Hi all. I am creating this thread to enable the discussion of How To Design and Develop a Campaign. The ultimate point of this post here is that folks provide a series of posts to help new DMs and others to understand how to do this.
My reasoning is pretty simple: a lot of folks have written posts about how they want to find a way to move past the Character Sketch idea to an actual adventure that is more than just a straight line.
To provide definitions for common reference (so we all know what we are talking about):
Campaign: a series of Adventures that link together to tell a long story about the PCs (the main characters, protagonists, et al).
Adventure: a single part of a larger campaign, that can be a complete story in and of itself.
Story: a sequence of events that have a beginning, middle, and end creating a robust narrative.
The rest we can move on with as we go.
So, to start off with, I should describe how I put together a campaign. This is not the only way, it is not the best way, it is just a way, and
As I start, I have to remember that my part is to create everything *except* the Hero. I am not writing a book or a movie or a video game. Any time the hero has to make a decision, I have to set things up so that the players can choose or not to make it, knowing perfectly well that they can go in any direction the want, lol.
The Big Idea
Like most folks, I start with an idea, lol. Unlike most, I don't usually start off with a character sketch -- that "i have an idea for a really cool BBEG (and/or their lair)" thing. I call that a character sketch, because it doesn't even tell a story -- nor does "the party goes up against the BBEG'. That is a great starting place, though, and I have done it more than a few times.
Because this is D&D, I like to look at mythic patterns and legends and even books and such for my inspiration, but most of the time I will use an existing framework or five, lol.
Frameworks
When I say Framework, I mean the sort of large scale ideas -- the big thematic story. Most of my players like to have an idea of the overarching story given to them in zero session, but without an of the spoilers, lol. They say it helps them to figure out where they are going and what they are doing.
I use a few common frameworks:
Virgin's Promise
Heroine's Journey
Hero's Journey
Propp's Fairytale Structure
Of those, the one a lot of folks are likely familiar with is the Hero's Journey (the monomyth of Joseph Campbell fame that is the framework for Star Wars and Arthur and Gilgamesh, et al). It is a great framework, and works on a party of nine as easily as it does a single hero. You just substitute "Party" for "hero", lol.
I also have some I have created myself after studying those. One that is popular among my group, for example, I developed based on a series of common patterns in the life of a trans person. (I know, not a surprise).
The others may require a search to find, but all of them are well established patterns. Some might look askance because of the "girly" nature of the other two, but keep in mind they make for powerful frameworks regardless of gender, and I have use them to create powerful stories for the entire party.
All are originally tools meant to be used for the analysis of myth, fable, story, and legend. I am using them for construction, so they are guidelines and sign posts; they are all more about the kinds of encounters and events that happen than they are the specific concept used in analysis.
Propp's is different because it also tends to add in an entire plot, lol, and lays out certain kinds of characters met along the way, so I like to mix it into the others because that makes it easy and gives a sense of chaos and "whimsy" to the overall story, which can bounce around a lot as a result.
Events
The basics of the Framework give me a way to lay out the major Events that need to be tracked. Each framework has certain steps -- each step is an Event. I like to us a mix of weaving and television metaphors when I think about this, so forgive me, but another way to look at it is as each Event, or step, is a kind of Tapestry, or a story arc from a long running TV show.
An easy way to do this with published adventures is to pick a few that go up the number of levels I want to deal with. I will read through them, and then start finding ways to connect them together -- that NPC seems like a good choice for a secret henchman of this NPC in the next module, for example.
Plots
If not, then I look at the Plot that I will use. Now, some folks may have heard it said there are "only X number of plots" and all that -- and sure, cool, if you are going to analyze them into generic quantities as part of a critical examination through a structuralist lens, sure, go with that. A Plot can be a whole story, but more often, a plot is only part of a campaign.
I play D&D. Ain't got no time for that., and this ain't the place. I got ten million plots to choose from. In my next campaign, I have 19 different plots; some of which are specific for characters -- who haven't been created yet -- and others are because I have different layers that come into play at different times.
Plots are simple on the surface: The players discover the BBEG is secretly enslaving a small town and must save the town and end the threat by any means necessary. That pretty much describes a bunch of the plots in published adventures, lol. I then have to break that plot up into steps that take them from "discover the plot" to "uncover the truth" to "Face the BBEG".
Plots do not have to be that way, however. The main plot of my upcoming campaign is a travelogue: The party travels around the world and has a series of adventures.
Doesn't sound super exciting, huh? No BBEG, no nefarious Dark lord. Like Gulliver's Travels, it is a fantasy adventure about traveling and hat happens while they do.
Each "stop along the way" is a new adventure, a new plot. So now I have a Plot and a Framework, and I can start using the framework to support the plot, breaking it into pieces that I can use. So I would take the parts of the Hero's Journey and turn each of them into a separate part:
The Ordinary World.
The Call to Adventure.
Refusal of the Call.
Those are the first three steps, or the first three Events. I call those pieces Events, and will combine them with Scenes to make aTapestry.
Encounters
The action in these Scenes will come from Encounters as well as the Event. An Encounter is anything the players encounter, and they can happen anywhere, but for excitement one Encounter per section (start, middle, end) is good. And when I say anything they encounter, I mean it -- a puzzle, an object, a room, a monster, an NPC -- all of those things all count as an Encounter.
Scenes & Events
Each Event is built into a Scene. A Scene tells a story wrapped around the Event -- so a scene has the beginning and the end attached to the Event in the middle.
This being D&D, I decide that each of those makes a good scene on its own, as each of them should tell a kind of mini story by itself.
So for the first Scene, I know that my big moment, my Event, is nothing super special -- it is showing the ordinary life of the members of the party.
For the Scene they should
get to know each other,
get their first mission,
and get paid for it.
That makes for a nice beginning, middle, and end all by itself, so I have my first Scene. Not that noting is happening in terms of the big story, and yet in terms of play, it allows players to get to know their characters and each other and all that. For my Encounter at this point I don't need any special plot threads or anything, so it really is as easy as it gets: some kind of simple encounter or mission, a way to get them all together (the Guild Hall), and some way to motivate them all to work together.
