This is fantastic. I’ve spent weeks bumbling through building a campaign for my friends. Ideas and story threads and player motivations are piled in a mess all around me but I’m certain this will help me to put things in order. Thanks so much
Thank you! As a first time DM trying to put together a campaign, I have a feeling that this spreadsheet is going to make it so much easier for me to plan events and weave a story!
I've only played a grand total of three sessions before most party members lost interest and I moved to my wife's hometown. Her friends (that I don't/barely know) have all played since high school, but they all want me to DM since, according to my wife, I'm the best storyteller by far. For two months, I've been trying to piece everything together about a game I have only just scratched the surface on. I still have another two months before we're planning to start, but I'm already starting to panic about not living up to the expectations of seasoned players. This vid helped clarify a lot of points on campaign building and breaking things down into manageable sessions, so thanks a lot for your time and effort! I was planning on trying to keep everything in 2-3 notebooks, but it's hard to argue with how clean that spreadsheet looks haha If anyone has other resources I can look into, I'll gladly accept any and all advice and links!
It can definitely be a little overwhelming before you start, for sure. I'm glad this video helped you. I'd suggest checking out my videos on OneNote and LegendKeeper for organisation tips, lots of great stuff in those videos.
This is awesome! I have been trying to drop breadcrumbs in my new homebrew campaign and was worried about losing track of them as time goes on, so I appreciate this really straightforward template. Your channel is super helpful!
Wow! Thank you so much! I’ve never DMed before so it felt pretty overwhelming but I’m feeling a lot more confident with some actual planning under my belt :D
I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I'm sure you already have the Tal'Dorei campaign book, but if not you should get it - it's full of a lot of great stuff.
I run my campaign in seasons as well and my players really like it. We take a break between each season to allow for people in the group to run their own one shots and to give us a little break from DnD. I highly recommend running campaigns in seasons like this!
This is helpful. I need this sort of order and compartmentalization for all this to not seem overwhelming. I'm currently 6 or so sessions into a completely sandbox campaign, and while I've planned the world really well, I barely have any story besides a vague overarching plot.
Thank you, this was really useful. My own campaign has been a bit uncoordinated and I think this opened my eyes for what I was missing. I have planned some milestones, like the final battle and revealing some important villains and their plans, but all the adventures in-between have been very reactive and often created on the fly. I had had an idea of creating an overarching plan for the campaign, but I thought I needed to plan every adventure in detail which would take a really long time. So, what I found most helpful in your video was the idea of creating just brief descriptions for each plot point instead of writing it all out. That way you have a solid foundation to progress your story and foreshadow future events while leaving in the flexibility to move things around, since nothing is so overly detailed to be set in stone. Thanks again!
This is fantastic stuff ^^ The google sheet alone has helped me a ton in figuring out the bigger pictures of my campaign. Hats off to you for sharing this
Funny I clicked on the title intrigued and this is great. I’ve been kind of DMing this way but your kind of codifing what I’ve been doing. Really cool.
Player's get necklace in first session: "Eh, sell it, we could use the gold." Player's reaction when they learn of their importance: "Sheeeeeeeiiiiiiiiittttt"
I want to make a game where there is multiple bbegs but then the party finds out that there is one bbeg that has controlled it all But i have wrote the world story of how the seals that held the old gods imprisoned began to peel and their corruption have has begin to seep into our world Idk did i write my self into a hole how do i fix this and what steps do i need to do
Doesn't sound like you wrote yourself into a corner at all. I'd plan each of the multiple villains as you normally would, but either figure out how their individual plans benefit the larger BBEG's scheme, or introduce some common thread. Maybe they are all summoning similar demons, or each have one of the rods of seven parts; something to connect them all together.
My advice for this scenario is to have the bbeg go by different names for each group. A deity is perfect for this because they can often literally change shape, and may have different forms for different countries. The hard part is sowing the seeds early on without it being obvious halfway through, hence the name changes.
Nice video; will be using something similar. However, I am really looking for a method of tracking and compiling NPC's from town's /sessions, would that be in followup video?
I plan on doing a video dedicated to NPCs in a few weeks, and I can certainly include a segment on tracking them. Briefly, what I do is; For minor NPCs I keep track of them on a page in my location section. So all the NPCs for a single town will be in one place. As NPCs become more important I move them to a dedicated "important NPC" section where I can go into much greater detail about them.
This is fantastic. I’ve spent weeks bumbling through building a campaign for my friends. Ideas and story threads and player motivations are piled in a mess all around me but I’m certain this will help me to put things in order. Thanks so much
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Make sure to check out the DM bible video and get a copy!
Thank you! As a first time DM trying to put together a campaign, I have a feeling that this spreadsheet is going to make it so much easier for me to plan events and weave a story!
