Campaign in a Box

[Quickleaf]

I'm in.

In fact, you could "start small." Maybe 3-5 levels. Everything you need.

Heh. And here I thought 1-10 was small compared to 1-30. But smaller makes a lot of sense.

Well, if you're willing to do roleplay lite (or forgo roleplaying altogether), it sorta exists with FFG's Descent + Road to Legend expansion. At the very least, you could use it as the basis of such a project.

I remember seeing a Descent game at my FLGS once, very cool dungeon crawl and lots of minis.

Castle Whiterock would seem to come close.

Alas, I never played it. What were the highlights?

I like it. I think it's a good idea. However...

Such a product is only ever going to appeal to a very small segment of the market. As such, it's important for it to find its niche. You're looking at a luxury product aimed at the top-spending segment of the market. That is, market it at at least $100, produce only a hundred (or so) of them, individually number them, and sell them as collector's items.

Yep, I agree. And agree about Paizo being the top contender.

Try to do it on the cheap, or mess up on the quality, and you'll have a very expensive dud on your hands. (Oh, and whatever you do, don't do this as your first product. Establish a reputation for quality first, then bet the company on this mad venture!)

If you're doing a "campaign in a box", I wouldn't bother with separate adventures. Present the whole thing as a mega-adventure, a campaign arc, or whatever. Also, 6x40 is probably too many for the 1-10 range.

Having a massive Freemind document of a 1-30 campaign in the works, I suspect that there'd be some organization needed to break up the information. Adventures are a convenient way to do it, but probably not the only way.

Not enough maps!

How many is enough? Or is that a trick question?

Oh yeah, and it would need isometric maps, which I have an obsession with. Here's an example of one I just finished.

Arguably Necromancer Games, Malhavoc Press and Goodman Games all did one of these during the 3E era, minus the miniatures.

What products are you thinking of? I'm just not familiar with them.

 

[Dragonbait]

Great idea.

I have the following comments:
I'd say move the minis to a separate box set. This could keep the price point down and allow for a second product that might be purchased by mini collectors.

Instead of a CD, put the music and/or audio tracks (a la Hail the Heroes) on iTunes or somesuch. CDs are probably cheap, but I assume that selling .mp3s are cheaper.

More battle maps set to a 1" x 1" grid.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Heh. And here I thought 1-10 was small compared to 1-30. But smaller makes a lot of sense.

I think the key is that it's modular.

Say you do a boxed set called "The Warrens of The Kobolds" for levels 1-3.

Then you do a boxed set called "The Forest of the Goblins" for levels 3-6.

You make each one stand on its own, first.

But you also add in easter eggs, links, hooks, NPC's, locations, etc., that the adventures share (say, the Town of Woodhollow).

So the first thing to do is to develop that Complete Campaign, and then split it up into 3-level boxes, each of which can be interchanged with others in the set. Someone who follows the adventure from 1 to the end has a complete adventure, and someone who pops in for a few weeks of gaming also has a complete experience.

 

[IronWolf]

Alas, I never played it. What were the highlights?

Pretty much a campaign in a box. It had a town with some basic info about it, some NPCs to get things started, a pretty nicely designed mega-dungeon outside of town with dungeon levels that sort of had reasons for being there and how the various levels interacted with each other. It was actually a pretty nice set and I think a DM could do a lot with it if they were so inclined.

 

[Hussar]

There are various Mega-dungeon "campaign in a box" products out there. Some are pretty weighty, some not so much. I mean, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is an entire campaign and it's a single book.

Aren't the Adventure Paths (by whatever company you prefer) essentially what you're looking for?

 

[Kobold Boots]

There are various Mega-dungeon "campaign in a box" products out there. Some are pretty weighty, some not so much. I mean, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil is an entire campaign and it's a single book.

Aren't the Adventure Paths (by whatever company you prefer) essentially what you're looking for?

Seriously. You beat me to essentially the same comment by 20 minutes.

The major difference is the suggestion contains all maps and tokens for all the encounters and major NPCs.

Personally, I can whip that up in about a week if I have the adventure path as part of prep. The maps can be blown up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What products are you thinking of? I'm just not familiar with them.

Necromancer Games' Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Malhavoc Press' Paizo: City by the Spire and Goodman Games' Castle Whiterock all were intended as single product (if pricy) 1-20 mega-adventures. (Obviously Ptolus accomplished a lot of that with urban adventuring, but the book includes a CD of PDFs of two dungeons and the book contains several short ones and lots of urban "dungeon crawls.")

 

[delericho]

Alas, I never played it. What were the highlights?

