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I've been through it several times myself.
You?re tired of the course your AD&D®
games have been taking lately, or you're
about to become the DM for a
new group of players. Maybe you?ve just
learned the game and you?re about to DM
for the first time. In any case, you need
a
campaign. You are embarking on a very
challenging aspect of being a DM, and your
creativity is on the line.
You can take a couple of evenings and whip
up something with little depth to it, or
you
can spend a little more preparation time
and come up with something really special.
"Old timers" like myself know that creating
an interesting campaign is one of the essential
elements in providing a challenging and
entertaining session when it?s your turn
to
be the DM.
My company was faced with this situation
when TSR, Inc., decided that we
should be the firm to design and administer
a play-by-mail version of the AD&D
game.
(This article is in part a story about
how a
group of professional game designers went
about creating a large-scale campaign,
and
in part a description of the techniques
and
processes that anyone should use when
designing a campaign of any size.) Not
only
would we have to come up with a campaign
setting in which the game could operate,
but we?d have to develop a campaign that
could interest, challenge, and entertain
literally thousands of players. Luckily,
we?d
all had a great deal of experience designing
large-scale FRP campaigns,
and we had all played in various welldesigned
game campaigns. But that experience
would not be enough. To keep up with
a campaign in which hundreds of player
characters were busy depopulating the lands
of monsters, using up magic items, and
finding lost treasures, we?d have to do
some
thinking in new areas. We?d also be faced
with the problem of incorporating all aspects
of AD&D
campaigning into our game.
We'd have to decide what monsters and
magic to use, how to keep up with the
weather, what politics would be like in
different areas, and many other aspects
of
world design that aren?t always decided
upon in advance or used in every AD&D
campaign.
By the time you think of all the normal
things that you would put into the building
of a world and a campaign (like maps,
cities, NPCs, dungeons, mines, special
monsters, etc.) and add them to all of
the
?optional? areas (like weather, calendars,
supply, political interaction, your own
crea-
tive ideas, etc.), you know that we were
facing quite a task. This brings me to
the
element of campaign design that I consider
most important. The proper application
of
this word encompasses about 90% of the
creative process. That word is organization.
Organization is what keeps all those loose
ends from being forgotten, and it helps
find
out what the loose ends are in the first
place. Organization helps you make decisions
about how much work certain things
will entail, what to include in your campaign,
and what to leave out. Best of all, the
general rules of organization apply to
any
job that you do, whether it be designing
an
AD&D
campaign, cleaning your house, or
doing a school project.
Defining your
goals
The first rule of organization is to decide
what your
building a
final product will be. If you were
boat, you wouldn?t start until
you had decided what the boat should look
like, how large it should be, whether it
would be a sailboat or a motor boat, and
quite a few other things. The same thing
applies to the building of your AD&D
game
world. Several questions must be answered
before you throw yourself full steam into
the
detail work.
1. How many players
or groups of players
do you expect to participate in this
world? The more players,
the larger you'll
need to make the area and content of your
map. A corollary
to this is the question of
how long you think you'll be using this
campaign with the same group of players.
If
you anticipate using the world for quite
a
while, then it should be large enough for
the
characters to have new places to explore
for
as long as it is in use.
2. How many and what
kinds of political
and wilderness areas do you want?
If you
want evil empires, benevolent kingdoms,
theocracies, nations of demi-humans or
humanoids, haunted woods, elven forests,
mystic lakes, and so forth, you need to
know how many of each you want in advance.
Your map
should have area enough
to include all of these things.
3. What is the current
state of your world
and how did it get that way? Many
campaigns
operate under the "eternal cycle"
system. The world is either mostly good
with evil on the rise, mostly evil with
good
on the rise, or in a state of chaos with
evil
and good relatively equal in strength,
fighting
it out to see who will wind up on top.
The answer to this question will have some
bearing on the answer to question
2, above.
Detailing the
campaign
Once you've answered these questions,
you'll have a broad idea of the overall
nature
of your campaign. More importantly,
you will have established a foundation
for
further campaign development. The next
step in organizing is to expand upon the
decisions you have just made. Here?s how
we answered the above questions, and how
we used those answers to further shape
the
work done in each of these areas:
1. Needing to provide room for both a
large number of players and a long period
of GAME play,
we decided to start out with a
single very large continent, 5000 by 5000
miles across (25 million square miles in
area). This continent was divided into
individual areas 5 by 5 miles in size.
