Hello everyone. I am a very new DM who is looking to start my own campaign. I thought about doing one shots and established campaigns but I really like the idea of bringing my own creativity to it.
I have an idea for what the overall campaign is going to be but I would like some inspiration on how to start the overall huge Arc. I'm looking for things that would start happening when a world is being corrupted or dying. I already have a very first event that would set things in motion. I'm thinking possibly that a massive ancient deity or creature deep beneath a world's surface awakes from a slumber and sends a massive shock wave all across the world. Each character that starts the campaign will have their own story about what happened on the day that the shock wave went through the world. Any suggestions on what types of things would start popping up locally that would tie into a larger problem, please feel free to suggest.
I'm also looking at a world setting for this particular campaign. I'm not sure if I want to create my own or borrow from a different world map. If you have any suggestions on that front as well, I would like to hear those too.
First off, congrats on starting your first campaign! It won't be easy, but I hope you find it rewarding.
That said, I'm big on your idea of starting slow and small, with local events as the forerunners of a cataclysm. A lot of new DMs make the mistake of scripting out a huge story spanning many sessions and expecting the players to follow it exactly. Sometimes they throw in gods, demons, worlds to be saved, and so many crazy and powerful characters that the player characters get lost in the mix. I've never seen that end well! Starting with small-stakes episodic adventures is more fun for the players...and much easier for me as a DM.
Off the top of my head, maybe strange aberrant creatures similar to the old god are appearing seemingly at random. Maybe the shock wave, if it's physical, cracked open an ancient tomb crawling with undead. Maybe cultists have kidnapped local villagers for sacrifice, having seen the signs of their god's awakening, and are trying to hasten its return through ritual. Maybe the townsfolk have started to develop strange mutations, and they require a specific healing plant to undo. And if the world is being corrupted, maybe nature itself is denying the adventurers' town resources: the crops have wilted, the stream is poisoned, and the heroes must find a way to cure this, or to import resources along dangerous paths.
Do you have your players? If so next step is to ask them if they would like to play in this world. As DMs it's easy for us to forget that it's the player's story, not ours.
If they are interested - great! Now let them build the world with you. Who are the characters? How do they connect to the events? I mention this because if the characters don't care about the world events, the players aren't either.
It's good to involve the players EARLY. Otherwise you may end up with a brilliant campaign setting that no one wants to play in.
I have two players that are new that have expressed great interest in joining a campaign, one of them is watching vids to learn the game. I have two others that are close friends of mine that would be happy to join any game I put up and have wanted to join games I was a player in before they fell apart.
I will run the idea by them but I don't really want to reveal much of the overall story. I plan to have the world fleshed out somewhat before actually running session 0. I want to establish the starting events so I have something to post as the hook and gain interest. I don't plan to have more than 4 or 5 players since I am such a new DM.
I will keep that in mind, tho, so thank you for that. :) I don't want to be one of those DMs. I have played the game for a long long time thru multiple versions and have come across good DMs and bad DMs and I try to emulate the good ones.
I think it would be cool if the ancient god is in the process of waking up. After all, for a god, hundreds of years pass in the blink of an eye. There could be multiple shockwaves, each one stronger than the last, and each time a more powerful threat emerges.
Some ideas for these threats are:
creatures from the Underdark going to the surface because their homes were destroyed in the shockwaves
bestial creatures going into frenzies because of the influence of the ancient god
new cults showing themselves now that their god is awakening
Don't overlook Man vs. Environment. If a massive shockwave circled the world all kinds of things would fall down and break, a few would explode, and most of the rest would be displaced. I think you could get a lot of obstacles and skill checks and problem solving out of sinkholes and new rivers and collapsed bridges.
Personally, I think the first arc should be the Earthquake, so maybe everyone is from one large city? I mean a world-remaking earthquake so NO ONE knows what the map looks like anymore? That makes the players real explorers! You and they can build the world together!
