So far all I have is a map of North Western Faerun (The Sword Coast), the book Sword Coast Adventurers guide, and a basic idea. I want to have a list of villains that belong to a society that plans to conquer all of Faerun beginning with the Sword Coast. The players are a group of adventurers that have been completing contracts in Waterdeep together for some time, so I will start them at third level and the campaign will begin with the players meeting together in a tavern to accept a new contract. This contract, however, will lead them to a new acolyte of this society with basic information. The players gather that they want to conquer the world and that there is an informant in Waterdeep with information about the newest captains. The players also divulge that where there is power, there is wealth and knowledge to be gained. So, regardless of whether or not the players want to do something for the greater good, there is something to be gained for anyone. Basically, the campaign will consist of the players working there way up the ranks, gathering information about the cronies on the next rung of the ladder, until they eventually discover the BBEG and must face them off with special artifacts they took from the head honchos.
Here is where things start to become a problem... I don't know where to begin! I have some improvising chops, but I obviously can't sit down behind the DM screen with what I have now and expect to DM a campaign. This is where I have a question for you veteran DM's out there: What all do you think I need to run this campaign beyond a setting, NPC's, intriguing magic items (some special to the story, others just fun to use), and this map of North Western Faerun? I want to keep the story, characters, and locations consistent. Any and all advice is appreciated!
Hmm. This seems fairly similar to the plot of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey if you ask me, so if you've played that that could help in terms of organisation and so on. But I would say that you need a solid set of important locations - start of game town, base of the organisation, locations of people on different rungs etc. - a good idea of the overall organisation of this society, including names and rough descriptions of the people the party will encounter, but you've basically described that anyway. I am actually running a similar campaign at the moment, so hopefully this helps, but for my first adventure I just did a fairly bog standard 'defeat the invading goblins' adventure, because such a wide-ranging campaign is very hard to execute properly until you've got your DMing legs (trust me I know). I'm planning on having them encounter the organisation through a separate feeder society which ties in to one of the characters, and then this adventure will be them dealing with the local sector. More and more of the organisation will be revealed as time goes on, both directly and indirectly, and they are my overarching bad guys.
Basically what I'm saying is that with this kind of plot there is so much material you can run three or four adventures easily if you want to, especially if the organisation is big enough to plot taking over the Sword Coast, so don't feel pressured to plan it all now! If you do this properly this could last a long time and be a campaign your players will remember for a long time afterwards.
Final point - HAVE FUN WITH IT. DMing is great, use this to help you develop your skills and explore what you can do.
Okay, I'm noting that this is very standard material -- totes okay, I often say that one's first campaign has a free pass to be cliche-heavy. I think that this is pretty good, here are some ideas that work really well in the premade adventure Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Make the leader of the organization too strong for the players to face outright. The players will have to either enlist aid, weaken the enemy beforehand, or use creative strategies to disrupt the plan without openly trying to kill the leader.
Make a list of 4-5 ways that the players could disrupt the plan, such as destroy one of the magic items, light conveniently placed explosives in the middle of the base, etc. Let the players innovate, possibly coming up with new options!
I started a campaign to meet and interact with every creature in the monster manual.
I then decided on and end game. The final battle with the Tarasque. I created an NPC who they will find out eventually is a god that has lost his memory. But for now he is the parties corpsman. The Tarasque and demons have taken over his plane. It is his journey to get it back.
So I created a broad stroke background history for the NPC, I created an economic and political system for my world. I started out with a simple adventure that started on graduation day from the academy. At the end was a prophecy, that was little more than a clue to head to a major town some leagues distant.
I made an outline of the modules I would create and filled in the outline as I go along. You don't want to plan too far in advance for modules as player have a way of disrupting your plans because at the end of it all, this is role playing.
My best advice is write it out. That way you know every pebble they can trip over. And plan special events. Also plan out in town non adventuring options. Eventualy someone is going to ask when are they going to get back to town.
My best advice is not to try to write a campaign—write an adventure, then another, then another. It's good to have some idea of where you want to end up, of course, but take it an adventure at a time, and don't try to flesh everything out right away. Above all, spend your time on things players will care about: monsters, traps, dungeons, items, and an exciting story that they can affect. This means not including tons of backstory, overpowered NPCs, or a huge quest from Level 1, because all those things take the focus off the players. Let the big story you want to tell sit in the background until the players are a bit stronger and you can start moving into it; for now, just write the beginning. Focus on the characters dealing with local minions, not yet aware that there's connections to something larger. It makes it more fun for them, and much easier for you!