It was a huge mega-dungeon in a box - there was a small town outside, and then a huge dungeon split across four 90ish-page books (with Red, Blue, Green and Black covers depending on the level!). IIRC, there were fifteen levels and around 15 sublevels. They included some poster maps, but no tokens or minis. Oh, and no music CD.

It really was a "campaign in a box".

How many is enough? Or is that a trick question?

It depends on the nature of the campaign. However, I would suggest that one per "adventure", or perhaps one per two levels the set is supposed to cover, would be a good rule of thumb. Providing only two (plus a 'world' map) really seems light.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmmm... in my mind there would be some difference between a 'real' campaign in a box versus throwing an AP and some minis and maps into a box.

In my mind, a real 'campaign' is more vast and less 'linear' than an AP. A campaign in a box that I would be interested in leans more towards a setting with related adventures that can be strung together in multiple ways and an overarching storyline that advances.

So I would want a lot more generic world info and adventure seed info for the DM to create his/her own stuff then an AP (with the included adventures being enough to play the campaign if the DM doesn't have the time and/or inclination to make stuff up).

Also, in stead of going 'all counters', I'd rather go 'all mini's', even if that makes the product more expensive.

Thinking about it from a marketing standpoint, I think that with the maturing of the hobby and the maturing of the general RP audience, we are now faced with a market where there are more then enough people with money to spend and time at a premium.
Especially if you are considering a limited edition (say 1,000) product, I'd bet you'd be able to sell them all, even if you are looking at a price of $250 or so. Sure, for many this price would be too much, but hey, you aim is to sell 1,000 copies, not make everybody in the hobby happy....
With the massive reach nowadays through the various social media, a global marketing 'campaign' for such a product is easily launched at little cost, so reach is not an issue...

So, in stead of limiting too much, yeah, 1-10 levels would be limiting enough (with the adventure seeds etc. enough for an additional 5 levels worth of play or so, but then the DM must put in some effort...).

I'd say you'd want the following content:
- a 'world book'
- a 'DM's campaign book'
- adventures
- maps
- cards (nice idea to have item en power cards and such included)
- something special (think the Tarokka Deck in the Ravenloft boxed set) specific to the campaign
- mini's
- set of special dice (or similar 'nice' goodies)
- preprinted character sheets (or made using a card deck with the relevant info, making it somewhat modular depending upon which 'package' one chooses) to get started right away

Just my 2cp...

 

[Quickleaf]

The major difference is the suggestion contains all maps and tokens for all the encounters and major NPCs.

Hmmm... in my mind there would be some difference between a 'real' campaign in a box versus throwing an AP and some minis and maps into a box.

In my mind, a real 'campaign' is more vast and less 'linear' than an AP. A campaign in a box that I would be interested in leans more towards a setting with related adventures that can be strung together in multiple ways and an overarching storyline that advances.

I agree that the Adventure Paths are a great format, but a strength of the "campaign in a box" is the possibility for supporting non-linear play.

My only question about such a published campaign is how challenge levels would work. Assuming D&D or a close cousin, a challenge/monster has an associated level, you can't alter those things on the fly like with a piece of software. So then you're looking at more of a sandbox which makes organizing such campaign problematic. I guess you'd have a bunch of smaller mini-adventures which could be presented in a more narrow bandwidth of choice, but it sounds very tricky.

For example, at 1st level you can go to the "Gallows" (level 1 area), "Old City Ruins" (level 1 area), the "Wending Wood" (level 2/3 area), or really push yourselves and pursue the killer in "Murder of Ravens" (level 4 event). Once the group reaches 6th level, however, "Murder of Ravens" is no longer available as the authorities have arrested the killer...or have they? And the occupation of the city has turned the "Old City Ruins" into a flashpoint of conflict (level 6 area).

Also, in stead of going 'all counters', I'd rather go 'all mini's', even if that makes the product more expensive.

Thing is, the minis portion of the price would quickly surpass the print product and everything else. If you need a modest 20 different minis per level, you'd be looking at 200 minis for levels 1-10. For doing this your $250 pricepoint seems low (and that's just the minis).

I'd say you'd want the following content:

<snip>

- something special (think the Tarokka Deck in the Ravenloft boxed set) specific to the campaign

Good suggestion. So basically some kind of prop supporting the adventure's theme.

- set of special dice (or similar 'nice' goodies)

You mean like how Paizo does special dice sets for certain Adventure Paths?

- preprinted character sheets (or made using a card deck with the relevant info, making it somewhat modular depending upon which 'package' one chooses) to get started right away

Do you mean cards instead of character sheets? I didn't follow you.

Just my 2cp...

More like sp or gp, thanks