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Hello!
Hello OP! Just thought I'd leave a note saying thanks for having a site like this. I saw OP a year ago (or so, I'm not entirely sure) and thought it was a great idea, but it's only in the last couple weeks that I've signed up and started generating a world for my players. I'm used to a more dungeon-crawl style of game, so I'm just sort of curious about how much of the world I should build up before I set them loose in it. I don't have a lot of continent so far, a couple NPC backgrounds, the starting town is fairly heavily under construction, but the skeleton for it is up, as well for a couple other settlements. What should I make sure to knock off my checklist in the next week or so before the game starts, from a world point of view?
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One thing that is very distracting (at least personally): I don't have a huge knowledge of coding, but I dabble. I find myself looking at other people's pages and seeing shiny baubles and pretty graphics, tables, etc. I want to do these things, too, but it is a HUGE distraction from my actual world building. So my advice if you can't just bust out code like a madman is keep it simple. A good story outweighs cool graphics any day.
If you want to start with "the basics", try to think what the basics would be for your campaign if *you* were a player. Some suggestions:
* Map: upload a map, this will give your players an idea of where they are.
* Town: just cover the basics for the town they are currently at (taverns, temples, authorities, and resources... specially the equipment they can buy). You don't have to detail everything, just mention a couple of things about each place, and if they can buy the basic equipment covered in the PHB, maybe magic items up to level 1, 2 or 3, etc.
* Gods: mention if your pantheon is the same as the one from the PHB, or if there are differences. If so, name the differences (you can explain the "why" later, don't worry about that now).
* House Rules: I agree with vstraydogstrutv, most people like to have a house rules section. Throw in there everything that's not covered in the books your group is using. Again: just mention it, you'll have time to detail everything later.
If it helps, look at my wiki, it's in spanish but it could give you an idea of how to organize your information: "Wiki":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/14925/wikis/main-page . Don't worry about adding art work, backgrounds, fancy buttons and such at the beggining, after all I added all those things after writting each page.
BTW: when you *are* ready to add buttons, read this "thread":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1248&page=1#Item_5 , you may find it useful, arsheesh created some navigation buttons for the community.
Just remember that everyone group is different. The main point you need to keep in mind is that this is your tool. If it does not help you it does not matter what it looks like it would be a waste of time. So first just think of what you want and go from there.
I would heartily agree with the sage advice of Straydog, Sandman and Socrates. To this allow me to add my own experience: "don't bite off more than you can chew!" In my first campaign site here at the portal, I attempted to flesh out an entire, comprehensive, custom campaign world from scratch. In doing so, I tried to achieve both breadth and depth. I spent way too much time on detail, and as a result, in time my site became a bit unwieldy, and yet remains no where near complete. I have begun to despair of ever completing my site (though I do still intend to).
More recently, I began a new campaign, "Tales of Darkmoon Vale":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/tales-of-darkmoon-vale set within the same campaign world but utilizing some some Paizo modules. My design philosophy for this site has been twhofold: (1) to simplify navigation/user interface of the site as much as possible, and; (2) to create wiki pages on a "need-to-know" basis. That is, I now create new NPC's, places etc. as my players encounter them (however I do use links to my other campaign site as a way of giving my players the option to read up on more details of the world if they should choose to do so). This design philosophy has proven far more manageable for me, and I believe has made the site more accessible to my players since they do not have to wade through a host of detailed wiki entries in order to locate information that they need. Having said this, I will affirm what others have said: you need to determine for yourself both how and what you want to use the site for, and what the scope of the site will be. For instance, if you are into worldbuilding and are creating your own unique campaign setting to game in, then you will likely need to incorporate allot more information about the world/region etc in your site for your players. However, if you are using a standard campaign setting that has already been fleshed out elsewhere (e.g. Eberron or Forgotten Realms), then perhaps all you need to begin with is the immediate starting location of the campaign and house rules, and other details can be added as time allows. Well, that's my 2 cents anyway.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh