I was rummaging through some old papers and in on of my upper garage's cabinets I found an old campaign map I drew. A friend and I worked on it together, actually, and reckons to be about 15-ish years old. I'll bore you all with a little history, if you don't mind.
When I first started BD&D, it was Known World, all the way. This lasted from 86-87. I then bought, AD&D in '87 and I promptly bought Greyhawk and went with that. I also bought Forgotten Realms in 1988 (late 88, iirc, as I took a brief sabbatical to MSHRPG), and as soon as I got that I went into it full steam. I played it for a few years and in about 1992 (around the time of the "Greyhawk Revival") I went back to Greyhawk for a few years. I came back to FR in the early 2000's to coincide with 3e - I had gotten my wife involved and at that point, though not a D&D player, was a Driz'zt fan (hey, it was better than nothing! ) and played it until '05, when I went back (for the last time) to Greyhawk and it currently is my campaign of choice (I did start my C&C game in the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, but it quickly became the Haunted Halls of Willp).
My droning does have a point. The whole time I was playing these campaigns, I was working on my own campaign world. I even tried it a few times, working it in here and there on one-shots and very small arcs (I purposely left this out in my above timeframe). I started in the late 80s and got a small setting done (to my liking) and ready for play in the early 90s. The kids I got to play enjoyed it, but it seems like something was missing. So I shelved it for a few years and got to remake it in the mid 90's and what resulted was the map I mentioned in the very beginning, done with a friend. We each had our own group (this was the first person I ever taught to play D&D and my best friend) and were going to keep each other updated on things going on, eventually doing crossover groups and having the world "grow" as time went on. The map, and a handful of places (and maybe a pantheon) got developed, but the project got lost in the shuffle.
I eventually went on to make another campaign world that was my second campaign in the 3/3.5 D&D era (after my initial FR one) and it ended up lasting a couple years. This was a campaign I borrowed from the co-op one my friend and I had done, but with a lot of new information (locales, pantheon, etc.). When that game ended no one had anything terrible to say, no one had anything great to say, either. A computer malfunction later, and I lost all my computer files on my world. I still have some hardcopy maps and a guide, but I'll have to retype the whole thing if I want to make any adjustments to it (or at least retype and print the sections I want to revise).
I love published worlds. The '83 Greyhawk box and the Forgotten Realms "Grey Box" are pure gold, not to mention Harn, City-State, and AWD. They all have a certain awesome quality and I would be happy to run any one of those till the end of my days. But there's this part of me that knows it's not "mine," no matter how much I can change it, mold it, it's still someone else's brainchild, someone else's passion.
But unearthing this map has made me yearn for creating a world of my own. One of my issues are time, which I never seem to have enough of. Another one of my issues is the "disassociation" it seems players have in games in my campaign world. I can't quite put a finger on it, but it seems like my players don't connect with my campaign setting. I'm sorry to be vague, but that's the best way I can describe it. Maybe it's the fact they're used to published settings. Maybe published setting are "more real" to them than something I create. I'm not trying to be unfair to my group, but it seems like they just can't "get into" a campaign of my creation. Granted, they haven't had much exposure to it and perhaps in the past I haven't given them enough time to get to know the world, so to speak.
Knowing these reservations, I ask those who do play in their own world - what motivation do you have to keep your world going? Is it well accepted by your players? What are the main draws that keep you in your world as opposed as opposed to another, published, setting? Along the same lines, what do you all consider to be "pros" and "cons" or campaign setting creation? What's your advice to those, like me, who's on the world-creating fence and need a push one way or another? Who have the drive, but perhaps no the will?
Thanks for reading, guys, and sorry it's so long.
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LD's C&C creations - the witch, a half-ogre, skill and 0-level rules
Troll Lord wrote:
Lord D: you understand where I"m coming from.
