Couple things you can do. If you just wanna play a game I'd say run a couple of one-shots and see what sticks. Not to shill DNDB stuff but Candlekeep does a good job of providing a lot of varied modules to try out. See what style your players enjoy playing the most and use that experience to shape your own world.
Alternatively, talk to your players about what kind of movies they watch and what kind of books they read and use that for inspiration on making your world. Personally I find the Tolkein-way of world building (ie - everything has to be built, then I can write the story) doesn't work for me and rarely do my players care about the nuances of different regional political systems or little gimmicks that make the world unique (ex: Perdido Street Station).
I prefer having my players give me little story details about their characters then I like to write something that blends all these together. I have a warforged in a world where most other warforged aren't sentient, I have a druid who's tribe was slain by goblins and hags and he lost his daughter (or did he?!?)...those kinds of small details can turn into really fun and engaging adventure paths where the players get to be involved in their own story and others.
I wrote this in a thread a few months back, I really like the outcome:
Here's what I've started doing. I actually focus group. There's a couple of websites/tool that do this, but I use the (free) polling tools at mentimeter to construct a word cloud. Basically every player in my group is given ten slots for the word cloud. I go through the MM and pre-list all the monster types that I think "that'd be cool to run" and use that as the start of my Monster List. I then do a setting list where I give environments in broad strokes "Cities, Forrests, Jungles, Arctic, etc" as well as a few specific locations we may have played in or they've heard about in the campaign. Third, I list NPCs I thought were significant as well as McGuffins the party is aware (for instance they have this ersatz eye that if looked at long enough you realize you're sort of looking at an almost snow globe scale rendering a stars cape) and list those. Lastly I use types of play we could: heists, war, diplomacy, exploration, etc. As we wind down the arc, we have a group debrief where the players mention monsters, settings, NPCs/McGuffins they may like to see and if they're not on the lists already, they're added. Each member can pick ten terms total from the three lists (someone really into monsters may pick all ten from that, folks intersted I travel may just choose exploration and settings entries). Each player then enters their list onto the mentimeter and the tool turns the input into a word cloud. The most popular terms get centered and bolded. Minor terms get put to the sides of the cloud in fainter fonts. It's pretty cool. I then use that cloud as a forecast of what the game would like to see and go from there, challenging myself to find a way to "hit all the notes" with the emphasis on elements determined by the cloud.
I guess I have the luxury of really not caring what I run with my groups, with both groups I really enjoy giving them a place to play in and the more input they provide, I find my workload on that end more relaxed. If you're interested my current round, first time I'm fully embracing this, will probably be compiled next week, I can show you our forms and some screenshots of the cloud as it develops.
I've come to recognizing a good game not being obligated to the DM's genius or lack thereof. The best games that keep everyone showing up are the ones that are collaborative and actually driven by all stakeholders' interests.
Another thing I do is insist on minimal backstory, and in collaboration with the group, use hitherto unrealized elements of a character's backstory as a catalyst to put the game forward as needed. I had a character in one of my groups who didn't have much more to the background that they came from a "street kid" background but had wits and mental faculties that allowed him to rise up with a courtier background (ultimately produces a whispers Bard, who may MC rogue because tropes). The party, while on Faerun, through unplanned exigent circumstances wound up in Baldur's Gate (the party wanted to go somewhere other than Luskan and Waterdeep and Neverwinter are just a bit much for me). So in side chat, "hey bard, how bout you're actually from Baldur's Gate, I got the city as a jumping point for the next actual adventure but while you all are settling accounts etc in the city, we could use this background to sort of do a "returning home" side story. The players are loving it getting a vertical tour of the BG underworld (protip bank your "foreign currency" with the Thieves Guild, they won't hose your like the sanctioned banks or patriar's counting houses ... you want to talk to Behnie). And honestly between that and random encounters rolled from the Gazeteer in DiA, we've had some of greatest role playing sessions (of course their coming off spending almost a month exploring a sheet of ice, so not exactly a lot of role playing opportunity there).
tl:dr I think the most liberating thing a game can do is for the DM to give up some of the control in determining what the party should get up to ... and conversely let the players give up a little bit of the overdetermination of who their character is through background generation. I think the game's most fun when everyone, DM included is discovering something.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If you run a campaign or a one-shot, and a player generates a next-to evil character, then you can weaponize them. Take that character, and make them into a BBEG for another campaign.
If you run a campaign or a one-shot, and a player generates a next-to evil character, then you can weaponize them. Take that character, and make them into a BBEG for another campaign.
