The Campaign Creator

So you have all of your rulebooks, your players lined up, and a sweet idea for an tabletop RPG adventure. Now for the hard part: writing it.

Now there are many different ways to go about writing your campaign, but there aren't a lot of tools out there to actually help you write it. Sure you can find of things to help you design a dungeon, or even a tile based setting to guide your characters through every 5 feet of adventure, but there is nothing to just help you write and organize your fantasy world, from top to bottom

So a few months ago JADE teamed up with gbgsoft to create a software suite capable of handling the unique needs of creating an RPG campaign that a note pad simply can't handle.

Campaign Creator

To get started we analysed how we at JADE Gaming create our own campaigns. At JADE we like to think of our RPG games as modules in and of themselves, complete with chapters, different maps, locations, and varying levels of world detail. After talking it over with the guys I also discovered that we all built our campaigns in roughly the same way. We would create a list of locations, and sub-locations and add our notes for the area under each heading.

This would create a sort of "Literary Map" of each area in game. However, most of us also took the time draw out maps of many, if not all, of the locations that our players could visit.

Now, I understand the argument that GM's spend way too much time on maps. And frankly there is some truth to that, but I always find that they helped me run a game. Having a map means I can worry about story and motivation and less about where my players are going to end up when they go off the beaten path.

The problem with using maps is that it is difficult to effectively combined them with your notes in a meaningful way,. That is, beyond creating a legend and what is essentially a giant look-up table, which of course means a lot of flipping back and forth while hosting the game.

Taking all of these ideas we created the Campaign Creator, an open system that will let a GM manage their campaign worlds in as much detail as possible.

Above we have the beta version of Campaign Creator. This is the title screen where you can create and edit your various campaigns. From you here can also Import and Export other campaigns, so you can share them with your friends. Right now I've selected JADE's Impossible Campaign. Every campaign you create gets a Top map and an optional Cover Image. Here we are displaying The Impossible Campaign's Cover Image which contains the Ptolemaic Sphere of Rin.

The top map for your campaign should always be the largest setting. In the case of the Impossible Campaign my largest setting is the world of Rin so that is my top map. Now it doesn't matter what image you use or how good it looks, so long as the image is meaningful to the layout of your campaign. The only thing you need to add a is an image file.

Once your top map is in place, you can start writing. Every map can be labelled by right clicking and creating a new object. Each object adds a numbered icon to the map, and an entry in the table of contents. This way you can keep track of each of your locations.

Further you can double click on any entry in your table of contents to open up note pad associated with that area. This note pad has full text editing, and even the ability to paste images, to help you keep track of what is happening where.

Buttons!

For those notes that don't quite fit in a location, each map also has these three general buttons which are from left to right; Notes, Monster and Characters.  In here you can store you introductory pre-amble, the notes for the monsters you created and any information that the players need to know to be a character in your game.

When you have finished writing everything at that level, you can then right click on your map list on the left hand side and add a sub-map to any map. A Sub-Map can be anything from an interior to a zoom in. In the case of the Impossible Campaign my first sup map is the Country of South Ateland which borders the nefarious Black Mountains.

More Buttons

One of the ultimate goals of campaign creator is be bale to connect with the phone app RPG player which is currently in development. by selected the World button you are able to add in triggers. Triggers are files that you can send to the RPG player program, and can be anything from images to video. The Button with a mini Ptolmeiac sphere of Rin, activates game mode, which will let you invite players using RPG player, giving you a HUD of their stats, as well as tools to help smooth out your combat.

Right now we are ready start seeing what the gaming community thinks. We need Beta Testers to start setting up their campaigns in Campaign Creator and help us find bugs!

We currently support Windows, Mac and Linux! Which are available here:

https://jade-gaming.myshopify.com/

If you are interested in becoming a Beta tester for Campaign Creator please send me an email at jadegamingnews@gmail.com and I will let give you the info you need to get started!

Written by: Andrew Gregory