Sometimes you want to start a new game, but you don't know where to start. We want to do something fresh, we want to launch a new campaign, but what to do? In this article, I propose a simple and quick technique to lay the foundations for a new campaign setting. This article adapts as well to the solo game as to the traditional game.
The basic idea is to roughly define the outlines of a theme by association of ideas. For that, I just need my stories dices.
For this example, I will create a game universe by combining 3 main ideas
Step 1 - Determine the 3 ideas to associate
To frame my thinking more, I use this old random idea table:- Object
- Location
- Information / Knowledge
- Magic
- Unexpected event
- Monster / NPC
I launch 3D6 and I get the following results: a place, an event, a magic. For each of the results, I run the stories and write the first ideas that come to mind.
A place
A very rich stable. A huge barn that provides something for the whole region
But this place is in danger, perhaps a curse. A family curse? A cursed place, a curse weighs on the owners
Other questions to develop: Why is it rich? Who is the boss? What does the stable produce?
An event
The dice are very clear: Invaders come to disintegrate the country!
What is their motivation?
A magic
Spices for meditation, pass over an astral plane, special magic?
(first association of idea): these spices are obtained by the powdering of fangs from animals raised on the farm (who said politically incorrect?)
What is this astral plane?
Step 2: Add details and link ideas together
To add details, start by answering the open questions in step 1. The rest comes on its own.Why is the barn rich?
Drugs! For the astral plane? For some kind of magic?
The stable provides the other kingdoms with these famous spices. The hooked beasts are found only in this region. But in fact, these spices, this form of magic is harmful to health.
Who's in charge of the barn?
A great warrior who made the fomorians leave (awful half giants or mythological people of Ireland?)
What is the motivation of the invaders?
The temperature has dropped at their house. As a result, they were deprived of food. Because of the cold, Wyvernes? Dragons? mountains have nothing to eat either and launch raids against invaders
What is this astral plane?
It is a frozen place made of ice where we seek advice as if to read the future.
This plan was created by a mad magician.
Step 3: Put all the ingredients in a shaker and shake!
All that is needed now is to put the pieces of the puzzle together to form a coherent whole.A long time ago, the boss of the stable (get him a name) chased the half giants from the southern islands. There, he discovered that the powder of[beasts, monsters?] fangs could produce a form of shamanic magic. To cast their spells, the users of this magic enter a kind of trance that allows them to access a twin half plane. There, they can change reality by manipulating temperature variations. But access to this half-plan has two negative effects:
- it makes magic users addicted and pushes them to madness
- the heat in the half-plane transfers the cold to a neighbouring kingdom! The effects are so great that their climate has changed making their home inhospitable.
Having understood the cause of their exile, the warriors of the neighbouring country came to solve the problem.
Optional (maybe for a second campaign): the half plan was created by someone for a particular reason. Its discovery and access may not be a coincidence...
Step 5 - Solo RPG or traditional game
The Game Master preparing his campaign now has enough material to refine his background and write his campaign.For the solo RPG, things have to be considered differently. Please note that at no time do I judge anyone. At this point, I don't decide on any alignment and no one is designated as nice or mean. Everything I have written remains ambivalent and has a clear side and a dark side. It is the game itself that will refine the contours.
Example:
At first glance one might think that the invaders are coming to save their country from this harmful magic. But how are they going to do that? Will they be understanding? Or will they wish to burn everything?
The owner of this barn became rich trading a not very clean product. Is it deliberate or not?
What is this half-plane really? What's locked in it? Something nice? The souls of the victims of the barbarism of the stable owner? Or Cthulhu himself?
All these clarifications must now come from the game sessions.
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