We
kept track of certain terrain types and
special
features for each of these smaller areas.
The continent was also divided into areas
50 by 50 miles across, about which much
more information was stored, including
notes on populations, types of encounter
tables to use, resource values, strategic
values, farming values, hunting values,
water availability, climate, and so forth.
This continent will serve the initial group
of
players in the campaign. We plan to add
three more similarly sized continents as
the
number of players in our campaign grows.
2. Having decided on the scale of the
campaign, we began drawing the map. Our
resident artist started by drawing a continental
outline on a large graph pad. Then
our resident geologist determined the viability
of the continental structure, as well as
the workability of the land formations
(considering
what was to be done with the campaign).
Next, we added mountain ranges,
hill areas, and island chains. Then came
river systems, forests, and plains areas.
Once these broad terrain areas had been
outlined, it was much easier to decide
where
swamps, volcanoes, and other more specific
terrain would go.
This first version of the map was then
expanded onto four of the same large-sized
sheets of graph paper, which conformed
to
the scale of our 50 x 50 mile areas. Next
came the hard part, transfering the maps
to
the 5 x 5 mile scale. This was accomplished
with 12 sheets of 2? x 3? paper (obtained
at
an engineering supply store) marked into
100 squares per square inch. Filling in
these
sheets meant determining detail for one
million squares! Luckily, large areas of
mountain, sea, lake, desert, and plain
could
all be done at once, sparing us the task
of
deciding on terrain for each of those one
million squares. Obviously, your map need
not be broken down to such a detailed scale,
but you can use the same procedure to
move your first generalized drawing to
whatever final scale you want your map
to
have. DRAGON® issue #56 has
an
article
on drawing
realistic maps. If you don?t
have access to that issue or some similar
source, study a few maps of the Earth from
an atlas before drawing out your world.
As
a final note, try not to let the land in
your
map run off the edges. Use oceans, polar
ice
fields, or barrier mountains to stop characters
from "falling off the edge of the world."
Once the time came to start filling in the
terrin on its? most detailed scale, we
had to
decide on the exact list of terrain features
we would use. We came up with a list of
about 60 individual types of terrain (see
Table 1). This generally included only
natural
types of terrain, the kinds that you
would find here on Earth. However, in a
fantasy world, you can include fantasy
terrain such as flying cities, floating
islands,
high magic-potential areas, shivering
ground, pockets of radically different
climate
(such as a frozen pond in the middle
of a desert oasis), and land that ripples
like
waves on the water. Reading fantasy books
can give you some inspiration for developing
types of magical terrain; several authors.
such as Michael Moorcock and
Roger Zelazny, have written novels including
such imaginative features.
While you?re figuring out what terrain to
use in your world and where it will go,
take
a moment to consider climate and weather.
If you are going to use either of these
in
your campaign, then be aware that terrain
placement will have a bearing on weather
conditions, and vice versa. Where is the
equator? Obviously, your climate will be
warmer there and it will grow colder as
characters approach the north or south
poles. The types of forests on the map
will
change from hotter to cooler climates,
and
warmer areas will have more marsh and
swampland. Terrain placement will also
have effects on both weather patterns and
other terrain. The ?protected? side of
a
north-south chain of mountains will tend
to
have dry plains or deserts, with appropriately
low levels of rainfall. These general
rules can give you an idea of the broad
effects that climate and weather will have
on
your campaign, should you decide to include
them. If you also decide to create a
calendar system for your campaign, you
can
plot rainy seasons, dry seasons, summers
and winters, etc.
With the map terrain complete, you can
decide on placement of cities and broad
political setups. River mouths and forks
are
natural locations for cities and towns,
as are
valleys, bays, lakeshores, and other places
where water is plentiful. Major river and
mountain formations are useful in separating
one kingdom from another; these features
often served as borders when only
primitive travel was available. When the
cities are placed and national boundaries
are determined, you can look at each area
individually and decide on what kind of
society and government exists there, and
what relationships are maintained with
surrounding countries. This forms one of
the most interesting elements of your roleplaying
campaign. As you make notes
about the cities and countries, also make
notes about the leaders of each. If you
wish,
you can go so far as to generate AD&D
character statistics for each leader and
some
of his important underlings, and decide
what magic or treasures he might have to
offer as rewards (or have stolen from him).
