I've been playing for a while now and have gotten more and more interested in the idea of DMing. The DM for my regular group goes out of town occasionally, and our group has met for single session campaigns to the fill those evenings. I would love to write and run one next time this comes up, but as I've never DMed I was looking for advice on how to create enough content for a single session but not so much I overwhelm myself, and the session feels a bit thin. Or I make a rich, full, hour and we spend the rest of the evening twiddling our thumbs.
What I've written a rough outline for so far is essentially an obstacle course/race but that doesn't seem to have a lot of mechanics that could involve party cooperation (and I'm not sure how to run PC vs PC content) If I'm not running a session where characters cooperate whats a reasonable expectation for NPC enemies/monsters to interfere if PCs are fighting each other as well.
My group has a number of sometimes DMs in it, so I'm not worried about making mistakes if I go too bold, or players who want to break the adventure but I would like to be prepped enough we at least have fun while I do so.
Here's an easy way to make a self contained campaign story.
Set it in one town or one something, make it self contained. Have two minor dungeons with between 5 to 10 rooms that you can do in either order. Make them more like a cave or a small mansion, not having a lot of puzzles, but have a couple of minor things that the party will have to think out. A pendant that's up about 15ft or so. A gap in the floor about 25ft. Something that the party could have multiple ways to solve and doesn't require a lot of writing. Between those two dungeons distribute 2 Secret doors, 3 Traps, and 3 or 4 Locks. Then have a final dungeon that ties up the story of the area and two dungeons have it between 12 to 20 rooms. Have a Puzzle that separates either the first and second half, or separates the last area from the rest of the dungeon. 1 Secret Door, 1 Trap, 1 Lock, and a big final Room. Sprinkle about 1 Skill Check thing per Room (Investigation, Religion, Arcana, ect), and, bam you got about 3 levels worth of play minus the monsters, npc, and treasures.
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I've been playing for a while now and have gotten more and more interested in the idea of DMing. The DM for my regular group goes out of town occasionally, and our group has met for single session campaigns to the fill those evenings. I would love to write and run one next time this comes up, but as I've never DMed I was looking for advice on how to create enough content for a single session but not so much I overwhelm myself, and the session feels a bit thin. Or I make a rich, full, hour and we spend the rest of the evening twiddling our thumbs.
What I've written a rough outline for so far is essentially an obstacle course/race but that doesn't seem to have a lot of mechanics that could involve party cooperation (and I'm not sure how to run PC vs PC content) If I'm not running a session where characters cooperate whats a reasonable expectation for NPC enemies/monsters to interfere if PCs are fighting each other as well.
My group has a number of sometimes DMs in it, so I'm not worried about making mistakes if I go too bold, or players who want to break the adventure but I would like to be prepped enough we at least have fun while I do so.
Here's an easy way to make a self contained campaign story.
Set it in one town or one something, make it self contained. Have two minor dungeons with between 5 to 10 rooms that you can do in either order. Make them more like a cave or a small mansion, not having a lot of puzzles, but have a couple of minor things that the party will have to think out. A pendant that's up about 15ft or so. A gap in the floor about 25ft. Something that the party could have multiple ways to solve and doesn't require a lot of writing. Between those two dungeons distribute 2 Secret doors, 3 Traps, and 3 or 4 Locks. Then have a final dungeon that ties up the story of the area and two dungeons have it between 12 to 20 rooms. Have a Puzzle that separates either the first and second half, or separates the last area from the rest of the dungeon. 1 Secret Door, 1 Trap, 1 Lock, and a big final Room. Sprinkle about 1 Skill Check thing per Room (Investigation, Religion, Arcana, ect), and, bam you got about 3 levels worth of play minus the monsters, npc, and treasures.