Campaign writing process

[Agent_Bluescale]

Currently I am in the beginning (verrrry beginning) of putting together a campaign idea that I would love to write and get published. I was wondering, what sort of process do you go through when writing one? Do you start collecting research first? Write an outline? Start reading any books (fiction or non) connected to your idea? Read other campaigns to get an idea for a format and focus?

How do you do it?

[MrHandy]

I'm running a play-by-post Doctor Who/Call of Cthulhu campaign that I thought up early last year, and it's very much a work in progress. I was coming up with ideas in my head for months but hadn't had time to run it. In late July to early August 2010 I finished writing the first scenario and even started writing the second one (which I'm currently running) while I set things up on Play@Yog-Sothoth. The first scenario took about a year to play and went great. I have plenty of other ideas, but they're mainly in my head, though I do plan to start writing the third scenario in November. It'll probably be the middle of next year before I start running that one.

I have done plenty of research, primarily watching every episode of classic Doctor Who in order from the beginning (with reconstructions filling in the gaps where episodes are missing), which I started in February 2010 and was one of the things that inspired me to come up with my campaign idea, which is based much more upon the classic series than the new one. I'm over 90 percent done and should be finished at some point in December. Other research that can be helpful is rereading relevant Lovecraft stories and looking things up in the rulebook. I have rough ideas for all of the scenarios in the campaign, though I haven't yet finalized the order in which they will take place beyond the first three adventures. I haven't written an outline either. The scenarios all take place in various eras and settings, though there is a common thread that runs through them and connects them together, one of the things in my campaign that's more like the new series. I haven't read any other campaigns. Of course my campaign isn't intended for publication - the licensing issues would probably be insurmountable.

[heresiarch]

You may find this thread interesting http://www.yog-sothoth.com/threads/2...chool-scenario where ShimminBeg tries to craft a scenario from scratch based around the premise of a 1930s school ... with (input, distraction) from various contributors. You can see the ideas unfold, which may be the sort of thing you will find helpful

[Agent_Bluescale]

I'm thinking of starting a binder full of print-outs/research I collect as well.

[heresiarch]

I've been working on a campaign set in the Arctic in WW2 which starts with the secret RAF surveys of the Polar ice in 1942 - inspired of course by CoC and DG - for several years. I know the physical locations and environment of the campaign reasonably well, so my research has concentrated on the unusual aspects of the 1930s and 1940s. The RAF records so that I have a convincing set-up to start the campaign. Every campaign needs a good villain which meant researching the Ahnenerbe and the German expeditions to Tibet to give me some background on how crazy things got in parts of the Third Reich (answer: pretty crazy). Then researching Allied scientific intelligence (RV Jones, T-Force, Alsos) to give me an idea how things were done. Novels are good - Tim Powers' Declare was great for ideas and the feel of the thing.

I found creating a dedicated notebook to organise ideas helped lot. I used an electronic notebook, but I suspect paper would work equally well - the key point is to have all the ideas in one place.

The part I am finding harder is structuring the links between individual elements of the scenario so that it is not just a linear progression, and also can (and will) survive mistakes by the players. It's no fun creating a multi-episode campaign only for a TPK to derail the thing at the start with no (easily believable) way back.

[Agent_Bluescale]

Right now I'm trying to decide what era to put it in. I'm leaning towards Modern but as my idea is based upon a classic novel character, I also played around with setting it in Gaslight. Thankfully there is a whole bunch of work on the historical and novel character for me to draw upon.