What kinds of campaigns do you prefer? (Part 2)

[SirNibbles]

In Part 1, I asked for opinions on Economics, Politics, Combat, Magic, Religion, and Deities. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517963-What-kinds-of-campaigns-do-you-prefer)

Based on some of the ideas of people in that thread plus some of my own ideas, I have a few more categories I'd like to address.

What kind of campaigns do you enjoy playing? What types have you not tried but would like to try?

Planes
Minimal planes- Only core planes exist; planar travel is highly limited.

Minor planes- For the most part, only core planes exist; planar travel is somewhat restricted.

Medium planes- There are a variety of planes, magic users may create extra planes/demi-planes, and planar travel isn't restricted.

Major planes- There are vast numbers of planes, magic users easily create more planes with extreme control over the aspects of those planes, and moving from plane to plane is simple and common.

Downtime
Minimal downtime- Events that occur during a game session represent almost the entirety of all gameplay.

Minor downtime- Players may do some minor things outside of a game session, such as buying common gear/equipment. Usually no more than two days pass outside of a session.

Medium downtime- Players may go about their daily lives outside of a game session. This includes training, crafting items, and travelling. Days or weeks may pass outside of a session.

Major downtime- Most of what players do happens outside of game sessions. Players may manage estates or run businesses, spend long periods of time training in their class, crafting items, travelling very long distances, etc. Months or years may pass outside of a session. Players are likely to gain at least one level between sessions.

Exploration
Minimal exploration- The layout of the world and locations across it are pretty well known and maps are readily available. There are dangerous areas of the world but there are no areas that are unknown.

Minor exploration- The players have a good idea of the various kingdoms/regions/cities and have maps of most of the world. Some locations may be hidden or unknown.

Medium exploration- Civilised areas are decently known and mapped but there are expanses of wild/unexplored territory. These territories may be inhabited by reclusive civilisations, dangerous/evil creatures, wild animals, or no life at all.

Major exploration- The players have very little knowledge of the world beyond where they are. Maps of the outside world are scarce and little of the world is civilised, with most of it being vast wilderness or lands inhabited by dangerous creatures.

[denthor]

somewhere between moderate and major exploration.

Like to know that europe exists but not islands or all the way to Asia. I use real world geography for layout towns are placed with major cities only

[Darth Ultron]

I'd be medium for all three.

Though I like the lots of planes, but not the travel is easy.

And I like the characters know nothing, but it's otherwise a ''medium'' type world.

[noce]

Minimal planes - We know of other material planes but that's about it, and I like it that way. If/when you travel to another plane, you will feel it more special.

Minor downtime - Just because we have easy access to magic items, and shopping slows down gameplay. Usually, we just say "Ok, I buy some magic items, I'll write them tomorrow on Whatsapp".

Medium exploration - In early levels we hadn't access to Teleport, and it was very nice to travel from one place to another. I miss it.

No time travels - Unfortunately, the main campaign I'm playing in is eavily stuffed with time travels, and obviously the party has no mean to time travel, they just get teleported back in time now and then without wanting to, and I hate this.

[Pleh]

Unfortunately, I missed the last thread. It seems like a fun exercise, though, so I'll fill out a full set from Parts 1 and 2 here to keep things neat and tidy on the forum.

Economics
Minimal as a general rule, but I sometimes turn this up to as high as Medium if the players are actually trying to interact with the economic aspects of the world they are in.

Normally I don't even bother asking them to manage their ammunition or weight encumbrance (until they try looting a Large Golden Statue or the like). I feel like most of my games just don't find these numbers engaging or fun to play with.

Politics
Minimal with a few exceptions. Currently I am running a game where a member of the party has discovered that he is the heir to an ancient elven kingdom that had been lost for some time. It's mostly being used as a quest plot line so I can send the party of heroes touring the countryside raising support for the return of an old political power that has been lost for centuries. Most of the players are not advanced enough in the roleplaying to truly play out the political maneuvering and so largely the political focus of the game is just a foil for getting the players moving along.

Combat
Minor to Major, depending on how my PCs built their characters. I typically aim to make sure there are enough traditional combat encounters to take up about half the session time, even if the players will often seek to work around the encounter instead of fighting it head on.

Magic
I like to keep this rather strictly in the Medum range. Having less makes the caster options for PCs less available and having more makes them boringly ubiquitous.

Religion
I gotta split this into two categories: PCs vs NPCs. For PCs, I tend to expect Minor to Medium influence from Religion (allowing these limits to flex for characters who make religion or lack thereof into a major personality point) and for NPCs I tend to expect Medium to Major influence. My logic is that Heroes have less need for gods (unless they are literal servants of the gods) and common folk have drastically more need.

Deities
Highly campaign specific, but I tend to swing a bit stronger on this probably than most. I like to lean on a Medium to Major Divine involvement in my games and use their agendas as some of the primary motivating forces of my games.

Planes
Minimal. These might as well not even exist at all in my games until someone wants to use Ether, Shadow, or Astral dimensions to teleport. I like to think they exist out there somewhere... but good luck to any player that actually wants to go to those places for some reason.

Downtime
Minor to Medium. This probably incorporates about the other half of my session times, where the party is recuperating, gathering resources/information, trading loot for equipment, picking up quest hooks, and making decisions about where to go next and how to go about it.

Exploration
Surprisingly, Minimal. I love exploration games... but probably more as video games than roleplaying games. I feel like most of my games are so focused on Combat and Downtime that Exploration tends to feel like Filler Episodes of an Anime. Why not just trim out the fat?

That said, there is a good amount of localized exploration when they reach the encounter. While I may hand out free maps to lead the party so they can fast travel to their quest waypoints (with a short pit stop to curb stomp some wandering monster), once they get there, they usually have to figure out where everything is on their own.

