Campaign Design Project - 2022 (Part 3)

And Caverns Old

We now have a hex map of the local region for creating our campaign, but no where for our adventuring party to loot treasure and rout evil. So we need to start creating our centerpiece dungeon~ exciting! The party may venture off to other oneshot-type escapades, but this dungeon needs to last a while. As we get into it, let's go over some quick terminology.

In a classic Gygaxian campaign, these focal dungeons are common: His personal Castle Greyhawk, the namesake for the Campaign setting in which the Castle resides; Temple of Elemental Evil from…Temple of Elemental Evil; or my personal favorite, the crashed UFO from Expedition to Barrier Peaks. Each of these is an archetypal dungeon that a campaign can be focused around. They are also often referred to as Mega-dungeons.

Campaign Design Project - 2022 (Part 2)

 

Travel by Map

Week two of the 75 Challenge introduces the concept of the hex map and helps us start designing our basic local region. We're not designing the whole world, just the areas the party will immediately be exploring around their home town and "the dungeon". 

Before we get into it, let’s look at the steps of week 2 (again, from Ray Otus' booklet) :

Get a sheet of hex paper. Draw the following items on it. Name anything worthy of a name.

Campaign Design Project - 2022 (Part 1)

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe

In 1975, D&D only a year old and making the rounds in the wargaming community, Gary Gygax was doing his best to explain his view of how roleplaying and running a campaign should work to the uninitiated. In a series of issues of Europa fanzine (part 2 of his article still survives), Gygax laid out a "challenge" in an article wonderfully titled:

"HOW TO SET UP YOUR DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CAMPAIGN – AND BE STUCK REFEREEING IT SEVEN DAYS PER WEEK UNTIL THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING!"

Lodoss, The Original Actual Play

Big in Japan

Forcelia may not be the setting most westerners associate with Dungeons & Dragons, but outside of possibly Mystara due to the duo of Capcom arcade games, Forcelia is likely the most recognizable fantasy tabletop world in Japan. You may be curious why you cannot recall a Campaign Boxset or Gazetteer for this setting.

Well, for as famous as the world of Forcelia is in Japan, home to the continents of Alecrast, Crystania, and the tiny dark island of Lodoss, with dozen or so RPG books and novels, we know it in the west almost exclusively through the anime that spawned from it, Record of Lodoss War. The beginning of this world was published as a series of RPG Replays, retelling the events of their RPG Campaign in magazine articles , decades before Actual Play podcasts would become popular in the west.

MNSTR PRFL

Keep It Simple Sorcerer

So: "Just use a bear". When in a pinch, a non-existent monster profile works through the illusion of the GM screen, the skill of improvised description, and effective portrayal of the monster's behavior. But, now you have enough time to prep. You're not pulling your hair out. You just want to keep it simple for the sake of expediency at the table. Or perhaps you're writing your own content. A module, a one page dungeon, etc. How do you keep your content tight and relevant? Why don't we work through it?

Why don't we do it twice? Lets take a look at the orc, From the current edition, and from a slightly weirder version of the classic roleplaying game, and see how we can make the profile utilitarian but still provide the necessary information. This will of course be “violating” the style guides for these games, but that's not the point, the point is to make them useful during play; for quick reference; for readability. 

Judging with Style

Get Some Help

Being a Game Master can be daunting: Prep time, dungeon design, scheduling, nailing the delivery of descriptive blocks, getting the voices of NPCs just right, picking out the right mood music, making sure you have all the minis you need for the big encounter, a battle mat; the list goes on!

No. Stop it. 

This is a "give a mouse a cookie..." situation. Not only will the mouse ask for a glass of milk, all of that is bad for the poor rodent and it will die. Or in this case, your RPG group will ask for milk, and you, the GM will die.

Now, before the non-GMs amongst you click off this post, you can learn from this too. Sit down, lean against a wall, lay on your side, or settle in however you consume your media, and consider this: