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Sculpting a Campaign, How do you do it?
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<blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3344574" data-attributes="member: 11760"><p>I did something very simple before creating Midwood: I opened the Players Handbook and wrote down what races and classes I wanted to be local (and thus defining the first characters the players could create). Then I went through my monster books, especially MM1 (I knew I wanted it to be a mostly classic D&D game) and wrote down my favorite monsters, then closed the book.</p><p></p><p>Armed with those lists -- allips, dwarves, gnomes, green dragons, kobolds, scrags, shadow creatures, sprites -- I started figuring out how they'd all fit together in an environment where they're 99 percent of the stuff in a setting.</p><p></p><p>Once you've dumped most of the D&D stuff for your basic setting -- stuff can always come in as something exotic or be put in just at the edge of the map later on -- what's left shapes the campaign, IMO.</p><p></p><p>With my list, I knew I wanted the green dragon to have taken the dwarf homeland away from them a la Smaug (told you I wanted a classic setting), so I needed a mountain, and a place for the dwarves to be displaced to. I carved out a location for gnomes -- after deciding what sort of gnomes I wanted them to be -- and then started finding places for the other monsters.</p><p></p><p>Pretty soon, I had a setting that all made sense, and was defined by the races and monsters. The kobold servants of the green dragon scheme against the human/dwarf/gnome settlements in the shadow of Green Mountain, while other threats, including a just put-down attack by scrags, threaten from other quarters. My entire campaign has been defined by that original paging through the PHB and MM1.</p><p></p><p>Easy and, for me, a lot more satisfying than running adventures with monsters I don't like and creating NPCs and settlements of races or classes I'm tired of.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Whizbang Dustyboots, post: 3344574, member: 11760"] I did something very simple before creating Midwood: I opened the Players Handbook and wrote down what races and classes I wanted to be local (and thus defining the first characters the players could create). Then I went through my monster books, especially MM1 (I knew I wanted it to be a mostly classic D&D game) and wrote down my favorite monsters, then closed the book. Armed with those lists -- allips, dwarves, gnomes, green dragons, kobolds, scrags, shadow creatures, sprites -- I started figuring out how they'd all fit together in an environment where they're 99 percent of the stuff in a setting. Once you've dumped most of the D&D stuff for your basic setting -- stuff can always come in as something exotic or be put in just at the edge of the map later on -- what's left shapes the campaign, IMO. With my list, I knew I wanted the green dragon to have taken the dwarf homeland away from them a la Smaug (told you I wanted a classic setting), so I needed a mountain, and a place for the dwarves to be displaced to. I carved out a location for gnomes -- after deciding what sort of gnomes I wanted them to be -- and then started finding places for the other monsters. Pretty soon, I had a setting that all made sense, and was defined by the races and monsters. The kobold servants of the green dragon scheme against the human/dwarf/gnome settlements in the shadow of Green Mountain, while other threats, including a just put-down attack by scrags, threaten from other quarters. My entire campaign has been defined by that original paging through the PHB and MM1. Easy and, for me, a lot more satisfying than running adventures with monsters I don't like and creating NPCs and settlements of races or classes I'm tired of. [/QUOTE]
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