I am still extremely new to D&D and have never really DMed before (outside of a couple one-shots here and there.) but I am currently creating a campaign from scratch. The overall plot is that the world hasn't really ever had any type of extra-planar activity (i.e. demons, devils, elementals, etc.) until recently. The party will start off at first level and pretty much be fighting undead (never been seen before now), goblins who are freaking out for seemingly no reason, and other small monsters. By the time they level up decently, the ultimate plot starts. Devils are invading the world to gather more souls to fuel their army to help fight back against the demons who have gained a lot of ground. The Devils send "generals" (spoiler they are the seven deadly sins) to help spearhead the invasion. I will link my google docs for the notes which contain the major cities within the nation they will be playing in and the beginnings of the first session. (I literally just typed up the first session in like five minutes so yes it will be revised.)
First, thank you for putting this up here. I was wondering how anyone else prepared their campaigns/weekly stories, so thank you for the opportunity to compare.
Second, the comments:
1) The idea that there is no Navy because there's no other land masses and the idea that the Native Folks were wiped out are at cross purposes. Maybe the continent is so old that any knowledge of the previous land was forgotten. If so, the continent won't have as much resources and might be starting to run out. Maybe the dwarves came from underground? If so, why haven't they started exploring underground, after having found such a large boon by digging up? After continued reading, the dwarf conquest seems recent. Maybe these guys are super organized and the Native people didn't know how to marshal their forces in time to counter. Do they have a Manifest Destiny complex? Have they done this before?
2)The way the world is built, as well as the story-line seem to point towards a sense that purity/purpose is more valuable than chaos and mixing. Everything is pretty organized, which generally indicates an older organization where it has developed it's own unspoken culture. The cities all have a discipline that they specialize in. The city is organized into tiers which serve specific purposes. This may be due to the fact that quick information generally leaves out any sense of nuance. This may be intended. Either way, it feels like a theme.
3) Noadross seems out of place? Is it located near Vroria?
4) "Aye, where do you think your going?"
5) It's not bad. You could probably write dialog, it's way better than anything I've written. But what you wrote was hook, not really an adventure. From what you wrote, I don't understand what the players will be doing in the allotted time. First question, do you hope what you wrote was the beginning of the session or the end of it? It could very well be either, but your choice will determine the kind of initial tone of the story. If you push them towards the keep, then it feels like you have places you want them to go. If the party meanders, then your signaling that exploration is something that is worth their time. New players will have no idea how to explore, so giving them a list of places they can explore might be worth while.
Below is how I personally try to plan out my session using my objective based system. If we consider the end of the document to be the end of the session, then my goals might be as follows (in no particular order:
1) Convince the party to accept the quest (this is not a given, so maybe think about a couple different ways to do this. Generally I have: Ask nicely, pay nicely, not be nice at all.)
2) Introduce the party to Nugurn and the history of Kradun (obviously intended with the Checks). Figure out if the next session will be here or will be out of the city.
3) Create an opportunity for the characters to talk about themselves/answer questions about their characters.
4) Gauge what the players are interested in and seem to care about. (If they are ambivalent, then push the story. If they want to explore a certain thing, create an opportunity to explore that next session.)
These are my goals, they should not necessarily be your goals. The questions I wasn't prepared for when starting my group was "Why do we, the party, care about each other?" "What do we, as a group, hope to accomplish?" "Do I, specific character, care about this goal? If not, what do I benefit from accomplishing it?"
If you want to see what I do, then below is an example from our most recent session (which did go exceptionally well). This is not a comment on how you do your stories (which is better planned than mine), but how I run the session to session planning. I write the first two sections before the adventure and the last two after.
I really appreciate you replying! The continent is still fairly new and the first settlers did indeed come by ships, but that part of history was destroyed for a purpose which would have been probably the last arch of the story. Noadross was created to later serve for the location of the boss fight of the devil Pride. I thought it fit somewhat since they needed a place to bury their dead after the war and the battle of the mountain that making it the religion capital would sound okay. DO you have suggestions to tweak or a replacement for what that city could be? I was originally planning on starting the party at level seven where the devils are in the world and the army was wiped out and there was a draft so the party was called to the capital and assigned into a squad together to go scout some cultist activities. I recently became fond of the idea that starting the party from level one would mean everyone gets to see how everyone develops throughout the campaign. I was planning on having that be the start of the session. Like I said above, it was something I whipped up in a little amount of time and it wasn't complete. I just wanted other, more experienced DMs input that would make my world or the overall tone better. What I had planned was that they would be attacked by goblins along the way and when they get to where the daughter is, she would be gone and half the town be in flames. The would find out that the bandits are taking her to Vroria.
