Article: 95119 of rec.games.frp.dnd
Path: news.tuwien.ac.at!newsfeed.ACO.net!swidir.switch.ch!scsing.switch.ch!news.dfn.de!Germany.EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!lerc.nasa.gov!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!usenet
From: jtk3@po.cwru.edu (Jason Kuznicki)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: How to have a GREAT AD&D campaign
Date: 1 Sep 1995 14:21:04 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
Lines: 186
Message-ID: <4274sg$l26@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: b61718.student.cwru.edu

Here are some suggestions that I have found helpful in my AD&D 
campaign.  There are rules suggestions, hands-on activities for 
outside of game time, books to read... all kinds of stuff.  I'm
a history major, so forgive me if the list is kind of heavy on
reading and research.  Feel free to discuss.

In no particular order:

1.  Go horseback riding (a MUST!)
2.  Learn the names for various riding equipment and supplies.
3.  Visit an authentic blacksmith's shop.  Places like colonial 
	Williamsburg, Virginia are good for this, even if not set in 
	exactly the right time period.
4.  Find and wear a replica suit of armor.  This is even harder than it 
	sounds; the first thing you will learn is a lesson about the 
	relative sizes of people then and now... 
5.  Learn fencing.  It's good exercise too.
6.  Visit an art museum.  The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the 
	best, but if you can get to the Louvre, I won't argue the point. 
	Either way, this is probably the most important thing on the 	
	list.  While you are there, see the following things:  
	-arms and armor 
	-clothing and tapestries
	-calligraphy
	-religious relics
	-basically ANYTHING from the middle ages.
	-basically ANYTHING from ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome.  The 
	remnants of a previous 	time do much to add atmosphere to a 
	campaign.
7.  Think back to your art museum trip.  Imagine everything you saw was 
	some kind of magical item...
8.  Read _Beowulf_.
9.  Read _The Canterbury Tales_.
10.  Shoot bows and arrows of various types.  
11.  Read a book about herbalism.  _The Magic and Medicine of Plants_ 
	from Time/Life Books is one I recommend.  In short, if you don't 
	know the significance of, oh, say, the mandrake, you don't know 
	anything about herbalism, even if you think you do.
12.  Play chess, even if it is the degenerate modern variety first 
	recorded in 1518.
13.  Sleep under the stars.  Ask yourself if any self-respecting 15th 
	level nobleman would do the same.
14.  Attend a Wiccan gathering.
15.  Attend a Roman Catholic Mass said in Latin.
16.  Visit a Gothic Cathedral.
17.  Visit an authentic castle.  If you happen not to live in Europe, 
	there is a decent replica of one in Loveland, Ohio (!).  
	(If anyone reading this has the address of Chateau La Roche, 
	it would be much appreciated).
18.  Read _The Name of the Rose_ by Umberto Eco.
19.  See the movie of the same name.  A picture is worth 1000 words, and 
	at 24 frames a second, that's a lot.
20.  Be familiar with the following infamous villains and dastardly
	events:
	--The Spanish Inquisition
	--Sir Francis Drake
	--The Spanish Armada
	--Savanarola vs. the Medici family
	--The Viking attacks on the Anglo-Saxons.
	--The Huns
21.  Find some Medieval recipies.  Make and eat them, if you dare.
22.  Go hangliding.  It's probably the closest thing to a flight spell 
	that we'll ever have.
23.  Write with a quill pen.
24.  While you're at it, learn a little calligraphy.
25.  Learn a bit about the language of heraldry.
26.  Learn the names for the various parts of a castle and cathedral.  
	And I mean more than just "dungeon" and "altar."
27.  Explore a wild (non-commercial) cave.  Consider the difficulty of 
	doing the same in armor.
28.  Get an illustrated, full-color armor catalogue from an place that 
	makes authentic armor.  Sure, the stuff for sale will all cost 
	a lot, but it's the pictures you're after.  You may learn a lot 
	just by paging through the catalogue.  I once knew someone who 
	had a catalogue like this, but 	alas, he is lost to the sands of 
	time...  Can anyone help?
29.  Hear some recordings of early music, ie., that of the troubadours 
	and Gregorian chants.
30.  Go wilderness backpacking.  Then YOU tell ME if AD&D movement 
	rates make sense.
31.  See a demonstration of falconry.
32.  See a demonstration of jousting and swordfighting.
33.  See a demonstration of archery.
34.  Have your fortune told by a live fortune teller (NOT a dial-in 
	psychic).  Whether or not you believe in that kind of thing, 
	the magic is in the presentation, and this is what it's all 
	about.
35.  Read _The Pilliars of the Earth_ by Ken Follett.  It's got lots 
	of sex in it (and this is bad?), and it also has a lot of 
	background on life in medieval England and the building of 
	cathedrals.  A fascinating book.
36.  Ride a carriage over a gravel, dirt, or courdoroy road.
37.  Read anything by Tolkien, but ignore the humans for the most part.  
	Pay attention to the elves, dwarves, halflings, and humanoids.  
	To keep them interesting, the races should all be SPECIAL and 
	UNIQUE, and Tolkien understands this.  
38.  Take off your glasses.  Now consider the importance of adding a 
	PERCEPTION trait to your character sheet.  (As a character, 
	my PER score would probably be around 4 or 5 without my glas-
	ses).  I'll leave it to you to work out the details.
39.  Read the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
40.  Read _The Wonders of the Invisible World_ by Cotton Mather for 
	information on witchcraft.
41.  Read _The Pit and the Pendulum_ by Edgar Allen Poe for an idea of 
	what good suspense is like.
42.  Read (or see performances of) _Macbeth_ and _Hamlet_.
43.  Forget Monty Python.
44.  Forget _Robin Hood:  Men in Tights_.  
45.  Forget Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.  Fun, yes.  Authentic, no. 
	(The same goes for the 	above two).
46.  Consider carefully the availability of coinage in your world.  The 
	vast majority of medieval valuables came in the form of LAND 
	and TITLES, not money.  Land is the very basis of the feudal 
	system.  If you want easily portable valuables, use jewelry 
	or gems.  Coins were much rarer than most AD&D fantasy ad-
	ventures have you believe.  Jewelry is more fun, too.
47.  See a replica of a medieval ship, of almost any kind.
48.  Carry and use a torch, even a Tiki Torch, while trying to do 
	something else.
49.  Read James Michener's _Poland_, especially the sections dealing 
	with the middle ages.  	Heck, the whole thing isn't a bad 
	read anyway.
50.  Build a fire without matches or other modern equipment.
51.  Remember that most people of the time are illiterate.
52.  Remember that most people of the time are short of stature.
53.  Remember that most people of the time are superstitious.  The 
	existence of actual, working magic will probably do a lot to 
	further this.
54.  Remember that most people of the time die young.  Adventurers 
	will have longer lives if they 	can pay for clerical healing, 
	which is vastly superior to any other kind available.
55.  Remember that adventurers are extremely rare.  Fighters and 
	rogues should be the most common, followed by clerics.  
	Wizards should be the most rare, special, and MAGICAL of 	
	all. 
56.  A list of interesting good guys (and gals) to keep in mind:
	--Charlemagne
	--Joan of Arc
	--Nostradamus
	--Leif Ericsson
	--Thomas Beckett
	--Eleanor of Aquitaine
	--Leonardo da Vinci
	--St. Bede the Venerable
	--Roger Bacon
	...any one of these people would make a fascinating addition 
	to your campaign world.
57.  Invest in some candles for better atmosphere.
58.  Remember the Afterword of the First Edition AD&D DM guide.  It 
	is a great loss to the second edition that it was removed, 
	and this sentence in particular is worth repeating verbatim:

