So I decided I wanted to try to make a campaign, mostly because Ive always enjoyed telling stories to my friend. What I've found is that the more and more into designing my campaign I get, the more ambitious it's looking. I've come up with ne mechanics to try and simulate both opinion amd the war that my adventurers will be influencing. I was looking for some suggestions on how to maybe make these systems better, or easier for a first time DM to manage. Or if you think I'm reaching too much and need to scale it back, let me know that too, please.
Also, if anyone has any advice for coming up with the story, that'd be great. I keep finding myself slipping into cliches or common tropes.
Here's a PDF of everything Ive come up with so far.
I'm not a long-time DM, so my opinion may not be too professional, but I would suggest implementing a rank system for your party to progress throughout the campaign. I think the idea of having the party progress through the ranks to achieve the ultimate goal of their faction would help them have anore natural way to level up through missions based on their level while still being based on the main campaign. Other than that, I love the campaign!
The lesson I learned the hard way is that you can't plan a campaign :)
What you can do, is figure out the factions, what their goals are, what their general tactics will be, what their next strategic moves will be, and how you're going to involve the players.
You appear to have done most, if not all, of that - I like your time-travelling premise :) I would however, make sure all your Players are comfortable with your religious themes. If everyone is, run with it.
You do not need to "come up with the story" - your players will do that part! :) Flesh out your world, factions, and NPCs well, and watch the story unfold!
You just need to role-play the actions and reactions NPCs, Factions ( Players take out an operative of Faction X, so they'll now do this; Faction Y's general strategy is this, so there next step would be that ) - and administer the events in the world ( solar eclipses, storms, etc. )
What you're trying to set up in a "faction renown" mechanic - do A and you get +X points with faction A, and -Y points with faction B. That's generally a pretty good system. If you make it a 20 point scale ( starting @ 10 ), with points shifting up or down by 1 or 2 at most at the end of each sub-adventure in the campaign, then you can even use their "renown rating" as the DC for persuasion rolls involving that faction.
Sounds like a good start to a campaign - best of luck! :)
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I've played for around 7 years mainly as a DM, and while by no means do I know everything, I have enough experience to at least offer advice. My main point of advice is to try not to put in a ton of homebrew mechanics or try to change the rules and interactions around. It gets more sluggish for everybody involved, as you have to learn everything from DnD plus the homebrew mechanics. It will only be a headache for you and your players down the line (unless it's a small/ niche thing)
EDIT: The one thing I would actually call up my experience to really hammer in for advice is to embrace tropes. DnD is built for tropes and classics. There's a reason that they gained so much fame (infamy?) The party will enjoy a game more the they recognize. Plus, it's easy to introduce tropes and then turn them on their heads rather than try to come up with totally unique things
Definitely don't do hardcore planning, because the players WILL find ways to run in different directions. For now, give them a basic story idea - the wizard wants them to go into a trap filled dungeon to find a special item. If the story doesn't begin to come together naturally, which it usually does, then you'll have time after the first session to know more about what to expect and how to plan accordingly.
And lastly, know that you never really stop learning how to be a player or a DM, just how to be better
Thanks for the input. I was worried about finding a way to link all of this effecively, but you'r right, no matter what I'll try they'll always find a way to mess it up, especially with my friends.
And I think that'd be a really cool addition to the the renown system. Id been struggling to find a way to encourage it without requiring it as an victory condition and I think this'll help alot. Tha ks for the input!
The lesson I learned the hard way is that you can't plan a campaign :)
Exactly this. Planning a campaign is like trying to predict the weather. You have a pretty good idea what next week looks like but anything beyond that is uncertain.
You want to have a general idea of key characters, locations, goals and plot points but you don't want to invest much time on things that are in the distant future. Take things one session at a time, try to predict what your players will do in the short term, and be prepared to improvise.
Thanks for the input. I was worried about finding a way to link all of this effecively, but you'r right, no matter what I'll try they'll always find a way to mess it up, especially with my friends.
Try not to think about it as them "messing it up". RPGs are story collaborations.
As DM, you set up the initial conditions, you unfold events in reaction to their actions, and - with some events - according to the world's timetable, and you adjudicate what they attempt to do.
As Players, they react to the world you present.
You don't own the story line ( so the Players aren't "messing up" your story ), but you are an equal partner in it with your Players.
Have fun with it - see what your premise, and their actions, unfold :)
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Thanks for the input. I was worried about finding a way to link all of this effecively, but you'r right, no matter what I'll try they'll always find a way to mess it up, especially with my friends.
Try not to think about it as them "messing it up". RPGs are story collaborations.