Second Scene
My next Event is the Call to Adventure. That means something that motivates them to move out and, hopefully, learn about a good chance -- but there should be a catch, because I also know that the third Event is a refusal (with eventual "ok, let's do it").
I can add in an NPC character to the first Scene -- specifically, an archetype from the Frameworks -- that gives me a character to help and if I do it right they will all like him more or less or feel a duty or debt to him. He will go along with them on the first mission and help out without becoming the one who does much. Once I know the PCs, I will be able to design him to fill in gaps of the party, and I can also shape the mission to take advantage of those gaps.
Now, for a beginning, I can combine it with the end of the first scene -- they all get back and get paid, and as they are getting paid, they hear of something in a distant place. THe NPC hears it too, and there is something that makes the NPC feel a need to go there.
But this is a story, so the NPC won't want to share, but I will describe the NPC as being upset, and seeming to want to turn to them, but not feeling like he can trust them yet because they just met.
THis is also a good time for me to throw in a new mission or something else that is an encounter of some type. The reason being is that it will distract them -- and the NPC won't be able to go because he has something important to do. That becomes my encounter for the second stage -- the middle of the story. When they return, they find the NPC beaten -- someone didn't want him going off. Now there is a mystery, and that gives them one possible hook -- but knowing m players, there needs to be more than one hook because they like to annoy me and never take the obvious.
So for the end of this scene, I will add in an encounter that has some kind of secondary hook, but won't answer the mystery, and yet will still give them a reason to turn to the NPC.
Since I also need to make it so that the party gets famous (for reasons of another story down the road), I will make this encounter a demon, and it will be a bit of foreshadowing for something to come.
Third Scene
For the third Scene, I will have them gather at the side of the NPC in recovery. He will give them each something, because that's what they do in the fairy tales -- the quest giver gives something to the questees. knickknacks -- but at least one will have import down the road. He will ask them to go, but will tell them about a dark evil that is preventing him from going, and they will probably die because this is totally out of their league.
I know, negging is bad motivation, but it sets up the next motivation. THis is the beginning of the third Scene. The middle is another encounter they should follow clues to *if they go looking*, or that will come to them, because, after all, they did just beat in in the end of the last Scene.
The goal, though, is to make them not want to go. So I will play up the whole danger to them, the potential cost, and I will use their assorted character traits against them.
But what if I do it too well? So, the demon is still a demon, and being a demon he will monologue like such while he tortures them and makes them not even want to do it, but then he will also let slip a way to defeat him, and this becomes the long middle -- here I will probably set it up as three encounters, and they will be risking their standing in the Guild, their ability to be in the town, and stuff like that.
The expectation, of course, is that they beat the demon, and in doing so find out that the demon is sent by an evil force that heard a prophecy about these heroes who would change the world, blah blah.
For the end, the goal is to let the players decide to either move forward with it or not -- and if not, well, then I will do a bunch of missions that get pretty boring and not super rewarding, lol. Maybe I toss in a few ore hooks that come to me as we play, maybe I just let them go. What is important is that eventually they will choose to go beyond, and that's when the next part will start.
Now, you may note that I just laid out three segments, each segment with three parts, and all of it together ties up in a nice little knot. That is a whole adventure, outlined. I can add in the monster stats, fill in details of NPCs and the town or city or whatever, but the story's start is already outlined and it is going to take more than a single session to role play all of it.
Adventures
That is an entire Adventure. Those three steps are a single adventure now, all by themselves, and they tell a story all by themselves with a beginning a middle and an end.
That is how easy it is to set up a single adventure. But this is about setting up a campaign.
A campaign is made up of a series of adventures. There are 12 Steps on the Hero's Journey -- that's useful enough to create 4 Adventures. I can add in side quests and simple stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the cycle, just with having fun or making it seem like there is more direction from the players. At each of the Scenes, I reveal a little more about the BBEG. In each adventure, there is a little BBEG -- a Minion or Lieutenant. So it slowly builds up the stakes, as well, because each of them is more powerful.
Outlining
I am one of those folks who likes to have a bunch of notes because they make those times when I have to wing it better. Indeed, for most of my adventures, my campaigns are nothing more than a series of notes -- I just get more detailed, lol.I start with my major story, the one I started above.
Now I know that I have other things that will be going on down the road, and this is where my basic plot I talked about above comes in -- I am doing a travelogue. So for them to move to the next stage requires travel, and I can set up the next story and the next one and have completely different plots or even change up the genre so that it is a horror or comedy or detective, or western story.
Combining Plots and Frameworks
Now, I can combine the different Journeys in different ways -- I can have them run side by side, I can mix and match them, I can alternate them, I can even set them up so that I have one for each PC. I can make my frameworks as complicated or as simple as I want, and the two big things are player interest and my time, lol.
ley's say that one of the PCs has a back story that needs fleshing out over time. I can use on of the frameworks to create that sub-plot (also called an imbroglio) into the whole,, or even use it in a completely separate framework that runs concurrently (at the same time as the main stuff). I can have hs many of those as i have players, if needed, and when I do things like that I try to link them into the main framework or story at some place or some point, but mostly I add them in as extra Scenes scattered among the others. This creates a bit of a break, and yet doesn't feel like it is getting in the way of the main story -- it becomes a filler episode like thing.
I have done non-sequential adventures before -- where there were time hops -- but I had to make that very simple story wise, or it became too hard for me.
After the Outline
Once I have my outlines (and yes, mine can be pretty complicated), I will drop in the monsters, the treasures, the experience or milestones, and all that. I don't even start thinking about battle maps, about town maps, or what not, until I have the outline filled out unless I need to do it to help me understand a critical element.
But once I have that initial set up done, the rest is mostly just rinse and repeat, stringing them all together in a series of Scenes composed of Encounters and threads, along with stubs and little side hooks for errands, small missions, training periods, and other stuff so that it doesn't seem like I am railroading, I giving opportunities to explore and do what they want.
