In which we start a new campaign

 

Forgot all of the stuff that goes into starting a new campaign. I'm posting this about a month after we started so as not to spoil any of the good stuff. As has been suggested I've been building/designing from the bottom up AND the top down.  The previous campaign was more of a test-run to help me get my chops back.  And it did!

In the last ten days I've walked all of the party through character creation. Still waiting for some backstory seeds and cleric stuff from one player but otherwise the party's ready to go: two fighters, a bard, a ranger, a dwarven cleric and a sorcerer. A little tank heavy and the bard will need to double on rogue but I think it's playable.

In lieu of a tavern they'll be awakening in a tomb. Grabbed a nice map from Dyson. Plopped a trap, a couple creature encounters and a skill check in there. Set up a sound pad for the creature encounters and picked a couple background music tracks for the rest of the night. Not gonna display map. Instead will rely on theater of the mind and a nice misty animated dungeon floor as needed. I've set up my “open at once” list to be ready to go so my base level opening session stuff is ready. So much for bottom up.

Top down stuff is a little rougher. I've used World Spinner to generate a nice accurate planet, place the dominant races in various and sundry locations and let it establish kingdoms and roads and random locations and stuff. A few minutes of editing cleaned it up to the point where it's usable. I then converted THAT to a 20-mile hex version on Worldographer and let THAT program create the 6-mile and 2-mile hexes. Populated areas, ruins, temples, roads and rivers are mostly placed (at least for the “three horizons out.”) Using the same calendar and weather system as last time so that's all done.

I REALLY wanna implement a Tao of D&D/for h in hexes style economic system. I've spent a LOT of lonely fun time trying to get it to work but it keeps feeling like I'm missing just one little step here and there and I usually give up when I realize I've built a Cargo Cult landing strip. Pretty comfortable with the infrastructure level on my 20-mile hexes. Not as comfortable with my 6- and 2-mile hexes but I'm at the point I'm just gonna hafta swallow hard, make it work and fix it on the fly if it sucks.

The biggest sticking point is the assigning of the resources and the design of the spreadsheets that pull it all together and make it work. Once THAT falls into place (or at least STARTS to fall into place) Tir Newydd will be playable.

That brings me to storylines. I have the germ of my over-arching storyline is place but need to formalize it and flesh it out. Have been waiting on the characters to bring some things to life first. I'll probably resume that task after session two or three. They'll be leveling up automatically after each of the first two sessions (if they live that long) so by level three I should have some additional hooks and angles. Two of the players have given me characters that are ripe with plot-line stuff. I'll begin to rough out some adventure ideas for them as well. And I have two other set-piece adventures I've been wanting to write but I've just been putting it off. I now have my motivation. Let's call these 1) The Plague Arc, 2) The Six Abyssal Symphonies, 3) The locket of Blood, 4) Who's the Fairest? And 5) NOT Tony Stark.

I have my initiative spreadsheet set up and my Notion.so template from
Sly Flourish started. Session one will be a “meet the team” night. Session two will be a “survive in the wilderness” night – but five of my six players know I love to use the elements as an adversary. I'll have at least three things ready to go by the time we get to session three. Schools start in 2-3 weeks so I'll have significantly more “desk time” in which to take what I'm given. Just need to remember to ask the party for their “Player Do List.” And keep planning three horizons out. Ooooo – and fronts. I need to keep an open mind to fronts!

We play to find out what happens. And “Huh. What's that? Let's go find out!”

In which we attempt to slay the Quantum Ogre

Or Heisenberg's Ogre.  Or Shoedinger's Ogre.  Whatever the kids are calling it these days. 

By whatever name, it seems to be an insidious beast – like Pellinore's questing beast or Antigonus' bear. And I'm unsure how much attention in should be given. Definitions seem to vary slightly. Giving the players a choice (two doors) but determining that the ogre will be behind whichever door they chose, seems to be the dominant definition. But how is this different from determining random/wandering encounters in advance?

I know that the party will have three random encounters as they move through the Edward Wood. I use a nice sufficiently random table and determine that these encounters will be a patch of razor vine, and abandoned farmstead, and an ogre. I have no idea what path they will take through the wood. I don't know how fast they'll be moving or what other silliness they might engage in. They might zip through the wood at breakneck speed, dispatch the razor vine with alacrity, ignore the abandoned farm completely and zip right by, encountering the ogre being relatively fresh as they exit the wood.