Yes! But with the caveat that even in one shots some players get very sensitive about their roles being appropriated by the DM down the line. It's in that bucket some folks label player agency and basically an emotional circumstance of identity conflated with role played thing that right or wrong can't really be reasoned with and can lead to exactly the sort of drama you don't want at your table. The way to avoid this is if you like the proto-BBEG do the courtesy of asking permission. No need to get specific but just make sure the player is good seeing their former PC return in a heavier heel turn as an NPC.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If you are lacking ideas start with your players, talk to them about the kind of campaign they want to play in, have a think about the mechanics of a campaign are there any races or classes out of bounds.
Once you have your characters mechanically sorted (dice rolled etc) then work with each player to develop the start of a backstory. You don’t need a war and peace a few bullet points is great.
Now decide where in your world you are starting them and come up with just the first 2-3 sessions. Maybe clearing out a goblin cage, or stopping bandits from robbing a house. Maybe the brown guard are over stretches and need some monster being hunted.
Don’t worry about an overarching plot or some big bad in the background. My rule of thumb for a campaign is that levels 1-3/4 are all about characters bonding, making some cash and just surviving. I generally let those early levels breathe so the world can develop and they can fit into it, so just go encounter to encounter, adventure to adventure. I am 6 months into a campaign and the party are probably 3-4 weeks away from level 4, so you have plenty of time to let the world breathe (3 hour sessions once a week).
In time once your playing in your world you will start figuring stuff out but also feel free to lift ideas from stories, or borrow adventure ideas from the internet. Remember the advice of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, all you need is a mcguffin and the rest will grow from there.
If you've made a world but are struggling to make the campaign to wrap around it, start by deciding which bits of the world you're proud of, and then try to make a plot which will take hte players to those places. That way the bits you've enjoyed making are not going to go to waste!
So let's say you've made a cool magical forest, an ancient mine, and a town that you're proud of. Pick the route you want them to take (don't hold all your hopes on it, players will do other things instead, it's the law) and give them some reasons to take it - they are guards for a trade caravan passing through the wood to the town, they are asked by the townspeople to go into the mine to search for a missing person, and so on. That way you can showcase your world, which is clearly the bit which grabs you.
Once you have a basic idea , keep fleshing out the history of it - never plan what will happen, but expand on what has already happened to get it to this state - why is the caravan going through the woods, why is it guarded, who might attack it, why might they have attacked it, and so on. Once again, don't plan anything like "and then the players will kill the bandit leader" because that's railroading and apt to fall apart if the players guess he has a bounty and take him alive, but instead say things like "The bandit leader is evil, corrupted with a magic which allows him to control the animals of the world (yes, that's lifted from the newer jumanji films)", giving the good paladin and the druid reasons to go after him. Motivate the players with what has happened in the world so far, and leave it empty ahead of them.
Asking the players what they want is also a great idea, it helps you to make things that they will enjoy, and with a world made without any stories yet, the time is now!
I advise starting out with the central villain, rather than the world, and let the world form around them in line with what they need. Choose who the overarching villain will be for the first 5 levels of gameplay, and think about:
What do they want, and why?
Why can't they have it right now?
Where do they need to be to do it?
Who opposes them?
Why are the PCs the ones to stop them?
Why is stopping the BBEG personal to the players? (This is what will invest them the most)
If you can answer these questions, you already have a story brewing. The BBEG's problems in achieving their goal need to be things that the PCs can stop, but where stopping one element doesn't totally prevent the BBEG from continuing to advance towards it. If you follow this system, it will also generate the world for you as you require places, NPCs, events and monsters to answer the questions. You should also try to leave room for the story to keep expanding, typically with a new BBEG for each adventuring tier. Here's a quickly worked example:
Our BBEG is going to be a dwarven cleric who worships a snake god.
What do they want, and why? They want to become a medusa, in order to become more attuned with their serpentine deity.
Why can't they have it right now? They have learned that there is a ritual that will work, but they need to gather five magical components/tasks. They have one of them. One of them is buried in a collapsed mine, and they need workers to dig out the mine for them. Another item is held by an NPC. Another is actually that they need to corrupt a church.
Where do they need to be to do it? They need to be near to the mine, near to the church, near to a source of slave labour, and have a hideout that can withstand the local militia.
Who opposes them? There is a small town that opposes them, filled with mostly neutral or good NPC commoners.
Why are the PCs the ones to stop them? One of the players hails from that town, and takes the lead recruiting more characters.
Why is stopping the BBEG personal to the players? The PCs will meet a friendly NPC who helps them early on. Shortly after, that NPC will be kidnpapped to become party of the work crew, or to be the final sacrifice.
It's a simple story, but one that puts the players at the heart of the conflict and should invest them through personal investment.
I always create or dream up a world that I want to stage a campaign in, but never can come up with plot that me/players really get into…. Any ideas?
As some have said previously, start with the BBE and how to counter it. You've built a world, but given it no conflict. Round up some campaign ending Villains to theme the campaign with, get the players together to get their input on and settle it down into a town idea that everyone can get with.