I like all of these ideas! Yeah, I was brainstorming the process earlier and to be fair cataclysmic events are not overnight things... they take a very, very long time to come to fruition. That is why I am looking into how the effect would be felt in each step of the process and let's say the ancient creature has been asleep for millennia or maybe there were little strange things happening over the course of generations after generations and this is just the last straw that ultimately leads to the final process of something that has been building and building, making slight changes to the world that most ppl would talk about in stories, legends even. This particular group of adventurers will just be the ones in the are in the historical turning point that ultimately leads to the full cataclysm. Maybe old-timers for hundreds of years have passed down stories of freakish events in the history of their town... like, the last 'earthquake' was 150 years ago or something but this group of adventurers finds out over the course of the arc that it was always the entity... those were just steps along the path of its full awakening (after TONS of research and adventures of course! LOL)
I am currently developing a homebrew setting with something similar - and borrowing some ideas from various sources (honestly, what hasn't been done before, right?).
In my setting, magic is energy from other planes of existence. Fire magic from the plane of fire, necrotic from the negative energy plane, etc. Think of it as "body heat" that the planes are giving off and that seeps into other planes. By using magic, you are essentially gathering and using that energy.
Some time ago (I don't have the timeframe fleshed out exactly, yet - maybe millenia), there was an advanced magical civilization. Centuries of extensive magic use had an unintended side effect - the thinning of barriers between the material plane and other planes. Eventually, more than just energy started seeping through to the material plane - and after that, the barriers collapsed almost completely. This resulted in nearly all of the material plane changing - wholesale destruction, capital A Apocalypse. Magic was easier to use than ever, however, and the ancient civilization was trying to defend against elementals, demons, etc., but they realized they had no way of really preventing the destruction - not when huge chunks of other planes were melding with the material plane. So they collectively enacted a magical working, rivaling in scale that of the gods, and managed to sunder this "planemeld" and put up barriers between worlds again. This magical working essentially used up all they had - making them all disappear.
The following centuries were perhaps the darkest in all of history. With the new barriers between worlds, magic both divine and arcane ceased to function, as no energy could get through to the material plane. The survivors of the cataclysm started reclaiming parts of the world - through sheer martial prowess and savagery, they fought whatever creatures remained on the material plane - elementals, undead, demons, you name it.
Eventually, however, magic returned to the world. Perhaps the barriers put up by the ancient civilization couldn't hold all of the accumated planar energy at bay any longer. From this event, an actual new civilization was born - the one that is the current setting for my homebrew. Nowadays, this ancient history is all but forgotten and mortal civilization thrives yet again. However, it is only a matter of time before a similar scenario befalls them - the more magic is used, the thinner the barriers between worlds become. I don't know whether this will happen in ten years or a hundred or a thousand - but eventually, history is going to repeat itself.
Lake and river water becomes brackish and undrinkable.
Animals become more aggressive and feral - not just wild animals but even the cows and horses and dogs, etc.
A horrible stench of decay permeates certain areas, or occasionally wafts through town.
The sun rises later than usual and sets sooner.
There are fewer stars in the sky.
Birds no longer sing. Inspects no longer chirp. Many of the sounds of nature that we are accustomed to are gone, and you never really noticed how common they were until they're gone.
Townsfolk become paranoid of strangers, often locking the town gates or closing shops as soon as the sun sets.
The guard keep a wary eye on "strangers".
People become obsessed with protecting themselves from "bad luck" or "the evil eye", etc. They develop little personal rituals or idiosyncrasies, like throwing salt over their shoulder as they walk, or wearing garlic, or walking backwards, to confuse the evil spirits and throw them off their trail.
Opportunistic hucksters and charlatans seek to capitalize on #10 by selling snake oil remedies and useless charms that supposedly protect you from evil spirits.
As your world starts with a shockwave across the world, it makes sense that there would be occasional aftershocks. this could disrupt travel and communications, perhaps leaving some communities entirely cut off from the rest of the world, spurning unrest in those areas. Businesses could suffer, causing shortages of certain necessary goods. Perhaps the waters have been corrupted, so farmers aren't producing as much crops, so food is becoming scarce....
Basically, just look at all the crap we've had to deal with in 2020. Wildfires, floods, trade wars, recession, plague, riots, hunger, murder hornets... Hey guys! Remember the murder hornets?! Yeah. You're basically just worldbuilding 2020. I just hope your game world turns out better than the real one. Good luck!