	"BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE 
	FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, 
	YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS 
	MEANT TO BE." 

	Too often this is forgotten.

(NOTE:  I just read the so-called "TSR Code of Ethics."  What happened
between then and now?  It seems political correctness comes first, TSR's
worried lawyers second... Oh well.  On with the list.)

59.  Watch the X Files and the Twilight Zone.  Adapt these plots to 
	medieval settings for really interesting adventure scenarios.
60.  My players ABSOLUTELY HATE guns.  Get rid of them!  Also leave 
	out submarines, ironclad warships, television montors and 
	cameras, and tactical nukes.  (I played in a really bad 
	campaign one time that featured all of these in one night...  
	Let's just say that the person responsible is no longer in 
	our merry band of adventurers).
61.  If you must have a dragon in your campaign, give it lots of 
	history and background.  He (or she!) shouldn't just descend 
	upon the party from the sky at random.  If you make the evil 
	dragon the same one who killed the paladin's grandfather, 
	the dragon's death will mean a lot more to the adventurers.
62.  Discuss gaming with other DM's.  I guess that's what this 
	is all about.

As I said, discuss freely!

  Jason Kuznicki       *** Je fais. ***       jtk3@po.cwru.edu                             http://b61718.student.cwru.edu
 
"It's these little things, they can pull you under/ Live your life 
filled with joy and thunder/ Yea, yea we were all together lost to 
now or never lives."--R.E.M., "Sweetness Follows"