i'm writing a campaign for the first time, and just have a few questions. - how much planning do you guys put into your campaigns? both worldbuilding and actually written? - how much do you guys write/bring to sessions? - for a first time dm, how many people do you reckon i can control? (clarification - how many players i should have at a session) - i want to write a full length campaign, how far ahead should i write before i start playing?
any tips/help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
i'm writing a campaign for the first time, and just have a few questions. - how much planning do you guys put into your campaigns? both worldbuilding and actually written?
If I'm actually writing a campaign, it's with the intent of selling it, so I plan ahead a lot. "If the PCs want to pursue the Uthgardt, remind them of these reasons not to. If they still want to pursue the Uthgardt, run Chapter 2." "If the PCs want to pursue the magma mephits, remind them of these reasons not to. If they still want to pursue the magma mephits, run Chapter 3."
Otherwise, I use a mix of making it up as I go along, which works slightly better, but not as much so as you'd expect, in PbP, and figuring out the actual storyline(s) (and possibly encounters) in between sessions.
- how much do you guys write/bring to sessions?
I rely on my memory for the plot and D&D Beyond for everything else, so not much. I have a fairly reliable memory, though.
- for a first time dm, how many people do you reckon i can control?
That depends on the people and what you mean by control. 1d12, give or take a few d6s.
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"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Firstly, you don't have to build an entire world AND an entire campaign. If you're home brewing a setting (map, lore, history, gods, special races, etc), it can take more time and effort than you can imagine. The more you can make the better, but don't worry about every detail for your world. Make what's important to your characters and the plot first and foremost. If they're fighting a dark god, make him, but don't feel obligated to have a whole pantheon just then.
As far as planning, there's no sure fire answer. I personally only plan 2 or 3 sessions ahead as far as mapping and encounters and what not. For the campaign as a whole, I plan the ending. I think of what the antagonists goals being fulfilled would look like if the players weren't there to stop it. The kingdom is run over, the arch demon is restored, the apocalypse is triggered. That's where the story will go, every session bringing it closer to that climax. The only thing that will keep that ending from happening is the players. Then you can plan backwards from there. Find out how the antagonists will achieve their end goal, what they do to build themselves to that point, all the way back to when the players begin meddling. Think of some obvious ways they can ruin their enemy's plans, or that the bad guys can exploit the heroes. Think of the twists, what the heroes find out and when. All of this can be done with backwards planning OR with developments as the campaign progresses naturally.
Lastly, if you're having trouble figuring something out, skip it for a while. If it won't be relent in the next couple sessions, you can hold off hammering it out for a bit. In fact, events in game or the characters' ideas may give you the inspiration or answer you need. Leaving blanks, both in setting and campaign building, is often where the group-story-telling aspect comes to the front. It gives you a chance to let an idea one of your players blurts out about the enemy plans be true. It's what lets a character's personal rival/villian come into the story as a partner to the enemy. So long as you are open enough to let players fill some holes for you (without their knowing of course), i've found that some details will jump out to you if given time. Remeber, the players are an audience to your world. So long as the show is entertaining, they don't have to know what happens behind the scene. You have the script, and whose to say when you deviate from it.
I'd suggest starting with 4 or 5 players if you're just starting, but I started with a larger table then that so really it's about knowing what you're willing to handle. If you can herd a dozen friends through it, go ahead. Before you unveil your world/campaign though, i'd run your group through a couple of one shots to gauge the situation. Better to find out then if you can't handle a table of 9 then a few sessions into your hardest works.