I abhor railroading, but I am not against giving motivation by any means short of death and imprisonment.
Inspirations
In this next campaign of mine, the adventures will be based on movies, and I will shape each movie's story to fit that section of the campaign. This is another way that I use things to make it seem less like they are all caught up in a big old boring direct line story. So, each adventure will be based on one or more films that are popular and fairly well known to my players we are all movie buffs). Doing this means that they will, at some point during that adventure, realize they are in a movie as Players, and it will help to motivate them as well as cue their creativity because now thy get to be Indiana Jones.
Some of the movies I am using (there are 21 adventures in my next campaign) are: The Godfather, Magnificent Seven/Sons of katie Elder, Gangs of New York/The Warriors/Streets of Fire, The Maltese Falcon, The Ocean's films, The Mummy (the good one), Mission Impossible, Deliverance, Labyrinth, Smokey & the bandit, The Shining, and by request, John Wick. I am also doing some "traditional stories": save the princess, rescue the King. And I am doing pastiches of a few modules -- the original Ravenloft being one of them. I should note that there is an active Gladiator Arena they can participate in, and I also have a Mortal Kombat ripoff on the world. My players had a lot of input.
I like to be involved at character creation not as someone who says what can and cannot be done, but as someone who needs to know how to work the characters into that outline. the more I know about their backgrounds, their motivations, their flaws and traits and such, the more I can bring the world around them to life because I see my major goal as doing little more than that -- bringing the world around them to life. The story is the story of the Players, I just build the stuff through which they move.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
That was...very long and complicated, lol. Thorough, and I don't think it's bad at all, but if I was a brand spanking new wannabe DM, that would be very intimidating. :) I think there are good ideas there though, especially for those who are looking for more ways to make their campaigns more robust maybe. You should create a campaign following your steps but laid out here so people can see a concrete example.
I think it really all starts with an idea, like you mentioned, but it doesn't have to be the bbeg (and not every campaign has to have one) but just the inspiration. If could be a BBEG, an NPC, a setting, or even just a theme. It also matters if you are going to use an existing setting (like Forgotten Realms) or one you're creating yourself. Then give yourself a start point and an end point. Give a reason to get from start to end, come up with a couple of major plot hooks to get you from beginning to end. Along the way, write down EVERY other idea you get, no matter how dumb or small it sounds, you never know when it might fit in. Just about everything else to me is window dressing, but again this is for newer DMs. I understand more experienced ones may want a much more robust plan like mentioned above.
I'll do a quick example of how I might put a basic campaign together:
Start: Zombies are plaguing a local village
End: BBEG stole an ancient artifact that allows them control over undead, killing the bbeg or destroying the artifact will restore peace in the land
Major hook 1: A rival kingdom protects the entrance to where the relic was kept
Major hook 2: Help restore a fallen line of paladins who can then help protect and consecrate the land again
And there you go. Is there a lot to fill in? Sure, but you have the bare backbone of a campaign. I really just wanted to point out that for newer DMs, you don't have to come up with really elaborate plots and complex NPCs and all that. You CAN, and if you want it by all means go for it, you just don't HAVE to. Like you said too, this is far from the only way or best way, it's just -a- way to do it. I'm definitely interested to see what else y'all come up with!
Thank you -- that is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for when I started this thread.
LOL yes, I tend to do complicated things. I was hoping by just doing the first three that I could give an idea of how to do it -- will work on clearing that up a bit.
give yourself a start point and an end point. Give a reason to get from start to end, come up with a couple of major plot hooks to get you from beginning to end. Along the way, write down EVERY other idea you get, no matter how dumb or small it sounds, you never know when it might fit in. Just about everything else to me is window dressing,
I like how you really just dive into the meat of the core story there. Start, end, reason to get from point A to point B, hooks to draw you there.
I do second the "every idea" bit, lol. The monster campaign I am finishing up is built on basically every silly idea I could come up with and while I doubt even half of them will be investigated, they are there just in case they are.
Since i create custom worlds, everything is window dressing, lol. Lore is made up on the spot half the time, even though I have a bnch settled, because no one can figure it all out ahead of time, so be kind to yourself and let the world bloom naturally -- even if it is a published world!
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I usually have an idea of what sort of world I want, the main themes and "feeling" of the place, and from there, I figure out what sort of story I want to tell in that setting, usually by the themes.
I'm not telling a story though, but rather setting up scenarios. and for that, i have certain beats that must happen to get from start to end. In between, you an have options, and that's what I tend to strive for. Giving the players options between different necessary beats to progress from A to Z. Keep it light and flexible, make plenty of NPC's, know that your group isn't going to hit everything and you're going to have to hit them in the head with a clue or two in the process.
I start small and expand out, providing several different adventure hooks as I go. I prepare those hooks in advance so that I am prepared for which hook they choose. Generally, I don't over plan, I just give myself some rudimentary points. If I need more time to expand on their choice, I throw in one or two random encounters which gives me more time to prep the direction they are headed. Overtime, I will create two to three main hooks and various smaller ones.
Ok. I've really tried to not bring my views in on this, but it IS kind of an important thing to say:
I really, really, really advise against overplanning.
It's the same as when it comes to people "writing books". They get too wrapped up in the world and the setting that they never put pen to paper, or in this realm of study, they don't put PC's in it. You can have the most wonderful fleshed out world ever, and it's an utter waste if nobody gets to experience it. Secondarily, you can put so much hype into the world building aspect that when you actually DO go to write story, you end up coming up short. Either the ideas you have don't live up to your self hype, or the ideas you have/had no longer fit because your world is too inflexible, or you just spent so much focus on setting, you never explored plot and now you're coming up dry.
That overbuilding of a world is often just lack of confidence or procrastination, and more than just creating something too inflexible and heavy for a plot, even when you do get a plot in there, it's too heavy and inflexible for characters to inhabit, and often they're in a situation of severe railroading.