Yeah I was playing with an idea of some sort of planer melding at some point because I think a TV show used that feature and it was really cool how they used it and I was thoroughly impressed. right now I'm looking for the stuff that's going to start causing issues in the world. I haven't started flushing out the actual campaign action yet but I have drawn up a small fraction of my world. I also thought I was really cool the concept of losing magic cuz I believe that an anime did episodes like that and that was kind of a cool concept. I'm glad someone is using those ideas because they are some pretty cool concepts for campaign building!!!
Perhaps consider the implications of magic, fortune-telling or other means of peeking into the future. Some parties may be aware of what's happening, or at least have an inkling. Maybe they have been preparing for it, maybe for years or decades. There could be secret societies or religious orders dedicated to this... either preventing it, or hastening it, believing the ancient power that is awakening might reward them. Through encountering these secret groups, its a freebie shot for some exposition dumps to get some of the lore to your players.
Also, tragedy makes for great storytelling opportunities. A sick, dying world and natural disasters would put a lot of stress on the people of your game world. People, under stress, generally do not act awesome toward one another. There would be a lot of people displaced by disasters... perhaps the roads and countryside are now full of shanty-towns of refugees, folks who cannot find safe harbor anywhere (since other towns have their own problems) and are now forced to fend for themselves in the wilderness. Perhaps a collapsed bridge cuts off trade between two nations... these countries had been putting aside old differences and considering an alliance, but now cut off from one another and with the stress of the sick world, those old differences begin to rise up again and the threat of war hangs in the air...
Of course, there should be a way for your players to navigate this and feel they are making an impact... and it isn't just depressing for them. I've had to "lighten" my world up a bit. My players said they were down for dark fantasy at session zero but since then they have asked me if maybe not EVERY town has to be filled with sad eyed orphans and starving refugees....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
PC - Ethel - Human - Lvl 4 Necromancer - Undying Dragons * Serge Marshblade - Human - Lvl 5 Eldritch Knight - Hoard of the Dragon Queen
DM -(Homebrew) Heroes of Bardstown *Red Dead Annihilation: ToA *Where the Cold Winds Blow : DoIP * Covetous, Dragonish Thoughts: HotDQ * Red Wine, Black Rose: CoS * Greyhawk: Tides of War
Yeah, I would think that the deep magic that surrounds an eons-old deity or entity of some kind would have some kind of influence on the "modern" magic of the time. I had already decided to add some of that flair. I love love love foreshadowing... especially when it's passive!
I have a question. I was writing the backstory for my world and looking for a deity who would want to maintain a balance between deities and primordials. I was debating on Silvanas, if anyone thinks this would be a good option. Feel free to let me know if you have any other suggestions. If you'd like to hear the full story I will recant it to you, if you think that would give a better understanding of the setting of this.
It's been forever but I want you all to know that I started my story finally last night!! The people in my group seem to be into it and had a good time, we will see how long that lasts as things get worse! LOL
Thank you for all your suggestions and I am revisiting them now to help get inspiration going forward!
I have two players that are new that have expressed great interest in joining a campaign, one of them is watching vids to learn the game. I have two others that are close friends of mine that would be happy to join any game I put up and have wanted to join games I was a player in before they fell apart.
I will run the idea by them but I don't really want to reveal much of the overall story. I plan to have the world fleshed out somewhat before actually running session 0. I want to establish the starting events so I have something to post as the hook and gain interest. I don't plan to have more than 4 or 5 players since I am such a new DM.
I will keep that in mind, tho, so thank you for that. :) I don't want to be one of those DMs. I have played the game for a long long time thru multiple versions and have come across good DMs and bad DMs and I try to emulate the good ones.
So session 0 it is key to tell them what kind of a game your running and something about the world. Remember there characters will have information they have gained from birth. You don't need to give much
You need to figure out in your head are you running a sandbox campaign, more of a railroad or something in between (the sense of open world sandbox while directing them to your story beats). If your running an open world then don't over prep the arc until session start, after years and years of running my own campaigns I have wasted months of my life setting up campaign ideas that never came to fruition because the players made the story they had far more interesting. I tend to split my campaign up in the following way.
