The Campaign Builder's Guild

So I have been thinking for a while about maybe writing a game neutral campaign setting. What it would be is just fluff, no crunch. Then instead of writing adventures, I'd write adventure sites. What this does is allows for the GM to do just a little bit of work coming up with the stats and such for NPCs, Monsters, Spells, whatever in any game they want. That way you can use 4th edition rules, 3rd edition rules, Hero System, Rifts, or GURPS and it wouldn't matter. It would also be sort of a Game Master's Lego Box. I give you a completed toy, you can play with it or break it and piece ittogether in a different way. Steal whatever you want in your own private game. Thoughts? would you ever buy this?

Excluding the very first, all the settings I've posted on the CBG have been rules neutral - pure fluff.

So, somewhat obviously, I endorse the idea. Make people a world to use for their game system of choice, don't force yours upon them if they want to play in your world.

I do the same, purely a fluff guy here. Mainly because I don't play tabletops, I know me and my friend do enough crunch for a game hes programming.

Its a good idea, nothing wrong with it at all, and I buy things like this all the time, they're called novels :p

I agree. I just wanted to test the waters first. Now would you rather see something more traditional fantasy roleplaying? or something more unique?

I read almost everything posted, I try and respond if I can think of anything pertinent. Personally I don't mind what genre/style its in, as long as you enjoy writing the stuff.

Personally I have fairly non-traditional setting and a more traditional one, I like them both. I do find that something more unique helps me be a bit more creative, but like I said whatever interests you in writing it :D

Fluff is much more exciting than crunch to me, and I think most other board members.  With regards to what kind of setting to write, like Llum said, write what you`re interested in.  Personally I`m drawn more to the unique or non-traditional approach, or at least a fresh take on more traditional stuff.  One thing I`d suggest is to not feel constrained by traditional (or for that matter non-traditional) tropes.  The liberation of fluff-only means that you don`t have to worry about statting everything out, and that means if, say, you don`t want gnomes in your campaign or whatever, then you don`t need to include them, and likewise that you can think up some really out-there stuff and not worry about translating it into rules form.

This is what I was thinking about doing with the setting I am currently working on, since I won't be actually running it anytime soon and most people here don't seem to care much for crunch, anyway.

Most of my recent work is setting neutral.

and to chime in, I separated my crunch and fluff threads for that reason as well.

these are all great points. My idea for this setting is to serve as a tackle box for GMs. Instead of being organized into countries per say, I want to use ZONES. These are areas that might include one or two countries and cities. So the world (from a game sense) is organized by theme rather than political lines. These Zones are purely metagame though. The idea is that you could scoop one out and use it in your homebrew game.

I agree with this totally. I too have posted merely fluff for quite a while now - sometimes with a sprinkling of crunch for DnD fans, but rarely more than halfheartedly so :P

I dunno about the zones thing, though. Whilst it's a good idea, it would mean all your nations were city-states. Would you mind that?

Yea I can live with that. I'm not exactly a huge fan of these big sprawling nations. I picture my world as being concentrated centers of power, but as you get away from that it becomes more wild. Kind of like Ancient Greece. rather then the holy roman empire.

Ironically, the Holy Roman Empire was far more similar to Ancient Greece than you might imagine. Though the Emperor had official power over the entire Empire, actual day-to-day authority fell to various kings, princes and lords. The Empire was anything but united most of the time.

As Linda Richman put it, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. :P

But anyway! I like this idea. I'm also a fluff-oriented sort of person. (I'm not very good at crunch)

I have a few GURPS books and I've found that many of them are good for general roleplaying goodness even if you don't use them for the GURPS game system.

Quote from: sparkletwistAs Linda Richman put it, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. :P

Or as Voltaire said, Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.