The Campaign Builder's Guild

I am Dolalmoth, master of over-dramatic epic-ness.  
I use d20 system and have always been the dm for my group since the beginning since they were all too lazy for it.  Much of my material comes from Tolkein, and also now from Kevin J. Anderson.
I will soon begin work on my universe, one with thousands of planes and epic plots and everything else typical of dnd.  One final note:  I often have high tech stuff in my settings despite their midevalness  [dice]1d8[/dice]

Welcome dolalmoth.

Although I'd have expected something more along the lines of

 
 ;)

Quote from: JackOfTalesI suppose this should have been my first post, but it's not..anyways.
Intro
The name comes from the fact that many, many stories have a character named Jack. It was brought up at our gaming table one night after I introduced a CG paladin that gave the party some help and advice before leaving to parts unknown. This same figure, or someone similar, has now appeared in every game I've DMed with them and every game they DM with me or anyone else. I started referring to him as the Jack of Tales and took it as my name on many a board.

Are you at all familar with the DC/ vertigo comic book series Fables or its spin-off series Jack of Fables?  There's a character there based on almost the exact same premise: that Jack of the beanstalk story is the same as Jack the Giant Killer and Jack Be Nimble and Jack Horner and Jack Frost and so on.

Hi, Im BlueSilence and this may be the place that can help me overcome my curse. Nice to meet you.

-Gaming systems you use
Currently using the respective systems for New World of Darkness and DnD 3.5 in two different settings Im trying to design.

-General gaming history
Proudly, my first gaming experience was with an improvised setting. Since in our villge we had no acccess to any kind of material we, a great friend and I, filled notebooks pages with sketches, character profiles, list of items, story lines, maps and so on... and we even crafted our own set of dices. Eventually moving to capital city and the coming of the internet we were able to know several other gamers, settings and learned a lot from experience.

-Personal likes and dislikes
I like coldness, silence and nights. I also like pizza, cocacola, electro-industrial music, human sciences, ice creams, horror stories. I dislike bugs, hot weather, idiocy, being rushed, being interrupted, wait... I dont want to think about those things now...

-Strengths and weaknesses in game design
Since Im not too much interested in originality I will say, as many of you, that Im creative. Now I feel the urge to look these words in a dictionary. Anyways, I really like the ideas that I get and can make my players enjoy them as I encourage storytelling descriptions rather than system rules. My main weakness is The Curse of Procrastination. I dont know how to overcome it. Another weakness is that I may lose sometimes the bigger picture with lesser details.

-What published settings have you used/do you like?
Definitely I like The World of Darkness (both), specially Vampire and Demon. I have also played DnD 2nd, 3rd and 3.5. I had the opportunity to play Legend of Five Rings and really liked it.

-Major influences on your world-building
Those voices that I hear in my head... oh wait, I still have my earphones on. Music, many  lyrics along with its rythms compose not only a track, a song, but some sort of story... and a feeling that applied in an adventure or in a campaing can be very... umm "woah!" The same with other media like certain scenes from t.v. shows, movies, book, etc.

See ya around.

[blockquote BlueSilence]-What published settings have you used/do you like?
Definitely I like The World of Darkness (both), specially Vampire and Demon. I have also played DnD 2nd, 3rd and 3.5. I had the opportunity to play Legend of Five Rings and really liked it.[/blockquote]

Yeah, I really love the setting for Legend of the Five Rings, as well.  I'm currently running a L5R game for my main game group, but we can't ever seem to meet (stupid summer family vacations!), so it might be dead of natural causes.

Anyway, welcome to the Guild.  Others are way more active than I am, but everyone is pretty friendly.  Go ahead and start posting your setting ideas.

-Gaming systems you use

D&D 4e
D&D 3.x
M&M2e

Keen to play WHFR2e and SWSG.

-General gaming history

My mom taught me backgammon and Vegas rules blackjack when I was a wee lad... have yet to make any money from either. Played a lot of chess and Risk growing up. Discovered RPG's via an article in Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine --oh first bloom of nerdery-- and played my 1st D&D campaign some years later, in late high school. Been playing RPG's on and off ever since.

-Personal likes and dislikes

In general: a good martini, cinema, fiction and rambling-yet-occasionally-pointed conversations in smoky bars (make that smoke-free bars now that I've quit and my city's instituted a smoking ban). Also, HD travel programming, actual travel --when I get to it--  cute puppies, and, though it should go without saying, my lovely wife.

In gaming: like I said once to a friend who asked my what I wanted out of his D&D campaign "Make a violent story book that I can cavort in".

-Strengths and weaknesses in game design

My strengths are basically a knack for language and the synthesis of seemingly incompatible influences.

My weaknesses are a generally unfriendly relationship with game mechanics and plotting.

-What published settings have you used/do you like?

I like Freedom CITY in M&M, Eberron --and in a nostalgic way Greyhawk-- in D&D. Other than that I really only play or run homebrews.

