How To Start Designing your TTRPG Campaign - A New Approach
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- Опубліковано 4 кві 2021
- How do you start designing your own TTRPG Campaign? Whether it's a D&D adventure or a Starfinder saga, they all start somewhere. I'll show you how to make your own campaign, how to get the basics right, and what to avoid. I'll also show you how to know if your idea is a good idea or a bad one!
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*Thanks for watching!* Try your hand at today's task and let us know in the comments below your idea for a campaign!
how was this comment made 4 hours ago when the video was made 50 minutes ago?
That idea of your new campaign reminds of Thor 3 (I guess?) where he lands on this dumping-planet hahaha .9 nice one!
HI @@joeerpenbeck7062
I gets in doubt whether you want the answer in the thread here, or in the general comments so i
post it both places.
What am working on right now and made me search for this video is thes.
My idea
A one shot on a ship this will be a foretaste of the coming adventure, and
hopefully give me the information I need for the larger plot.
My players will start up in level 0 on a ship that sails from Neverwinter "D&D 5E" which some of the players are familiar with, and go towards my home-built world, where the game will begin 4 real next time.
The ship sails for fourteen days and there is know a week left "Thes I expect will be one game day"
The Players are all given each their envelope before the introduction begins, which contains a small text about their purpose and a key "no two keys are the same, or tekst" The letter is from a secret Contact.
The Contach prefers to remain anonymous, he or she hase promises them a worthy gift for travel to the desired location, where more will be revealed.
The ship itself "LadyKimære" is only put into play to get a sense of the players as characters As well as a back door left for the players if my home-built world does not hold tight.
The players will face some challenges that can tell me as a SM/GM about their way of integrating with the world, as well as giving the three new players at the table an opportunity to learn a little about how to play and their skills in a safe environment.
The bigger plot is that the players do not know each other in advance, and either have to get to this on the ship, or in the harbor when they all meet at the same house, where they might find alle their keys fit in the lock on the front door.
Inside the house there are eight rooms, but their keys only work for one each player.
The space they enter will be characterized by things, smells and food from their home area and give a sense of their contact know them better than they thought. I have not reached further, as the contact can be evil as well as good in depending on my players' style and choices on the ship, and the vibe I catch at the end of the day.
“Why would my players want to play?” Because I volunteered to GM in a club discord and they fell upon the advertisement like a pack of starving wolves, desperate for just a scrap of social interaction.
mood
I'm desperate for scraps of social interaction too! :D
Judging by the very creative description you just gave, I think you will be a great GM.
For my group I brought up playing D&D and everyone wanted to play too. Except nobody wanted to DM and I had to do it so that we can actually do something we all talk about wanting to do but haven’t.
One of the best oneshots/mini campaigns I ran was literally just Shrek. Changed the names and changed the swamp to "the outlands" and it was pretty solid as its own story. When the players realized it was just Shrek they were cackling. It was great!
I runned a one shot like that once they loved haha
Genius!
Man I just wanna say that your videos have truly helped me bring my campaign to life.
My players, who were normally not too interested in backstory and lore in other campaigns I've been in with them, became virtual scholars in mine. They want to know all the history, all the backstories of the NPCs, all the consequences of their actions.
One night I came by, and they had a whole plot diagram on their wall with strings attached between different relations of the npcs to try and solve the mysteries I was throwing at them.
I've dealt with severe ADHD all my life, so I never thought I could actually focus on a campaign as a GM, but because of your videos, and my players responses to the game, I've been able to ACTUALLY focus on a task for once in my life.
As a fellow ADHD’er who desperately wants to run a game, this is so encouraging, thank you x
Your classic adventure for royal characters is "Your kingdom was usurped and now you have to reclaim your throne." That was the premise for Hour of the Dragon, the longest Conan story RE Howard ever wrote, and it took Conan on an adventure that basically spanned the entire map. There's also "Your brother's the king but he's a tyrant, so you have to overthrow him," which was the plot of Fable III (unfortunately, that game kind of sucked). But it did inspire me to think about a campaign where a group of royal siblings (the children of the old king) are forced to flee the fall of the dynasty, and spend months or years posing as an ordinary adventuring party while they seek the resources and allies to go get their kingdom back. You'd need players who are willing to follow through, and you'd have to be REALLY careful about PC deaths (or, heaven forbid, a TPK) but I think it'd be a fun idea to try.
Players can smell that plot armour and will push as much as they can
Fable III was so poorly executed idea (plotwise), really left a sour taste in my mouth after the brilliant second game.
