DabblerWizard
2011-02-18, 12:22 AM
Notice the title's alliteration. Feel the joy that springs from the use of literary devices... or just read on.
I'm in a pensive mood tonight, and I want to set up a discussion about the creativity and meticulousness involved with creating a campaign: world, story, background, history, motivations, politics, metaphysics, and the like.
This kind of undertaking, whether by single individuals, or payed organizations, is a serious undertaking. I'm less interested in the mass enterprise associated with groups like WOTC who make a living off of their ideas.
Those of us who have created a campaign world, a deep, vibrant, moving one, realize that this stuff takes a lot of work!
How do you, individual campaign creator, prioritize or structure your campaign creation? Or are you more haphazard, spontaneous, working off of momentary, fleeting gems of gleaming insight?
How does this work for you?
In my case...
... campaign creation is definitely based around my interests. I am most knowledgeable about psychology, and less knowledgeable about history and sociological forces and political trends and such. Despite this, I get a surprising amount of glee from creating a map of a world, or a town, or a region.
What individual people do, and why, is easier for me to postulate than considering how their actions will leave a lasting mark on others in a very macro-focused level. Just to touch upon a dialectic, it's also the case that relatively minor instruction in sociology and history allows me the creative space to come up with fantastical outcomes that aren't necessarily hindered by the structure of too much formal knowledge. Fantasy work can flourish on "original thought". An oppositional dialectical turn leads to the suggestion that having a broad knowledge of the history of trends through time can be quite useful. Asimov certainly thought so.
I also enjoy philosophy, so in my campaign I created a meta-physics of magic, explaining how magical forces come about, how they interact, how magic can be tapped into in the world. My next project along that line might go into explaining in more detail how certain types of spell casters harness the magic.
I'm in a pensive mood tonight, and I want to set up a discussion about the creativity and meticulousness involved with creating a campaign: world, story, background, history, motivations, politics, metaphysics, and the like.
This kind of undertaking, whether by single individuals, or payed organizations, is a serious undertaking. I'm less interested in the mass enterprise associated with groups like WOTC who make a living off of their ideas.
Those of us who have created a campaign world, a deep, vibrant, moving one, realize that this stuff takes a lot of work!
How do you, individual campaign creator, prioritize or structure your campaign creation? Or are you more haphazard, spontaneous, working off of momentary, fleeting gems of gleaming insight?
How does this work for you?
In my case...
... campaign creation is definitely based around my interests. I am most knowledgeable about psychology, and less knowledgeable about history and sociological forces and political trends and such. Despite this, I get a surprising amount of glee from creating a map of a world, or a town, or a region.
What individual people do, and why, is easier for me to postulate than considering how their actions will leave a lasting mark on others in a very macro-focused level. Just to touch upon a dialectic, it's also the case that relatively minor instruction in sociology and history allows me the creative space to come up with fantastical outcomes that aren't necessarily hindered by the structure of too much formal knowledge. Fantasy work can flourish on "original thought". An oppositional dialectical turn leads to the suggestion that having a broad knowledge of the history of trends through time can be quite useful. Asimov certainly thought so.
I also enjoy philosophy, so in my campaign I created a meta-physics of magic, explaining how magical forces come about, how they interact, how magic can be tapped into in the world. My next project along that line might go into explaining in more detail how certain types of spell casters harness the magic.