TEXT: How To Set Up Your Dun-
  geons & Dragons Campaign
  Gygax: europa 6-8 April 1975
  Let us assume that you have shelled out the requisite number of dollars to
  purchase all of the materials necessary for a D&D campaign - rules, dice,
  reams of various kinds of paper, pencils, and so forth. Several persons have
  expressed a desire to play the game, so all you really need now is the game!
  That's right, folks. The referee of the campaign must structure the game so
  as to have something to play. He must decide upon these things:
  1. The overall setting of the campaign;
  2. The countryside of the immediate area;
  3. The location of the dungeon where most adventures will take place;
  4. The layout and composition of the nearest large town;
  5. Eventually the entire world - and possibly other worlds, times, dimen-
  sions, and so forth must be structured, mapped and added.
  This might seem to be too large a task, but it isn't really if you and your
  players are enjoying the game (and it is odds-on you will!). Furthermore,
  not all ﬁve things need not to be done before play commences, In fact, most
  of the ﬁne referees I know of work continually on their campaign, adding,
  changing, and expanding various parts continually. A thorough discussion
  of each of the ﬁve areas of campaign play is necessary before considering
  how to go about involving players in the affair.
  Step 1 is something you do in your head. Now fantasy/swords & sor-
  cery games need not have any ﬁxed basis for the assumptions made by its
  referee (my own doesn't) except those which embrace the whole of fantasy.
  This sort of campaign can mix any and all of the various bases which will
  be mentioned below - and then some. Regardless for what setting you opt,
  keep it secret from your players, or else they can study your sources and
  become immediately too knowledgeable, thus removing the charm of uncer-
  tainty. Settings based upon the limits (if one can speak of fantasy limits) can
  be very interesting in themselves providing the scope of the setting will allow
  the players relative free-reign to their imaginations. Typical settings are: Teu-
  tonic/Norse Mythology; Medieval European Folklore (including King Arthur,
  Holger the Dane, and so on); The "Hyborean Age" created by R E Howard;
  
  Fritz Leiber's "Nehwon" with Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser; Indian Mythol-
  ogy; and Lost Continents such as Atlantis or Mu. Regardless of the setting
  you can have it all taking place on an 'alternative earth' or a parallel world.
  In this way minor variations can easily be explained/justiﬁed. When the set-
  ting is decided upon some good books dealing with it should always be kept
  handy. The time has come to begin working on the campaign.
  Step 2 requires sitting down with a large piece of hex ruled paper and
  drawing a large scale map. A map with a scale of 1 hex = 1 mile (or 2
  kilometers for those of you who go in for recent faddish modes of measure)
  (yes, I often use rods, chains, furlongs, and leagues too!) will allow you to
  use your imagination to devise some interesting terrain and places, and it
  will be about right for player operations such as exploring, camping, adven-
  turing, and eventually building their strongholds, Even such small things as
  a witch's hut and side entrances to the dungeon can be shown on the map.
  The central features of the map must be the major town and the dungeon
  entrance.
  Step 3 involves the decision aspect already mentioned and the actual
  work of sitting down and drawing dungeon levels. This is very difﬁcult and
  time consuming. Each level should have a central theme and some distin-
  guishing feature, i.e. a level with large open areas swarming with goblins,
  one where the basic pattern of corridors seems to repeat endlessly, one in-
  habited by nothing but ﬁre-dwelling or ﬁre-using monsters, etc.
  As each level is ﬁnished the various means of getting to lower levels must
  be keyed and noted on the appropriate lower levels, so that if a room sinks
  four levels it will then be necessary to immediately show it on 4 sheets of
  graph paper numbered so as to indicate successively lower levels. A careful
  plan Of what monsters and treasures will be found where on each level is
  also most necessary, and it can take as long to prepare as the level itself,
  for you may wish to include something unusual (a treasure, monster, and/or
  trick or trap not shown in D&D) on each level.
  Before the rules for D&D were published Old Greyhawk Castle was 13
  levels deep. The ﬁrst level was a simple maze of rooms and corridors, for
  none of the participants had ever played such a game before. The second
  level had two unusual items, a Nixie pool and a fountain of snakes. The third
  featured a torture chamber and many small cells and prison rooms. The forth
  was a level of crypts and undead. The ﬁfth was centered around a strange
  font of black ﬁre and gargoyles. The sixth was a repeating maze with dozens
  of wild hogs (3 dice) in inconvenient spots, naturally backed up by appro-
  priate numbers of Wereboars. The seventh was centered around a circular
  labyrinth and a street of masses of ogres. The eighth through tenth levels
  were Caves and caverns featuring Trolls, giant insects, and a transporter
  