Keep it simple. Role playing is easier than writing a novel because as the DM you're not writing for the main characters, you're just background set designer who also sets up scenarios for a bunch of improv actors.
In fact, if you want to amp u some of those DM skills, take some time off from your world building and take a short improv class (if they have one) near you. It'll be a break from the world building and even if you suck and you suck hard, trust me, it'll help you think quicker on your feet and clear some of that headspace that's *actually* preventing you from making progress.
If that scares the utter hell out of you (and it will many if not most), find another hobby... Not permanently! Just something that can clear the headspace by redirecting that focus.
If it's a confidence thing, just go ahead and do it anyway, regardless of how scary it might seem. Whatever you THINK is the worst thing that can happen is nothing compared to what is *actually* the worst moment of your life, and a far cry worse than what is *actually* going to happen.
And if that doesn't help, I'll give you the two magic words that I discovered for myself 20+ years ago...
Ok. I've really tried to not bring my views in on this, but it IS kind of an important thing to say:
I really, really, really advise against overplanning.
It's the same as when it comes to people "writing books". They get too wrapped up in the world and the setting that they never put pen to paper, or in this realm of study, they don't put PC's in it. You can have the most wonderful fleshed out world ever, and it's an utter waste if nobody gets to experience it. Secondarily, you can put so much hype into the world building aspect that when you actually DO go to write story, you end up coming up short. Either the ideas you have don't live up to your self hype, or the ideas you have/had no longer fit because your world is too inflexible, or you just spent so much focus on setting, you never explored plot and now you're coming up dry.
That overbuilding of a world is often just lack of confidence or procrastination, and more than just creating something too inflexible and heavy for a plot, even when you do get a plot in there, it's too heavy and inflexible for characters to inhabit, and often they're in a situation of severe railroading.
Keep it simple. Role playing is easier than writing a novel because as the DM you're not writing for the main characters, you're just background set designer who also sets up scenarios for a bunch of improv actors.
In fact, if you want to amp u some of those DM skills, take some time off from your world building and take a short improv class (if they have one) near you. It'll be a break from the world building and even if you suck and you suck hard, trust me, it'll help you think quicker on your feet and clear some of that headspace that's *actually* preventing you from making progress.
If that scares the utter hell out of you (and it will many if not most), find another hobby... Not permanently! Just something that can clear the headspace by redirecting that focus.
If it's a confidence thing, just go ahead and do it anyway, regardless of how scary it might seem. Whatever you THINK is the worst thing that can happen is nothing compared to what is *actually* the worst moment of your life, and a far cry worse than what is *actually* going to happen.
And if that doesn't help, I'll give you the two magic words that I discovered for myself 20+ years ago...
"Fu** it."
and then do it anyway.
If I may, I want to piggy back on this and say "hear, hear"!
So, one of the things I didn't talk about in my big post was that I almost never actually write stuff out in detail until usually the month before I actually need it.
And then only for really complex stuff that might even require me to break out the position board (I use a grid, not a hex) and print some custom minis, lol.
When planning out a campaign, I do go dep in that I will break it down to all those Scenes, however many there are. If I know that a particular scene needs a very particular critter,or needs some extra rules attention, I will drop that in a a note or table or whatever -- but I don't do much more than that.
One thing I also have is a bunch of 'stock characters" -- the NPCs that I have found the most useful to have handy. I make generics of them. It isn't like "generic blacksmith", it is more like "generic annoying neighbor" or "generic hotshot". They pop in as needed at different times.and different beats, and can serve to offer story hooks, advice, comedic break, or competitive foil (like when trying to bargain a price down).
Almost all of them are basically tropes or archetypes, so there is a degree of familiarity already present.
The reason I do this "loose, seat of your pants" style is that i place an emphasis on role play. Note that while I set things up to give the players a reason to move forward in the story (aside from milestones), the entire time I was doing so I was expecting them to *not* want to do so. Because it is an open world, and they may decide they just want to go find one of the dungeons, lol, or take a few more jobs from the adventurer's guild.
And all of that stuff is a chance for me to keep moving things forward around them. The game is the story of the PC's, not the story of my NPCs. So they guide themselves and I react to what they do -- I will still try to find ways to move them along in the larger framework I have written out, but there are thousand ways to get past something (as anyone who has thought themselves a master puzzle designer has learned), and in my experience, there is always a point where they will move forward with the story if you give them a reason.
And if you lock yourself in by over-planning, you lose the ability to take advantage of it.
Another reason I tend to be very general in my design and stop at laying out my outline is that sometimes a game has a moment that gets fixed in and defines a part of that session -- I want to capture that and be able to build onit. OFten hor, sometimes just an emotional moment, it binds the player's characters together and helps to set a tone or a sense of camaraderie.
Set-ups are easy to do once you have practiced them -- they become easier to do than the railroading "you all wake up in a prison", lol. I confess my biggest challenge is finding a way to get them all in the same place at the same time to start the game, and that's why I turned to the Anime convention of the Adventurer's Guild.
(I want to stress that I turned to the anime convention, not the manga or Light Novel ones, lol).
in my large outline, I do have a point where there is a sequence that anticipates them all being in jail. I mention this to illustrate part of the point here:
odds are good that only some of them will get arrested. Odds are also good that none of them will get arrested. THey may pick up on the betrayal that will be in place. They may sense they are being conned. THey may read this post and make secret notes.
So how do I adapt the story to the PC's if I have already pre-ordained that they will be arrested and put in a jail and then hauled off to a prison -- an they do nothing that makes any of that happen?
The answer is, I don't pre-ordain it. I don't even stress it -- it is in the outline, but byt he time I get to it, they may not want todo a whole prison break thing, or it may not fit the scope of it, and the whole reason behind the scheme is to give the motivation to uncover a nefarious plot -- and there is more than one way to uncover a nefarious plot.
Staying loose and avoiding too much detail gives you the ability to flex and adapt and adjust -- to evolve the story as it goes.
