Campaign Planner - Revised

[JoeGKushner]

The campaign planner wasn't what I expected it to be. I'm the type of GM who has a lot of resources and appreciates material that allows me to save time. The campaign planner allows you to save some time, but isn't so much a campaign planner as it is a campaign tracker.

Who needs the campaign planner? The person who needs the campaign planner is one who hasn't already written out all of his notes. It starts off with a page for campaign recording information, another page for house rules, broken up into four areas, arcane magic, divine magic, combat, and house rules. It then provides a place to write down books used in the campaign including title and publisher. Nice but how about a listing of books by publisher that way the GM can just check them off?

Another section is for character races, drawn from the Player's Handbook allowing you to mark it if standard and if not, to record the differences. This is followed by sheets for the standard classes. This player section is tied up with Prestige Classes Available. Now here, the author could've grabbed Ultimate Prestige Classes Volume One and Two, and made a check list and then provided the blank sheet. That would make the job of recording the information easier. He took the opposite route for spells, providing a form for spells not available in the campaign and a section for setting specific equipment.

The campaign time page didn't look too useful for the long term. It allows you to capture the starting time of the campaign and has a current year, month, day section, but no actual calendar to mark off time with. A page with a standard month of say, 7-10 day week and a 30 day month to keep track of things would've been great. Or heck, even a blank page of a calendar where the user can print off twelve pages and customize it would be highly useful.

Another section is the God/Deity. This includes the standards with places to write symbol, domains, weapon of choice and other important information. I guess here I'd have to ask, why would we need this? Most books have this information in handy places and this would just give me another place to look for it. The section's too small to write out customized gods

The mapping tools are nice. There are several pages with different types of grids to allow the GM to make small maps for handout or general use. These I found just as useful here as I did in the character sheet that MEG put out at Gen Con.

Some of the material, like the Kingdom/County listings, are too small for anything but general information like location, capital, form of government, ruler, important government members, allies, enemies and notes. Now that sounds like a lot, but most of this has to be recorded on one or two lines. The same is true for the listing of major and minor NPCs. There are spaces for most information, but unless you're just listing one weapon for damage, it's too small. Most good NPC blocks have to be at least half a page to get the juicy stuff. I'd consider the Major NPC blocks good for minor NPCs and the Minor NPC blocks good for walk on characters you might need once or twice.

Some of the material would probably be better in a player's planner. Take Unresolved issues and leads. As a GM, I have to have more than just a one or two line entry on an item with a check box for resolved or not. Good for players who are always bouncing all over the place though.

There are other listings with some of them being more useful than others. Not everyone is going to agree on the amount of space for certain items and not everyone is going to agree that this was needed or that was needed. One thing missing right off the bat is character generation. What method do you use. Another thing missing is character advancement. Do characters advance at standard rates, quicker, slower. Are optional story awards or variant XP awards used?

One of my problems is that this isn't a planner, it's a recorder. One thing I'd find incredibly useful is if there were several copies of the experience point chart. Once divided by three, once by four and once by five. This covers the average amount of players I have in my campaign and would make things perfect for dividing experience points for the characters, one thing I loathe about 3rd edition. Another thing missing would be a place to record feats allowed, not allowed. Another oddity is that since Philip has some ties with MEG, perhaps they could've included Arcana Unearthed material in here and increased the appeal of the product.

A table of contents, would've helped to navigate around the product if you're using a hardcopy, as I always do with PDF files.

For once, I find that the format here works against itself. This product would work better as say a Word Document or an Excel Form. Having to hand write everything, even when the space is generous, is a bit awkward because some instances you'll have more to write than Philip has provided space.

If you need a lot of blank forms to plan out your campaign, this product is perfect for you. Me? I'll be sticking with the old stick 'em notes, my original DMG, and AEG's Toolbox.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

This PDF of forms is perfect for the overworked DM. Designed by Philip Reed these forms have been designed with speed of printing and usability in mind. There are no heavy background graphics to drain your

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I admit it - I am one of those DMs that like forms. They help impose order on what would otherwise be a chaotic mess of handwritten notes - not that I don’t create the mess of scribblings now, but I go and organize them later with the forms. (The number of fast food restaurant placemats with scrawled notes that I have had over the years could be reassembled into a redwood.) So this is very much a playtest review - as a notebook of filled out forms will attest.

