so you text your friends and say hey I'm
gonna run D&D tonight they're all super
excited they're all on board but one of
them texted you back with a question
that you didn't know the answer to one
of the players and it was somebody who's
played D&D before said fantastic what
campaign setting and you look at your
phone and went blank blink campaign
setting this episode is the first in a
series about your campaign setting what
is a campaign setting why we call it
that it's a pretty archaic term in fact
maybe nowadays they call it just the
setting or the world that your D&D game
takes place in but I called a campaign
setting because that's what they called
it back in the 70s in the 80s and they
called the campaign setting because they
played a lot of war games set during the
Napoleonic age and they called a
campaign a collection of battles so you
would sign up for the army and you'd go
on a series of tours of duty - each one
was like an adventure and when you
strung them all together that was called
a campaign so that's what a campaign is
a campaign is a collection of adventures
now the setting for your game is this
interesting phenomenon where you can
play D&D with that one but even if you
play without one by definition your game
takes place in a world back in 1974 1975
when the game first came out when
everyone was playing it they were
playing in a kind of collective shared
world there weren't a lot of details
that were making everything up as they
went one way of describing that default
setting they played in back in the early
70s is fantasy land fantasy land is the
kind of medieval tolkien-esque
Western European setting that we all
kind of take for granted you don't need
to know anything else about the setting
if you're playing D&D and you come to a
town you expect that in this town
there's going to be a blacksmith there's
going to be stables for horses there's
gonna be an inn for people to stay at
there might be a priest for you to buy
potions from there might be a wizard if
you buy scrolls from these things are
all built into the idea of fantasy land
even without a campaign setting so not
only can you run D&D without a setting
people did it for the first two years of
the game's existence until the Grayhawk
supplement came out now you can go out
and you can buy a prepackaged campaign
setting and the advantage of that is
it's all done for you someone else has
already made all the maps and figured
out where all the countries are and come
up with all the names for everything and
I have run a campaign setting in fact
one of the best games I ever ran we
played every week for three years in the
birthright campaign setting it was my
favorite D&D setting that they published
but since then I've tended to roll my
own I make my own campaign setting and
I'm encouraging you to do the same thing
again there isn't a right answer to any
of this stuff making your own campaign
setting going and buying a campaign
setting
are good reasons for doing both but back
in the 70s in the 80s when you were done
playing D&D and you went home you didn't
play minecraft or League of Legends a
rocket lead you had nothing else to do
there was no internet so often those of
us who were players the reason we wanted
to DM was because it was fun to make a
world and now it was the thing we did
between sessions if you've looked at any
of the stuff Tolkien did for
middle-earth you can see you can get
super noodley and different people
engage with campaign settings in
different ways some people like making
lots of maps some people like making
alphabets yeah some people like building
elaborate pantheon of gods
some people like building the history if
you've ever seen Dwarf Fortress one of
the things that game does before we ever
play is it generates this thousand-year
history of everything that's happened
before you showed up these days a lot of
things compete for your time that's one
of the reasons I think prepackaged
campaign settings have kind of taken
over but I'm here to tell you making
your own campaign setting is fun and
it's not as tough as it might seem one
of the reasons building a campaign
setting from scratch is fun is it gives
you the opportunity to make D&D work the
way you want it to you know the guys who
design D&D there were people just like
you they have their own ideas of what
the different races should be maybe you
have different ideas yours are just as
valid as theirs now in my setting what I
tend to do is I make sure that
everything that's in the players
handbook is in my setting but I tweak
some of the things so that they're
different and I hope a little bit more
exciting and interesting than the stuff
people used to I say that but really
it's just because I have my own ideas
about how some of these things should
work and I think they're neat it's a
mistake to think of them as somehow
better they're not better they're just
mine for instance in my setting dragon
board are not like a biological species
with a civilization they are something
that are made by wizards kind of like
half works from the Lord of the Rings
and I tell people when they're making
characters in my game that being
Dragonborn is illegal in my setting and
they say well you mean I can't play one
I'm like oh you can play one but if
people see you they may sell you out to
a local bounty hunter and they'll come
and try to collect the bounty on you
because a nice ending the Dragonborn
were the Knights of Good King öand and
the guy who served him the invincible
overlord declared the Dragon Knights
illegal and you can see how I took the
kind of somewhat generic notion of a
dragon man from D&D and I made it
specific to my campaign setting I gave
them a specific past and a history and
also some great plot hooks a lot of
great adventures have started because
players in my game have made Dragon born
characters so it's not unusual for my
players when I play a dragon born to
wear a hood over their face to try to
obscure their features and then after
they've done a couple of adventures the
people in town trust
they go openly and they're like yeah I'm
a dragon born and the people love them
because they're the heroes but then they
go to the in one day and there are some
bounty hunters in the inn and they see a
dragon born guide there they go hey and
they just get up and try to leave and
right there there's some tension if the
players don't realize what's going on
