Introducing the second podcast from myself and my daughter:
We recorded this about two weeks ago, along with the 3rd episode that will be posted April 3rd. We're planning on doing twelve episodes altogether, releasing one every three weeks - here's hoping that we'll build up a good strong audience!
Alexis, I'd like it if you could expand on something you touched on in the podcast -- maybe a whole post if you're game.
ReplyDeleteYou said you ran a made-from-scratch world for 4 years. I believe you also said (listened a couple days ago and soundcloud giving me grief) that the problem with running a completely from-scratch world is that there's just never enough detail, it lacks the endless layers of accreted history and readily-available troves of information that the real world has to offer.
Yet you managed to run it all the same.
You often give advice which you say applies to any kind of game or world, but to me, so much of your success seems based on the fact that you have a real, final, end-of-the-line source of truth for your world: Earth, as you choose to slice and dice it. Trade tables based on a certain specific interpretation of one particular encyclopedia, mapmaking based on a certain procedure and (presumably) certain preferred sources of information, weather and elevation based on fallingrain.com, and so on.
Well, as far as I know, other than you, everyone else is running worlds that are created from scratch. If anyone else is doing a long-term game based on the Earth I haven't heard of it (I recall Great Code of D&D doing something based on Ancient Greece, but I also recall it was as prescribed by your How to Run "3 months, 3 short campaigns" program, and thus short-lived.) So ... do you have advice for those of us who are in the made-from-scratch world situation? What can from-scratch-world DMs do to combat the from-scratch world's fundamental flaw, inevitable shallowness/repetition?
Excited to hear your thoughts.
Sorry for not getting back to this yesterday, Maxwell,
ReplyDeleteThis is a difficult question. I did run that campaign for four years but it was fairly close to the first four years of my DMing - 1981 to '85. I think an answer would make a fun discourse for a podcast - but then you wouldn't hear it for six weeks (we were planning on recording #4 this Thursday).
Let me ruminate on it a few days and I'll put together a proper post.
I've listened to both podcasts now and they're fantastic. There was no question that the content would be interesting given the blog, but I think the most important thing is being able to hear you (and your daughter) converse. In the world of the Internet where written tone can so easily be misconstrued (and evidenced by the Dragonsfoot thread we took part in several weeks ago), it's really refreshing to hear what a kind and level spoken demeanor you both have. It really adds credibility to your work; you sound like a worldly professor. Keep 'em coming!
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