so in this world humans and dwarves and like goliaths are making progression into like a steam punk industrial revolution kinda deal. factories, cities, and stuff coming up everywhere, but for those to be built forests and stuff need to be taken down for them to be put up. all this pollution is slowly taking a toll on the elves that take their longevity and magic from the wild, so there is some political tension between all these factions. that is my story
Your post does not seem to ask any specific questions, and your second point trails off in a sentence fragment, so I am not sure what help you need. If you let us know what you are having issues with, I am sure you can find some experienced DMs who will be happy to help. There's a lot going on with DMing, especially homebrewing, as you are doing. You have to build a world and the people in it, sketch out a campaign outline, and actually design the encounters themselves. Any one of those could be challenging for a new DM, so it is important you ask what you need help with.
Just with the limited information you have provided, you seem to have a good starting point. You are going to want to come up with some differentiation between the three industrial races so they do not all feel similar. You are also going to want to come up with a BBEG (overboss for the entire campaign)--though you generally should wait a bit to actually reveal the BBEG, you, as the DM, want to have a general idea of who is pulling the strings from the beginning. From the basic sketch you have in the thread currently, you could come up with some kind of demon born of pollution or some kind of elvish lord who is manipulating events for some grand purpose.
so in this world humans and dwarves and like goliaths are making progression into like a steam punk industrial revolution kinda deal. factories, cities, and stuff coming up everywhere, but for those to be built forests and stuff need to be taken down for them to be put up. all this pollution is slowly taking a toll on the elves that take their longevity and magic from the wild, so there is some political tension between all these factions. that is my story
that i want to build off of
Folklore has it that iron has a detrimental effect on fairy folk.
I'm now tempted with the idea an a bronze age campaign where iron is being discovered and where steel presents the same penalties to elves and fairy-folk as non-carbonised iron.
One helpful thing I've learned is that when creating stories for DND specifically, it helps to start from the bad guy's perspective:
So you're a big bad guy. You have X goal and Y resources. You're going to try to accomplish your goal in Z number of steps, and step 1 is....
Considering the plot from the villain's perspective is useful because it establishes what the progression of events would be if the heroes never got involved, so instead of the plot focusing around the players for some reason, instead you have events happening that draw the players into the plot and the players can see the impact they're having on the story/world.
So let's say I'm a villain in your world. I'm a wealthy Dwarven industrialist who's goal is to develope a region of resource-rich elf lands and turn those resources into profit. What resources do I have? Money, as well as a workforce and a small shadow-squad of mercenary assassins. How do I plan to seize this land? I'm going to try and provoke the elves into attacking outlying settlements and convince the King that the elf insurgents need to be wiped out at the source for progress' sake. How do I start? Well, step 1: while an elf delegate is visiting the city I am going to have my assassins kill her and plant incriminating documents on her body. This will engage both sides of the conflict. Step 2: I'm going to sabotage one of my own processing plants, causing a major equipment failure that kills dozens of workers. While tensions are high, bribe the newspaper to run a story implicating the elves for the attack. Step 3: send mercenaries dressed as city guards to burn down an elf un-defended elf village in order to convince the elves the only solution is further retaliation. Steps 4 through however long it takes? Don't bother planning that far ahead because ideally by then the heroes will become involved and change your plans anyways. React to what the players do and plan further steps as needed, accordingly.
okay, thank you for the tips! I just wanna make sure i have the base for an interesting campaign. and tips on how others would go about building a similar campaign
Every DM starts a campaign differently so I hope I don't mess with your head by suggesting something completely different, although I'm definitely going to try that villain thing above.
For me the most important thing is how do you want your world to feel. Is it full of hope and wonder with beautiful rolling countryside and good overcoming evil like in the Narnia books. Is it a more oppressive place where the new immense wealth leads to extreme government control like in 1984. Is it a high political setting like ASOIAF where you're more likely to be slain in the mud and blood and beer of a back alley bar for a loose comment than on the battlefield.
