I have been playing dnd, forever DM, for just about 10 years now, but at the start of this year I wanted to do something homebrew and original. So I began as any normal lunatic and I began creating an entire world. My problem isnt coming up with ideas, but rather organizing them and figuring out how to piece them together and create a compelling story. I am a writer by nature and I love DMing and secret reveals, but I find myself kinda stuck with many strands and not a great way to complete them. I would love to just have a person that I could throw my ideas at and just get feedback that isnt AI, but all the people I know are currently playing in my campaign in this world and I dont wont to spoil any surprises or ruin any of the history before they discover it and learn it themselves.
So to my fellow DM's and creators, what do you all do? Any tips or suggestions?
but all the people I know are currently playing in my campaign in this world and I dont wont to spoil any surprises or ruin any of the history before they discover it and learn it themselves.
I have this same issue. My wife and my brother are the two people I bounce most of my ideas against, but they are both playing in my campaign. What I do is that I take walks alone (with dogs) without any additional distractions, like music or audio books.I just let my mind wander and once in a while I piece things together. I don't rush things and hope/trust I will eventually figure it out. And once I do figure something out, I write it down immediately I get my hands on my notes.
We're playing Tyranny of Dragons, which is of course a ready module, so I don't have to make everything up from scratch, but I'm homebrewing it quite heavily. I'm not actively thinking of the plot as a whole and I'm focusing only on certain encounters, twists, and hooks a few at a time while keeping the main story ongoing. Trying to tie everything at once would be too overwhelming. I have the main story arc (TOD), but so far we haven't really followed the campaign's encounters and I've made everything up. My advice would be to do relatively the same: have a general story arc and initial situation. Then weave in encounters and new story lines based on your player's decisions. And... if you work like me – alone – it's going to be tough, but be generous to yourself.
Honestly? I don't finish ideas. I come up with very general outlines, barely more than "it starts here and the BBEG wants to do X" and then respond entirely to how my players react. I've only been DMing for 5 years but have run four concurrent games that whole time so built up a lot of experience quickly and soon realised that the more concrete the ideas I had were the more I ended up trying to get the players to do what I thought they should be doing rather than let them decide
I'm actually going a bit stronger, and say that you shouldn't finish your ideas. Also you really can't. Your ideas of what's going on in the world mean nothing until the players interact with them.
I'm an advocate of throwing plot hooks at the players, and focussing on the things they bite on. Plot threads that they aren't interested in can wither, be resolved by other forces in the world, or keep getting worse until they're unignorable. It all depends on their nature.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I have been playing dnd, forever DM, for just about 10 years now, but at the start of this year I wanted to do something homebrew and original. So I began as any normal lunatic and I began creating an entire world. My problem isnt coming up with ideas, but rather organizing them and figuring out how to piece them together and create a compelling story. I am a writer by nature and I love DMing and secret reveals, but I find myself kinda stuck with many strands and not a great way to complete them. I would love to just have a person that I could throw my ideas at and just get feedback that isnt AI, but all the people I know are currently playing in my campaign in this world and I dont wont to spoil any surprises or ruin any of the history before they discover it and learn it themselves.
So to my fellow DM's and creators, what do you all do? Any tips or suggestions?
I have this same issue. My wife and my brother are the two people I bounce most of my ideas against, but they are both playing in my campaign. What I do is that I take walks alone (with dogs) without any additional distractions, like music or audio books.I just let my mind wander and once in a while I piece things together. I don't rush things and hope/trust I will eventually figure it out. And once I do figure something out, I write it down immediately I get my hands on my notes.
We're playing Tyranny of Dragons, which is of course a ready module, so I don't have to make everything up from scratch, but I'm homebrewing it quite heavily. I'm not actively thinking of the plot as a whole and I'm focusing only on certain encounters, twists, and hooks a few at a time while keeping the main story ongoing. Trying to tie everything at once would be too overwhelming. I have the main story arc (TOD), but so far we haven't really followed the campaign's encounters and I've made everything up. My advice would be to do relatively the same: have a general story arc and initial situation. Then weave in encounters and new story lines based on your player's decisions. And... if you work like me – alone – it's going to be tough, but be generous to yourself.
Honestly? I don't finish ideas. I come up with very general outlines, barely more than "it starts here and the BBEG wants to do X" and then respond entirely to how my players react. I've only been DMing for 5 years but have run four concurrent games that whole time so built up a lot of experience quickly and soon realised that the more concrete the ideas I had were the more I ended up trying to get the players to do what I thought they should be doing rather than let them decide
Yeah. CunningSmile has the right of it.
I'm actually going a bit stronger, and say that you shouldn't finish your ideas. Also you really can't. Your ideas of what's going on in the world mean nothing until the players interact with them.
I'm an advocate of throwing plot hooks at the players, and focussing on the things they bite on. Plot threads that they aren't interested in can wither, be resolved by other forces in the world, or keep getting worse until they're unignorable. It all depends on their nature.