Campaign Planning - Dungeon Fantasy War

Probably using this?

My other campaign did not get off the runway after a few weeks. That's fine. I can put it in my back pocket for later, maybe polish it up a bit more and recycle it. So let's try something a bit less niche. A combination of Dungeon Fantasy sensitivities and Mass Combat experimentation. I wouldn't be surprised if this turned out to be a flop as well, but ah well.

Campaign Planning - Lands out of Time

A large amount of the work
is already done for me.

Let's use the campaign planning form from the back of How to Be a GURPS GM and see how much it helps in planning. I'm going to be using Lands Out of Time as a basis, so some of the questions are answered for me; others are not. Let's see if this helps, and let's see if it has any holes that need to be shored up.

City Stats: Radkappe (TL5+2)

Tiny village in the middle of
nowhere.

A small collapsing rural town in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere... ok, it's pretty close to the capital, but it is very small, and dealing with a small existential crisis. Let's take a look.

Boardroom and Curia: Apfelbaum Town Hall (TL 5+2)

Cape Town, circa several years ago.

So we have a post office and a police station, let's stat up City Hall.

Boardroom and Curia: Apfelbaum Police Station (TL 5+2)

Some interesting historical
police station architecture.

So, my rural city has a post-office and a train station, to that, let's add a police station.

Boardroom and Curia: Apfelbaum Postal and Telegraph Office (TL 5+2)

Pony express or something.

Continuing on the subject of community, here's a generic, slightly magical post office for a TL5 setting. I'm situating it in the farming community I've already built.

City Stats: The Village Center of the Apfelbaum Farming Community (TL5+2)

decent black and white cameras back
then, I guess.

So the community topic rages loud and unchecked still. Today, I can kill two birds with one stone, and design a farming village using city stats, and then use it in my campaign. It's like I'm doing campaign preparation and blogging at the same time!

City Stats: Vordtstadt

Frigid, smokey, urban.

So, since we are working towards a TL6^ style campaign now, I have decided to stat out some areas to develop a bit of a world, and continue creating locations and hopefully make up a setting so I can jump to making organizations via Boardroom and Curia. Today, a cold, industrial, poor city: Vordstadt, the first potential starting point of a campaign.

Campaign Preparation: Things I think I Need To Do Better

Epic for the win, buddy.

What are things to consider when planning a campaign? I've got a lot of lessons learned from all the campaigns I've planned and didn't work out, so let's take a look at what is needed to make a campaign work out.

City Stats:Goblin Mine - Ferrouskarr

Kinda cool when someone drew
exactly what you needed.

Playing with taking the campaign in a different direction that I was planning, and potentially going into a higher fantasy setting again, so I thought "let's stat out an unusual type of city." So I thought, goblin settlement in an abandoned mine, thought of iron and, bnaddabing, baddaboom I had a town name. Let's continue this exercise in creating a new "city."

City Stats: Stone Age Village

Stone age?

So, as an exercise in using City Stats I am going to to stat out a TL0 "city" on a tropical island. Without much pomp and circumstance, let's see how well this goes.

Campaign Preparation: Smoke on the Water - Warrior

Something something
amputation

Finally, of my minimum four-man band, the most straightforward character, the warrior/hunter kinda dealy. I think this should be fairly straightforward so let's get this show on the road without further ado.

Campaign Preparation: Smoke on the Water - Big Man

It's apparently a real thing. Don't let
anyone say GURPS never taught
Pesudo Boo nothing.

So, it is a bit of a curiosity to me, but an interesting thing. When I looked at the occupations in the back of Low-Tech Companion 3, I stumbled across the Big Man occupation, and it seemed like a really good fit for the position of the party face in my TL0~1 campaign. Let's go about working out how to construct a master negotiator for this game.

Campaign Preparation: Smoke on the Water - Artisan

This guy looks massively talented.

Yesterday, I made a template for a magic user which is probably one of the most difficult classes to get right. Today, I am going to work on the other pretty difficult template, the Artisan. This template requires a lot of different skills to make a lot of different things, and that means I need to carefully utilize tools that get a lot of bang for buck with a point budget that doesn't allow for the easy shortcut of "just get a lot of DX." Let's see how this goes.

Campaign Preparation: Smoke on the Water - Shaman/Witch

It's magic, bucko.

So, I've gotten an idea in my head for a more serious campaign after this somewhat farcical introductory adventure/campaign I'm running wraps up. Something a bit less "fight and take" with more political maneuvering, but I wanted to play with a bit of an interesting angle. The thought that came to me was a super low tech level game. I still like magic, so we'll throw that in too, but otherwise I want a less cinematic and combat oriented game.
For no particular reason, today, I start off planning by focusing on a professional template that require a lot of attention because it encompasses great detail but I want to keep point values low: a magic user. Let's see if I can manage to make an economically viable version that won't take too much flexibility from my players.