Reader Poll: Challenges in Campaign Execution...

Good Afternoon:

My apologies for the lack of entries lately. I am still working on the new website, getting the design to look the way I want it to. In the end, I think I'll end up going with a minimalistic design, because anything else I've tried simply looks too busy. When all else fails, going back to the basics is generally considered a good thing.

Once I get the blog moved over to the new site, Fridays will become the day that I discuss the current project I'm working on for Samardan Press. Do you think that Mondays and Wednesdays also need their own theme?

When I think about the kinds of challenges that all Referees, GMs and DMs face when running a campaign, I come up with a short list of different things I could address as the next series for In Like Flynn. Here are some of my thoughts:

• Adventure Creation
• Challenges of Running a Long-Term Campaign
• Encounters or Scenario Creation
• Finding New Players
• Handling Different Player Types
• Locations
• Making Combat Fun and Entertaining
• Map Creation
• Monster Creation
• Organizing Campaign Data
• Role of Organizations
• Running a Focused Campaign (Political, Military, Mercantile, Exploration, etc.)
• Running a Prep Lite Campaign (aka Winging It)
• Setting Creation (Campaign or Mini-Settings)
• Stock NPCs
• Story Arcs
• Unique NPC Creation

What sounds like fun to you? What would you be most interested in reading about? What aspects of running a campaign cause you problems? Please let me know in the Comments section. Remember that your words will help determine the direction of my next series of posts.

With Regards,
Flynn

The October Update...

Good Evening, All:

Here's a quick update on the status of my various projects.

MyD20 Lite Referee's Guide
This month, I've updated the monsters to the stats we worked out here in the blog, and I've been working on the Magic Item system. I haven't gotten any additional feedback from anyone else on the last draft version posted, so I can only assume that the monster stats were the only true sticking point. That's good. I don't see this being done this month, but perhaps by late November or early December.

Stellar Quest
Aside from the updated list of monsters, I've made very little progress on this Sci-Fi game inspired by Swords & Wizardry, exploring a world akin to that found in Star Trek and similar shows. I am going to run two adventures in this system at Owl Con, and I intend to have this one complete within a month of finishing the MyD20 Lite Referee's Guide.

The World Within
I've finally come up with a name for the Hollow Earth setting I've been talking about lately. The World Within gives me a unique name to describe the setting, without confusing it with other names similar to that of the genre that has inspired the setting. I still haven't decided whether I'll publish my work on this, but as more and more comments on the post asking if people are interested in a published Hollow Earth setting, I'm starting to lean more and more toward doing so.

I still have a few small products I'm considering, but we'll see how things come together as time and interest allows.

More Later,
Flynn