Or they might take their time dealing with the razor vine, analyzing possible solutions and discussing alternative solutions. They might even kill some time “beating the bushes” to see if other travelers might have dropped a coin or two. They might decide to rest and recuperate in the abandoned farm house searching it high and low for signs of habitation, usable detritus, or lingering beasties. I'll likely even GIVE them a swarm of rats or something, just to reward their inquisitiveness. And then, after 3-5 days of traipsing through the wood, they'll encounter an ogre.

Or perhaps the ogre will manifest while they're trying to solve the implacable riddle of the razor vine, or as they investigate the architectural integrity of the abandoned farrowing shed.

Am I therefore an evil, bad GM for denying them a choice? Isn't ANYTHING I place in their path a quantum ogre?

Here's how it currently works at my table. Party is wandering listlessly through the untracked wilderness. Roughly every two miles there WILL be an encounter. I use this nifty little random encounter generator. It gives me five encounters from which to chose. My choice is predicated on what they've been doing and what the options presented are. Some just don't fit the story. Some are tougher than they need. Just did a check: scouts, herd of wild boar, tribal war party, band of thieves, and a werebear. The wild boar present a nice opportunity to forage. The werebear just doesn't fit right now. Neither do the thieves (unless I wanna go Robin Hood on their asses with a bad Kevin Costner accent.) The scouts could be a nice tie in to a local band of H/G's, as could the tribal war party.

So the ranger either picks up the trail of the boar, or they spot them 90' away. Get a first shot. Roll initiative. Field dress the result. Move on. Virtually NO choice the players made resulted in the boar being there. Quantum boar? I've also started using a tension pool. When we spill the bowl and a result occurs, I determine what the result is. Quantum tension?

I guess my question is that SINCE the DM is the eyes, ears and nose but not the throat. NEVER the throat) of the party AND SINCE nothing in the world exists unless and until the DM shines the flashlight on it, isn't there in fact a quantum ogre lurking just beyond every next perception check? The world is wholly made up of quantum ogres!

In which we tear it up and start over

Wasn't making the kind of progress I wanted to with world building and since my party's only covered about eight miles I only needed a small wooded area with mountains to the west to drop the CURRENT adventure into. Remember, if they haven't seen it, it doesn't exist yet.

Worldspinner is great. It does some wonderful things, like history, passage of time, adventure themes and hooks. But Azgaar does different things. Like longitude, latitude, altitude and downloadable sortable tables and lists and data and stuff. So I set aside what I HAD on Worldspinner and can go back and “import” stuff as needed. Then put a TON of timesink into Azgaar. It can actually be fun. But I wandered around and fiddled with most of the settings to see what I COULD do. Then I started building. Here's how I got what I want.

First I set most of the options to not include anything unnatural. No religion, culture, states, etc. Requested whole planet build but drier than Earth. Because I HATE tropical forests in a fantasy setting. I used the shattered map template to give me a variety of unconnected land masses. After looking at WAY too many offerings, for a deciduous forest to the west of a mountain range, and a large river nearby, I found one. Save.

Next I placed my cultures. Who developed where. The system provides SCORES of “preset” cultures which are nice, but I wanted the presence of some very specific ones: two kinds of elves, two kinds of dwarves, orcs, halfling, and a mess of humans (Vikings, Mongols, Anglo-Saxons, Celts and “generic.”) So I “added” a dozen cultures to the map, in a line in the center of a landmass. Then I modified each one to give me the elements I wanted. After those were assigned I placed them in their respective “birthplace.” Click on the “rebuild culture” and they spread across the map based on their proclivities. Save

I have one principle city and I know where I want it. So I plopped it down in the appropriate location, adjusted it's population, made it a “city-state” and locked it. Next up I needed States, Provinces and Cities (Burgs.) How many? About 200 cities seemed about right. Tell the system 200. Rebuild Burgs. And they pop up all over the map, placed according to elevation, water, culture, etc. The smallest were under 200 souls. The largest numbered over 10k. I didn't review them but they're easily changed if need be. Save.

Next: States. One state for each culture, except for the elves. Looking at how the culture spread I'm giving them two. To add a state one selects it's capitol city. I generally selected the largest city, but I also looked for cities near birthplace of the culture or near geographic features that lend themselves toward the culture. After each capitol was placed I did a rebuild. This did two things. First it spread the State boarders based on cultural and geographic features. Second it divided the larger states in Provinces based on pre-sets. Names, titles, “shields,” governmental types were all assigned based on culture but subject to change, which I of course tinkered with to make sure nearly every state was somehow unique and yet recognizable in-game. Save.

Click rebuild routs to connect cities based on size and geography. This lays down trails and roads (few) and sea lanes. Save.

