The Campaign Builder's Guild

Since everyone on this site is so good at coming up with settings and getting their ideas out I want to ask if you have any advice for how you stay on focus and come up with stuff?

An example is people talk about "themes", but I don't really get that: I try to think of a theme, and it just sounds like pretenscious BS.  And if I stuck to it I'd probably end running out of ideas because I'd get too many that'd break the theme.  How do you avoid this?

Don't get too complex in your themes. Keep things very simple. For example a theme in my world is that there is a sharp divide between wilderness and civilization. From that I have created my walled in city states and armored caravans concept. As well as something to push that fact (untrusting nomads, dangerous wildlife, vast expanses of hostile land, etc).

You also don't want just one theme, write down how you want the general feeling of your setting to be portrayed and extrapolate the needed themes from that. Then look at each and try to think of how you can push them appropriately.

I'm not sure how conscious my process is (I don't just sit down and decide "I'm coming up with ideas now"), but I think I probably start with image rather than theme.  The works of others - books, films, comics, art, etc - play a big part.  But usually I begin with a picture and begin to fill it in, often creating as I write.  "Themes" always seem to emerge for me part of the way through the process, when I detect patterns in what I'm creating.  After I've discerned some broad themes I might begin thinking about the world and creating more of it according to them; but I don't begin with them.  I also never begin with maps - too big an image.

Well, I've always only been working on one single campaign that evolved through different versions. Mainly, i just try to make settings that can accomodate my ideas. If i have an idea i like, I'll try and make it fit somehow. I don't see themes as limits on your creativity, but rather as moodsetters. You're supposed to read them and get a sense of the tone and theme, but it would be a pity if you could predict all the originality in the setting out from the themes.

I get even simpler than that. I start by asking myself, "What kind of place would I want to explore for a while?" What would make a fun game? What's never been done before that might work well? You don't have to worry about being original if you're just making a setting for your own use, but if you want other GMs to take notice you need a way to get their attention. No matter what, you have to make it enjoyable in one way or another.

And if you know what game system you want to use, make sure the setting works with the system, not against it. If you want to use a crunchy combat-focused system, I'd recommend not making a setting full of political intrigue and moral ambiguity. Likewise, if you've got a system more geared toward creating a story, you naturally want the setting to be a conscious part of that story.

I pretty much just extrapolate a setting from a character I've thought up, usually incorporating some elements I like (I keep a notepad handy and jot down stuff all the time). The notepad is a good source of inspiration.

As for themes, I don't think I really have them at all.

well, if you want the "pro" approach, there is three important things to set down before you start:
theme, mood and setting.
the theme is a simple statement, like the tagline of a movie. for example the theme for what i'm working on atm is "mind over matter, steel over flesh." don't worry if it sounds corny, it's just something you should always keep in mind that touches on everything you put into the setting.
mood is more complex, it's basically the range of emotions you try to evoke in your players. in my case it would be guarded curiosity, a bit of frontier spirit, the choice between community and solidarity, but also horror.
setting is more important for a scripted campaign, but it's most useful to start with a small part of your fledgling world. most people tend to begin with things like interplanar location, the cosmology, pantheon and whatnot.
of course these steps are important, but for your players to care about your pantheon, you have to give them a background to act from. for example when designing a new campaign world, i do some rough mental sketches about the general shape of things and the metacontinuity, but focus first on a smaller part that i flesh out fully. most of the time that bit is county-sized. there you have an area to keep your players occupied for some time, while you get a feel for what they want to do. it's of no use if the elven forrest is fleshed out down to 20 species of herbs if the players want to go to the mountsins to visit the dwarves.
on the other hand, you should not create an island in the void (except for raveloft^^), but have some general gossip or prejudices for your NPCs at hand. e.g. "them traders have brought some shifty fellows from down south with them. dark skinned they are. best have an eye on your daughters, the things you hear about them."

okay, enough with the infodump. this is all grey theory, so if that way doesn't work out for you, try to use only your intuition. as banal as it sounds, keep mind and ears open, and the inspiration will come. if you decide to work from a theme, try to make it abstract or vague enough to not tie you down. to get back to my own example, it's mostly about the clash between magic and technology. this can manifest itself in thousand ways, people arguing over the choice of magical light versus glow-globes, rifles over magic bows, prosthetics over magical healing and much more. or it can be of actual plot relevance when the party's engineer friend is attacked by an angry mob of naturalists.

i hope this helps you a little bit. :)

"This would be cool to have in a setting" followed by putting it into the setting. I have more ideas than I can be bothered to write up though, by a long way, so progress is slow, as only the ideas that really feel amazing end up getting written.... and sometimes I can go ages without even getting round to writing them, they just float around in my head for months...

