My Life As A Gamer: Moving New Model Colony Forward

New Model Colony existed as a showcase, a place to demonstrate AD&D1e rules and procedures in action.

I will now transition NMC into a proper campaign. The monthly posting henceforth will document this process.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to leave you with nothing.

A good campaign has both Push and Pull going on.

Push forces are the things that drive you to action because you want to avoid a negative outcome. Pull forces are things that drive you to action because you sense a possible positive outcome.

In a proper campaign, having a Pull that is external to any Patron and exerts a strong influence is a good thing to have. For the model D&D campaign, that is a mysterious location deep into the wilderness in a frontier. That's The City of Gold, that's Shangri-La, Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria, and many other places that are lost to time or never were.

This is because the big draw of D&D is exploration, and that means organizing expeditions into the unknown--and, often, hostile--lands to seek out treasures and put down threats, winning gold and glory and proving that your man is a Great Man whose deeds shape the world and leave imprints on history that last for ages if not forever- like Gaius Julius Caesar or Qui Shi Huang Di.

Patrons at the macro level, and rival PCs at the micro, act as Push forces. Their actions inevitably compel others to act in turn to deal with these forces, either to oppose them or to aid them--power attracts power--and thus form the opposing pole of a campaign. If the mystery serves to draw in adventurers seeking to win fame and fortune, then the threat serves to drive them to move to do so before others can benefit from the same.

In reforming the Colony into a proper campaign both will be considered, and I intend to "pre-game" by having a Patron event or two intended to set the stage before the first PCs hit the table.

I also have my own preferences for tone that I will bring to bear, and my selection of illustrations should give you a clue.