Think of how you want your game to feel then build it around that is my advice. Let's say you go high politics. You need rivals, what are their aims, why do they need to act in shadow (not sure who is stronger or something over arching stopping open conflict), what matters to them, how are they vulnerable, why are they against each other and so on.
I find once I understand my world and what I want from it the rest kind of fills itself in
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First off, welcome to D&D and DMing!
Your post does not seem to ask any specific questions, and your second point trails off in a sentence fragment, so I am not sure what help you need. If you let us know what you are having issues with, I am sure you can find some experienced DMs who will be happy to help. There's a lot going on with DMing, especially homebrewing, as you are doing. You have to build a world and the people in it, sketch out a campaign outline, and actually design the encounters themselves. Any one of those could be challenging for a new DM, so it is important you ask what you need help with.
Just with the limited information you have provided, you seem to have a good starting point. You are going to want to come up with some differentiation between the three industrial races so they do not all feel similar. You are also going to want to come up with a BBEG (overboss for the entire campaign)--though you generally should wait a bit to actually reveal the BBEG, you, as the DM, want to have a general idea of who is pulling the strings from the beginning. From the basic sketch you have in the thread currently, you could come up with some kind of demon born of pollution or some kind of elvish lord who is manipulating events for some grand purpose.
Folklore has it that iron has a detrimental effect on fairy folk.
I'm now tempted with the idea an a bronze age campaign where iron is being discovered and where steel presents the same penalties to elves and fairy-folk as non-carbonised iron.
One helpful thing I've learned is that when creating stories for DND specifically, it helps to start from the bad guy's perspective:
So you're a big bad guy. You have X goal and Y resources. You're going to try to accomplish your goal in Z number of steps, and step 1 is....
Considering the plot from the villain's perspective is useful because it establishes what the progression of events would be if the heroes never got involved, so instead of the plot focusing around the players for some reason, instead you have events happening that draw the players into the plot and the players can see the impact they're having on the story/world.
So let's say I'm a villain in your world. I'm a wealthy Dwarven industrialist who's goal is to develope a region of resource-rich elf lands and turn those resources into profit. What resources do I have? Money, as well as a workforce and a small shadow-squad of mercenary assassins. How do I plan to seize this land? I'm going to try and provoke the elves into attacking outlying settlements and convince the King that the elf insurgents need to be wiped out at the source for progress' sake. How do I start? Well, step 1: while an elf delegate is visiting the city I am going to have my assassins kill her and plant incriminating documents on her body. This will engage both sides of the conflict. Step 2: I'm going to sabotage one of my own processing plants, causing a major equipment failure that kills dozens of workers. While tensions are high, bribe the newspaper to run a story implicating the elves for the attack. Step 3: send mercenaries dressed as city guards to burn down an elf un-defended elf village in order to convince the elves the only solution is further retaliation. Steps 4 through however long it takes? Don't bother planning that far ahead because ideally by then the heroes will become involved and change your plans anyways. React to what the players do and plan further steps as needed, accordingly.
That's my advice on how to get a dnd story going.
thats a great idea! i never thought of it that way! thank you so much!
okay, thank you for the tips! I just wanna make sure i have the base for an interesting campaign. and tips on how others would go about building a similar campaign
Hi
Every DM starts a campaign differently so I hope I don't mess with your head by suggesting something completely different, although I'm definitely going to try that villain thing above.
For me the most important thing is how do you want your world to feel. Is it full of hope and wonder with beautiful rolling countryside and good overcoming evil like in the Narnia books. Is it a more oppressive place where the new immense wealth leads to extreme government control like in 1984. Is it a high political setting like ASOIAF where you're more likely to be slain in the mud and blood and beer of a back alley bar for a loose comment than on the battlefield.
Think of how you want your game to feel then build it around that is my advice. Let's say you go high politics. You need rivals, what are their aims, why do they need to act in shadow (not sure who is stronger or something over arching stopping open conflict), what matters to them, how are they vulnerable, why are they against each other and so on.
I find once I understand my world and what I want from it the rest kind of fills itself in