the thankless job of campaign-building

[Desdichado]

Ray Winninger wrote up a great series of articles in Dragon that overlapped with the release of 3rd edition that was great for the time-pressed homebrewer. I've actually been distilling his process on my own low-magic homebrew right here, but I can also email you the files with the text of the articles if you want. They used to be available online at the Wizards site before Paizo took over publication of Dragon and luckily I grabbed them while they were still available. The copy I have now is text only, though, as a pdf file.

 

[Katerek]

The Ray Winninger articles taught me a lot. I rule my campaign design with the First Rule of Dungeoncraft: Never force yourself to create more than you must.

Also, the MMS:Ecology and Culture is one of the best books ever written on world design. This book should be considered the must have for all GMs starting out on world creation. It takes alot of the ideas first present in the 2nd edition World Builder's Guidebook and expounds on them to a fantastic level of detail. Beyond phenomenal stuff there.

One trick I have used in the past when pinched for time though is to find a module or something geared towards low level parties. Preferably one that I am intimately familiar with that I know my current group hasn't played and run that. As I am running that, I will build the world out from there always staying about three steps ahead of the campaign progression. I have done this to great effect on two separate occasions with The Sinister Secret of Salt Marsh and the Temple of Elemental Evil.

Of course another option is to just take a prefab world and change it as you see fit as you go along. My advise here would be to choose a setting that none of you players are intimately familiar with, that way you can avoid rules lawyering in regards to setting details.

Good luck.

 

[WizarDru]

Everything Rel said.

Consider making a campaign world to be like drawing a map. Rough out the most general and obvious portions first. Detail major events of history that might come up in casual conversation ("Ha'nt seen a arrowhead here in the plowfield since t'last war, boy.") or that are known to everyone ("Every year on the Equinox we have Lord Smiggen's Day, to remember how he liberated us from the Illithid Threat.")

Work out broad details, and work up some lies. Really. Let your players believe, at 1st level, things that may be total fabrications they don't discover until 10th level. ("What do you mean, Lord Smiggen was a Drow?") Don't worry about having all the answers to the big questions...in fact, let the campaign's direction answer them for you later, if you can. ("Hmmm...the players keep fighting dueregar...maybe THEY were the ones who stole the statue of Lord Smiggen! Because...they hate the drow!").

Like Rel says, only detail what you know will be significant to the players, not what you hope will be. Don't waste effort on the royal family of Smiggen, if the players will never meet or know them. What's the line of succession for the Smiggens? If it's a factor in Lord Percy Smiggen's plot to overthrow the monarchy, worry about it then. If not, move on to other tasks, like that brother of the PC who shows up to drag him back to the farm. Don't detail the society of assassins any more than you need to. If the PCs just kill the assassin and never track them back to their lair, you'll feel awfully silly having made maps, motivations and endless stat-blocks (not to mention a custom prestige class).

You might think that's making things to vague...but let me assure you, when the characters starting using higher level magic, it's the only way to protect your sanity.

 

[philreed]

Get the 2e World Builder's Guide. It's nicely organized and helps you "fill in the blanks."

Agree. It's an excellent product. It's available here:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1484

The Dungeon Master's Design Kit is also useful:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1055

And I'll plug my own Campaign Planner:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2097

 

[GlassJaw]

I can also email you the files with the text of the articles if you want

Yeah, that would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[LunaticGoat]

Hi ho!

Start with the most important questions:
What do you want from your setting? Means: what style of playing do you want it to prefer, for example: swashbuckling, or dungeon crawling, or horror or pulp or intriuge , heavyly lets say arthur style or stuff from the norse mytsics or a mixture or what ever. Or what kind of possible game situations should be included, expected , excluded etc.


What do your players expect from it? Ask them what a kind of game they want. Ask them how they want to interact with this world for example :
problem solving through arms or words, lots of maigc or technology etc.


Now the most important one:
What kind of world(well lets say setting, who needs worlds to live on them anyway...) would support this kind of gaming?
What kind of classes,races etc do you think fit in, or which ones would be interesting streches of the world style?

After that you can make a rough scetch of things to include and that start to flesh out whats needed just like rel said.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, that would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Done!

 

[barsoomcore]

Every time this question comes up, I seem to be saying the same thing. That's possibly because I'm a slow learner.

But what I do, before taking any of the very-useful advice in this thread, is make a big list called, "Things I Think Are Cool"

You'll be surprised at how much can come out of just that list. Don't try to make anything make sense, don't worry about what fits with what -- just write down every idea for cool stuff in your head. Dinosaurs? Okay, write it down. Elric? Okay, write it down.

Once you've written down everything you can think of, put it aside for a week, then take it out and do it again. Repeat a couple of times. Just the act of writing down "What I Think Is Cool" really helps you to focus your thinking and narrow in on the critical elements of your setting.

Then later you can go over your list and start figuring out how to combine and integrate your various ideas.

Hey, Melinboneans on DINOSAURS! Now THAT'S cool.

Cool Stuff. What's the point in running a campaign that isn't full of Cool Stuff?