Well, you probably know my kind of game pretty well by now, but i thought i'd comment anyway.
Thinking about it, i think there are two main "families" of campaigns. Directional or open-ended. With "open-ended" i mean those campaigns that don't have a single driving goal. In open-ended campaigns much more attention has to be paid to individual episodes, which puts a larger strain on me as a narrator. With directional campaigns i have a limited and clear set of episodic elements, which for me at least makes it a lot easier to improvise permutations and tie-ins. Usually i don't even have to be original myself, since my players kindly provide me with stunning and outrageous plans and ideas to get closer to their goal.
The campaign has, at the basic level, three design parametres: a) They strive to dethrone Harvar, b) they are seriously outclassed, resource-wise, and c) there are a lot of political faultlines in Far Point. These generate lots of episode seeds, and, being blessed with creative players i get a lot of good stories for pretty little effort.
An example: my campaign aims at liberating Far Point from Harvar Ironfist.
Recently, the PCs decided they needed a good defensive platform from which
to organise the resistance/ rebellion, so now they have discovered and
heroquested the long-dead, long-forgotten Three Kings of Last Light back
into existence. Since nobody (including the PCs) knows much about the
Three Kings, and their allies are iffy about rallying under a banner that
may have un-heortling, non-orlanthi, or even anti-storm nature, they now
have to "prove" that the Three Kings have heortling heritage and are part
of the storm tribe. They are in a bit of a hurry as well, since they know
Harvar is out to get them and he is no longer underestimating them, wise
from experience.
>
>
>* "Farmer campaign", where day-to-day life of the community
> is the main focus of play. You need to know a lot about
> economics and social structure for this.
Actually, i don't think so. IMO, the key to success in a farmer campaign is to make the players feel like they are an integrated part of their local world/community, doing "real" things. As long as you as a narrator can justify your weird antics post-hoc, i don't think you need to be an expert on the economics and social structure.
>Every time I have
> tried to include daily life in a campaign I have bored
> the players to within an inch of death, so I also assume
> it requires a far better GM than I am...
IMO, daily-life-instances should present something interesting or challenging, or at least put a twist on the characters' actions. If daily life doesn't add something interesting or challenging it should be ignored. Realism for its own sake *is*, IMO, boring, campaign-wise.
But then again, i don't think i run a farmer campaign...
>
>
>* Intrigue and politics, dealing with movers and shakers.
> Here you need a firm grasp of the people running the
> show, and their relations. You also need a very detailed
> timeline, including how it will change with the antics
> of the player heroes.
[I think of my campaign as pretty political in nature and scope, but Nils may have a differing opinion...]
I think you are overstating the need to know the details intimately. I strive to contextualize the characters and put their actions and the consequences into a wider whole, where NPC:s and factions have their own agendas. You don't need to detail the agendas or possible reactions of various factions beforehand, but you do need to make them believable and motivated as events unfold. I hope i'm pulling it off...
Re: detailed timeline, i'd say that it's enough to have some idea of possible future trajectories or particular events. Players' actions *will* mess your planning up and you may well change your conception of what the NPC:s are trying to do, so i don't bother overly much with planning and detailing.
>This can also be quite hard to
> run, especially if you have a spy/detective/mystery
> theme, as the clues the GM thinks are obvious when she
> drops them rarely are so to the players, who instead
> happily hear clues in casual remarks.
I abandoned mystery plots long ago, since i noticed that players rarely, if ever, understood what was going on. Of course, my plots probably were far too convoluted anyway...
Nowadays i use very simple and obvious motivations, problems and conflicts, since the permutations of those can provide all the necessary tensions anyway. IME, the main drama and suspense comes from partaking in the complications and interesting situations that pile up as a consequence of PC actions and choices.
This is also what i think is the most necessary resource for farmer and
political campaigns: giving NPCs, factions and the rest of the world
motivations and agendas of their own, as well as giving the PCs a goal to
strive after. The PCs know what they are striving for, and the fun comes
from getting there and what they experience and learn "on the road". IME,
if i can make the players feel that the PCs partake in a world that exists
independent of them and their ambitions, then i usually have a successful
campaign.
>
>
>* Swashbuckling adventure, requires mainly lots of ideas
> for interesting places and people. This is the only kind
> of game I have ever had any kind of success in running.
I'm no good at narrating the Errol Flynn thing and i never have
swashbuckling as the main theme, but as long as PC:s get to do some
outrageous stunts now and then, they seem satisfied.
>
>
>* Wargaming, the combat oriented campaign.
>
>* ??? More?
I don't think these types are mutually exclusive. Quite a lot of fun comes from contrasting elements of these various types in a campaign. Including instances of daily life in a swashbuckling adventure creates depth. Including wargaming and battles in a political campaign gives the intrigues concrete (and bloody) consequences.
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