You adventurers there, do not dare to come any closer! Tiamat guards the secrets of the Dungeon Masters.

I bet that a lot of Dungeon Masters here and everywhere have problems coming up with campaigns off the tops of their heads. There's a variety of reasons that somebody might not want to use one of the official 'Dungeons & Dragons' supplements, or adventures, such as being felt constricted in what you can and cannot do, being afraid that your players will be bored and/or already know the adventure, or you just want to be creative and original with your campaign. Any way, if you have trouble coming up with campaign ideas, or you have a lot of campaign ideas, this thread is probably going to be a good place for you to look.

Some of my own ideas may soon follow. Feel free to give me feedback, expansion, etc. on them. You can also use any of them that you wish, and if you want more details, just tell me in this thread or through messages, and I'll give them to you.

EDIT: Also, if it wasn't clear, please put your own ideas, too.

So, is this a thread for everyone to put down their campaign ideas, or just for you to put down ideas you have?

Quote from WoobyDoobyDoo >>

So, is this a thread for everyone to put down their campaign ideas, or just for you to put down ideas you have?

 It's for both.

I have a campaign idea. What if you mix the reality of natural conspiracies like your advance on the campaigns with a creative angle like rolling your own? Make a list where the dice do more than just act the actions. Like giving your characters actions into the heated size of each other? Not only do you have personality choice but you also get things like introductory reasons and acute behavioral intertwining. Seeing a sword like a snake, etc. Not only adding detail but also adding different physical gestures. Disgust, pride, hate, added anger.

A good homebrew idea i had was for an all evil campaign where the setting is an old giant volcanic mountain with two cities, Devils deep in the bowels made by the dwarves and Gods reach at the peak in the old basin of the volcano made by humans and elves, in between these two cities is a range of tunnels and caverns that make up the slum city of purgatory, this third city is completely lawless and is home to criminals of all kinds. All the players are criminals of some kind and are called to meet one of the crime family heads for a job, the family head is actually a beholder who basically enslaves them to do his bidding in ridding him of his opposition. The Parties aim is to overthrow the beholder and become the ruling criminals of purgatory themselves, thats as far as i've got but could be expanded from there, was also going to homebrew some classes for it too maybe. Let me know what you guys think :D

How about turning the campaigns into debris forms as well. Utilizing the scene as a harsh reality but involving the trappings around them as the same reason there is a difference between safe life and accostation towards the cruel terrain. Giving form to the design of the shaken justices to the sought reigns like turf beliefs. Considering they had to start off with thier heads and that is all they had besides war to stop incrimination the religion had by it could be for the characters and not the slaved markets which came as a bit of a tournament.

Personally I have never run a premade and have been DMing since the 80s. Just not a fan of having everything prewritten and laid out like that. Players are random and I have more fun making adjustments to a game based on what the players do. Honestly I feel the players prefer this as well. I usually will have an end idea but I will leave it at that and let the game unfold as it progresses. Who knows, things change. I see it like this. Things are constantly changing and events are always in motion unless halted somehow. In a way this lets the players create the adventure they want. There is a lot more work on the DMs part though. Putting a good amount of extra time in the game between sessions is a must and as a DM you should love doing this. For myself anyway I love coming up with new ideas or making adjustments based off of how a session went.

I can definetly agree with that, I'm a first time DM and i have done a bit of the official starter kit Phandelver with a small group, i was immediately making adjustments and changes to it as i went on the fly as it just felt more natural than what was detailed in the official book. I have since planned out two campaigns i'm about to start with different groups, one is entirely homebrew but again as you say i have a general idea, a general end goal and some very vague story arcs but i'm more than willing to see how the players take things and adapt from there. The other is for my gf, sister and brother in law and is a kingdom heartsesque style campaign where its all the disney films as scenarios with their characters interacting within it, obviously with these i have a lot more structure to go off of and the players are likely to be quite a bit more streamlined in their focus but again, if they want to change cinderella's coach to being pulled by nightmares because they couldnt find any mice i'm going to totally allow it!

Quote from TophatBandit >>

I can definetly agree with that, I'm a first time DM and i have done a bit of the official starter kit Phandelver with a small group, i was immediately making adjustments and changes to it as i went on the fly as it just felt more natural than what was detailed in the official book. I have since planned out two campaigns i'm about to start with different groups, one is entirely homebrew but again as you say i have a general idea, a general end goal and some very vague story arcs but i'm more than willing to see how the players take things and adapt from there. The other is for my gf, sister and brother in law and is a kingdom heartsesque style campaign where its all the disney films as scenarios with their characters interacting within it, obviously with these i have a lot more structure to go off of and the players are likely to be quite a bit more streamlined in their focus but again, if they want to change cinderella's coach to being pulled by nightmares because they couldnt find any mice i'm going to totally allow it!