I had an "evil campaign" that worked off the idea that they were all immortal heirs to a throne in a city-state called Aistervhelm. Their father was a very Lannister type of person, who ruled with an iron fist and who taught them that it was family above all. They all grow up and mostly spread out and leave the city for various reasons. The adventure began with their immortal father being murdered and their city being taken over by an order of paladins and bloodhunters. Afraid that there may be something that can truly kill them and wishing to take back their city, they vied for influence over the factions of power and defeated the military occupying their home. In the process they uncovered the truth about their immortality, their "evil" nature, and the origins of their city. All while saving the world in the process lol
If you want some "group of royal siblings shenanigans" I highly recommend The Chronicles of Amber.
"A world that is a dumping ground for other worlds" Australia?
It's also pretty much the entire setting for the rpg "Black Void".
Magical Wall-E world?
I thought that too
Or Malifaux
I prefer to think of Australia as a land where people come to be safe and get a second chance. Which is kind of funny considering most of our plants and animals can kill you...
First time I watched in a bit, don’t know what it is but hearing you talk just instills a confidence that I can accomplish anything in my campaign xD
Guy, I want to thank you for your videos. I (along with my co-authors) are currently creating a post-apocalyptic TTRPG setting using WotC's OGL (mechanics only), and you videos on worldbuilding have been invaluable. We are creating on World Anvil, and as soon as the setting is ready pdf copies will be coming your way. :)
This comment didn't age well
I’m running a bronze age post-apocalypse campaign where the four players accidentally made their characters the Four Winds during what was supposed to be a oneshot. They’ve run up against devilish hobgoblins and dire wolves living in a symbiotic horde under Telqan Cingotk, Veindrinker, who controls the steppes. They’ve already drowned a super werewolf. Next: the Shadow Wood arc.
The players are parents whose children come under the control of a cursed set of toys. They find out that this is part of a bigger plot to rescue a trapped demon under the city. I am hoping the mystery of the campaign and the personal involvement will draw them in to the world.
Switching the parents and childern role around might also be fun
I usually dont talk about sponsors, but world anvil has helped me soo much with keeping track of my homebrew lore.
Entire campaign skill checks ✔ training in an apprenticeship, your fellow party 🥳 members rival apprentices, competing to gain favor from your lone master.
Your teacher is a master poet, scribe, appraiser, and detective. You each can invest in one of these trades (proving its worth to your snobbish master)
Ultimately gaining favor and moving up the ranks, to a further "master apprenticeship" (World Anvil)
Any character deaths get replaced by a new rival apprentice that you'll create to replace your felled PC.
The princess bride.
Dude that would be a great campaign lol.
Anyone want a peanut?
“And then they have to do some sort of interview” 😂😂😂
My campaign would follow the heroes as the awaken in a semi undead state with no memory of their past. They were, in fact, a famous group of heroes whose finally adventure ended with them attempting to stop a lich from completing his transformation. The blast destroyed all of them, lich included. Now, 50 years later, the semi-active phylactery has pulled them all back together and they must find it before the lich does (once they remember it even exists). The world has also memorialized them as "Fallen Saviors" so they will be encountering their own past and stories throughout the game.
The goal would be to lean heavily into the idea of a backstory being developed as you play. Eg. "Tanner, there is a statue in the town center of you engaged in a heroic deed...what was it? And what did the sculptor get wrong?"
Okay this is EXTREMELY cool, I’d love to play this! Good job!
I found an interesting backdrop concept from a book series that could be quite entertaining.
The Fey long ago preyed upon humanity, and may have extinguished them entirely if not for a group of Ancient wizards who called themselves: "The Gatekeepers" (or whatever you want to call them or be, druids etc.) Who battled them back to the ancient entrances to the Feywild, knowing that the fighting would be unceasing for generations the wizards parlayed with the Fey leaders and came to a deal called, "The Accords," bound in blood.
The Fey would cease preying upon the sentient races of the material realm and could make deals with only the Gatekeepers, they could never lie in their dealings with the Gatekeepers and in exchange, could come and go from the portals within realms as they see fit without hassle.
The deal is void upon the death of the Gatekeeper organization.
Fast forward an X amount of years and The Gatekeepers are dying out, the young may either not have happened ("that old out of date organization? Why would you join that dusty tomb of old fogeys.") Or they died under mysterious circumstances (cult of Fey worshipers? Demon's working to unleash havoc to hopefully gain access to the material plane themselves?) Whatever happens, the Gatekeepers are in dire straits as there is only 1 left to hold the line.
What do the players do? Well one could sign up as a gatekeeper, or the gatekeeper ends up dead and the PC's need to figure out how to stop the calamity.
We are currently playing “invasion of the body snatchers” with mind flayers on the sword coast, with mini campaigns inside the campaign, based on the background of the players, with stand alone adventures sprinkled in on the way. The big bad is the elder brain, having a kraken under control. One year into the campaign, most likely one more to go.
