USING 'TOP 7 LISTS' TO HELP ASSIMILATE PUBLISHED GAME WORLDS

In my D&D campaign, the characters visited an insane asylum for outer-planes

beings, found a gate, and were transported to a whole new world. I've had to put this
campaign on hold 'till I meet a few deadlines, but I haven't stopped planning.
One of the challenges I'm facing is that I transported the PCs to a published setting
called Forgotten Realms. And it's huge, with gobs of materials to check out and
absorb. So, I needed a quick way to get a handle on things so I could spend time
planning encounters instead of reading books.
This week's article discusses the process I used, and it worked out quite well for me--I
hope it works for you to. It can be used to digest any published game world, be it
online, in a book, free, $$, or whatever.
1. Outside In
=============
I had a campaign area already established, so my goal was to learn about the major
aspects of the game world and figure out how that would affect the daily life of the
PCs and NPCs. With this knowledge, I can roleplay and plan encounters better and
with greater consistency.
I chose to work from the outside in. That is, I looked at the huge issues first, such as
the gods and their agendas, and then slowly drilled things down to the level of my
campaign area.
Many GMs work this way, and many do the opposite--they work from the campaign
area outwards. Either approach is fine! Pick the one that you feel most comfortable
with.
2. Why Top 7 Lists?
===================
I believe the 80/20 rule applies with absorbing world books and supplements. 80% of
what you need to start a campaign or adventure that is to be consistent with
published game world information can be derived from knowing just 20% of that
information.
In other words, you don't need to learn and remember every detail that's in your
world books to start. And that's the goal: to start. Not to get bogged down by reading
and research.
As the campaign progresses, you'll have plenty of opportunities to do more research,
make up your own things and declare any inconsistencies that pop up as "local or
regional variations ;)", read between games, and so on. You'll learn it all eventually.
The easiest way to figure out that 80% is to make some lists about the basic
elements of your world. The lists should be long enough to give you a good overview,
but they also need to be short enough so that they don't take forever to create. So, I
found "Top 7" lists to be the perfect size. Top 5's were too short for me, and Top 10's
took too long.
Making lists isn't always easy either. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of reading
or skimming. But that's what made the process so effective for me. It wasn't enough

to simply read through the world information; I had to understand the basics well
enough to be able to prioritize things into a
Top 7 format.
Finally, once I was done I had some awesome reference materials and cheat sheets.
Nothing beats organized listings of information for in-game, on-the-fly reference. :)
3. Top 7 Religions
==================
My campaign world is fantasy, therefore I made a Top 7 Gods
list. If your world is different, then you can focus on
religions.
I just wanted to quickly learn who the major divine powers
were. As stated in a previous Tips issue, a single god could
have multiple organizations of followers or religions
associated with it, but I just needed to know who the most
important deities were for now.
It was a tough job picking the Top 7 Gods as there are many,
many deities in the Forgotten Realms. After skimming through
the profiles, I just picked the ones who seemed the most
significant or who appealed to me most. I also made sure to
pick at least two evil gods for setting up campaign
conflicts.
I also wanted to learn a little, but not a lot, about each
deity, so I created the following profile for each one:
Common Name(s):
Portfolio: (i.e. Weather, Death, Magic)
Alignment:
Page#:
Goals:
Recent Actions:
I found this profile quick to fill out, and I felt it would
help me plan and/or game master any of the deities' churches
or priests who the PCs might come across.
4. Top 7 Kingdoms And Countries
===============================
The gods list gave me a wide-scale overview of the major
religious motivations governing the world. Next, I wanted to
learn more about the biggest political entities that would
affect my campaign area.
These are usually kingdoms, countries, large cities, and so
on, that neighbour my campaign area. But, I also glanced at
the other world entries in the book just in case remote nations
had significant influence as well for whatever reason (such
as war, magical might, technology, cultural epicentres,
etc.).

Here's the profile I created for each place:

Name:
Population/Races:
Major Traits: (i.e. what makes the nation different?)
Government:
Beliefs/Religions:
Recent Actions/Conflicts:
5. Top 7 Power Groups
=====================
Not all political and social influences are determined
through the gods or countries. So, I wanted to list the most
important cults, societies, military orders, cultures, subcultures, secret organizations, and other significant power
groups who could be plotting in the game world.
For each group, I wrote:
Name(s):
Membership:
Purpose/Goals:
Affiliations:
Recent Actions:
This was a tough one also, because of the large number of
possibilities within the Realms. So, I either chose groups
who had the largest potential campaign impact, or who
sounded like they could spawn the coolest adventures.
6. Top 7 Powerful People
========================
Next, I wanted to know who the most important people were in
the world.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Kings, Queens, rulers

Great mages
High priests
Famous adventurers
Powerful nobles
Wealthy merchants
Major villains

I had a large list to choose from, so I based my decisions

on potential campaign effect, influence over/in the PCs'
region, and biggest potential presence in the game.
By "potential presence" I mean having the greatest
likelihood of tangling the PCs in their plots, or of getting
tangled in the PCs' plots.
Here's the profile I quickly made for each person:

