Campaign Setup Issue

[Eben]

I disagree

In the end it's all about knowing your players. The group I've been playing with (since time immemorable) are friends first and foremost. Roleplaying is a social thing not a technical statistical number cruncing fest for us. None of us have the time not the inclination to plow through the multitude of sourcebooks available. We use what we have and go from there. So the crunchy part of a campaign is pretty much covered as far as we're concerned.
Which leaves us the narrative part. No big primers or whatnot. Just sitting around a table, telling stories and making up the dudes that will live through them.

Peter

 

[Nyaricus]

Fair enough - it's just your post started out more like you were stating a fact, rather than an opinion, and I disagreed with that.

And yes, in the end it is simply about knowing your players

cheers,
--N

 

[Lord Zardoz]

This is way too dependant on the campaign

Every DM runs a different sort of campaign and has different expectations of what the game should play like. So the advice that every one here gives is going to be influenced a great deal on what their games are like.

For myself, games that I run are set up in such a way that the player characters are usually not integral to the plot arc of the campaign. I set up the world and set up some dire scenario that the PC's can intervene in, but the PC's usually do not have a personal attachment to the story. This changes later in the campaign based on in game events, but early on the PC's are not individually important to the story. I am trying to play a game, not recreate the Lord of the Rings in the 'make beleif with dice' medium.

This is because Fecal Matter Happens. Players that thought they could play regularly turn out to be unable to. Or they realize they hate their character and want to play something else.

This means that in my games, I basically hand the players the PHB and let them go to town. I ask them not to make evil characters, but that is about it. My initial story hooks are in no way dependant on specific character types being available.

If I want some back story, I will wait until I know what kind of character the PC is, and then invent something consistent. But the hooks I create are also not important to the inital adventure hooks. I might use them later, or I might work the hooks in as an opportunity arises, but that is it.

Now, if you have an urge to run a campaign where the heroes are personally invested in the campaign and everything that happens is part of some intricate story you have been thinking of for months, this might not work. Perhaps Monks just dont fit in your campaign world, and becuase the story centers on an Elf king summoning heroes to oppose a demon army, the thought of said Elf king appointing a half orc barbarian as a Defender of the Realm just shatters the aesthetic qualities of the story.

And now my advice regarding pre campaign handouts.

If your hoping to run a game that has a strong narrative element, you need to sit down with your players, tell them roughly what the campaign will be about. Tell them about the kinds of things you prefer not to see. List all the class and race restrictions, and tell them about the campaign setting. Most importantly, make sure they actually want to play in that kind of a game. If you dont want someone to roleplay a Gnomish Bard who thinks he is a ladies man who takes his ques from Leisure Suit Larry, you will want to spell that out early.

If your just hoping to collect a handfull of character hooks that you can use to let your players justify going on an adventure, then your probably best off letting the players create what they want, and creating the hooks after you know what your players are looking to do.

Lastly, If you intend to have any sort of character backstories created in advance of the campaign, then you will absolutely need to have all characters created well in advance of the first game. This means you will probably have to use a big chunk of your first game just creating the characters.

If you want your players to be able to show up to the first game ready to play with fully statted out characters in hand, your best off forgetting about having any character hooks created before the game. You will be lucky if you can invent a plausible reason for the players to work together.

Bonus: General purpose excuses for the players to work together.

- If all are same race, or can otherwise be made plausible, go for siblings or childhood friends.
- Start the game with all the players in jail as cell mates.
- Start the game in an Inn and have an Orc Raid attack the town
- Declare all characters as orphans in the same orphanage.
- Start the game on a sinking ship.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[buzz]

If your hoping to run a game that has a strong narrative element, you need to sit down with your players, tell them roughly what the campaign will be about. Tell them about the kinds of things you prefer not to see. List all the class and race restrictions, and tell them about the campaign setting. Most importantly, make sure they actually want to play in that kind of a game.

Change "tell" to "ask" and I'm in agreement. It also helps make that last sentence happen.

 

[SWBaxter]

So... what do all of you do for your pre-campaign handouts, and have any of you also felt like this? What do you all put into them?

I use sort of a drill-down system; my main handout is a very broad overview of the setting, at most a page, and if anybody asks about specific elements I give 'em more detailed handouts... if I have them, sometimes I just have the player make up details that interest him. That's cool because it makes the players feel more involved in the campaign.

There was a time when I went with very dense, wordy handouts - sort of my "1e DMG" writing phase. Nowadays, I try to capture the essence of a topic in a paragraph of about 100 words or so, and only expand as necessary. I find the latter works a heck of a lot better. IME players who want tons of detail are a minority, most are happy to start with a broad overview and then fill in the details as they go.

Somewhat tangentially, another type of handout I use is a "what your character knows about..." cheat sheet. This is a one page description of some topic that the PC knows well but the player may not; things like the care and feeding of horses, what overland travel is like, the hierarchy of feudal nobility, day to day life of a peasant farmer, how a medieval smithy operates, religious festivals, etc. These are mostly for interest's sake, I write them up when the mood strikes me and find they help some players become engaged with the world. Got the idea from a Traveller message board and it's something that I use more in science fiction campaigns than fantasy, but still has some use.

 

[Hodgie]

Somewhat tangentially, another type of handout I use is a "what your character knows about..." cheat sheet. This is a one page description of some topic that the PC knows well but the player may not; things like the care and feeding of horses, what overland travel is like, the hierarchy of feudal nobility, day to day life of a peasant farmer, how a medieval smithy operates, religious festivals, etc.

I like that idea a lot but rarely have the time (or the personal knowledge) to write such things up. Care to share any of them?

 

[SWBaxter]

I like that idea a lot but rarely have the time (or the personal knowledge) to write such things up. Care to share any of them?

I'll see if I have any kicking around in electronic format when I get home, but for the general-knowledge type stuff I mostly just plagiarize... er, I mean research... easily available general references such as encyclopedias (including Wikipedia). When I get real ambitious I head to the local library and grab a basic reference on a topic, then look for a decent summary and photocopy it.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Change "tell" to "ask" and I'm in agreement. It also helps make that last sentence happen.

If you did a universal find and replace with tell to ask on that statement, the results are oddly funny.

If your hoping to run a game that has a strong narrative element, you need to sit down with your players, ASK them roughly what the campaign will be about. ASK them about the kinds of things you prefer not to see. List all the class and race restrictions, and ASK them about the campaign setting. Most importantly, make sure they actually want to play in that kind of a game.

But taken as intended, obviously you will want to ask your players if they actually care to play under those restrictions.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[buzz]

But taken as intended, obviously you will want to ask your players if they actually care to play under those restrictions.

Absotively. Or even ask them in advance of making any restrictions. "What kind of campaign do you guys think would be fun?" No point doing work before you even know if people are interested.