Is it wrong that I don’t want to create my own campaign world?

Many Dungeon Masters (DMs) aspire to be world creators.  They create intricate campaign worlds with fully realized politics, cultures, and geography.  They design unique races, monsters, and classes to compliment the vision of Dungeons & Dragons that they have in their head. 

In my current gaming group, my friend Brian spent years developing the World of Tyr.  While not all of our games have been set in that world, the passion Brian showed for it caused us to brand ourselves as the Lords of Tyr when we decided to create an online presence.  In the RPG Bloggers Network, Wyatt shares the development of his game world with his readers on the Spirits of Eden.  The time and energy he spends developing his world is evident on the (virtual) page.

In the shadow of such evident passion, I have to admit, perhaps a little sheepishly, that game world design never appealed much to me.  My first game worlds lacked coherence, having a lot in common with the “throw everything in” nature of the implied setting in Dungeons & Dragons 4e.  When I bought the original “old grey box” Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, I pretty much abandoned world building entirely.

Don’t get me wrong: I love to tell stories.  I can spend hours working on plots, coming up with motivations for my villains, and finding ways to bring the player character backstories into play.  I work very hard to engage my players in the plots of my stories and ensure everyone has a personal stake in the adventure.

Which I suppose is the point.  I tend to focus on character drama rather than on sweeping epic storytelling.  This is probably why I prefer to work in established campaign settings.  It allows me to “sub-contract” the work of world creation to someone else, allowing me to focus on the character drama that is my bread and butter.

I suppose this is true for most other roleplaying games I have ran as well.  In Sci-Fi games, I tend to go for established settings like Star Wars.  When it comes to superhero games, I prefer to run in the Marvel Universe (although this may be more of a result of my encyclopedic knowledge of that universe than anything else).

Still, I sometimes look at world builders with a little bit of envy.  When a good world building dungeon master is on a roll they can create truly amazing campaign setting which put even the best published campaign settings to shame. 

I suppose it is just a different skill set.  Some DM’s are like George Lucas, capable creating vivid worlds and writing vast epics but stumbling over character motivation and dialogue.  Some are like Joss Whedon, giving you great character interaction and willing to tweak the world for the sake of the story.  Rarest of all are those DM’s like J.R.R. Tolkien, capable of telling personal stories while building a world  of epic scope.

So what kind of a DM are you?

Settings with a difference: The Outlaw Campaign

While it may be a stretch to describe the average player character as an upstanding citizen, most campaigns do assume that they are not actively at odds with the law.  Turning this assumption on its head can lead to a memorable campaign.

The first thing to consider when creating an outlaw campaign is why the characters are outlaws.  Some characters may be wrongly accused.  Others may be outlaws because of a crisis of conscience.  Of course, some characters may simply be outlaws because they actually are criminals.

Wrongly Accused

One advantage running a campaign where the characters are wrongly accused is that it can happen to anyone.  It doesn’t matter whether the character is the most noble paladin or the most shady rogue, both have to deal with the consequences of being accused of a crime that they didn’t commit.

The wrongly accused hero is a common trope in fiction, from characters like Jean Valjean in Les Misérables to James Bond in License to Kill.  Because of the serial nature of a campaign, it might be best to explore TV shows like The Fugitive, The A-Team, and even The Incredible Hulk for inspiration. 

In all of these cases, the protagonists are constantly looking for a way to clear their names.  However, the story often involves them being  drawn into helping other people with their problems.  This is to keep the plots from becoming to repetitive.

These shows also involved the protagonists staying one step ahead of their pursuers.  Having the characters being actively pursued, especially by a reoccurring antagonist, makes sure the campaign doesn’t lose its flavor.

It is probably a good idea for the characters to get an opportunity to clear their names before the campaign comes to a close.  If the campaign ends without this opportunity, it will probably leave the players feeling unfulfilled.  On the other hand, if the characters finally clear their names after numerous sessions of life on the run, the campaign will probably be one that the players talk about long after it is over.

Crisis of Conscience

Probably the most famous example of the crisis of conscience outlaw is Robin Hood.  In most modern versions of the myth, Robin Hood becomes an outlaw because cannot abide the suffering being inflicted on the poor, but he cannot work within the corrupt system to stop it. 

