My Very Firstest Ever Fantasy Setting RPG Campaign
It was bound to happen sooner or later. A proper fantasy genre RPG campaign taking place in a vast unexplored world to be populated with elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, dragons, orcs, the whole lot as you play each session. In my life as an RPG player, I don't know that I've ever really been part of a proper fantasy RPG campaign, as a player or a GM. It's just not generally genre I gravitated towards. I don't dislike it. It's just that when given the choice between being an elf in the woods and being a post apocalyptic badass/monster hunting college kid/spaceship pilot.
One of the things I've always loved about RPGs was building a world and a history for that world world with the group. I think what partially pushed me away from fantasy genre games in general is that I felt in order to do it right the GM either needed to use someone else's completed setting or spend loads of time building their own. It always felt like in order to get it to have the feel that I expected it should have, then the bulk of the work toward making that happen fell on the GM; which is an issue in and of itself for another lengthy rambling post about what the definition of the G in RPG really should entail.
This campaign is going to be using Dungeon World. I've tried using this system in the past, but had the old fantasy RPG mentality where I assumed I needed to put in all the work of creating the world before anyone sat down at the table. Aside from that not really being the right way to approach a Dungeon World campaign, the entire time it felt like I had put work into developing the wrong things and therefore what the players were actually interested in were the underdeveloped parts that I hadn't really paid much attention to. I did it the hard way and I felt it showed, even if the players didn't mention anything specifically.
So I guess technically this isn't my very firstest ever fantasy setting RPG campaing, but it is definitely the first one I'll be building slowly with the players. Session 1 is already done. There is a cleric that goes against his order for the sake of helping mankind, an immolater that got a quick lesson in the limits of The Fire and his flesh's mortality, and a thief that got in over her head one too many times and is on the run. I've had them each decide on a home town and we will be building the map slowly.
I think one of my issues with the other times I've tried to run Dungeon World is that I revealed too much of the map too quickly. Giving the players too much freedom makes it harder for them to choose any one thing to do. Also sets up the GM to prepare things that no one will pay attention to instead of staying focused on what matters to the players or the story; which is not something a busy GM really has time to do.
Taking a slower more methodical session by session approach building the world will be a first for me, but I feel like it will work better in the long run for the type of game experience I'm trying to create. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope it works.
One of the things I've always loved about RPGs was building a world and a history for that world world with the group. I think what partially pushed me away from fantasy genre games in general is that I felt in order to do it right the GM either needed to use someone else's completed setting or spend loads of time building their own. It always felt like in order to get it to have the feel that I expected it should have, then the bulk of the work toward making that happen fell on the GM; which is an issue in and of itself for another lengthy rambling post about what the definition of the G in RPG really should entail.
This campaign is going to be using Dungeon World. I've tried using this system in the past, but had the old fantasy RPG mentality where I assumed I needed to put in all the work of creating the world before anyone sat down at the table. Aside from that not really being the right way to approach a Dungeon World campaign, the entire time it felt like I had put work into developing the wrong things and therefore what the players were actually interested in were the underdeveloped parts that I hadn't really paid much attention to. I did it the hard way and I felt it showed, even if the players didn't mention anything specifically.
So I guess technically this isn't my very firstest ever fantasy setting RPG campaing, but it is definitely the first one I'll be building slowly with the players. Session 1 is already done. There is a cleric that goes against his order for the sake of helping mankind, an immolater that got a quick lesson in the limits of The Fire and his flesh's mortality, and a thief that got in over her head one too many times and is on the run. I've had them each decide on a home town and we will be building the map slowly.
I think one of my issues with the other times I've tried to run Dungeon World is that I revealed too much of the map too quickly. Giving the players too much freedom makes it harder for them to choose any one thing to do. Also sets up the GM to prepare things that no one will pay attention to instead of staying focused on what matters to the players or the story; which is not something a busy GM really has time to do.
Taking a slower more methodical session by session approach building the world will be a first for me, but I feel like it will work better in the long run for the type of game experience I'm trying to create. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope it works.
Comments
Post a Comment