Hey everybody! A relatively new DM here who just finished (or completely failed) a campaign. I made an executive decision to make a new campaign but in the same wild west (kind of) world. I'm looking for a new campaign Idea for my party of 6 beginners. I had a couple of ideas but I dont really have much experience and was looking for some pro input. Here are some of my ideas:
The king is dead and there is a massive power struggle among (his sons, sub rulers, house members, something else?), the PCs are members of (secret agency, royal guard, military) and are caught in the middle of this. PCs need to choose sides, assassinate people, negotiate, etc
The PCs are part of a criminal gang and go around stealing stuff
For some reason the PCs have been confined to a dungeon with a bunch of other people from their city a few years ago and rumor in the dungeon (im not really sure where the rumor came from yet) is that the world is full of great powerful “heroes”. The PCs need to make allies and prepare for when the “heroes” will surely come to kill them all.
The PCs need to save the dragon from the daddy's money princess who used an army to capture it
Some kind of siege of a massive city that the PCs happen to be in. They have to solve problems like resource shortages and stuff
All the PCs have been recruited by the government which is trying to do something (revive a god, summon some powerful monster) but has to send the PCs on missions without them knowing what for.
I'm late to the party, but I'll offer some thoughts and suggestions if you're still thinking these over.
1. King is Dead: This is an easy campaign to build. It has clear goals. You or you+players can build some Factions and they choose one to be a part of. If you want easy, make 4 Factions: A is loosely allied with the party's faction but will turn on them if the PCs get to close to Faction B; Faction B is mostly neutral to start; Faction C is openly antagonistic. You have a variety of mission-types you already mentioned, you can offer two or three choices for the "next adventure". If the PCs choose 2 missions in a row aimed at courting Faction B, in the meantime Faction A shifts to neutral and draws closer to Faction C. So now there are new missions to deal with that. Make sure progress happens faster than setbacks, though!
2. This needs some more to it. The nice thing is you can have some variety of quests, and they can be simple: Steal A or Steal B? And you can run them like quick little dungeons sometimes, or social challenges, etc. The issue is...what's the point? Is there a larger goal? Do they kind of stumble organically into something bigger?
3. This is an interesting idea. Why do these heroes want to kill them, especially if they're confined to a dungeon and don't seem to pose much of a threat? I think this one is the furthest from being ready, because it's complicated and the motivations aren't super clear to me.
4. So, free a dragon from a king/army? I think here you want to have the dragon and the princess fleshed out - what makes the dragon good? Why did they want to capture it? Why do you want to save it? I think the quest type here is a series of escalating efforts. What do you need to save the dragon? Maybe you need to get a General on your side, but you have to work up to that. Maybe you need an item to dispel some magic wards that are constraining it. Sly Flourish has a 7 keys model, where if you get 4 of the 7 'keys' you can do what you need to do. In this case, the 7 keys are things that will help you save the dragon(Get a general on your side, find the item to dispel the wards, trick the wizard who made the wards into helping you, build a tunnel under the dragon's prison using an ancient dungeon to get you close, etc). These should be known to the players, or maybe 5 of them and they can learn about 2 more if they lose out on 2 of the initial 5 keys. If they still can't get to 4 keys, they can still make the attempt, but things will be harder.
5. This can work. I'm not a huge resource management person, but if the group is into it, it could be great. The other approach is to make the resource management into adventures. The water is being contaminated with magic, the PCs need to go out and stop the wizards responsible. Food is running low, but there's a tunnel that leads under the city and into ruins in a forest beyond the siege...and the PCs need to clear the way.
6. I would be cautious about doing things where the PCs don't know what it's for. The players might feel duped if you don't share it with them. If you want the PCs to do something they normally wouldn't do, that doesn't always end well. They should know from the start, for instance, that their quest-giver is lying to them but they don't know why. They should get a sense that the mission is off in some way. I might be interpreting this wrong. If the PCs are onboard, cool. If you're trying to trick them...I wouldn't recommend that unless the players are onboard.
I hope that helps some!
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Hey everybody! A relatively new DM here who just finished (or completely failed) a campaign. I made an executive decision to make a new campaign but in the same wild west (kind of) world. I'm looking for a new campaign Idea for my party of 6 beginners. I had a couple of ideas but I dont really have much experience and was looking for some pro input. Here are some of my ideas:
I'm late to the party, but I'll offer some thoughts and suggestions if you're still thinking these over.
1. King is Dead: This is an easy campaign to build. It has clear goals. You or you+players can build some Factions and they choose one to be a part of. If you want easy, make 4 Factions: A is loosely allied with the party's faction but will turn on them if the PCs get to close to Faction B; Faction B is mostly neutral to start; Faction C is openly antagonistic. You have a variety of mission-types you already mentioned, you can offer two or three choices for the "next adventure". If the PCs choose 2 missions in a row aimed at courting Faction B, in the meantime Faction A shifts to neutral and draws closer to Faction C. So now there are new missions to deal with that. Make sure progress happens faster than setbacks, though!
2. This needs some more to it. The nice thing is you can have some variety of quests, and they can be simple: Steal A or Steal B? And you can run them like quick little dungeons sometimes, or social challenges, etc. The issue is...what's the point? Is there a larger goal? Do they kind of stumble organically into something bigger?
3. This is an interesting idea. Why do these heroes want to kill them, especially if they're confined to a dungeon and don't seem to pose much of a threat? I think this one is the furthest from being ready, because it's complicated and the motivations aren't super clear to me.
4. So, free a dragon from a king/army? I think here you want to have the dragon and the princess fleshed out - what makes the dragon good? Why did they want to capture it? Why do you want to save it? I think the quest type here is a series of escalating efforts. What do you need to save the dragon? Maybe you need to get a General on your side, but you have to work up to that. Maybe you need an item to dispel some magic wards that are constraining it. Sly Flourish has a 7 keys model, where if you get 4 of the 7 'keys' you can do what you need to do. In this case, the 7 keys are things that will help you save the dragon(Get a general on your side, find the item to dispel the wards, trick the wizard who made the wards into helping you, build a tunnel under the dragon's prison using an ancient dungeon to get you close, etc). These should be known to the players, or maybe 5 of them and they can learn about 2 more if they lose out on 2 of the initial 5 keys. If they still can't get to 4 keys, they can still make the attempt, but things will be harder.
5. This can work. I'm not a huge resource management person, but if the group is into it, it could be great. The other approach is to make the resource management into adventures. The water is being contaminated with magic, the PCs need to go out and stop the wizards responsible. Food is running low, but there's a tunnel that leads under the city and into ruins in a forest beyond the siege...and the PCs need to clear the way.
6. I would be cautious about doing things where the PCs don't know what it's for. The players might feel duped if you don't share it with them. If you want the PCs to do something they normally wouldn't do, that doesn't always end well. They should know from the start, for instance, that their quest-giver is lying to them but they don't know why. They should get a sense that the mission is off in some way. I might be interpreting this wrong. If the PCs are onboard, cool. If you're trying to trick them...I wouldn't recommend that unless the players are onboard.
I hope that helps some!