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From: req@warwick.UUCP (Russell Quin)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: campaign standardization
Message-ID: <311@snow.warwick.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 12:24:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: snow.311
Posted: Mon Oct 14 12:24:58 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 01:45:23 EDT
References: <2218@iddic.UUCP>
Reply-To: req@warwick.UUCP (Russell Quin)
Distribution: net
Organization: Computer Science, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 54
Keywords: classifications campaigns defeatist socks
Summary: Classifying campaigns is difficult & probably pointless
Socks: blue and furry
Xpath: warwick snow snow ubu

In article <2218@iddic.UUCP> dorettas@iddic.UUCP (Mike Sellers) wrote about
standardising campaigns using
> an [AD&D] alignment-like system.

I haven't seen the magazine article he mentions, but the idea seems to me to be
flawed.  What is it that one wants to say about a campaign?  In order to
describe something to someone who hasn't seen it, but who has seen other
similar things, one typically mentions the *differences*.
In other words, if I am describing a campaign to someone, I rarely want them to
classify it into a box and say `Ah, you are running a realistic-quasi-medieval
type 13B campaign.  How unoriginal'.  Rather, I want to describe to people what
it is that makes that particular campaign special -- *why* it is not *just* a
quasi-medieval type 13B campaign.  (There isn't really a "Type 13B", of course.
So no use mailing me for the details of the classification system I'm not
using! :-) )

I suspect that the people for whom a classification system would be most useful
are those who have seen relatively few campaigns in progress.
But these people would also benefit the most from a more detailed explanation.

> Question: whatever became of this idea?  It would seem to be a good safeguard
> when thinking about playing with a new group or moving to a new city.
> Have any of the gamers organizations picked up on this? Is it a feasible idea?

One of the problems would be that people would have to classify their *own*
campaigns in this case.
"We run a magic-weak realistic AD&D campaign ... after all, in Joe's campaign
the 1st level party killed THREE red dragons, whilst our 3rd level party only
have 8 magic items each and can only cope with *two* dragons at a time..."

"Magic rich SF campaign .... (*any* magic is magic-rich in SF, so our party of
seasoned adventurers are doing really well with high POW and three spells
between them..."

The difficulty here is that the ideas of Magic Rich/Weak, Realistic/Sketchy...
are very relative.  If you restrict yourself to the Magic-Overful [:-)] world
of AD&D, you can make definitions based on magic/level or something, but in a
rule-less campaign (yes, they *do* exist!) this becomes meaningless.

Perhaps the best that could be done would be to produce a list of salient
features of different styles of game.  But would that be of any use to anyone?
Sorry to seem s defeatist.

> 			High Fives to all.
> 			  Mike Sellers

I don't have any five sided dice.  Sorry.  Where do you get them?

			- Russell
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