Most of the world has been touched by one culture or another. There is overlap. There is “wilderness.” There are contested boarders. Azgaar provides “zones” which can effect large geo areas (tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes) as well as in-game kinda things (like military action [it will also do religious events but I've omitted them as a preference.]) It also provides “markers” for specific features – bridges, mines, lighthouses. My intention is to “reset” these every so often. Don't wanna tell HOW often as players occasionally actually read things. Roughly every three months. More often as needed.

All of the above is done. Now I get to do the “lonely fun” stuff. First I'll take an area about the size of the State of Ohio (45k sq miles) and flip it over to Worldographer. I'll do 20-miles hexes, plot routes, cities and biomes. The program will then randomize the biomes for 6- and 2-mile hexes. I'll then use THOSE maps to record the infrastructure of the mapped area. No need to cover States I'm not visiting. I'll save that for a year down the road when exploration takes the party far afield. Infrastructure, technology, development and exploration will all be tracked on this map.

Next step is building the tables to determine the weather the party is experiencing. I have the template designed but I'll wanna pull the necessary date for every Burg to make it pullable as the party moves across the map. I'll likely do the “Ohio” Burgs first. I can then add to the table as needed when they travel.

And then, the great undertaking. The trade/economic system. Here's what I'm looking at: 1. Calculate the “trade distance” between every Burg on the map. This trail has been blazed but I need to collect the data for input. This is about 1/3 done. 2. Place resources. Currently looks like I'll be doing this on a State basis as opposed to city-by-city, for everything about my “Ohio” map. Again, a lot of the theory has been done but I'll need to accumulate the data for MY world. Target? End of this month. 3. Who produces what and how much? Based on resources, tech and developmental level. Again, the theory has been done but I need to acquire MY data. Also need to figure out best way to store and manipulate. A lot of work has been done is Python but I don't wanna learn an entire programming language just for this. I may change my mind if I can find a cheap (ie. Free) understandable class. Mid-October? 4. Determine the cost of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE! By this step I'll know what raw materials exist where and in what producible amount. Calculate the cost/price of every raw resource, everywhere. I'll use “recipes” (again, a LOT of the work has been done, just not in an easily usable format) to determine cost and availability of SemiGoods (those items whose prices need to be calculated to produce more complex items.) These recipes can be modified and added to on an as-needed basis. Hope to have “completed” by end of the year. Then I can fine-tune State-by-state, province by province and burg by burg.

Quick answer to a quick question? Why? Because scarcity creates conflict and conflict creates opportunity

In which I finally get started on my trade/econ system

 after reading a metric boat-ton of stuff ... from Tao of D&D (pretty much the go-to on NTME but really scattered and somewhat hard to pull together, especially after ten years of corrections, updates and changes in direction), and for h in hexes (another GREAT resource but more about modeling than gaming, and VERY immersed in mineralogy, mining tech and metallurgy.)  And I FINALLY got a copy of Grain into Gold.

After a lot of noodeling and a few false starts I THINK I'm ready to jump in and just start building.

Step one - a list of resources.  About five dozen of them.  And the list will probably be expanded.  This is a somewhat generic list that will get some more depth added in it's next iteration.

Step two - assigning each of these resources to terrain types.  Done

Step three - taking the dozen or so "civilized" areas of the current world and assigning resources to them. Based on level of development and size.  Will also assume three other large land massed not currently "known" but traded with by my capital city and perhaps one or two others and incorporate their assumed production.

Step four - assigning craft people to each settlement.  You might grow cows for meat, milk and leather but without a tanner/leather worker you won't get much.  Development and size again a factor.  And MANY of these are mere cottage industries for local consumption, not for sale.

Step five - trade network.  Travel time between settlements have been calculated.  Need to decide how far perishable goods can be transported.

Step six - need to assemble the "recipes" for manufactured items.  Then revisit step four perhaps.  Gets kind of circular here.

Step seven - This was Tao's step two.  Takes some time but Grain Into Gold should help.  This is where I hafta start linking spreadsheets and data and cells and formula and I THINK I know the approach I want but time will tell.  

Step eight is then kin of an amalgam of all the skipped steps above.  Make sure I have a price for all undeveloped goods, manufactured goods and a final "menu" for each city as to what is available and how much it costs.

My first day back in the classroom will be August 16 once there I should have a few more hours a day to spend on these tasks.  Step one and two are done.  Give me a week on step three and we'll see what happens.  This will ALSO involve figuring out my spreadsheet layouts so it might take a lot of starting and stopping. 

Lonely fun indeed!