There are a couple of guidelines out there that you can use but I would not suggest using them. Personally doing so creates a bland campaign in my mind. Your cities, kingdoms etc. all tend to be uniform and no world or plot should be uniform. When creating a world or even a plot/adventure I tend to keep in mind a few things. 1) Always keep your audience in mind. While you want to create a world or plot that you are going to have fun with when it comes down to it, the players are what drive a campaign and as long as they are having a blast then you will as well. Each group tends to have things they like; themes, styles, rp to combat ratio etc. Knowing what a group wants to get out of the game is paramount. I generally do this by either a) talking to my players before hand to get a feel for what they like in games or are looking to get out of one. or b) running a introduction storyarc that has a mix of theme's, styles, and combat to rp ratio and merely observing what gets their attention. 2) You don't have to be incredibly detailed from the get go. As a campaign goes on you can always expand on stuff as need be. This allows you a lot of freedoms as not only do you not have to come up with everything right away but allows you to customize your campaign to your players needs. As Metroknight mentioned players tend to do the exact opposite of what you are expecting or plan for, so keeping your plot and campaign rather loose and fluid allows you to compensate for any unexpected turns. Now doing it this way does require you to think on your feet a little more so planning out a few scenario's as a backup could help. Alright well I am going to end it here lest I start to get preachy. As Metroknight said, use what you want and discard the rest.