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The original cover art is an excellent piece of some rather foppish travelers in a swampland which was charmingly concluded by some orcs in a similar-looking spot with a face-prone venturer with a crossbow bolt in their back. In latter editions the artistic (and binding) comments on Character Law apply. The second style of printings come with the unfortunate scheme of small black (thankfully serif) text on a grey background.
There are essentially two parts to Campaign Law; (a) how to build a game world (b) and how to run a campaign. The organisation of the text begins with an outline/checklist, setting up the cosmological and physical structure, flora and fauna, sentient beings and culture, starting a campaign, handling play, campaign development, and ending a campaign. The style of Campaign Law is pretty dry but it doesn't waste words either. Nevertheless, the content is directed to the "dull medium" and the highly factual with the sections on religion, for example, being particularly unevocactive. Magic which one could be forgiven as thinking as fairly important in a fantasy RPG world, is barely mentioned.
The cosmological comments are a mere few paragraphs and a rather obvious. However the lengthier sections on the physical development of the world are excellent. Campaign Law states quite explicitly and clearly where mountains occur, why they occur and what sort of geographical features are likely; where rivers and lakes occur, what they have in them and how the seas affect temperature, how currents react to winds and so forth; how temperature curves change according to climate and what sort of variations (wind patterns, coastal forces etc) can occur. Later in the text a couple of pages is dedicated to random geographical generation which seems to largely correlate with the principles established.
With the single annoying feature of the temperate precipitation section of a chart not correlating at all with the equivalent temperature chart, these few pages are a rich source of solid information on the basic principles of geography and climatology. It is a personal peeve of mine to read fantasy novels (let alone gameworlds) where the authors haven't bothered to ensure that their mountain ranges are placed somewhere sensible or to ensure their rivers actually flow down hill. On this basis alone Campaign Law should be required reading.
The section on flora and fauna is likewise a solid piece of information. Basic vegetation types are noted along with their differences according to climate. For storyline purposes, exotic plants (rare, healing, dangerous etc) to "add adventure" are recommended. The fauna section describes what wild beasts live where, what sort of population can be expected, and the possibility of domestication. An thoroughly reasonable animal distribution chart cross-references terrain and mean precipitation with regional temperature. A very brief mention is made of monsters (to paraphrase 'enchanted beasts without cultural organisation') before moving on to the sentient beings and culture.
Campaign Law recommends that sentient beings are considered last because, due to their social organisation and intelligence, they are the top of the food chain and have the greatest freedom of choice; one wonders then why the Gods were placed first. This aside, the initial discussion concerns body shape and colouration and their relationship to geographical regions and population movements. This moves on to cultural descriptions themselves, starting with the sensible emphasis on physical resources and subsistence patterns, before moving on to kinship, language, religion history and symbolism, and technology (largely using the three age system, class specialisation and military system. Again all these features are sensible and quite detailed.
The second part of Campaign Law concerns with the actual operations for a setting; as it correctly states: "when the GM starts a campaign he puts the world in motion". From noting likely sources of conflict (everything from the Gods to unique individuals), the flow of events shifts its focus to the "Core Area", being where the PCs make their initial impressions. Heavy interaction between GM and players during character generation and the opening scenario is recommended (as it sets the tone of the campaign).
A key noted theme in Campaign Law is to "Avoid a Sense of Contrivance", which means detailing high priority areas and likely avenues of travel, and using this detail to assist in surprise situations. The principle is further applied to the section of campaign dynamics which, after making the well-known distinction between game-time and real-time, applies this to the three levels of game activity; "world activity" (the big events outside the PCs immediate ability to affect environment), "strategic activity" and "tactical activity". Strategic activity is largely the "daily routine" of travel, camping, information gathering and recuperation, whilst "tactical activity" is the largely real-time decision making and direct conflicts. To supplement the strategic activity an encounter table based on avoidance and activity is provided. The last section briefly distinguishes the differences in ending a "free-flowing" or "quest-orientated" campaign.
I've have on occasion met Rolemaster GMs who have mentioned that they've never used, let alone even read Campaign Law. In a sense this is understandable because the entire product virtually has nothing to do with the Rolemaster game system and none of it is required as such for said game. However, in my opinion it is a terrible shame, as it is perhaps the best roleplaying supplement on the market to provide a extremely good grounding on designing a gameworld which doesn't offend verisimilitude, and for putting - and keeping - a campaign world in motion. This said, it is stronger on the world-design rather than the campaign-momentum section and there is no significant information at all for player-GM interaction, narrative development or practical advice for actual play (the gaming environment, troublesome players etc). Nevertheless, at a mere 24pages - this is an excellent aid of those who want gameworld and campaigns that simply make sense.
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