because maybe they've forgotten that
it's illegal to be dragon born the other
people in the end the NPC's that are
there will stand up and try to stop the
bounty hunters because at this point two
people in town are like hey this guy's
on our side he's a good guy and all of a
sudden there's a combat in the middle of
the end so that's just one example of
how you can take the stuff in the
players handbook the different races and
even stuff like spells and gods and make
them yours tweak them change them not
because you thought they're bad but
because you have your own ideas it can
seem daunting to build your own world
from scratch because even saying it the
way I did makes it sound like a lot of
work I'm building an entire world well
no you don't need to build an entire
world the simplest way to build your own
campaign setting from scratch is to
start with a town you start with a town
and then you build out to the local area
and then eventually zoom out to the
entire campaign setting and over the
course of weeks and months and years you
have an elaborate world that you've
built from scratch but to get started
all you need is a town now like building
an adventure from scratch you can make a
town from scratch and there are tools
online for you to do that in fact there
are random town generators but I don't
do any of that stuff in fact I almost
never make my own adventures from
scratch I usually buy something that
somebody else wrote and somebody else
published and I make it my own
why at town and not a city as good
question well a city is a big sprawling
place where adventure happens and I've
started campaigns in a city in fact
there are some classic city supplements
expressly for this but running a
campaign in a city can have the same
kind of problems that buying a
prepackaged campaign setting does which
is all of a sudden either if you're
making yourself you have a lot of work
to do or if you're buying one
prepackaged you've got a lot of reading
to do whereas if you start in a town
it's a small manageable chunk of content
you can buy one online read it in an
hour or two and know everything there is
to know if you make a town from scratch
it takes you an hour or two and at the
end of that process you know everything
there is to know about that town you are
the expert and it feels great with a
player's show up to the town and you
know everything in that town you feel
confident you feel like you're ready to
run D&D if you're starting a first level
starting in a town is a good idea
because it is a small contained a chunk
of content and it has just the right
amount of things for the players to do
you can expect that there is a wizard in
a small town but not a powerful wizard
just powerful enough to maybe identify
items and make scrolls
there's priests in town at the local
church and he's
powerful enough to sell potions and
maybe cure disease but he's not powerful
enough to raise the dead
so you've presented the players with
some solutions to their problems but not
every solution to their problem also if
you have a town with a high-level npc
and it like a ninth level wizard the
players will start wondering why are we
going on these adventures instead of her
now if you go by the D&D starter set you
get this thing which is an adventure and
it comes with a town it comes with the
town of fan Doolin and fan dueling is a
great starting town I recommend you use
it it's got I think just the right level
of detail it has a map of the town it
tells you what NPCs are in the town and
tells you what goods and services you
can get and there are lots of cool
little plot hooks in there and if you
have your own adventure if you've gotten
bought another adventure online it's
very easy to kind of hook them up in
FanDuel in' now FanDuel in a set in the
Forgotten Realms and as its own
geography and it's got its own nations
and it's got its own deities so if you
take it and make it yours then you're
gonna have to change all that stuff for
instance Pangolin is not that far from
water deep which is the biggest city in
the realms and you might have your own
idea for what the big city nearby should
be maybe it's not called water deep what
do you think a cool romantic sounding
name for a big city would be also it's
got the Forgotten Realms deities and you
may want to make your own deities now
that alone can be a lot of work creating
an entire Pantheon from scratch can take
a lot of time I don't think you have to
do that you start by saying okay do I
have a cleric player or a paladin player
who is their God ask them what kind of
clarify are going to make ask them what
kind of palette and they're going to
play and make a god for that character
then in the town make sure there's a
temple with a priest from a different
God that way you've only had to come up
with one or two or maybe three gods but
now the players have a feeling that
there is a wider world out there there
are lots of gods presumably that's a big
part of the DMS job is just creating
enough content to give the players the
sensation that there's a larger world
out there without actually having to
build a larger world now I've been
playing the game since well before the
starter set came out so I don't use
FanDuel and I have my own three little
towns that I use depending on which
group I'm running the towns I use are
hamlet or lane and Milburn each one of
them is from a different TSR product
from the 70s 80s and 90s respectively I
think a lot of people think Hamlet is
the ideal starting town is from
adventure that came out in 1979 called
the village of hamlet and it was
designed to be the first in a series
called the Temple of Elemental Evil and
eventually like six years later the
temple of Elemental Evil came out and
it's this huge sprawling dungeon that I
think is largely unplayable it's super
famous but I don't think you can just
read it and figure it out we'll talk
about big adventures like that another
episode
but Hamlet is a lot of fun because you
get a lot of detail there's a map of
Hamlet and there's a list of every major
NPC in the town there who the blacksmith
is who the carpenter is there's an inn
and you can tell that Hamlet is kind of
old-school compared to FanDuel in from
the starter set because in Hamlet there
is a listing not only of every NPC
but how much gold they have and where
their treasure is hidden because there
was this expectation back in the day
