Roleplaying Tips Weekly E-Zine Issue #475
6 Ways To Make A Published World Your Own
Contents:
This Week's Tips Summarized
6 Ways To Make A Published World Your Own
Game Master Tips & Tricks
- Combat Chess Clock
- Inspiring Satellite Images
- Lost Cities and How Stuff Works
- Two-Word Culture Labels
Johnn Four's GM Guide Books
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Reader Tip Request: Hackmaster Crit Generator
A reader asks:
Do you or any of your readers know of a critical hit
generator, program or Excel sheet for the Hackmaster system?
It's the most detailed crit system I've seen and to have it
available at the click of a button would be useful.
If you have a tip, shoot me an email. Thanks!
- Johnn
johnn@roleplayingtips.com
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Freeport Companion (4e) now available in PDF!
Avast ye scurvy dogs and prepare your shelves to be boarded!
Complementing The Pirate's Guide to Freeport, this 176
paged tome will make Freeport accessible for 4e campaigns,
complete with races, the corsair class, equipment, monsters,
an insanity system, magic items and rituals, notable
Freeport characters, and an introductory adventure.
Freeport Companion (4e) at Your Games Now
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6 Ways To Make A Published World Your Own
When deciding on a game setting there are two choices -
create a world of your own or use a published setting.
Designing your own setting offers a chance to flex those
creative muscles and invent something specific your group's
taste. It does take a great deal of time and effort, though,
and some GMs are not interested in creating their own
worlds.
Using a published setting lets you benefit from the work of
proven professionals in game design. However, a world
developed by someone else and meant to appeal to a broad
audience will probably fall short of meeting your needs in
at least a few areas.
There is a third way to go: find a published setting that is
close to what you want and modify it to suit. In this case,
two (or more) heads can be better than one. Veteran setting
writers are skilled at developing worlds that provide
entertainment, balance, and fertile ground for adventure,
plus you end up with a world shaped to you and your group.
Even if you expect to make a lot of changes, having a
starting point helps. Kind of like starting out with cake
mix, then adding ingredients to improve the taste and give
it some flair, rather than making a cake from scratch.
Here are a few tips for making a published world your own.
1. Give Yourself Permission To Make Changes
Give yourself permission to change anything and everything
you want to. Anything from geography to history to races
and classes are fair game.
The writers created this world for others to use and
enjoy. Everything they have done is not going to work for
everybody.
Even if the writers don't realize that, they will not find
out what you did, storm angrily over to your house, and
beat you up. If they do somehow show up at your door, just
don't open it.
2. Do Make Changes With Caution
Before you start happily making changes, read through the
setting as is. Take note of how all the pieces fit together.
Make sure the changes you're considering won't destroy any
structure you need.
Certain parts of a world are designed to fulfill specific
purposes. For instance, it might be established that dwarves
live in the mountains. There might be a mountain range with
a circle of communities at its foot, and dwarves are
important to those local economies. If you decide to move
that mountain range, there's now no ready explanation for
the dwarves' involvement, since they don't have a settlement
nearby.
That's not to say you couldn't still relocate the
mountains. Maybe you'll move the dwarves' homeland
elsewhere, or create a history in which some clans of
dwarves migrated from the mountains to this area. Perhaps
someone else could fill the dwarves' role in the economies.
You just don't want to be in the position of describing a
place and get caught flat-footed when a player asks, "Wait -
I thought dwarves were from the mountains? If there are no
mountains around here, how are the dwarves so involved in
these towns?"
Also, the various races and classes usually have their
respective strengths and weaknesses, and counterbalance each
other in some way. If you add or subtract these setting
elements, be careful to keep that balance of power in mind.
At the same time, ask yourself if are there any parts absent
you think should be present? For example, if you think the
undisputed mastery of a certain group should be a little
more disputed, then create some rivals for them - maybe even
your PCs.
3. Keep Your Players In Mind
Tailor things to your players.
Say you have a player who loves intrigue but the setting is
heavy on combat. Since there are so many adventurers and
fighters around, you could add that the competition has led
them to start forming guilds, who are now battling each
other over resources and jobs. Alternatively, cities are
usually a magnet for intrigue. Build up a nearby city so the
PCs can visit and get involved in the politics there when
they need a change of pace.
You don't necessarily need to make large-scale alterations
to the world - just enough to put your own stamp on it.
Don't feel compelled to make changes just for the sake of
it. Make changes that help you provide the most inspiring
playground for you and your players.
4. Start Small
Start with a small area. Modifying an entire setting at once
would be the work of years. Get ideas of the kind of
adventures or campaigns you would like to run, then choose
an area that will work for them.
Make your changes to that region only at first, and a few
other large things if needed.
For instance, if you want to make sure there's a particular
kind of city located nearby, or a homeland for a race not
covered in the setting, or there's certain geography that
you require, only worry about those changes right away.
Otherwise, get a small starting area set up and fill in the
rest as you go along.
5. Use Supplements
Treat new supplements in much the same way as you treat the
original campaign setting book. Feel free to cherry-pick
from the information and decide what material is a good fit
for your version of the world. Ignore the rest.
Keep in mind you don't have to use the material in exactly
the way it's presented for it to be useful.
A particular regional supplement might not apply verbatim if
you changed or removed that area, but if you have a similar
area, there should be some things you can use. For example,
if it's a book about a cold-weather region, maybe you can
use the material in your own cold-weather region.
It's always a good idea to at least take a glance at new
supplements as no one can have every idea themselves. The
people who write the setting might have great ideas that
might never have occurred to you, but which you end up
loving.