Yeah, you're right. Mostly when I mean when I say "mess up" is that my friend group has a very special talent at breaking campaigns, so thats mostly what I'm rying to prevent. Narratively I have no problem creating the story as we go, but gameplay wise I'm still elatively new to DnD and very new to DMing, so idk if I'd be able to compensate for them accidentally becoming very strong early on.
I think you have a very good foundation to work from. Your world building is nice, and I recommend you keep developing that world. Make a list of NPCs that perform common duties and keep a track of them to make the adventure richer. As far as custom mechanics, I echo the sentiment of another poster here: Be wary of creating too many homebrew mechanics. I'll become harder for the players and yourself to keep track of them. If you are planning to stay with homebrew mechanics, keep them vague enough that you'll be able to loosely apply them and not have to worry to much about them.
If this is your first time DM'ing, getting the hang of all the mechanics and classes can be overwhelming at first, so try not to make it overwhelming. Overall, I like your idea and where you're going with it.
I like how you have their start point planned out, but be wary of 'leveling zones', if you present your players with a large map, but want them to stay in an area you may have to railroad them to get them to where they need to be. If the players are not expecting a potential railroad scenario, it may not go well with them. It may be worth discussing this before hand with the players.
Yeah, you're right. Mostly when I mean when I say "mess up" is that my friend group has a very special talent at breaking campaigns, so thats mostly what I'm rying to prevent. Narratively I have no problem creating the story as we go, but gameplay wise I'm still elatively new to DnD and very new to DMing, so idk if I'd be able to compensate for them accidentally becoming very strong early on.
If the campaign doesn't really exist until they create it ... then they can't break it :)
Just play out your world, and your "agencies" ( NPCs, Factions, etc. ), realistically and consistently. The rest will take of itself.
You've got a good foundation - try not to sweat it too much ( although that's way easier said than done - I still sweat it on occasion ).
And don't worry about being " relatively new to DnD and very new to DM'ing". To semi-quote Matt Colville "When you start, you'll be terrible at it ... you'll spend the rest of your life getting better ... but it'll be fun when you're terrible at it, and it'll be fun when you're great at it".
The only relevant yardstick for any DnD game is "can everyone have fun with it?"/"did people have fun?" ( there's a whole other discussion there about how much of a Player's fun is the DM's responsibility, and how much is the Players').
You'll make mistakes. We all did. We all do. Learn from them, move on :)
Players will get out of hand. That happens to all DMs :)
But if you have fun, it's all good.
Two years from now, there will be game moments that happen tomorrow, that you will cringe at - just remember that if people had fun, it was a good game :)
And you really do have an interesting and novel campaign seed; I hope it goes well for you :)
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I will second Vedexent's and InquisitiveCoder's advice given thus far. And I'll comment that I greatly enjoy seeing solid guidance accompanied by a compass rose avatar.
I will also suggest trying to get your players interested in the "what's this campaign going to be about?" section of things - not necessarily with this campaign, as you've already got a solid idea so it's better to just pitch them that idea to make sure they aren't opposed to it and get playing, but when preparing campaigns in the future.
I like to have character creation take place while I haven't gotten any further along in planning out the campaign than "Hey y'all, how 'bout we play some D&D?" and have the whole group do this as much together as is possible. That way everyone can talk out things they want to try out, whether that's races, classes, specific build options like "I wanna be a spear-wielding monk", story themes, locations for adventure, or even which campaign setting to use (or the details of a new setting specifically built for this campaign) - and as them make all of the important decisions as a group. The result being, in my experience, players that have fleshed out the relationships between each of their characters and between the characters and the world they live in (at least the region they'll be starting the campaign in), and a campaign idea that the players have fully bought into even before play has begun (where often I've seen it take as many as half a dozen sessions before everyone at the table is really aware of what a campaign is about/supposed to be like when the players aren't involved in determining the rough idea of the campaign).
I will also suggest trying to get your players interested in the "what's this campaign going to be about?" section of things - not necessarily with this campaign, as you've already got a solid idea so it's better to just pitch them that idea to make sure they aren't opposed to it and get playing, but when preparing campaigns in the future.
I have to second this. Every campaign needs a Session Zero - or equivalent.
If you know what kind of stories your Players like ( movies, books, television, video games, etc. ), what kind they do not like, and what kind of stories they want to experience it makes sketching out the initial conditions of your campaign a lot easier. You've got that covered already, but it definitely can guide you as to what adventure seeds to plant within your campaign framework - and what stories, elements, and themes to avoid, so that you don't upset/offend any Players.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Create hundreds of side quests as players in 90% somehow will not fallow the obvious hints and will drift into totaly unpredicted direction. Your bosses will die fast and small mobs will almost wreck whole team. Simple puzzles will not be resolved in hours. Players will not fallow "help me" cry but will jump into the fire after small shiny rolling ball. Let them explore, destroy and kill.