Basically a session zero with a few campaign pitches that you've got put together. Settle on the theme that the majority can agree on and go. Don't build more than one or two encounters or locations out from where the party is now. If you set an encounter goal that will require travel through a dozen towns, then you need to have something ready in those dozen towns. Don't overextend yourself with building locations that the party will never interact with. Make good use of pre-packaged products that are roaming free on the interwebs - one of my staples - Donjon - there's even a random campaign generator slapped in there for use. Here's a listing of resources that any DM might find useful. - Compendium
It's challenging to throw plot/conflict ideas at you without knowing what is fun for you. You're the best judge for that. Only bit that I can help with is suggest how to go about rolling your ball of ideas out into something that is useable.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I'm a fan of talking to the players and finding out what they want to do for an adventure like other people have suggested, but I think it really helps to start asking the questions about who the characters are beyond a bunch of stats and choices. If they are a druid, ask them about where they came from, how they got there, and why they left. If they went off to convene with nature, what did they leave behind?
What if they were a family member from a powerful elven business family, when they left their sibling took their place and was willing to make more exploitative choices about how to make money in the business. That spins out into something effecting other cultures, and so when the party steps up to try and save the day, the sibling escalates. Perhaps they start hiring mercenaries to attack the party or start seeking magic items, perhaps the other family members are actively being threatened.
And to fill in these additional threats, you can draw on the other experiences. Maybe they're hired a demon who is the ancestor of the tiefling paladin who sees a change to avenge their name. Maybe the local dwarves are being forced to work for the elf and now your dwarf wizard similar needs to protect his people. Build the bonds for the campaign around the past and you've got emotional ties, room for developments, and the makings of a campaign. Push and pull, every piece fitting together.
I advise starting out with the central villain, rather than the world, and let the world form around them in line with what they need. Choose who the overarching villain will be for the first 5 levels of gameplay, and think about:
What do they want, and why?
Why can't they have it right now?
Where do they need to be to do it?
Who opposes them?
Why are the PCs the ones to stop them?
Why is stopping the BBEG personal to the players? (This is what will invest them the most)
If you can answer these questions, you already have a story brewing. The BBEG's problems in achieving their goal need to be things that the PCs can stop, but where stopping one element doesn't totally prevent the BBEG from continuing to advance towards it. If you follow this system, it will also generate the world for you as you require places, NPCs, events and monsters to answer the questions. You should also try to leave room for the story to keep expanding, typically with a new BBEG for each adventuring tier. Here's a quickly worked example:
Our BBEG is going to be a dwarven cleric who worships a snake god.
What do they want, and why? They want to become a medusa, in order to become more attuned with their serpentine deity.
Why can't they have it right now? They have learned that there is a ritual that will work, but they need to gather five magical components/tasks. They have one of them. One of them is buried in a collapsed mine, and they need workers to dig out the mine for them. Another item is held by an NPC. Another is actually that they need to corrupt a church.
Where do they need to be to do it? They need to be near to the mine, near to the church, near to a source of slave labour, and have a hideout that can withstand the local militia.
Who opposes them? There is a small town that opposes them, filled with mostly neutral or good NPC commoners.
Why are the PCs the ones to stop them? One of the players hails from that town, and takes the lead recruiting more characters.
Why is stopping the BBEG personal to the players? The PCs will meet a friendly NPC who helps them early on. Shortly after, that NPC will be kidnpapped to become party of the work crew, or to be the final sacrifice.
It's a simple story, but one that puts the players at the heart of the conflict and should invest them through personal investment.
This is certainly a valid approach but one I have never followed, I generally go into every campaign I have created having no idea really who the main villain will be. I have ideas and a sense of where things might go but let my players shape those choices based on how they react to my world and the things that make them say, that’s really great, after a session.
I'm a fan of talking to the players and finding out what they want to do for an adventure like other people have suggested, but I think it really helps to start asking the questions about who the characters are beyond a bunch of stats and choices. If they are a druid, ask them about where they came from, how they got there, and why they left. If they went off to convene with nature, what did they leave behind?
What if they were a family member from a powerful elven business family, when they left their sibling took their place and was willing to make more exploitative choices about how to make money in the business. That spins out into something effecting other cultures, and so when the party steps up to try and save the day, the sibling escalates. Perhaps they start hiring mercenaries to attack the party or start seeking magic items, perhaps the other family members are actively being threatened.
And to fill in these additional threats, you can draw on the other experiences. Maybe they're hired a demon who is the ancestor of the tiefling paladin who sees a change to avenge their name. Maybe the local dwarves are being forced to work for the elf and now your dwarf wizard similar needs to protect his people. Build the bonds for the campaign around the past and you've got emotional ties, room for developments, and the makings of a campaign. Push and pull, every piece fitting together.