This campaign premise requires at least one character to be moral enough to make the initial decision to break the law to uphold its spirit.  Not every character needs to stand on that high moral ground, but most should be working to achieve the same goals.  After all, it doesn’t make sense that a single moral man (or woman) would be working with an entirely immoral group.

One advantage that a crisis of conscience campaign has over the wrongly accused campaign is that the characters have a good reason to stick around and fight.  While characters in the wrongly accused campaign will often be looking to flee their pursuers, characters in a crisis of conscience campaign would never have become outlaws in the first place if they didn’t have a reason to stick around and fight.

A crisis of conscience campaign should eventually allow the characters the chance to right the injustice they became outlaws to fight.  Like the wrongly accused campaign above, the players will probably be left feeling unfulfilled unless they get their chance to make things right.  On the plus side, overthrowing a corrupt government makes for a truly epic way to end the campaign.

Criminals

The easiest way for the characters to end up on the wrong side of the law is to run a criminal based campaign.  A campaign based around a thieves guild or piracy would be an easy way to assure that the characters are on the wrong side of the law.

Of course, this requires the characters be the type that would be law-breakers in the first place.  I would suggest shying away from completely evil and depraved characters.  While such characters may be fun in a one-shot game, in a campaign they are often problematic.  Looking to antiheroes like Jack Sparrow or to the multi-layered mobsters of The Sopranos is a good source of inspiration for characters in this kind of campaign.

One difficulty in DMing a criminal campaign is that criminals are traditionally more proactive than heroes in literature.   While a hero may come across a heist and disrupt it, a criminal is the one who actually plans the heist to begin with. 

Placing your protagonists in a criminal organization will help with this issue.  Regardless, it is probably a good idea to prep several mini-adventures suited to the criminal mindset.  That way, if the characters decide they wish to rob a merchant or blackmail a noble, you can have something prepped and ready.

Oh, and talking with your players in advance to figure out what they want to do with their characters is probably a good idea too.  If the players are willing to work with you, they can drive the plot while you deliver the twists!

Always Winter and Never Christmas! - Using Holidays in RPGs

Any experienced DM will tell you it's the little details that make or break a campaign.  Keeping track weather, giving NPC's from different regions distinct mannerisms, and having minor changes occur to NPCs while they are "off-stage" can help add a feeling of depth to your campaign world.  I'm not saying you should create detailed weather models or write the complete history of the local blacksmith.  Nevertheless, remembering to have it rain once and a while, or having the local blacksmith proudly tell the party that his daughter's wedding is coming up, can add a touch of realism to your game world.

Adding in a few holidays that are unique to your game world can help as well.  It can be a fine line to walk though.  A well placed harvest festival can add a feeling of verisimilitude, but an ill-advised "Whacking Day" can ruin a player's suspension of disbelief.  So when designing holidays for your campaign world, it is probably best to follow a some simple guidelines.

First, it is probably best to avoid simply transplanting holidays from the real world into the fantasy world.  Yes, I know that C. S. Lewis did this with Christmas in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Honestly though, with all due respect to Lewis, that was one aspect of Narnia that took me out of the story.  With a bunch of players riffing about whether Santa's elves should be Santa's eladrin, it would probably come off even worse in a game session.

On the other hand, completely alien holidays will ruin a players suspension of disbelief just as easily.  Too much time explaining how the Festival of the Dancing Yak came to be is not a good thing, at least for major holidays (it might work well for a local village holiday that the players would not expect their characters to know about in advance).

The trick is to design holidays that are similar enough to real world holidays that the players can grasp the core concepts quickly.  It's probably best to focus on one aspect of the holiday and push it to prominence.  Then build some unique elements into the holiday to brand it as your own.

I think a decent example of this is the holiday of Lurlinemas from Gregory Maguire's Wicked.  Although it is an obvious stand in for Christmas, it is tied strongly to the Fey Queen Lurline.  As imagined by Maguire, Lurline is representative of the old pagan beliefs of Oz, which are now out of favor with the empire.  Nevertheless, the popular holiday is celebrated, even if its original meaning has been forgotten.

(It should be noted that Queen Lurline is also mentioned in L. Frank Baum's novel The Tin Woodman of Oz .  So Maguire cannot get all the credit)

I suppose my final word of advice on crafting holidays for your game world is not to overdo it.  There is no need to detail a holiday for every month.  A little bit goes a long way, and two or three major holidays should be more than sufficient for your campaign!