Dungeon Mastering recently published a good article about the art of the short campaign. As someone working on both the theory and design of a long campaign I was excited to read a fresh take on the topic of campaign length: it reminded me of my successes and failures running long campaigns, and of the limited success I enjoyed with a short campaign. I have a few ideas for how you can adapt a game designed for sprawling campaigns (i.e., any edition of D&D) to a smaller group, shorter session length or more limited campaign scope, and the article particularly reminded me of some ideas I have about running “serial” campaigns.

One thesis of Yax’s article is that, given scheduling restraints and the challenge of pulling off a long campaign, your game can go rules-lite. This is an excellent option, especially for experienced gamers who can easily shift gears between rules-lite systems by virtue of their general role-playing ability, but I also think that almost any system can be adapted to “short play” by virtue of campaign design. Here are a few considerations for a short campaign played using a system most often associated with long campaigns: [...]

Episode 8 of Happy Jack’s Podcast (one of my favorite RPG podcasts) discusses the idea of character death at great length within the context of multiple systems. I highly recommend this podcast to any role-player, and I hope that those who enjoyed my brief notes on character death enjoy the latest episode of Happy Jack’s. It’s a great listen for game masters and players alike. I really like their discussion regarding the availability of “resurrection” magic in the 4th Edition game, and I’m in agreement with the hosts that character death should be the result of a series of poor decisions (as opposed to one or two rolls of the dice).

I still hold to my primary thoughts on character death in RPGs: that character death is a very decisive example of PC failure, and that creative game masters should instill their campaigns with a full spectrum of positive and negative outcomes that includes death but doesn’t rely on it as the primary shade of PC failure in their game. Even the simple idea of a “slain” character being taken prisoner and enslaved presents richer role-playing opportunities than all but the most heroic deaths.

Before you even decide to serve as Dungeon Master (or Game Master, or Storyteller, as the case may be) you need to take stock of where your group stands and what you hope to accomplish. According to Making the Campaign, our goal is to create a “series of encounters and/or adventures using the 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules which will provide a satisfying long-term gaming experience for your group.” Comprehension is the first of the Seven 7’s oc Campaign Design…but what do we mean when we talk about “comprehension?” [...]

Miniatures are pretty much essential for 4th Edition play; they were only slightly less important to 3rd Edition play, and having used them in 3E and 4E I can see how they would have greatly improved my 2E games. But miniatures can be expensive and time-consuming at the high end, and even the cost of platic D&D Minature commons might be more than some want to spend. [...]

In Dungeons and Dragons, the specter of death supposedly looms over every character. Prior to 3rd Edition a 1st Level character was very often in danger of dying after taking a couple of hits. This high “character mortality rate” was long a part of D&D culture and, in some circles, persists to this day.

I hate it. If players think that their characters will never die in combat then they’ll play recklessly, and will eventually become bored with the game, but is character death the only way to create tension in your game? A good D&D game provides a variety of challenges, not just combat challenges, and these challenges should provide a spectrum of possible outcomes, good and bad. [...]

In a previous post I extolled the virtues of well-developed NPCs who have clear motivations. Composing a rich backstory and complex motivations for your campaign’s most important heroes and villains is an no-brainer, but some NPCs aren’t destined for greatness: they buy gems from the player characters and sell them weapons in return. However, a little preparation and creativity can give even these “set piece” NPCs enough depth and motivation to enrich your campaign.

Take, for instance, Aaslund the Innkeeper. When the characters entered his inn you pulled his name off a list and, after glancing at another list, decided he was greedy. It would be simple to say that he’s just a shrewd businessman pinches every penny: that motivation makes sense and you can run with it. In this capacity Aaslund will forever be lost to the history of your campaign. [...]

Great NPCs make for great games.

If you don’t believe me then try this experiment: the next time your player characters get into a fight with, oh, say, some kobold, and only one is left standing, give that kobold a name. Have him throw down his weapon, beg for mercy and explain that he drifted into a life of banditry because he looked up to his older brother, who also robbed caravans. Make him pledge to lead a straight-and-narrow life.