This doesn’t need to be more then a few sentences so don’t push your players for war and peace. As an example from my campaign these where my players descriptions
Satyr Wild Magic Sorceror
High class escort, abandoned as a baby at the doors of the brothel, raised by the madame and other working girls/boys. Doesn’t care about where she comes from, sees the men and women of the brothel as family and is loyal to them. Cares and defends the abandoned and unwanted.
Minotaur Barbarian
Comes from a family similair to the Russian mafia, father is The Godfather of the family and the gangs under it, the second largest organization in the city. Meeting happened with a rival gang, something went wrong and character killed someone. The law has pinned the murder on his father and his uncle has told him to run as his father would rather he be free. He hasn’t heard anything for 2 months from home.
I agree. I have players who just want to play, and then others who want to fully get involved in world building and ideas. But the intermingling and the shapes developed by those who want to get hard into backstory really help.
Going off of what Scarloc and Sanvael said, I think it helps to start by looking at your world from the villain's perspective. Who are you? What do you want? What, if the heroes never got involved, is your plan to get it? You don't have to have the scheme fully planned out at the start of the game, just maybe plan out the first few steps of it, and when the heroes interfere the plan will change and you can plan as you go.
My advice though is not to stop at one villain for this. Sarloc said they don't like to designate a BBEG without the player's input and I very much agree with that sentiment-- let the players choose in game what they want to care about and who they see as the threat to deal with. Don't let that stop you from planning, however.
Plan multiple villains. In the campaign I'm currently DMing I have 5 villains out in the world going about their various schemes independently, which makes the world feel like a busy and open-ended place and lends some complexity to the game world. Not to mention, when you're finished coming up with like 4+ bad guys and their associated schemes, you'll realize your larger campaign is already mostly done taking shape by the time you've finished.
Going off of what Scarloc and Sanvael said, I think it helps to start by looking at your world from the villain's perspective. Who are you? What do you want? What, if the heroes never got involved, is your plan to get it? You don't have to have the scheme fully planned out at the start of the game, just maybe plan out the first few steps of it, and when the heroes interfere the plan will change and you can plan as you go.
My advice though is not to stop at one villain for this. Sarloc said they don't like to designate a BBEG without the player's input and I very much agree with that sentiment-- let the players choose in game what they want to care about and who they see as the threat to deal with. Don't let that stop you from planning, however.
Plan multiple villains. In the campaign I'm currently DMing I have 5 villains out in the world going about their various schemes independently, which makes the world feel like a busy and open-ended place and lends some complexity to the game world. Not to mention, when you're finished coming up with like 4+ bad guys and their associated schemes, you'll realize your larger campaign is already mostly done taking shape by the time you've finished.
The benifit of this approach is that you can for shadow to a small extent and then make events later on appear as if you had planned out the whole thing. I once ran a campaign where the entire time I barely planned and entire sessions where completely ad libbed by me, at the end during campaign wrap up one of the players commented on how much planning I must have done and how well I predicted what they would do as everything was so well interlinked and the hints I had made early on lead to later events. In reality (although I never really admitted this) it worked the other way, things I had mentioned or suggested in previous sessions I worked into the story as the players themselves talked about what they found intresting.
Remeber the world is for your characters but the game and the story are for the players.
Yes, the arc to BBEG is a valid way of designing a campaign, it's how the prepackaged ones with few exceptions work. I think however, in actual practice, establishing a BBG early in the players development often gets played out so to speak, like this parody of the phenomenon:
This is why I don't really care for deterministic design in game settings (the BBEG being the most deterministic aspect of such design). The DM invests a lot of mental real estate into it and "prep" and that does develop a superior handle on the story on the DMs behalf, but a lot of that gets insulated in the DMs head. The players aren't actually as engaged with the DM as they think, where you often wind up with the game in the DMs head and the players imaginations not really coinciding.
The older school model of adventure design sort of pits the DM as a director and the players as sort of actors. I think a more common way or evolving style treats the table more as a writers room where the DM is the show runner, but the players also provide a lot of the drive to determine what's going to happen. Deterministic world/game design is that whole DM knows what's going to happen thing I'm a bit allergic to, preferring to be curious about "what's going to happen."
So my games don't start with BBEG, there may be personages who could fit into the world, but none of them are appointed. The world's basically a geography, with some history (which may not be altogether accurate) and some conflicts and challenges that beset the world. It's enough to explore and more importantly let the players explore their characters and both explore and create the world through play. Once they're figured out, usually around levels 4/5, then a BBEG, if necessary could be made to meet them. But it doesn't have to be a BBEG, there are a number of challenges that could arise, the party sort of determines what they're suited for that way. Really, a particularly memorable roll on a random encounter table could be drafted into BBEG territory if the encounter was that impactful.
