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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 4657804" data-attributes="member: 3649">Some common campaign foundations I usually employ in my games:1) Magic mostly cancels itself out. Yes, you'll get the occassional mage who uses magic for practical purposes or to provide a better standard of living to himself and those around him but he's rare. He'll probably get a title attached to his name such as 'The Great' or 'The Kind'. Most arcane casters who aren't PC's couldn't give a bowl of warm spit about the people around them; they work on a higher plane than the dirt grubbers and petty men who think a crown makes them worth something. Anyone who can cast a spell of fourth level of above might as well have either 'The Arrogant' or 'The Mad' tatooed on his forehead.Spell-casting priests, as oppossed to common folk who are deeply read in their religion and often have mundane healing skills, are rare. Usually when the party walks into a town of 25,000 people they have just doubled the amount of divine casters in that city that can do a spell above second level. People still fear disease, but they also know the commonest ways of avoiding it: keeping clean and not throwing garbage in the streets.2) PC level people are rare. I pay almost no attention at all to the DMG suggested leveled-person tables. In a town of 25,000, you might have a couple hundred PC-class people. They will almost never, ever be over 6th level. 3) Religion Isn't All-Pervasive. I tend not to bother with the Middle Ages; most of my games more resemble a combination of late Renaissance and early Industrial Revolution. Reason and evidence are becoming more important to people. The old churches are on the wane in many places; some react by trying to acquire political power, others retreat into themselves and have been almost forgotten. There are a half-dozen gods or so, and they are distant if real beings. Sometimes they remind people they exist in violent or astonishing ways. 4. National borders are not hard and fast. The territory a country claims and the territory that is actually lived in, patrolled, and controlled is sometimes very, very different. Some peoples have lived for generations in remote backwaters totally unaware that they are suppossedly part of 'The Kingdom of Z'.5. Humanoids replace 'barbarian hordes' for the most part. The various races tend to live apart, only mingling in certain cities and even then they tend to stick to their special 'ghettos'.</blockquote>

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