Getting Organized
Campaign Planner Deluxe
Written and designed by Philip J. Reed
Advice, feedback, and suggestions by Mark Gedak,
Cynthia Hahn, Dennis O'Brien, and Matt Ramsey.
Product review and proofreading by Mark Gedak
and the users of
www.philipjreed.com.
The Campaign Planner Deluxe is a 93 page product that retails for $15 in pdf and $15 in print or $16 for both print and pdf. This product combines three individual products that were originally released in October 2003, January 2005, and February 2005.
Bias: Follow this if you can. Back in October of 2003 I bought my copy of the Campaign Planner I and set about printing dozens of copies of each form for use in my campaign. Then sometime back December of 2004 Philip solicited suggestions for forms people would like to see in Campaign Planner II on both the
www.creationcrash.com site (Now Politically Incorrect Games website) and in the DM Pipeline yahoogroup. I think four of us Cythia, Dennis, Matt and myself flooded Phil with suggestions for CP2. I received a free copy of Campaign Planner 2 from Phil for my input and feedback I provided to the product before its release. Later, my wife made up the forms version of Campaign Planner 2 in exchange for more free product. Finally on Febuary 16th another post from Philip this time on
www.philipjreed.com said,” When Campaign Planner 2 was released last month I was left sitting on a lot of very good ideas and suggestions for forms. So many, in fact, that I could put together a third release in the series.” And again more suggestions came in. Previews of some items were posted to the site for people to comment on and upon its release I again received a free copy of CP 3. This time I worked on the forms version of Campaign Planner 3 to learn how to do more in Adobe Acrobat. So I would have to say I’ve been involved with this product for quite a while. I also use the campaign planner to help organize my campaign on a week by week basis.
An Overview:
This product is a compilation of 3 previous products into one complete tome for all your campaign planning needs. I believe it was done to allow people to get a print copy of all the material. The material has been reorganized to place the varied forms in a more logical arrangement. It contains 91 pages of forms to help you organize the material you have for your game.
A Not So Brief Look at the Product Form by Form
1) Campaign Info (1 page) – This first page includes a place to track campaign name, synopsis, names of published adventures used, and any change that might be made from a published setting.
2) Session History and Treasures/XP Awarded (1 page, but it appears twice. Once on p.2 and once on p.8) – The single most useful form at our campaign table. This form collects who played what week, what was accomplish, who we met, creatures and treasure found as well as XP earned by each character. Since my group playtests for a number of companies we often jump around campaign and this has been a wonderful form to refocus our actions on any given week. Its also helpful if you have forgetful players.
3) Books Used in the Campaign (1 page): self explanatory
4) Campaign Outline (1 page)– Is the place for the DM to outline some of the major events in the campaign including their trigger and suggested level. It also has room for information of adventures to use, major villains, and the climax of the campaign. This sheet hasn’t got a lot of use from my group for as people who have been reading my reviews know our campaign’s climax is almost always, “then something goes tragically awry and everyone dies”
5) Key Campaign Events (1 page)– Is a more detailed sheet for planning major events including the name of event, character level, npc/villain involved, creatures, related events, objectives, rewards, and resolution of the event. I’ve used this sheet a number of times in my Blackmoor game to plan for future events unfortunately as we approached the event, “something goes tragically awry and everyone dies”
6) Campaign Climax (1 page)– This is the detailed form of organizing the final climax of the campaign mine again reads “something goes tragically awry and everyone dies”. Maybe Ghostwalk would be something to try soon.
7) Session Event Tracker (1 page)– Is a form for tracker events in the game so that when the DM reflects and continues planning they session is still fresh in their mind.
8) Adventure Outline (1 page) – A sheet for the DM who doesn’t want everything to fall into a large campaign this sheet helps organize a weeks adventure. It contains space for npc, events, hooks and preferred outcomes. My forms usually say, “anything but TPK”
9) Site-based Encounter (1 page) – Provide space for event location (including map), summary of the encounter, goals, rewards, triggers, encounter level and notes.
10) Event-based Encounter (1 page) – Provides space for event triggers, timeline, description of the event, goals, rewards, and difficulty. I’ve used this while planning out some freelance material.
11) Campaign Time and Timeline of Historic Events (1 page) – This sheet provides space to help you organize your world’s calendar and space for recording major events in the history of your world.