3. Before you made your map and created
the world's politics, you answered
question 3 above, putting
some thought into
the overall focus of your world and how
it
got to be that way. Your answer to this
question will have helped while you performed
the creative tasks associated with
question 2. The finishing touches may be
put on the world?s history, and at the
same
time, rationales may be created for the
way
in which you intend to run your campaign.
This step requires some thought; it can
be a little tricky to logically develop
your
campaign?s focus, politics, and history,
plus
allow for your own DMing style in the
game. Perhaps you have decided to be
stingy with magic items (having in a previous
campaign learned your lesson from
characters with golf bags full of swords
or
staves). You might wish to roll for random
encounters more or less often than usual,
or
have local societies brand magic-users
or
druids as outcasts. Sooner or later, players
will notice these differences in the campaign
and will question why those aspects are
different. If you did some thinking about
this in advance, then you will have worked
out rationales for why the campaign functions
in that manner and will have given the
players some advance warning of what will
be different and why. By meeting this problem
head-on, you can avoid confusing your
players.
As an example of how these things work
together, here?s a description of how we
set
up our play-by-mail campaign. First, we
decided on a land that was relatively free
of
evil and strife at the start of the campaign,
but which was plagued by a growing evil
that the player characters would try to
slow
or stop as they played the game. We were
also looking for ancient heritage in the
land,
a sense of history and general knowledge
about the surrounding world, and an element
of exploration. Additionally, we knew
that we would be starting characters at
both
low and high levels, but we didn?t want
high-level characters to start out with
a
multitude of magic items, because the
search for magic is always an entertaining
part of any AD&D
campaign. If higherlevel
characters started with the number of
magic items that a character of their level
would normally gain through play, then
they would have little incentive to quest
for
powerful tools. We also wanted a current
and growing threat that would be very
dangerous to a large number of characters,
something that could be easily recognized
as
a danger. Since our game will have player
interaction, we also needed a way for the
game to suggest some competition and strife
between the characters. Of course, no campaign
is complete without some mystery
and risk. To tie all this together, we
needed
to formulate a history of the world that
would make all of these elements fit logically
together.
We solved these problems by postulating
that colonists had come to this land a
long
time ago from a dying society, a land being
gradually strangled by a growing desert.
The colonists found a dangerous land on
their arrival, but they tamed the majority
of
it over the centuries. Still, there were
hazardous
areas that the colonists did not particularly
need to occupy, and these areas
were left alone except for occasional attempts
at exploration. Once the lands that
the colonists occupied were tamed, the
need
for strong magic for attack and defense
decreased. With plenty of land and resources,
wars occurred only rarely. After a
time, the residents of the land, though
capable of and trained for exploration
and
warfare, grew soft from a lack of either.
The
great articles of magic employed by their
ancestors were packed away and eventually
forgotten. But in recent years, some of
the
dangers once conquered by the early colonists
began to re-emerge. Then an alarming
discovery was made of an expanding desert,
just like the one in the legends of their
ancient homeland! Whatever evil had destroyed
the home of the original colonists
had now come to this land, and would have
to be conquered before the entire continent
was bathed in a sandy desolation.
Much more exists to our history and
rationale than this brief recounting reveals,
but enough of our framework has been
shown to demonstrate how we solved our
problems. We have reasons for why exploration
is still needed; the growing desert will
threaten some characters and force them
to
encroach on the lands of other characters.
The lack of recent threats and war discourages
the use of powerful magic, which,
while not in the hands of the adventurers,
is
still to be found. Infrequent wars and
explorations
still occur and still produce skilled
adventurers, but the very fact that the
wars
are infrequent explains why endless numbers
of these adventurers aren?t around.
The growing presence of evil in the land
is a great mystery to be solved, a mystery
whose solution might take many quests to
unravel. This growing evil provides a reason
for attacks by evil forces to appear in
any place at any time ? certainly a risk
dread enough to keep players cautious and
guessing for a while! We are well satisfied
with the rationales used in our history
and
state of the world, but they did not come
about on the first draft of our history.
A lot
of discussion and development went on
between the first ideas and the final version.
When you have developed the history and
current state of your world, be sure to
discuss
it with a couple of friends. They?ll be
sure to poke a few holes in it, but if
you
take their suggestions constructively,
you
might make some improvements in your
work.