I think it was mentioned in this thread or another thread recently that the prepackaged campaigns are written that way because there's not room for the adventure to get acquainted with the characters and develop differently. When your table is on its own, unbound by a script, there's just so much more you can do (especially in the present age with so much other folks content shared out there to rip off if you weren't expecting you'd have need for a flying galleon ... you can probably find half a dozen deck plans for them).
Yes, the arc to BBEG is a valid way of designing a campaign, it's how the prepackaged ones with few exceptions work. I think however, in actual practice, establishing a BBG early in the players development often gets played out so to speak, like this parody of the phenomenon:
This is why I don't really care for deterministic design in game settings (the BBEG being the most deterministic aspect of such design). The DM invests a lot of mental real estate into it and "prep" and that does develop a superior handle on the story on the DMs behalf, but a lot of that gets insulated in the DMs head. The players aren't actually as engaged with the DM as they think, where you often wind up with the game in the DMs head and the players imaginations not really coinciding.
The older school model of adventure design sort of pits the DM as a director and the players as sort of actors. I think a more common way or evolving style treats the table more as a writers room where the DM is the show runner, but the players also provide a lot of the drive to determine what's going to happen. Deterministic world/game design is that whole DM knows what's going to happen thing I'm a bit allergic to, preferring to be curious about "what's going to happen."
So my games don't start with BBEG, there may be personages who could fit into the world, but none of them are appointed. The world's basically a geography, with some history (which may not be altogether accurate) and some conflicts and challenges that beset the world. It's enough to explore and more importantly let the players explore their characters and both explore and create the world through play. Once they're figured out, usually around levels 4/5, then a BBEG, if necessary could be made to meet them. But it doesn't have to be a BBEG, there are a number of challenges that could arise, the party sort of determines what they're suited for that way. Really, a particularly memorable roll on a random encounter table could be drafted into BBEG territory if the encounter was that impactful.
I think it was mentioned in this thread or another thread recently that the prepackaged campaigns are written that way because there's not room for the adventure to get acquainted with the characters and develop differently. When your table is on its own, unbound by a script, there's just so much more you can do (especially in the present age with so much other folks content shared out there to rip off if you weren't expecting you'd have need for a flying galleon ... you can probably find half a dozen deck plans for them).
The downside of this approach is that there are few major stakes early on (there can't be, everything has to be local), the whole game doesn't feel connected (because it's not), the players don't have much to invest in (because there is no overarching story), and it has the likelihood of leading to aimless meandering, or the players not knowing what to do. It is impossible to create the same level of urgency or high stakes in a game where the DM hasn't set a major challenge early on, one that the players have to level up to.
Using this method, the DM thinks that the players are having a great time wandering around exploring the world, but the truth is they're usually lacking in direction, and nothing that they do has any real impact on the game world because the DM is inventing it and adapting it as they go along (there is in fact no world to impact). It creates an illusion for the players that the things they're doing are guiding actions, but actually the DM is still choosing what happens, they're just doing it reactively: this creates a much less authentic experience.
There is no such thing as an "older model of adventure design," this is an appeal to nostalgia to make this sound more impactful. Curse of Strahd was first written in 1978 and there couldn't be a more villain focused module: the entire adventure takes place in a demi-plane that exists to trap the villain.
D&D is at its heart an adventure story. Without a villain, or villainous forces (even a natural calamity or such) you don't have a story.
You can still have villains and a "main story" with this approach, they just are more the "season finale" to a more episodic-structured campaign (to continue the TV metaphor).
A main story all depends on the urgency you put onto it. If you're running an epic "save the world" style game then yes, the drive behind the story will be more urgent and there'll be less room for the players to go off on fun bottle episodes without that ticking clock in the back of their heads distracting them. However, if the BBEG isn't trying to destroy the world, like maybe if the story is framed around like, a war between two kingdoms and the BBEG is a particularly ambitions invading general, and the PC's are free to skirt in and out of the conflict at their discretion, then there's less urgency and the players can oppose the BBEG when it suits them and maybe go to a third kingdom and do other stuff if they feel like it.
Try stealing shamelessly from movies. If you watch closely you’ll notice that there aren’t very many movie plots, they just keep reusing the same basic plots and adding different fluff to them.
I always create or dream up a world that I want to stage a campaign in, but never can come up with plot that me/players really get into…. Any ideas?
Like being a player, love dming.
I AM YOUR DM! BOW DOWN BEFORE THE GODS! XD
Couple things you can do. If you just wanna play a game I'd say run a couple of one-shots and see what sticks. Not to shill DNDB stuff but Candlekeep does a good job of providing a lot of varied modules to try out. See what style your players enjoy playing the most and use that experience to shape your own world.
Alternatively, talk to your players about what kind of movies they watch and what kind of books they read and use that for inspiration on making your world. Personally I find the Tolkein-way of world building (ie - everything has to be built, then I can write the story) doesn't work for me and rarely do my players care about the nuances of different regional political systems or little gimmicks that make the world unique (ex: Perdido Street Station).
