Micro-sized Campaign Worlds

[Aethelstan]

In my years of playing D&D, I've made the following observations:

1. Most campaigns seem to last only a year to a year and a half. Either groups fall part due to waning interest or the intrusion of real life (new jobs, babies, etc.) or DMs and/or players grow weary of a particular campaign and begin itching to start something new. Also, due to scheduling conflicts and the like, some groups are luck to get in 12-15 hours of solid gaming a month.

2. Nearly all campaign worlds, both published and homebrew, tend to be quiet large, encompassing whole continents and filled with dozens of cities and a myriad of races and cultures. FR, Greyhawk, Kalamar (and most of my homebrew settings) are all really big places.

The net result of these two factors is that in a given campaign, players explore only a small fraction of a campaign world. This raises the question: why are campaign worlds so vast when players most often interact with tiny portions of it? With published campaign settings, I think designers believe that their worlds must be big in order to convey a sense of “epic-ness” and to convince buyers that they are getting a lot, in terms of quantity, for their money.
Likewise, homebrew worlds (my own and others I’ve seen) tend to be at least continent-sized. The motives of homebrewers may be a bit different, but I think homebrew DMs make big worlds in order to convince players that their new campaign promises near endless possibilities for adventure. Yet, as with most campaigns, the DM eventually realizes that his players will never set foot in most of his lovingly crafted world.
I’ve been mulling over a new campaign setting and have been toying with the idea of radically changing the scale for my next world. Instead of sprawling and epic, how about small and intimate? In fact, I’m trying to conceive of the smallest possible world that would still be fun and viable for a “typical” one year, 15+ hour a month campaign.
I’ve come up with the vaguely Planescape-ish idea of a varied landscape (hills. rivers, forests, towns, etc.) roughly fifth miles across all contained within a magical crystal sphere which itself floats within a ethereal “galaxy” of similar “planet” spheres. The campaign sphere would be populated by four PC races (all non-human, adapted from Arcana Unearthed). Hostile races living in an underworld beneath the landscape would be the major protagonists. My hope is that the small size of this world would allow the players to explore a large majority of the campaign setting before the campaign wrapped up. The all the towns, mountains, ruins, etc. of the world would be more than distant names on a map. In the course of the campaign, the players would become familiar with them all. Also, because of the micro size of the setting, players would have it in their power to literally “change the world,” without having to progress to god-like epic (“boo, hiss!”) levels.
Would a campaign setting this small actually work? Has anyone out there played in or DMed a micro world similar, in size at least, to the one I’m proposing? What worked and what didn’t. Your feedback would be appreciated.


Thanks, Aethelstan

 

[DragonLancer]

Also, due to scheduling conflicts and the like, some groups are luck to get in 12-15 hours of solid gaming a month.

I'm quite lucky in that my group meets weekly on Monday nights and we get 3-4 hours gaming a night, and three of the six of us have relationship and work commitments.

Has anyone out there played in or DMed a micro world similar, in size at least, to the one I’m proposing? What worked and what didn’t.

Play, sure. DM, probably not. As a DM I like to have the whole continent mapped out. It doesn't feel right when I don't have that. I did try once but found myself having to make the other three quarters of the landmass up, populating it and writing material for it.

 

[Aristotle]

I did some groundwork for (but never got around to completing) a campaign setting that consisted of a gigantic city and a collection of villages and strongholds that provides resources and defenses for the city itself. All of the outlying stuff would be within a radius of like 100 miles of the city.

The city exists on an infinite plane, but the humans (instead of races, the campaign concept had 3 or 4 cultures of humans that functioned pretty much as races ruleswise) had never gotten much farther than 200 miles from the city. Most of those who venture beyond that point never return...

The idea was to provide several kinds of game experiences in a fairly compact area. The huge sprawling city (and the obligatory vast network of tunnels below it) provide a number of great adventure types from the political role-play to the combat-heavy dungeon crawl.

In the outlying areas there could be similar adventure. Whether it be getting involved in a civil war between two lords, or defending townsfolk from menaces from beyond the borders. If the adventurers like they could even travel out into the wildlands beyond the borders and attempt to explore those regions.

I liked the concept because it did what you are talking about. It gave a small setting where I could run just about any sort of adventure I choose. And the infinite plane, although it is meant to just keep the players contained within the setting, allows for possible expansion later on if it is needed. If you wanted to take the campaign into the epic levels, the adventurers could possibly find other such cities in some distant corner of the plane. Or not...

 

[reiella]

Couple reasons.