Review
The term realism, as applied to
fantasy
worlds, is a tricky term with two different
meanings. Realism measures how well
your
creations in a campaign match expectations
of how the same things would work in real
life. Realism concerns itself with believable
terrain formations, consistent histories,
logical current events, and consistent
NPC
behavior.
The other side of the coin is fantasy
realism.
Fantasy realism is concerned with how
well the fantasy aspects of your campaign
conform to the rules of your game system,
and, to a certain extent, the precedents
of
fantasy literature. If a lot of details
in your
campaign do not match the rules your
players think they are playing by, then
they
can start to get a little surly. When you
deviate from the rules, you want to keep
the
differences to a minimum and warn your
players in advance.
What is meant by ?precedents of fantasy
literature?? If you?ve created a fantasy
element in your campaign and are not quite
sure if it works, try to remember something
similar to it that you read in a novel
at some
time. This can help validate or refine
your
creation so that it fits in smoothly with
the
rest of your campaign. It is also important
to realize that many players participate
in
the game because of an urge to capture
the
vicarious experience of adventure that
they?ve found in fantasy novels. I try
to
keep this in mind when creating a campaign,
and I include some features and
situations from popular fiction which the
players may discover. These literary devices
should by no means dominate your campaign,
for your own creations should provide
the mystery and sense of discovery, but
they can certainly spice it up from spot
to
spot.
Once you?ve completed creation of your
campaign to this point, it?s time to step
back and take a look at what you?ve done.
You?ll want to keep a sharp eye out for
violations of the two kinds of realism.
Each
time you add an element to the campaign
(specific terrains, weather, climate, political
relationships), you add more realism to
the
campaign. You also add more complexity,
which means a greater chance for errors.
That’s the reason to review what
you?ve
done. When you?re trying to keep track
of a
dozen different aspects of a campaign
world, it?s easy to overlook how one might
affect all the others.
Ask yourself a few questions. Do the
various terrain types fit well together?
Does
your world?s history logically lead up
to the
current state of events? Have you left
plenty
of room for exploration and discovery?
Have you remembered to include all of the
elements you originally had in mind, and
to
allow room for adventuring elements that
have yet to be detailed? Do your ?international
politics? leave room for lots of intrigue
and an occasional war? In short,
question everything you?ve decided
and
accomplished to make sure that it is done
well and done completely.
Let's face it, creating anything of quality
takes effort and planning. Building a complete
and entertaining AD&D
campaign is
no exception. This article provides some
guidelines on how to get started on the
framework of your campaign, but there are
still a lot of colorful extras to be hung
on
that framework.
Table 1: Possible terrain features
| Atoll | Lake, shallow |
| Barren | Marsh |
| Bay | Mountain, high |
| Canyon | Mountain, low |
| City | Mountain, volcanic |
| City, lakeport | Mud flats |
| City, riverport | Oasis |
| City, seaport | Ocean, deep |
| Crater | Ocean, shallow |
| Desert | Ocean, trench |
| Dunes | Pass |
| Escarpment | Path |
| Farmland | Plain |
| Ford | Plateau |
| Forest, deep | Rapids |
| Forest, elven | Reefs |
| Forest, enchanted | River, narrow |
| Forest, heavy | River, wide |
| Forest, impenetrable | Road |
| Forest, light | Salt flats |
| Forest, rain | Savanna |
| Forest, redwood | Scrub |
| Gardens, natural | Steppes |
| Glacier | Swamp |
| Hills, craggy | Talus |
| Hills, rolling | Town |
| Homestead | Tundra |
| Hot springs | Valley |
| Ice field | Village |
| Jungle | Woods |
| Karst | - |
Table 2: Campaign design outline
I. Define goals
A. Consider number of
players and length of campaign
B. Consider number of
political and environmental areas
C. Decide on current
state and political history of the world
II. Detailing the campaign
A. Campaign size
1. Decide on map area
2. Decide on map scale
3. Remember to include room for growth
B. Mapping
1. Draw continental
outline (small version)
2. Add mountain ranges,
hills, and island chains
3. Add river systems,
forest areas, and plains
4. Expand map to a more
detailed scale
5. Decide on natural
terrain types
6. Create some fantasy
terrain types
7. Decide on complicated
?optional? campaign elements
a. Weather
b. Climate
c. Calendar
i. Dry seasons
ii. Rainy seasons
iii. Storm seasons and types of storms
iv. Holy days
v. Festivals
d. High and low magic-potential areas
8. Create civilizations
a. Decide what races should inhabit which map areas
b. Place cities
c. Determine countries
i. Determine borders
ii. Determine forms of government
d. Make general plans for ?international
politics?