The reason Noadross feels out of place is due to the... care the new dwarf overloards have given to the various gods (seemingly native an dwarven). Noadross is described as "a melting pot of all religions." But the only religions that I think exist are those that came with the Dwarves and those that came from the Natives. I guess I assumed that the Dwarves were mono-theistic. That's a problem I created, but it does beg the question of whether there are monuments to the lost gods there. If so, why would there be moments to gods of a conquered land just kind of hanging out there, perfectly visible? That's why I assumed Vroria was nearby. You don't need to replace the city, I just have lots of questions about it. The whole "Natives vs Dwarves" is something I have some questions about I guess.
Your plan isn't bad. You can totally start them off at lvl 1, and go through your campaign. You could start them at lvl 7. Your choice. Just scale things appropriately. I don't know how strong you want the demons and devils to be. If you want to make your adventurers not so strong in the beginning, and have big bad guys, you can totally say they were worn down from previous fights, and your party looked so weak he thought he could take you in the state that he was (trying to keep face with his cronies?)
It sounds like you have plans for the story you want to tell. My only advice is that timing is a little rough without experience, and narratives really shouldn't be set in stone. The plans I had for the first 4 hours took about 10 in practice, and at the end of it I had to break the players out of jail (which alienated them from a city I planned to be their central hub). All plans fail upon first contact. It's good to have some built in breaking points in case you need to bail early or completely change your plans.
The continent is not just dwarves. I would say it was probably a good thousand years maybe less since the initial battle of the Natives and the battle for the mountain. And maybe some future campaign said in the same world or something like that I was going to have the continent that the dwarves came from was under such horrible Tierney that they left and went voyaging out into the world hoping to find a new home. After they found their new home, they sent word back to their allies and friends and the continent that they came from and they came over so that’s how all these other races got there it was initially only in habited by barbarian tribes and then the dwarves. So the religions came from the other continent to this new land that’s why there is a kind of a central hub of religion
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I am still extremely new to D&D and have never really DMed before (outside of a couple one-shots here and there.) but I am currently creating a campaign from scratch. The overall plot is that the world hasn't really ever had any type of extra-planar activity (i.e. demons, devils, elementals, etc.) until recently. The party will start off at first level and pretty much be fighting undead (never been seen before now), goblins who are freaking out for seemingly no reason, and other small monsters. By the time they level up decently, the ultimate plot starts. Devils are invading the world to gather more souls to fuel their army to help fight back against the demons who have gained a lot of ground. The Devils send "generals" (spoiler they are the seven deadly sins) to help spearhead the invasion. I will link my google docs for the notes which contain the major cities within the nation they will be playing in and the beginnings of the first session. (I literally just typed up the first session in like five minutes so yes it will be revised.)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H-6zYOCutZ6OVyiZvSIt3DdOZ_jjN0QK7J3BiECno0c/edit?usp=sharing
lastly, please be kind and helpful. I am still very new and have never done this type of thing before. Thanks in advanced!
First, thank you for putting this up here. I was wondering how anyone else prepared their campaigns/weekly stories, so thank you for the opportunity to compare.
Second, the comments:
1) The idea that there is no Navy because there's no other land masses and the idea that the Native Folks were wiped out are at cross purposes. Maybe the continent is so old that any knowledge of the previous land was forgotten. If so, the continent won't have as much resources and might be starting to run out. Maybe the dwarves came from underground? If so, why haven't they started exploring underground, after having found such a large boon by digging up? After continued reading, the dwarf conquest seems recent. Maybe these guys are super organized and the Native people didn't know how to marshal their forces in time to counter. Do they have a Manifest Destiny complex? Have they done this before?
2)The way the world is built, as well as the story-line seem to point towards a sense that purity/purpose is more valuable than chaos and mixing. Everything is pretty organized, which generally indicates an older organization where it has developed it's own unspoken culture. The cities all have a discipline that they specialize in. The city is organized into tiers which serve specific purposes. This may be due to the fact that quick information generally leaves out any sense of nuance. This may be intended. Either way, it feels like a theme.
3) Noadross seems out of place? Is it located near Vroria?
4) "Aye, where do you think your going?"
5) It's not bad. You could probably write dialog, it's way better than anything I've written. But what you wrote was hook, not really an adventure. From what you wrote, I don't understand what the players will be doing in the allotted time. First question, do you hope what you wrote was the beginning of the session or the end of it? It could very well be either, but your choice will determine the kind of initial tone of the story. If you push them towards the keep, then it feels like you have places you want them to go. If the party meanders, then your signaling that exploration is something that is worth their time. New players will have no idea how to explore, so giving them a list of places they can explore might be worth while.