I think you're saying "players will not behave in a way you can predict; events will not unfold in a way you can predict" - which is 100% true.
However, having your world fleshed out, knowing how you world will react to things - well detailed NPCs, Factions, Goals, Strategies, Tactics, Limits, etc. - give you the ability to improvise in response. I don't need to have "hundreds of side quests" prepared - I just have to have the world around the party react to the party realistically ( and also scribble down a half-dozen notes about what's happening in the world that doesn't involve the party, between every session ), and something will happen that the party will bite at.
You do touch on a good point regarding "simple puzzles" and "obvious hints". I've learned the hard way that what's simple and obvious to the DM - who has perfect knowledge of the game world - is not obvious to anyone else.
For every bit of information you want the party to find, you should use theThree Clue Rule- essentially have multiple, increasingly obvious, clues to that fact in your narrative plans - and be able to improvise means of feeding information to them using means you never thought of, but the Players are going to try ( what? You're casting speak with dead on the mercenary that you just killed and interrogating them? OK ... why yes, they did see something of interest ... ) Or accept that not all pieces of information are going to be found by the party. And some bits of information aren't needed - they just add more flavor, or allow the party to achieve "optional objectives", which they'll not accomplish if they miss the clues - but it doesn't matter to the main goal ( saved the princess ... weren't able to figure out how to get into the tomb of Sir Distraction the Irrelevant, and loot his +2 Sword of Poking Things and his Bracers of Defense ) .
As for "Let them explore, destroy and kill" - absolutely let the Party do what they want; don't take away their Agency - but also have your world react in a realistic manner to their actions.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
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So I decided I wanted to try to make a campaign, mostly because Ive always enjoyed telling stories to my friend. What I've found is that the more and more into designing my campaign I get, the more ambitious it's looking. I've come up with ne mechanics to try and simulate both opinion amd the war that my adventurers will be influencing. I was looking for some suggestions on how to maybe make these systems better, or easier for a first time DM to manage. Or if you think I'm reaching too much and need to scale it back, let me know that too, please.
Also, if anyone has any advice for coming up with the story, that'd be great. I keep finding myself slipping into cliches or common tropes.
Here's a PDF of everything Ive come up with so far.
http://view.publitas.com/2d08ba63-5c8f-448d-8854-7c3eb4d49cdc/campaign-pdf/
Notes: The opinion system is very much still a work in progress, as is most of the campaign.
I'm not a long-time DM, so my opinion may not be too professional, but I would suggest implementing a rank system for your party to progress throughout the campaign. I think the idea of having the party progress through the ranks to achieve the ultimate goal of their faction would help them have anore natural way to level up through missions based on their level while still being based on the main campaign. Other than that, I love the campaign!
The lesson I learned the hard way is that you can't plan a campaign :)
What you can do, is figure out the factions, what their goals are, what their general tactics will be, what their next strategic moves will be, and how you're going to involve the players.
You appear to have done most, if not all, of that - I like your time-travelling premise :) I would however, make sure all your Players are comfortable with your religious themes. If everyone is, run with it.
You do not need to "come up with the story" - your players will do that part! :) Flesh out your world, factions, and NPCs well, and watch the story unfold!
You just need to role-play the actions and reactions NPCs, Factions ( Players take out an operative of Faction X, so they'll now do this; Faction Y's general strategy is this, so there next step would be that ) - and administer the events in the world ( solar eclipses, storms, etc. )
What you're trying to set up in a "faction renown" mechanic - do A and you get +X points with faction A, and -Y points with faction B. That's generally a pretty good system. If you make it a 20 point scale ( starting @ 10 ), with points shifting up or down by 1 or 2 at most at the end of each sub-adventure in the campaign, then you can even use their "renown rating" as the DC for persuasion rolls involving that faction.
Sounds like a good start to a campaign - best of luck! :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I've played for around 7 years mainly as a DM, and while by no means do I know everything, I have enough experience to at least offer advice. My main point of advice is to try not to put in a ton of homebrew mechanics or try to change the rules and interactions around. It gets more sluggish for everybody involved, as you have to learn everything from DnD plus the homebrew mechanics. It will only be a headache for you and your players down the line (unless it's a small/ niche thing)
EDIT: The one thing I would actually call up my experience to really hammer in for advice is to embrace tropes. DnD is built for tropes and classics. There's a reason that they gained so much fame (infamy?) The party will enjoy a game more the they recognize. Plus, it's easy to introduce tropes and then turn them on their heads rather than try to come up with totally unique things
Definitely don't do hardcore planning, because the players WILL find ways to run in different directions. For now, give them a basic story idea - the wizard wants them to go into a trap filled dungeon to find a special item. If the story doesn't begin to come together naturally, which it usually does, then you'll have time after the first session to know more about what to expect and how to plan accordingly.