My Campaign idea is as follows, taking the lore of wildemount where the gods locked themselves away, the dark gods have for years been slowly altering the past. Using chronomancy agents have travelled back in time for very brief moments for very subtle changes that over the course of thousands of years help the dark gods weaken the barriers that keep them away.
This will come as things such as delay or hurry the start of a battle so that the sacred grounds where cultures are made change allowing the power that lies underneath to be available.
Altering a founding city location by some miles changes the religious beliefs of an area subtly to one side more than the other. Small changes that on their own seem insignificant but over thousands of years slowly add up.
Due to the extreme long game involved no one really picks up on these changes except one person, Mordenkainen. Since he is so invested in all other areas of the cosmos he cannot simply pull away to try track down when these changes started or what the end goal is, he asks a group of people who are not that well known so that history and the future dont show he or they got involved.
The taks given will be find how they are doing what they are doing, why and to what end purpose. Also is it too late and can any of it be undone.
This will open up the party having to make contacts with all kinds of spellcasters, outside the confines of this race hates this and we dont talk to them. Trust will have to earned and information shared. Will they find the devices used to go back and if so how many of these devices exist how many teams? If they are dealing with history do they know of the meddling and have multiple agents doing things to cover up whats important.
Lastly is all this just a ruse for mordenkanen to get information about chronomancy, has he made it up or is he the one doing all these things as a pact with gods.
still fleshing things out but this is where i started.
My campaign idea is about an antagonist that affects a whole region at a fundamental level in how it functions, similar to Strahd in Ravenloft or Auril in Icewind Dale. They would constantly interact with the party throughout their journey, be it directly in person or passively through events and other people. They would be deeply tied to each party member in a personal way regarding their backstories and goals. The twist is by the end the party may not see them as the villain.
I am planning to run kind of oneshot adventure, one to three sessions initially as the first playtest for the system I am developing. The concept of the adventure is that the characters are trapped in border town that has come under siege due to border disputes. The goal is to allow as big variety in character types as possible with interest to survive and possibly aid the town using whatever skillsets they have to their advantage. The invading army might try to get lords heir as hostage if simple invasion seems too straight forward or doesn't have enough substance in it.
My (past) idea for a campaign; Set in a vaguely Norse area of a world which is low magic and gritty, the players start as novices, forced to leave the town they've wintered in. Along the way to safety, they get the barest hint of a plot involving the dark arts, demons, devils and Old Ones. Investigation will lead them farther along the plot line, learning more about the ways and means of a secret pact aimed at overthrowing the human realms. So the arc is from local rat-catchers trying to save themselves to heroes trying to save the world.
Oh, they also learn how to travel between the Nine Worlds, what happened to Atlantis, and re-introduce Tieflings, Svartalfar and other non-standard non-humans to the world.
This may or may not be influenced by a show I'm rewatching:
The player's, or their world, discover a Stargate. They get to experience many genres as they discover worlds and even nods at previous campaigns.
@AlexWaddington This is the idea that I had as well. I love stargate and would love to run an episodic campaign that can traverse different planes of existence while leaving threads and puzzles that lead to the BBEG.
Excellent timing my brotha, I have a campaign to start next week!
Running a game were my players wanted to play a starwars game so at the end of my game at level 20 they had to stop the big bad evil guy in his spelljammer. They all thought it was a cool sky ship till they started to read the bbeg plans. Players thought it would be cool to continue the game but with the ship. I took a month long break and now they are exploring the solar system and the austral bodies in that system in search for parts of this old spelljammer. My players seem to enjoying how we are running the ship and the exploration alot.
I love your videos Guy! You have made me a better GM, thank you for starting this channel and for continuing it!
I am designing a campaign for a one player game. It's a Dungeons & Dragons setting in the world I made. An ancient species of dragon is awakening. Dragons that, upon hatching, form a mental bond between itself and it's future rider. I am using the sidekick rules and the dragon will use the warrior stat block. To balance the game for a single player (who naturally has less action economy), the dragon will have magical abilities awaken at certain times during the campaign. This will allow the dragon to fill holes left by the lack of other player characters.
The PC is also from a line of ancient people that have the ability to bind with these special dragons. The player has always had abilities that others did not possess and did not know why(these abilities come in the form of special feats the PC starts with, again to fill a gap left by no other PCs).
At level 1 the player will find a dragon egg and when it eventually hatches they will bond telepathically. The dragon will be a wyrmling and as the player reaches higher levels the dragon will grow to a rideable size. This also means that there are other dragon riders rising up as well and some will, of course, be evil.
