Just coming to the end of the first adventure arc for the new party ( yay for level two ), and I'm firming up the overall campaign pitch I had - somewhat nebulously in my head - for the whole upcoming campaign.

Yes - I should have done thing prior to character creation.

Yes - ideally, I should have put together several pitches, and allowed the Players to pick the one(s) they liked, and taken it from there.

I did not.

So - I've put it out to my Players in our email group, that I'm still willing to make a campaign pitch, so they know what kind of adventures I'll be planning, and also it gives them some guidance as to what details to keep an eye our for. I realize there's likely to be some disagreement as to whether that last one is a good or bad thing. Personally, I'm undecided.

I'm curious as to who out there uses campaign pitches to their Players - and how much detail you put in the pitch to the Players? I've seen some examples of Matt Colville's pitches, here.

I take it this is not a common practice.

Well, not for me... Almost every single game starts with either "Hey can you DM for us?" or "Do you all wanna start a game?" and then they just wait for me to come up with an idea and roll with it. I'll run a session 0 and give them the run down of what's going on, we generate characters, and then I toss them in the deep end. I use a multitude of plot hooks in lieu of pitching a story since, as I've said before, I'm an improv DM. So I'll generally spend the first session or two getting a feel for what the group wants to do, and then tailor the rest of the game to fit the mood of the group.

I make a couple of very loose campaign pitches for myself as a DM so I can have story concepts bubbling in my brain.  I then wait a bit for the player's to get a decent feel for their characters (let them develop) before beginning more serious idea-mapping.  I use early story beats from my own internal campaign pitches and drop them as breadcrumbs for the party to see which ones they seem more interested in. Then, somewhere around level 3-4 I just ask the players  (a) are you having fun  (b) now that we have a sense for how we all interact, what types of creatures/scenarios do you want to see.  Then I take those ideas and figure out where to start crafting the trellis for the campaign.

I like the idea of a campaign pitch, because it's nice for everyone to know what type of story they are in,  but a more formal pitch seems like it would make gaming work.  As long as your players have some feedback mechanisms, I personally like things a bit more organic.

I'm feeling a little better about my approach - or lack thereof :)

I've got a pretty coherent and detailed story pitch sketched out now, for myself - but in asking my Players, the feedback so far has been along the lines of "we don't want to know what's going on, on any level, until we find out about it in the game".

I don't believe in creating story flows - finding that it works better to have a detailed world, detailed NPC individuals and groups with detailed motivations and profiling, and then constantly asking myself "given what this NPC/Faction believes they know, what their goals are,  what resources they have, and what their personality is, what will they try and do next" - so that's become  my "pitch".

I'm also trying to sketch out some notes on adventure tiers,  and how the Party might be involved: Local Heroes: The party will likely mostly interact with the Draconic Cults and/or the emerging intelligence lurking within the shared mentality of the Unborn ( custom, campaign specific, construct race ) and it's conflict with The Voice. Heroes of the Realm: The Party may become embroiled with the potential war between Lucana and the Sassanian Empire, and/or be drawn into the shadow war of factions with the Senate of Worlds of the Concord . Note: Introduce the Adult Dragon (  White? ) Rilind as major adversary, and the revival of Dragons as an re-emerging species within Andearus. Stopping Rilind and/or his spawn could be a more action/adventure approach to the rising conflict ...etc....

And yes Koradgee - like you the pitch has really evolved out of the Characters' actions in the first three sessions  ( their actions in the first three sessions seem to touch on larger events/conflicts happening in the world - what a coincidence ).

I think I may still hand the Players the "player buy in" portion of the pitch - just to make sure there aren't any nasty surprises ( for them or me ) and make sure the expectations are all on the table.

Thanks.

i don't do a pitch with multiple choices. I simply state that I'm working on a homebrew setting based on Water World and One Piece. Where they start on a flotilla "city" that is basically their keep, but they end up losing it. From there they have to re-build and stuff. You guys want to play? yes means we play some one shots here and there in the midst of our regular campaign. No means we don't play. Simple as that. I only run games I feel like. If there are players for it great. If not then that's fine as well.

In the case my players are interested they immediately start sharing ideas and how they see such a world. Which I use of course.

Quote from DMThac0 >>

Well, not for me... Almost every single game starts with either "Hey can you DM for us?" or "Do you all wanna start a game?" and then they just wait for me to come up with an idea and roll with it. I'll run a session 0 and give them the run down of what's going on, we generate characters, and then I toss them in the deep end. I use a multitude of plot hooks in lieu of pitching a story since, as I've said before, I'm an improv DM. So I'll generally spend the first session or two getting a feel for what the group wants to do, and then tailor the rest of the game to fit the mood of the group.

 Pretty much how I run my campaigns most of the time as well. In my case I tend to have a beginning idea and an end idea, then I string the rest together using my players' backstory and what they seem to show interest in. Once a player expressed that his character was feeling homesick, they party went to his home. This one minor comment gave me 3 levels worth of campaign. Bam! Your rich family is rich because your father is secretly the Grand Master of the Assassin's Guild you've been trying for the last three years to defeat and the City Guards are intent on considering you an accomplice. If you don't take him down, you could lose everything you and your party have worked towards. So yeah, listen and improv is the best way in my opinion.

The idea of "Pitching" to my players makes me queasy. But my DMing style is to just run campaigns together, and campaigns are based on my PC's backstory and personal quests.

I start by writing down each players backstory and motivation. Then I work out how that can be resolved, with hooks etc that I need to lay out along the way. Then I start laying instory hooks and info for ALL OF THEM. And it's entirely up to my players which ones they want to take at which point. For example, for months now I have had my players hearing that for some reason, all the Goblins in the area have left. there hasn't been any raiding or stealing livestock. Nothing. The best anyone can tell is they seem to have headed north. This is in relation to one of my PC's who has sworn vengeance on a particular Goblin Clan for wiping out his village. He's frothing at the chance to head north and wage war on the greenskins, but they're in the middle of something else at the moment, which is wiping out a Cult of Baalzebul, which is another one of my PC's quest points (not the whole things, but a stepping stone). Etc etc etc. You get the idea.

So I have loose plots ready for everything, and then I firm them up once the players head down a particular path.

how about there is a evil monster that looks over the land and wants to eat players souls and turn them into different type of monsters so lets say the players can choose which way to go and if they go left they could find a zombie who used to be a adventurer that was a knight who helped save a village but cost his life and to slay the zombie would upset the people he saved but to discover who needed to bury him would greatly help the people and if they go right pitch some other idea of a person who didn't use to be a different kind of monster.