Focus
By which I mean tying things tightly together, rooting game rules being used in the campaign’s environment (i.e., world) and theme and yes limiting the rules being used to those that have been “vetted” and integrated completely into the campaign. Why do this? Well, several reasons:
1. Maintain a cohesive campaign environment.
So, for example (and really – this is simply an example – I haven’t gotten to the point yet where anything like this has been decided…) if no monastic tradition exists on Altaerra then sadly there will be no monk class available. The goal is to make sure things “hang together well”. Nothing should feel shoehorned in just because some cool new feat that the DM liked came out halfway through the campaign.
2. Limit preparation work and complexity.
With limited time to prep for obvious reasons (sorry – cheap excuse to link to a picture of Lila…), I’ll need to focus my preparation time as much as possible. Having a limited number of source books to have to understand during the process will help. Limited options will also make it easier for me to guage the difficulty of encounters I’m preparing and hopefully making them less likely to be overkill or simply complete push overs because I failed to note the single weakness or subtle strength of a new class, feat, or spell.
3. Simplify things at the gaming table.
Mainly for the DM but also for everyone else. How do the new powers rally work? How do they stack? Etc. The core rules typically undego extensive playtesting. I’m not sure the add on’s always do…
Unlike my first campaign – Taera – in which I explicitly stated that “all the variety of DnD could be found just alittle modified” (check quote), Altaerra will have limitations and choices. Hopefully this will make for a better experience.
In future posts I’ll expand upon this topic, explaining and exploring how I plan to apply this concept in the following areas:
Classes
Races
Feats
Spells and magic
Religions
Skills
As always, let me know your thoughts on this. – are limits something you can live with? What makes them palatable? Do they take all the fun out of the game?
This entry was posted on February 27, 2008 at 4:24 pm and is filed under metagame. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
February 29, 2008 at 8:23 pm
As long as I can be a strength bow wielding combat mage that can polymorph into elder dragons (plural), you can put as many limits on as you want!
I think limits are fine in a campaign in order to make characters fit to a campaign idea. My most recent idea was about putting a Native American campaign together where the characters would encounter mythical Vikings as they attempted to establish a colony. Obviously, there would be plenty of limits on what players could play but I would allow for a bit of creative freedom to make things work. In this case, Native American society did not have a monastic society, yet at the same time if a player came up with a plausible reason to play a monk (an unarmed fighter in this case) I would probably allow it. So, I would suggest creating limits but allow for some interpretation and flexibility. Also, if I were to establish limits on what characters can be, I would also look for ways to make sure that all classes still have ways for players to differentiate characters in a way they would have fun playing. Lastly, I think it is most important to allow players enough freedom and choice to feel as if they have an effect on the campaign itself. When it comes down to it, if people feel involved and important, limits that are placed on characters are of little importance.
As an aside…
For me and the next character I would like to play, I am torn between a couple choices. What I will always like about playing a wizard is the wide array of choices and the creative problem solving that spells allow you to do. So one choice is to take that to the absolute extreme and play a wizard/cleric multi class and support it with the prestige class in the DMG. Another, is to play a straight up fighter that avoids prestige classes altogether and focus on feats that give me choices in combat. Unfortunately, being creative just in combat, I find, becomes one dimensional quickly for me. That is why I normally do not play a fighter
I rambled on long enough.
Lou
March 8, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Hey Lou – thanks for the great comments – I appreciate the rambling (I miss out discussions about DMing as we road out to various game locations…).
I agree that there is a balance between limiting things so they fit in the overall concept of the campaign and allowing the creative freedom to make things work. I think having players come up with “plausible reasons” to really work a character class into the game is a good way to go. I think it is extremely unlikely that I would not allow a core class (or anything from the core rules). I also think some of the tone of this post is a reaction to the addition of prestige classes and core classes that didn’t seem to me to have been as carefully balanced as the core classes were (not to pick on anyone, but the war mage was extremely difficult to plan for – things seemed to either die instantly or kill half the party…at other times it seemed like poor Alex had nothing to do and was getting bored…not fun…). Certainly a lot of that was probably due to my inexperience as a DM. My plan is to be a little more circumspect about allowing non-core things into the campaign – to work more closely with the player to really wed them to the environment and to make sure that tweaks are made as we go to ensure that everyone is involved.
I 100% agree with your statement of the importance of making people feel that they have an effect on the campaign itself. That’s a large reason for this blog. My hope is that you guys will be able to directly steer some of the campaign history and set up before we even get going so that you all feel like you have a direct involvement in its creation and hopefully have a better feel for what is going on behind the scenes.