that a thief's player might walk through
town and see these local yokels and go
hey I wonder if I can steal that guy's
gold or copper pieces or however little
money they had so that's something they
don't do anymore they don't list all the
NPC's in a town with all the money they
have and where they hide it but the
village of hamlet is great because you
do get a list of NPCs and some of them
are relatively high level like fourth or
fifth level and that makes them high
enough level that they can help out the
players if the players get in a jam but
we'll talk about that another episode
the idea of having high level pcs around
that are available to the players I
think it's kind of a double-edged sword
there are reasons to do it there reasons
to avoid it once again there's not a
right answer to a lot of these things so
Hamlet is a great little starting town
and nearby Hamlet is the moat house
which is this kind of fortress in the
middle of a swamp and there is a great
classic starting dungeon the moat house
I think it really is legitimately one of
the best starting dungeons but it's not
much of an adventure if that makes any
sense it's just this thing that's
sitting out there everyone in town knows
about the moat house and they know
there's something going on there
and there are some mid-level pcs in town
so why don't they go do it there's not
really an answer there's not really any
one hook in the village of Hamlet that
leads you to the moat house it's an
old-school adventure and they just
assumed that if you heard about this
dungeon in the middle of a swamp you
would want to go there
vandal it is much better when it comes
to giving the players interesting hooks
to get them from the town to the
adventure one of the other towns I use
or Lane is from this classic adventure
it's my favorite starting adventure and
it's one that I strongly recommend if
you're interested in it's called against
the cult of the reptile god I love
against the cult of the reptile gods
because not only do you get this town or
Lane which like Hamlet is a nice fleshed
out town but there's already something
going on in or Lane when the players
show up when the players arrive in or
Lane they discover that some of the
town's folk are behaving very strangely
other towns folk think the town is
cursed and there are many boarded up
shops because people have left
that's how convinced they are there's
something terrible happening and it
becomes up to the players to unravel
this mystery what is going on in town I
think that's a great plot cook and in
fact I used it when one of my players
said that he thought I'd be a cool idea
if he had a sister his character's
background was hermit so he's often the
hills doing research in some ruins and
all of a sudden he gets
notes from his sister I had written out
all of these notes and she had been
riding them over the course of weeks and
months but he got them all at once cuz
that's how the mail works in a medieval
society this dwarf just shows up with a
package of letters and says hey it took
a long time to find you sorry so my
friend Tom reads these letters he
discovers something very strange is
happening in the town of our lane and I
put those letters in the doobly-doo you
can download them I made sure it was a
word doc so you can edit the names
yourself if you want the player was
really impressed that I had created all
this stuff for him and he felt deeply
invested in what was happening as soon
as he got to the last litter was
something obviously bad it happened to
his sister he wanted very badly to find
out what was happening in our lane now
I'm not going to tell you what was going
on in our lane I'll put a link to all
these adventures in the doobly-doo down
below and you can check them out for
yourself but just be aware that the
old-school adventures tend to have a
different attitude toward descriptive
text basically they're harder to read
than modern stuff they go into a lot of
detail that a moderate adventurer
wouldn't go into like for instance where
everyone keeps their gold and they lack
certain details you would expect like
what are the plot hooks that's why I
think against the cults the reptile god
is fantastic because it is a town with a
built-in plot hook and the reptile God
you have to find at the end of it is
awesome my Thursday night group on the
other hand started off in the town of
Milburn they're still there Milburn is
the starting town for the epic adventure
night below night below came out in the
90s and is a much more modern adventure
super readable by the way although
unfortunately it's kind of a pain in the
ass to find there is no PDF of it online
you can get it on eBay for about 60
bucks I still have my original copy from
the 90s but unfortunately it's missing
all the player handouts because I handed
them out so now I had to go buy another
copy off eBay for my new players
I think Milburn is great because unlike
Hamlet from the village of Hamlet and
unlike or Elaine from against the cult
of the reptile God Milburn is the center
of an open-world sandbox game where
there was tons of low-level content
around some of which links to the big
meta plot of the adventure some of which
doesn't and it's up to the players to
decide how to engage with this content
for me the sandbox game is the thing D&D
does best so it's the game I tend to run
but I also like games that are on Rails
again there's not one right answer to
these things so we talked about Hamlet
from the village of Hamlet we talked
about or lane from against the call to
the reptile god we talked about Milburn
from Knight below and we talked about
FanDuel in from the D&D starter set all
of those are great starting towns and
they're all you need to get started with
your campaign setting even though we did
a whole episode where we made an
adventure I'm basically going to
advocate for you buying other people's
content and then make
yours because in my experience that is
the easiest road to lots of content that
is customized of course you can do it
all from scratch I know lots of players
who do that have a huge respect for
people to do that I'm just a busy person
I have stuff to do I'm running two games
of D&D for one thing next episode we'll
talk about dead ends what happens when
your players run into a plot point and
they are unable to progress beyond it as
you can imagine there's not one right
answer see you next time peace out