Naomi Tennefoss I'm really glad you enjoyed. Hope it helps with your campaign planning :)
I've only played a grand total of three sessions before most party members lost interest and I moved to my wife's hometown. Her friends (that I don't/barely know) have all played since high school, but they all want me to DM since, according to my wife, I'm the best storyteller by far. For two months, I've been trying to piece everything together about a game I have only just scratched the surface on. I still have another two months before we're planning to start, but I'm already starting to panic about not living up to the expectations of seasoned players. This vid helped clarify a lot of points on campaign building and breaking things down into manageable sessions, so thanks a lot for your time and effort! I was planning on trying to keep everything in 2-3 notebooks, but it's hard to argue with how clean that spreadsheet looks haha
If anyone has other resources I can look into, I'll gladly accept any and all advice and links!
It can definitely be a little overwhelming before you start, for sure. I'm glad this video helped you.
I'd suggest checking out my videos on OneNote and LegendKeeper for organisation tips, lots of great stuff in those videos.
This is awesome! I have been trying to drop breadcrumbs in my new homebrew campaign and was worried about losing track of them as time goes on, so I appreciate this really straightforward template. Your channel is super helpful!
Wow! Thank you so much! I’ve never DMed before so it felt pretty overwhelming but I’m feeling a lot more confident with some actual planning under my belt :D
I'm glad you found it helpful! What system are you planning on running?
Icarus Games sorry I’m not sure I understand? What’s a system? :)
What game do you play? D&D 5e or something else?
Icarus Games ah right, yeah we’re playing 5e
Thank you so much! I am currently planning my first campaign (Tal'Dorei ♥) and this is so helpful to figure out a structure!
I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I'm sure you already have the Tal'Dorei campaign book, but if not you should get it - it's full of a lot of great stuff.
I run my campaign in seasons as well and my players really like it. We take a break between each season to allow for people in the group to run their own one shots and to give us a little break from DnD. I highly recommend running campaigns in seasons like this!
This is helpful. I need this sort of order and compartmentalization for all this to not seem overwhelming. I'm currently 6 or so sessions into a completely sandbox campaign, and while I've planned the world really well, I barely have any story besides a vague overarching plot.
Thank you, this was really useful. My own campaign has been a bit uncoordinated and I think this opened my eyes for what I was missing. I have planned some milestones, like the final battle and revealing some important villains and their plans, but all the adventures in-between have been very reactive and often created on the fly. I had had an idea of creating an overarching plan for the campaign, but I thought I needed to plan every adventure in detail which would take a really long time. So, what I found most helpful in your video was the idea of creating just brief descriptions for each plot point instead of writing it all out. That way you have a solid foundation to progress your story and foreshadow future events while leaving in the flexibility to move things around, since nothing is so overly detailed to be set in stone. Thanks again!
I'm really glad you found it helpful :D
This is fantastic stuff ^^ The google sheet alone has helped me a ton in figuring out the bigger pictures of my campaign. Hats off to you for sharing this
I'm really glad you found it useful!
Funny I clicked on the title intrigued and this is great. I’ve been kind of DMing this way but your kind of codifing what I’ve been doing. Really cool.
Glad you enjoyed!
Player's get necklace in first session: "Eh, sell it, we could use the gold."
Player's reaction when they learn of their importance: "Sheeeeeeeiiiiiiiiittttt"
You just saved my damn life
Glad you enjoyed :D
This really helped!
I want to make a game where there is multiple bbegs but then the party finds out that there is one bbeg that has controlled it all
But i have wrote the world story of how the seals that held the old gods imprisoned began to peel and their corruption have has begin to seep into our world
Idk did i write my self into a hole how do i fix this and what steps do i need to do
Doesn't sound like you wrote yourself into a corner at all.
I'd plan each of the multiple villains as you normally would, but either figure out how their individual plans benefit the larger BBEG's scheme, or introduce some common thread. Maybe they are all summoning similar demons, or each have one of the rods of seven parts; something to connect them all together.
My advice for this scenario is to have the bbeg go by different names for each group. A deity is perfect for this because they can often literally change shape, and may have different forms for different countries. The hard part is sowing the seeds early on without it being obvious halfway through, hence the name changes.
Thank you!
You're welcome! Hope you found it helpful.
Nice video; will be using something similar. However, I am really looking for a method of tracking and compiling NPC's from town's /sessions, would that be in followup video?
I plan on doing a video dedicated to NPCs in a few weeks, and I can certainly include a segment on tracking them.
Briefly, what I do is;
For minor NPCs I keep track of them on a page in my location section. So all the NPCs for a single town will be in one place.
As NPCs become more important I move them to a dedicated "important NPC" section where I can go into much greater detail about them.
Fine, alright
I'll subscribe
Great video, helped me a lot ^^
Glad you liked it :)