That Time I Ran the Banewarrens

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/okayyourturn/the-baba-luga-rant-turned-loga-t3139.html

The above link is to a thread that describes my old Banewarrens campaign from all the way back in April of 2005. It's hard to believe how much time has passed since then.

The Banewarrens by Monte Cook was only the second campaign I ever ran for 3.5 D&D. My first attempt at running a 3rd Edition game was an ill-fated Rappan Athuk campaign that quickly ended in a total TPK when the party found themselves going against the Upper Temple of Orcus way before they were ready. They took too many wrong turns.

I wasn't really prepared to run a campaign when I did Rappan Athuk. I'd hadn't played D&D in almost a decade (when it was still just 2nd Edition). I'd mostly skipped 3.0 but I dived headlong into the 3.5 revision. Bought all the books, hung out on all the cool boards, that sort of thing.

The Banewarrens was the best campaign I ever ran. I think I love it so much because that edition of the game was still new to me and it felt like I was discovering D&D all over again. Also, I had discovered the Okay Your Turn message board on Monte's website and I was able to bounce ideas off of other Dungeon Masters. That was pure gold to me and I will forever be indebted to Eric of Ptolus, Ugulu, Thrommel, and the others who commented on my campaign log and gave great advice and suggestions.

I was also blessed at that time with a core group of gamers who had been playing D&D since 2nd Edition and were really familiar with the rules. This was a great boon to me because I was still learning lessons about balance and overdoing things. If you read my campaign log you will see what I mean. I got really carried away with factions in the Banewarrens and forgot to give the player characters some breaks outside of the dungeon with strong, trustworthy allies.

The Banewarrens is the campaign I'd most like to revisit but I don't think my current group is really up to it. So far they've only dabbled into 3.5 D&D and seem more enamored with 5E.

But I'm not giving up hope. I really want a do over with this campaign that will see it through to the exciting conclusion. Some day.

What Am I Doing?

     Whenever I sit down in front of my laptop to work on something D&D related my mind almost always wanders from its purpose and what I end up doing is seldom what I intended to do when I sat down. I get bored with the campaign I'm working on and other ideas pop into my head that I feel compelled to write down and expand upon.

     Over the years these ideas have mostly settled upon three settings that I've puttered in off and on but have never actually run yet. These three settings are: The Magewall Campaign, The Wending Road/River Ouroboros Campaign, and The Chains in Darkness Campaign. The first two named are wholly homebrew settings while The Chains in Darkness Campaign is set in The World of Greyhawk setting. Since I'll mostly be talking about these three settings I'll summarize them here.

     The Magewall Campaign's closest analog is The Forgotten Realms. Not the Forgotten Realms as they have been transformed over the years by TSR and WotC - I mean the Forgotten Realms as they appeared in the pages of Dragon Magazine. Those articles fired my imagination and I wanted to make something just like them. The Magewall Campaign mostly centers on the titular city of Magewall and also on the nearby vale of Dark Hollow (which is very much like Shadowdale).

     The Wending Road/River Ouroboros Campaign is my take on a Planescape-style setting, insofar that it is a multi-planar setting. But I wanted the planes to be more like the planes in Michael Moorcock's Elric books and less like Gary Gygax's Great Wheel setting. And the campaign focuses on the two major planar highways that meander through all of the Multiverse - The Wending Road and The River Ouroboros.

     The Chains in Darkness Campaign is set in the World of Greyhawk. More specifically, it centers on areas detailed in The Shackled City and Savage Tide Adventure Paths published in Dragon Magazine. And it tosses in a big heaping helping of elements of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

     If I ever figure out how to properly design this blog site then I'll categorize each entry according to its place in one of these settings.

Getting Started

     I've never been much for journaling but I thought it might be nice to have a place to blather about the different campaigns I'm working on but might never play. We'll see how it goes.

     I haven't bothered to tell anyone I'm doing this or posting about it on social media. For now it's just something I'm doing for myself.