My group of four dnd players is almost finished with Dragon of Icepire Peak and its sequels. I have looked at all of the official campaigns but all of them don't seem that interesting to me so I am thinking of making a homebrew one. Everytime I sit down to make the first adventure my mind goes blank with how to lay it out. My question is how do you more experienced DM's write adventures and entire campaigns.
The DMG has chapters dedicated to this very topic, admittedly, some may not find value in it's guidance. There are multitudes of articles that detail how to create adventures and campaigns, let google-fu guide you. Also, DnD Beyond has the New Player Guide wherein lies this article. I'll start the dogpile with a few suggestions, and please bear in mind that these are to be taken with as much salt as is required, and not read as me dictating what needs be done. My way ain't the only way, nor the best.
Begin with the ending - make your BBE and the mechanic that they use to leverage and threaten with. You'll need it for almost everything else that follows. You'll need this to give your players the character motivation for their backstories and the reason that they formed their party. This is also one of the few parts that needs to be set in stone. Most things need to be accounted for, but not built until you need them.
Determine starting level, PC restrictions(race, background, alignment..), character creation method and medium, character advancement method (I recommend milestone for a starter campaign, do as you prefer.)
Creature list for your setting by type (humanoid, aberration, undead, etc.). Also, NPC names and descriptions. Nothing specific, just a list of random people that the PCs can meet when you need them.
Plan / conduct Session 0 if you are going to use one. Pitch campaign/adventure idea to players, cover social contract, gather player request on character goals, generate characters...list goes on.
Build your starting town with map. Fill it in with all the goodies that your town will have. You'll need the NPC description and name for anyone that the PCs would come across in any of the establishments in town. Smithy, tavern (of course), stables, general store, temple, jail, town hall.... you get the idea.
3 adventure hooks for the PCs to follow. Too many choices and the PCs will have a hard time deciding, too few and the decision can seem forced. Save old man Jenkins chickens from the neighbors rampaging catoblepas or some such. Clear out the sewers under the temple. Again, you can easily figure out where to go with this. You can set any, all or none of these to aim your PCs towards the ending.
This should get you through the first 3-4 sessions, let the players figure out what direction they are going to head. Once the party determines a path, just build what they will run into when your next session starts, maybe the next two. Avoid overbuilding whenever possible. Use plotlines and adventure design from pre-made modules as much as you like to help lighten the creative load. Use Free and PWYW adventures from sources like DMs Guild. Find stand alone adventures that you can patch in when the PCs decide they'll stray from the plot. And yes, your PCs will fall off the path.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I started mine out by making the world. It's not fully fleshed out (that will happen ahead of the adventurers) but I started coming up with ideas for places and cities, environments, and other such things. Stuff grew and grew, and I am now left with a world which I cannot wait to introduce the players to!
I then wrote up the story behind their arrival at this new continent, and what they are likely to find as they get there, and a reason for them to travel to the hub of the world, the great tower at the center of the continent - they are escorting a trade caravan. Then I fleshed that out - threw in some twists and turns on the road - and had that quest develop into another, which should give them a tour of the lower few floors of the tower, and worked from there. Other plotlines I've slotted neatly in have helped to flesh the world out, and they tend to link to the players backstories. These will evolve into larger portions of the world as they develop.
The other approach I have used was to decide on the adventure I wanted the players to have and build the world around it. I used a demiplane as I wanted this isolated so any mistakes I made (first time DMing) wouldn't knock on to the world, and then built a confined world for the players to explore around the adventure I wanted them to be having. This seems to have worked out pretty well too.
My approach was to make half a story, work out the impact, and how it could be resolved, then drop the players in and let them work it out. That way you've not pre-planned what you want the players to do (they won't do it) but can respond well to their antics. For example, a necromancer used to live here but was buried with a curse on them, and over time the area was built over and now a village is suffering the repercussions of building over a cursed necromancers burial chamber. They need someone to go into the newly discovered catacombs and find where the children have been taken, or some such. Enter the players, with a lot of story behind them and an empty canvas ahead of them.
thanks for all the answers. I kind of find that all of the published campaigns don’t have enough variety in monsters and are hard to establish characters in.
