Gazateer?

[xstanek]

Is there something equivalent to the old "Gazateer of the Known Realms" for the new modules with the DCCRPG rule set? I'd love to launch an ongoing DCC game with my group, but I really don't want to have to generate a map that helps to place and link various modules together. I'd love a "backdrop" setting for several modules. You know, the little villages, the terrain the party travels through to get from place to place, etc.

Thanks in advance!

Xuan

[finarvyn]

No, but I've often wished for one. The problem is that many of the Appendix N inspiration sources (what focused the design of DCC RPG) were short stories, most of which (Conan, Elric, Fafhrd & Mouser, etc.) were written to be read in any order. Often folks other than the original authors put together a timeline after the fact, or sometimes the author himself did so but much later. The modules for the DCC RPG were pretty much put together in that way, where they are independent events which could happen at any time or any place, so there are no campaign timelines and no world map.

Having said all of that, I agree that such a Gazeteer would be a neat thing to have. I would like a larger world view with large plot-arcs so that folks might move sequentially from one to another. I'm just not sure that the DCC RPG modules are set up to do this.

[GnomeBoy]

I think the default idea is you have your world, whether published world or home-brew, and you plug in the published adventures where you see fit.

More flexibility that way.

[finarvyn]

I think the default idea is you have your world, whether published world or home-brew, and you plug in the published adventures where you see fit.

More flexibility that way.

I agree, and that's how I have been using them, but it would be kind of cool to have a big-picture plot arc occasionally. Either by linking some of the modules or by creating a general world around some modules.

[GnomeBoy]

I agree, and that's how I have been using them, but it would be kind of cool to have a big-picture plot arc occasionally. Either by linking some of the modules or by creating a general world around some modules.

Well... There are multiple adventures that are set in Punjar, which hews to your "general world around some modules" idea, for example. Not to mention the Chained Coffin and Purple Planet boxed sets, which are more explicit in that regard. And Lankhmar is coming...!

As for a "plot arc", that runs the risk of turning off more people than it pleases, by the nature of the specific events ("I don't want a 'save the world' scenario!" / "I want a 'save the world' scenario!")... best left to a GM's own devices to enhance what's published as they see fit.