I'm thinking of starting a new D&D campaign based on some ideas I've got. I usually create my own campaign setting, with its own unique villains, storyline, etc, but overall the world is pretty generic. The classes are the same, the spells are the same, the races are the same, the monsters are the same, etc, etc. So it's pretty typical stuff as far as gaming is concerned.
This time, the world is going to end up being pretty different... Differences on the scale of Eberron, in fact. The basic rules are still there, as are the basic classes, but a lot of the world concept is going to be different, and there are a lot of new classes (mostly prestige classes) and new monsters. Maybe even a new PC race, although I'm not sure about that. I haven't seen a compelling reason for that yet.
Anyway, what I want to know is, who's gone through this kind of process? Obviously Keith Baker has, and considering how inventive D&D folks typically are, I doubt he's particularly unique in that respect. (He's just better at it than the rest of us, I guess. ;-) ) So for those who have done it, what kinds of things are different from normal?
What I'm looking for is advice more on the out-of-game stuff... Things like, is it reasonable to ask specific players to take specific classes, in order to see how they work in game? If so, how do you reward the player for letting you do that to them? Is it reasonable to increase the rate at which players gain XP, so that you can see some of the later things sooner than normal?
Or much scarier, what if you have to reduce the benefit of something because it's unbalancing? Increasing something's effectiveness is pretty easy to handle -- I've never met a player who objected to having their character suddenly made better! -- but is it a major problem to have to weaken an overpowered feature or spell? Or is it easier to get away with if the players know that they're playtesting something new?
Any other considerations that I haven't thought of?
Depends on the players, if you promise to replace the item/skill/ability with something the character wants later if it becomes unbalancing later it would not seem unreasonable.
I one created a ring that could transfer magical dweomers from one item to another. I just did not tell them to avoid mixing two opposite effects, (ie frost and flame sword) ring and items go boom.
there is also provide it with charges, or provide a set of conditions that would destroy it (or negate it) (such as attempting to use it against a particular enemy or a style of fighting).
be creative, and there is no reason you have to bring it back into the game again if it get's destroyed/negated.
Go for it.
To me, the process of creating a unique campaign world is more fun than most gaming sessions.
In my current campaign world, I created a number of alternate rules and systems to support the flavor of the world, while keeping the same races, classes, and monsters for the most part.
There was an excellent series of articles on world-building that many of us remember being on wizards.com about five years ago. Unfortunately, I don't believe it is currently available anywhere. Anyone?
As far as asking specific players to take specific classes, I would take a different approach. I might ask the group to make sure one of them takes the class/race/option/combo you are interested in seeing in action. Let them decide who's most interested. I found that if the new options are attractive enough, the players will take them, especially if they are unbalanced in the player's favor, which certainly gives you some of the information you were looking for.
Of course, the ultimate (published) example of a new campaign world that goes all out with new classes and races is Monte's Arcana Evolved. Worth getting for sure.
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There was an excellent series of articles on world-building that many of us remember being on wizards.com about five years ago. Unfortunately, I don't believe it is currently available anywhere. Anyone?
I think you are referring to the "Behind the Screen Articles" found here http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/bs
"This time, the world is going to end up being pretty different... Differences on the scale of Eberron, in fact. The basic rules are still there, as are the basic classes, but a lot of the world concept is going to be different, and there are a lot of new classes (mostly prestige classes) and new monsters. Maybe even a new PC race, although I'm not sure about that. I haven't seen a compelling reason for that yet."
Go crazy. I see creating your own campaign setting as a chance to see everything you love about the genre materialized and it is great to really see your players interact with "your" world and make it "their" world. I just finished my complete setting, Arko, after four years of playtesting and writing away may life like caged rat, much to the exasperation of my lovely wife, and it is completely original and filled with new prestige classes, monsters, races and the like. So yeah go crazy with your setting and let your originality show.