-Major influences on your world-building

Really whatever is striking my fancy at the time; recently that was Clive Barker, The Maxx, the setting of M. John Harrison's Nova Swing , and random imagery in my head that resembled Pirates of the Caribbean as directed by Tim Burton.    

Did I say. "Welcome, Mallus?"  It appears not.  Then Welcome.  What is your favorite martini?

Yeah, welcome Mallus.

I enjoyed WFRP, though our campaign only lasted a few months. Has some neat mechanics and an interesting feel to the world.

Quote from: BlueSilenceHi, Im BlueSilence and this may be the place that can help me overcome my curse. Nice to meet you.

-Gaming systems you use
Currently using the respective systems for New World of Darkness and DnD 3.5 in two different settings Im trying to design.

-General gaming history
Proudly, my first gaming experience was with an improvised setting. Since in our villge we had no acccess to any kind of material we, a great friend and I, filled notebooks pages with sketches, character profiles, list of items, story lines, maps and so on... and we even crafted our own set of dices. Eventually moving to capital city and the coming of the internet we were able to know several other gamers, settings and learned a lot from experience.

-Personal likes and dislikes
I like coldness, silence and nights. I also like pizza, cocacola, electro-industrial music, human sciences, ice creams, horror stories. I dislike bugs, hot weather, idiocy, being rushed, being interrupted, wait... I dont want to think about those things now...

-Strengths and weaknesses in game design
Since Im not too much interested in originality I will say, as many of you, that Im creative. Now I feel the urge to look these words in a dictionary. Anyways, I really like the ideas that I get and can make my players enjoy them as I encourage storytelling descriptions rather than system rules. My main weakness is The Curse of Procrastination. I dont know how to overcome it. Another weakness is that I may lose sometimes the bigger picture with lesser details.

-What published settings have you used/do you like?
Definitely I like The World of Darkness (both), specially Vampire and Demon. I have also played DnD 2nd, 3rd and 3.5. I had the opportunity to play Legend of Five Rings and really liked it.

-Major influences on your world-building
Those voices that I hear in my head... oh wait, I still have my earphones on. Music, many  lyrics along with its rythms compose not only a track, a song, but some sort of story... and a feeling that applied in an adventure or in a campaing can be very... umm "woah!" The same with other media like certain scenes from t.v. shows, movies, book, etc.

See ya around.

You're designing a setting with nWoD? Sounds interesting - I was going to develop my own magic system for it and use it for more Ravenloft-esque gaming, but never got around to it. I was also looking at running a covert ops military game with it but that hasn't happened either. I'm assumnig since one of your favorites is Demon you've had a fair amount of experience with oWoD? I can't stand the new Vampire clans or the total lack of Inquisitor support. :(

I suppose its time I posted here.  Glad to find a good creative community here.

-Gaming systems

I've played several editions of DnD and its various bastard offspring, such as Arcana Evolved, Ptolus, d20 Modern, and some fairy-tale setting whose name I can't remember.  I'm also familiar with the Fireborn, Firefly, True 20, and FUDGE systems, with varying levels of experience.  Most of my campaigns have been homebrewed settings, often urban or post-apocalyptic, though I once ran a steampunk/faerie game featuring sixguns, giants, steam-powered robots, and evil forest-elf slavers.  The current setting I'm working on is called the "Twilight Cities of the Cadaverous Earth".

-General gaming history

I picked up a battered 2nd edition player's handbook in 6th grade and taught myself to play, then discovered that my uncle had a huge crate of roleplaying books from college, alongside binders full of his own settings and notes.  I quickly bought the then new 3rd edition books and started playing with friends and my brothers, and still play sometimes with a university club.  I've also played Magic and Munchkin and am an avid computer gamer.  My favorite games right now are the Half-Life series, Bioshock, Oblivion, the Fallout Series, Starcraft, and the Thief series, which has had a huge influence on me.

-Personal likes and dislikes

I like dark stuff that doesn't wallow in itself too much.  I like weird creatures and settings that manage to make the bizarre plausible or at least compelling rather than merely random.  I like literature, especially fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and gothic.  I also like brandy, seafood, cats, and the rain, and enjoy fencing (just foil so far).

I dislike elves, dwarfs, orcs, etc: although I like some parts of Tolkien and loved the movies, I just feel that waaaay too many authors and game designers limit themselves because they liked Tolkien's stuff and want to imitate it.  I also dislike kitschy magic, Elminister, gin, and Christopher Paolini, for obvious reasons.

-Strengths and weaknesses in game design

I like to think I write descriptive scenes pretty well, though most players' eyes start to glaze over after a paragraph or so.  Fluff is definitely my focus; I personally feel that while good fluff can save sub-par mechanics or gameplay, good gameplay rarely makes up for bad fluff.  I'm not fantastic at developing crunch mostly because I find it incredibly tedious and largely unnecessary, though I like to think I've designed some cool and relatively balanced races in my time.

-What published settings have you used/do you like?