First off, why that much detail? Because a campaign world has to survive more than a single campaign. A broader scope with greater detail means you can sell a single product to more people who will find use of it and those who find a portion that is usable, will be inclined to purchase other items in the franchise line. A published campaign world should be epic, because you never know when the player's will break your expectations .

In my homebrew, most of the game takes place in an area roughly 16 million square miles (4000 x 4000). Mostly as that's what I wanted the size to be, it was a nice number and seemed 'reasonable'. There's even more of my campaign world "In My Head" than "On the Paper", but that's because I like brainstorming, and ideas that don't come to fruitation this game, might later, or simply may help me brainstorm future ideas.

For a homebrew, it's fine to have a small region and quite insular. Just for publishing ideas, minicampaigns don't tend to do so well by their own merit (notice the significant drop is City Campaign books lately?). About the specifics of running a campaign in what seems to be a 'biosphere' type environment, I honestly don't know, but have fun with it .

 

[Teflon Billy]

I understand what you are saying entirely. we got a lot of mileage, campaign-wise, out of the 1E module The Secret of Bone Hill, which is a good example of the Micro-Campaign type thing you are describing.

The reason my Hoebrews are so large, is that I like drawing maps and world building...its as much a part of the enjoyment I get from gaming as the actual play(plus, my game worlds benefit when the "Tattooed, shirtless, masked swordsman" who enters town is (at least to my own actual knowledge) a Pronoxian Sword Cultist, rather than just "wierd looking guy"

Context makes for a good campaign, no matter what the size.

 

[mikedidthis]

I recall a micro-campaign "world" called _Thunder Rift_ published by TSR back in the early nineties. It was for basic D&D. The whole thing was set in a small canyon that kind of kept the outside world, um...out. They had a series of modules that corresponded to various locations in the canyon. All the areas were various terrain types and there was a backstory and history included on why the canyon formed the way it did.

I think the idea was to help new DMs get a feel for a campaign world without feeling overwhelmed by all the options. Once the DM had gotten a few adventures in the canyon under his belt, the PCs could wander outside into the larger world (i.e. the canyon could be dropped into a larger campaign world.)

Anyway, I remember reading through it, but I never played it. Don't know if it would really support a long-term (even a year to a year-and-a-half) campaign.

 

[DWARF]

You could always run a campaign on an island, or series of small islands in a vast sea. Then you have a micro-campaign, somewhat differing environments given different islands, and the potential for invasion. Imagine a campaign set in a world similar to many island chains in the south pacific as the europeans start invading. Have a campaign based on tribal culture come to grips with a new power from far off coming to dominate them; perhaps bringing new religion or magics with them.

 

[CombatWombat51]

I've ran and played in 4 or 5 campaigns that took place entirely in the city of Lankhmar. Like other posters have said, it was nice because the players and the DM were able to get very familiar with the setting, and didn't feel overwhelmed by a huge world.

When I DMed the Temple of Elemental Evil (1E), the characters had no problem staying within the village of Homlet. I think they may have once gone to Nulb, but they got scared of the nasties there I don't know what RttToEE is like, but if it's the same, I'm sure people who have played that can relate.

When I create a campaign world (actually, I've been using the same one for years, I just keep improving on it), I only start out with the immediate area the PC's will be in. By immediate, I mean the town/village/city they start in, and the names and very vague details ("city that makes silk", "tribe of nomadic horsemen") of places that they'd hear of in their first adventure.

Each time I start a new campaign, I (usually) write up a new base of operations that the characters will start with, slap it somewhere in my world, and leave it at that. My players certainly don't care what kingdom is 2,000 miles away, and I sure don't care to spend all that time making it up! As time goes on, I can draw little bits from the other places I've created for other campaigns, and demonstrate bits of continuity, like the above poster said about the tattoed swordsmen. And best of all, my players are likely to vaguely recognize the reference to a different place, since they spent a campaign there (some RL years ago).

 

[Nightfall]

The bigger the world, the more chances I'll run something different than just settling for some islands that have 0 interest for me. Well city campaigns in Freeport and Bluffside are fine, but some times you need to get out and about.

 

[Altalazar]

That is an interesting idea.

I like having the big map because, well, I made this whole world and I have this big map...

But even I could do something along those lines by making the whole campaign take place, say, on a relatively small landmass (bigger than a typical island, but not really much more than that) and then just really getting into the details there. Especially if for some reason or another it was isolated from the rest of the world - either by choice or necessity - like if it was out in dangerous waters that are hard to get to, so basically most people live as if that island really is the whole world. That would be an interesting thing to try. In fact, I'll pick one of my far off islands for that now...