I am currently making my own campaign based on one of the books adventure ideas(either DMs Guide or the Epic Level Handbook). Its about how some miners find out that the earth is hollow with only a thin layer of the mantle after the crust. The adventurers are summoned by the king to explore this new region and to bring along his personal cartographer to map this newly discovered are. The only place deep enough to get there however is through the Underdark, so the first part of the dungeon has a lot to do with sneaking past and killing drows to get to the spot where they can get through. Once inside however, they dicover a long excistent race much like the Abeil on page 22 of the Monster Manual 2. These creatures live in huge spherical hives connected by long caverns and passageways. Other creatures found in this region include cave spiders (huge), a species evolved from a long forgotten drow colony who are a much stupider but stronger cannibalistic race. These bee-people have stores, inns, etc. They are suspicious of the PCs at first but then learn to trust them. After staying at a hive long enough they hear rumors of a mythical place at the center of the world. This is called the Tree of Life and on it groes a seed for every aspect of life (Madness, War, Love, etc.) and each golden leaf is a portal to some and every place in all of the planes. at the center of the tree grows a small flower which once every year drops a single drop of power that can give them the power of the Gods. What the PCs don't know is that the tree needs this drop every year to sustain itself to preserve all life in the universe and if one the PCs takes this drop the universe will lose a life for every second he has this power. Once a PC has taken it the Gods will wreak havok on him/her until he/she no longer has that power. The PC has the power of a Greater God (20) and can attack back if wishful. Each of the branches on the tree can not be broken, even the smallest twig. The Pcs can take the seeds and plant them to grow more, there are also seeds to every plant in the world.
Well, its not finished but I like it so far. You can use some of these concepts in your own campaign if you'd like to.
I'm thinking of starting a new D&D campaign based on some ideas I've got. I usually create my own campaign setting, with its own unique villains, storyline, etc, but overall the world is pretty generic. The classes are the same, the spells are the same, the races are the same, the monsters are the same, etc, etc. So it's pretty typical stuff as far as gaming is concerned.
This time, the world is going to end up being pretty different... Differences on the scale of Eberron, in fact. The basic rules are still there, as are the basic classes, but a lot of the world concept is going to be different, and there are a lot of new classes (mostly prestige classes) and new monsters. Maybe even a new PC race, although I'm not sure about that. I haven't seen a compelling reason for that yet.
You do plan on giving us all a taste of what your doing right? This sounds interesting. I've been doing something vaguely similier except that I've been working to take the main campaign world I've been running since my mid teens and refining that over and over again to make it more visceral and give it more impact.
Is there some kind of overarching theme to your campaign world?
Iv'e had some troubles with my players regarding taking things away but I find most of the time most of them can at least be reasoned with. My players where initially unhappy that I don't have any eleves or half-elves but they got over it. On the other hand when I tried to make a rule that only good PCs where allowed...well I lost that argument. The compromise was that players could take neutral characters but that they would have to tie their characters to the plotline in some manner in order to insure that they where motivated to participate in the overarching storyline.
No Elves! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO : ) (jk) I wouldn't care much anyway, I prefer gnomes; special abilities, bonuses, and thier short. Whats not to like!
Though I do think the no evil Pcs thing was a good idea. Not as much backstabbing and greediness going on there!
I haven't had much time to flesh anything out yet, but one thing that I've noticed is that every campaign setting I've seen involves thousands upon thousands of years of history, with the ruins of multiple great civilisations littered around the landscape. There's always the idea that there was some great golden age in the distant past, with duels between gods seemingly commonplace and overwhelmingly-powerful enemies... Finally something triggers the collapse of the civilisation, something else rises to take its place, and that in turn is knocked down. There may be a few more such cycles before the campaign's time period. The end result is that D&D games always seem to take place in old worlds with tons of history.
My idea is to go the other way. I want it to be a virtually brand-new world. Perhaps a thousand years have passed since the world was created, enough time for rival nations to have developed, but not enough for everyone to have become so cynical. Basically, with the older worlds, everything's had its edges worn off, everybody's settled into their comfortable routines, and good and evil are generally fairly intermingled. (Eberron is the best example of this.) With my world, I want to have it so that the world is filled with the archetypes... Everything's over the top, in a lot of ways. Characters who are good really are paragons of virtue, the heroic examples that become legends that later generations hope to emulate. Their opponents are the ultimate embodiment of evil -- vile, despicable, utterly without compassion or mercy. Even the common folk in this world haven't been beaten down yet, and truly feel that they can make a difference... Whereas in later ages, farmers keep their heads down, in my world, I want a typical farmer to be ready to join up with the militia and do their part to rid the world of evil.
It's hard to explain the flavour... Think of the First Age of Middle Earth and you'll have an idea. :-)
One of the fun things I want in my world is a specific prestige class... it may have to be an epic prestige class, which would be unfortunate because it adds so much to the flavour. I'll have to see if I can make a toned-down version... But basically, I want a group of wizards who are busy creating new types of life. They start by creating dire versions of normal animals, and in the end some of the more mad types create the abominations that everyone hates. A few also turn another direction and begin creating undead, although I think it'd be fun to keep that for part of a story arc in the campaign, so the world starts off without undead and then something happens and the characters end up having to fight off hordes of the undead.