I prefer having my players give me little story details about their characters then I like to write something that blends all these together. I have a warforged in a world where most other warforged aren't sentient, I have a druid who's tribe was slain by goblins and hags and he lost his daughter (or did he?!?)...those kinds of small details can turn into really fun and engaging adventure paths where the players get to be involved in their own story and others.
I wrote this in a thread a few months back, I really like the outcome:
I've come to recognizing a good game not being obligated to the DM's genius or lack thereof. The best games that keep everyone showing up are the ones that are collaborative and actually driven by all stakeholders' interests.
Another thing I do is insist on minimal backstory, and in collaboration with the group, use hitherto unrealized elements of a character's backstory as a catalyst to put the game forward as needed. I had a character in one of my groups who didn't have much more to the background that they came from a "street kid" background but had wits and mental faculties that allowed him to rise up with a courtier background (ultimately produces a whispers Bard, who may MC rogue because tropes). The party, while on Faerun, through unplanned exigent circumstances wound up in Baldur's Gate (the party wanted to go somewhere other than Luskan and Waterdeep and Neverwinter are just a bit much for me). So in side chat, "hey bard, how bout you're actually from Baldur's Gate, I got the city as a jumping point for the next actual adventure but while you all are settling accounts etc in the city, we could use this background to sort of do a "returning home" side story. The players are loving it getting a vertical tour of the BG underworld (protip bank your "foreign currency" with the Thieves Guild, they won't hose your like the sanctioned banks or patriar's counting houses ... you want to talk to Behnie). And honestly between that and random encounters rolled from the Gazeteer in DiA, we've had some of greatest role playing sessions (of course their coming off spending almost a month exploring a sheet of ice, so not exactly a lot of role playing opportunity there).
tl:dr I think the most liberating thing a game can do is for the DM to give up some of the control in determining what the party should get up to ... and conversely let the players give up a little bit of the overdetermination of who their character is through background generation. I think the game's most fun when everyone, DM included is discovering something.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If you run a campaign or a one-shot, and a player generates a next-to evil character, then you can weaponize them. Take that character, and make them into a BBEG for another campaign.
Yes! But with the caveat that even in one shots some players get very sensitive about their roles being appropriated by the DM down the line. It's in that bucket some folks label player agency and basically an emotional circumstance of identity conflated with role played thing that right or wrong can't really be reasoned with and can lead to exactly the sort of drama you don't want at your table. The way to avoid this is if you like the proto-BBEG do the courtesy of asking permission. No need to get specific but just make sure the player is good seeing their former PC return in a heavier heel turn as an NPC.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
If you are lacking ideas start with your players, talk to them about the kind of campaign they want to play in, have a think about the mechanics of a campaign are there any races or classes out of bounds.
Once you have your characters mechanically sorted (dice rolled etc) then work with each player to develop the start of a backstory. You don’t need a war and peace a few bullet points is great.
Now decide where in your world you are starting them and come up with just the first 2-3 sessions. Maybe clearing out a goblin cage, or stopping bandits from robbing a house. Maybe the brown guard are over stretches and need some monster being hunted.
Don’t worry about an overarching plot or some big bad in the background. My rule of thumb for a campaign is that levels 1-3/4 are all about characters bonding, making some cash and just surviving. I generally let those early levels breathe so the world can develop and they can fit into it, so just go encounter to encounter, adventure to adventure. I am 6 months into a campaign and the party are probably 3-4 weeks away from level 4, so you have plenty of time to let the world breathe (3 hour sessions once a week).
In time once your playing in your world you will start figuring stuff out but also feel free to lift ideas from stories, or borrow adventure ideas from the internet. Remember the advice of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, all you need is a mcguffin and the rest will grow from there.
If you've made a world but are struggling to make the campaign to wrap around it, start by deciding which bits of the world you're proud of, and then try to make a plot which will take hte players to those places. That way the bits you've enjoyed making are not going to go to waste!
So let's say you've made a cool magical forest, an ancient mine, and a town that you're proud of. Pick the route you want them to take (don't hold all your hopes on it, players will do other things instead, it's the law) and give them some reasons to take it - they are guards for a trade caravan passing through the wood to the town, they are asked by the townspeople to go into the mine to search for a missing person, and so on. That way you can showcase your world, which is clearly the bit which grabs you.
Once you have a basic idea , keep fleshing out the history of it - never plan what will happen, but expand on what has already happened to get it to this state - why is the caravan going through the woods, why is it guarded, who might attack it, why might they have attacked it, and so on. Once again, don't plan anything like "and then the players will kill the bandit leader" because that's railroading and apt to fall apart if the players guess he has a bounty and take him alive, but instead say things like "The bandit leader is evil, corrupted with a magic which allows him to control the animals of the world (yes, that's lifted from the newer jumanji films)", giving the good paladin and the druid reasons to go after him. Motivate the players with what has happened in the world so far, and leave it empty ahead of them.