Pre campaign, I will have a few bullet points about my world, a setting idea and will define the key rules of the world. What is the level of magic in it, what part does religion play (gods interacting directly, not at all, don't exist), those sorts of questions no detail just some pointers that might change in time. Then I talk to my players and let them start shaping my world, the race they choose will make me consider where it comes from, how it is viewed by the rest of the world, how far might they have travelled to get to where the campaign starts. I will get my players back stories from them (never more then 7-8 bullet points for me they can write as much as they want). I will also have decided on the area the party will meet in. This is the only world building I do at this point beyond what the players have given me and any bullet point ideas I have.
Session 0 Player characters should be already rolled up and backgrounds sorted, I will then talk to the party about how they know each other (if they do) and describe the starting town to them we might come up with the opening scene of session 1 together, or the players will let me form the group in those opening scenes. The most important thing out of session 0 to me is that the players are happy with my broad vision of the type of game we will be starting out as (it can change over time) and I understand what they want from the game and they understand what each other wants. How much Roleplay, how much combat etc.
I will now properly plan session 1 and possibly up to session 3. The idea is they are level 2 by session 3 and all these 3 sessions are about is forming the party and giving them a reason to exist beyond session 3. It also helps me understand the player dynamics, what they enjoy and how they enjoy playing. It will usually be something contained, breaking up a criminal gang, rescuing someone, clearing out forest near a small town or village.
Only at this point do I start fleshing out the world a bit more, create an arc for levels 2-6 (I run milestone) with notes to myself of what needs to be completed to achieve each milestone. I will start to populate the area more and make it more and more open world. I will create NPC's that then lead me to learning more about my world, I will have ideas and thoughts and won't commit to anything until the players have actually experienced it, but even then I might tweak things openly telling the players, that bit of lore I gave you about a calamity 1000 years ago, actually that was 10,000 years ago. Or making NPC's unreliable sources of information.
As the players approach level 6 and deal with that regional issue then I will start using threads, openings or player ideas and theories to populate the next part of the campaign usually to level 10/11 and so on and so on. I rarely detail out a long arc, instead I let the players tell the story with me keeping just far enough in front that it looks like I have been forshadowing like a pro :). But the main thing this approach means is that I can start running my campaign from the moment I get some players, I am not telling them to wait just a few more weeks before we start playing.
I do have a q for you all if you can help me work it out...
So I am starting out with the crazed animal concept and my players have already killed a dire wolf that would have fallen into this category. They were trying to figure out what the issue with the wolf was and I was racking my brain about how they would do that. It's dead so they can't just do a check but they tried an investigation and I played it off as if it was more a physical check than a mental one.
Are there any particular ways you guys can think, or items that you know of, that would be able to tell that kind of thing? I was thinking it if was alive an insight check on the creature would discern its intentions. I also thought if they ever did a lesser resto on an animal they would sense a sort of darkness that would be affecting parts of its mind, in turn making it aggressive. Please give me your suggestions! I appreciate you all!
Hello everyone. I am a very new DM who is looking to start my own campaign. I thought about doing one shots and established campaigns but I really like the idea of bringing my own creativity to it.
I have an idea for what the overall campaign is going to be but I would like some inspiration on how to start the overall huge Arc. I'm looking for things that would start happening when a world is being corrupted or dying. I already have a very first event that would set things in motion. I'm thinking possibly that a massive ancient deity or creature deep beneath a world's surface awakes from a slumber and sends a massive shock wave all across the world. Each character that starts the campaign will have their own story about what happened on the day that the shock wave went through the world. Any suggestions on what types of things would start popping up locally that would tie into a larger problem, please feel free to suggest.
I'm also looking at a world setting for this particular campaign. I'm not sure if I want to create my own or borrow from a different world map. If you have any suggestions on that front as well, I would like to hear those too.
Thanks everyone!!
First off, congrats on starting your first campaign! It won't be easy, but I hope you find it rewarding.
That said, I'm big on your idea of starting slow and small, with local events as the forerunners of a cataclysm. A lot of new DMs make the mistake of scripting out a huge story spanning many sessions and expecting the players to follow it exactly. Sometimes they throw in gods, demons, worlds to be saved, and so many crazy and powerful characters that the player characters get lost in the mix. I've never seen that end well! Starting with small-stakes episodic adventures is more fun for the players...and much easier for me as a DM.
