More GMing and Campaign Help - Page 2

Raekai · 06-14-2012, 01:57 PM

I posted on here not too long ago about help for starting up my campaign. The advice was great and I took it all into account. However, shortly after setting this up, I've run into the biggest roadblock ever. Civilization.

I'm setting up two campaigns and I've got a couple of weeks to sort things out for the first one and months for the second one. The first one, I'm actually GMing. The second one, I'm building most of to be used by my GM for my personal dream campaign along with a few other friends. I'm taking a lot from D&D Eberron just because I like the setting so much. Creativity isn't an issue for me. I still just don't know how to go about controlling millions of lives.

For now, I'm worried about the first campaign. I figure once I get that down, building the second one won't be nearly as hard. This is the continent it will be on. This is the main city of said continent. Something about that city map makes me so overwhelmed and claustrophobic. To all of you GMs out there, how do I go about handling so many people? Should I create templates and just make clones of people and find names? Should I cut out demographics for each race? Should I just spend time fleshing out tons of people? Should I just go with a general sense of things and not worry too much? I feel like I'm making this so much harder than it needs to be. Something else I've been considering is keeping NPCs ready and filling in little bits like location when characters meet them and just make the location where they met them. I guess the overwhelming thing is SO MANY names and personalities. How do I keep track of all this stuff?

This is the continent map for the bigger campaign. I really, really want it to be here, but I need to know how to handle all of this. Please forgive how frantic and stupid I must sound, but as a new GM, this is a little overwhelming. I just need a guide to flavoring. The people, the sites. How do I know what's important. The thing I'm worried about the most is the dreaded question: "Wait, wasn't that over there last time?"

06-14-2012, 01:57 PM	#1
Raekai World's Worst Detective Join Date: May 2011 Location: Columbus, Ohio	More GMing and Campaign Help I posted on here not too long ago about help for starting up my campaign. The advice was great and I took it all into account. However, shortly after setting this up, I've run into the biggest roadblock ever. Civilization. I'm setting up two campaigns and I've got a couple of weeks to sort things out for the first one and months for the second one. The first one, I'm actually GMing. The second one, I'm building most of to be used by my GM for my personal dream campaign along with a few other friends. I'm taking a lot from D&D Eberron just because I like the setting so much. Creativity isn't an issue for me. I still just don't know how to go about controlling millions of lives. For now, I'm worried about the first campaign. I figure once I get that down, building the second one won't be nearly as hard. This is the continent it will be on. This is the main city of said continent. Something about that city map makes me so overwhelmed and claustrophobic. To all of you GMs out there, how do I go about handling so many people? Should I create templates and just make clones of people and find names? Should I cut out demographics for each race? Should I just spend time fleshing out tons of people? Should I just go with a general sense of things and not worry too much? I feel like I'm making this so much harder than it needs to be. Something else I've been considering is keeping NPCs ready and filling in little bits like location when characters meet them and just make the location where they met them. I guess the overwhelming thing is SO MANY names and personalities. How do I keep track of all this stuff? This is the continent map for the bigger campaign. I really, really want it to be here, but I need to know how to handle all of this. Please forgive how frantic and stupid I must sound, but as a new GM, this is a little overwhelming. I just need a guide to flavoring. The people, the sites. How do I know what's important. The thing I'm worried about the most is the dreaded question: "Wait, wasn't that over there last time?"