12) Recent Campaign Events/Campaign Holidays/Campaign Economics (1 page) – I’ve used multiple versions of this sheet to track the current events, local holidays and currencies of the major countries of Mystara that we explore. It makes it easy to figure out how many Ducats are in a Halav, although it would have been nice to have one sheet that could have shown the currency for multiple countries on one sheet.
13) Kingdom/Country Map Details (3 page) – Provides space for your characters first dynasty. It seems to contain all the basic information you need for a kingdom (at a glance approach) including ruler, races, places of interest, climate, trade route, terrain, cities, villages, and alignment. It include a hex map for drawing out your kingdom. What’s missing? I haven’t had a campaign to reached the sort of level where my player’s characters have become rulers but maybe space for commodities, important structures, and military power would also be handy. Second and third sheets related to this one provide additional space for minor cities and nearby kingdoms.
14) Major City Information and Map (2 page) – Has a large sheet of gird paper for drawing the city and space for important NPCs and notes. Personally I don’t think this sheet is overly effective as the grid paper detracts from the organic way that many cities are built. Blank space may have made it feel less rigid and provided a better drawing space for the city. [There are two versions of this sheet one with grid and one with hexes; they are strangely pages apart.]
15) Major City Details (2 pages) – This form lists blanks for city name, size, gp limit, limits on the types of things available for purchase, events while the PCs are in town, and legendary of historical points of notes.
16) Urban Event Template (2 pages – one a fill in sheet, and one completed sheet) – This one of the strangest and unique forms in the book. It details an Urban Template, that is an event or situation that is applied to a city, this template like those for monsters adjusts the way that the city behaves. In this section Phil included a “Campaign Planned Sheet” – a filled in version – to demonstrate what an urban event template would look like. It seems to me that there is A Dozen Urban Templates hiding in Phil’s notebook somewhere.
17) Polyhedral World Map (1 page) – You just can’t draw your campaign world without a Polyhedral World Map can you?
18) Polyhedral World Map Region (1 page) – This section provides space to record major countries, features and climate types in this triangle section of the world map. I also contains the triangle piece expanded so that you can provide greater detail to that region.
19) Overland Travel Form (1 page) – Map space, starting point, destination, hazards, creatures, travel time and other outdoor features can be recorded on this sheet to make travel from dungeon to city or country to country easier.
20) Trade Route (1 page) – Includes towns and villages along the route, types of goods and caravans encountered, known threats, special features, tolls and other details.
21) Minor Town –Information and Map (2 pages) – This form is very similar to the Major Town sheet except two town feat on each sheet and again the sheet comes in a hex version and a square version. The gird sheets first appeared in Campaign Planner One and there were many requests for hex versions so they appeared in Campaign Planner 2.
22) Taverns and Inns / Shops and Marketplaces (1 page) – Is used to record Inn/Taverns/Shops/Market Places in your urban areas. This sheet is particular handy when Kent is not running the game. (Kent’s Final Bardasy campaign had a town featured the Dead Orc Inn, the Wounded Minotaur Tavern, and the Perfectly Healthy Dragon Hostel. Ouch)
23) Guilds and Organization/Rumours Fed to Players (1 page) – A simple sheet to hold brief information on notable organiztions or guilds, so that the plethora of prc can have a reason for existing. Secondarily, the bottom has space for rumours including their source and whether or not they are true. Of course by saying “Fed” to players I’d be inclined to give my players several false rumours.
24) Unresolved Issues and Leads (1 page) – Do your players leave more unresolved plot issues than 400 issues of Avengers? Is so here is the perfect form for detailing all those things your players will forget. I’ve also taken to recording disease exposure (for anything with an onset time longer than 1 day) on this form as well so I don’t forget.
25) Background Chatter/Events (1 page) – This sheet could be used to record things that happen off screen that the heroes may overhear. I think this form is one that Phil wanted to include that others had not mentioned because “background noise” is a term that has appeared in other Ronin Arts products like the A Dozen Troubling Rumors
26) Ideas for Future Adventures (1 page) – Contains a places to enter synopsi, npc’s involved, hooks and locations for four future adventures. I’ve found it handy to keep one at the gaming table to jot down ideas that the players have considered investigate but turned away from.