e. Make general descriptions of leaders
C. World overview
1. Decide on detailed
overall world situation
2. Create a history
that leads to the present situations, keeping in mind:
a. Campaign focus
b. Politics
c. Your DMing style
III. Review
A. Check your work for:
1. Realism <cf. APPROACHES
TO PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS>
2. Fantasy realism
B. Question your entire campaign creation
for: <cf. Try For Consistency & Realism>
1. Consistency
2. Quality
3. Completeness
* *
* *
OUT ON A LIMB
Dear Mr. Kask:
I would like to tell you about the massive
campaign
that I have been working on. It is situated
on
the hypothetical world of Loera, a world
of infinite
possibility in fantastic adventure. Although
it is not
our own Earth, it is only about eleven
light years
from our world, and therefore most of the
culture is
a parallel of our ancient cultures.
However, the scope and size of the campaign
is
so much that I cannot create and run it
all. Theremore,
I am putting it on a national basis so
as to get
the entire campaign running. I need fifty-five
DungeonMasters
with time, and good judgment, who are
willing to run an area about 600 by 600
miles. Each
DM would gather up about twenty players,
fill in
any needed terrain and dungeons, and run
that section,
sending me monthly reports to keep the
campaign
up to date. Those who are interested, write
to
this address: Keith Abbott, 5305 Lake Harbor
Road,
Muskegon, MI 49441.
I hope that this campaign will prove to
be a
melting pot of ideas — sort of a DungeonMaster’s
union. And although I may get the help
that I need
from the fifty-five, I am planning to expand,
so any
and all applications will be filled, providing
that I receive
the mailing address of the applicant. I
will then
send an introductory letter to explain
the campaign
further, and if they are still interested,
I will send a
supplement to use with the Loeran campaign.
I hope that the Loeran campaign will be
successful
— it’s a world of ideas.
May your treasures always be plentiful,
Keith A. Abbott
(The Dragon #5)
Detailing
a fantasy world
After mapping comes mixing
and fixing
by Jim Dutton President,
Entertainment Concepts Inc.
Last month, the 1st article in this series
described how to organize a campaign from
the very first stages. (Editor's note:
See
"Blueprint for a big
game," DRAGON
issue #97) Although a lot of what
you go
through in creating the framework of the
campaign is enjoyable, creative work, it
is
not nearly so much Fun as the more detailed
work that is the next step in filling out
your
fantasy world.
The point at which we resume the discussion
is at the completion of mapping your
campaign world. You should make sure you
have the room and terrain needed for all
the
elements you want to include in your campaign.
By this time, you may have made up
a rough history for your world, constructed
cities, and made a rough determination
of
how larger political divisions will be
placed
in the world. You may also have made some
notes to yourself about the personalities,
classes, and levels of some of the leaders
and
their circles of powerful associates.
Now is a good time to make some more
detailed decisions about the politics and
alignments of broad areas in your world.
(I
recommend getting a loose-leaf notebook
to
keep one page of notes for each of the
political
areas you are about to work on. Organization
is all-important!) When doing this,
remember that one of the goals in creating
your campaign is to provide plenty of variety
for the player characters to experience.
If every quest they undertake involves
a
villain of the same personality type or
alignment,
the players of those characters will
eventually begin to lose interest in your
campaign. Therefore, as you develop the
countries, empires, and city states in
your
campaign, make sure that many grades and
differences in alignment from one area
to
another are built-in.
As you are developing the political views
of leaders in your campaign, decide which
could eventually become targets for your
PCs? adventures and which ones will provide
havens and support for the adventurers.
Of course, this element of the campaign
is not one for low-level characters, since
they rarely start out meddling in the affairs
of heads of state. Even so, now is the
easiest
time, in terms of organizing your campaign,
to make these decisions. As the PCs
gradually grow stronger and they start
looking for certain types of rulers to
become
involved with, you?ll know exactly where
they should look!