If you don't know where to start, a good way is pick up a bunch of published one-shot adventures. Run them in your world. This works perfectly with your adventurers for hire model. Aa you retheme them, you might think of some places in the one-shots where you can seed some adventure hooks into your main plot.
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So far all I have is a map of North Western Faerun (The Sword Coast), the book Sword Coast Adventurers guide, and a basic idea. I want to have a list of villains that belong to a society that plans to conquer all of Faerun beginning with the Sword Coast. The players are a group of adventurers that have been completing contracts in Waterdeep together for some time, so I will start them at third level and the campaign will begin with the players meeting together in a tavern to accept a new contract. This contract, however, will lead them to a new acolyte of this society with basic information. The players gather that they want to conquer the world and that there is an informant in Waterdeep with information about the newest captains. The players also divulge that where there is power, there is wealth and knowledge to be gained. So, regardless of whether or not the players want to do something for the greater good, there is something to be gained for anyone. Basically, the campaign will consist of the players working there way up the ranks, gathering information about the cronies on the next rung of the ladder, until they eventually discover the BBEG and must face them off with special artifacts they took from the head honchos.
Here is where things start to become a problem... I don't know where to begin! I have some improvising chops, but I obviously can't sit down behind the DM screen with what I have now and expect to DM a campaign. This is where I have a question for you veteran DM's out there: What all do you think I need to run this campaign beyond a setting, NPC's, intriguing magic items (some special to the story, others just fun to use), and this map of North Western Faerun? I want to keep the story, characters, and locations consistent. Any and all advice is appreciated!
Hmm. This seems fairly similar to the plot of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey if you ask me, so if you've played that that could help in terms of organisation and so on. But I would say that you need a solid set of important locations - start of game town, base of the organisation, locations of people on different rungs etc. - a good idea of the overall organisation of this society, including names and rough descriptions of the people the party will encounter, but you've basically described that anyway. I am actually running a similar campaign at the moment, so hopefully this helps, but for my first adventure I just did a fairly bog standard 'defeat the invading goblins' adventure, because such a wide-ranging campaign is very hard to execute properly until you've got your DMing legs (trust me I know). I'm planning on having them encounter the organisation through a separate feeder society which ties in to one of the characters, and then this adventure will be them dealing with the local sector. More and more of the organisation will be revealed as time goes on, both directly and indirectly, and they are my overarching bad guys.
Basically what I'm saying is that with this kind of plot there is so much material you can run three or four adventures easily if you want to, especially if the organisation is big enough to plot taking over the Sword Coast, so don't feel pressured to plan it all now! If you do this properly this could last a long time and be a campaign your players will remember for a long time afterwards.
Final point - HAVE FUN WITH IT. DMing is great, use this to help you develop your skills and explore what you can do.
Okay, I'm noting that this is very standard material -- totes okay, I often say that one's first campaign has a free pass to be cliche-heavy. I think that this is pretty good, here are some ideas that work really well in the premade adventure Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Proud poster on the Create a World thread
I started a campaign to meet and interact with every creature in the monster manual.
I then decided on and end game. The final battle with the Tarasque. I created an NPC who they will find out eventually is a god that has lost his memory. But for now he is the parties corpsman. The Tarasque and demons have taken over his plane. It is his journey to get it back.
So I created a broad stroke background history for the NPC, I created an economic and political system for my world. I started out with a simple adventure that started on graduation day from the academy. At the end was a prophecy, that was little more than a clue to head to a major town some leagues distant.
I made an outline of the modules I would create and filled in the outline as I go along. You don't want to plan too far in advance for modules as player have a way of disrupting your plans because at the end of it all, this is role playing.
My best advice is write it out. That way you know every pebble they can trip over. And plan special events. Also plan out in town non adventuring options. Eventualy someone is going to ask when are they going to get back to town.
My best advice is not to try to write a campaign—write an adventure, then another, then another. It's good to have some idea of where you want to end up, of course, but take it an adventure at a time, and don't try to flesh everything out right away. Above all, spend your time on things players will care about: monsters, traps, dungeons, items, and an exciting story that they can affect. This means not including tons of backstory, overpowered NPCs, or a huge quest from Level 1, because all those things take the focus off the players. Let the big story you want to tell sit in the background until the players are a bit stronger and you can start moving into it; for now, just write the beginning. Focus on the characters dealing with local minions, not yet aware that there's connections to something larger. It makes it more fun for them, and much easier for you!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
If you don't know where to start, a good way is pick up a bunch of published one-shot adventures. Run them in your world. This works perfectly with your adventurers for hire model. Aa you retheme them, you might think of some places in the one-shots where you can seed some adventure hooks into your main plot.