conflict.

From this small framework I add things as the campaign progresses and this growth makes the worldbuilding a lot easier, and many times the result is more intricate and dynamic than what I ever managed to do when trying to map everything out from the beginning.

For my first campaign, my aim is to start with the following basic setting

Simple Setting Sample
The campaign starts in the Village. A small place with 100 or so inhabitants. The village is a part of the Kingdom, and there is a big City up north, where the King lives.

To the south of the village is the Dark Forest, to the east are plains, and then the big mountains. The villagers don't venture that far, but there are rumours of strange people in those mountains.
West of the kingdom there is another kingdom. These two kingdoms are at war.

There is a small farmed area around the village, and outside of that area there is wilderness.

Examples of conflict and drama

• A young couple eloped into the woods to the south to get married. They are not heard of since, but a bag belonging to one of them drifted by on the river that runs from south to north just outside the village
• A spy from the other kingdom comes to the village and pays a lot of money to setup a small, secret base of operations in the village.
• A child that strayed to far found an old amulet in one of the nearby ruins. This awoke the ghost of an old nobleman and he haunts the village to find his heirloom

Even with a simple setting, there are opportunities and openings, and I prefer to keep it like that, and then add more detail as needed and when it feels natural. This maybe doesn't make for a unique campaign that has never been seen before, but it will be a playable game that will include different interesting and exciting situations.