27) Secret Society/Organization (2 pages) – This sheet provides everything I could possibly imagine a person needing to detail up a secret society. This form has been used by Highmoon Media in Liber Sodalitas:The Blind Path and Liber Sodalitas:Erzsak’s Drake Riders. (I believe that this was an arrangement made between Ronin Arts and Highmoon Media as I don’t believe the layout is OGC for anyone to use)
28) Custom Random Encounter Tables (1 page) – This is, well, a blank form to record your own Random Encounter Table like it says so there are not big surprises and nothing particularly innovative with this sheet.
29) Minor Dungeon – Information and Map (1-page) Probably should be called Really Tiny Dungeon, if drawn on a 5 ft. scale it could hold maybe nine small rooms. It’s probably better used as Adventure Location, like Ice Tomb of the Dwarf Lord sized location, which since the Adventure Location line never took off I can draw my own. Includes map space, name, EL, intelligent inhabitants, monsters and notes. (But there is not a lot of room on this sheet for details).
30) Geographic Overview (1 page) – I’ve used this as a sheet to accompany the “Tiny Dungeon” sheet I can draw a larger dungeon here and refer to a series of tiny dungeon sheets. (Although I don’t believe that was the intention of the sheet)
31) Geographic Feature – Detailed Information and Map (1 page) – Contains space for a map, common knowledge, bardic knowledge, and notes. I’ve used it to record brief details on planar touchstones (Planar Handbook, WOTC) and Wellsprings (Book of Immortals, MGP) though neither were the original intention of the sheet.
32) Major Dungeon – Information and Map (1 page) – Like the Minor Dungeon in many respect but could hold 30 decent sized rooms. It would be a Minor Dungeon in my opinion but I suppose you can only put so much on a page.
33) Traps for Use in Any Dungeon/Trick, Hidden Doors and Other Ideas (1 page) – This should could be used to include a brief description of homebrew traps that you like to use or other obstacles that can be placed in the dungeon.
34) Riddles and Puzzles (1 page) – A place to record the puzzles and riddles for your campaign. [Handy for recording your favourite puzzles lifted from Sean K. Reynold’s Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad, TSR)
35) Dungeon Concepts/Ideas (1 page) – This is more of a worksheet as it includes information (with checkboxes) that will assist you in conceptualizing your dungeon as well as letting you record initial ideas.
36) Hazards (1 page) – This form caters to those found of hazards such as anyone who owns A Dozen Dungeon Hazards which was inspired by All Hazards Great & Small, Silverthorne Games. The format shown in this form could easily contain the information found in either of these supplements.
37) Dungeon Entrance (1 page) – Similar in style to the Major Dungeon sheet but contains keyed entries instead of a more general notes sections. Also includes check boxes for if the entrance is guarded or hidden
38) Dungeon Room and Map Key (1 page) – Similar in style to the Dungeon Entrance form this one has additional notes for items of interest and treasure as well. It has a fairly large map space for only intended to cover a single room so I of put a section of rooms on mine.
39) Custom Random Treasure Table (1 page) – A chart for random treasure generation. It’s a handy sheet for include some of 101 mundane treasures or a half dozen treasures so that they have an easier time sneaking into your campaign.
40) Legendary Treasures and Magic Items (1 page) – Is a long sheet for including magical or legendary treasures. Obviously I’m a stingy DM because this sheet looks way to long to me (I think it holds 29 treasures, so probably 1/3 that length would have been good.).
41) Campaign Artifact (1 page) – Room for detailing 6 campaign artifacts such as the Mask of Bachraeus or a Rod of Seven Parts. This sheet is probably a little stingy on room as I suspect the notes section will be need to detail powers.
42) Magic Armour/Shield/Weapon properties (1 page) – A place to record new item properties allowed in your campaign.
43) Action Points (1 page) – A sheet for detailing action points (if used) in your campaign. Although this appeared in Campaign Planner 3 a couple of months ago with the release of Fantasy Players Companion: Fantastic Stunts by Lizard, it now can help you organize the stunts you allow in your game.
