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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.

Amblehook
2011-02-18, 03:04 AM
I've been working on my campaign setting for a couple of years now, with the pace usually set to simmer. (I've almost never been able to sit down for a weekend and hammer out any significant chunks.)

I started by trying to figure out what things in other campaigns I really liked or didn't like. I've always liked spellcasters, but didn't always care for how prevalent they are in other settings. So I'm working diligently to craft the right atmosphere of magic in my game.

When it came to building the world, I thought I wanted to start grand, designing the entire planet, and slowly fleshing out the microcosm later. However, after a while I started to see that the world would never be finished if I kept at that rate. I hope that one day, some of my fellow gamers might be able to enjoy my world, so I recently changed gears. I'm now focusing on a small kingdom with a few towns and cities and a large forest to place story hooks. The world will expand as they explore.

My biggest problem with creating a new campaign setting is that I spend too much of my world building time searching for tools and articles intended to help me. So much isn't getting done because I'm reading about how others have gotten theirs done. But it's not all bad... I ran across this website a few weeks ago when I was doing some research on liches. I ran across a thread discussing the finer points of Xykon's phylactery.

NichG
2011-02-18, 05:02 AM
I generally start with a theme and a question or concept I'd like to explore.

For example, a campaign I ran awhile back had Theme: Supernatural Detective Agency, Concept: What if the ephemeral were material?

That was followed by Theme: Traveling troupe of performers, Concept: If belief shapes reality, can there be absolute truths?

That was followed by Theme: Medieval fantasy characters in space, Concept: Explore the idea of a being that strives to create the 'best' of all possible worlds and what that entails.

I'm currently running Theme: Party of ghosts in the afterlife, Concept: What implication would population growth have on the realms of the dead?

The theme usually determines things about what the players see early on, and the general party structure (and often becomes discarded as the players come up with their own directions), and the concept determines roughly what the long-term plot is.

I then create setting elements that enable the theme, and create some broad structures to eventually approach the concept though I don't fill in any detail except things like 'what is the most important thing happening right now, who are the most important people the party will be aware of or become aware of right now, ...' I then fill in detail as things are explored, usually using placeholder descriptive names for places and organizations until they're about to come into play.

Generally I'll make a map for each stage of the campaign, that the players immediately or eventually get to see. It helps give a sense of options both to me and the players.

I never bother statting out any NPCs until they're just about to be used though, and organizations roughly get a bio of 'top person, second in command person, random important person in the ranks; organization goals, personal goals of the three people'

DabblerWizard
2011-02-19, 01:25 PM
Amblehook, I've fallen into the same trap. Thinking big, then getting sucked into the details and or wanting to avoid being overwhelmed by the enormous task ahead of me. That kind of block can end my campaign planning for weeks.

NichG, I like your theme idea. It's very cerebral and encompassing. My question to you is, how do you come up with those themes? And how much effort do you put into answering the questions that come about because of them?

How powerful do you make your BBEGs? In what ways are they powerful?

I often try to make them powerful enough that they're a threat, but not so powerful that no one BUT the players can defeat them. I don't care to reinforce that particular trope, directly. I like making players feel special in slower, subtler ways. I also like to make my BBEGs subtle and surprising.

mint
2011-02-19, 03:22 PM
When I was a kid I really liked writing skeleton-stories. Outlines. Details about worlds and things and people.
But the process of creating things in thas way would inevitably lead to disenchanting the creation. Too many words and limits to the ideas.

Now, I have a notebook where I collect ideas, concepts and people. I take it out mostly when I am preparing for a set of sessions or while I am in the middle of them. I try to write everything down in as evocative a way as possible in as few words as I can. I have chapter tags for a few broad themes so I can find things again.

When I make something for a campaign it is mostly puzzling with stuff from my notebook and seeing if the things I want to use can fit together or if I get new ideas from playing around with them. I am overcautious of forcing anything. When I am stuck on something I just let it sit and work on something else.
I try to be very scale conscious when I make things. I like small scales and medium scales. Defining a meta-plot or making a lot of stuff that will just sit around without being used kills my interest.
I suppose I have a pretty narrative approach. I am pretty hands off, plot-wise but I focus a lot on making a setting that delivers a feeling and sets the stage.
Once I have a flexible and flavourful frame I like and think my players will enjoy, I find my players do much of my work for me.

I do spend a lot of time planning sessions and making up consequences for player choices.