One of my most used first edition AD&D supplements was the Dungeon Master’s Design Kit, I printed up enough sheets that I still have a pile of them over an inch tall. I still use the sheets that are not specific to the older AD&D system. (Chases and Plots & Mysteries being the most used.) When the World Builder’s Guidebook for second edition AD&D came out I swept down on it like a ravenous raptor. I still use the mapping sheets, and not only for D&D. I have purchased the PDFs of both of them.

And then Mystic Eye Games came out with the Campaign Planner. Needless to say I quickly added it to my collection. These sheets are intended to aid a GM in setting up his campaign, and many of the sheets are convenient for sharing with the players, serving as a useful FAQ in regards to the campaign and the world that it takes place in. PDF is the best format for products of this nature, allowing the user to print up as many of the sheets that he uses as he feels he needs, skipping the others, and printing up fresh copies as needed. The forms version of these sheets is particularly useful in this regard - my hand writing is cramped and difficult to read unless I take my time and print every letter. Even I have difficulty reading my hen scratches if more than a month goes by, before then the notes serve more as an aid to memory than as a permanent record.

The first sheet in this product is an overview, for listing such information as to what the setting is, what changes the GM is making to the setting, and what published adventures the GM is intending to use. Not a sheet to share with the players, though having the changes to the setting would have been a useful handout.

House Rules, the second sheet, on the other hand is convenient for both GM and PCs, I would recommend using the forms and printing up enough copies to share with the players. Spaces are provided for magic, combat, and any miscellaneous house rules that the GM might have.

Books used in the Campaign is another sheet to share, listing what game books are being used in the campaign. This becomes convenient when you need multiple copies of a given book at the table, players know which books to bring with them, or to purchase. (I suspect that this is my local game store’s favorite sheet...)

Next up are sheets for races and classes, and what changes are made to them for the campaign. A tick box is provided to indicate whether the race or class is modified, or straight from the PHB. More useful for homebrew campaigns than for published settings where the changes to a race or class will presumably be in a written sourcebook. A separate sheet is provided to list what prestige classes are available in the campaign.

A list for spells that are not available in the campaign, and what equipment is unique to the setting is another handout for the players as well as a place for the GM to record his changes.

Two sheets follow for creating a calendar and listing holidays and a history of significant events. Another sheet to share with the PCs. Having holidays for the setting can breath life into the game, giving the setting a touch of realism.

A sheet for recording deities and their domains, symbols, etc. might have been more useful placed with the character class sheet, since it deals primarily with the game effects of the religion rather than any mythology. Of course placement really doesn’t matter much in a PDF product of this nature, but thematically it would have made sense to have them together.

The next several sheets are for recording and mapping the area, the kingdoms therein, its towns, cities, shops, taverns, and for listing NPCs and organizations. I have found that the sheets for cities and towns get a lot more use than the ones for kingdoms, but then a single kingdom may hold any number of towns, which in turn hold taverns, shops, etc. I have found that giving a blank copy of the taverns and shops sheets to the players helps answer questions regarding where to go, who might be there, etc. letting the players record the DM’s mental meanderings so they do not get forgotten. (Admit it, you’ve made up the names of shops and taverns, only to forget them later too.) Neither the major nor the minor NPCs get enough details on the NPC sheet, limiting its usefulness in my regard. Some of these sheets should be shared with the players, others not. The mapping grids provided are square, hex grids are provided in Campaign Planner 2.

Rumors and unresolved issues occupy the next pages, and are some of the more used sheets in my experience, the rumors to send the PCs hither and yon, while the unresolved issues sheet has convenient tick boxes to mark off once the players finally get around to finishing them. Players never seem to cover all the issues while in game, and these make it easy to record what they haven’t handled yet.

Adventure ideas - just a sheet for jotting down ideas for later use. Probably one of the less used sheets for me, this is what the gods made fast food restaurant placemats for. Useful enough I suppose, but never to hand when I have an idea that I wish to write down.

Sheets for recording wandering monster tables and quick outlines for dungeons can make creating a last minute adventure less of a chore, while I prefer taking my time, and generally manage to stay a month or so ahead of my players they sometimes go off on a tangent that I was not quite prepared for, or was intending to cover a few months down the line. A shared sheet is provided for listing traps and tricks to pull out when needed, so you can plan out at least part of the extempore dungeons ahead of time. Or just to use when you have a nifty idea, but don’t need it just now. I have used these to create quick pickup games on a few occasions, for games when I have more time I use Dungeon Crafter and a word processor. (When my computer has gone down and I was unable to use Word Perfect 10 I have felt crippled... the need to use it rising with the inability to do so, these sheets took some of the edge off, without being a full cure.)