If you're new to DMing for the first time, it can feel overwhelming just running the game. Taking on this kind of project your want to do is gonna suck in the best way. It's work, and you just won't want to deal with it some days. But it'll be as rewarding as the time you put into it. Ultimatly, you'll come into your own way of organizing, creating and planning. Maybe it'll be different then anything I or anyone else here tells you. If so, get back to me about it, i'd be interested in what you find.
i'm basing the campaign on a world i've already done a lot of stuff for (i'm writing a novel and thought i'd use one of the lesser built nations for a campaign), which is nice, but i always find myself going overboard. i think i'll stick to pretty basic stuff.
i'll be playing with people who haven't played before so instead of one-shots i'm thinking a full tutorial style encounter? sort of like how they did most of the starter set, with very structured combat and roleplay opportunities. "get to the next town to start the main quest" etc etc.
there's a whole bunch of my friends who are really aggressively enthusiastic about the game, so it'll probably end up being about 7 people (if i can keep the numbers down). i'm thinking of running the tutorial and character building session as a trial, and booting out those who cause trouble.
i'm hoping to document my whole experience with this campaign so that others can learn from it! thanks so much.
Are you me? Because it sounds like you're starting out just like me.
I didn't know you already had a setting basically worked up. I have the same situation and let my players muck around in my book, so I can dig it. My group started as a dozen friends who had never played 5e before, and few had ever played a table top game like this. We did a session of the Drunken D&D pdf to just test the system, feel out our characters/classes and have fun. It's been almost a year, and I have 8 players due to people being unable to make it. It's been difficult, but they all love it and really give their background a serious take, so they make things pretty easy for me.
That being the case, I have less advice for you and more reassurance that you'll be fine. The trick will be the session to session planning, so try to map and calibrate one session ahead, think about how it'll affect the session after, and keep the end game scenario as the beacon you're all heading for. It's worked well for me.
I heard someone at some point say "plan on 4 hours of preparation for every 1 hour of campaign play time". I recently started running Storm King's Thunder (2 sessions in). The first session revolved around pre-built content and even then I had to make up stuff on the fly for the first 2.5 hours of the session. I wasn't prepared to do that but it was probably the most fun thing of the night.
I would suggest being super prepared to take notes during the session. When you make up stuff on the fly it might help to write it down for reference in the future or continuity as you build up your campaign. I use a Surface Tablet with OneNote, but pen and paper work just as well.
Even though this is pre-built I'm still spending a ton of time preparing. Now that I've seeded custom content, I'm coming up with all sorts of fun ideas on how to incorporate it in the future and neat quests of my own design.
I guess I'm trying to say...it's great to spend a lot of time preparing, but accept with open arms the necessity to make things up and roll with it!
i'm writing a campaign for the first time, and just have a few questions. - how much planning do you guys put into your campaigns? both worldbuilding and actually written? - how much do you guys write/bring to sessions? - for a first time dm, how many people do you reckon i can control? (clarification - how many players i should have at a session) - i want to write a full length campaign, how far ahead should i write before i start playing?
any tips/help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
Creating a world, for which to then create a plotline which incorporates the player characters take a lot of time. I have just spent 1 year, almost exactly to the day today, creating Gates of Avalon, my complete campaign which I am running starting next Wednesday 9/27. So if you are ambitious you can maybe write less than I have and do it quicker (6 months?) I mean life has to go on too, so a couple hours a day is the max I can put in.
In terms of preparation, the time needed is based on how compartmentalized you are making encounters or plot points. If it is open world play, much more preparation is needed to help stitch together purpose to the randomness of the encounter. Nothing is worse than PC parties wiping off blood from countless random battles while the hopelessly searching for meaning in what they just risked their lives to fight.
I personally have a PowerPoint deck for each session. It has links, pasted images, notes, quotes and other crap which I rummage through while riffing off all kinds of role playing goodness. Since I DM online, I send private chats to players when necessary and push out artwork and maps as well. I think, as you play, the time ticks off quickly and written encounters never last as long or short as you predict. Always have 2x stuff prepared to what you actually think they will navigate through in a single session. Word to the wise, shorter sessions are better than longer. There is a fatigue that sets in after 2 hours for almost all people. I keep my runs to 2 hours max.