For the three sections that I have described in the first post, you have the entirety of the write up. I need to grab a demon listing (really, create one because it is a custom creature), and I need to know my town and locations in it (and that's a generated map away). A quick side quest. little things, that don't need much in the way of complex thinking -- because I hav outlined it and I understand why some stuff is there and other stuff is not, and what the point of it all is.
The rest is icing, and you never ice a cake until it is cool ;)
The rest of it is pretty much as you see it. Role playing at the moment fills in the details.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
My process for campaign creation is pretty stream of conscious. I use the method that Rich Burlew (Order of the Stick) used to have up on his website. I start off with a blank document and start asking myself questions. It looks something like this.
"What kind of adventure do I want to run? I know I want to do something with hobgoblins attacking a village and I want to use that creature that manifests from group trauma that was in the 3E Monster Manual II. What was it called? A fihyr. I want the fihyrs to manifest from the trauma everyone is experiencing from the hobgoblins attacking."
Sometimes, when I don't have a specific idea about something, I'll do a brainstorm session and start bullet pointing out some thoughts.
"So why are the hobgoblins attacking? Let's think of some reasons:
There's some item in the town that they're after.
Maybe one of the villagers did something to the hobgoblins.
Maybe they do periodic raids for food and this has been going on for a long time."
And I just keep going until I feel like I have a good overarching plot and then I start writing. If I get stuck somewhere, I go back through the process. It works for me.
Hi all. I am creating this thread to enable the discussion of How To Design and Develop a Campaign. The ultimate point of this post here is that folks provide a series of posts to help new DMs and others to understand how to do this.
My reasoning is pretty simple: a lot of folks have written posts about how they want to find a way to move past the Character Sketch idea to an actual adventure that is more than just a straight line.
To provide definitions for common reference (so we all know what we are talking about):
The rest we can move on with as we go.
So, to start off with, I should describe how I put together a campaign. This is not the only way, it is not the best way, it is just a way, and
As I start, I have to remember that my part is to create everything *except* the Hero. I am not writing a book or a movie or a video game. Any time the hero has to make a decision, I have to set things up so that the players can choose or not to make it, knowing perfectly well that they can go in any direction the want, lol.
The Big Idea
Like most folks, I start with an idea, lol. Unlike most, I don't usually start off with a character sketch -- that "i have an idea for a really cool BBEG (and/or their lair)" thing. I call that a character sketch, because it doesn't even tell a story -- nor does "the party goes up against the BBEG'. That is a great starting place, though, and I have done it more than a few times.
Because this is D&D, I like to look at mythic patterns and legends and even books and such for my inspiration, but most of the time I will use an existing framework or five, lol.
Frameworks
When I say Framework, I mean the sort of large scale ideas -- the big thematic story. Most of my players like to have an idea of the overarching story given to them in zero session, but without an of the spoilers, lol. They say it helps them to figure out where they are going and what they are doing.
I use a few common frameworks:
Of those, the one a lot of folks are likely familiar with is the Hero's Journey (the monomyth of Joseph Campbell fame that is the framework for Star Wars and Arthur and Gilgamesh, et al). It is a great framework, and works on a party of nine as easily as it does a single hero. You just substitute "Party" for "hero", lol.
I also have some I have created myself after studying those. One that is popular among my group, for example, I developed based on a series of common patterns in the life of a trans person. (I know, not a surprise).
The others may require a search to find, but all of them are well established patterns. Some might look askance because of the "girly" nature of the other two, but keep in mind they make for powerful frameworks regardless of gender, and I have use them to create powerful stories for the entire party.
All are originally tools meant to be used for the analysis of myth, fable, story, and legend. I am using them for construction, so they are guidelines and sign posts; they are all more about the kinds of encounters and events that happen than they are the specific concept used in analysis.
Propp's is different because it also tends to add in an entire plot, lol, and lays out certain kinds of characters met along the way, so I like to mix it into the others because that makes it easy and gives a sense of chaos and "whimsy" to the overall story, which can bounce around a lot as a result.
Events
The basics of the Framework give me a way to lay out the major Events that need to be tracked. Each framework has certain steps -- each step is an Event. I like to us a mix of weaving and television metaphors when I think about this, so forgive me, but another way to look at it is as each Event, or step, is a kind of Tapestry, or a story arc from a long running TV show.
An easy way to do this with published adventures is to pick a few that go up the number of levels I want to deal with. I will read through them, and then start finding ways to connect them together -- that NPC seems like a good choice for a secret henchman of this NPC in the next module, for example.
Plots
If not, then I look at the Plot that I will use. Now, some folks may have heard it said there are "only X number of plots" and all that -- and sure, cool, if you are going to analyze them into generic quantities as part of a critical examination through a structuralist lens, sure, go with that. A Plot can be a whole story, but more often, a plot is only part of a campaign.
I play D&D. Ain't got no time for that., and this ain't the place. I got ten million plots to choose from. In my next campaign, I have 19 different plots; some of which are specific for characters -- who haven't been created yet -- and others are because I have different layers that come into play at different times.
Plots are simple on the surface: The players discover the BBEG is secretly enslaving a small town and must save the town and end the threat by any means necessary. That pretty much describes a bunch of the plots in published adventures, lol. I then have to break that plot up into steps that take them from "discover the plot" to "uncover the truth" to "Face the BBEG".
Plots do not have to be that way, however. The main plot of my upcoming campaign is a travelogue: The party travels around the world and has a series of adventures.
Doesn't sound super exciting, huh? No BBEG, no nefarious Dark lord. Like Gulliver's Travels, it is a fantasy adventure about traveling and hat happens while they do.
Each "stop along the way" is a new adventure, a new plot. So now I have a Plot and a Framework, and I can start using the framework to support the plot, breaking it into pieces that I can use. So I would take the parts of the Hero's Journey and turn each of them into a separate part:
Those are the first three steps, or the first three Events. I call those pieces Events, and will combine them with Scenes to make aTapestry.
