Campaign Bibles

[sotmh]

I'm working on a WoT campaign for some time in the distant future, but I want to be sure I'm fully prepared for when the time comes to play it.

Given this opportunity to plan (the last two campaigns I ran were thrust upon me allowing no such opportunity), I want to create a campaign bible. Only, I've never done one before, so I need some help.

I need to know what to put into a campaign bible, here's what I have so far:

List of house rules, errata, rulings, etc.
Noted restrictions on Race / Background / Class
Commonly known history of the world
Maps
Charts and Tables

What else should I have? Time is not a factor at this point, so I want to make this as complete as possible.

sotmh

 

[Maldur]

Maybe a small list with gear/prices so people can get a feel for the values of things in your game.

List of game material players can or cannot read/use. or a list with the books you will be using.

 

[Corinth]

Find someone's copy of Dragon #293 and read Robin Laws' article about writing campaign bibles. That will do more to help than anything else.

 

[sotmh]

Find someone's copy of Dragon #293 and read Robin Laws' article about writing campaign bibles. That will do more to help than anything else.

You know, I think I have a copy of that lying around here somewhere. I'd forgotten about it.

sotmh

 

[Sammael99]

Add a list of surnames per race/region, a list of village names, inn names and generally any names you might have to mick on the fly.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

Not sure if everyone is as picky as me on this, but I also like to generate weather for my campaign, theres some lovely free waether generators out there for knocking up even a whole year at a time....

How the relevant races (and religions) view each other in the campaign

I also try to look forward to see who the characters are going to fit into the campaign and where, this is never set in stone, but gives a better idea for me how the game may run

 

[Dracolich]

Check out Dragon #290, also. The DM's Toolbox article by Johnn Four talks about DM binder's and what to put in them.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Have a good read of the DungeonCraft articles from Dragon - almost all of them are online at wizards.com and they will really be helpful.

One of the key things to do is to create secrets while you create background.

Another key thing is not to create too much.

I'd also suggest making lots of hooks rather than specific adventures.

Cheers