One of the bizarre parts of the flavour of the world is that while Epic characters abound, the world's too young to have the artifacts or even magic weapons laying about that you'd find in other settings. They're not unheard-of, and there's nothing stopping the characters from making their own, but magic items just aren't laying around the way they seem to later on in the world. Another aspect (purely for flavour) that I'd like to include is that there are as many "mundane" magic items as military magic items... Which is to say, you're just as likely to find, for example, a magic plow or a magic hoe as you are to find a magic sword.
The primary society of the world I'm imagining as being very much like the Roman Republic. There is a certain amount of nobility, but there's still a lot of room for individual achievement and greatness.
Anyway. Sound interesting to anyone else? :-)
My idea is to go the other way. I want it to be a virtually brand-new world. Perhaps a thousand years have passed since the world was created, enough time for rival nations to have developed, but not enough for everyone to have become so cynical. Basically, with the older worlds, everything's had its edges worn off, everybody's settled into their comfortable routines, and good and evil are generally fairly intermingled. (Eberron is the best example of this.) With my world, I want to have it so that the world is filled with the archetypes... Everything's over the top, in a lot of ways. Characters who are good really are paragons of virtue, the heroic examples that become legends that later generations hope to emulate. Their opponents are the ultimate embodiment of evil -- vile, despicable, utterly without compassion or mercy. Even the common folk in this world haven't been beaten down yet, and truly feel that they can make a difference... Whereas in later ages, farmers keep their heads down, in my world, I want a typical farmer to be ready to join up with the militia and do their part to rid the world of evil.
It's hard to explain the flavour... Think of the First Age of Middle Earth and you'll have an idea. :-)
One of the fun things I want in my world is a specific prestige class......
I love it. A fresher campaign world helps make the game itself feel fresher and more exciting as everything is a new development. Look, some crazy wizard made an owlbear! No one has every seen one before!
One aspect of this type of campaign of moral clarity is the players can really explore the meaning of virtue and vice instead of the standard D&D mantra:
The good guys are the ones who kill the evil guys. The evil guys are the ones who kill the good guys.
I really like the concept of some group making these new creatures. You might consider making a feat tree of creature-creation feats, (you have to study with that group to learn them, though), instead of an epic prestige class. Then, creating a creature would have an XP cost that would balance the power of the feat and creature.
For example:
• Make Dire Creature - turns an animal into a dire animal. XP Cost = 100 * HD of resulting creature.
• Change Creature Size - cranks an animal up or down one size catagory. XP Cost = 100 * HD of resulting creature. (This can also be accomplished with Enlarge and Permanancy, but what the hey.)
• Merge Creatures - creates a Magical Beast by merging two animals or creatures. XP Cost = 250 * HD of resulting creature.
• Make Fiendish Creature - adds the fiendish template to a creature.
...
Anyway. Some thoughts.
- Rob
My idea is to go the other way. I want it to be a virtually brand-new world. Perhaps a thousand years have passed since the world was created, enough time for rival nations to have developed, but not enough for everyone to have become so cynical.
Good stuff.
I did something that leans slightly in this direction in that the world is relatively young. Humans have only been around for a little less then 1000 years and the races are pretty homogeneous. My actual goal with this set up was to get a world where most of the races are being relentlessly driven back by Goblinoids. If one starts with rather small groups its easy to get a situation where there are absolute hordes of Goblinoids throwing all the other races back on their heel and driving them ever backward since the Goblinoids breed so much faster. This is how I got rid of the elves - they just eventually where done in by the goblinoids since they don't breed fast enough to make up their losses.However I have encountered a significant number of problems with this. If you make all your own material from scratch no real problem but if you use a lot of published adventures then your going to probably bump into problems. If the world is too young then how can you have Devils that lay plots that take centuries to full fill? What about the truly ancient undead? Are there Drow and other Underdark races? how do they fit in? You have also eliminated a lot of ancient ruins as adventuring opportunities.
Basically you have eliminated some of the best adventuring material out there. Thats fine if your willing to put up with this and if your world is only supposed to be for one campaign then your likely to not even notice but if you want to run campaigns in this world for the rest of your gaming career then your really closing a lot of doors.
Couple of ideas for you to consider. One option is to make this the starting point for a campaign world that you plan to jump forward in history with in each new campaign. So next time you run a campaign in this world don't say its 20 years later ... say its 200 or 500 years later and rework the campaign world based on the fundamentals you laid down in the last campaign. That way new material can be added.
