I often find myself preapring to improvise like this - with a lot of relationships between factions and NPCs. And then I lose myself in detailing this world more and more until I cannot wait to let multiple groups run through it, influence the world with their adventures and decisions to finally meet each other in a grand finale. Unfortunately that worked out only once during a relatively short campaign but it was still so much fun!
I particularly liked the magical oddities and conflict diagram sections. The magical oddities are really nice for aiding in improv. Keeping it generalized with just a name and damage type is a brilliant idea. The mutual as well as back and forth relationships displayed a quick way to get some really good complicated relationships within ones campaign world. In my current campaign world planning, I plan to have the setting be a smaller resettled island nation. The nation is currently not in great shape due to the shadow conflict occurring between the various factions. The factions I had in mind were: - The current reigning government which has been infiltrated by a necromancer and her allies. She orchestrates an undead cult from afar to deal with pesky rivals and make herself look like a hero. - A rebel/protest group which has been infiltrated by demonic forces. The honest rebels want better treatment from the elite of society and the demonic forces use the group as a way to sow chaos and cause bloodshed. - A trio of hags that run arguably the most powerful and widespread criminal organization in the nation. Humanoid trafficking, drugs, gambling, prostitution, black market goods, etc. Their goal is the simplest of the factions. They merely wish to cause as much degeneracy, suffering, and misery as possible. They feed off it and grow in power from it. They use and manipulate the down trodden and untouchables of society as their minions promising power, wealth, revenge, and happiness. These people are supernaturally empowered by their masters. - Deep beneath the earth in my world's Underdark is a Mindflayer hive. They occasionally make raids on the surface world (along with several other underdark factions). They're by far the worst faction in the underdark, even by the brutal standards of other underdark societies. There are other smaller factions, but these are the main four that are vying for power within the nation and will ultimately be the foes or allies (temporary or permanent) of the players. My idea with the main plot involves the collection/securing of the saintly bones of a dragon that saved the nation several millennia ago. When all (or mostly) are together these bones can be used as a power source for powerful rituals. Each faction wants to collect all of the bones to secure or take power. The government wants to secure the bones to prevent the other factions from getting them to cause havoc. However, the necromancer wants to use the bones to become a lich. The rebels want the bones as leverage during negotiations and the demonic influence want the bones to free a powerful demon. The hags want the bones to boost their coven powers to extraordinary levels that will influence the whole nation. The Mindflayers want the bones to facilitate the creation of an Elder Brain Dragon. My plan for the campaign is to start the party off as beginner members of the nation's adventuring guild. Doing some one-shot like adventures (with the same characters) to get them experienced in the world. Then things will slowly open up and as time passes the state of the nation will improve or deteriorate based on the players' actions/inactions. Eventually they'll step on enough toes and they're you go. The adventuring guild can act as neutral faction to facilitate the players' saying "screw all the factions" and doing stuff for themselves. I fully intend for the players to be capable of eliminating the corruption/evil within the government or rebel factions if the player's desire or discover it. tbh, I don't see the player's joining the hag or mindflayer factions aside from temporary allying, but they work well to fill out the world. Regardless, that was a long comment, but there you go lol. Your video really got me thinking about campaign planning so I wanted to give my thoughts. If you got any tips or ideas I'd love to hear them! Congrats on the quick channel growth. I'm definitely gonna subscribe and stay tuned.
@direden Thanks! I wanted to add some nuiance and intrigue to some of the factions to prevent a faction from being the only "good choice". Taking advantage of people's anger and resentment to get them to commit atrocities seemed like a very demon thing to do.
Your concise pointers have me looking again at my childhood town I grew up in and the memorable occurrences that with a small twist would make great hooks for adventure.
@@direden I remember losing a library book off of a bridge into the creek (spell book lost quest) following my Dad’s footprints to the store only 3 buildings away, but I was 7 or 8 (tracking quest) my parents buried a neighbor girl’s cat that was hit by a semi so she wouldn’t see it like that (?). The ideas feel endless.
I have a series of videos on my agenda called "curating combat." It's probably a couple of months away. But the faction follow-up video will help, too. It should be out in a week or two.
