Friday, October 14, 2016

Campaign Sourcebook

...and Catacomb Guide
TSR produced a number of monochrome/leatherette cover "Rules Supplements" for the 2nd Edition game. My personal favorite of these is the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide written by Jennell Paul Jaquays and William Connors (Ravenloft). Jennell Paul Jaquays is one of the most talented people to do design work in our hobby. As a college student, Jaquays put out the Dungeoneer fanzine which was picked up by Judges Guild and joined their list of publications. The first six issues are still considered a valuable resource for White Box gaming. Her dungeon design credits include Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia wherein we learned what good dungeon design consisted of. Today many in the hobby refer to "Jaquaying" a dungeon to mean "doing it up the right way". The Enchanted Wood, done for SPI's DragonQuest game, remains a fan favorite (and reportedly, Jennell's favorite) and parts of it were used in this book and later rewritten into the Forgotten Realms world.
The Campaign Sourcebook... covers setting up the fantasy RPG campaign and running it from the referee's perspective. It is an advice book and although many such supplements exist today, some system specific, some generic, Campaign Sourcebook remains one of the best of it's type.
The Campaign Sourcebook covers just about everything involved in setting up and running a 2nd Edition campaign, although most of it is not directly tied to an edition and can be used with most any FRPG. The basics are covered as well as some in depth examination of using referee judgement. It is advice such as this which makes this tome so valuable to me. World creation, adventure design, map making, they are all covered as well as the basics of forming a group, running a campaign and using all the available tools.
The White Box booklets and reference sheets are full of tools and advice actually aimed at the referee. An RPG tome directed at the players would not really emerge until the Players Handbook of the Advanced Game. The Advanced Game would see an actual GM Guide, perhaps the best document of its type ever written, as one of its three core books. There are a couple of other referee game books in addition to the above aimed at giving advice that I find very useful and I will mention them here briefly.
The Referee booklet included in the Deluxe Edition of Lamentations of the Flame Princess is, like the rest of the LotFP material, a very personal, opinionated (in a good way) approach to the hobby. The author's advice includes encouragement to make your monsters and each magic treasure unique. Each monster should be an unknown for it is in the fearful wondering that comes from dealing with the unknown that tension builds. Like monsters, familiar treasure can become humdrum "just another +1 sword" or rather each magic item can be unique, with a history and a name. Mr. Raggi discusses role-play in a setting dominated by humans where the other humanoid races are not just short, bearded and greedy, or slender, long lived and have pointy ears, but are otherwise played as humans. He advises letting the dice rolls stand, allowing PC death and avoiding any hint of railroading. Put simply, the author tells us how to run the type of campaign he prefers, which just happens to appeal to me as well.
Iron Crown Enterprises Gamemaster Law is another referee source book I really like. This volume is part of the Rolemaster game system and brings the usual high level of detail one finds in those products. Like the previously discussed material, this book is an enjoyable read as well as containing a lot of valuable information. Particularly strong world building material with an emphasis on realism can be found in this tome. It is of course a matter of preference, but geography in my world needs to follow natural laws and make sense to me.

No comments:

Post a Comment