Asking the players what they want is also a great idea, it helps you to make things that they will enjoy, and with a world made without any stories yet, the time is now!
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I advise starting out with the central villain, rather than the world, and let the world form around them in line with what they need. Choose who the overarching villain will be for the first 5 levels of gameplay, and think about:
If you can answer these questions, you already have a story brewing. The BBEG's problems in achieving their goal need to be things that the PCs can stop, but where stopping one element doesn't totally prevent the BBEG from continuing to advance towards it. If you follow this system, it will also generate the world for you as you require places, NPCs, events and monsters to answer the questions. You should also try to leave room for the story to keep expanding, typically with a new BBEG for each adventuring tier. Here's a quickly worked example:
Our BBEG is going to be a dwarven cleric who worships a snake god.
It's a simple story, but one that puts the players at the heart of the conflict and should invest them through personal investment.
As some have said previously, start with the BBE and how to counter it. You've built a world, but given it no conflict. Round up some campaign ending Villains to theme the campaign with, get the players together to get their input on and settle it down into a town idea that everyone can get with.
Basically a session zero with a few campaign pitches that you've got put together. Settle on the theme that the majority can agree on and go. Don't build more than one or two encounters or locations out from where the party is now. If you set an encounter goal that will require travel through a dozen towns, then you need to have something ready in those dozen towns. Don't overextend yourself with building locations that the party will never interact with. Make good use of pre-packaged products that are roaming free on the interwebs - one of my staples - Donjon - there's even a random campaign generator slapped in there for use. Here's a listing of resources that any DM might find useful. - Compendium
It's challenging to throw plot/conflict ideas at you without knowing what is fun for you. You're the best judge for that. Only bit that I can help with is suggest how to go about rolling your ball of ideas out into something that is useable.
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I'm a fan of talking to the players and finding out what they want to do for an adventure like other people have suggested, but I think it really helps to start asking the questions about who the characters are beyond a bunch of stats and choices. If they are a druid, ask them about where they came from, how they got there, and why they left. If they went off to convene with nature, what did they leave behind?
What if they were a family member from a powerful elven business family, when they left their sibling took their place and was willing to make more exploitative choices about how to make money in the business. That spins out into something effecting other cultures, and so when the party steps up to try and save the day, the sibling escalates. Perhaps they start hiring mercenaries to attack the party or start seeking magic items, perhaps the other family members are actively being threatened.
And to fill in these additional threats, you can draw on the other experiences. Maybe they're hired a demon who is the ancestor of the tiefling paladin who sees a change to avenge their name. Maybe the local dwarves are being forced to work for the elf and now your dwarf wizard similar needs to protect his people. Build the bonds for the campaign around the past and you've got emotional ties, room for developments, and the makings of a campaign. Push and pull, every piece fitting together.
This is certainly a valid approach but one I have never followed, I generally go into every campaign I have created having no idea really who the main villain will be. I have ideas and a sense of where things might go but let my players shape those choices based on how they react to my world and the things that make them say, that’s really great, after a session.
This doesn’t need to be more then a few sentences so don’t push your players for war and peace. As an example from my campaign these where my players descriptions
Satyr Wild Magic Sorceror
High class escort, abandoned as a baby at the doors of the brothel, raised by the madame and other working girls/boys.
Doesn’t care about where she comes from, sees the men and women of the brothel as family and is loyal to them. Cares and defends the abandoned and unwanted.
Minotaur Barbarian
Comes from a family similair to the Russian mafia, father is The Godfather of the family and the gangs under it, the second largest organization in the city. Meeting happened with a rival gang, something went wrong and character killed someone. The law has pinned the murder on his father and his uncle has told him to run as his father would rather he be free. He hasn’t heard anything for 2 months from home.
I agree. I have players who just want to play, and then others who want to fully get involved in world building and ideas. But the intermingling and the shapes developed by those who want to get hard into backstory really help.
Going off of what Scarloc and Sanvael said, I think it helps to start by looking at your world from the villain's perspective. Who are you? What do you want? What, if the heroes never got involved, is your plan to get it? You don't have to have the scheme fully planned out at the start of the game, just maybe plan out the first few steps of it, and when the heroes interfere the plan will change and you can plan as you go.
My advice though is not to stop at one villain for this. Sarloc said they don't like to designate a BBEG without the player's input and I very much agree with that sentiment-- let the players choose in game what they want to care about and who they see as the threat to deal with. Don't let that stop you from planning, however.
