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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Creamsteak" data-source="post: 246814" data-attributes="member: 552">Players come first. Ignore any pre-concieved concepts about your campaign world. Don't limit races, don't limit classes, don't limit allignment, don't limit anything. Let your players take time (lots) to really create a character. Let them look through the epic level handbook if they want. Let them look at every prestige class you have, and tell them that they can make one up if they don't like any that you have.Once the players have an "idea" of what they want to do, you need to look at ability score generation very specifically. Don't force players to use NPC stat scores, ever. Let thier character concepts decide what kind of ability scores are appropriate. If the players have a lot of "professionals" with professions, crafts, or other skills that are focused on living life like normal people... I recommend 3d6 or 3d6 straight. If you have a lot of people who looked at your epic level handbook, dieties and demigods, and the manual of the planes- I recommend you either give them point buy at 36+ or 5d6 drop two. If you have a lot of adventurers that looked over combat-specific prestige classes, I recommend you use point buy again... to ensure they can do it, or you could go with 4d6 drop one with some degree of insurance that they will get decent scores. There are a lot of other situations... and the dreaded half & half, but I think you all can tell what I'm saying... go with the flow.Now that you have some relatively defined types of characters, you should think about what world fits them. I know some people are really attached to a specific campaign setting, but don't let it decide anything. If you have professionals... grab yourself a really fletched out world with lots of good fully developed civilizations, cities, countries, laws, and politics. I do know there are some excellent campaigns for this, but I don't think there are any "best" ones... once again, focus on your characters. If you have those super powered characters you need to really think carefully about the world, because things won't look good if you don't make room for things. Players that want to be gods or just really powerful mortals need a world that supports them. Don't be stingy with role-playign opportunities. These players aren't looking for a direct hack-n-slash level up like you might think. What they honestly want, is to be the center of attention. What easier way than being god, right? Make sure you let the world will notice them, whether they are out adventuring to conquer general evil, or just putting down the local thieves guild a notch. They might want a big major plot, but don't force it on them. Try to make them feel like they are important because they are doing whatever they are doing. Don't do the generic "stop bad guy from getting artifact and destroying world" crap... they want to be noticed for what they do... instead of what everyone wants them to do. Now, if you find you have a lot of characters that want to specialize... like becoming an assassin or weapon master, you need to focus more on bringing it out through role-playing. The player shouldn't just walk into an assassins guild and get a job, or go around asking if people want an assassin. Players want the prestige class to come out of the character. Let the player be the driver, but let him learn for himself instead of giving him the instructions. Let him join the assassins by showing promise and getting some kind of line of work. I don't know how much to say about the whole subject, but I know that when someone wants to be an Arcane Archer, they probably used a bow a lot before they gained the class. An Assassin or weapon master should get an opportunity to learn "enough" before they gain the class, but not enough to feel like its just another step...Erg... this is getting long...Now you should have an idea of what kind of world to use. Make your own, or modify an existing world enough to accomidate your plan. Professionals should already exist in your campaign world, so thats easy enough to fit in. Epic-Heroes and such might not show up so easily... If there are Epic-Heroes, then you probably need to add a lot to the campaign. If your campaign is prestige-class intensive, or adventure intensive, make sure that the world has a way to accomidate adventurers without losing the realism that you should have...Now you need to characterise. Help your PCs do this some, but really try to bring it out through NPCs. Memorable NPCs are the best way to bring out characterization. Every group and situation is different... but it comes out through NPCs. Players are likely to just kill threats, ignoring any traits they might have. Players are likely to treat each other with an Out of Character attitude that is hard to break. Focus on the NPCs having friends and not-so-friends in the group. Try to get the characters to make contacts seperately, so that they have friends and people to associate to. If the Weapon Master of your group gets along quite well with a particular monk because they have the same views on life, don't let the monk approach the party as a whole with the same care. NPCs should be built for players as well. In a Professional based game, NPCs should vary from person to person. The Bard/Apothecary sure gets treated nice by the noble that wants to get a "free sample" but the noble is a bastard to everybody else... making the bard suspicous of his intentions and making the party dislike him. Now that bard is going to play a very sense-motive game with this guy, because he isn't a moron. But when that bard gets treated quite nice by the bar-maid in town because she seems to just be a nice person (while playing her as an arrogant and using woman towards the rest of the party) you might see your bard character act a lot more human. He might start thinging with his ... instead of his brain about this bar-maid. Now the party knows he's being not-so-smart, but they also know the bard is being human. Trying to get different attitudes out of different players takes a few dozen sessions, but it does work after you really play the NPCs dramatically. Just don't be a Drama Queen.Oh god... too long...So the characters and world are pretty well set. Now you have to plot adventures. Give the players places to look other than the bar... (basically guilds and such work pretty good, but don't forget freelance work and NPCs). Also provide some static locations to visit. Ruins, caves, and other Dungeon Crawls are a good thing to just leave lying around. Don't tell players to go visit a dungeon because they have to, but maybe on the way to another town they find the old dwarven citidel, and that could be an interesting place to look for magical items, but they also don't have to visit it. Static adventures are important to giving a fantasy setting a degree of fantasy realism. In the hobbit they had to travel through some of those caves and places to get from point A to point B. I recommend against this. Let A and B be pretty easy to get between, but allow the players to side-track through point C if they want to Dungeon crawl. Also non-combat adventures are fun, and so are quickies. A woman who passes out in the street can lead to some experience points if the players help her out at some risk to themselves. Plus it doesn't take any time, gives the world one more hint of realism, and makes another friend.Also, rewards should be plentiful, even if minute. Not every merchant is trying to rip you off, or get you killed. Keep the rip offs and threats around, just not to the point that they become the standard. Overly tough headed townspeople make players aggrivated. Also, there is no reason to simplify the simpler activities, let the trade of gems for gold be somewhat related to who they know in town. Not to shoot down the buy/sell speed, but just allow it to give some hint of a world as a whole.Ick... theres so much more to say, but I'm not in a typing mood (though this thing would attest otherwise). I didn't say some things as smoothly as I would have chosen too given a little more time to think about it, but somebody needs a nap.</blockquote>

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