Below is how I personally try to plan out my session using my objective based system. If we consider the end of the document to be the end of the session, then my goals might be as follows (in no particular order:
1) Convince the party to accept the quest (this is not a given, so maybe think about a couple different ways to do this. Generally I have: Ask nicely, pay nicely, not be nice at all.)
2) Introduce the party to Nugurn and the history of Kradun (obviously intended with the Checks). Figure out if the next session will be here or will be out of the city.
3) Create an opportunity for the characters to talk about themselves/answer questions about their characters.
4) Gauge what the players are interested in and seem to care about. (If they are ambivalent, then push the story. If they want to explore a certain thing, create an opportunity to explore that next session.)
These are my goals, they should not necessarily be your goals. The questions I wasn't prepared for when starting my group was "Why do we, the party, care about each other?" "What do we, as a group, hope to accomplish?" "Do I, specific character, care about this goal? If not, what do I benefit from accomplishing it?"
If you want to see what I do, then below is an example from our most recent session (which did go exceptionally well). This is not a comment on how you do your stories (which is better planned than mine), but how I run the session to session planning. I write the first two sections before the adventure and the last two after.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BnNCNVXZRPiTYiidTARq6Z0ASORxYccfXjt2x5eGc9o/edit?usp=sharing
The main party consists of Zog, Matilda, Kiki, Lucy, Taryn and Maeglin. All other characters are NPC.s
BTW: how did you make bookmarks for the outline? That seems super useful.
I really appreciate you replying! The continent is still fairly new and the first settlers did indeed come by ships, but that part of history was destroyed for a purpose which would have been probably the last arch of the story. Noadross was created to later serve for the location of the boss fight of the devil Pride. I thought it fit somewhat since they needed a place to bury their dead after the war and the battle of the mountain that making it the religion capital would sound okay. DO you have suggestions to tweak or a replacement for what that city could be? I was originally planning on starting the party at level seven where the devils are in the world and the army was wiped out and there was a draft so the party was called to the capital and assigned into a squad together to go scout some cultist activities. I recently became fond of the idea that starting the party from level one would mean everyone gets to see how everyone develops throughout the campaign. I was planning on having that be the start of the session. Like I said above, it was something I whipped up in a little amount of time and it wasn't complete. I just wanted other, more experienced DMs input that would make my world or the overall tone better. What I had planned was that they would be attacked by goblins along the way and when they get to where the daughter is, she would be gone and half the town be in flames. The would find out that the bandits are taking her to Vroria.
The reason Noadross feels out of place is due to the... care the new dwarf overloards have given to the various gods (seemingly native an dwarven). Noadross is described as "a melting pot of all religions." But the only religions that I think exist are those that came with the Dwarves and those that came from the Natives. I guess I assumed that the Dwarves were mono-theistic. That's a problem I created, but it does beg the question of whether there are monuments to the lost gods there. If so, why would there be moments to gods of a conquered land just kind of hanging out there, perfectly visible? That's why I assumed Vroria was nearby. You don't need to replace the city, I just have lots of questions about it. The whole "Natives vs Dwarves" is something I have some questions about I guess.
Your plan isn't bad. You can totally start them off at lvl 1, and go through your campaign. You could start them at lvl 7. Your choice. Just scale things appropriately. I don't know how strong you want the demons and devils to be. If you want to make your adventurers not so strong in the beginning, and have big bad guys, you can totally say they were worn down from previous fights, and your party looked so weak he thought he could take you in the state that he was (trying to keep face with his cronies?)
It sounds like you have plans for the story you want to tell. My only advice is that timing is a little rough without experience, and narratives really shouldn't be set in stone. The plans I had for the first 4 hours took about 10 in practice, and at the end of it I had to break the players out of jail (which alienated them from a city I planned to be their central hub). All plans fail upon first contact. It's good to have some built in breaking points in case you need to bail early or completely change your plans.
The continent is not just dwarves. I would say it was probably a good thousand years maybe less since the initial battle of the Natives and the battle for the mountain. And maybe some future campaign said in the same world or something like that I was going to have the continent that the dwarves came from was under such horrible Tierney that they left and went voyaging out into the world hoping to find a new home. After they found their new home, they sent word back to their allies and friends and the continent that they came from and they came over so that’s how all these other races got there it was initially only in habited by barbarian tribes and then the dwarves. So the religions came from the other continent to this new land that’s why there is a kind of a central hub of religion