If I'm running a campaign in a published setting it is always set in the Iron Kingdoms, which I personally find far cooler than pretty much any published setting out there.  I sometimes play in the Arcana Evolved setting because one of the club GMs I often play with likes the world - I like the Akashics, Witches, rituals, and oaths but I'm not wild about some aspects of the setting.

-Major influences on your world-building

Jack Vance's Dying Earth, China Mieville's Bas-Lag, Stephen King's Mid-World, Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire and earlier storise (particularly his "corpse-handler" stories and some of his Future History), Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series (especially the first two), Bladerunner and Alien, zombie movies, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Thief and Fallout series of games, and the Iron Kingdoms role-playing game - to name a few.  I'm currently reading some of Moorcock's Elric stories and keeping my eyes peeled for stuff to cull.

Hey welcome Steerpike. I see we have some similar likes/dislikes.

QuoteI'm currently reading some of Moorcock's Elric stories and keeping my eyes peeled for stuff to cull.

Check out the CBG Fantasy Book Rankings list thread ;)

Quote from: Kalos MerThings Potentially to Include
-Gaming systems you use
-General gaming history
-Personal likes and dislikes
-Strengths and weaknesses in game design
-What published settings have you used/do you like?
-Major influences on your world-building

Aight, basically, I'm relatively new to campaign building myself being that I've always been more of a writer when it comes to making worlds up even though I would say that I was a gamer before I ever became a writer. Truth is, the reason why I even went into writing is because I enjoyed gaming so much I wanted to make my own as soon as possible. Being that I have no training in programing or any such other platforms of coding, I thought making stories up was one way for me to at least create places where I would have loved to play in.

Right now, the first system I've ever used was D20, I think it was third or 3.5e but I only played it for a few minutes and not a full campaign itself. Because of this I turned fully to PbP gaming instead, enjoying my time at Tazlure. I do believe that in anything I do, I would always compare the way a game lives to Tazlure.

Generally, my gaming history includes a lot of action RPGs, Turned Based Strategy Games, RTS, and PbP gaming. My favorite games so far are Tazlure, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics, FF Tactics Advance, Front Mission 3 and maybe 4, haven't played it fully yet; Tekken 6, Soul Calibur I and II, Call of Duty 4, Guilty Gear, Fire Emblem Series, and Warhammer Dawn of War. If I was ever given a list to make of the games I've loved according to the demographics they fit, these games would make that list, being that they're the only games I've played and loved so far.

Personal Likes and dislikes...

I'm a pretty moody. What I like and dislike really depends on the situation and on whether that objective is affecting me in a way I would appreciate. Because of this, the only thing I really don't like so far is people asserting their power over me. I appreciate it when people criticize, but when people deject me or try to show that they have authority over me; I tend to react aggressively. By this I mean I hurt people when they do things to me I don't like. I try my best to keep the temper at bay when these people are what I would call friends or family, but wif I don't you and I got the proper cause for it, I might shoot you.

Seriously.

I have no idea what the strengths and weaknesses in my game design are. I think it should be for users to say that, not me, cause I'm not yet trained enough as a designer to have a meter stick to use in comparison to what I'm doing. If I was asked though as a writer, I'd pretty much say that my work is too genre busting, too much about the world and not about the stories that live in it. As a writer, I cannot accept that kind of thinking, thus I'm doing my best write now to remedy that statement. Now, I'm trying to keep it in mind that the story is the point of the world, but that doesn't mean that the world should be any less awesome than the story.

I am a big fan of Tazlure and Moderated Freeform. I'm asking their GDs right now for permission to use some of their concepts in a homebrew non-commercial game system I'd like to use in running a few games. Keep in mind though that I have always been a player and never the Moderator so I hope to polish a few things once I've run my first game. Second to that would be Tri Stat Dx. I've never actually played a game with Tri Stat Dx but after reading their books I've developed a liking for their simplicity and modular make up. Sure, it might be a little bit too general for context specific gaming like say a setting placed specifically in the world of Mixed Martial Arts or a Game totally about Mechs, but I think that a system this modular could support mechanics from other context game systems for specific settings not accounted for in Tri Stat Dx.

Major Influences?
Roman Catholic Canon
Literary Critical Theory
Culture Studies
Megatokyo Forums
Locution forums
Dev Art
Modern and Renaissance Philosophy
HP Lovecraft
August Derleth
Robert Bloch
Tom Clancy
Nazism
Zionism
Zen
Asian Philosophies
Ayn Rand
Front Mission 3
Call of Duty 4
Warhammer 40k
Gore Vidal
Tolkien (Who isn't?)
Bauhaus
Tekken 6
Guilty Gear
and a whole lot more...

I hope this is satisfactory.

OK.  First time I've seen Roman Catholic Canon as an influence, or at least as a consious one.  Mix that with Dev Art and Bauhaus...Should make for some interesting coversation, if naught else.
Out of curiosity, what type of music grabs you, Teh?

Quote from: LordVreegOut of curiosity, what type of music grabs you, Teh?

Just a wild guess, but I think he might have been talking about the other Bauhaus ;) :p