As to how many people you can engage: That depends on the setting. Online, with webcams, is fewer people I think, like 4-5 people. In person at a table you can get 5-7 or so. In the end, the fewer the better as attention is what everyone seeks. How much can you spread yourself around? Another hint, don't treat each player the same. Have banter, challenge and tension at every turn for each player. I don't mean the human, I mean the character they play. Always give your PC party opportunity to coordinate as a cohesive unit, then turn around and dismantle that unity when necessary in the plot. Let them resist the implosion or rebuild the party politics over and over during the campaign. Keep in mind that the PCs need REASONS to do things, and not just one unifying cause will do it. The best campaigns have shifting goals, attitudes, settings and challenges. Let the PC characters follow and arc through your campaign. They should change as they go.
Finally, You should write enough to play 5-6 sessions to start, keep the future open ended, but somewhat defined, at least in your head. As I mentioned above, character arcs are important vehicles to any story, it also allows for a great feedback loop. The PCs will changes your ideas of what the plot is. Characters will die, forget the mission, make bad choices, rebel, quit and argue as they see fit. Your backstory should survive all of this.
As someone who's previously been a notorious planner, I've been getting more and more comfortable with doing minimal prep and making up most if it as I go. If you're playing in a homebrewed setting, you don't need all the details sorted out. It's okay to make up some stuff on the fly. I don't think I really realized that for a long time. Same goes for plot. If you know how things are supposed to end before the first session even begins, there's likely to be some serious tension between you and your players. Think of them as collaborators or co-writers rather than actors in your story.
Prep a couple encounters, make some NPCs, be familiar with the five room dungeon model, and borrow the concept of fronts from Dungeon World, and that's likely all you'll really need. Of course sometimes it makes sense to prepare a little more than that, but I think a common mistake--certainly one I made--is over prepping.
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DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder) Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
I have a general idea of how the major conflicts in my campaign are going to occur and join together, but i'm going to hold back and only plan 3-4 sessions ahead as to keep players really shaping the story. not planning the ending, which scares the ever-loving fudge out of me, but i guess thats okay. making things up as i go is okay...
I'd echo the comments about making things up as you go. I'm very anti-railroad, and overly prepared can come across as a railroad, especially if all the time you put in makes one feel precious about the material you worked on. Instead, I like to think of the characters encountering scenes or set pieces, such as the location of the macguffin, the boss' lair, etc. In between, they could make any number of choices getting from initially encountering henchmen to the boss lair, and within common sensical bounds, I let them. As such, I did most of my prep before the campaign, and now either only do outlines of dungeons, or dip into available written materials such as yawning portal. Most of that prep was marking places of plausible interest plus their scale (small minor location to mega fortress), and if the players go there, I generate or use an appropriately sized something to encounter.
6 seems to be the most players to handle before it becomes unwieldy.
I DM an in-house game, but use roll20 for maps, and have a TV I cast the player map on. Roll20 takes a bit more prep than normal, but I always have a few generic maps ready for random encounters. I don't go nuts on prepping anything further out then two sessions.
Unless there is a dungeon, for the most part, once you are in one its either go all the way or just leave. In that case, I plan the whole thing out, story and all the details. I figure if they don't go any further and decide to leave I can save what I had for the rest of it and use it for another one with a little bit a tweaking. The best thing you can do is have a basic story outline and then a backup list of NPC's.... oh and take notes.... tons and tons of them, it always amazes me how one little interaction two games ago can become a major plot point later.
Random NPC generators save my life!
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hey guys!
i'm writing a campaign for the first time, and just have a few questions.
- how much planning do you guys put into your campaigns? both worldbuilding and actually written?
- how much do you guys write/bring to sessions?
- for a first time dm, how many people do you reckon i can control? (clarification - how many players i should have at a session)
- i want to write a full length campaign, how far ahead should i write before i start playing?
any tips/help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!
If I'm actually writing a campaign, it's with the intent of selling it, so I plan ahead a lot. "If the PCs want to pursue the Uthgardt, remind them of these reasons not to. If they still want to pursue the Uthgardt, run Chapter 2." "If the PCs want to pursue the magma mephits, remind them of these reasons not to. If they still want to pursue the magma mephits, run Chapter 3."
