As a DM which do you like best?

[Sundragon2012]

1.) Creating the Setting
2.) Creating the Campaign
3.) Creating the NPCs
4.) Creating the Adventures

In the above order.

I love worldbuilding because it ignites my creativity to craft a world in accordance with what I see is the best in the fantasy genre, tweaking familiar tropes to allow them to be interesting and unique but still recognizable. Plus, when I create my own setting I get the opportunity to cut out what I don't like. Sometimes a setting is as defined as much by what you remove as by what you put in. Versimilitude is THE most important aspect of world building IMO. Without the suspensio of disbelief, anything cool the PCs do will be marred by an incoherent setting. I have seen otherwise good games ruined by terrible naming conventions, nonsensical kingdoms, preposterous cultures, etc. I a not taking about REALISM, I am taking about believability and they are sometimes very different things.

Numbers 2 and 3 should really be equal but since there is a list I thought I would put them in some order.

I put adventures last because I am not really an adventure writer, it isn't my stringest point. As a DM I am able to use what the PCs do to build adventures that make them relevant to the setting. My players think I'm a genius as creating adventures, but honestly I rely heavily on the actions of the PCs to determine my own reactions which form the bases for nearly all my most memorable adventures.



Sundragon

 

[howandwhy99]

In my games none of those 4 can really be taken as particulars. I voted Adventures though. They pretty much include everything from above anyways.

I mean, cool ideas for me aren't limited to a particular game niche. Some folks may love making character personalities above all else, but I love making traps, tricks, cool locations, NPC plots, mind blowing spells, twisted magic items, eye-popping monsters, cool weapons and equipment, neat cultural cues, grand strategies, intrigue-filled histories, and engaging people to interact with.

 

[el-remmen]

Each one is meaningless without the others. I love them all, but ultimately they are about anticipating a game experience I hope to share with six other people, both in terms of individual encounters or session, and over the haul however ever many score sessions make up a campaign which resonates with the setting as a whole helping to build and prepare it for the next campaign.

 

[Anthelios]

I think setting and campaign are interwoven when I design something. I can't create a world without an idea of the stories I'm going to tell in it. Everything is placed down with a purpose that I hope the PCs are able to discover as they adventure.

 

[Reynard]

Above all else, I love entertaining my friends with an exciting, dramatic, funny, memorable and/or downright scary game. All that other stuff factors in, of course, but when push comes to shove, it is all about play.

 

[Jhaelen]

I am a bit amazed about the results so far. I wouldn't have expected so many DMs creating their own settings. I selected 'creating campaigns', btw. My preferred approach is to use an existing setting and customizing it until it's no longer easily recognizable. Ditto for adventures.

I also like creating npcs, at least as far as their concepts go. I don't particularly like the involved process to actually level them / stat them out. That step is just tedious...

One option that is missing from the poll: Creating an rpg ruleset.

When I started roleplaying the first thing I did was to create my own rpg system, based on what I had learned / heard about existing rpg systems, so far. Then I created my own setting and started to develop a campaign from the inside out.

Of course I no longer have the time for such an involved project, but sometimes an interesting idea gets me thinking and I produce a basic outline for a new system in a creative frenzy.

The last time it happened was after thinking about a solution for the problem of roles in D&D. It was inspired by both the Guild Wars rpg (every character has a primary and a secondary character class; think: gestalt) and the Earthdawn rpg (you can theoretically advance in an unlimited number of professions; overlapping abilities make it easier to do this).

One of the more interesting outcomes was an 'architect' class/profession that perfectly fit one pair of roles I had identified. I don't remember having seen a similar character archetype in any rpg so far.

Ah, well, enough off-topic rambling for a single post...

 

[DragonLancer]

Out of the options presented, I voted for the campaign. For me, the larger story and its arc (whether player driven or not) is what makes for the enjoyable aspect. Then comes seeing the players play through it.

 

[Boregar]

Another vote for the campaign here.

I tend to use pre-built campaign settings, and often also use pre-written adventures, but I enjoy trying to weave them together, to allow my players to form a cohesive storyline that lets their characters develop and move towards their overall goals.

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

D'oh! Yes. How could I worry about "Amon Hen" (which I am still not sure about) and get Gollum wrong?

Eh, you're just often thinking about crafting Golems! (shameless plug)

 

[Wombat]

Location, location, location.

For me it is all about setting -- once you have the setting, everything else falls into place naturally. My New Mavarga campaign was a great example -- I decided to throw musketeers into a jungle setting, through colonization (think conquistadors meet Zorro in Guatemala). I put together the main culture, the attitudes towards magic, towards the New Lands, towards religion, towards law, developed holidays, had an artist start to sketch clothing and architectural styles, and slowly developed a whole culture based on the edge of the jungle. Then I worked on the peoples of the interior, using recent ideas about the Maya as a basis. Then I put the cultures into play against each other, developed the gives, the takes, the problems of two entirely different calendars, etc.

From all of this flowed the primary thrust of the campaign, a multiplicity of NPCs and, eventually, specific adventures.

As a GM, I need to know the wheres and the whyfors of the campaign setting before anything else, but once I do, everything else falls swiftly and neatly into place.