Encounters
The action in these Scenes will come from Encounters as well as the Event. An Encounter is anything the players encounter, and they can happen anywhere, but for excitement one Encounter per section (start, middle, end) is good. And when I say anything they encounter, I mean it -- a puzzle, an object, a room, a monster, an NPC -- all of those things all count as an Encounter.
Scenes & Events
Each Event is built into a Scene. A Scene tells a story wrapped around the Event -- so a scene has the beginning and the end attached to the Event in the middle.
This being D&D, I decide that each of those makes a good scene on its own, as each of them should tell a kind of mini story by itself.
So for the first Scene, I know that my big moment, my Event, is nothing super special -- it is showing the ordinary life of the members of the party.
For the Scene they should
That makes for a nice beginning, middle, and end all by itself, so I have my first Scene. Not that noting is happening in terms of the big story, and yet in terms of play, it allows players to get to know their characters and each other and all that. For my Encounter at this point I don't need any special plot threads or anything, so it really is as easy as it gets: some kind of simple encounter or mission, a way to get them all together (the Guild Hall), and some way to motivate them all to work together.
Second Scene
My next Event is the Call to Adventure. That means something that motivates them to move out and, hopefully, learn about a good chance -- but there should be a catch, because I also know that the third Event is a refusal (with eventual "ok, let's do it").
I can add in an NPC character to the first Scene -- specifically, an archetype from the Frameworks -- that gives me a character to help and if I do it right they will all like him more or less or feel a duty or debt to him. He will go along with them on the first mission and help out without becoming the one who does much. Once I know the PCs, I will be able to design him to fill in gaps of the party, and I can also shape the mission to take advantage of those gaps.
Now, for a beginning, I can combine it with the end of the first scene -- they all get back and get paid, and as they are getting paid, they hear of something in a distant place. THe NPC hears it too, and there is something that makes the NPC feel a need to go there.
But this is a story, so the NPC won't want to share, but I will describe the NPC as being upset, and seeming to want to turn to them, but not feeling like he can trust them yet because they just met.
THis is also a good time for me to throw in a new mission or something else that is an encounter of some type. The reason being is that it will distract them -- and the NPC won't be able to go because he has something important to do. That becomes my encounter for the second stage -- the middle of the story. When they return, they find the NPC beaten -- someone didn't want him going off. Now there is a mystery, and that gives them one possible hook -- but knowing m players, there needs to be more than one hook because they like to annoy me and never take the obvious.
So for the end of this scene, I will add in an encounter that has some kind of secondary hook, but won't answer the mystery, and yet will still give them a reason to turn to the NPC.
Since I also need to make it so that the party gets famous (for reasons of another story down the road), I will make this encounter a demon, and it will be a bit of foreshadowing for something to come.
Third Scene
For the third Scene, I will have them gather at the side of the NPC in recovery. He will give them each something, because that's what they do in the fairy tales -- the quest giver gives something to the questees. knickknacks -- but at least one will have import down the road. He will ask them to go, but will tell them about a dark evil that is preventing him from going, and they will probably die because this is totally out of their league.
I know, negging is bad motivation, but it sets up the next motivation. THis is the beginning of the third Scene. The middle is another encounter they should follow clues to *if they go looking*, or that will come to them, because, after all, they did just beat in in the end of the last Scene.
The goal, though, is to make them not want to go. So I will play up the whole danger to them, the potential cost, and I will use their assorted character traits against them.
But what if I do it too well? So, the demon is still a demon, and being a demon he will monologue like such while he tortures them and makes them not even want to do it, but then he will also let slip a way to defeat him, and this becomes the long middle -- here I will probably set it up as three encounters, and they will be risking their standing in the Guild, their ability to be in the town, and stuff like that.
The expectation, of course, is that they beat the demon, and in doing so find out that the demon is sent by an evil force that heard a prophecy about these heroes who would change the world, blah blah.
For the end, the goal is to let the players decide to either move forward with it or not -- and if not, well, then I will do a bunch of missions that get pretty boring and not super rewarding, lol. Maybe I toss in a few ore hooks that come to me as we play, maybe I just let them go. What is important is that eventually they will choose to go beyond, and that's when the next part will start.
Now, you may note that I just laid out three segments, each segment with three parts, and all of it together ties up in a nice little knot. That is a whole adventure, outlined. I can add in the monster stats, fill in details of NPCs and the town or city or whatever, but the story's start is already outlined and it is going to take more than a single session to role play all of it.
Adventures
That is an entire Adventure. Those three steps are a single adventure now, all by themselves, and they tell a story all by themselves with a beginning a middle and an end.
That is how easy it is to set up a single adventure. But this is about setting up a campaign.
A campaign is made up of a series of adventures. There are 12 Steps on the Hero's Journey -- that's useful enough to create 4 Adventures. I can add in side quests and simple stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the cycle, just with having fun or making it seem like there is more direction from the players. At each of the Scenes, I reveal a little more about the BBEG. In each adventure, there is a little BBEG -- a Minion or Lieutenant. So it slowly builds up the stakes, as well, because each of them is more powerful.
Outlining
I am one of those folks who likes to have a bunch of notes because they make those times when I have to wing it better. Indeed, for most of my adventures, my campaigns are nothing more than a series of notes -- I just get more detailed, lol.I start with my major story, the one I started above.
Now I know that I have other things that will be going on down the road, and this is where my basic plot I talked about above comes in -- I am doing a travelogue. So for them to move to the next stage requires travel, and I can set up the next story and the next one and have completely different plots or even change up the genre so that it is a horror or comedy or detective, or western story.
Combining Plots and Frameworks
Now, I can combine the different Journeys in different ways -- I can have them run side by side, I can mix and match them, I can alternate them, I can even set them up so that I have one for each PC. I can make my frameworks as complicated or as simple as I want, and the two big things are player interest and my time, lol.
ley's say that one of the PCs has a back story that needs fleshing out over time. I can use on of the frameworks to create that sub-plot (also called an imbroglio) into the whole,, or even use it in a completely separate framework that runs concurrently (at the same time as the main stuff). I can have hs many of those as i have players, if needed, and when I do things like that I try to link them into the main framework or story at some place or some point, but mostly I add them in as extra Scenes scattered among the others. This creates a bit of a break, and yet doesn't feel like it is getting in the way of the main story -- it becomes a filler episode like thing.