I would highly suggest starting off by picking a universe that you already are familiar with. My first few campaigns were set in the Warcraft Universe, so I could just follow the storylines that already exist in-game. I wouldn't suggest creating your own world from scratch, at least until you feel confident about world-building. Once you've got the setting and the storyline, it's relatively easy to convert it into D&D mechanics. Then it's just a matter of picking one of your favourite locations in that universe to start your players in, and figuring out a small event to bring them together.
As for the monsters, the stock options aren't necessarily perfect, but by now there are enough of them that there should be a sample for just about any mechanic you need. Mixing-and-matching is the way to go.
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Hi,
My group of four dnd players is almost finished with Dragon of Icepire Peak and its sequels. I have looked at all of the official campaigns but all of them don't seem that interesting to me so I am thinking of making a homebrew one. Everytime I sit down to make the first adventure my mind goes blank with how to lay it out. My question is how do you more experienced DM's write adventures and entire campaigns.
Have you seen the icespire sequels? My group really likes them.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
(I know it’s not the main question, I just wanted to ask)
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
Yes I forgot to add that the party has almost finished Devine contention.
The DMG has chapters dedicated to this very topic, admittedly, some may not find value in it's guidance. There are multitudes of articles that detail how to create adventures and campaigns, let google-fu guide you. Also, DnD Beyond has the New Player Guide wherein lies this article. I'll start the dogpile with a few suggestions, and please bear in mind that these are to be taken with as much salt as is required, and not read as me dictating what needs be done. My way ain't the only way, nor the best.
This should get you through the first 3-4 sessions, let the players figure out what direction they are going to head. Once the party determines a path, just build what they will run into when your next session starts, maybe the next two. Avoid overbuilding whenever possible. Use plotlines and adventure design from pre-made modules as much as you like to help lighten the creative load. Use Free and PWYW adventures from sources like DMs Guild. Find stand alone adventures that you can patch in when the PCs decide they'll stray from the plot. And yes, your PCs will fall off the path.
Good luck, and most of all, have fun!
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I started mine out by making the world. It's not fully fleshed out (that will happen ahead of the adventurers) but I started coming up with ideas for places and cities, environments, and other such things. Stuff grew and grew, and I am now left with a world which I cannot wait to introduce the players to!
I then wrote up the story behind their arrival at this new continent, and what they are likely to find as they get there, and a reason for them to travel to the hub of the world, the great tower at the center of the continent - they are escorting a trade caravan. Then I fleshed that out - threw in some twists and turns on the road - and had that quest develop into another, which should give them a tour of the lower few floors of the tower, and worked from there. Other plotlines I've slotted neatly in have helped to flesh the world out, and they tend to link to the players backstories. These will evolve into larger portions of the world as they develop.
The other approach I have used was to decide on the adventure I wanted the players to have and build the world around it. I used a demiplane as I wanted this isolated so any mistakes I made (first time DMing) wouldn't knock on to the world, and then built a confined world for the players to explore around the adventure I wanted them to be having. This seems to have worked out pretty well too.
My approach was to make half a story, work out the impact, and how it could be resolved, then drop the players in and let them work it out. That way you've not pre-planned what you want the players to do (they won't do it) but can respond well to their antics. For example, a necromancer used to live here but was buried with a curse on them, and over time the area was built over and now a village is suffering the repercussions of building over a cursed necromancers burial chamber. They need someone to go into the newly discovered catacombs and find where the children have been taken, or some such. Enter the players, with a lot of story behind them and an empty canvas ahead of them.
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Give the players a quest, add some vague story hints and let them write the plot for you. They'll feel really smart for figuring everything out
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thanks for all the answers. I kind of find that all of the published campaigns don’t have enough variety in monsters and are hard to establish characters in.
I would highly suggest starting off by picking a universe that you already are familiar with. My first few campaigns were set in the Warcraft Universe, so I could just follow the storylines that already exist in-game. I wouldn't suggest creating your own world from scratch, at least until you feel confident about world-building. Once you've got the setting and the storyline, it's relatively easy to convert it into D&D mechanics. Then it's just a matter of picking one of your favourite locations in that universe to start your players in, and figuring out a small event to bring them together.
As for the monsters, the stock options aren't necessarily perfect, but by now there are enough of them that there should be a sample for just about any mechanic you need. Mixing-and-matching is the way to go.