Off the top of my head, maybe strange aberrant creatures similar to the old god are appearing seemingly at random. Maybe the shock wave, if it's physical, cracked open an ancient tomb crawling with undead. Maybe cultists have kidnapped local villagers for sacrifice, having seen the signs of their god's awakening, and are trying to hasten its return through ritual. Maybe the townsfolk have started to develop strange mutations, and they require a specific healing plant to undo. And if the world is being corrupted, maybe nature itself is denying the adventurers' town resources: the crops have wilted, the stream is poisoned, and the heroes must find a way to cure this, or to import resources along dangerous paths.
Good luck and have fun!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Thank u so much!!
Do you have your players? If so next step is to ask them if they would like to play in this world. As DMs it's easy for us to forget that it's the player's story, not ours.
If they are interested - great! Now let them build the world with you. Who are the characters? How do they connect to the events? I mention this because if the characters don't care about the world events, the players aren't either.
It's good to involve the players EARLY. Otherwise you may end up with a brilliant campaign setting that no one wants to play in.
I have two players that are new that have expressed great interest in joining a campaign, one of them is watching vids to learn the game. I have two others that are close friends of mine that would be happy to join any game I put up and have wanted to join games I was a player in before they fell apart.
I will run the idea by them but I don't really want to reveal much of the overall story. I plan to have the world fleshed out somewhat before actually running session 0. I want to establish the starting events so I have something to post as the hook and gain interest. I don't plan to have more than 4 or 5 players since I am such a new DM.
I will keep that in mind, tho, so thank you for that. :) I don't want to be one of those DMs. I have played the game for a long long time thru multiple versions and have come across good DMs and bad DMs and I try to emulate the good ones.
I think it would be cool if the ancient god is in the process of waking up. After all, for a god, hundreds of years pass in the blink of an eye. There could be multiple shockwaves, each one stronger than the last, and each time a more powerful threat emerges.
Some ideas for these threats are:
Don't overlook Man vs. Environment. If a massive shockwave circled the world all kinds of things would fall down and break, a few would explode, and most of the rest would be displaced. I think you could get a lot of obstacles and skill checks and problem solving out of sinkholes and new rivers and collapsed bridges.
Personally, I think the first arc should be the Earthquake, so maybe everyone is from one large city? I mean a world-remaking earthquake so NO ONE knows what the map looks like anymore? That makes the players real explorers! You and they can build the world together!
I like all of these ideas! Yeah, I was brainstorming the process earlier and to be fair cataclysmic events are not overnight things... they take a very, very long time to come to fruition. That is why I am looking into how the effect would be felt in each step of the process and let's say the ancient creature has been asleep for millennia or maybe there were little strange things happening over the course of generations after generations and this is just the last straw that ultimately leads to the final process of something that has been building and building, making slight changes to the world that most ppl would talk about in stories, legends even. This particular group of adventurers will just be the ones in the are in the historical turning point that ultimately leads to the full cataclysm. Maybe old-timers for hundreds of years have passed down stories of freakish events in the history of their town... like, the last 'earthquake' was 150 years ago or something but this group of adventurers finds out over the course of the arc that it was always the entity... those were just steps along the path of its full awakening (after TONS of research and adventures of course! LOL)
I am currently developing a homebrew setting with something similar - and borrowing some ideas from various sources (honestly, what hasn't been done before, right?).
In my setting, magic is energy from other planes of existence. Fire magic from the plane of fire, necrotic from the negative energy plane, etc. Think of it as "body heat" that the planes are giving off and that seeps into other planes. By using magic, you are essentially gathering and using that energy.
Some time ago (I don't have the timeframe fleshed out exactly, yet - maybe millenia), there was an advanced magical civilization. Centuries of extensive magic use had an unintended side effect - the thinning of barriers between the material plane and other planes. Eventually, more than just energy started seeping through to the material plane - and after that, the barriers collapsed almost completely. This resulted in nearly all of the material plane changing - wholesale destruction, capital A Apocalypse. Magic was easier to use than ever, however, and the ancient civilization was trying to defend against elementals, demons, etc., but they realized they had no way of really preventing the destruction - not when huge chunks of other planes were melding with the material plane. So they collectively enacted a magical working, rivaling in scale that of the gods, and managed to sunder this "planemeld" and put up barriers between worlds again. This magical working essentially used up all they had - making them all disappear.