I have done non-sequential adventures before -- where there were time hops -- but I had to make that very simple story wise, or it became too hard for me.
After the Outline
Once I have my outlines (and yes, mine can be pretty complicated), I will drop in the monsters, the treasures, the experience or milestones, and all that. I don't even start thinking about battle maps, about town maps, or what not, until I have the outline filled out unless I need to do it to help me understand a critical element.
But once I have that initial set up done, the rest is mostly just rinse and repeat, stringing them all together in a series of Scenes composed of Encounters and threads, along with stubs and little side hooks for errands, small missions, training periods, and other stuff so that it doesn't seem like I am railroading, I giving opportunities to explore and do what they want.
I abhor railroading, but I am not against giving motivation by any means short of death and imprisonment.
Inspirations
In this next campaign of mine, the adventures will be based on movies, and I will shape each movie's story to fit that section of the campaign. This is another way that I use things to make it seem less like they are all caught up in a big old boring direct line story. So, each adventure will be based on one or more films that are popular and fairly well known to my players we are all movie buffs). Doing this means that they will, at some point during that adventure, realize they are in a movie as Players, and it will help to motivate them as well as cue their creativity because now thy get to be Indiana Jones.
Some of the movies I am using (there are 21 adventures in my next campaign) are: The Godfather, Magnificent Seven/Sons of katie Elder, Gangs of New York/The Warriors/Streets of Fire, The Maltese Falcon, The Ocean's films, The Mummy (the good one), Mission Impossible, Deliverance, Labyrinth, Smokey & the bandit, The Shining, and by request, John Wick. I am also doing some "traditional stories": save the princess, rescue the King. And I am doing pastiches of a few modules -- the original Ravenloft being one of them. I should note that there is an active Gladiator Arena they can participate in, and I also have a Mortal Kombat ripoff on the world. My players had a lot of input.
I like to be involved at character creation not as someone who says what can and cannot be done, but as someone who needs to know how to work the characters into that outline. the more I know about their backgrounds, their motivations, their flaws and traits and such, the more I can bring the world around them to life because I see my major goal as doing little more than that -- bringing the world around them to life. The story is the story of the Players, I just build the stuff through which they move.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
That was...very long and complicated, lol. Thorough, and I don't think it's bad at all, but if I was a brand spanking new wannabe DM, that would be very intimidating. :) I think there are good ideas there though, especially for those who are looking for more ways to make their campaigns more robust maybe. You should create a campaign following your steps but laid out here so people can see a concrete example.
I think it really all starts with an idea, like you mentioned, but it doesn't have to be the bbeg (and not every campaign has to have one) but just the inspiration. If could be a BBEG, an NPC, a setting, or even just a theme. It also matters if you are going to use an existing setting (like Forgotten Realms) or one you're creating yourself. Then give yourself a start point and an end point. Give a reason to get from start to end, come up with a couple of major plot hooks to get you from beginning to end. Along the way, write down EVERY other idea you get, no matter how dumb or small it sounds, you never know when it might fit in. Just about everything else to me is window dressing, but again this is for newer DMs. I understand more experienced ones may want a much more robust plan like mentioned above.
I'll do a quick example of how I might put a basic campaign together:
Start: Zombies are plaguing a local village
End: BBEG stole an ancient artifact that allows them control over undead, killing the bbeg or destroying the artifact will restore peace in the land
Major hook 1: A rival kingdom protects the entrance to where the relic was kept
Major hook 2: Help restore a fallen line of paladins who can then help protect and consecrate the land again
And there you go. Is there a lot to fill in? Sure, but you have the bare backbone of a campaign. I really just wanted to point out that for newer DMs, you don't have to come up with really elaborate plots and complex NPCs and all that. You CAN, and if you want it by all means go for it, you just don't HAVE to. Like you said too, this is far from the only way or best way, it's just -a- way to do it. I'm definitely interested to see what else y'all come up with!
Thank you -- that is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for when I started this thread.
LOL yes, I tend to do complicated things. I was hoping by just doing the first three that I could give an idea of how to do it -- will work on clearing that up a bit.
I like how you really just dive into the meat of the core story there. Start, end, reason to get from point A to point B, hooks to draw you there.
I do second the "every idea" bit, lol. The monster campaign I am finishing up is built on basically every silly idea I could come up with and while I doubt even half of them will be investigated, they are there just in case they are.
Since i create custom worlds, everything is window dressing, lol. Lore is made up on the spot half the time, even though I have a bnch settled, because no one can figure it all out ahead of time, so be kind to yourself and let the world bloom naturally -- even if it is a published world!
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I usually have an idea of what sort of world I want, the main themes and "feeling" of the place, and from there, I figure out what sort of story I want to tell in that setting, usually by the themes.
I'm not telling a story though, but rather setting up scenarios. and for that, i have certain beats that must happen to get from start to end. In between, you an have options, and that's what I tend to strive for. Giving the players options between different necessary beats to progress from A to Z. Keep it light and flexible, make plenty of NPC's, know that your group isn't going to hit everything and you're going to have to hit them in the head with a clue or two in the process.
I start small and expand out, providing several different adventure hooks as I go. I prepare those hooks in advance so that I am prepared for which hook they choose. Generally, I don't over plan, I just give myself some rudimentary points. If I need more time to expand on their choice, I throw in one or two random encounters which gives me more time to prep the direction they are headed. Overtime, I will create two to three main hooks and various smaller ones.
Ok. I've really tried to not bring my views in on this, but it IS kind of an important thing to say:
I really, really, really advise against overplanning.