6. Discuss The Setting With Players
It might be a good idea to tell your players which world was
your starting point. In some cases, you may not think your
players have ever heard of the world you'll be using, but
you could be surprised as players don't always just read
what the DM expects them to.
Someone at the table might be a fan of an author writing
fiction in that world, or may have picked up an intriguing-
sounding sourcebook from eBay just because it was cheap. It
might not have come up because you haven't been playing in
that setting, but they could recognize it once you start
describing things.
By explaining what setting was your starting point, but that
what they know may or may not be true, you can head off
misconceptions and assumptions. Don't let anyone insist that
the way things are in sourcebooks is the way they're
supposed to be.
Make it clear you are departing from the established version
as you wish. If players are very familiar with the setting,
you can add changes to well-known aspects just to keep
everyone on their toes.
For instance, many modern settings feature laser weapons in
addition to mechanical ones. Maybe in your version, laser
weapon technology hasn't been perfected yet - there are
prototypes only a few have, but they're unreliable. The
competition to perfect weapon technology and get the jump on
everyone else adds an element of an arms race.
Most worlds have some kind of well-known major city; you
could alter the details of that. Maybe you could change the
stage of development of the city. If it's at its height in
the setting, show it just reaching its peak or in the midst
of a decline. Maybe you create twin cities out of it,
dividing the sourcebook's material between two places and
adding touches of your own to flesh them out.
* * *
D.L. Campbell has been playing RPGs for about fifteen years,
but has only recently started to peek behind the curtain
into the DMing side of things.
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The Twilight Sector Campaign Setting Sourcebook
Welcome to the raggedy edge of human space, The Orion
Frontier. This is the edge of human exploration. Rimward
from here, There be Dragons! No star chart or encyclopedia
tells us what lies beyond, only whispered tales of scouts
and pirates provide us myth-inspired answers.
The Twilight Sector lies on the edge of the edge. Filled
with mystery and wonder, The Twilight Sector Campaign
Setting Sourcebook introduces the new Traveller compatible
campaign setting from Terra/Sol games.
The Twilight Sector Campaign Setting Sourcebook
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Game Master Tips & Tricks
Have some GM advice you'd like to share? E-mail it to johnn@roleplayingtips.com - thanks!
1. Combat Chess Clock
From: Eric Garcia
I'm running a D&D 4th Edition campaign, and because of how
tactical combat is I noticed it could drag when someone was
trying to coordinate a complex attack or even figuring out
which power to use. So, I've come up with a solution - I
bought a chess clock.
At the beginning of battle, I give each side a certain
amount of time. The PCs start at 15 minutes; the GM's time
is based on how many enemies and types of enemies are
present. If I'm not sure, I start both with the same time.
Then, combat starts. If your side is up, your clock is
running. The clock is only paused at the GM's discretion,
typically for rules clarifications. Once either side runs
out of time, characters on that "losing" side only get 60
seconds per turn for the rest of the round. The "winning"
side gets 90-120 seconds per turn. The winning side then
gets a free standard action at the end of the round, usable
by any character.
After that action, the clock is reset, modifying the GM's
time up or down based on who won and by how much time, as
well as what enemies have died. The goal is to have the
sides as close as possible in time usage.
It's worked out nicely for our group so far. Everyone is
more conscious of who has to act next. Since the time is
spread out for the whole party and not just any single
player, many player turns end quickly to save up time so
when someone does need extra time, they can take it.
And one extra action every 25-30 minutes doesn't unbalance
the game all that much. It's just enough to add a dash of
urgency to combat without removing the tactical nature of
the game system or singling out any one player.
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2. Inspiring Satellite Images
From: Tyler Elkink
There are 60 neat satellite images of earth here.
These include some good ideas for settings and locations.
Take a look at the Brandberg Massif, for example; what
better location for a walled city than on an exhumed granite
intrusion?
In the same stream, there's NASA's Visible Earth project
at visibleearth.nasa.gov and the Earth
Observatory's image of the day at earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
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3. Lost Cities And How Stuff Works
From: Loz Newman
For those GMs looking to inject a little verisimilitude
into their campaign backgrounds:
5 Lost Cities
The How Stuff Works site is full of weird and wonderful
tidbits like that. Usefulness is highly unpredictable, but
it should allow GMs to rapidly bone up on a subjects for
modern campaigns.
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4. Two-Word Culture Labels
From: Loz Newman, via CampaignMastery.com
One trick is mentally tagging an in-game culture with two-
word labels to guide your future presentations. For example.
Greek Pirates, Viking Merchants, Aztec Duelists, Syndic
Knights, Mage Smallholders.
I even once (during a massively multi-cultural world) added
the tags into the written recap of the world given to the
players to help them swiftly grasp the essence of each
culture.
The basic principal I'm trying to illustrate here is a small
effort, well spent ahead of time, beats flailing around any
day. AKA, Prior Prep Prevents Poor Performance.
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New GM Advice @ CampaignMastery.com
Campaign Mastery
Read the blog of Johnn Four and Mike Bourke that discusses
game mastering advice and issues.
* * *
Be sure to subscribe to the blog to get the latest updates sent to you:
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Johnn Four's GM Guide Books
In addition to writing and publishing this e-zine, I have
written several GM tips and advice books to inspire your
games and to make GMing easier and fun:
How to design, map, and GM fresh encounters for RPG's most
popular locales. Includes campaign and NPC advice as well,
plus several generators and tables
Advice and tips for designing compelling holidays that not
only expand your game world but provide endless natural
encounter, adventure, and campaign hooks.
Critically acclaimed and multiple award-winning guide to
crafting, roleplaying, and GMing three dimensional NPCs for
any game system and genre. This book will make a difference
to your GMing.
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