What makes a campaign unique?

[DispelAkimbo]

One simple option is to take the standard setting and move the timeline on a milenia or so.

The current npcs become figures of history, with one or two (like Elminster probably ) still around.

Wars have of course occured in the mean time, nations risen, some fallen, gods changed portfolios, died and re-born, new laws and traditions arise, new races arrive, cataclysms occur, plagues etc.

Simply decide how much change you want from the custom setting and try to logically work out how long that change will have taken, then set your campaign in that year in the future.

 

[Sanackranib]

timeline

they did this in FR as i recall. there was a box set for netheril and you could adventure then. it was cool because the common spells in the players hand book were still new and most were named by their creator. also magic was newer and differnt and you didn't have to worry about all the novels because they had not happened yet. It was a cool idea ( but I don't know anyone who actually played it)

 

[Chacal]

These changes could help :
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9033

Chacal

 

[Dreaddisease]

This is what I do to make mine unique. I come up with as many plot devices that I can for first level characters. Probably about 100+ so far not counting the ones I have found elsewhere. I take my favorite or most interesting ones and then I work them backwards. After about 100+ hours of pouring over the ideas in my mind and on paper and creating characters/legends/history/diety structures/plane organization/land mass layout/city structures/governments I have a world that has developed by itself.

After that you just add flavor. Every idea, everything I see can somehow be incorporated. Custom monsters from watching Nature channel or reading mythology or just a strange dream.

Major NPCs must have a background to their existance, minor NPCs can be cookie cutter but should be different from the last.

Adventure hooks will just drop in your lap after that.

Sometimes the best way to make your world unique is to let your PCs discover it as you discover it. Don't be too contrived in plot functions because of preconceived ideas of how the adventure should go.

Example: You have a party that You are trying to get to discover the ancient city of WhoCaresWhatsItsCalled but when it came to that part of the plot where they were supposed to save the books of a wizard from the fire and find the right book they start making foibles and act stupidly. So You, with Your DM might, create a rainstorm and put out the fire before any real damage was done to the documents the players "HAD" to find.

Suddenly your players are reading a book instead of discovering a world.

Okay that is all I have. I am a fan of the base rules and making homebrew worlds than the modules, but I have yet to play a module so I'm biased.

There is another way to create a world and that is to start macro with an encompassing idea and work down to minute detail

Example: The whole campaign is underground. Why? Because hundreds of Terrasques roam the surface, driving civilization underground. How do they survive? Since you don't want to add Darkvision to every race, then maybe they are still getting used to be refugees in this world and with the help of Clerics and Wizards have created substitutes for the sun allowing them to grow limited crops. etc...

It takes forever but by the time your done with the exercise you will have a world that you have as much fun creating as your players have in discovering.

No suggestion on Forgotten Realms.

 

[Henry]

Darn it, others beat me to the punch, here!

What makes a campaign unique is the same thing that makes a simgle town in all the world unique - its characters.

What makes your own town unique? the people you meet, the events and celebrations that go on, the oddities that only happen to the people in your neck of the woods.

Now, spice that up with a dash of the fantastic.

What matters is not intriguing situations, fantastic backdrops, and total twists on plots - though those help.

What matters is the little touches that characterize the NPC's and home bases and even the strongholds and dungeons in your game.

I'm gonna swell Piratecat's head here, and tell you to look carefully at Piratecat's Story hour over in the forums. His campaign of Spira is not that different from any other of one MILLION homebrews out in the gaming world.

What's different is the touches that make his campaign world so likeable to his players, and to the hundreds of fans he has on this web site.

Read the latest entry about the vault his PC's are trying to penetrate. With that one touch about the "Traditional Dwarven Wedding and Celebration dance", he told us something about his campaign world that NO ONE ELSE HAS - it's one more piece of the puzzle, and one more facet of the whole gem.

With the Puzzle of the Ancient Dwarve Historic Battle Carving, and all of the Heroes in it, and their legendary actions, he added something so subtle yet so powerful to his game that his players may always remember it.

Do your campaigns have Dwarven Wedding Dances, and Famous Historic Generals with Legendary exploits? Mine sure don't - or st least, not enough of them.

Characterization is far more important that unique effects - a lesson that is taught to us in TV shows such as ER, MASH, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We need to take it more to heart, and our own campaigns can come to life far more than we think possible.

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

One way to make a memorable campaign is to take a single given in the setting, change it and extrapolate the effects.

Frex: in my original Bushido campaign, set in fantasy medieval Japan, I played with the nobility. In historical Japan, the nobility and the imperial family were marginalised by the samurai and the shogunate. I had my imperial family, officially related to the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, making pacts with all sorts of oni in order to get power back. This completely disrupted the players expectations. Instead of being pretty figureheads, the imperial family turned out to be the main enemy.