Building the World Around the PCs

I should stress at the outset that this isn't an original thought. But very few are, so here it is.

Back in the day, I was a fan of psionics, but in 3e that was a whole new subsystem that had some mental load associated with it. And so one of my policies very often was to offer psionics as an option at the start of the campaign, but if nobody took one of those options then it would be removed from play - there would be no opportunity to take any psionics stuff later. (If someone did take a psionics option, any psionics option, that opened the entire toolbox for everyone from that point onwards.)

Of course, that same option could be applied to everything. And, write large, it can be readily used by the DM for world-building - if one of the PCs is a dwarf then the species and all of their trappings can be added to the world, the clans, the underground kingdoms, and so on and so forth. But if none is, those elements can be omitted to make room for something else.

In theory, that still leaves a nicely diverse world - you potentially have four major species (plus any monster types you want), you probably have arcane and divine magic in some form, and so on. It's just that the world only contains those things that the players have, through their choices, indicated that they are interested in exploring.

The only downside is that the DM can only do limited world-building before kicking off the campaign, since he doesn't know which options the players will select. But that's not necessarily the worst thing, either.

A Lesson in Cardboard

Two years ago I received a belated birthday present of a cardboard 'puzzle' (model) of King's Landing. Over the past few months I have been constructing it, on and off, and finally completed it this morning. It has now taken pride of place in our loft, in lieu of a better place to put it.

But the exercise did give rise to an interesting lesson. The city itself was rather straightforward to construct, involving the assembly of two key buildings and then the addition of several houses. Those houses were of three fixed constructions, but by mixing and matching the details and then scattering the three types you got a more potent effect than they really deserved.

Which, of course, has all sorts of applications to D&D, and especially to map building: pick some key items to really stand out and apply the attention there, and then make up the rest with stock elements that you can mix and match, and adjust the details of, to suit.

That's Why We Game

Today's game was great fun - the party completed their explorations of a downed mind flayer Nautiloid, and after defeating the pilot they proceeded to loot the place. Amongst the treasure was the puissant servitor - a semi-sentient graft that could be attached to a severed arm or wrist to provide a replacement limb.

This then provoked extensive discussions over whether a given character would remove his own limb in order to gain the powers granted by this item. Several other characters offered to help (or 'help'), offering a wide variety of potential options for the approach taken. Cue several minutes of hilarity as the situation played out.

Which all served as a very timely reminder - it is for situations like that that we game. Nothing else can replicate them.

Spelljammer: Twelve Wyrm Crawl

I've been thinking about a theoretical "next campaign" for some time. I'm very much drawn to Spelljammer, but there's an issue with the Eberron/Spelljammer campaign I've been considering: the last two campaigns I have run have had the part lost and having to get home, and this would be a third. And since I ran "Storm King's Thunder", that isn't really an option either.

However, I think I've hit on a suitably silly premise for a short campaign in the silliest of all campaign settings: Twelve Wyrm Crawl.

The premise is that the characters are all friends who have been summoned to the "Deep Dragon Inn" by a mutual friend, who reveals to them that he is dying and that no magic can sae him. So he calls on them to accompany him on one last stupendous adventure: a pub crawl across the spheres through the twelve "Great Wyrm" pubs. And so, off they go!

The campaign from there is mostly a travelogue around the crystal spheres, with all the usual side-quests and other distractions that are likely to arise.

It's nonsense, of course. But given that most campaign premises are, truth be told, little more than a pretext anyway, it should work. And it certainly fits the setting!

Some Progress At Last

I finally got back to making some progress on the remaining parts of the "Isles of Dread" campaign - specifically, I have finished the main campaign map:

It's fair to say it is not as elaborate at the maps I did for "The Mists of Lamordia", largely because this one is entirely hand-drawn rather then done on PC. But, as with the city map of Ludendorf, it reaches the key threshold of being "good enough". And, actually, I think it's a bit better than my previous efforts, and indeed took rather less time than has previously been the case. Which suggests that improvement is being made, albeit slowly and painfully, and from a very low base. But since I have no illusions of ever being anything other than an amateur, it doesn't really matter.

I still have a couple of other maps to produce, plus two player handouts, and then the final part of the campaign to write (about 6,000 words). But it's really good to finally be making progress again!