Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2003
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if you recall from the questions I asked in the introduction, I already made sure I knew something about what kind of world my player(s) wanted to play in.
My GF was interested in a mid magic, mid fantasy, PG 13 rated, light toned, high power campaign. That already told me several things, but most of them did not affect my overall world once.
Like all DMs, I have a crafted world with sections in every imagionable racial, political, and environmental biosphere imagionable. My "homebrew" world has plains, deserts, swamps, frozen waste, feudal castles, haunted hills, barren wilderness, and undead wastelands. Most of the changes she chooses from do not affect the geography. She did choose a light mood, which ruled out Shadowspire (that area in my world controled by necromancers and plagued with undead). After all, it is hard to take an area like that and make it "light."
So, another good question to ask your players is "what kind of environment would you like to start out in?" After all, your players may not have just read Sunburn or Frostburn or Windburn or whichever book has you Jonesing for a specific campaign world.
On a side note, I tend to perfer a world that has several biospheres to choose from, because as a DM, that makes my job easier. If the party wants a change of pace, they can just go somewhere else.
One of the first things my GF told me was that she wanted a Penguin Familiar, and thus, the campaigns starting point flipped from Castille (your basic medieval feudal country covered with, you guessed it, Castles), and moved it to the Northlands (Barbarians, Fish-trade, Vikings, etc). The harsher environment also required a more protected starting point (house, family, community, etc). A campaign starting in Shalazar (desert), would require a similar "safe" starting point, or in the Oki (swamp).
So, I start a Northern Campaign. Problem is, that Penguin, even stated up a size catagory, still has a speed of 15'. There goes deep ventures south into the mountains. In fact, the 60' water speed pretty much means that she is going to need to stay pretty close to the water all the way. So, while the campaign started North, it could move anywhere, except for the binding factor of the water. Therefore, her decisions have already pretty much descided the campaign world, which will be an aquatic campaign as much (if not much more) than a Frozen campaign.
What's the point? Well, first, it is just an observation on how one-on-one gaming can actually be easier than multiplayer gaming. There are not conflicting character cues. If the party consisted of a Cleric of Pelor, who threw his feats into making his turning ability kick-tail, a Warmage who loves fire spells, Kandi, and a dual-kukri wielding fighter (let's call him Super-crit), I would have a much harder time. Cleric of Pelor will want to be arround undead (Shadowspire), but would likely start out in Castille or the Franklands. A Warmage pyro would certianly start out in Castille, but would be interested in the orc-human wars on the Castillian boarder. Super-crit would be terrible out of place if not in Shalazar. Kandi would have to start out up north. 4 characters, 3 starting places. Suddenly Kandi's first 3-4 levels worth of stuff would just become level-less backstory, and she would have to make up a reason for coming south. Two would already be in Castille, so Super-Crit would have to come up with some out of character reason to be not one, like Kandi, but 4 countries away (without gaining experience). Moreover, they would need a reason to be together, stay near the water, fight undead, blow things up with fire, and fight things that take crits. (Quickly becomes pirate hunting, heavy on the undead pirates). And that is assuming all good alignments.
Thus, one on one gaming can also be easier on the DM.
Of course, once you know where in the world you will be, it pays to know that world. It would KILL game play if I had to stop the game to look up the DC for running on the ice (which is actually much lower than I thought it would be). DC 10, with her 1 rank and +3 DX means that she will only fall on a 1, and have a 20% chance of even loosing a movement. One more rank, and she can't fall running on ice. Of course, that is flat ice, it gets much worse on a slant.
If you are going to be campaigning in hot or cold environments, be sure to read up on the s-dmg that those environments do. If flight or underwater are coming up, look over those rules before the game. Knowing the common rules early saves much page flipping. In fact, if you don't know the rule, it is often better to just make up something appropriate than waste time.
Above all, when choosing game environments, try to figure out the best compromise of all of your character's desires, and if one is much different that the others, do not neglect it, but give it just time. (After all, one player out of four is still worth 25% of the game time, thus, if one character, say the Cleric of Pelor, is tricked out against undead, make sure that they come up often enough, that along with his other stuff, he feel like the star 25% of the time. Do not put the party somewhere where they will not see undead for several levels).
I guess this is a temperance of my railing against DMs who create these elaborate worlds and then subject their players to them. A clever DM does have a world in mind, but he makes sure it is varied enough to meet whatever kind of area the party wants or is best fitted to adventure in, and flexable enough to bend to their whims.
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2009
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wow, did you spend the whole 3 hours between your last two posts writing the second one? Because, well, it would take me at least 3 hours to write that last one (oh yea, that being after I became as good a DM as you)
[edit]And I guess, in the time it took me to catch up on the thread, you posted again. wow[/edit]
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Date Joined:
Feb 18, 2005
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now this is the first time im reading it and i have to say you had my attention better then any teacher in school has, i love your last ideas of feats skills and splat spells as ways of giving rewards... i love it... you should write a "my guide to good DMing" book. or at least a short thing about it. i love it keep posting
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2009
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Opps, double post, ignore this one
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2009
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<.< ....... >.> ........ Ok, so whats the deal? whats all this info going to cost our souls later on? You have to be some kind of omnipotentent being to have all that useful information, but whats the cost to us lowly mortals for your sharing of it?
I might be paraniod here though.... or just subscribing to this thread.
Tifus
PS: STICKY... STICKY.... STICKY.... hmmm why isnt it working???
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