The Campaign Builder's Guild

Greetings fellow Fantasy Cartographers. I came here after seeing the thread on WOTC.


My Name
I'm Etarnon net-wide and have been since 2003, or so. The name was derived long ago, the name of my 1st AD&D campaign, which started in 1979, that I ceased running two years ago (when it became an NWN1 Server, that's still up).

Map of Land of Etarnon (I no longer run this, but others do, as spinoffs) here:
http://www.adrive.com/public/744d2a7d88726e07d5400d71592b8dd5816a8a2f4fa56093f20ca441f847421e.html
(I did that map in a week with Triumph Studios' Age of Wonder Hex Mapper, and a lot of Photoshop Brush Work)

The original design was based on graph paper sketches that I did in 1979, pretty much.


Things I like
Star Trek Original Series
Twilight Zone
Celtic Music
Clannad
Enya
Campaign Cartography (See gaming systems)
Screenwriting
Foreign Language Study (I speak a few languages)
Astrophysics (My first major in college, before I switched to Eastern Religion)

Real life
I'm retired from the US Military. I'm a Screenwriter, Machinima Director, and Voice Actor.
I work with a few talented people that are Computer Graphics Gurus, and other writers to do a little YouTube sci fi series, that just started this year, under a different director. I've written dialogue for past episodes, and have been asked to write full episode scripts.
I study Zen.
I also study foreign languages by cassette, along with formal classes.
I've had some gaming articles published by some well known, and relatively unknown game companies, under a different name (mostly for sci fi RPGs).

My Creed
"Save all beings from suffering. Diligently work out your own salvation."

Gaming systems you use
Star Trek RPG (Last Unicorn Games, with input from the rest)
Star Wars (d6, now SAGA, like d6 better)
Traveller (Have played them all, I like most of them.)
2e AD&D (+ Birthright = Rocks the House)
3.5 D&D (I like the Worldbuilder Friendly books, the other stuff...meh)
Spycraft 2.0 (Cards Skill resoluton adds a lot)
Alternity (One of the best SFRPGs out there)
Many more I've played and DMed, since 1977...really too many to list, maybe 4 dozen, that I've Refereed over the last 31 years for at least three scenarios.

Gaming Likes
Sci Fi
Space Opera
Horror
Science Fantasy
Post Holocaust
Straight Fantasy
'Mecha
Critical Hit Charts
Maps
Plots & Long Term Story Arcs
Writing Campaign Backstory / History
Characters
Screenwriting style gaming With "Cutscenes, Flashbacks, Plot Arcs" etc. (LUG TREK did a great job on this.)
Low Treasure, Low Magic Campaigns
"Narrative", backed up by "Simulationist" style a la GNS.
Simple Game systems with depth, (Like Classic Traveller)


Gaming Dislikes
Optimization-as-Game.  Stats & Attributes-as-Character.
Combat-as-sole-Drama-Source
Players that bring nothing to the table, other than dice, and problems with authority
Players that haven't played it all, yet trash older systems as "Out of Date"
Players that have no respect for the old school ways, systems, or style.
Systems where it's all about feats, and Class Dip, and Gear for the plusses.
Players (esp on wotc) who claim I as a DM, or my Campaign is broken, without ever having played.
Players who don't want to follow plot hooks, just because "I don't want to be railroaded." or some other BS, like "I did it because I'm CN." "Crack the Scenario."
Players who plot out a PC from Levels 1 to 20, before the game has started.
Players with a fondness for the words "Spiked Chain, Trip, Balanced Classes, and Gish" more or less the whole WOTC forums culture, including flame fests, etc and the rest of the more or less clueless crap.
Powergamers (But I respect their necessity) & Munchkins
Math in Gaming Combat

General gaming history
Started in 1977 with Traveller at age 11. Moved on to Gamma World, And Blue Dragon Cover Basic Set, than AD&D with the big three in 1979.  Way too many to list since then. My game collection is 8 floor to ceiling bookshelves.

Strengths and weaknesses in game design
I'm good at Maps, History, Plots, and Character Backgrounds, in that order.
My weakness is dialogue in game, math in combat, and running stuff "on the fly" or with "Zero prep time"
My wife thinks I'm a much better worldbuilder than DM. She's likely right.

What published settings have you used/do you like?
Birthright
Dragonlance
Greyhawk
Arduin
Early Forgotten Realms
Talislanta
Gamma World
Canon Star Trek, and Star Wars
Dawnforge
Also, too many more to list.

