Hello everyone, and welcome to Campaign Construction, a new multi-part article I’ll be working on as I put together an upcoming game of 4e Dungeons & Dragons for my gaming group.
The purpose of this series is to explore the process of Campaign Design from the ground up from my persepective, and will serve as a reference of things that did and didn’t work. As such, I’ll most likely put up a post-mortem analysis of the campaign when it draws to a close and compare it to the things that I would have written here. Comments and Questions are highly encouraged, and I’ll make sure to reply to all questions as necessary.
Like all endeavours, a campaign is never a sure hit. Having been part of dozens of campaigns, both big and small, I’ll be the first to tell you that there is always a possibility that a campaign can go sour. Whether it dies stillborn before it even sees play, or if it fizzles out midway due to burnout, campaigns sometimes see untimely deaths.
That being said, the first step is to always plan. Planning helps soothe a lot of the bumps encountered along the way, and in this aspect, I’d like to go over the basics of campaign design:
The Rules
For this campaign, I’m aiming to run Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Having just picked it up, most of the D&D fans of the group are looking forward to giving it a spin, and having never really run a complete D&D campaign before, it seems like a great place for a fresh start.
I have the rulebooks with me, and so far a quick study of them shows that while the systems is slightly less flexible in the number of rules that govern situations out of combat, I’m certain a little GM elbow grease will fix any odd situations.
The Setting
It’s arguable that D&D is it’s own Genre. Unlike regular fantasy, it has it’s own ground rules, like the solid definition of Good and Evil factions, as well as the undeniable existence of Classes as an actual thing, rather than a metagame distinction. Given this constraint, it’s also somewhat comforting for new GMs to have part of their work made out for them.
I’ll be working with the default “Points of Light” setting, that the designers had described as a fantasy world where civilization are these points of light in a vast darkness represented by the unknown wilderness and the dangers that lurk there.
The Players
Player expectations and the management thereof is a huge point for me, and I try very hard to tailor my game to appeal to as many of their interests as possible. The player characters are the stars of the show after all, and if they are constantly frustrated by meeting inappropriate opposition the fun factor of the game drops to an all time low. I’ll go into further detail of the players in a separate article as it requires quite a large amount of depth.
Inspirations
Given that this isn’t my forte when it comes to Campaign Settings, I’ve decided to rip out the Pathfinder Society from Paizo Publishing’s excellent Pathfinder line of products. I’m probably going to rip apart NPCs, and fold, spindle and mutilate things to fit my campaign, but the basic idea of a Society of Explorer’s whose exploits are famed the world over will stay.
Also, I’ve been reading up on Robert E. Howard’s Chronicles of Conan, to give my campaign that little bit of exoticism meets heavy metal edge to it. Revisiting worlds by David & Leigh Eddings gives me an idea of campaigns revolving around Big Damn Heroes, and a little Terry Brooks to add a little more realism.
Anime is not in this particular campaign, and neither is Wuxia. We’re going back to the ideas of high fantasy, sword & sorcery and good old western fantasy. No whatever-no-jutsu, just thews of iron and arcane spells.
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Next up on my agenda:
A cursory review of my players and their favored playing style. General plot hooks I can use and character concepts submitted thus far.
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