Hello, just wanted to say hi, not even sure how i stumbled across your channel but i find it very insightful and a great source of inspiration. The amazing thing about gaming is, you can be playing for 3 weeks or 30+ years and always find new and interesting ideas on bow to make your gaming better. Thanks for your channel and as a new subscriber and follower, i am looking forward to catching up with your videos and implementing a ton of new ideas into my gaming world. Keep up the great work!
this is exactly what i needed to get my campaign started on to paper. i knew what i wanted i just couldn't find a way to make it bigger and more involved. but i have a side question id love to see a video about. ..... im not good a voices. i mean i can do the higher and lower pitch, but that don't help if you have 20 plus NPCs. any recommendations would help alot
Or... it could be a Vicious Whisper??? But good advice overall. Start small and let your world organically grow. Mine was a peninsula or island, (the group went in all other directions, then wound up in the 9 Hells, never determined which) it was roughly the size of half of Australia, with a Tasmania sized smaller island to its south-west coast. Though, you're right... it can be just a simple A to B journey starting out. Most YT channels teach people how to be bad DMs or bad players, but this was actually a pleasant surprise in suggesting good advice.
Yeah, "thunder" was misspelled, too. That's what I get for editing from 2 pm until 2 am straight 🤷🏻♂️ Thanks for the feedback! I try my best to give actionable steps and specific recommendations.
I'll admit I was unsure if I should watch this video. When you got to the four corner faction structure, I thought, "I definitely want to hear more of what this guy has to say."
diredenizens.wixsite.com/direden/blog There's a new link. Once you're on the site... click on Blog... then you'll find all the other ones. I'll fix the ones in the description
There is definitely a difference between linear storytelling and railroading. However, it's much easier for linear adventurers to become railroads if you're not intentionally giving players meaningful choices within the storyline.
0:44 - Two Simple Locations (point A and point B of your first adventure!)
1:54 - Four Feuding Factions (my favorite piece of advice
Thanks!
I often find myself preapring to improvise like this - with a lot of relationships between factions and NPCs. And then I lose myself in detailing this world more and more until I cannot wait to let multiple groups run through it, influence the world with their adventures and decisions to finally meet each other in a grand finale. Unfortunately that worked out only once during a relatively short campaign but it was still so much fun!
Your process breakdown of conflict creation is very helpful and helps simplify faction building a great deal!
Thanks!
In a future video, I'll discuss how I build the factions themselves and how that saves time during session prep.
I particularly liked the magical oddities and conflict diagram sections. The magical oddities are really nice for aiding in improv. Keeping it generalized with just a name and damage type is a brilliant idea. The mutual as well as back and forth relationships displayed a quick way to get some really good complicated relationships within ones campaign world. In my current campaign world planning, I plan to have the setting be a smaller resettled island nation. The nation is currently not in great shape due to the shadow conflict occurring between the various factions.
The factions I had in mind were:
- The current reigning government which has been infiltrated by a necromancer and her allies. She orchestrates an undead cult from afar to deal with pesky rivals and make herself look like a hero.
- A rebel/protest group which has been infiltrated by demonic forces. The honest rebels want better treatment from the elite of society and the demonic forces use the group as a way to sow chaos and cause bloodshed.
- A trio of hags that run arguably the most powerful and widespread criminal organization in the nation. Humanoid trafficking, drugs, gambling, prostitution, black market goods, etc. Their goal is the simplest of the factions. They merely wish to cause as much degeneracy, suffering, and misery as possible. They feed off it and grow in power from it. They use and manipulate the down trodden and untouchables of society as their minions promising power, wealth, revenge, and happiness. These people are supernaturally empowered by their masters.
- Deep beneath the earth in my world's Underdark is a Mindflayer hive. They occasionally make raids on the surface world (along with several other underdark factions). They're by far the worst faction in the underdark, even by the brutal standards of other underdark societies.
There are other smaller factions, but these are the main four that are vying for power within the nation and will ultimately be the foes or allies (temporary or permanent) of the players. My idea with the main plot involves the collection/securing of the saintly bones of a dragon that saved the nation several millennia ago. When all (or mostly) are together these bones can be used as a power source for powerful rituals. Each faction wants to collect all of the bones to secure or take power.
The government wants to secure the bones to prevent the other factions from getting them to cause havoc. However, the necromancer wants to use the bones to become a lich. The rebels want the bones as leverage during negotiations and the demonic influence want the bones to free a powerful demon. The hags want the bones to boost their coven powers to extraordinary levels that will influence the whole nation. The Mindflayers want the bones to facilitate the creation of an Elder Brain Dragon.
My plan for the campaign is to start the party off as beginner members of the nation's adventuring guild. Doing some one-shot like adventures (with the same characters) to get them experienced in the world. Then things will slowly open up and as time passes the state of the nation will improve or deteriorate based on the players' actions/inactions. Eventually they'll step on enough toes and they're you go. The adventuring guild can act as neutral faction to facilitate the players' saying "screw all the factions" and doing stuff for themselves. I fully intend for the players to be capable of eliminating the corruption/evil within the government or rebel factions if the player's desire or discover it.
tbh, I don't see the player's joining the hag or mindflayer factions aside from temporary allying, but they work well to fill out the world. Regardless, that was a long comment, but there you go lol. Your video really got me thinking about campaign planning so I wanted to give my thoughts. If you got any tips or ideas I'd love to hear them! Congrats on the quick channel growth. I'm definitely gonna subscribe and stay tuned.