Artifacts and major treasures get sheets, as does a master list for monsters in the campaign. If you have any artifacts or seriously important magic items this is the place to put them, so you know just where they are, and if you intend your PCs to get their grubby little mitts on them. I would like to have had a place for recording who currently possesses the items, nor is their enough space provided to list a history for the artifacts, while the major treasures are a single line with a tick box to record whether the treasure has been found. I have found these sheets of limited use.

The final page is, in my opinion, the only completely wasted sheet in the book - a page for recording notes, this role is filled just as well by a sheet of lined notebook paper, the only advantage is sharing a uniform appearance with the rest of the sheets.

Over all this is a very useful product for me, helping to chart a path through the morass of scribbled notes that might otherwise overwhelm me. While some of the sheets see more use than others, I use enough of the sheets often enough to more than make it a worthy purchase. Used in combination with the recently released Campaign Planner 2 the variety of sheets also allows me to make sure I have covered all the basics of a campaign or adventure, without leaving out any important details.

On a scale of 1 to 5 I would rate this a 4 in regards to usefulness, becoming a solid 4.5 when used in conjunction with Campaign Planner 2, which fills in many of the gaps.

 

[Man-thing]

Phil is currently working on Campaign Planner 3. He is taking suggestions at his website again. www.philipjreed.com

 

[Tinner]

Campaign Planner - Revised
Author: Philip J. Reed
Publisher: Mystic Eye Games
Format: Black & white PDF with color cover
Size: 35 pages/35 pages (Note: There are two versions of this product packaged together.)
Price: $5.00

If you are at all familiar with PDF gaming products, then the name Philip Reed will be well known. Reed is well known for producing smaller products that deliver a lot of bang for the buck. Campaign Planner - Revised is no exception to this formula. Campaign Planner is not the kind of RPG product the market is used to. There are no prestige classes, no new spells or magic items. Instead, Campaign planner is a DM’s workbook, full of ready-to-use forms that will assist even the least experienced gamer tighten up a 3.5 campaign design. The full Campaign Planner package is composed to two nearly identical PDF files. The first is a collection of ready to print blank design forms, while the second is those same forms modified to be typed directly into on your PC. If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat you can save all your typed data directly to disk, but even with nothing more than the free Acrobat Reader you can print your typed data without saving it.

Campaign Planner opens with a color cover by Alberto Moreno - a brooding archway over a fantasy door. It’s a moody evocative piece, which is good, since it’s the only artwork in this brief PDF file. But that’s not a criticism. I would be hard pressed to figure out another place to put artwork in this product. Don’t buy CP expecting it to be a great read, or a full of eye candy. This is a working product, designed to be used, not just another book to thumb through for pretty pictures or some light reading.

The next 33 pages are a collection of forms an aspiring campaign builder can use to flesh out his game in as much detail as could be desired. These pages are adequately bookmarked, and it’s easy to find exactly the section you are looking for. These pages are presented in workbook style – blank forms waiting or a designer to fill them out and flesh out a campaign world. These forms cover nearly every basic aspect of fantasy campaign design. There are pages for detailing what classes and races are used in the campaign, as well as any modifications being made to the standard core rules. There are sections to detail important NPC’s, locations, a calendar, events and holidays.

Each page offers several leading headers, and plenty of room to add in your own custom details. The pages are divided up well, and since they contain no artwork, it is a simple matter to print out as many or as few pages as needed for your campaign. The one issue I have with any of the forms really only applies to the location forms. These forms contain a section of graph paper for drawing a map. I feel that these areas might be a little small to accommodate some of the areas. The town and dungeon map sections in particular would probably be better handled by just drawing a map on a separate page. Additionally, these same graphed areas are present in the digitally editable version of Campaign Planner. It might have been better to leave room to digitally insert a computer generated map or picture file right into the PDF. These complaints are really just a matter of preference though, and do not in any way diminish the general usefulness of Campaign Planner.

Conclusion: If you are the type of gamer who relishes fleshing out very detailed worlds, or you have always wanted to design your own campaign world, but never knew where to start, then Campaign Planner will be a great help to you. This is doubly so if you have the full version of Acrobat, and will be able to digitally edit your files. If you favor a more seat-of-the-pants, “winging it” style of campaign, this product will be less useful. Additionally, it’s only fair to point out that Campaign Planner was released in 2003, and has since been followed by Campaign Planner 2, 3, and a Deluxe version that combined several CP’s into one. Combining the original with these later refinements would undoubtedly add value to each of them.