The Campaign Builder's Guild

Hey everyone, Xathan here.

I was just wondering if I'm the only one who almost wept (figuratively) when he read Nasty's Angel's, and Meepo's cooroperative homebrew. Here a setting sprung up, seemingly almost overnight, that has a level of detail I'm nowhere near approaching in Datrik. How do you guys get this level of detail so quickly?

I don't know. I guess I'm kinda venting my frusteration at my inability to get anything done on Datrik. I have a paragraph for five new races, and I hate two of them. That's all I've accomplished since my last update, and not from lack of trying. Anyone have any tips for me, or am I just hopless?

I can't really offer anything constructive, as my setting is very early in development.  I'd just work top-down, get everything general set up and then get progressively more detailed as you go, making changes as necessary.  I usually spend an hour or 2 every day working on my CS, and I still don't get anything done...

Hey, don't feel too bad: I haven't done anything to Irslindur (too lazy to get the accent mark right now) in around 2 months.  Inspiration just takes a while. (That and being stuck on the mechanics to a base class)

Well, good news is that I had a brainstorm and tons of ideas

Bad news: None of it is for Datrik.

oh well. Brand new setting ahead! (BTW, I'm not getting rid of Datrik, just letting it mature in my mind while I work on other things.)

Inspiration comes in spurts, but when you have a dedicated partner to work with, inspiration often comes quicker.

Well having played a part in forming this new setting let me pipe in that we spent hours IMing back and forth, bouncing ideas off one another. Some things were shot down, and others were embraced. We're still hotly debating our cosmology, and have actually decided to write up several theories about how the Convergence came to pass.

The three of us just really liked the work of the others involved in the project, so it made things very easy. It took a little research on my part to find out about E.W. Morton's handful of publications, because he really doesn't toot his own horn. But his d20 sourcebook on vampires, Out for Blood (if not mistaken on it's title) is pretty fantastic.

We've got a nice blend of creative talents...all we've got to do is find a way to collaborate efficiently, which is easier said than done.  :D

Don't fret too much if it seems like we're producing stuff at a profound clip. Our little super-team was founded based upon our love of this kind of stuff, and our complimenting talents. I pounded out Sulos in less than a month and it's more than 60 pages long now...with two people working with me...well you get the idea. No need at all to feel like you have to work at the same pace...we be crazy folks!  :itsok:

-Nasty-

 

QuoteDon't fret too much if it seems like we're producing stuff at a profound clip. Our little super-team was founded based upon our love of this kind of stuff, and our complimenting talents. I pounded out Sulos in less than a month and it's more than 60 pages long now...with two people working with me...well you get the idea. No need at all to feel like you have to work at the same pace...we be crazy folks!

I know this was intended to make me feel better, and I thank you for it, but the problem is, what you said is why I was so upset by the setting. I share your love for worldbuilding - I have, to date, something along the lines of 24 partially developed fatntasy settings, 4 "Worlds" which are partially done modifications of Earth, 13 sci-fi settings, and one fully complete "World" which is more a Mythos for my screenwriting class. This is not counting worlds for incomplete fictions, which would about double the above numbers. I produce, on average, about 20=30 pages of new material a month. Alot of it is random and has no setting attached to it, just ideas I put on paper. My problem is more actually finishing anything - that's what I can never see anything come to fruition.

I am a very obsessive person...I see things through, or I don't bother at all. I guess it's just a different mentality. It's killing me right now to put Sulos on hold, but I can't put forth the level of effort I want, or keep up the standard I hold myself to, with multiple settings.

My mindset helps quite a bit.

-Nasty-  

P.S. I also have a habit of making very diverse and flexible settings. Almost any ideas I come up with can be squeezed into whatever project I happen to be working on at the time. In 18 years of gaming Sulos was but my second homebrew. My first one Selenica was an epic 10 year running campaign setting that eventually just became too old and too tired for me to get much enjoyment out of it any longer. I didn't feel like adapting it to third edition or revamping it yet again, so I chose to poop out another good base world. Sulos is designed with expansion, adaptability, and years of adventuring opportunity in mind.

Convergence on the other hand just fell into my lap. I had a chance to do a real collaboration, and I jumped on it. When all is said and done, I may end up with two homebrews to play with, which will be really cool. At the moment Sulos is on hold, but that doesn't mean I won't get back to it sometime soon. When I brainstorm ideas, I always take my settings into consideration first. I won't explore an idea that isn't compatable...keep your creativity focused on the setting at hand, and you'll have no trouble writing as little or as much as you desire; at least it works for me.  :D

Quotekeep your creativity focused on the setting at hand, and you'll have no trouble writing as little or as much as you desire; at least it works for me.

I actually feel better now: I just realized how different our styles are. I'm at my most creative when either a) I let my imagination just do its thing on its own or b) someone is asking me questions about details. That's why I put stuff up - I want questions to keep me focused. :D

Quote from: Xathan, Last Of The Fallen

Quotekeep your creativity focused on the setting at hand, and you'll have no trouble writing as little or as much as you desire; at least it works for me.

Glad you feel better. Eric and I both are big fans of the Forgotten Realms style, in the sense that each nation of the world is (or can be) a unigue setting unto itself. Our campaign worlds are more like several campaign settings all in one, which makes adding new things, and finding places for our ideas much easier.

The potential for growth and the flexibility of the setting is important to both of us. We enjoy having the option to run a horror game, or a dungeon crawl, or a romantic rescue all in the same setting. It keeps things interesting, and adaptable to multiple different styles of play.

-Nasty-