44) Campaign Monster Listing (1 page) – A great sheet for listing the monster you plan to use so that you don`t have to search randomly through monster books. I write a small legend at the bottom so that Dàh Rien (EF) for the Dàh Rein appearing in a Emerging Forms release (Primal Urge Games) or Morgoshe (TDL) for Tome of Drow Lore (MGP). My players seemed to have the MM memorized so I shop around a lot for monsters.
45) Monster Template Form (1 page) – A sheet for writing out your homebrew monster. It contains all information headers of a standard monster write-up.
46) Creature of Legend (1 page) – Sheet to help you organize the information and disinformation that player would here about those special creatures in you campaign, like the Tarrasque, Ol`Gristy, Timmy the landshark, or Skecksiz the Nagpa.
47) Adventure / Dm Review (1 page) – So you finished this weeks game and you think everything went well and yet there is this nagging feeling that something isn’t right. Is Kent upset the demon cherub stole his character’s magic weapons and threw them in the black pudding? Was I being unfair when the intellect devourer vegetated Ryan’s character and then took over his body? If you want feed back this is the sheet you send with/to your players to critique the session. (Wait, I think by strick definition if you are sending this sheet a file you need Phil’s permission first.
48) Sailing Ships (1 page) – Space to record your sailing ship information. I believe it is Seas of Blood (MGP), Corsair (Adamant), and Book of the Sea (MGP) compliant.
49) Weather, Temperate/Hot/Cold (3 pages) – Based on climate a simple form/generator to track the days weather.
50) Planar Gates (1 page) – Designed around the format seen in the back of A DM Directory of Demiplanes this sheet has space for the name of the planar gate, knowledge planes check to know about it, if its guards, how its activated, what it connects to (it would be unfortunate for travelers if it leads to Mal), and any additional notes. There is room for 2 gates per page.
51) Plane/Demiplane Description (1 page) – This form contains room for detail planes as demonstrated in the DMG. It does have enough room if you want to use an alternative system like that found in the Book of the Planes (MGP) or want to add any of Michael Hammes’ A Dozen Planar Traits.
52) Major Npc/ Minor Npc (2 pages) – These sheets help you organize the raw data/statistics that are associated with your Npcs. They are sort of quick reference forms and so extended history, motivations, scheme will need to be put somewhere else.
53) God/Deity (1 page) – Contains room for the name, alignment, symbol, domains, cleric weapon of choice, rank of god and general notes for 4 gods.
54) Expanded Deity Form (2 pages) – Provides a much more extensive form for including information of followers, priest restrictions, expectations, dress code, legends and many other features. This form is much better at fleshing out not only a god but its religion.
55) Clerical Domains Available (1 page) – used to collect changes to official domains or record information on non-core domains.
56) Campaign Religions (1 page) – contains more details for two religions of the world. Deity, worship area, follower’s race, church structure, prayers tithes and other notes.
57) Campaign Specific Clerical Domains (1 page) – A sheet for writing up the background, bonuses and spell lists for a custom clerical domain.
58) House Rules (1 page) – A very generic page divided in four parts for arcane, combat, divine, and other house rules. With the inclusion of so many more specific forms the extremely general forms like this one from Campaign Planner I seem out of place.
59) Setting Specific Equipment/Spells not available (1 page) – Another early page from Campaign Planner One to record those items that have become standard in your game (like goggles of true strike, wand bracers, and bandoleers) and spells which have been banned (I also put banned items on this list like Qual’s feather tokens and bags of tricks)
60) Spells (2 page) – A detailed worksheet for creating your unique spell or a detailed recording of a 3rd party spell.
61) Metamagic Components (1 page) – A sheet to organize metamagic components (I think from Unearthed Arcana) that are available in your campaign. [I don’t have that book so I haven’t made use of that sheet]
62) Supplementary Spell Components (1 page) – A sheet for organizing supplementary spell components. This is based off the work Philip did in 101 Arcane Spell Components and 101 Divine Components. I record the supplementary spell components as my arcane and divine spell casters research them.
63) Power Components (1 page) – A sheet for recording information on power components from the DMG. I have not used this variant rule but the form will hold 5 components per sheet including details for each
64) Psionic Power (1 page) – Psionics figure prominently in my game so its nice to have this worksheet for when players or myself want to introduce a new psionic power.
65) Variant Character Class Sheet (1 page) – A worksheet for detailing a variant core class providing space for changes to alignment, hit dice, base attack, base save, class skill changes, and feature changes. Unlike many of the sheets this one contains a short discussion of what a variant core class is and how to use the form.
