Chapter two, Adventures and Campaigns, has three sections: Flavors of Fantasy, Adventures, and Campaigns. This is a short chapter, and I wanted more from it, so while it is more of an overview, it still lays out the general concepts and lets you five in from there. They couldn't have done this as in-depth as I would have liked since each topic could be a book in itself of information.
Flavors of Fantasy is the first, covering the significant subgenres of fantasy. It positions ToV as "fantasy," a middle-of-the-road genre, and keeps "high fantasy" as a different genre. It is nice to see dark fantasy mentioned here, and including this opens the door for ToV to be more than just a dragons and treasure game. The fact that the genre is in the book opens the game up to play the genre and empowers groups to change the game to meet their needs.
High and low fantasy are discussed, and limiting magic is a huge help. They mention that magic-using characters may not exist, which is a massive help to settings like Primeval Thule, which did not work under 2014 D&D because of "too much magic" in the system. People played it; the caster classes cast flight and zapped people with laser cantrips, and the fighters stood there with broken bone weapons.
Sword and sorcery are kept apart from low fantasy, which is also a fascinating choice. I would love to see guidelines on running the game this way or even an S&S guide with new subclasses for the genre.
The final types covered are portal fantasy, science fantasy, and weird fantasy. I like the discussion here since this "opens the door" to modding the game to play more than just the standard fantasy-setting assumptions. If low fantasy is mentioned as a viable option in the book, then the group is invited to limit magic in the game under that umbrella. Laser rifles appearing in the game are allowed if science fantasy is chosen. We can bring Conan-style tropes and mature themes if sword and sorcery is a supported genre. The door is opened for modding and discussion.
What is my dream for this section? A "how to" for making these happen within the game, including what spells and classes are appropriate for each, discussions on allowed types of magic, and the nuts-and-bolts details of making each genre work in the game. Granted, each one of these genres could be a "how to" book in itself, so my wants for this section are probably way too wide-eyed than what they had room for, and even a chapter a few dozen pages long would not feel adequate. For example, my dream science fantasy section would include technological artifacts, monsters, robots, and themes - which would be a better subject for an entire hardcover.
If you need more information, the Kobold Guide to Plots and Campaigns is a good resource and expands on all the information presented in this chapter. Some of the things discussed here feel like the missing parts of this chapter. There is a good chapter in this book about running evil campaigns, which is admittedly an advanced topic but worth adding to the information in this chapter as additional material and the "201" level of the subject study of Adventures and Campaigns.
The following section is on adventures, which covers tiers of play (thank you), running published adventures, and the elements of adventures. I like the tiers of the game since they remind me of D&D 4E, and they provide a good overview of how your game's "scope" naturally increases as your character gains power. This discussion also suggests advancement progression, and you could forego XP entirely and just use these guidelines as milestones.
The published adventures section is excellent, and reading it inspired me to change things up in published adventures, something early D&D modules often failed at terribly. Room three, 30 kobolds. Room four, 10 tougher kobolds, and 1500 silver pieces. Keep on the Borderlands is a classic adventure, but parts of that get too repetitive and lack story, conflict, plot, or meaning. Wizards, feed that module into AI, and you will get rooms with 50 kobolds created everywhere.
But it was fun back in the day!
The game and player expectations changed.
The chapter ends with campaigns, including advice on building your own and using published settings. The game also says you can modify campaigns, mix and match pieces, or mash two together. This is nice to see since many beginning GMs get intimidated regarding settings and don't feel they have the freedom to make a setting their own.
Don't laugh; the "that isn't in canon!" crowd exists to bully GMs into adhering to someone's preconceived notion of what the "perfect" state of a setting should be. If a town is in a fantasy novel, and the players visit that in the game, then it should live up to the exact ideal of that novel (which everyone should have read), and that one player gets disappointed since the setting isn't perfect and doesn't live up to their expectations. See also: playing in the 1990s Forgotten Realms setting.
The chapter ends with a sample "act structure" of a campaign, which is helpful when considering the larger narrative arc of metaplot. Of course, the players should be driving this and saying where things go, but in a larger sense of "the stakes rising," this is an excellent example of a story arc.
We get a paragraph at the end discussing character deaths, but I would have liked to have seen more discussion here on replacement characters that fit in with the story.
This is a chapter I wanted to see more about, but there are many subjects in which I am very interested. As a result, the chapter fell short for me, reflecting my interest in campaigns and these topics more than most. The Plots and Campaigns book fills in much of the information I wanted. For beginners, this is good information and a worthy chapter. For experts like myself, get the companion book, and that fills in the gaps. Given the size of this subject, this chapter does a good job of introducing the concepts.
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