Campaign creation advice and tools

I had a player ask me advice on creating a campaign world, as he is interested in running games after only playing D&D. But I have not personally created a campaign, although I have studied DMing techniques (check my sig.) I am happy that he is thinking about this as he's a really good gamer and an impressive young adult, but I would like to point him to some resources or advice for what he wants to do.

What I wanted to do was send him a link to the excellent Dungeoncraft articles from Dragon magazine that was also on the Wizard's web site, but no longer there. Anywhere else I can get them?

I advised him to read the Dungeon Master's Guide, as it's full of good advice and structure intended for someone just like him: first time DM. I informed him that people buy this book, just use it for the magic items chapter, and don't even realize that it is full of excellent DMing guidelines that would help them out of some of the problems that they are suffering from now.

He wants to create his own world instead of using a preexisting campaign. I advised him that although this can be very satisfying, he would have to do a lot of the work itself and it is possible that the amount of work he would need to do would keep him in a perpetually procrastinating mode.

I also advised him to start micro, and build out from a single point. Start with an adventure along with the immediate and relevent sites around it. He can answer some of the big metacampaign elements along the way in tiny managable bites along the way.

So, I would like to inform him of the various campaign construction tools that may be available, along with any other words of wisdom that I can pass along.

I have a copy in PDF. Email me:

eternalknight35 AT gmail DOT com

Someone here at EN World had an intriguing thought on the subject (was it Corey?). He said to make a list of all sorts of things you think are cool (pirates, dinosaurs, jungle ruins, etc.), and make sure your campaign creation leaves room for as many of them as possible. Even if the world as a whole doesn't make much sense, the settings and adventures will be fun, and that's what counts.

Two great producuts:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=711&src=RALink

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2510&src=RALink

... both of these are great for campaign creation.

The trick I feel is to understand why things are as they are. Why is this kingdom here? Why do dwarves hate orcs? Why are there more humans than halflings? Why are gnomes so smart/stupid/curious? Work these things out and you get an idea for how your world actually works, and you can use that information a lot.

RolePlayingTips.com

I cannot recommend Johnn Four's Role Playing Tips Weekly newsletter highly enough:

http://tinyurl.com/bmbhf

In particular, #272 had the best article I may have ever seen dealing with campaign creation... The article is entitled "A SIMPLE METHOD FOR CAMPAIGN CREATION: MANAGING COMPLEX SYSTEMS OVER TIME IN A CAMPAIGN WORLD" and is written by David Younce.

Of course, issues 270 and 271 had the worst article ever written (a self-contradictory 2-parter on Charisma); I almost canceled my free subscription, but I knew the quality would return - each other week has had some useful tidbit or other, it's 100% free, and readers contribute every week.

Subscribe now. Been there for 3+ years, and never had spam from his site or anyone affiliated. Great job, by the way, Johnn.

originally posted by Ketjak

I cannot recommend Johnn Four's Role Playing Tips Weekly newsletter highly enough:

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I used to love that site. I haven't recieved a new tip since #263, so I'm kinda fed up with it.

Try this web site for advice: http://www.io.com/~eighner/world_builder/world_builder_index.html

Also see the link in my sig.

Again with www.roleplayingtips.com, and www.exp.citymax.com (Expeditious Retreat Press) products. There's much useful material in both these sources.

Whimsical said:

I also advised him to start micro, and build out from a single point. Start with an adventure along with the immediate and relevent sites around it. He can answer some of the big metacampaign elements along the way in tiny managable bites along the way.

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Mostly good advice, in my opinion.

However, some of these "metacampaign elements" (world details?) will be needed straight away.

My usual approach nowadays (after deciding on some fundamentals) is to record those details that PCs will know already (including stuff 'everybody' knows, of course), or may come into contact with in the near future.

Knowing a bit about the PCs' starting location(s), POBs and backgrounds, and at least some threads and (possible) major NPCs for the first one or two sessions, could help a lot in determining what details are required, when.

Whimsical said:

I advised him to read the Dungeon Master's Guide, as it's full of good advice and structure intended for someone just like him: first time DM. I informed him that people buy this book, just use it for the magic items chapter, and don't even realize that it is full of excellent DMing guidelines that would help them out of some of the problems that they are suffering from now.

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Yeah. That's how bad DMs are created.