Otherwise, I use a mix of making it up as I go along, which works slightly better, but not as much so as you'd expect, in PbP, and figuring out the actual storyline(s) (and possibly encounters) in between sessions.
I rely on my memory for the plot and D&D Beyond for everything else, so not much. I have a fairly reliable memory, though.
That depends on the people and what you mean by control. 1d12, give or take a few d6s.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Firstly, you don't have to build an entire world AND an entire campaign. If you're home brewing a setting (map, lore, history, gods, special races, etc), it can take more time and effort than you can imagine. The more you can make the better, but don't worry about every detail for your world. Make what's important to your characters and the plot first and foremost. If they're fighting a dark god, make him, but don't feel obligated to have a whole pantheon just then.
As far as planning, there's no sure fire answer. I personally only plan 2 or 3 sessions ahead as far as mapping and encounters and what not. For the campaign as a whole, I plan the ending. I think of what the antagonists goals being fulfilled would look like if the players weren't there to stop it. The kingdom is run over, the arch demon is restored, the apocalypse is triggered. That's where the story will go, every session bringing it closer to that climax. The only thing that will keep that ending from happening is the players. Then you can plan backwards from there. Find out how the antagonists will achieve their end goal, what they do to build themselves to that point, all the way back to when the players begin meddling. Think of some obvious ways they can ruin their enemy's plans, or that the bad guys can exploit the heroes. Think of the twists, what the heroes find out and when. All of this can be done with backwards planning OR with developments as the campaign progresses naturally.
Lastly, if you're having trouble figuring something out, skip it for a while. If it won't be relent in the next couple sessions, you can hold off hammering it out for a bit. In fact, events in game or the characters' ideas may give you the inspiration or answer you need. Leaving blanks, both in setting and campaign building, is often where the group-story-telling aspect comes to the front. It gives you a chance to let an idea one of your players blurts out about the enemy plans be true. It's what lets a character's personal rival/villian come into the story as a partner to the enemy. So long as you are open enough to let players fill some holes for you (without their knowing of course), i've found that some details will jump out to you if given time. Remeber, the players are an audience to your world. So long as the show is entertaining, they don't have to know what happens behind the scene. You have the script, and whose to say when you deviate from it.
I'd suggest starting with 4 or 5 players if you're just starting, but I started with a larger table then that so really it's about knowing what you're willing to handle. If you can herd a dozen friends through it, go ahead. Before you unveil your world/campaign though, i'd run your group through a couple of one shots to gauge the situation. Better to find out then if you can't handle a table of 9 then a few sessions into your hardest works.
If you're new to DMing for the first time, it can feel overwhelming just running the game. Taking on this kind of project your want to do is gonna suck in the best way. It's work, and you just won't want to deal with it some days. But it'll be as rewarding as the time you put into it. Ultimatly, you'll come into your own way of organizing, creating and planning. Maybe it'll be different then anything I or anyone else here tells you. If so, get back to me about it, i'd be interested in what you find.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
goodness. that's a lot of advice.
i'm basing the campaign on a world i've already done a lot of stuff for (i'm writing a novel and thought i'd use one of the lesser built nations for a campaign), which is nice, but i always find myself going overboard. i think i'll stick to pretty basic stuff.
i'll be playing with people who haven't played before so instead of one-shots i'm thinking a full tutorial style encounter? sort of like how they did most of the starter set, with very structured combat and roleplay opportunities. "get to the next town to start the main quest" etc etc.
there's a whole bunch of my friends who are really aggressively enthusiastic about the game, so it'll probably end up being about 7 people (if i can keep the numbers down). i'm thinking of running the tutorial and character building session as a trial, and booting out those who cause trouble.
i'm hoping to document my whole experience with this campaign so that others can learn from it! thanks so much.
Are you me? Because it sounds like you're starting out just like me.
