Alan Bradley wrote:
The next step in my campaign design: the world beyond the dungeon.
Obviously there's the "town", but beyond that?
B1 has only vague geographical descriptions, and my copy has notes about locating it in Greyhawk.
B2 has its map, and a vague description/concept of a broader world.
The Sample Dungeon has a vague description of the world beyond Portown. There's also the interesting Stone Mountain cross section..
Unfortunately the feel in B1 and B2 doesn't really match the Sample Dungeon, IMHO. Since I'd rather keep the campaign area fairly small at first, I'd probably leave them out and expand from the Portown description.
That requires at least a vague sense of what is beyond the sea. Detailed maps wouldn't be required, but a medieval style map should be available to the PCs if they look hard enough. Failing that they can rely on rumours and legends. It would be interesting to see what kind of "map" they would put together from those...
Has anyone done anything with the Sample Dungeon "world"? (Aside from mapping Portown).
Alan, take a look at this thread on ODD74, it has a lot of ideas from Holmes' other writings. In particular the Maze of Peril shares a lot of similarities to the Sample Dungeon setting:
ReplyDeletehttp://odd74.proboards.com/thread/1090
I generated a random map for the area around a post-apocalyptic Portown. We only played once unfortunately, so I didn't get to use all that material.
ReplyDeleteI have created a PDF (for my own use) based on a wonderful Wilderness generation essay by Erin Smale of Welsh Piper, see this related link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.welshpiper.com/hex-based-campaign-design-part-1/
Dr. Smale's work seems to be mostly based on the Underworld & Wilderness Adventures rules, which also found its way into the DMG.
Personally, I would've loved to see Holmes' take on U&WA material, but the Basic rules never touched on this. I believe that players of the Basic rules would've eventually been directed to the 0e rules, had Gary not decided to use the Basic rules as a starting point for the Advanced D&D Rules.
Use the simple wilderness generation tables from Delving Deeper?
ReplyDeleteI've kicked around the idea of doing an alternate earth fantasy setting where Portown lies on the coast of North Africa in what is modern Tunisia; that gets you sea to the north, mountains to the south with deserts lying beyond through which caravans travel bringing fabulous trade goods from the steaming jungles beyond the deserts.
ReplyDeleteI sink almost all of Europe into the sea, with Poland and parts of Central Europe forming a peninsula; the Mediterranean islands (Sicily, Malta, Sardinia, etc.) remain as almost mythical outposts of various monsters and other weirdness (think the various island weirdness of Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique). Britain still exists, and is basically the Ultima Thule of Herodotus (think Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea).
Portown itself is one of a chain of city states of varying sizes that dot the North African coast, surviving settlements of a great empire that was destroyed in a cataclysm and ruins of which still exist in the mountains. Few travel as far as northern Europe (the central Euro peninsula and Scandinavia being overrun with barbarians), and few likewise travel to the far east (ancient Palestine and points east) which are ruled by a cruel, sorcerous empire.
You could take some inspiration from the Atlantean Trilogy by Bard Games, Andy. Although that setting is more Lemuria, Mu & Atlantis than a sunken Europe/North African coast vibe.
ReplyDeleteRobert Weber, funny you mention those - my main gaming group back in high school primarily played the old Bard Games' Arcanum system. No plans to use the Atlantean stuff, though I may take a look again since it's been a while; in the campaign I mentioned, Europe didn't sink so much as never existed - it's a total fantasy campaign, just using the map of Europe and North Africa for the terrain features but otherwise completely unconnected to the real world.
ReplyDelete