Cool stuff!
I like the demonic twist to the rebels
@direden Thanks! I wanted to add some nuiance and intrigue to some of the factions to prevent a faction from being the only "good choice". Taking advantage of people's anger and resentment to get them to commit atrocities seemed like a very demon thing to do.
Your concise pointers have me looking again at my childhood town I grew up in and the memorable occurrences that with a small twist would make great hooks for adventure.
That's an awesome idea
@@direden I remember losing a library book off of a bridge into the creek (spell book lost quest) following my Dad’s footprints to the store only 3 buildings away, but I was 7 or 8 (tracking quest) my parents buried a neighbor girl’s cat that was hit by a semi so she wouldn’t see it like that (?). The ideas feel endless.
Can you imagine if the transcript of this video was in the DMG?? 🤯 Game changer.
Thanks!
I will include this when I design my own game... for sure.
You are doing a great job. I’ve been reviewing all of your older videos. ❤
@@agilemonk6305 THANKS!
Dude, this is amazingly simple to follow, and great advise
Thanks for making this vid! I love the faction-forward approach to gaming. My biggest obstacle currently is trying to plan and/or improvise combats.
I have a series of videos on my agenda called "curating combat." It's probably a couple of months away.
But the faction follow-up video will help, too. It should be out in a week or two.
This was amazing, super easy to follow and chock full of information in a timely manner. Sir, you have my sub.
...Glad to help and... Welcome aboard!
Hello, just wanted to say hi, not even sure how i stumbled across your channel but i find it very insightful and a great source of inspiration. The amazing thing about gaming is, you can be playing for 3 weeks or 30+ years and always find new and interesting ideas on bow to make your gaming better.
Thanks for your channel and as a new subscriber and follower, i am looking forward to catching up with your videos and implementing a ton of new ideas into my gaming world. Keep up the great work!
Welcome to the Den.
You're absolutely right... that really is one of the great things about gaming!
This is already one of my favourite ttrpg channels, keep it up!
Thanks! I really appreciate it
Very clear content. refreshing and inspiring. Kudos.
Thanks!
Thanx, just found u lookin forward to more.
Awesome! And Welcome aboard!
The next Podcast video will post 6pm Friday
And the 2nd Campaign prep video will post 2pm Sunday.
this is exactly what i needed to get my campaign started on to paper. i knew what i wanted i just couldn't find a way to make it bigger and more involved. but i have a side question id love to see a video about. ..... im not good a voices. i mean i can do the higher and lower pitch, but that don't help if you have 20 plus NPCs. any recommendations would help alot
Thx for the tips friend!
It seems very deliberate (in a good sort of way) that the numbers on each of your steps went up by two each time.
Or... it could be a Vicious Whisper??? But good advice overall. Start small and let your world organically grow. Mine was a peninsula or island, (the group went in all other directions, then wound up in the 9 Hells, never determined which) it was roughly the size of half of Australia, with a Tasmania sized smaller island to its south-west coast.
Though, you're right... it can be just a simple A to B journey starting out. Most YT channels teach people how to be bad DMs or bad players, but this was actually a pleasant surprise in suggesting good advice.
Yeah, "thunder" was misspelled, too. That's what I get for editing from 2 pm until 2 am straight 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for the feedback! I try my best to give actionable steps and specific recommendations.
John truby... Very good sir
So, many things to learn from him.
I might do a video about his book...
Great advice! Thank you
Thanks, I hope it helps!
I'll admit I was unsure if I should watch this video. When you got to the four corner faction structure, I thought, "I definitely want to hear more of what this guy has to say."
Thanks, the faction video is the next one in the que. I plan to finish it this week.
@@direden I look forward to it.
Hey yo! Great video
Hey, Man!
Long time no see.
The links don't work.
diredenizens.wixsite.com/direden/blog
There's a new link. Once you're on the site... click on Blog... then you'll find all the other ones.
I'll fix the ones in the description
They are fixed now
Linear storytelling isn’t railroading.
There is definitely a difference between linear storytelling and railroading. However, it's much easier for linear adventurers to become railroads if you're not intentionally giving players meaningful choices within the storyline.
There's only 1 Double R Name.
This should NOT have to be pointed out.