I didn't know you already had a setting basically worked up. I have the same situation and let my players muck around in my book, so I can dig it. My group started as a dozen friends who had never played 5e before, and few had ever played a table top game like this. We did a session of the Drunken D&D pdf to just test the system, feel out our characters/classes and have fun. It's been almost a year, and I have 8 players due to people being unable to make it. It's been difficult, but they all love it and really give their background a serious take, so they make things pretty easy for me.
That being the case, I have less advice for you and more reassurance that you'll be fine. The trick will be the session to session planning, so try to map and calibrate one session ahead, think about how it'll affect the session after, and keep the end game scenario as the beacon you're all heading for. It's worked well for me.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
I heard someone at some point say "plan on 4 hours of preparation for every 1 hour of campaign play time". I recently started running Storm King's Thunder (2 sessions in). The first session revolved around pre-built content and even then I had to make up stuff on the fly for the first 2.5 hours of the session. I wasn't prepared to do that but it was probably the most fun thing of the night.
I would suggest being super prepared to take notes during the session. When you make up stuff on the fly it might help to write it down for reference in the future or continuity as you build up your campaign. I use a Surface Tablet with OneNote, but pen and paper work just as well.
Even though this is pre-built I'm still spending a ton of time preparing. Now that I've seeded custom content, I'm coming up with all sorts of fun ideas on how to incorporate it in the future and neat quests of my own design.
I guess I'm trying to say...it's great to spend a lot of time preparing, but accept with open arms the necessity to make things up and roll with it!
Drake West
Our truth is the lies we love.
As someone who's previously been a notorious planner, I've been getting more and more comfortable with doing minimal prep and making up most if it as I go. If you're playing in a homebrewed setting, you don't need all the details sorted out. It's okay to make up some stuff on the fly. I don't think I really realized that for a long time. Same goes for plot. If you know how things are supposed to end before the first session even begins, there's likely to be some serious tension between you and your players. Think of them as collaborators or co-writers rather than actors in your story.
Prep a couple encounters, make some NPCs, be familiar with the five room dungeon model, and borrow the concept of fronts from Dungeon World, and that's likely all you'll really need. Of course sometimes it makes sense to prepare a little more than that, but I think a common mistake--certainly one I made--is over prepping.
DM: The Cult of the Crystal Spider (Currently playing Storm King's Thunder)
Player: The Knuckles of Arth - Lemire (Tiefling Rogue 5/Fighter 1)
thanks so much to everyone who's responded!
I have a general idea of how the major conflicts in my campaign are going to occur and join together, but i'm going to
hold back andonly plan 3-4 sessions ahead as to keep players really shaping the story. not planning the ending, which scares the ever-loving fudge out of me, but i guess thats okay. making things up as i go is okay...I'd echo the comments about making things up as you go. I'm very anti-railroad, and overly prepared can come across as a railroad, especially if all the time you put in makes one feel precious about the material you worked on. Instead, I like to think of the characters encountering scenes or set pieces, such as the location of the macguffin, the boss' lair, etc. In between, they could make any number of choices getting from initially encountering henchmen to the boss lair, and within common sensical bounds, I let them. As such, I did most of my prep before the campaign, and now either only do outlines of dungeons, or dip into available written materials such as yawning portal. Most of that prep was marking places of plausible interest plus their scale (small minor location to mega fortress), and if the players go there, I generate or use an appropriately sized something to encounter.
6 seems to be the most players to handle before it becomes unwieldy.
I DM an in-house game, but use roll20 for maps, and have a TV I cast the player map on. Roll20 takes a bit more prep than normal, but I always have a few generic maps ready for random encounters. I don't go nuts on prepping anything further out then two sessions.
Unless there is a dungeon, for the most part, once you are in one its either go all the way or just leave. In that case, I plan the whole thing out, story and all the details. I figure if they don't go any further and decide to leave I can save what I had for the rest of it and use it for another one with a little bit a tweaking. The best thing you can do is have a basic story outline and then a backup list of NPC's.... oh and take notes.... tons and tons of them, it always amazes me how one little interaction two games ago can become a major plot point later.
Random NPC generators save my life!