Comment - Campaign Setting

A setting, a campaign, even a single pick-up game is only as good as the DM.

There is no formula, no diagram, no mythos, not a damn thing that can make a setting good on its own. A good DM can make a bad setting good, can take a piece of crap published module and make it fun. It is a god-damn art. It isn't the setting that can get you into the game, that can keep a campaign going for weeks, months or even years, that can stir your imagination and make you feel the gold coins slipping through your fingers or startle the crap out of you when your character turns a corner, or makes you shout when you chop down that last beastie just before it takes your character down. A good DM does that.

Part II

My point is that there is no setting fluff that makes a campaign golden.

I detest Planescape, others love it. Greyhawk is my favorite published setting others have no time for it.

Setting fluff is subjective. You can have rivers that flow uphill, you can run into WWII German infantry attacking dinosaurs controlled from outerspace with a tree full of keebler elves on the side and it can be a fantastic game.

Or it can be a horrible game if the DM sucks. The DM is the setting. He breaths life into the words of a published world, he makes paper lions roar and unsheath their claws, he takes his imagination and becomes everything, the split in the player's backpack that rips while he is being chased by those paper lions, the rotting boards of the bridge the player runs across, swaying back and forth over a black and bottomless pit, the fraying rope, the feathered lizard creatures with spears that rush the player from the other side as the lions wait for their dinner to return. The DM is the town where the player rested, the kingdom the town resided in, the tribe of Ogres or clan of Giants, the number of coins stuck to the chest of the sleeping dragon.

There are no elements, no fluff, no story-line, that universally make a flavoursome campaign setting. The flavor comes from the chef, the DM and nowhere else. He can take your favorite steak and burn it beyond recognition or make it the so good your mouth waters at the thought of it.

All that you can do here is make a list of recipes that other people have enjoyed. A good chef, a good DM will know what to do with them. Use them, change them, maybe ignore them, but all you really need is that good chef.

Comment - Searching the Room - Part 2

DM: As you begin your search you hear a clicking sound from the hall.

Ted (the thief): What the hell is that?

Clarence (the cleric): Is the door still open?

Mike (the magic-user): Shit!

Frank (the fighter): I'll check it! Back me up!

DM: As you approach the open door you can hear the clicking sound again. It sounds like two pieces of wood hitting each other.

Ted: What the F...!

Frank: I have my longsword of painful blisters ready.

DM: What do you do?

Frank: I edge against the wall and take a glance out, left and right , real quick.

DM: In the glowing orange-tinted light of your sword you don't see anything, but as you pull your head back you hear the click again. It sounds very close.

Ted: We are screwed man! They're coming outta the F...ing walls!

Clarence: Shut-up Ted!

Mike: I take out my powder of Dis-invisability and prepare to use a dose of it.

DM: Are you going out in the hall?

Mike: I will jump out and send the powder to the left and right in the hall.

DM: Roll when you jump out.

Mike: An '18".

Frank: I'm ready to attack!

DM: The powder swirls from Mike's palm and spreads in a pink shower up to the ceiling and down to the floor flowing right and left like the edge of a rainstorm.

Frank: I jump out into the hall!

Clarence: I have my mace in hand and I'm right at the door.

Ted: I have my sling out and I'm back up against the wall opposite the door.

DM: The powder has settled across 30 feet of floor, fifteen feet to either side. Frank you see nothing.

Frank and Mike: What!

DM: Suddenly the clicking sound comes again as loud as if it was right in the room with you. All of you can see the small cricket near Frank's left foot.

Frank: You bastard!

DM: Are you still searching the room?

Comment - Searching a Room

If you ever read Knights of the Dinner Table you can find examples of play exactly like that, where the DM just hands them a list of what was in the room and the players transfer it to their character sheets.

I like the right kind of detail in my game and try to tailor such searches to my players' temperament for detail. If a character makes such a blanket statement I usually slow things down ask for details. How much time are they going to take searching, do they trust the the other players not to pocket a few shiny bits of treasure, are there traps, etc...

DM: "The wizard's apprentice inhabiting this room is dead and his homunculous familiar as well. What a mess."

Thief 1 (Ted): "I thoroughly search the room!"

DM: "Okay, it is a long room running south; about forty feet and twenty feet wide, but it looks like it might turn east at the end. Where do you start searching?"

Fighter 1 (Frank): "Not so fast thief-boy! I'm going with you. Last time you searched you palmed that ring of spices."

Cleric 1 (Clarence): "That's right! Keep an eye him Frank. I'm going to shut the door. Who needs healing?"

Mage 1 (Mike): "I do. That bastard used a Magic Missile on me!"

DM: "Just as a point of interest the bookcase against the wall is still smoldering from Mike's Burning Hands, but most of the flames were put out by all the blood after Frank chopped the wizard's head off. (Nice called shot there).

Mike: "The Bookcase! Healing can wait. I put out the burning books and search it!"

Ted: "Hey, I'm searching the room!"

Mike: "Not this bookcase you aren't!"

DM: "How are you putting the flames out. And where exactly are you guys searching?"

Ted: "Okay he can have the charred books. What does this place look like?"

DM: (Finally!) As I said when you opened the door, the wizard was sitting at a table, now knocked over with two of the legs broken. There were 3 chairs around it, now knocked over as well. A long bookcase is against the west wall behind him running about 15 feet. There is a sideboard against the north wall, with a strange picture above it and the door opened in the east wall. The room runs south another twenty or thirty feet with another bookcase at its end and three pieces of furniture and a desk on the east and west walls. There appears to be a gap at the end of the east wall where the room seems to run east. A cloak rack is near the door.

Ted: "Sheesh! What are you doin'; writing a novel?"

DM: "Hey, you want to thoroughly search the place. This is what you have to search."

Frank: "What's that picture look like?"