He’s still just a kobold. He may or may not know anything that would help the PCs in their quest. He might suffer a coup-de-grace at the hands of a particularly cold-hearted Striker, or he might resurface as a paladin ten sessions down the road. But your players will remember him and regardless of whether or not they let him live they will have more fun than if he were just another minion who fled or died anonymously.

NPCs give a Dungeon Master the best return on his design investment because they draw players in: a funny shopkeeper can loosen the players up, a haughty nobleman can push their buttons, and a nasty villain can motivate even the most combat-oriented player to kick a little more ass. NPCs close the distance between the players and the Dungeon Master in a powerful and direct way: well-crafted, well-played NPCs are the sharpest arrows that a DM can have in his quiver.

So how do you create great NPCs? [...]

I started my gaming career with the red D&D Basic boxed set but AD&D 2nd Edition is where I spent most of my time as a gamer.

Under 2nd Edition rules, a Fighter requires 2000 Experience Points to reach 2nd Level. A Kobold slain in one-on-one combat is worth 7 Experience Points, meaning that a 1st Level Fighter acting alone would have to slay 285.7 Kobolds to level up.

Compare those figures to Dungeons & Dragons 3.5: our Kobold-killing Fighter needs 1000 Experience Points to reach 2nd Level, and his tiny, reptilian prey of choice is worth 300 XP if slain in one-on-one combat. That’s 3.3 dead Kobolds to reach 2nd Level, or 282.4 less Kobolds than it would have taken him to level up in AD&D 2nd Edition. [...]

Welcome to Making the Campaign: my goal is to help fellow campaign designers design a successful campaign. For the purposes of this discussion “campaign design” refers to crafting a setting and series of encounters and/or adventures using the 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules which will provide a satisfying long-term gaming experience for your group. I think these tips might be useful to those who use published settings, or those who play games other than D&D 4E, but I want my frame of reference to be clear to my readers.

Campaign design requires a lot of work and nothing discourages a Dungeon Master more than seeing their design work wasted on a failed campaign. One way to avoid a failed campaign is to think about your design in terms of The Seven C’s: Comprehension, Conception, Collaboration, Construction, Consummation, Continuation and Culmination. [...]

I couldn’t tell you the exact year that I first saw a Chessex advertisement, but I began reading Dragon Magazine in 1990 and it wasn’t long after that time that I first saw the Chessex logo in that magazine’s pages. I recently sought out new dice for use with my 4th Edition Rogue, and Chessex was the brand I chose. While there are plenty of fine vendors who carry the Chessex line I chose to shop directly from their website because it included their full product line and they fulfilled orders on individual dice.

My ordering experience started off on a bad foot: the Chessex website lacks e-commerce functionality, and I had to copy the order form from their website, fill in the required information (including product numbers) and paste it into an email to their sales department. This part of the process was exactly as convenient as you would expect it to be…but their post-order customer service made me forgive the company for its lack of online shopping expertise. I received an order confirmation via email within eight hours, made my payment via Paypal, and received my dice only two days after I had placed my payment. The speed with which they fulfilled my order floored me, especially considering the specificity of my purchase: I had ordered one 7-piece set, an extra d20, and two each extra of d4, d6 and d8s.

As far as the product itself is concerned, I received the same sort of high-quality dice which I have come to expect from Chessex. I chose the opaque black dice with white numbering because they were inexpensive; because the white-on-black numbering is easy to read across a gaming table; and because these dice were for my Rogues, and Rogues deserve black dice. The dice were well manufactured and showed no defects. For the truly curious, here’s a picture of my new bones, taken before they saw their first action:

I now own enough high-quality black dice to meet the needs of my Paragon-tier Rogue for the foreseeable future. Despite a cumbersome ordering process Chessex provided A+ customer service, and their product lived up to the quality standards that I’ve always associated with their brand. Thus ends the portion of the review for which Chessex is even remotely responsible… [...]