Ry
Explorer
What follows is something I wrote for one of my players who is taking the GM's chair for a while. He wanted to know how to design a setting that wasn't entirely built around a linear / railroading plot. This was my advice:
Think of the campaign setting like an amusement park - but the players are halfway between visitors and employees.
Draw a map of the physical landscape, focusing on the rides and restaurants (i.e. multiple areas of interest).
Design the rides (cool and important locations) restaurants (places to meet people and chat) parades (localized events that can be put to multiple spots) and the all-important special event days (major campaign events).
Just as important are the employees - especially those in charge of the rides (villains and allies). Don't forget vendors (home base NPCs) and performers (wandering NPCs). For the purpose of the analogy, centralized management of the theme park has totally collapsed - so determine what cliques (factions) have formed, who's in charge, etc. Most of all, think of how they would react to the PCs showing up - would they shun them, throw food at them, try to scam them, get a hand calming down some belligerent visitor, or put them to work?
Visitors fall into two categories: Peasants and monsters. Neither really has any idea what is going on, but the former just do what the employees tell them to do, and the latter mess things up for the employees. Vandals, as well as the scary guy who owns the farm next door and hates the amusement park also fall into the monster category.
Don't worry so much about the boundaries, except to make sure that on the way to a boundary there is always a ride or restaurant that will look like more fun than the parking lot.
Last of all is the special guests - bands and whatnot that come with big events. What's their story? Are they just trying to sleep with the waitresses or are they looking to cause a riot?
As a final note, it's a theme park. Design everything along your theme. A good setting will have enough premise-appropriate content to fill all the roles I designed above.
Don't stress out over plot. Plot-heavy linear isn't everyone's style, and I think it creates a problem when you have Location A -> Location B -> Location C rather than the players having freedom to go back to places they've been and find interesting stuff to do near the places they'd like to go to.
What you want to watch for, though, is anything uber. If only one guy sells bulletproof t-shirts, or the cotton candy vendor can basically kill everyone in the park, you hit deadlock. The players basically fixate on that one element forever. Even if bulletproof t-shirt guy balances cotton candy vendor, it makes the whole rest of the place less fun.
So there's my advice for building a campaign.
Think of the campaign setting like an amusement park - but the players are halfway between visitors and employees.
Draw a map of the physical landscape, focusing on the rides and restaurants (i.e. multiple areas of interest).
Design the rides (cool and important locations) restaurants (places to meet people and chat) parades (localized events that can be put to multiple spots) and the all-important special event days (major campaign events).
Just as important are the employees - especially those in charge of the rides (villains and allies). Don't forget vendors (home base NPCs) and performers (wandering NPCs). For the purpose of the analogy, centralized management of the theme park has totally collapsed - so determine what cliques (factions) have formed, who's in charge, etc. Most of all, think of how they would react to the PCs showing up - would they shun them, throw food at them, try to scam them, get a hand calming down some belligerent visitor, or put them to work?
Visitors fall into two categories: Peasants and monsters. Neither really has any idea what is going on, but the former just do what the employees tell them to do, and the latter mess things up for the employees. Vandals, as well as the scary guy who owns the farm next door and hates the amusement park also fall into the monster category.
Don't worry so much about the boundaries, except to make sure that on the way to a boundary there is always a ride or restaurant that will look like more fun than the parking lot.
Last of all is the special guests - bands and whatnot that come with big events. What's their story? Are they just trying to sleep with the waitresses or are they looking to cause a riot?
As a final note, it's a theme park. Design everything along your theme. A good setting will have enough premise-appropriate content to fill all the roles I designed above.
Don't stress out over plot. Plot-heavy linear isn't everyone's style, and I think it creates a problem when you have Location A -> Location B -> Location C rather than the players having freedom to go back to places they've been and find interesting stuff to do near the places they'd like to go to.
What you want to watch for, though, is anything uber. If only one guy sells bulletproof t-shirts, or the cotton candy vendor can basically kill everyone in the park, you hit deadlock. The players basically fixate on that one element forever. Even if bulletproof t-shirt guy balances cotton candy vendor, it makes the whole rest of the place less fun.
So there's my advice for building a campaign.
