Mid-size Campaigns (Part 2)
Building the Campaign Framework
In Part 1, we introduced the idea of the mid-size campaign, which provides the macro approach’s potential for expansion without wasting time on detail that won’t be used or appreciated. The goal is to create a campaign area big enough to contain all the ideas you have, localise those ideas, then inject a bit of detail with adventure hooks in the area that’s most heavily saturated. In this installment, we’ll explain everything up to the final step.
Sketch Out the Campaign’s Boundaries
Like an artist who develops the portrait as he paints it, you need a canvas to work on. When you’re building a campaign, that canvas is a map, and it will hold every brush stroke you apply, however wide or detailed it may be.
Start with a campaign map, scaled big enough to contain the setting’s boundaries. For most fantasy campaigns, this is probably a continent or large sub-continent. For modern campaigns, this will be a world map, and for sci-fi, you’ll probably want a map of several star systems. Starting with a map this size sounds a lot like the macro approach, but you’re only defining rough boundaries and general shapes, which you’ll ultimately refine as your campaign matures. In other words, draw your coastlines and terrain, rivers and lakes, and maybe even a few obvious settlements, but be prepared to revise the landscape later. The point is to establish the campaign’s likeness, but not its features. The reason is because when you start localising your ideas, their arrangement will create patterns and connections that suggest further change.
I usually start with a random map. For single continents and sub-continents, you can the Greenfish Relief Map Generator; for entire planets, I suggest ProFantasy’s Fractal Terrains, which lets you cycle through customisable worlds. For star systems, NBOS’ Astrosynthesis works well, as it creates whole sectors of space in 3-D. Regardless of how you create it, though, the finished product should be a map of the campaign’s basic shape that you can either write on or edit electronically.
Your Idea List
If you haven’t done so already, make a written list of all the things you’d like to include in your campaign. Any ideas you’ve been cultivating—however small or seemingly insignificant—need to make the cut: monsters, classes, races, NPCs, gods, religions, cults, secret societies, cities, fortresses, governments, ruins, character races, spells or powers, artefacts, adventure plots, adventuring locales, and on and on. Label each idea on your list.
The list is your pool of ideas—your “campaign concepts,” if you will. To extend the analogy above, consider it your artist’s palette, with each list entry a different colour. Keep the list handy so you can add more ideas when they strike you. Finally, don’t be afraid to tweak existing ideas if a new or exciting twist comes to mind (I keep a small notebook on my nightstand, nearby when I’m watching TV, and (especially) on the train to work everyday—you never known when inspiration will strike).
Find Homes for Your Ideas
Next you’ll localise your ideas by placing each one somewhere on your campaign map. Start with the most compelling idea on your list (i.e., the one that excites you the most). It may be a monster you just saw in a movie, a ruined city, or a magic hammer for fighting undead. Find a place on the map where the idea makes relative sense and label it.
Continue placing ideas in order of most appealing to least. As you progress, you may want to draw a rough circle around certain labels to show a government’s borders, or how far a religion has spread, or even the extent of a monster’s range. Keep adding labels to your map until you reach the end of your list or get stuck (and I stress this last bit—there is absolutely no value to placing an idea half-heartedly; if you can’t place a particular concept, skip it and come back later—I promise you’ll find a place for it, eventually).
At this early stage, resist the temptation to inject any detail—that way lies the full macro approach. Instead, just assign a location to each idea. If you have an idea for a fur-covered snake, place it somewhere cold and move on—don’t worry about what it eats or how big it gets or what kind of treasure it has. If you want a sprawling dictatorial empire, sketch some borders, but don’t worry about its laws, currency, factions, or insurgent hordes. The goal here is to pepper the map with your ideas, leaving just enough flavour in each spot to get a taste of what could be.
There is no right or wrong place for an idea, but consider factors such as climate and terrain, local population size, and the distance from–and possible connections to—other ideas. Make sure that an idea’s location suits your vision of that idea. For example, a ruined tower in a desert wilderness has a different story than the same tower a few miles from a bustling city. A mineral-rich planet just past the neutral zone presents different adventuring opportunities than the same planet in the federation’s core.
You’re encouraged to reuse locations for ideas that make sense to be related. In fact, as you localise ideas, you’ll begin to see connections that didn’t occur to you before. All sorts of creative possibilities present themselves at this stage, and there really is no limit to how you end up cross-referencing different ideas. What about that tribe of Snow Elves you thought of? Maybe they live in the same place as the furred snakes. If so, what of it? Again, don’t get bogged down with detail—just realise that a potential connection exists and move on.
It’s through this iterative process that certain areas of your campaign naturally develop. Or, more accurately, suggest themselves for development, which is our next and final step toward building the mid-size campaign, covered in Part 3 of this series.