---

Recommended categories

Social (everything not Political or Downtime; conversations with no tangible benefit determine how much roleplay your game is in proportion to how much roll play)
Mystery/Puzzle
Traps (and other situational encounters/hazards; Indiana Jones style gameplay)
Travel (includes Environmental Hazards such as extreme heat and cold, swimming, endurance checks for long marches, survival checks to avoid getting lost, and sailing; LoTR style gameplay)


For myself, I tend to keep these elements pretty minimal, but I always dream of games that utilize them more.

[Buufreak]

Planes - Ya know, I've never given too much thought on planes in many of my games. We commonly run a M:tG conversion, and the vast majority of planes in the setting are essentially earth 1, earth 2, etc. So extrapolate from that what you will.

Downtime - Definitely minor. If there is a need for time to heal or craft, that is fine, but I generally like having at least some sense of urgency, in that just because the party stops moving doesn't mean the multiverse around them does the same.

Exploration - (can't find the infinity button on my keyboard). Then again, this is entirely subjective to the players. Do you want to explore the world? The people? The locations? Flora/Fauna? The sky is literally the limit for this. But the party could also give less than 2 craps and want to go on a dungeon crawl or murderfest. So just as with planes, mileage may vary.

[Starbuck_II]

Might as well answer last one too:
Medium to minor economics: depends on place, occasionally
Minimal to minor politics
Minor to medium Combat
Minor to Medium Magic: Sometimes casters will be special depending on location
Minor to Medium Religion:
Minor to Medium deities:
Medium planes
Minor to Medium Downtime
Minor to Medium Exploration

[Professor Chimp]

Medium planes- All the usual 3.5 planes exist and can be traveled to, but planar travel is generally limited to high level casters with a certain degree of power and control, since it tends to attract the attention of eldritch abominations living in between planary boundaries.

Medium downtime- Sessions chronologically follow each other immediately, but players regularly choose to take downtime while in a session to complete some task.

Medium exploration- An area roughly equivalent in size to Europe is well known and mapped, but it is bordered on most sides by very inhospitable regions (either because of environment or natives). Some things are known about what lies beyond those regions, but few ever bother venturing there.

[Karl Aegis]

Planes:
You're generally expected to stay on the plane you start on. If you start on the Material Plane the Ethereal, Astral, Shadow and Inner planes are generally available to you, but there is little reason to go anywhere else. I took the time to develop a setting from scratch; I really shouldn't have to make an entirely new setting every hour just because you have access to Teleport or Plane Shift now. Summoning spells are likewise limited to animals,celestial/fiendish animals, magical beasts and denizens of the Ethereal, Astral, Shadow and Inner planes. Outer plane stuff is generally exceptional and needs to be dealt with expediently on the Prime. Outsiders are less rare when you start on an outer plane, but still rare. Expect more templated things than actual outsiders.

Downtime:
You generally can rest when you want to. Feel free to go on vacation if grinding through a dungeon is too tiring for you. But, when an outsider or elves show up expect to gear up and move out.

Exploration:
I can generally draw a map of the local area up to a hundred miles or so. Expect things to be close together so teleportation isn't a necessity. You probably can get from one side of the setting to the other in a few weeks. If the campaign is focused on looting a particular dungeon maps of the dungeon are going to be expensive as explorers are risking their lives exploring the thing. If the dungeon is big enough you can expect multiple rival towns surrounding the dungeon and might be ambushed by rival explorers.

[martixy]

I'm gonna answer a question that wasn't posed, because everyone always assumes the same tired old cliche. I hate playing those cliches.

Demographics: Monstrous

I'm played out on human-dominated worlds for the rest of my mortal life.

I like a world where the majority of sentient civilizations are not relegated to savages. I like them to be given much more credit than what they receive in the default fluff.
And I dislike monoculture races. IRL, you can have varying cultures on surprisingly small scales. Encountering the same forest-dwelling elves or barbaric orcs everywhere you go destroys all traces of verisimilitude of that world.

As far as the rest:

Medium economics: I like the feel of a vibrant world, but it all depends on the level of effort the DM(me or whoever) is capable of pulling off.
Medium politics: Right now the party I DM for is favouring a medium politics which is fine with me. Politics in fantasy is much more interesting. There must be intrigue and drama.
Medium combat: This being D&D, campaigns tend to slide down the combat scale, so while I'd like an even split, without active effort the game tends to slide down to more combat.
Minor magic: "Magic is widespread but uncommon" perfectly sums it up. I want it to be special, rare, wondrous. Not cheapened and devolving into a magic-mart world where the peasants scrub dirt from their shoes with prestidigitation. If a child with the spark of magic is born in a small town it should be an event, as if the emperor himself was visiting.
Medium religion: Gods exist in the D&D world and actively meddle. Peasants are stupid. If in our world the church held such power, imagine a world where the gods are demonstrably real and actively involved! Also adds more drama.
Greek deities: I'm adding a new level here, that more accurately describes their level of involvement.
Minor planes: I like for a campaign to preserve the mystery of planar travel. I like that transition moment where you go from plain old scrubs to plane-hopping legends.
Medium downtime: In the campaign I'm running now we're gonna try to use the downtime and possibly kingdom building rules from PF's ultimate campaign. So if I had to peg it, it'd be medium downtime. Not as far as gaining levels between sessions, but running organisations and plotting, certainly.
Medium exploration: Mostly on account of the massive world, which has yet to be fleshed out to even a semi-decent degree.


This all boils down to: A fleshed out world that capable of creating epic stories. Tearing down the thin veneer of default fluff and taking it to its logical conclusion: epic greek mythos. Despite the flimsy coat of fluff that paints a medieval setting, but with monsters, if you look deeper you realize that it matches the greek tradition much more closely.