The following centuries were perhaps the darkest in all of history. With the new barriers between worlds, magic both divine and arcane ceased to function, as no energy could get through to the material plane. The survivors of the cataclysm started reclaiming parts of the world - through sheer martial prowess and savagery, they fought whatever creatures remained on the material plane - elementals, undead, demons, you name it.
Eventually, however, magic returned to the world. Perhaps the barriers put up by the ancient civilization couldn't hold all of the accumated planar energy at bay any longer. From this event, an actual new civilization was born - the one that is the current setting for my homebrew. Nowadays, this ancient history is all but forgotten and mortal civilization thrives yet again. However, it is only a matter of time before a similar scenario befalls them - the more magic is used, the thinner the barriers between worlds become. I don't know whether this will happen in ten years or a hundred or a thousand - but eventually, history is going to repeat itself.
Signs that your world may be getting corrupted:
As your world starts with a shockwave across the world, it makes sense that there would be occasional aftershocks. this could disrupt travel and communications, perhaps leaving some communities entirely cut off from the rest of the world, spurning unrest in those areas. Businesses could suffer, causing shortages of certain necessary goods. Perhaps the waters have been corrupted, so farmers aren't producing as much crops, so food is becoming scarce....
Basically, just look at all the crap we've had to deal with in 2020. Wildfires, floods, trade wars, recession, plague, riots, hunger, murder hornets... Hey guys! Remember the murder hornets?! Yeah. You're basically just worldbuilding 2020. I just hope your game world turns out better than the real one. Good luck!
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Lol I didn't even think of that!! What a great example of art imitating life! Thanks!
Yeah I was playing with an idea of some sort of planer melding at some point because I think a TV show used that feature and it was really cool how they used it and I was thoroughly impressed. right now I'm looking for the stuff that's going to start causing issues in the world. I haven't started flushing out the actual campaign action yet but I have drawn up a small fraction of my world. I also thought I was really cool the concept of losing magic cuz I believe that an anime did episodes like that and that was kind of a cool concept. I'm glad someone is using those ideas because they are some pretty cool concepts for campaign building!!!
My world has some similar elements.
Perhaps consider the implications of magic, fortune-telling or other means of peeking into the future. Some parties may be aware of what's happening, or at least have an inkling. Maybe they have been preparing for it, maybe for years or decades. There could be secret societies or religious orders dedicated to this... either preventing it, or hastening it, believing the ancient power that is awakening might reward them. Through encountering these secret groups, its a freebie shot for some exposition dumps to get some of the lore to your players.
Also, tragedy makes for great storytelling opportunities. A sick, dying world and natural disasters would put a lot of stress on the people of your game world. People, under stress, generally do not act awesome toward one another. There would be a lot of people displaced by disasters... perhaps the roads and countryside are now full of shanty-towns of refugees, folks who cannot find safe harbor anywhere (since other towns have their own problems) and are now forced to fend for themselves in the wilderness. Perhaps a collapsed bridge cuts off trade between two nations... these countries had been putting aside old differences and considering an alliance, but now cut off from one another and with the stress of the sick world, those old differences begin to rise up again and the threat of war hangs in the air...
Of course, there should be a way for your players to navigate this and feel they are making an impact... and it isn't just depressing for them. I've had to "lighten" my world up a bit. My players said they were down for dark fantasy at session zero but since then they have asked me if maybe not EVERY town has to be filled with sad eyed orphans and starving refugees....
PC - Ethel - Human - Lvl 4 Necromancer - Undying Dragons * Serge Marshblade - Human - Lvl 5 Eldritch Knight - Hoard of the Dragon Queen
DM - (Homebrew) Heroes of Bardstown * Red Dead Annihilation: ToA * Where the Cold Winds Blow : DoIP * Covetous, Dragonish Thoughts: HotDQ * Red Wine, Black Rose: CoS * Greyhawk: Tides of War
Yeah, I would think that the deep magic that surrounds an eons-old deity or entity of some kind would have some kind of influence on the "modern" magic of the time. I had already decided to add some of that flair. I love love love foreshadowing... especially when it's passive!