  nexus with an evil Wizard (with a number of tough associates) guarding it.
  The eleventh level was the home of the most powerful wizard in the castle. He
  had Balrogs as servants. The remainder of the level was populated by Mar-
  tian White Apes, except the sub-passage system underneath the corridors
  which was full of poisonous critters with no treasure. Level twelve was ﬁlled
  with Dragons. The bottom level, number thirteen, contained an inescapable
  slide which took the players 'clear through to China', from whence they had
  to return via 'Outdoor Adventure', It was quite possible to journey downward
  to the bottom level by an insidious series of slanting passages which began
  on the second level, but the likelihood of following such a route unknowingly
  didn't become too great until the seventh or eighth level. Of the dozen or so
  who played on a fairly regular basis, four made the lowest level and took
  the trip: Rob Kuntz, now a co-referee in the campaign went alone and three
  of his friends managed to trace part of his route and blunder along the rest,
  so they followed him quickly to the Land of China. Side levels included a
  barracks with Orcs, Hob-goblins, and Gnolls continually warring with each
  other, a museum, a huge arena, an underground lake, a Giant's home, and
  a garden of fungi.
  Step 4 should be handled concurrently with designing the ﬁrst three or
  four dungeon levels. Here your players will ﬁnd lodgings, buy equipment,
  hire mercenaries, seek magical and clerical aid, drink, gamble and wench.
  The town would do well to resemble some of those, in Howard's "Conan"
  series or Leiber's city of "Lankhmar". Strange towers, a thieves quarter, and
  temples of horrible deities add greater ﬂavor to play. The 'Thieves Guild',
  a society of evil clerics, a brotherhood of lawful men, and so on bring a bit
  more interest also. If a few warring nobles from the surrounding territory
  also send large parties of men into the place occasionally some interesting
  brawls can occur.
  Honest and dishonest merchants should be indicated.
  Taverns which drug patrons should likewise be indicated, and so on. In any
  event be sure and leave room for additional things and expansion.
  Step 5 is as noted something that you won't immediately have to worry
  about; but it is a good idea to have a general plan in mind immediately.
  The general geography of the 'world' should be sketch-ed out. If you plan to
  make it possible to visit other worlds, times or places the general outline of
  all such areas should also be sketched out. For example, you might wish to
  have the Moon an inhabitable (and inhabited) place which can he traveled
  to by means of a Flying Carpet. A description of this lunar world should be
  located somewhere as well as a means of getting there, but only after you
  have something solid in the way of maps and the like.
  Having accomplished those parts of the ﬁve steps which are immediately
  necessary (probably taking a week or so), you are ready to begin to play.
  
  Let us further assume that there are four prospects. These players should
  begin together and for a time at least operate as a team if possible. Each
  in turn rolls three dice to record the various scores for the makeup of the
  character they are to play and how large an initial bankroll the character
  begin with. This accomplished, players decide what class of character they
  wish to play, the type (human, elf, etc), and the alignment of the character
  (the latter can be secretly told the referee, with an announced alignment
  being false). At this stage each player locates his base in some inn or the
  like, and then they can set forth to explore the town and purchase their
  adventuring equipment. Those that are careful and/or lucky might also be
  able to hire a few men-at-arms to accompany them. The latter is particularly
  true if players pool their funds. In a short time the ﬁrst dungeon expedition
  can be made, but that is the subject of Part III of this series, so we will return
  to it again later.
  There is one further subject to be dealt with here, and that is selection
  of character type. It is pretty obvious that high base scores in the areas of
  strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Dexterity indicate that becoming a Fighter,
  Magic-User, Cleric or Thief (see the upcoming D&D Supplement "Grayhawk"
  to be released sometime before the summer of this year). But what about
  those players who roll just average (or worse) totals? They are the ones
  who should take advantage of the non-human types, for these have built-in
  abilities despite the general handicap of being unable to work up as high as
  humans. If the character is poor anyway, will he ever be worked up very
  high? Possibly, but the odds are against it as a human, but as an Elf, Dwarf,
  Hobbit, Half-Elf or even some other creature some interesting possibilities
  exist. It is up to the referee to help his players in this area by pointing out the
  advantages and disadvantages of each type. What do you do if a player
  opts to become a Golden Dragon? Agree, of course. Allow the player to
  adventure only with strictly Lawful players, and normal men-at-arms would
  never go near even a good dragon. He would be Very Young, size being
  determined by the die roll. Advancement in ability would be a function of
  game time (the dragon would normally take about four years to grow to
  its next level) and accumulated treasure - let us say that for every 100 000
  pieces of gold (or its equivalent) the dragon in effect gains an extra year
  of growth, counting magical items which go into the horde as fairly high
  in gold value. While the player will be quite advanced at ﬁrst, those who
  are playing more usual roles will surpass him rather quickly, and in this way
  you'll not ﬁnd a G.D. dominating.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Old School Revival (OSR(ic))/[Adventure Design & Dungeoncraft]/Gary Gygax/How to Setup Your D&D Campaign; Gygax.pdf