Building a New D&D Campaign Diary – Entry #1: Questions

So, I’ve been toying with the idea for some time of creating a campaign world from scratch.  I haven’t really had a compelling reason to do so, as the games I’ve had running have been in existing worlds with plenty of source material.  Still, I know that the best sessions I’ve had as a DM have been in those home-brewed worlds that I’ve created.  My players think so, too.

Now, that doesn’t mean I’m a great world designer;  really, all it says is that I’m better at running my own material than I am at running someone else’s.

At any rate, when 4E was announced, I decided that it was time to build a new D&D campaign world.  Even if 4E stinks, and even if I wind up sticking with 3.5, it’s a worthwhile exercise.  This is because building a new D&D campaign world takes time.  While it’s likely that I’ll be finished with the flavor sort of material by the release of 4E, it’s not likely that I’ll have been forced to start considering mechanics.  So, I’m safe, at least for a while, in that regard.

The point of all of this, and the reason that I’m writing this here instead of in a notebook somewhere is that I want to share the experience of creating my new campaign world with you.  This serves several purposes, not all of which are altruistic:

• It provides specific sorts of steps that a new DM (or a DM that has never created a campaign world) can follow in order to create their own new D&D campaign world.
• It provides other D&D players with access to my new campaign world and its ideas.
• It forces me, to some degree or another, to be more systematic and disciplined about creating my new D&D world.
• It provides those that play with me at home with some background information about the new campaign that we’ll start playing this summer, after GenCon.

Speaking of GenCon, there’s one more thing this particular endeavor provides:

• It gives people interested in playing in my events at GenCon some background on the world, and provides an opportunity for me to get to know some of my readers in person.

See, I’m going to run several slots of 4E D&D in this new world at GenCon this summer (assuming my events are approved by the powers that be at GenCon).  I think it will be an absolute blast for those of you who follow this blog to be the first ones to play in the new campaign.

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Today, I want to just start thinking, in general, about the sorts of things that go into a campaign.  For that reason, I’ve assembled a list of questions that, over the coming weeks, I will be answering.  These questions will help to flesh out the campaign world; they will help determine its tone, and its direction.  I’ve posted those questions to a new page here.  Keep in mind that they’re quick and dirty, and I’ll probably improve on their wording over time.

If you’re going to create your own campaign in tandem with mine (which I would encourage any DM to do), you should spend today and tonight thinking about these questions and adding any other questions you might think are missing.  Feel free to email me, as well, as I’d love to hear your ideas.

So, until the morrow, I’ll bid you all farewell.

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