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Do I Create a Campaign? -- by Cynthia Hart This is probably one of the most commonly asked questions by a new Game Master (“Narrator” in Decipher’s book, “God” to your players). I suspect this is usually inspired by reading a detailed 1 ½ page dissertation of a proposed campaign complete with genealogies, timeline, maps and intricate character analyses of the NPCs (Non-Player Characters) on the message board. As a new GM about to embark on my first role playing game in over 20 years, I ran into the same problem. I am not a Tolkien scholar although I have read the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and (of course!) seen the movie. Still, ask me about an elf not mentioned in one of those 4 books and I’m clueless. Nor am I familiar with what happened between the time of Bilbo finding the ring and Frodo becoming the ring bearer. I knew that I wanted to create an adventure versus a dungeon crawl but that was about all. The first thing I did was try and figure out how I could get a group of player characters of various races together and in the same spot. My players did not want to begin as a pre-formed group so I knew I would have to find a way to pull them all together. Originally I thought everyone could start at the Prancing Pony in Bree. This had the disadvantage of not usually being a place where you find elves; but since elves had been mentioned as being just a few days travel away, I figured we could pick them up later. This wound up just not working for me. I kept getting more and more convoluted in planning as I tried to find ways for complete strangers to get pulled into the adventure. Finally I abandoned the whole idea. Instead I re-read the chapters in the book on campaigns (Elements of Epic Fantasy and Creating and Running the Chronicle) and decided to pick a time. Picking a time turned out to be easy. In 2951 Sauron declared himself and his intentions openly and began to rebuild Mordor. I decided that the year before his declaration would give me a lot of possibilities for subtle evil machinations by him without any one being sure of what was going on. And while re-reading the chapter on running Campaigns, I saw where one of the plot devices suggested in the book was where Elrond asked a group to find out what happened to a missing Ranger. I decided to alter it slightly and have Elrond get a group together to deliver a message. This had the advantage of being a simple action that could be completed in one gaming session – or one that could lead to bigger and better adventures. Picking a place to start that was familiar and worked well with all races relieved me of the pressure of trying to bring together various types of people. Now that I had a familiar place to begin, other items began to fall into place. One of my players had already developed a background for his character – even though we had not yet met to roll them up. He was going to be a dwarf on a personal quest for information about a Dwarven artifact that would restore prestige to his family. So I decided that information known to him from before the adventure began would send him to Rivendell. I had not seen anything that indicated that Elrond had the prejudice against Dwarves that some other Elves did, so I thought he would allow the dwarf entry. So now I had a time, a starting place and an errand to use as the beginning adventure. I relaxed and let the ideas flow. Why would Elrond ask a Dwarf to carry a message for him? Dwarves are known to be suspicious of elves so… Pretend that Elrond wants to get a message to a Dwarven Loremaster. (You don’t need to decide what the message is or why Elrond wants to send it to him, that’s not our player’s business). If the Loremaster is suspicious of elves it would make sense for Elrond to ask the Dwarven player character to take the message to the Loremaster for him. But why would the Dwarf do this? Turn to the character’s background. He’s looking for information. The Dwarf will take the message; either out of gratitude for Elrond trying to help him on his quest, or because the Loremaster is believed to know more about the artifact the Dwarf is looking for. Now bring the other players into the game. They can join either because Elrond asked them, out of curiosity and a sense of adventure or because they’ve become friends with the Dwarf. Ask the players themselves which reason they want to use. This was all I wanted to start with – a small adventure that would be easy for me to flesh out. But once I had the beginning, ideas just kept coming. What if, when they got to the Loremaster’s dwelling it was trashed and he was missing? Here’s a great opportunity for the group to use skills other than fighting. I didn’t want them to indiscriminately kill every shifty creature they saw (I agree with the book’s definition of ‘heroic’ characters and feel that’s one of the things that separates LOTR from D&D). So what if someone appeared to be looting the dwelling but was actually the Loremaster’s apprentice. If they kill him I can arrange so that he takes a while to die, and can talk to them and tell them who he was and they can realize their error. If they try to talk to him instead of fighting him; he can give them leads to where the Loremaster was taken. What if the Loremaster was captured by minions of Sauron – who no one knows is back in the world? It’s a long trip to Mordor. Plenty of time for the group to catch up and rescue him. What if on the way back from rescuing the Loremaster they find an old abandoned castle/fortification full of old books and strange items? By now the group had met and rolled their characters. Several of them had Seigecraft skills including fortification. Maybe I could convince them that it would be a good idea to settle in the fortress for awhile. Several of the group had orders that could benefit from having a settled place to operate out of. Also, if they stayed in the fortress as a buffer between an unknown evil and their respective homelands, I could derive all sorts of adventures for the future. For example: they find out a nearby town is being threatened and have to figure out how to help it; or maybe they have to figure out how to get townspeople to work with them instead of ignoring them; what if they find a large army of Orcs going through their area – will they track them or ignore them; and we can always explore the fort for a version of a dungeon crawl….. all of a sudden the possibilities were endless and I had my full fledged adventure idea So, if we break this down into its elemental pieces – what did I do and how can you use this to design your own Chronicle? I. Decide on a Time II. Find a starting place III. Work your player’s character’s background and needs into the storyline. IV. Decide on a mission. Start small; it works as an introduction to the game and may lead to something bigger. V. Don’t be afraid to start over if your idea isn’t working. VI. Talk about the game and your adventure in general terms to your players. One of my best ideas came while I was explaining how to play the game to a new player. Next time -- “Chapters, Scenes and Chronicles; Oh My!” <Back to Top <Back to Halls of Mandos <Back to Main |