I have a question. I was writing the backstory for my world and looking for a deity who would want to maintain a balance between deities and primordials. I was debating on Silvanas, if anyone thinks this would be a good option. Feel free to let me know if you have any other suggestions. If you'd like to hear the full story I will recant it to you, if you think that would give a better understanding of the setting of this.
It's been forever but I want you all to know that I started my story finally last night!! The people in my group seem to be into it and had a good time, we will see how long that lasts as things get worse! LOL
Thank you for all your suggestions and I am revisiting them now to help get inspiration going forward!
So session 0 it is key to tell them what kind of a game your running and something about the world. Remember there characters will have information they have gained from birth. You don't need to give much
Angry GM has a great 3 part article about running a great session 0 https://theangrygm.com/session-zero-part-zero/
He also has some great tutorials on world building and campaign creation.
You need to figure out in your head are you running a sandbox campaign, more of a railroad or something in between (the sense of open world sandbox while directing them to your story beats). If your running an open world then don't over prep the arc until session start, after years and years of running my own campaigns I have wasted months of my life setting up campaign ideas that never came to fruition because the players made the story they had far more interesting. I tend to split my campaign up in the following way.
Pre campaign,
I will have a few bullet points about my world, a setting idea and will define the key rules of the world. What is the level of magic in it, what part does religion play (gods interacting directly, not at all, don't exist), those sorts of questions no detail just some pointers that might change in time.
Then I talk to my players and let them start shaping my world, the race they choose will make me consider where it comes from, how it is viewed by the rest of the world, how far might they have travelled to get to where the campaign starts. I will get my players back stories from them (never more then 7-8 bullet points for me they can write as much as they want). I will also have decided on the area the party will meet in. This is the only world building I do at this point beyond what the players have given me and any bullet point ideas I have.
Session 0
Player characters should be already rolled up and backgrounds sorted, I will then talk to the party about how they know each other (if they do) and describe the starting town to them we might come up with the opening scene of session 1 together, or the players will let me form the group in those opening scenes. The most important thing out of session 0 to me is that the players are happy with my broad vision of the type of game we will be starting out as (it can change over time) and I understand what they want from the game and they understand what each other wants. How much Roleplay, how much combat etc.
I will now properly plan session 1 and possibly up to session 3. The idea is they are level 2 by session 3 and all these 3 sessions are about is forming the party and giving them a reason to exist beyond session 3. It also helps me understand the player dynamics, what they enjoy and how they enjoy playing. It will usually be something contained, breaking up a criminal gang, rescuing someone, clearing out forest near a small town or village.
Only at this point do I start fleshing out the world a bit more, create an arc for levels 2-6 (I run milestone) with notes to myself of what needs to be completed to achieve each milestone. I will start to populate the area more and make it more and more open world. I will create NPC's that then lead me to learning more about my world, I will have ideas and thoughts and won't commit to anything until the players have actually experienced it, but even then I might tweak things openly telling the players, that bit of lore I gave you about a calamity 1000 years ago, actually that was 10,000 years ago. Or making NPC's unreliable sources of information.
As the players approach level 6 and deal with that regional issue then I will start using threads, openings or player ideas and theories to populate the next part of the campaign usually to level 10/11 and so on and so on. I rarely detail out a long arc, instead I let the players tell the story with me keeping just far enough in front that it looks like I have been forshadowing like a pro :). But the main thing this approach means is that I can start running my campaign from the moment I get some players, I am not telling them to wait just a few more weeks before we start playing.
That's great to hear! Hope all goes well.
And we're all still here if you need any more advice along the way.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
I do have a q for you all if you can help me work it out...
So I am starting out with the crazed animal concept and my players have already killed a dire wolf that would have fallen into this category. They were trying to figure out what the issue with the wolf was and I was racking my brain about how they would do that. It's dead so they can't just do a check but they tried an investigation and I played it off as if it was more a physical check than a mental one.
Are there any particular ways you guys can think, or items that you know of, that would be able to tell that kind of thing? I was thinking it if was alive an insight check on the creature would discern its intentions. I also thought if they ever did a lesser resto on an animal they would sense a sort of darkness that would be affecting parts of its mind, in turn making it aggressive. Please give me your suggestions! I appreciate you all!
Give it a physical symptom. Show don’t tell.