Now that I completed the Gygax ’75 Challenge… what do I think? I think it is a great way to learn about starting a campaign–and a ton of fun!
Great Way To Start A Campaign
First off: The Challenge was a tremendous amount of fun. The regimented style really helped keep me on track to develop a setting that could be gamed in, without getting sidetracked on worldbuilding details. It was hard–I kept wanting to look at higher-level parts of the world to flesh out the lower-level ones. But the schedule kept me on track, which is great for trying to set up a campaign environment that you can game in quickly.
Another thing that I realized is that the format of the Challenge really is not the best way to present the information. We are so used to written adventures being well organized, that the weekly format of the Challenge just does not fit well. You really would need to take what you have developed at the end and repackage it in a coherent way.
Still, the weekly format gets you a general setting, an adventure to run, a town as a home base and an idea of the larger world that it all fits in. And really, that is all you need to run a game–and that’s the point. All of this gave me a great place to start gaming! All I needed was some characters and off we go. Maybe that is one thing I would add to the Challenge–the development of characters somehow.
I Learned A Lot
Another thing that came from the Challenge is that I learned a lot. Mostly about myself. After all, I knew that dungeons and adventures were not my strong suit–that was worldbuilding. This brought that back to my mind, and reminded me that I need to take the time to learn more about good adventure writing.
One more thing I learned is that the time constraints are a little tight, especially when it came to the dungeon building part, and my results showed that. I really want to go back and redo the dungeon with a little more time to make it better.
I also learned that there is no shame in plagiarizing from yourself! I started off trying develop everything from scratch, and after reading some articles online–I realized that it is not a sin to reuse ideas and even names from things you have done before.
One other thing that I learned was to update my workflow. In the past, I used an electronic format entirely. Now I use a combination of electronic and physical–my notebook I used in the Challenge. It was just easier to have a physical notebook that I could write notes in at any time–especially when I was away from a computer or electronic device.
Keeping the Setting
Finally, I think I am going to keep my setting I developed in the Challenge and use it form my solo gaming. Why? The Vales setting I came up with has a more tactical, small-scale feel to it that I think just works better for me. Instead of the huge world of the Middle Lands, and even middling-sized the Isle of Ealdun, the Vales is really only 11 24-mile hexes. That means the detailed map is really at the 1-mile hex level, and just works great. I can come up with ideas concepts–and implement them for the whole setting.
In addition, the basic concept of the Vales is one I came up with back in college, back in the 80s. I never really fleshed it out, and had to recreate the map from my admittedly aging memory, but I think it worked out ok. I am also going to use the magic system that Jeff Vandine and I are working on, and have a blast playing in it.
So I am going to keep the Vales, and start posting the info to the untold-realms.com website. Hopefully you all will enjoy it, and will use it for playing yourselves. Please let me know what you thought of my campaign I set up in the Challenge!
Marko ∞
