Hi, I’m relatively new to D&D, and I want to make a homebrew campaign. I’ve already dmed a couple of times so don’t worry about that. I’ve already got a good idea for a basic plot, a BBEG, some lesser BBEG, and a Npc, but I’d like to hear from some people experienced DMs and how they think I should build my campaign.
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Lets summon archdevils
Platymaster of the Church (Cult) of the Platypus
Arachnapriest of the Guild of Spiders
Disclaimer: Underfan8 is not to be held responsible for any of the following events happening as a result of talking to Underfan8, touching Underfan8, or even just seeing Underfan8: The rise of Tiamat, resurrection of vecna, pissed of genies, a complete and udder power change in the blood war, or a fate worse than a fate worse than total annihilation. Exist with Underfan8 at you own risk.
Decide what you are comfortable with dealing with and try to engineer a situation where the players can't break out of it, without you having to make it obvious that they are being constrained.
For example: My first DMing has been a campaign involving a ghost ship. I decided early on that I didn't want to have my players explore the wide world (I've made a fair bit of it) and either miss things that I've not prepared or do things I'm not really ready to deal with. So I made the ghost ship transport them to a demiplane. The plot works around it, and it soft-railroads them into a miniature sandbox for me to work with - 4 islands in an otherwise endless sea. I have the 4 islands all sorted in my mind/notes, so they can basically do whatever they choose whilst they're there, but they can't get out without completing the actual mission.
The best way to soft-railroad is a dungeon - get from the beginning to the end, and that's your mission. Most people won't see physical walls (like those in a dungeon, or a sheer cliff, or the simple lack of the fifth island) as railroading, whereas if you start them somewhere that they can go anywhere, and every time they try to go the wrong way a fog sweeps in, disorienting them and putting them back where they started, that's something you the DM are doing and they wil lsee right through it as railroading. If you want to steer the players in a direction, solid walls are the best bet.
Now, to my number 1 piece of advice:
Plan what has happened, not what will happen. The moment you say "the players will do >X<" is the moment you've put the fate of your plot and your plans in the hands of the players, and that usually ends up with you improvising for "what if the magical item was instead melted down to make coins".
So, for a random plot: some cultists have used a magical amulet to summon a devil in a dungeon. You can say all of that with certainty because it has happened - that's what's led to the players being here, now, to stop the cult.
Let's oversimplify and say that the dungeon is a straight corridor with the boss fight at the end and a room to one side which contains the amulet, which you've decided is needed for them to kill the devil. You might write, in your plot: "The players enter the dungeon, find the amulet, and kill the devil". makes sense, but there's a hitch - you've said what the players are going to do, and that, by definition, means this is what the players will not do. They might miss the amulet room, or they might negotiate with the devil. And the problem then arises that, for the next thing you werote down to make sense, they need to kill the devil. So you will end up roleplaying the devil with the goal of getting himself killed, and may even add a DM caveat that the amulet just turns up. The flow of the game will stutter as you try to get it back onto the course you intended it to be on, and that's bad, as it's supposed to be the players driving the story!
Instead, only write down & decide things which are certain, because they have already happened, or are a direct result of the current state of things. The amulet is in that room and will weaken the devil if it's within 30ft. of him. The Devil is intending to take over the town, and is doing so to make an army of slaves to try and conquer the world. The cultists will view any outsiders with immediate hostility. One of the cultists is called Joe, and was peer pressured into it, and is not completely sold on the cause, and he's in the room guarding the amulet, and he overheard that the amulet needs to be kept away from the devil. The ritual will take 1 hour and will enslave everyone in town if it is completed.
Then, once you have the story as it would play out without the heroes - the devil & cultists complete a ritual and enslave the town - introduce the heroes and see what happens. They might stop the devil, rescue Joe, pursuade Joe to stop the devil, bargain with the devil, nope out of it and leave the town to be enslaved - but they will do all of it off their own backs, not following a script that you wrote to get you to the next bit of the story.
Following on from this, make the plot that you want them to follow, the breadcrumbs, in such a way that the clues are there before they arrive. Don't rely on "Joe will tell them to seek out Jeff the wizard, who fights against these devils", because the PC's might kill Joe before he even speaks, and that will scupper that plothook. Instead have the name of Jeff the Wizard etched in the back of the amulet, or have multiple NPC's ready to point in his direction.
I would say you are already thinking too big with a BBEG and other small BBEG.
I used to big large scale word building but about 8 years ago I learnt that you don’t need to do this. I now start with just a town or villiage, where the party will start and give the characters challenges for their level. For example
Levels 1-5/6 town threatening danger, the stakes mean that 100’s or 1000’s are threatened.
Levels 5/6-10/11 Nation threatening, 100,000’s of people threatened.
Level 11-15 world threatening issues
Level 15+ Threats impact multiple planes
You can then scale your prep work accordingly. Also you can feed your local threat into the larger threats to come, that cult wanting to sacrifice a whole town are trying to summon a god that might well by level 15 have escaped his prison some other way and now need to be re sealed.