It's the same as when it comes to people "writing books". They get too wrapped up in the world and the setting that they never put pen to paper, or in this realm of study, they don't put PC's in it. You can have the most wonderful fleshed out world ever, and it's an utter waste if nobody gets to experience it. Secondarily, you can put so much hype into the world building aspect that when you actually DO go to write story, you end up coming up short. Either the ideas you have don't live up to your self hype, or the ideas you have/had no longer fit because your world is too inflexible, or you just spent so much focus on setting, you never explored plot and now you're coming up dry.
That overbuilding of a world is often just lack of confidence or procrastination, and more than just creating something too inflexible and heavy for a plot, even when you do get a plot in there, it's too heavy and inflexible for characters to inhabit, and often they're in a situation of severe railroading.
Keep it simple. Role playing is easier than writing a novel because as the DM you're not writing for the main characters, you're just background set designer who also sets up scenarios for a bunch of improv actors.
In fact, if you want to amp u some of those DM skills, take some time off from your world building and take a short improv class (if they have one) near you. It'll be a break from the world building and even if you suck and you suck hard, trust me, it'll help you think quicker on your feet and clear some of that headspace that's *actually* preventing you from making progress.
If that scares the utter hell out of you (and it will many if not most), find another hobby... Not permanently! Just something that can clear the headspace by redirecting that focus.
If it's a confidence thing, just go ahead and do it anyway, regardless of how scary it might seem. Whatever you THINK is the worst thing that can happen is nothing compared to what is *actually* the worst moment of your life, and a far cry worse than what is *actually* going to happen.
And if that doesn't help, I'll give you the two magic words that I discovered for myself 20+ years ago...
"Fu** it."
and then do it anyway.
If I may, I want to piggy back on this and say "hear, hear"!
So, one of the things I didn't talk about in my big post was that I almost never actually write stuff out in detail until usually the month before I actually need it.
And then only for really complex stuff that might even require me to break out the position board (I use a grid, not a hex) and print some custom minis, lol.
When planning out a campaign, I do go dep in that I will break it down to all those Scenes, however many there are. If I know that a particular scene needs a very particular critter,or needs some extra rules attention, I will drop that in a a note or table or whatever -- but I don't do much more than that.
One thing I also have is a bunch of 'stock characters" -- the NPCs that I have found the most useful to have handy. I make generics of them. It isn't like "generic blacksmith", it is more like "generic annoying neighbor" or "generic hotshot". They pop in as needed at different times.and different beats, and can serve to offer story hooks, advice, comedic break, or competitive foil (like when trying to bargain a price down).
Almost all of them are basically tropes or archetypes, so there is a degree of familiarity already present.
The reason I do this "loose, seat of your pants" style is that i place an emphasis on role play. Note that while I set things up to give the players a reason to move forward in the story (aside from milestones), the entire time I was doing so I was expecting them to *not* want to do so. Because it is an open world, and they may decide they just want to go find one of the dungeons, lol, or take a few more jobs from the adventurer's guild.
And all of that stuff is a chance for me to keep moving things forward around them. The game is the story of the PC's, not the story of my NPCs. So they guide themselves and I react to what they do -- I will still try to find ways to move them along in the larger framework I have written out, but there are thousand ways to get past something (as anyone who has thought themselves a master puzzle designer has learned), and in my experience, there is always a point where they will move forward with the story if you give them a reason.
And if you lock yourself in by over-planning, you lose the ability to take advantage of it.
Another reason I tend to be very general in my design and stop at laying out my outline is that sometimes a game has a moment that gets fixed in and defines a part of that session -- I want to capture that and be able to build onit. OFten hor, sometimes just an emotional moment, it binds the player's characters together and helps to set a tone or a sense of camaraderie.
Set-ups are easy to do once you have practiced them -- they become easier to do than the railroading "you all wake up in a prison", lol. I confess my biggest challenge is finding a way to get them all in the same place at the same time to start the game, and that's why I turned to the Anime convention of the Adventurer's Guild.
(I want to stress that I turned to the anime convention, not the manga or Light Novel ones, lol).
in my large outline, I do have a point where there is a sequence that anticipates them all being in jail. I mention this to illustrate part of the point here:
odds are good that only some of them will get arrested. Odds are also good that none of them will get arrested. THey may pick up on the betrayal that will be in place. They may sense they are being conned. THey may read this post and make secret notes.
So how do I adapt the story to the PC's if I have already pre-ordained that they will be arrested and put in a jail and then hauled off to a prison -- an they do nothing that makes any of that happen?
The answer is, I don't pre-ordain it. I don't even stress it -- it is in the outline, but byt he time I get to it, they may not want todo a whole prison break thing, or it may not fit the scope of it, and the whole reason behind the scheme is to give the motivation to uncover a nefarious plot -- and there is more than one way to uncover a nefarious plot.
Staying loose and avoiding too much detail gives you the ability to flex and adapt and adjust -- to evolve the story as it goes.
For the three sections that I have described in the first post, you have the entirety of the write up. I need to grab a demon listing (really, create one because it is a custom creature), and I need to know my town and locations in it (and that's a generated map away). A quick side quest. little things, that don't need much in the way of complex thinking -- because I hav outlined it and I understand why some stuff is there and other stuff is not, and what the point of it all is.
The rest is icing, and you never ice a cake until it is cool ;)
The rest of it is pretty much as you see it. Role playing at the moment fills in the details.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
My process for campaign creation is pretty stream of conscious. I use the method that Rich Burlew (Order of the Stick) used to have up on his website. I start off with a blank document and start asking myself questions. It looks something like this.
"What kind of adventure do I want to run? I know I want to do something with hobgoblins attacking a village and I want to use that creature that manifests from group trauma that was in the 3E Monster Manual II. What was it called? A fihyr. I want the fihyrs to manifest from the trauma everyone is experiencing from the hobgoblins attacking."
Sometimes, when I don't have a specific idea about something, I'll do a brainstorm session and start bullet pointing out some thoughts.
"So why are the hobgoblins attacking? Let's think of some reasons:
And I just keep going until I feel like I have a good overarching plot and then I start writing. If I get stuck somewhere, I go back through the process. It works for me.