The "Gygax 75" technique for building DnD campaigns

Check out Zed and Two Noughts! bit.ly/ZedTwoNoughts The Gygax 75 Challenge: bit.ly/Gygax75 Patreon: bit.ly/QBPatreon The blog post that started the Gygax 75 challenge: dragonsneverforget.wordpress.com/2019/09/10/the-gy… Hextml: hextml.playest.net/ Hexographer (free edition): www.hexographer.com/free-version/ Hex Kit (costs money, but very cool): cone.itch.io/hex-kit Dungeon Scrawl: probabletrain.itch.io/dungeon-scrawl Dungeon Map Doodler: dungeonmapdoodler.com/ Fantasy City Generator: watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

Five Steps to Get Your Campaign Started 1. Create the overall setting concept. 2. Create the immediate region the players start in. 3. Map out at least three levels of a megadungeon for the players to explore. 4. Create the layout and inhabitants nearest to the dungeon. 5. Slowly begin expanding the world from there as needed.

This video should have a sub title, “Why Keep on the Boardlands is one of the best starting adventures yours players can start in”.

I am kind of a lurker, but just let me say that his advice is gold. Your channel deserves to be way, way more popular. Cheers!

I basically followed this without knowing it. I generated a random hexographer map, picked a strting spot, and made a prettier Inkarnate map. I wanted it to be sandbox-y, so I built the surrounding area with the initial dungeons/quests, encounter tables, etc. Then in worldbuilding, I made mine specifically to be 5e friendly, so I added places for all the 5e different races to be from that were close enough to described cultures to work with some fun twists. Then I started filling in all the rest of the world out from there because I had a long bus commute and was bored.

3:27 "What races and classes are allowed?" God I WISH most players asked this question. Instead of just assuming everything will be allowed and bringing their pre-baked aasimar blood hunter to session zero.

Well this looks like a fun exercise. Hold my 🍸. I'ma make one of these in only one week.

Great video! Thanks, Ben.

My process was pretty similar: 1. Came up with the campaign and world themes and a hook for players. 2. Made a map hexmap, seeded it with a few major settlements and a few other important sites (like ruins, etc.) that the locals - and by extension the PCs - would know about. 3. Fleshed out the starting town (really I borrowed one from another setting, filed off the serial numbers, added my own materials and twists). 4. Fleshed out the starting adventure location and hooks. 5. Wrote a short primer for players about the big truths their characters would know about the world, what kind of characters they should create, a little bit about the local cultures. 6. Made some random encounter tables for the wilderness (1d8 per terrain type to start, and then I'll be adding to them in play), and a few visually interesting landmarks near the starting adventure location. That was quite enough to get the game started.

ZONES pick 4 monsters or magic items place them around the world map. Create a random table that relates to the item or monster in that zone. The closer you get to the item the more dangerous encounters will show up. In my opinion playing world map adventures should be theater of the mind and the party should be able to split. I use monster minis to show the area the monster was seen but not were it is.

My group played a game of The Quiet Year, then I took that map and filled in a few more details and POOF we had our campaign area. It was really nice as the players knew more about the world than had I just given them a document / book to read.

My most extensive campaign and the world linked to it started with a drawing of a map with no clear goal in mind. I've started some plot, decided a location to start from and than went from there, giving players the total freedom of making stuff up for their characters just as I was doing for the other stuff. Eventually it grew up to have a pretty distinct identity and I'm pretty proud of all the things that combined to paint the picture

I just started running a dungeon crawl classic game in the "always on" style, and this video is immensely helpful and perfectly timed for my group!

I started out with a city, then filled out a continent from that and the other continents to fill out the world. Some it is not done in much detail yet, just the high level stuff. I tried to fill each continent with one large mega threat to make sure there is plenty of drama to go around. One continent is ruled by an ancient white dragon, another the undead are threatening to over run, orc & goblin raiders are the original continent's major threat, there is one continent ruled by minotaur slavers and the final continent it is just regular old greedy warlords that are the major problem.

Nice Barrowmaze reference. I'm always impressed by how solid Gary's ideas are even after nearly 50 years!

This is great, thank you! One more suggestion: provide a map to players showing labeled locations of varying difficulty (Ogre Cave, Wyvern Lair, Castle of the Lich King, etc.) within several days travel from their home base. Perhaps they found the map in the first goblin lair they cleared out. The players then have some choice where to adventure each session. If an encounter is too easy they won't gain many XPs or level up. Too hard: Lots more XPs but higher risk of death!

Gygax had some awesome ideas. I use the world map from Mystara and my players can go wherever they want on the world and I plan one session ahead to prepare for it.

"Don't have a dragon just drop out of the sky and eat them." looks accusingly at Essentials kit

I stumbled across your videos recently and I love the coverage of old school D&D concepts and rules. Thank you!

I met Gary Gygax at Gencon in Lake Geneva, Wi in 1974. We had a nice talk. The 1st rule book was 'Chain Mail with Fantasy Supplement', 2nd ed. I still have it.