Micro-sized Campaign Worlds

[BiggusGeekus]

I didn't do micro, but I kept the number of countries down to about 10. I've noticed that players can generally remember two or three countries at the start of the game so I don't worry about any more than that. About half of these countries are themed by type and can be easily summarized (e.g. "elfland" "orcland", etc.)

I included two countries that were "distant", one barbaric one civilized. So if a guy didn't want to read the world history he could just play someone from one of those countries. Any question he asked about the current political situation could therefore be done entirely in-charcter.

 

[Arnwyn]

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

What are you talking about? For me, that's a perfect amount. We play once every 2 weeks like clockwork, with 8-hour sessions. (That averages 17 hours per month.) I couldn't imagine anything more than that.

I would think that a micro-world would work, but it depends on your players. If they like to travel and experience different cultures, then you might be in a bit of trouble.

In any case, I am thankful that I have had different experiences than you - my campaigns last for many, many years, and the PCs experience vast portions of my (vast) world.

 

[jester47]

There seems to be a theme here.

I think it has to do with 2 core ideas.

One is accessibility. Getting the characters to the places where the adventure occurs with little or no fus. That is the players can get there without crossing continenets, or it seeming so.

The other is repeatability. The merchants that give the PCs a break, or familiarity with a certain town or city. Regular villians, and regularly revistited adventure locations seem to be par of this.

I think the idea of a small campaign world comes from looking for both these traits. But I do not necessariiy think that a physically small campaign world is necessary to achieve this. Instead, I think what we are looking for is the idea of a "limited" campaign world.

For example, IMC (FR) I have a city (Everlund) the surrounding wilderness (the nether mountains, the evermoors, the high forest, the silverwood) where I have placed several dungeons and adventure locations, a political organisation (the silver marches confederacy). The campaign (or this leg of it) does not really leave the confines of the stated areas. The rumors just don't go that far.

However, looking at the "portalisation" of FR, you could concievably have a campaign that was limited but was in two cities or far off locales at once. Damn portal networks allow for removal and insertion of characters, and destroys the confines of the geography in a way. Its how I am inserting a late comer to our gaming group. In essence it allows the DM to use what he needs. Want to use Anarouch and Waterdeep as your campaign area, just set up a two way portal (or a series of em) and you have your limited yet continenet spanning campaign world without it seeming limited.

Basicly, I find that what a DM needs in any campaign is limitation coupled with variety. This makes getting the accessibility and repeatability fairly easy.

Aaron.

 

[Umbran]

You can run a campaign in a small physical area, like a single city, yes.

Aside from the fun of making the darned thing up, aside from the idea that one (published) campaign world is supposed to give individual DMs many choices of where they can set their adventures, there's the fact that even a single city will feel the influences of distant lands. The GM needs to know what those influences are, so he has to get an idea about what those lands are like.

 

[Droogie]

I haven't run a campaign in a world that small, but I have been gradually changing to a small area approach to world building and campaign design over the last five or ten years. Basically, I only map out and detail a small area at a time, and the rest of the world only exists as broad strokes until I need it. It works fine, in my experience, so long as you're willing to build your stories up on the same elements over time, rather than have PCs finish an adventure and then move on.

Thats basically what I've done. I have land masses and such all scribbled on a pretty basic map but the only areas I've detailed are a couple of kingdoms on an island about the size of Ireland. I believe this tiny little area will be more than enough to carry my PCs to 20th level, thanks to the rapid rate of level advancement in 3e. There is a lot of adventure to be had in a small area if the DM is willing to cook up the right story.

As for the rest of the world, I have a general idea of what's around, painted with "broad strokes". None of it is even on paper. Its just enough to give the players a sense of the world out there without making lots of fruitless work for me. Since some of my players can't even remember the name of the NPC thats been traveling with them for most of the game, I'm not going to go through the trouble of naming every city on the continent across the sea, unless of course its needed.

Addressing the issue of gaming frequency, we have a nice deal worked out: There are 4 of us, and we each take turns Dming. There are 4 different games going at the same time, but as I said, the rapid rate of advancement keeps any of the games from stagnating. Giving someone else the DMing task is a great thing, since it allows each of us to recharge our DMing batteries until our turn comes around. It also gives each individual campaign an "episodic" feel which seems to serve the game well. Dming is a tough task and I can't imagine having to do it every week for a year. No wonder most games fizzle and die.

I highly recommend this system. Even if you suck as a DM, you just need to be good enough so that everyone has a good time. There are a lot of cool d20 games out there, and this is a nice way of trying out that Spycraft or Star Wars game that's collecting dust in your geek collection. You might even discover that your group meets more often because of it.

 

[taichara]

Jya.

Microworlds have been a staple of my campaign design for longer than I should probably admit -- when the PCs aren't in one, they're discovering one or falling into one *ehehs* I attribute most of this to my distinct glee in trying to design tiny worlds that might stand a chance of being believable.

I've tackled islands, demiplanes, tiny self-contained miniature planar cosmologies, and combinations of the above that make Spelljammer look perfectly viable.

It can be fun, especially if combined with a "standard" -sized campaign world ("We just teleported where??").

For a interesting take on the idea -- if you can survive the Disney elements -- I recommend taking a look at the Playstation2 rpg Kingdom Hearts....


Tai

 

[Sargon the Kassadian]

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.

This is what I'm going to do in some parts of my campaign world. The whole world is a giant archipelago (cluster of many islands) that are all different. The world may be big, but the islands are small and have uniquely different cultures! I was partially inspired by the Ursula K. Le Guin books, _the Wizard of Earthsea_ and the rest of the series

 

[Iron Sheep]

Like a number of other people in this thread, my homebrew campaign takes place in a very small area: the PCs are at about 11th level and haven't travelled more than about 4 days travel from the city where they started. You can pack a lot in a small area without too much difficulty.

However the campaign may be about to expand significantly: the PCs are just now getting their hands on spells like teleport, wind walk and transport via plants. Up to this point, I've been able to make a journey of a few days a story, and swift travel something dramatic (like the time the druid flew overnight in eagle form from the hinterlands to the island-capitol to summon help). I think that this might change suddenly, since it just did in our other game.

So a micro-campaign might be good for low- to mid-level stuff; but beyond that I think it doesn't matter. The players don't see the small-scale stuff anymore, and having a bigger world out there for them to interact with might be a good idea.

Mind you, we've been playing for almost a year and a half now, about 16 hours a month, and the PCs are at about 10th level, so maybe it'll work well for that length of campaign.