Comments

• 

  redstar

  Posts: 119 July 2008

  Hey everyone,
  
  I thought the write up for this month's (maybe this "periods") featured campaign sparked an interesting question that I wonder what other peoples' experience were... The articles states "Many new DMs are afraid to make a campaign site for themselves because they are afraid it would be impossible to start documenting a campaign in the middle of its life. Well, allow outrider and his group to emphatically disagree."
  
  My campaign hasn't been running nearly as long (I'm only 25!) but I also started my Obsidian Portal page "in the middle" so to speak; I began running this specific home-brew setting in 2001, with a hiatus that ended when I made the page. I had found the site as the perfect place for all my random notes, items, concepts, stories and plots -- and accessible anywhere I go!
  
  The question: What has other people's experience been in terms of when they started their campaign? Subquestion: What had motivated you to make it? (Fame, glory, prizes, the lamentation of the women...)
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  DarthKrzysztof

  Posts: 132 July 2008

  The seed for "Cold Blood":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/cold-blood was planted when I first read about the copy of Sigil that the baatezu were rumored to be building outside of Dis. It seemed like the perfect thing to spur a campaign, and almost nothing was ever written about it, so I felt like it would be easy to make mine. (This just came out in the last session, if you're wondering why you haven't read about it yet.)
  
  Who's in charge of building the thing? What do they have to do to make it work? _Can_ it work? Who wants to see it fail? What would they do to stop it? Are the PCs gonna want that kind of help? Coming up with _some_ answers for these questions early on provided me with a framework.
  
  After that, it was really a matter of going through the _Planescape_ adventures and sourcebooks (and the v.3.5 books as well) in search of inspiration and things to steal, then moving those pieces around until it resembled something like a story. Connecting the dots with original material, and weaving in the stuff my players have provided, has created the semblance of a cohesive, finished product, as long as you don't look at it too closely.
  
  As for why, I was a player in "Jennifer's game":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/brave-new-world who wanted to get back in the DM's chair, and pay her back for the good times in the process. And since her game was on OP already, I had the site to help me pull everything together.
• 

  Flatscan

  Posts: 54 July 2008

  The Nemedian Chronicles is also a campaign that existed prior to the wiki here on OP. We'd been playing strong for over a year. I haven't written more than a brief synopsis for the past 7 adventures but who knows what I'll do in the future. ;-)
  
  My motivation has always been the lamentation of the women, it is certainly in genre for the Conan RPG! :-D
• 

  redstar

  Posts: 119 July 2008

  @DarthKrysztof - I can totally relate to that. "My campaign":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/fogdown was built around several things. One was Thief 2: The Metal Age and the other was from a conversation I had with a friend along the lines of: What would a game look like where all the players were very similar in classes? The first thought was like a holy crusader game of all paladins and clerics. The other idea was a woodland game, of druids and rangers. The last: An all rogue game. Thus, The City of Fogdown.
  
  @Flatscan - Hah, I knew you were going to catch that one! :) I leave you with "this":http://youtube.com/watch?v=V30tyaXv6EI
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  Flatscan

  Posts: 54 July 2008

  Redstar, I dig your campaign site. I'm experimenting with having links to named nPeeps™ and Places in the Adventure Logs, but the names come up so often it's getting a little crowded with links. What is your strategy with when and how often you link in the Adventure Logs?
  
  DarthKrzysztof, give Zero hell in your game. ;-)
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  DarthKrzysztof

  Posts: 132 July 2008

  @redstar: The world of the _Thief_ games seems perfect for a roleplaying campaign, period - and for an all-rogues game it's probably untouchable.
  
  @Flatscan: Don't worry, I intend to. ; )
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  redstar

  Posts: 119 July 2008

  @Flatscan - Thanks! My general convention is if a NPC's name that has a profile appears more than once in an article, I just link the first one. Same thing with places. The only exception to this is when I use a different conjugation of a name (e.g. Shar, Sharite, Sharess) I link the instance to what it refers to (e.g. The Church of Shar). nPeeps -- Is that copyrighted too? It might already by owned by Hasbro...
  
  @DarthKyrsztof - Oh I agree! I think an other concept that influenced the creation of Fogdown, was playing Planescape: Torment, which may very well be the best D&D computer game of all time. I loved the gritty, canting, planar metropolis that is Sigil.
• Wolvyn

  Posts: 26 September 2008

  The question: What has other people’s experience been in terms of when they started their campaign? Subquestion: What had motivated you to make it?
  
  I started it a year ago last wednesday night as a way to keep playing after the 2e game stopped as all three of us are night owls.. as for what reason i started making the thing here.. i saw some post on the 4e site, wish i rememberd who and they had a link to here. once looking thru a couple games.. i said humm.. lets give this a go and see how it works. you see my dm notebook just has monster hp/dmg in it.. and what holdings the player own rest of the game its up in my head.. figured might be interesting to see how it looked in a formate here like ya all been doing.
  
  i know this is only bout 2 months after you posted this.. but its why im here.
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  FemmeLegion

  Posts: 521 September 2008

  I hadn't been able to answer the question because I had not yet decided to create a campaign.
  
  Now I'm starting to. Haven't set it up here yet, because I'm still mostly busy writing up session notes for "The Vale":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/424, but I'm starting to actively look for the ideas instead of waiting for them to come to me.
  
  My motivation for doing it is perhaps not the greatest, but it'll get me through my first time: One of my friends got into 4th edition when some of her friends decided to all learn the system together. A couple of weeks ago, she emailed me to say that one of the other players had been very rude to her and it was making her not want to play anymore. Since it really sounded like she'd been having fun with the game up until then, I wrote back encouraging her to try and work things out with the player (getting the DM to intervene if necessary), and if worst came to worst maybe she'd just need to find another group.
  
  So now I want to have at least the beginnings of a campaign ready to run so that if she does need to leave that group behind, I can put together something else for her to play. =)