Random Hook Generator, part one.

So, I firmly believe that any and all worlds should have a "hook". A hook is, for those unfamiliar with the term in gaming, a catchphrase for the setting - a shorthand that describes a prime element of the setting that makes it original and appealing.
Often, hooks describe a key feature of the setting: "it's a horror world", or "there are a lot of dragons". Sometimes, they describe what the setting lacks: "it's humans only," or "there's no divine magic". In any case, a setting with a few hooks becomes a way to describe most of what makes your setting cool in only a few sentences.

Here are a few hooks for great D&D campaigns of the past:

Dark Sun: The world is a big desert; most of the usual fantasy races are changed; gritty, post-apocalyptic world; magic defiles the land; very tough, survival-based play.
Dragonlance: Dragons play a big part in the setting; good and evil battle it out in epic wars; storylines are complex and epic.

Eberron: "Steampunk"; grand adventure; darker, gritty model of play; post world-war 2 tone; pulp and noir elements.
Of course, I'm generalizing things, here. But you get the gist. If you can boil your campaign down to a few hooks, you can really get an idea where you're heading with the design of things, and move away from "kitchen sink" campaigns that can get kind of lame. 

But sometimes, we fall flat with ideas.  Or, we keep coming to the same ideas, over and over again.  I do this all the time with Roman history - too many of my games use the old "roman" angle.  Sometimes, you just need some random numbers.  By taking a few random elements that don't usually mix well together ("Vikings" and "Deserts", for example), you get an odd combination that can get those creative juices flowing.

I got this idea from one of my favourite RPG books ever, The World Builder's Guidebook, written by Richard Baker way back in those 2nd Edition D&D days.  In the first chapter, it gave you a list of a couple of hooks, and you rolled a few random ones and went to town.  I'm going to take that first chapter, and expand upon the list. 

How to Use this Chart:  Randomly determine the number of hooks you want to use.  A good idea is to keep the number small - you'll do better with a couple of big hooks than a world that consists of a number of smaller hooks.  I'd suggest using at least two hooks, but no more than 4.  Using a d4 is a great place to start. Randomly roll a d20 on the primary chart, and then a d20 on the subsequent chart.  Or, for an interesting variation, roll once on each of the sub-charts!

Finally, the descriptions for each entry is on the following blog post.  The entry was getting incredibly long, and I wound up having to break it up into two parts for readability.  Some examples using this system will follow, without a doubt. 

(I apologize for the poor formatting... blogspot doesn't make these things easy!)

Main Table
d20 Roll     Roll On....
1-4:            Table One:  Climate or Terrain
5-9:            Table Two:  Culture of Dominance
10-12:        Table Three:  Mythological or Historical
13-14:        Table Four:  Sites of Interest
15-18:        Table Five:  Situation
19-20:        Table Six:  Theme or Tone

Climate or Terrain (roll d20)

1. Aerial
2. Archipelago
3. Arctic
4. Desert
5. Earthquakes
6. Forest
7. Inland Sea
8. Jungle
9. Lakes
10. River
11. Mountainous
12. Oceans
13. Plains
14. Planar
15. Space
16. Swamp
17. Underground
18. Uninhabitable
19. Volcanic
20. Weather

Culture of Dominance

1. African
2. Arabian
3. Biblical
4. Celtic
5. Colonial
6. Egyptian
7. Feudal
8. Greek/Roman
9. Indian
10. Mercantile
11. Mesoamerican
12. Mesopotamian
13. Native American
14. Oriental
15. Polynesian
16. Renaissance
17. Post-Renaissance
18. Seafaring
19. Stone Age
20. Viking

Mythological or Historical

1. Aloof Deities
2. Ancient Technology
3. Artifact
4. Cataclysm
5. Civil War
6. Crusade
7. Dawn of Time
8. Divine Differences
9. Epic War
10. Imperial
11. Invasion
12. Meddlesome Gods
13. Migration
14. Monstrous Uprising
15. Plague
16. Post-Apocalyptic
17. Racial Divide
18. Rebellion
19. Religious Schism
20. Small Nations

Sites of Interest (roll 1d12)

1. Battlefields
2. Castles
3. Caves
4. Dungeons
5. Guilds
6. Planar
7. Ruins
8. Ships
9. Shrines/Temples
10. University/School
11. Urban
12. Wilderness

Situation

1. Banditry/Piracy
2. Class Dominance
3. Court
4. Criminal
5. Deity
6. Dying World
7. Enemy Monster
8. Frontier
9. Magical
10. Monster Hunting
11. New World
12. Paranoia
13. Power Source
14. Psionic
15. Race Dominance
16. Religious
17. Slavery
18. Technological
19. Unrest
20. War

Theme or Tone

1. Action
2. Chivalry
3. Corruption
4. Exploration
5. Fairy Tale
6. Gritty
7. High Fantasy
8. Honour
9. Horror
10. Humour
11. Mystery
12. Pulp
13. Romance
14. Space Opera
15. Survival
16. Swashbuckling
17. Thievery
18. The Unknown
19. Western
20. Wuxia