 That's funny, I'm introducing some friends to D&D right now with "Lost Mine of Phandelver," but I started DMing with a 100% homebrew world, and then another, and this campaign is similar to LMoP but set in a homebrew world I started DMing with. The villain is the Black Hand, instead of that drow, and he's an orc, which makes more sense to me (his symbol is based off of the white hand of Saruman). Anyway, I haven't really been reading ahead too much, so I'm more of winging it, and that's what I've been doing. Perhaps needless to say I'm a mediocre DM.

Recently started running one called Alphas: Origins: the Beginning, which is heavy on humor but it's based the short story is that a conspiracy of guild leaders and financiers seek to overthrow the current order to more efficiently exploit the peasantry and urban working class. Eventually it comes out that their leader, the dark lord Vezos, made a deal with a god to do so. As the name suggests, it also explores this ridiculous concept of being 'alpha' and the lack of community that creates the conditions for that to be a remotely popular concept. I love homebrew because it's so easy to suit to your players' and your own preferences. So making them laugh, winking at the world we inhabit out of game, but also having some emotional currents they can connect with--it's all there.

I wanted to run a metagame where the players are living in an insane asylum and are playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons.  There is a horroresque conspiracy at the asylum and the dnd game is giving them hints and then there are games where they are playing the players and trying to mesh the real and dnd world.  The game is played mostly straight except things that happen in the game shape the mystery and the mystery shapes the dnd game.

That's so damn good. As both a DM and someone who's, uhhhhh been in a facility, you could really do a lot with that.

I have made a. Hombres campaign myself called the steaming city. It revolves around a flying city and a magic ice called Frotz that consumed the world and the only way to stop it is to kill or revive the lich king

Here is another idea and thanks all of you for replying to my post!

1. In a country (Icehall) ruled by a human family and inhabited already mostly by humans, they start driving out races such as elves, dwarves, "half-breeds", etc. But in the heart of the country, which revolves around the Winterpeak Mountain Range, there are orcs and goblins living, and while some of them want to remain in the mountains unbothered as they can be, others want to kill the humans near them in the capital city of Whitefall because they think that they will kill them all given the chance, which is just a bit more military power. Well, the current leader dies mysteriously, and his nephew takes the throne, drafting more men into the military power, and voicing his opinions about other races. He is more extreme than his uncle was, and soon the party realizes that their country is in trouble. They can probably try to take the throne for themselves, give it back to the people, or work with the leader.

I will put more soon, when I think of them more fully.

I just start off small and have a few hooks/quests ready to go. Just enough to keep the players busy allowing me to get a feel as to what the players are going to do. I then start to flesh things out some as the players progress. If you do not have a campaign map that is fine. Just build from there and work out. I have used my current group to build my world with the help from them as the game plays out. I did flesh things out far beyond where they have been and would not be surprised if they never even see half of the locations on the map. With that said I do continue to add locations as needed based on the players decisions.  

My last campaign centered on a town made up of half elves, half orcs, humans, and dwarves.  The first episode the dwarves are mildly racist but over the course of the entire campaign they become more and more extreme in their hate (other races use different gates into the city, dwarves have a curfew and other races are not let into the dwarven districts after a certain time, tolls to get into the city, higher taxes on businesses, citizens being jailed for no real reason, people disappearing and businesses mysteriously closing down, people being hanged without a fair trial, and finally a giant massacre). The first campaign is rescuing the inn keeper aka the leader of the secret rebellion and discovering a piece of an ancient hammer.  The next episodes are all about finding the other pieces of the hammer, trying to recruit for the rebellion, getting the hammer reforged, and leads to either a big battle or a sneak kill depending on how many people you recruit.  *It was originally a one shot: just rescue the leader but my players were so excited about the hammer piece they asked me to keep going.

I think that this is a good idea and should be used by lots of DMs

I ran a campaign based (loosely) on the TV show "Lost", I also had one where the PC's woke on a beach with no memories of who they were, no equipment, no weapons, No stats. Their memories were stolen by an Aboleth who ruled an island. I steal heavily from books, movies, television, and even published campaigns. My current campaign is a sandbox, with no overarching theme, the players determine what happens by their actions and backstories and also I listen to side conversations between the players during breaks and create adventures based on what they talk about.

I think that basing the campaign around the players is a good idea and I will try it out for myself.

Extraplanar beings trying to get home, 3 tokens being found and brought together gets them home but also causes the apocalypse.

Fill in the middle bit with Lloth wanting essentially a portal key and going after the tokens HARD, some demonic possession and general "where's waldo but for tokens" shenanigans, and bam, that's the campaign I'm running. 

Also I got bored while prepping for one session and effectively added Sam and Dean Winchester into the campaign. Bobby's there too, which I am especially proud of. :D