It is all too easy to turn these haven communities
into places where characters can
rest without fear of unexpected trouble
and
with the certainty that they can always
find
help or support there -- but you should
resist the temptation. These types of areas
sound very inviting to a harried
group of
adventurers, but after a short time, they
will also become boring! The safe
haven,
the court of unquestioning support, will
become a crutch that players and their
characters will soon take for granted,
much
to the detriment of the campaign.
Villains and heroes
You may have a chaotic evil ruler in one
area of your campaign whose society makes
widespread use of slavery and gladiatorial
arenas. He routinely uses his army to cruelly
put down any expressions of discontent
with his rule. You might have a lawful
evil
ruler who imposes strict and cruel laws
and
taxes on his subjects, penalizing them
for
even the smallest of infractions. These
types
of bad-guy rulers are easy to make up in
a
campaign, and the reasons for quests to
eventually develop to depose them and end
their reigns are obvious and plentiful.
But,
if your campaign is composed of only these
types of adversaries for their characters
to
encounter, players will quickly get tired
of
asking, ?Okay, which downtrodden populace
are we going to save this time??
How can you make villains and other
adversaries more interesting, less stereotyped,
more challenging, and less predictable?
One good idea, not used often enough
in fiction or AD&D®game
campaigns, is
the noble villain. The noble villain
has a
goal which is diametrically opposed to
that
of the characters, but he is a good guy,
no
question about it! How can this be? Maybe
he is misguided. Possibly, he has been
strongly convinced by someone he trusts
that one of the characters or their allies
is a
villain who must be disposed of through
capture or combat. He is so convinced of
this that normal attempts at persuading
him
through conversation will never change
his
mind. This noble villain, and any helpers
he employs, will be on an ongoing quest
to
eliminate their enemies -- much to the
player characters' dismay.
Another variation on this theme is the
villain with a grudge against a character
or
a character?s ally, based on some childhood
prank or unintentional slight. This device
is
much more common than the first, but still
underused in campaign settings. A third
variation might be the rival questor. The
characters may have undertaken a quest
in
behalf of a sponsor to retrieve or accomplish
something unique which is vital to the
wellbeing
of the sponsor or his subjects. In the
course of the adventure, the players run
across an NPC party hired by a rival sponsor
for the same purpose. Again, the adversaries
may be very nice people, but the
party still must overcome them. Accomplishing
their goals and dealing with their
adversaries at the same time becomes a
ticklish problem.
Noble villains are easily set up as heads
of
state. The possibilities for two heads
of state
to both be good guys and still at odds
over
some issue are myriad, and such are well
documented in our own histories. In fact,
in
many cases, the adversary involved could
be a rival in one adventure and an ally
in
another in which he and the player characters
had no cross purposes. The same ideas
can be carried through into the development
of less important NPCs that the players
will more frequently encounter.
Of course, you do want to have some bad
villains in the campaign as well ? personalities
whose deeds cry out to be righted by
the player characters. However, these bad
villains have no inherent need to be stereotyped.
You can make surprisingly strong
and interesting personalities out of this
type
of foe by giving each one his own codes
of
honor which he will always follow. Other
methods of spicing up such NPCs include
making them highly personable and charismatic
so that the characters are tempted to
like them despite their reported deeds,
or
having them do something very laudable
now and then so that the characters begin
to
gain admiration for their foe, even though
they are basically against him. When you
are using these methods to develop NPCs
with positions of power within the campaign,
make their personalities as complete
as you can.
Even the good guys can be made much
more interesting by establishing more than
one dimension to their personalities. Some
examples of this might include a sickly
benefactor whose court physicians won?t
always let the characters in to see him,
no
matter how badly they need to do so. You
might have a king with a terrible temper
who throws the characters out of his throne
room when he is mad at someone else entirely.
Then, there is the ruler who sponsors
the characters on quests, but consistently
fails to tell them all of the dangers involved
? a commonly used device. Yet another
kind of perplexing benefactor is the one
who
always drives a hard bargain with the PCs,
offering them valuable assistance in return
for dangerous services or long-term loyalties
that will make them think twice before
accepting the aid he offers. Here again,
the
element of unpredictability will keep some
mystery in the game for players, and that
certainly helps to maintain their interest
in
and enjoyment of the campaign.