66) Feat (1 page) – Room to write up feats either new or collected from other books. We collect feats we regularly use from other books like Ear to the Ground, Spell Thematics, and Improved Toughness.
67) Core Class (4 pages) – A detailed worksheet for designing your own core classes
68) Spells per day (1 page) – To detail spells for spellcasting core classes (see 67)
69) Power Points/ Powers known (1 page) – To detail Psionic information for psionic core classes (see 67)
70) Prestige Class (3 pages) – Similar in style to the Core Class worksheet this set of sheet is provided to help you organize you new PRC(up to 10 level).
71) Prestige Class Tests (1 page) – A sheet for the organization of a test to enter a prestige class. We have moved to all prestige classes requiring an organization that fits in the campaign world, and most have membership test so this sheet has got quite a bit of use.
72) Skills (1 page) – For organizing new/adapted skills for you campaign. Currently we use Perception (Spot/Search/Listen), Disable Device (Disable Device/Open Locks) and Sapper for AEG’s Dungeons.
73) Starvation/Suffocation (1 page) – Summarized rules and room for tracking 6 or 7 characters starvation and suffocation
Am I saving anything by buying this over the individual campaign planners?
No. Both are priced exactly the same in print and as a collected pdf. However, if you buy the Campaign Planners individually as pdf they will also come with an Adobe forms version. There currently is not a forms version of Campaign Planner Deluxe.
What new things have been added?
Nothing. Bookmarks should have been for a pdf product of this size and a table of contents for print users to ease the location of specific forms.
Why doesn’t it have a form for XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX?
I think the simplest answer to this is because you didn’t tell Philip you wanted one. Campaign Planner One was sort of an all-purpose general planner, Campaign Planner Two because more focused on specific details for a campaign and Campaign Planner Three is dominated by quite specific items, forms to organize information for other ROnin Arts products, and game designer worksheets. But Two and Three are the direct result of people like TheAuldGrump, Cynthia Hann, and others emailing Phil and saying I want this or I want that. If your form is not here, then email Philip and say I want this form and maybe we will see a Campaign Planner Four. This product like the DM Idea Pipeline and the Future
atastream services are extremely responsive products where input from Ronin Arts customers help shape the final product.
How’s the editing?
As I did some of the proofreading (see credits above) I would have to say it’s perfect in every way (more so than this review I’m sure). As a product that is used to organize your planning there really isn’t a lot to proofread.
What version is the book written for?
It is designed for v3.5 Dungeons and Dragons, although some elements apply to material in Unearthed Arcana and other books. Frankly, only 1/3 of the forms are really d20 specific and if a line or two is dropped on some forms they would work for other fantasy roleplaying games or other games in general.
What about Open Game Content?
“All text in this book is designated as open game content. You may not
distribute this book without permission of the publisher.” is the OGC declaration
says. That being said there isn’t a lot of what you some consider content. There are some new rules in this product but they are not simple to find. Highmoon Media has also used the secret society forms in some of its products and I assume that falls under the “permission of the publisher” tag.
So where do I stand?
I find it hard to find fault with the Campaign Planner. I recognize that people new to the product may find it repetitious at times but that more to do with the design process of the three products than the design of this one. In one of the early Campaign Planners we received a Minor Town sheet with square grid, but with feedback in a later one we receive a much requested hex form. The product that rests here is an organic product designed by Philip directly for people who wanted specific things. This product was reorganized and amalgamated for people looking for a print Campaign Planner.
As a print product I would rate it a 4/5 because there is a lot of material here that I have found useful but a table of contents would help you locate the information easier.
As a pdf product, the lack of bookmarks and lack of forms in this version hamper the overall utility of the book. If you are comfortable with pdfs, but them individually there is no difference in cost. If you own Adobe Acrobat and can save form data or separate the book into individual forms the book becomes incredibly more useful and in that form it sits as a perfectly useful planner.
In my opinion the best way to get the Campaign Planner is to pick up the individual ones so that you have access the forms version as well as all the sheets for the same price. The Campaign Planner series has been a perfect to product to help me organize my game and its one of few products I use everyweek.
5/5 (pdf); 4/5 (print)