Honestly, if you're having problems with inspiration, just relax on it, don't try to force it. Read some good books, watch some good movies.... even bad books and movies might have something in them... live your life, observe, take in influences, and eventually, from all the jumble of input, some idea will form.

As far as I'm aware that's the best formula for creativity of any kind. Whenever I've tried to force myself to create something, be it a piece of prose or a piece of music (those are the only two artistic mediums I have any degree of competence with) the results have been disastrous, if there have been any at all.

Just wait til it all falls into place, and it feels right to be creative again.

Quote from: KindlingAs far as I'm aware that's the best formula for creativity of any kind. Whenever I've tried to force myself to create something, be it a piece of prose or a piece of music (those are the only two artistic mediums I have any degree of competence with) the results have been disastrous, if there have been any at all.

My exact feeling too.

Okay, thanks people.  I'll try all of these.

Another thing to consider: players will never care about the setting as much as you do. In particular, they'll never remember anyone's names. So don't make them work any harder than they have to.

I agree with good old Shamus young here.

[ic]Nobody wants to play a campaign with Emperor Fred or High Chancellor Gary, and so the usual approach is to give everyone high fantasy names like King Geon'ai, Sir Lua'an-Eradin, or Lady Alaain Mera-Dovrel. You know, strange and fantasy-ish. Of course, this means the names will all be unpronouncable, difficult to spell, and easily confused. For fun, have your players describe the plot of your campaign after it's over. I promise it will sound something like this:

"The dragon guy with that black sword was oppressing the people that lived on those hills. Then that one king with the really long beard got that one chick with the crazy hair, and she went to that one lake. Then she got corrupted by that curse thing that made her attack that group of guys we found dead. You know, the ones that had that +1 sword and the bag of holding? Once we broke her curse she told us about the dragon guy and gave us that thing. And the map. Then we found the dragon dude and kicked his ass."

It's like living in a word without proper nouns. I've always wanted to make a campaign like this:

"The Dark Lord Walter, wielder of the Black Sword of choppery, was opressing the peoples of Pittsburgh. Then King George Washington enlisted the help of the Warrior Princess Rapunzel. Sadly, in the Land of Yellowstone she fell under a spell and slew the Steelers, Knights of Pittsburgh. At last the heroes freed the princess, traveled through the kingdom of Barstow, and confronted Walter in the land of Spokane."

Sure, it sounds stupid, but you have to admit: your players will be able to remember, pronounce, and even spell all of the important people and places. [/ic]

Yeah, I completely get that: I name a lot of my story characters after colors, I've used words like "tek" and "sonata" as race names.

I just wish he'd given some advice on how to pick the right words. :axe:

I think picking memorable and cool names is an art unto itself, I know my pc's get lost like its nobodies business when it comes to names, so most of my lesser characters go by regular, but uncommon first names (Gerard, Lucien, Viktor etc.) or easy stuff like Lord Bant or nicknames like Warspike or Hangnail. Half the time though, i find i'm just writing for myself. My pc's played two session before they remebered the name of the guy they were facing (Viktor Coering) and one of them wanted to call him vikki.

Good question. I certainly didn't do it deliberately.

My best inspiration comes from actual play.

Rules: "What the hell? You've been drowning for like... 20 minutes... something is frigging wrong here."

NPCs: "The farm is owned and operated by... uh... the Farmer family! Ooh, look, there's ghouls now!"

Locations: "Yes, there is a soup kitchen in this dungeon. No I don't think the kobolds will let you order soup."

Magic: "This corn has unique healing properties."

Other than caffeine and free time, what you really need to create is a willingness to create and a willingness to forget about one project until the ideas start coming.  I've got a lot of idea notebooks with half-written album reviews and political rants as well as campaign material as done as I can get it now.