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Real name:
Aliases:
Core game stats: (i.e. class and level)
Alignment/Morality/Ethics:
Key powers:
Personality:
Goals:
Current plots:
Allies:
Enemies:

Also, whenever possible and when it seemed fitting, I picked

NPCs who were affiliated with entries in my previous Top 7
lists: Religions, Kingdoms, and Power Groups. By doing this,
I was hoping to close the loop in my research a bit and make
my campaign start be a little more manageable.
7. Top 7 Movers And Shakers
===========================
This category is nearly identical to the Top 7 Powerful
People list but is local in scope only. That is, within my
PCs' region, a small city, who are the people who get things
done for the most powerful people in the campaign?
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Agents
Fences
Informants
Local politicians, nobles, community leaders
Leaders of underground organizations
Merchants and wealthy people
Consultants, advisors, sages

I couldn't find any information about these people in my

game literature, so I just made them up. I felt it was
important to know who they were as they would be the primary
non-PC plotters, story seeds, and adventure hooks.
8. Top 7 Conflicts
==================
After beginning at the top -- the gods, and working my way
down, I finally felt comfortable researching or coming up
with the biggest conflicts affecting the local people in my
campaign, be they wars, villainous schemes, power plays,
greedy plots, actions of revenge, etc.
You don't have to stick to the letter of the game materials
by any means. But, the Forgotten Realms book and supplements
provide many great conflicts and adventures, and I wanted to
keep things fairly consistent at this point to help make my
job easier--I have a whole campaign ahead of me to diverge
from official materials, and I'm in information absorption
and campaign launch mode right now--I've gotta take things one

step at a time.
For each conflict, I outlined the following:
*
*
*
*
*
*

Title:
Participants:
Description/Overview:
Key individuals involved:
Key location(s):
Core time line: (i.e. just the key past, present, future
events)

9. Top 7 Recent Events

======================
Now we're starting to pull things together. Scanning the
entries from my world book, and looking at what I wrote in
the recent conflict entries in the various Top 7 lists I
made, I had many recent events to choose from.
This was a nice bonus, because I often find recent events a
little tricky to come up with on-the-fly. Plus, all the
events, including the book ones, had a solid rationale
behind them, and that's a great GM feeling.
I plan on using the events Top 7 list for a variety of
purposes:
*
*
*
*
*
*

Roleplaying (i.e. small talk)

Generating rumours and gossip (i.e. clues)
Plot hooks
Story seeds
Background flavour
Campaign realism

While I had many to choose from, I just focused on 7 to keep

things manageable. From an NPC's perspective, most people
only chat about the weather and 2-3 current news items
important to them anyway, so I didn't need a mile-long list.
For each event, I recorded the following:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Title:
Who:
What:
Where:
When:
Why:
How:
Who cares about it:

10. Top 7 Standard Opponents

============================
If every encounter involves a completely different monster,

foe, or opponent, the world soon feels like a zoo. So, I

wanted to establish some common opponents for my PCs so that
they could develop some:
*
*
*
*

Rivalries
Knowledge
Tactics
Campaign information

This list was pretty quick to make. I skimmed the book

looking for new monsters, races, and character classes (to
initially surprise the characters and give them some
mysterious opponents to learn about). Then I turned to my
Top 7 Conflicts, Power Groups, and Movers & Shakers lists to
fill out the remaining spots.
I'm actually contemplating making three separate lists:
* Urban
* Rural
* Dungeon/Esoteric
But for now, I mixed all the categories together, with most
of the foes being in the city the PCs are currently
exploring.
11. Top 7 Praises And Curses
============================
It drives me nuts when I have an NPC curse and swear but I
can't think of what to say. It destroys the effect I'm
trying to achieve, and makes the scene turn into undesired
comic relief for my players.
So, as I had the preparation time, I scoured the book for
common sayings, and then invented some curses and praises to
fill out the list.
I listed 4 curses and 3 praises, in order of severity, and I
based them primarily on the world's religions and villains.
For example, the god of death always makes for a good curse:
"May Osiris take your bones!"
12. Top 7 Interesting Places
============================
Next, I listed the most interesting places in the local
campaign area for:
*
*
*
*

Adventures
Encounters
Conversation
Background events

I drew upon my pool of conflicts and my source materials to

create this list. For each place, I described:

*
*
*
*

Name:
Location:
Importance:
Interesting feature(s):

***
I'm still not finished my lists either. As I read the
Forgotten Realms book I pick up new bits of information that
makes me re-prioritize a list, or add a new entry. That's
fine. The most important thing is that I have a solid basis
for roleplaying in this published world now--all future
refinements and additions are a bonus. :)
Your GMing style might benefit from additional or alternate
Top 7 lists. Do whatever you need to, but remember that the
goal is to just get up and running without spending too many
hours on initial research.
Another objective, for me personally at least, is to keep my
facts straight about the published world I've decided to use
in the first few game sessions. I don't want to shoot myself
in the foot and make a critical error that renders a lot of
the published information moot or significantly different.
Finally, there's no reason why you couldn't use this process
to create a campaign region from scratch. The lists help
focus your thoughts, planning, and energy, and you are
creating great reference materials as you go!