Major influences on your world-building
Old ICE Books like Character Law, Campaign Law - Revolutionary
Digest Group's Grand Survey & Grand Census (For Traveller, but use it with WBG)
Rich Baker's World Builders Guidebook
Birthright-as-Political Wargame / Plot Generator

Campaign I'm Working On
I've just started a new campaign setting called Selmist, that I want to use for writing novels in the near future. I'm building it with:
AD&D 2e
Rich Baker's World Builder's Guidebook
Grand Survey
1e AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide
Iron Crown Enterprises "Castles & Ruins" & "Campaign Law"
Mapped by Campaign Cartographer 3, with help from CC2, City Designer Pro
Initial Terrain generated by Wilbur (A world fractal design program) by Joe Slayton
A few other Fractal Terrains programs by Joe Slayton (I'm on his Wilbur Yahoo Group)
WOTC's "CityScape" and "Races of-" books
Chasosium's ancient, nearly lost to history, "Cities" Book
Plus some of the concepts for the ancient history from FFG's Dawnforge
Cosmos / Planes Building with hints and tips (when I get to the planes design) from my internet buddy Richard T. Balsley who wrote "Cosmos Builder" for Troll Lord Games, about a year ago, when Gary Gygax was still alive.

RE:Selmist
The rough idea at this point is a world much colder than earth, where at the equator, it's subtropical, (i.e. Not too many jungles, if at all) and the poles, and highest mountains are super-arctic. Not sure on seasons, or axial tilt, at this point. At least two moons, maybe two or three dramatically different suns, not in close orbit, but placed such that mechanically they affect the weather, but not to the point of making it like "Helliconia".
A Trinary System, or some long cometary orbit Dark Nemesis that messes things up, periodically. Still deciding.

I'm going to have to rely on freeware calandar Generators , and graphing calculator to rig this up properly, it's gonna get complicated really fast.

I'll be doing weather and temperature charts, which will affect where glaciers are at, and so forth. Mostly from 1e Wilderness Survival Guide Weather charts to start, backed up / Confirmed by Traveller Book 6 Scouts (Revised by L. Guatney), and Grand Survey, then I'll write an app in QuickBasic to gen it up at need, once it is where I like.  

The High Elves (as a sort of land-dwelling Atlantis-flavor / Precursor race) have a big part in the ancient history, some 6,000 years ago.

Not sure yet where humans come in, but it's gonna be a human-centric setting, pretty much, with much of the knowledge of weather and celestial mechanics and what not lost to what passes for modern civilization, (which is kind of a dark ages+ Birthright.)

The ancient days when the world was new were flush with magic, heroes, and epic deeds, such that it was a "Golden Age".

All of that is now long gone, except for legends, history, and the occasional High Elf survivor, who lived through the last days of it, some (at this point) 900 years ago.

All of the above subject to revision / Refinement as I pull these ideas together.

I'm still working on it. I've got a continental map that's 1600 X 1600 Miles, with the major contours (500 foot levels from sea level to 29,000 feet) filled in, working on rivers. I've started the High Elven History (got about three pages so far, and some genealogical charts for the Elven Families, A list of Elven, Dwarven, and Human Family names, (Broken out by Culture) Dragon Names for specific Dragons plus their lineage, and an Index / Encyclopedia of Things, Places, and NPCs. It's slow going, because I want to prep it to eventually become  a softcover Complete Guide, even if i have to self-publish it.  I'm using a database to track all the Encyclopedia entries.

See you all around here. Much friendlier it seems than WOTC, where my ideas and gaming philosophy were not well-received, except by the old schoolers, in general.

I'm hoping it works out here, and hoping to aid others (especially with custom Campaign / Planetary Mapping with CC3, which I've done in the past)

- Etarnon

I don't believe there needs to be balance, as long as the setting is interesting, and full of challenges, some classes, and races might be slighted due to reasons of campaign setup.

If the campaign is all about courtly politics, the half orc barbarian has no place, nor in my mind Should he. If a player wants to play that, I advise them, going in, there's not going to be much for you to do, if you go that route, but if you want to, be my guest.

Likewise, I'm not really pleased of the drift from roleplaying bonus resolution to difficulty (say a CHA check in 1e AD&D, modified by the actually player's speech, to affect the difficulty of the roll) to this kind of table-ized strict accounting of plussed and minuses, all guided by the 3.X rules set as to what modifier when.

It really detracts from the running of the campaign for me, because in the end, a skill check is a rules look-up, not a simple ruling of the moment, and a player can sit back and say "Make a speech? I've got +10 to my skill. Screw that!", and tosses the dice.

A lot got lost along the way to what passes for "Roleplaying These days, a la D&D."

I like the map, good deal.