Another idea is to have a 'Heroic Age' after some kind of civilization collapse. Its not that the world itself is so young but that there was some kind of uber Apocalypse and everything is just starting again. That way old ruins and such might have survived from a previous age but you can still go with much of the feel of your campaign where individuals matter and everything is lost. This is kind of like mixing a Heroic Age feel ala Homeric legends with the beginning of the Dark Ages of 5th and 6th century Europe.
You can rework the Gods to make them 'New' for an after an apocalypse type adventure. Maybe they just found this shattered world?
Something akin to the second option is what I went with. An apocalypse took place hence I can have ancient Demonic plots etc. Most of my Gods are elevated from mortals so most of them are young meddling Gods - there are a handful from the time before but their invariably insane and usually apathetic Gods. Personally I have never bothered to detail why the Apocalypse occurred or really what was before. Its not like my players would have any idea and this leaves me as much latitude as I would like in placing things in the world.
Thanks for the input guys. If I start getting more details worked out, I'll try to post back here with info... Eventually, assuming I get enough work done, I'll put together a website, complete with feedback forums and all. :-) (There are benefits to having a spare server in the basement.) A couple things that were mentioned really piqued my interest, I'll go through them. If I neglect anyone or anything, please don't be offended. ;-)
Jeremy, you're right about the goblinoids. All else being equal, the goblinoids would overrun everyone else in a hurry. I think what I might do is adjust goblins to become a sort of proto-goblin. I'll leave the physical stats the same, but drop the INT and WIS to 4. Smarter than animals, but not by a lot... Not capable of forming into any particularly cohesive structure, and they haven't figured out any sort of metallurgy. Even simple stone tools are generally beyond them, although they have figured out what a big stick is for. That leaves them individually dangerous by overall not much more than a significant pest. True goblins would be one of the creations of the wizards that muck about with different species' DNA, and a fairly recent one at that so they're common enough to have started to be a serious nuisance, but not so common to be a major threat. I'll probably have them engaged in slaughtering all of the original proto-goblins. And you're also right about having eliminated a lot of the more obvious adventuring locations. A big part of setting creation will likely be to come up with other potential adventure hooks and adventure sites. Remember, a lot of adventures revolve around looting an ancient and forgotten tomb... It seems like a fun idea to loot a few brand-new tombs, possibly even as they're being built... :-) Or to help protect a tomb of a good-aligned hero during its construction...? There are a bunch of adventure types that I think really haven't been explored in normal D&D that could be a lot of fun. But you're definitely right in that it's a lot harder and less obvious how to work them in.
Lloyd, thanks for the tip on removing the halfbreeds. I hadn't thought of it, but it definitely adds to the character of the world. And balancing the spells and magic items will be a challenge. On the other hand, part of the flavour of the world is that there really are going to be some things going on that the characters just can't face. As you pointed out, gods will be walking among their worshippers, having not yet learned to keep their distance.
Robert, I like the basic idea of having a feat progression. I'd probably break it up a little differently though... I'd probably have these creature-modifying wizards be a prestige class. Here's what I'm thinking now... Have a series of creature-creation feats, one for each type of creature (Animal, Humanoid, Magical Beast, etc -- I'd probably clump a couple of them together, like Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid). These feats are chosen by the character as they progress in level... They're probably granted as bonus feats, actually. Some of them (such as Aberration or Outsider) would have extra prerequisites, or maybe the wizards simply can't create them. Outsider would likely be of that type. (And what would I do with Undead?) As a class feature, as these Creation Wizards go up in level, they also get a class feature called "Life Enhancement". It starts out by allowing them to take existing creatures and adjust them a maximum of 1 EL up or down, to a maximum EL of 5. A later class feature brings it up to max EL 10, with max adjustment of +/- 3 EL. Then max EL 15, max adjustment +/- 6 EL. Then max 20 EL, max adjustment +/- 10 EL from the original creature. Taking a creature that wasn't previously capable of attaining class levels and modifying it in such a way that it is capable of attaining class levels probably would count as +3EL for purposes of modifying the creature. But yeah, the point of all this is that there'd be seperate feats for the types of creatures (or plants) that can be modified, and the magnitude of the alterations that can be achieved. It gives the class a whole lot of variety... From semi-druidic wizards working to restore a war-damaged region to mad tyrants in their magical towers creating ever more vicious guardians to court mages of warring nations creating ever more deadly soldiers to fight for them... And then, possibly, throw in a few dark and evil wizards working in the crypts at night, creating terrible undead nightmares... In their madness (or genius?) at least a few wizards are likely to experiment on poor lost souls, or on orphans, or even on their own children... Who knows what might come of such experimentation?
OK, I think I've gone on long enough. :-) What do you think? Enough in there to get people interested? :-)