Very useful if you want some tools for better organization. I'm getting some good use out of this, at least when I remember to.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: the cards are well designed and not bigger than they need to be. Many have a few sizes and I appreciate that.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: If you don't need it, then it isn't useful. That makes sense.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

The Campaign Planner is 35 pages long with a color cover and black and white interior. Two versions of the PDF are included, one designed just for printing and a forms version that can by typed in before printing. There are a total of 32 forms included (unless you count a lined page titled ?Notes? as a form).

The Planner is designed to help the DM organize his campaign and keep various details easily at hand. Some forms are primarily designed for use when setting up the campaign and others are designed primarily for use during the campaign. For instance, the ?House Rules? form will probably be filled out before the campaign begins (but could obviously be added to during the campaign as needed), while the ?Rumors Fed to Players? form will most likely be used primarily during the campaign.

In my opinion, some forms are not especially useful to me. For instance, the ?Custom Random Encounter Table? is essentially a set of numbered lines. However, I will probably get good use out of others like the ?Major City ? Information and Map? and ?Kingdom/Country? forms. All in all, I found most of the forms useful and the few duds were easy to ignore. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I like the Campaign Planner because I am a lazy, disorganized DM and anything that I can get my hands on to make life easier and give my players the impression that I am a little more on the ball is welcome. The inclusion of the forms version will be especially nice for those that do a lot of pre-campaign planning. I do wish that there had been fewer forms that I considered throwaways, but others may find them useful, I suppose. In any cause, the Planner should be a useful tool for almost any campaign.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: It is a useful organizational tool that should fit almost any d20 fantasy campaign.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A few forms were throwaways and little more useful than a sheet of lined paper.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

If you are at all familiar with PDF gaming products, then the name Philip Reed will be well known. Reed is well known for producing smaller products that deliver a lot of bang for the buck. Campaign Planner is no exception to this formula. Campaign Planner is not the kind of RPG product the market is used to. There are no prestige classes, no new spells or magic items. Instead, Campaign planner is a DM?s workbook, full of ready-to-use forms that will assist even the least experienced gamer tighten up a campaign design. The full Campaign Planner package is composed to two nearly identical PDF files. The first is a collection of ready to print blank design forms, while the second is those same forms modified to be typed directly into on your PC. If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat you can save all your typed data directly to disk, but even with nothing more than the free Acrobat Reader you can print your typed data without saving it. Campaign Planner opens with a color cover by Alberto Moreno - a brooding archway over a fantasy door. It?s a moody evocative piece, which is good, since it?s the only artwork in this brief PDF file. But that?s not a criticism. I would be hard pressed to figure out another place to put artwork in this product. Don?t buy CP expecting it to be a great read, or a full of eye candy. This is a working product, designed to be used, not just another book to thumb through for pretty pictures or some light reading. The next 33 pages are a collection of forms an aspiring campaign builder can use to flesh out his game in as much detail as could be desired. These pages are adequately bookmarked, and it?s easy to find exactly the section you are looking for. These pages are presented in workbook style ? blank forms waiting or a designer to fill them out and flesh out a campaign world. These forms cover nearly every basic aspect of fantasy campaign design. There are pages for detailing what classes and races are used in the campaign, as well as any modifications being made to the standard core rules. There are sections to detail important NPC?s, locations, a calendar, events and holidays. Each page offers several leading headers, and plenty of room to add in your own custom details. The pages are divided up well, and since they contain no artwork, it is a simple matter to print out as many or as few pages as needed for your campaign. The one issue I have with any of the forms really only applies to the location forms. These forms contain a section of graph paper for drawing a map. I feel that these areas might be a little small to accommodate some of the areas. The town and dungeon map sections in particular would probably be better handled by just drawing a map on a separate page. Additionally, these same graphed areas are present in the digitally editable version of Campaign Planner. It might have been better to leave room to digitally insert a computer generated map or picture file right into the PDF. These complaints are really just a matter of preference though, and do not in any way diminish the general usefulness of Campaign Planner. If you are the type of gamer who relishes fleshing out very detailed worlds, or you have always wanted to design your own campaign world, but never knew where to start, then Campaign Planner will be a great help to you. This is doubly so if you have the full version of Acrobat, and will be able to digitally edit your files. If you favor a more seat-of-the-pants, ?winging it? style of campaign, this product will be less useful. Additionally, it?s only fair to point out that Campaign Planner was released in 2003, and has since been followed by Campaign Planner 2, 3, and a Deluxe version that combined several CP?s into one. Combining the original with these later refinements would undoubtedly add value to each of them. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Super versatile. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of campaign development, I can't imagine a better product.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I'd have prefered an option to digitally edit and save the files, but that is clearly just my personal preference.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

I bought this one before campaign planner 2 and I found that I use both!!!

Good planner I wish I had it 10 years ago.

Thanks.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Most of the forms in this product are very simplistic and do not provide much help in organizing information. The most glaring example is the last form that is just an empty page with the word "notes" as a header. The forms for NPC do not leave enough room for vital information for even relatively simple characters.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

Excellent product! Very clearly organized and covers everything I could ever need recorded. It even covers details I had not thought to keep track of.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is a handy tool! Makes me mad that it didn't come out years and years ago...for every game system. Worth it. Easily.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

For all the DMs that answer "mhhh..." to the players question: Can we go back to that town we were in a while ago, I want to ...". So handy !

This was one of those products that I had very high hopes for because all too often I am not all that well prepared for the games that I run. Unfortunately, for me this product didn't offer the type of solutions that I was looking for. It was lacking in detail...and for me detail is 90%.

Very, very kewl and useful. I really like the book list page, and telling my rules lawyer to stuff it cuz his books aren't on it! ;)

Have found this product very useful in fleshing out my home campaign. It made me think about aspects that I hadn't before, and gave me a organized format in which to keep it all. The PDF forms have made it neat as well as organized. A must-have product!

Excellent tool! Just the sort of DM tool I've been looking for. I might have done something like it by myself, but I got it all nicely wrapped up, in a nice PDF, and I didn't have to put in all the hours making it. Definitely a "must-have" for a DM without a lot of spare time, IMHO.

Products like this are necessary for every DM. The more organized you can have things, the smoother everything will go.

This is a great product - I have been keeping my campaign notes in an assortment of places, but recently decided to return to the old "pen'n'paper" method. Printed these out, and they really helped me organize my thoughts and create order out of chaos.

This is a good product, particularly if you are going to run your own homebrew campaign, or something with a number of changes from the core rules. Even if you aren't going to use every last piece of it, printing it modularly is a snap as well.