Finally, the neutral countries and their
leaders must be considered. Neutral (neither
good nor evil) leaders may help the
characters at times, but if the situation
in
which the characters are involved is too
controversial or dangerous, they will usually
be very reluctant to get involved. On the
other hand, you could have a ruler who
normally might be willing to help the characters
and deal with them, but who will
occasionally see such a potential profit
for
himself in the situation that he and his
forces will actually become rivals of the
PC!
Druid-governed lands are also an interesting
addition to campaigns, and they
would naturally be neutral lands. Although
druidic societies might normally stay neutral
in the struggles between other nations,
the effort to sway them to support one
side
or another in a dispute between other nations
or factions can add volumes of mystery
and intrigue to your campaign.
Non-human countries
One important part of establishing the
political structure and leaders in your
campaign
is the establishment of homelands and
nations for the demi-human races used in
the AD&D
game. You?ll first need to decide
just how populated with demi-humans your
world will be. For example, in the WORLD
OF GREYHAWK
Fantasy Game Setting,
there are areas where demi-humans are
commonly and widely intermixed with the
human population. In these cases, the Gazetteer
gives the percentages of human and
demi-human populations in each area. It?s
a
good idea to have at least one such area
of
racial intermingling in every campaign.
This gives you a place to start player
characters
in groups composed of diverse racial
types.
However, this still doesn?t answer any
questions about demi-human homelands.
The AD&D
game is designed for campaign
worlds where humans are the dominant
player-character race, so this seems to
suggest
that demi-human homelands are best
limited in number and size. Not only is
this
approach consistent with the AD&D
system,
but it is also consistent with the bulk
of
popular fantasy fiction. This is for good
reason. Demi-humans are special beings
with distinctive and fanciful skills and
abilities.
Making them a dime a dozen cheapens
their value to the campaign (or to a fiction
story) as a source of mystery and wonder.
And let?s not forget humanoids and intelligent
monster races. Strategic placement of
societies of these elements of the game
is
important to creating campaign-wide conflicts
in which the player characters will
eventually become involved. Dotting the
map with a few tribes of orcs and goblins
gives you plenty of latitude in creating
trouble for the characters to clear up
whenever
you need something to occupy them,
and it also gives a random encounter with
these creatures some logical basis. However,
there's no need to try to pre-locate every
camp or lair for every type of intelligent
monster. Just decide which ones you wish
to
be the most common in your campaign and
which would likely have complete civilizations
of their own.
Detailing cultures
When you have finished with the development
of a major element of your campaign,
take a few minutes to stop and
review what you?ve just done. In this case,
you would want to make sure that the nations
and city states you?ve set up in the
world will provide plenty of variety for
the
players, and that the leaders are of a
variety
of personalities and represent only a limited
number of stereotypes. You?ll want to make
sure that you have provided homelands for
all the demi-human races and placed monster
civilizations in the campaign to stir up
some trouble.
Now you?ve got a complete map. You
know where your political divisions are
and
something about what each nation or citystate
is like. Before you move away from
work on world politics, you should consider
individualizing cultures.
If you took the advice at the beginning
of
this article, you?ve been making notes
about
each of your creations on a separate sheet
of
notebook paper. Go back to each one of
those sheets and decide on several customs
or laws for each society, city, or country
that
will make that area unique and interesting.
This gives characters a continuing challenge
each time they enter a new area of the
world
?something that?s legal and proper on one
side of a border may be just the opposite
on
the other side. Customs and laws often
differ from area to area on such subjects
as
proper dress, protocol when dealing with
certain members of society, curfews, the
carrying of arms, acceptable behavior during
local holidays, differences in language,
what deities
are worshiped, how taxes are <qv. X3 CLERICAL
QUICK REFERENCE CHART>
collected, local rules of chivalry, and
so
forth.
Broad lifestyles of the populace of an area
of your world fall into this category.
In
plains areas, you may create nomadic cultures
that follow animal herds for their food.
In desert areas, you might have small societies
clinging to oases, constantly battling
each other for larger shares of the meager,
life-sustaining resources available. The
opportunity also exists in campaigns to
recreate other interesting cultures that
you
might find on Earth, such as Polynesian
ones. Of course, a culture that you make
up
uniquely for your campaign, if carefully
thought out, will provide more interest
for
players than exotic cultures copied from
real
life. Some examples might be tree dwellers
who live in a forest with trees of immense
height, or cultures based on some unique
terrain feature such as an extensive area
of
hot springs or an area of land that is
flooded
for half the year.