And lastly, know that you never really stop learning how to be a player or a DM, just how to be better
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thanks for the input. I was worried about finding a way to link all of this effecively, but you'r right, no matter what I'll try they'll always find a way to mess it up, especially with my friends.
And I think that'd be a really cool addition to the the renown system. Id been struggling to find a way to encourage it without requiring it as an victory condition and I think this'll help alot. Tha ks for the input!
Exactly this. Planning a campaign is like trying to predict the weather. You have a pretty good idea what next week looks like but anything beyond that is uncertain.
You want to have a general idea of key characters, locations, goals and plot points but you don't want to invest much time on things that are in the distant future. Take things one session at a time, try to predict what your players will do in the short term, and be prepared to improvise.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I think you have a very good foundation to work from. Your world building is nice, and I recommend you keep developing that world. Make a list of NPCs that perform common duties and keep a track of them to make the adventure richer. As far as custom mechanics, I echo the sentiment of another poster here: Be wary of creating too many homebrew mechanics. I'll become harder for the players and yourself to keep track of them. If you are planning to stay with homebrew mechanics, keep them vague enough that you'll be able to loosely apply them and not have to worry to much about them.
If this is your first time DM'ing, getting the hang of all the mechanics and classes can be overwhelming at first, so try not to make it overwhelming. Overall, I like your idea and where you're going with it.
I like how you have their start point planned out, but be wary of 'leveling zones', if you present your players with a large map, but want them to stay in an area you may have to railroad them to get them to where they need to be. If the players are not expecting a potential railroad scenario, it may not go well with them. It may be worth discussing this before hand with the players.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I will second Vedexent's and InquisitiveCoder's advice given thus far. And I'll comment that I greatly enjoy seeing solid guidance accompanied by a compass rose avatar.
I will also suggest trying to get your players interested in the "what's this campaign going to be about?" section of things - not necessarily with this campaign, as you've already got a solid idea so it's better to just pitch them that idea to make sure they aren't opposed to it and get playing, but when preparing campaigns in the future.
I like to have character creation take place while I haven't gotten any further along in planning out the campaign than "Hey y'all, how 'bout we play some D&D?" and have the whole group do this as much together as is possible. That way everyone can talk out things they want to try out, whether that's races, classes, specific build options like "I wanna be a spear-wielding monk", story themes, locations for adventure, or even which campaign setting to use (or the details of a new setting specifically built for this campaign) - and as them make all of the important decisions as a group. The result being, in my experience, players that have fleshed out the relationships between each of their characters and between the characters and the world they live in (at least the region they'll be starting the campaign in), and a campaign idea that the players have fully bought into even before play has begun (where often I've seen it take as many as half a dozen sessions before everyone at the table is really aware of what a campaign is about/supposed to be like when the players aren't involved in determining the rough idea of the campaign).
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Create hundreds of side quests as players in 90% somehow will not fallow the obvious hints and will drift into totaly unpredicted direction. Your bosses will die fast and small mobs will almost wreck whole team. Simple puzzles will not be resolved in hours. Players will not fallow "help me" cry but will jump into the fire after small shiny rolling ball. Let them explore, destroy and kill.
I think you're saying "players will not behave in a way you can predict; events will not unfold in a way you can predict" - which is 100% true.
However, having your world fleshed out, knowing how you world will react to things - well detailed NPCs, Factions, Goals, Strategies, Tactics, Limits, etc. - give you the ability to improvise in response. I don't need to have "hundreds of side quests" prepared - I just have to have the world around the party react to the party realistically ( and also scribble down a half-dozen notes about what's happening in the world that doesn't involve the party, between every session ), and something will happen that the party will bite at.
You do touch on a good point regarding "simple puzzles" and "obvious hints". I've learned the hard way that what's simple and obvious to the DM - who has perfect knowledge of the game world - is not obvious to anyone else.
For every bit of information you want the party to find, you should use the Three Clue Rule - essentially have multiple, increasingly obvious, clues to that fact in your narrative plans - and be able to improvise means of feeding information to them using means you never thought of, but the Players are going to try ( what? You're casting speak with dead on the mercenary that you just killed and interrogating them? OK ... why yes, they did see something of interest ... ) Or accept that not all pieces of information are going to be found by the party. And some bits of information aren't needed - they just add more flavor, or allow the party to achieve "optional objectives", which they'll not accomplish if they miss the clues - but it doesn't matter to the main goal ( saved the princess ... weren't able to figure out how to get into the tomb of Sir Distraction the Irrelevant, and loot his +2 Sword of Poking Things and his Bracers of Defense ) .
As for "Let them explore, destroy and kill" - absolutely let the Party do what they want; don't take away their Agency - but also have your world react in a realistic manner to their actions.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.