Plan multiple villains. In the campaign I'm currently DMing I have 5 villains out in the world going about their various schemes independently, which makes the world feel like a busy and open-ended place and lends some complexity to the game world. Not to mention, when you're finished coming up with like 4+ bad guys and their associated schemes, you'll realize your larger campaign is already mostly done taking shape by the time you've finished.
The benifit of this approach is that you can for shadow to a small extent and then make events later on appear as if you had planned out the whole thing. I once ran a campaign where the entire time I barely planned and entire sessions where completely ad libbed by me, at the end during campaign wrap up one of the players commented on how much planning I must have done and how well I predicted what they would do as everything was so well interlinked and the hints I had made early on lead to later events. In reality (although I never really admitted this) it worked the other way, things I had mentioned or suggested in previous sessions I worked into the story as the players themselves talked about what they found intresting.
Remeber the world is for your characters but the game and the story are for the players.
Yes, the arc to BBEG is a valid way of designing a campaign, it's how the prepackaged ones with few exceptions work. I think however, in actual practice, establishing a BBG early in the players development often gets played out so to speak, like this parody of the phenomenon:
This is why I don't really care for deterministic design in game settings (the BBEG being the most deterministic aspect of such design). The DM invests a lot of mental real estate into it and "prep" and that does develop a superior handle on the story on the DMs behalf, but a lot of that gets insulated in the DMs head. The players aren't actually as engaged with the DM as they think, where you often wind up with the game in the DMs head and the players imaginations not really coinciding.
The older school model of adventure design sort of pits the DM as a director and the players as sort of actors. I think a more common way or evolving style treats the table more as a writers room where the DM is the show runner, but the players also provide a lot of the drive to determine what's going to happen. Deterministic world/game design is that whole DM knows what's going to happen thing I'm a bit allergic to, preferring to be curious about "what's going to happen."
So my games don't start with BBEG, there may be personages who could fit into the world, but none of them are appointed. The world's basically a geography, with some history (which may not be altogether accurate) and some conflicts and challenges that beset the world. It's enough to explore and more importantly let the players explore their characters and both explore and create the world through play. Once they're figured out, usually around levels 4/5, then a BBEG, if necessary could be made to meet them. But it doesn't have to be a BBEG, there are a number of challenges that could arise, the party sort of determines what they're suited for that way. Really, a particularly memorable roll on a random encounter table could be drafted into BBEG territory if the encounter was that impactful.
I think it was mentioned in this thread or another thread recently that the prepackaged campaigns are written that way because there's not room for the adventure to get acquainted with the characters and develop differently. When your table is on its own, unbound by a script, there's just so much more you can do (especially in the present age with so much other folks content shared out there to rip off if you weren't expecting you'd have need for a flying galleon ... you can probably find half a dozen deck plans for them).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Try to just make a world around the players, then let them drive the plot with what they chose to do and interpreting how the world would react to it.
The downside of this approach is that there are few major stakes early on (there can't be, everything has to be local), the whole game doesn't feel connected (because it's not), the players don't have much to invest in (because there is no overarching story), and it has the likelihood of leading to aimless meandering, or the players not knowing what to do. It is impossible to create the same level of urgency or high stakes in a game where the DM hasn't set a major challenge early on, one that the players have to level up to.
Using this method, the DM thinks that the players are having a great time wandering around exploring the world, but the truth is they're usually lacking in direction, and nothing that they do has any real impact on the game world because the DM is inventing it and adapting it as they go along (there is in fact no world to impact). It creates an illusion for the players that the things they're doing are guiding actions, but actually the DM is still choosing what happens, they're just doing it reactively: this creates a much less authentic experience.
There is no such thing as an "older model of adventure design," this is an appeal to nostalgia to make this sound more impactful. Curse of Strahd was first written in 1978 and there couldn't be a more villain focused module: the entire adventure takes place in a demi-plane that exists to trap the villain.
D&D is at its heart an adventure story. Without a villain, or villainous forces (even a natural calamity or such) you don't have a story.
You can still have villains and a "main story" with this approach, they just are more the "season finale" to a more episodic-structured campaign (to continue the TV metaphor).
A main story all depends on the urgency you put onto it. If you're running an epic "save the world" style game then yes, the drive behind the story will be more urgent and there'll be less room for the players to go off on fun bottle episodes without that ticking clock in the back of their heads distracting them. However, if the BBEG isn't trying to destroy the world, like maybe if the story is framed around like, a war between two kingdoms and the BBEG is a particularly ambitions invading general, and the PC's are free to skirt in and out of the conflict at their discretion, then there's less urgency and the players can oppose the BBEG when it suits them and maybe go to a third kingdom and do other stuff if they feel like it.
Try stealing shamelessly from movies. If you watch closely you’ll notice that there aren’t very many movie plots, they just keep reusing the same basic plots and adding different fluff to them.
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