I have mixed feelings about campaign settings. On one hand -- speaking as designer -- it's fun, challenging, and rewarding to create a whole world that's all your own. Also, I can see the point of view of those who don't want to create their own world because they don't have the time or the inclination: They would really like a pre-made setting. On the other hand, I think there's a real danger in a company producing a whole world with a level of completeness and detail that leaves nothing for the DM to do. An even worse danger arises when that company releases a product that changes things or details something that the DM has already set up in his campaign.

So my goal from the outset when working on The Diamond Throne was to create a very different kind of campaign setting product. It's not really like the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, which I still think is a great book. For one thing, The Diamond Throne is only 96 pages. It isn't nearly as detailed as something like the Realms. It's a different kind of book.

I approached the product with the idea of answering the question, "What's it like to live there?" as opposed to answering the question, "What's the name of the shopkeeper in the third shop on the right?" I wanted to give DMs the tools to create their own Diamond Throne campaigns. Since Arcana Unearthed was so new, I wanted to provide a product that would be useful to practically all Arcana Unearthed DMs, not just those who wanted me to dictate my campaign to them.

That means that it's more like the original World of Greyhawk Gazetteer, for you old fogies like me who can remember that product (published in 1980).

So what I did was take a lot of space to detail the outlook of the people of the world: the regional differences as well as the racial differences regarding people's outlook and overall nature. I spent some time on their customs, religion, the calendar, the history, the ceremonies, games, festivals, colloquialisms, and so on. Only after all of that did I get into the actual geography and descriptions of places and specific individuals. A major city only gets a paragraph or two -- the assumption is that DMs can fill in the details as needed.

To help you fill in those details, however, I included a lengthy discussion of the kinds of things you'd find in a city in this setting -- the types of occupations, guilds, and whatnot. Again, rather than provide all the details of each individual city, the book gives you the tools to populate the city with the flavor of the setting on your own.

It's kind of like the old proverb, "Give someone a fish, and he eats that day. Teach someone to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." It's a cliché, but it was my goal for The Diamond Throne to show people what they needed to set up their Arcana Unearthed campaigns without a lot of directed detail.

We will (and our publishing partners will) put out Diamond Throne adventures and sourcebooks, but they will attempt to follow this philosophy. We won't have story arcs or world-disrupting sourcebooks in which we force you to change your campaign. Further, any follow-up book will add to and build upon the setting -- it won't change what's already established. If there's a plot hook left dangling in The Diamond Throne campaign setting (and there are a great many), it's for you to build on, not us. You can feel free to use them without fear of some product coming along later to contradict it all.

 

DESIGN DIARY PAST ENTRIES

* Weapons and Armor -- August 7, 2003
"I absolutely love the introduction of exotic weapons into D&D. It's one of my favorite things about 3rd Edition. In Arcana Unearthed, I wanted to make sure that the exotic weapons were worth the feat required to use them...."

* Greenbond Notes -- July 17, 2003
"Last week's preview of the greenbond class gives a nice glimpse of a lot of Arcana Unearthed issues. First off, the greenbond is no druid...."

* Spell Templates -- June 26, 2003
"This week I thought I'd discuss an idea that I'm really very happy with. The idea is spell templates..."

* Playtesting -- June 12, 2003
"Playtesting is extremely important to me. When we developed 3rd Edition, we did more playtesting than perhaps any other RPG product, ever...."

* High Magic -- May 29, 2003
"I referred to the Diamond Throne as a high-magic setting. I should clarify..."

* The Diamond Throne -- May 23, 2003
"So it's about time I start talking about the Diamond Throne. The Diamond Throne is a campaign setting for Arcana Unearthed -- the default setting, like Greyhawk for D&D, I suppose...."

* Death's Door -- May 8 , 2003
" I like the D&D death's door rules. I like that at 0 hp, you're still up and can take a limited action, but then you exhaust yourself...."

* Hero Points -- May 1, 2003
"A roleplaying campaign can be like putting up wallpaper...."

* Truenames -- April 18, 2003
"Truenames are common in many fantasy settings. I think I first became aware of the concept in Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy..."

* Go, Go, Go! -- April 10, 2003
"Short entry this time. I hate spells with 1 minute/level durations...."

* Ceremony -- April 3, 2003
"I think I've already mentioned that one of the goals I set for myself with Arcana Unearthed was to make things a little less generic...."

* Things That Rules Take Away -- March 21, 2003
"There are aspects of fantasy roleplaying that rules, inadvertently, can actually take away...."

* Still Talking Classes -- March 13, 2003
"I've saved some of the best classes for last. Let's talk about the runethane, the mage blade, and the witch...."

* More Classes -- February 27, 2003
"This time, I want to tell you about some of the other classes: akashics, magisters, and greenbonds...."

* Build a Better Fighter -- February 23, 2003
"The title this week is facetious. It really should be 'build a different fighter'...."

* The Magic Balancing Act -- February 13, 2003
"In Arcana Unearthed I'm introducing a new method of magic item pricing. First, I streamlined the item creation feats..."

* More Magic -- January 23, 2003
"This week, I thought I'd talk more about the new magic system in Arcana Unearthed."

* Magic -- January 17, 2003
"As a designer, magic in Arcana Unearthed posed a huge challenge. I knew that I wanted to ditch the Vancian system...."

* Design Decisions, Part Two -- December 24, 2002
"Here's a bit more discussion of some of the general issues I faced as I began designing Arcana Unearthed...."

* Design Decisions, Part One -- December 19, 2002
"Before jumping into another big area of Arcana Unearthed's design, like classes or the magic system, I thought I'd discuss some of the general issues I faced as a designer starting the book...."

* Arcana Unearthed Races -- December 5, 2002
"I started with the races. While I knew that the game needed humans as a basis, I wanted all the other races to be new. I didn't want to just create dwarf and elf analogs with different names...."