Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7959438" data-attributes="member: 29398">I'll disagree with all of this.Decide what type of campaign you're intending to run first, then pitch it as such.  "Guys, I've got a campaign in mind - Greek-based culture to start with, could be marine-based or political or standard dungeons, wherever it ends up going or you end up taking it.  Anything goes for alignment.  Standard 1e races and classes but your starting characters have to be Human.  Slow advancement.  <evil voice> Prepare to die."Doing it that way means you're more likely to get players who are interested in what you want to run, thus avoiding the risk of running something you don't care about (a DM who doesn't care about her game usually sees it end quickly, and not well) >shrug<  Guess I've been doing it wrong since 1984, then.The setting is mine to design.  It's up to the players what they then do with it...or to it.Again I disagree.  You need ALL of that, as even though you might never use it there's a reasonable chance that you might, and in order to fit it in seamlessly you want to be able to reference it at any time it ever becomes relevant.For example, if you've got an adventure in mind that somehow touches on King Gorlon's assassination you'd better be ready for when (not if) the PCs do some historical research as to what happened.  Doesn't have to be much - two or three lines of scratch notes will probably do.The absolute last thing you want is to come up with some neat element later (e.g. the gods' influence on the northern volcano) and then have to retcon that yes the PCs would have heard about this two years ago when they specifically asked about what's of interest up north.Did I mention, retcons like this are the absolute worst form of DMing evil.And this wants to be done before players are even a consideration.  Doesn't have to be in massive detail on paper, just reminders for yourself that this element is out there and what makes it tick.  Even just a note somewhere "[names of specific deities] put Everfire volcano where it is to bury Demon Lord 2500 years ago" should be enough to remind you what you had in mind.Who cares?  You-as-DM care.  You'll need those pantheons for working out NPC Clerics and opposition deities or divine forces.  You'll need the civil war notes as soon as the party start travelling and trying to cross borders that might not have been there a year ago.  You'll need the volcano if you want to reference it somewhere else e.g. in a prophecy.  You'll need the royal lineage as soon as your party find some coins and want to know how old they are by whose head is on them.Need I go on?4 sessions down the road?Hell, I plan for where they might be hundreds of sessions down the road!  But none of it;'s carved in stone, those plans get adjusted over time as things develop.  I do it this way because adjusting is much easier than starting from nothing, and once play begins your prep time will want to go into that week's session as opposed to background stuff.And in order to run those great sessions there needs to be a solid foundation of a setting underneath them before any of them are run.I'm not sure if this would work for everyone but my recommendation would be to decide roughly how long you expect the campaign to run overall (e.g. 1/2 a year, or a year, or 5 years) and then spend AT LEAST ten percent of that length of time in preplanning, setting design, and rules tweaking before inviting anyone to play.</blockquote>

Verification