Campaign Settings

[black1blade]

I initially wanted to start my own campaign world, but then decided to run Morgansfort as it was too much of a challenge to run my own thing. After a few weeks I decided to incorporate into my world, changing a few things around. I'm also letting my friends do there thing every so often. For example, one is going to run monkey isle when we get to 4th or 5th level.

[-1warrior]

I've run many campaigns in Mystara before, using the gazetteers as aids. Some of then went well, others went very badly. Still, I could run another one. I don't know what my players would think. They've had some bad experiences in both The Grand Duchy and the Republic of Darokin. (TPKs left and right). Still, good advice is always welcome!

[hjmartin70]

My last campaign world was Morgansfort, more or less. I added an additional rural/wilderness area upriver from the coast and did sort of a mashup with some free modules from Dragonsfoot. My current campaign is my own creation with some published and free modules mashed into it. I try not to get too detailed as I start so the thing can grow in play, rather than getting bogged down in planned encounters and such. I do not enjoy situations like, you have to defeat dragon X to find the macguffin of power in order to save the world from necromancer Y but three quarters of your party died fighting dragon X so you avoid her domain like the plague...

[-1warrior]

I would like to run a campaign world where stuff gets developed in play, but my players are apt to make very bad decisions about what to do. I'm afraid this might result in a rather dysfunctional campaign world. Anyway, I still have lots of time to prepare. My group doesn't game a lot (every week for an hour). Thanks again for all the advice, everyone. My campaign world is finally starting to take shape. I think I will be using Morgansfort, at least a little. Most of the campaign world will be my own creation, though. I hope it's a great campaign! (or at least one that ends better than the last three)

[Longman]

I normally use my own settings for the reason that commercial settings often have too much magic and NPC involvement for me.

I sometimes use maps and stuff though, from old TSR modules.

[-1warrior]

I have had many problems with the abundance of magic items in older modules. I usually end up removing quite a few of them, and the PCs still get to many for my liking. I'm still trying to find a way around this without my player's complaining about the lack of magic items. I have also had problems with NPCs before, but that is also because of my players. They insist on trying to kill every high level NPC they hear of, regardless of said NPC's side and alignment! I get along well with my players in real life, so I don't want to stop gaming with them, but I wish they would stop fooling around! I mean, four TPKs in eight months!

(Sorry if I'm raging, my players just really make me mad sometimes. That's why I play online more and more nowadays)

Oh, well, it's not like I mind anymore. I don't really have the time to game face to face anyway (I haven't for a long time). That's why we game so inconsistently.

[Dimirag]

You can control the amount of type of magic item the party gets, just give them whatever you think they deserve or whatever you want.
If they go killing people like that make them public enemies with a bounty on their head, or make that someone they killed was absolutely important for the adventure soy they end up stuck and must forfeit the adventure. If they play always the same kind of character talk to them, it should be fun for everyone of you and it should be a game with a definite gameplay (heroic, horror, do what you want, etc.)

[-1warrior]

Well, I'm trying to save the group with this campaign. Trust me, I've tried to limit the amount of magic items the PCs get. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I think this campaign I'm working on right now is going to have some elements of horror in it, which I've never done before. As to putting a price on the PCs head, that is how one of the previous TPKs occurred (though the players still don't realize that it was assassins who attacked and killed them). As always, thanks for the advice (I think I will use some of it).

[Dimirag]

Oh, don't use assassins right away, make them know that the people now they are bad, make them run, scream, deny them services, attempts of killing them, make the players know that if they always go like that the world won't be nice to them, just killing their pc will make them roll new ones and continue the mayhem.
Another way is to ask them to write a short history about the pc and some motivations, as the GM you can say NO to whatever you don't like to run, part of the game is to challenge the players to role something different and interesting.

[-1warrior]

Well, the person who had put the price on their head was actually the leader of a group of slavers, so it wasn't really the general populace who was against them anyway. I have tried to make the players create backgrounds for their characters. Some of them (the players) don't have a problem with it. One of the players stopped gaming for a while because I wouldn't let him create the background he wanted for his character. (I will not allow acrobat thief/magic-user bounty hunters in my campaign).