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Hi, I’m relatively new to D&D, and I want to make a homebrew campaign. I’ve already dmed a couple of times so don’t worry about that. I’ve already got a good idea for a basic plot, a BBEG, some lesser BBEG, and a Npc, but I’d like to hear from some people experienced DMs and how they think I should build my campaign.
Lets summon archdevils
Platymaster of the Church (Cult) of the Platypus
Arachnapriest of the Guild of Spiders
Disclaimer: Underfan8 is not to be held responsible for any of the following events happening as a result of talking to Underfan8, touching Underfan8, or even just seeing Underfan8: The rise of Tiamat, resurrection of vecna, pissed of genies, a complete and udder power change in the blood war, or a fate worse than a fate worse than total annihilation. Exist with Underfan8 at you own risk.
Decide what you are comfortable with dealing with and try to engineer a situation where the players can't break out of it, without you having to make it obvious that they are being constrained.
For example: My first DMing has been a campaign involving a ghost ship. I decided early on that I didn't want to have my players explore the wide world (I've made a fair bit of it) and either miss things that I've not prepared or do things I'm not really ready to deal with. So I made the ghost ship transport them to a demiplane. The plot works around it, and it soft-railroads them into a miniature sandbox for me to work with - 4 islands in an otherwise endless sea. I have the 4 islands all sorted in my mind/notes, so they can basically do whatever they choose whilst they're there, but they can't get out without completing the actual mission.
The best way to soft-railroad is a dungeon - get from the beginning to the end, and that's your mission. Most people won't see physical walls (like those in a dungeon, or a sheer cliff, or the simple lack of the fifth island) as railroading, whereas if you start them somewhere that they can go anywhere, and every time they try to go the wrong way a fog sweeps in, disorienting them and putting them back where they started, that's something you the DM are doing and they wil lsee right through it as railroading. If you want to steer the players in a direction, solid walls are the best bet.
Now, to my number 1 piece of advice:
Plan what has happened, not what will happen. The moment you say "the players will do >X<" is the moment you've put the fate of your plot and your plans in the hands of the players, and that usually ends up with you improvising for "what if the magical item was instead melted down to make coins".
So, for a random plot: some cultists have used a magical amulet to summon a devil in a dungeon. You can say all of that with certainty because it has happened - that's what's led to the players being here, now, to stop the cult.
Let's oversimplify and say that the dungeon is a straight corridor with the boss fight at the end and a room to one side which contains the amulet, which you've decided is needed for them to kill the devil. You might write, in your plot: "The players enter the dungeon, find the amulet, and kill the devil". makes sense, but there's a hitch - you've said what the players are going to do, and that, by definition, means this is what the players will not do. They might miss the amulet room, or they might negotiate with the devil. And the problem then arises that, for the next thing you werote down to make sense, they need to kill the devil. So you will end up roleplaying the devil with the goal of getting himself killed, and may even add a DM caveat that the amulet just turns up. The flow of the game will stutter as you try to get it back onto the course you intended it to be on, and that's bad, as it's supposed to be the players driving the story!
Instead, only write down & decide things which are certain, because they have already happened, or are a direct result of the current state of things. The amulet is in that room and will weaken the devil if it's within 30ft. of him. The Devil is intending to take over the town, and is doing so to make an army of slaves to try and conquer the world. The cultists will view any outsiders with immediate hostility. One of the cultists is called Joe, and was peer pressured into it, and is not completely sold on the cause, and he's in the room guarding the amulet, and he overheard that the amulet needs to be kept away from the devil. The ritual will take 1 hour and will enslave everyone in town if it is completed.
Then, once you have the story as it would play out without the heroes - the devil & cultists complete a ritual and enslave the town - introduce the heroes and see what happens. They might stop the devil, rescue Joe, pursuade Joe to stop the devil, bargain with the devil, nope out of it and leave the town to be enslaved - but they will do all of it off their own backs, not following a script that you wrote to get you to the next bit of the story.
Following on from this, make the plot that you want them to follow, the breadcrumbs, in such a way that the clues are there before they arrive. Don't rely on "Joe will tell them to seek out Jeff the wizard, who fights against these devils", because the PC's might kill Joe before he even speaks, and that will scupper that plothook. Instead have the name of Jeff the Wizard etched in the back of the amulet, or have multiple NPC's ready to point in his direction.
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I would say you are already thinking too big with a BBEG and other small BBEG.
I used to big large scale word building but about 8 years ago I learnt that you don’t need to do this. I now start with just a town or villiage, where the party will start and give the characters challenges for their level. For example
Levels 1-5/6 town threatening danger, the stakes mean that 100’s or 1000’s are threatened.
Levels 5/6-10/11 Nation threatening, 100,000’s of people threatened.
Level 11-15 world threatening issues
Level 15+ Threats impact multiple planes
You can then scale your prep work accordingly. Also you can feed your local threat into the larger threats to come, that cult wanting to sacrifice a whole town are trying to summon a god that might well by level 15 have escaped his prison some other way and now need to be re sealed.