Taking the time to note these unique
customs and allowing the characters to
experience them will add a wealth of interest
to the campaign. At the same time that
you?re developing cultures, you can make
some notes about how well each nation or
city-state gets along with its neighbors,
and,
if there is rivalry, just what the points
of
contention are between them. These notes
will serve you well as the campaign progresses
and as you find the need to start
wars of armies or espionage that will involve
the PCs.
The Talaran
campaign
What approach did we take with these
areas in developing the AD&D
Play by
Mail Game? First, as stated above, we took
care to give the Talaran campaign a wide
variety of alignments, government types,
and personalities in its political divisions.
Many of the major cities in the most heavily
populated area operate as a loose confederation
of city-states. They cooperate under
normal circumstances, but are not above
competing for reasons of need or greed.
We?ve also provided aboriginal cultures
with different languages, and a strongly
knit
empire at a location remote from the starting
areas of the PCs. The empire mentioned
also has a different language. The
theme of our campaign history called for
a
rather young human society derived from
a
common set of colonists, so we?ve put some
limitations on the variety in the player
characters? starting areas. We?ve placed
a
good amount of the ?action? in areas that
the player characters will have to travel
to,
and-the majority of these new areas will
be
shrouded in mystery until the players experience
and deal with those areas.
Our demi-human homelands were placed
in remote areas, and their influence in
terms of area controlled is not nearly
as
great as that of the humans. The demihumans
in the Talaran campaign are old
races that were present through several
failed attempts by humans to tame and
civilize the continent. They are not presented
as vital, motivated elements of the
world population, even though certain
individuals within the respective demihuman
cultures (i.e., player characters and
certain NPCs) are exceptions. It is often
the
view of fantasy literature that demi-human
races will help adventurers on certain
quests, although they are somewhat picky
about who they help to do what and when.
We will be following this view in the Talaran
campaign, giving players a chance to lobby
for powerful or unusual aid when they need
it. But there is always the chance, on
any
long journey to demi-human homelands,
that their requests will be rejected.
Our approach to humanoid cultures is
slightly different from the possibilities
presented
in the general approach discussed
above. Rather than having large nations
of
humanoids, we?ve located them in individual
settlements and as wandering tribes. As
the campaign begins, they will not present
a
strong, unified political force to existing
human and demi-human nations, but they
may combine to establish such a political
force as the campaign progresses. Of
course, the individual goals and accomplishments
of the characters in the Talaran campaign
will have a great deal to do with how
this element of the game progresses.
We have also done a great deal of work
individualizing each society, noting differences
of language, culture, architecture,
principal economic base, form of government,
ethical philosophy, and several other
things. Player characters are given information
about the city they begin play in; after
that, they must learn about other areas.
All the above covers quite a bit of
ground, but it won?t necessarily take a
lot of
time and effort to accomplish. Of course,
the time required to complete the political
aspect of your campaign grows with the
volume of detail you decide to develop
for
each of the areas-of your political world,
and with the size of your campaign world.
But, if you only take the minimum steps
suggested herein, and if you aren?t building
a 1,000,000 square-mile campaign like we
did for Talaran, then an evening or two
of
thought and jotting down notes should
suffice to create this colorful aspect
of your
AD&D®
game campaign.
June 1985
Take our word for it
-
Dear Editor,
These questions concern the article “Blueprint
for a big game” (issue #97). Two of the “Possible
Terrain Features” on p. 90 confuse me. When
Jim Dutton wrote “Ford,” was he referring to a
ford as a place where a river, or other water, may
be crossed by wading? Or did he mean “fiord,”
such as the narrow inlets along the coast of Norway?
Second, what exactly is a “Karst”? I’ve
looked in five dictionaries with no success.
Kevin Deavey
Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
(Dragon #99)
Second things first: A karst is “a limestone
region marked by sinks, abrupt ridges, irregular
protuberant rocks, caverns, and underground
streams.” That’s from Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary, a volume which would
not easily fit in the average backpack. (We
couldn‘t find the word in anything smaller.) And
“ford” means just that; although typographical
errors have been known to happen in these pages,
this wasn’t one of them.
— KM
(Dragon #99)