Your “what if” campaign world is similar to a premise I’ve been building a campaign setting around (a world where the boundaries between it and the rest of the multiverse are exceptionally thin, so many persecuted groups and cultures from other worlds have migrated there over the centuries). Really looking forward to seeing your take on this.
What if the Feywild became sick, and appeared within the material realm, and all Fey's magic has gone strange. The world is now learning how to deal with the Fey and if they are going to live with them and help them. The players are going to find out what caused the sickness, and the plane shift. Epic kind of campaign. Players would want to play this because there will be a world that is full of wild magic, mysterious characters who need the players' help, and a setting that will be creative because of the mix with the Feywild. My goal for the campaign will be to explore what makes the Feywild interesting and to allow the players to shape it and interact with it.
that sounds absolutely amazing, if you have any space I would love to join lol
Hey Guy, I really like the idea of you giving us tasks to do, homework. I didn't see that before on UA-cam and I think it is a great way to engage with your viewers. Good job!
I thought this was neat too!
This is actually so crucial. I consume a ton of content, but actual action items that I can do and practice to get better.... that's gold.
My campaign idéa is... All off then have a heavy debt that they are not able to pay up and are now hired by a mysterious master that will pay up their debt in exchange of jobs done
Patrick Rothfuss approved
Very well. I want to build a campaign that will last for 5-8 sessions. It would be about discovering how a priest and his younger brother are trying to build an army of wax figures they created in honor of their town's dead to overthrow the local lord.
I would hope that players who are interested in mysteries similar to the Sherlock Holmes books and horror like Stephen King's books would be interested in playing. There would be puzzles, a little bit of combat and a lot of roleplay between the players and the townsfolk in this campaign.
I've always wanted to play in a game based upon Roger Zelezney's "Nine Princes In Amber", Never met a GM with the imagination AND ability to play such a open and flexible universe while giving the players the freedom and power (with the series of books limits).
Never read the books, but I did skim over the wikipedia page and my world shares a lot of similarities with the series. I think I can do this, just need to go over a few chapters to see what the writing and tone are like. Let me know if you want to give it a try.
Oh! I ran a long Amber campaign that lasted for more than three years. We had a great time with it and I let the players do what they wanted, allowed them to describe the shadows they visited, etc. The key was to create plots that were based upon the characters, so no matter where they went, the plot would follow them, so to speak. There was no real difficulty with the power level of the PC's. The villains in my campaign weren't always as powerful as they were, but they had a goal and were willing to make deals with dark forces to accomplish them (akin to Jasra in the Merlin series of books). Try it out, it's a hell of a lot of fun!
@@ZimoDM That's the interesting thing, the royal family of Amber can simply walk, or ride to any possible world. At one end of existence you have the Royal City (world) of Amber, then you have nearly unlimited Shadows Of Amber. Our world is but one of these shadows, each "Shadow" is nearly identical to the "Shadows" on either side of it, go far enough and you will find the world like Camelot, go a little farther and you will find a world like Barsoom, another might be akin to Star Wars. At the furthest you will find the chaos that was everything until unknown ages ago the Royal Family created the Pattern that brought order into existence. The story exists where ever the Royal Family wishes it to be. This is the difficulty in playing a Amber campaign as GM, you are playing anything the players wish to at the moment and trying to tame chaos. The Royal Family do not age and may only die through massive physical trauma.
@@chadcaszatt3744 But you must admit most GMs would easily get lost in flexibility and unpredictability of the setting. I have toyed with running one, but I really wanted to be a player, at a table (you need face to face personal interaction for this one), in this.
Did you know there is an Amber RPG out there? I have played it before myself
My campaign premise is that the PCs are sent to investigate the sudden stop in communications from a valuable mine up near the arctic circle. They find the miners dead, missing or worse and discover that terrible monsters (wendigos, man-eating deer and worse - MUCH worse) are stalking the region. To survive and put down this new threat, the players must battle both the otherworldly beasts and the desolate, hostile environment, where there are no roads, no towns, 4 hours of sunlight a day and not a second above freezing. I want this campaign to be a horror experience that is different from the standard-issue D&D experience, with weird monsters and an emphasis on atmosphere. I also think it means that moderately high-level characters can be used and still feel in peril, as the environment and isolation beat them down and deplete their resources. I also hope to make things like travel time and environment rules actually matter. I think my players will enjoy this because they tend to like horror/mystery sorts of things, and this one has a unique environment and flavor to it. (I don't do much wilderness stuff either, so that makes it fresh.)
My campaign idea is that the Shadowfell and Feywild are merging with the Material plane slowly but surely.
My players would want to play this campaign because the places where they grew up or had history within their backstories are changing including people in backstory etc.. Hopefully seeing these changes can help invest my players into wanting to come to the table.
My goal: I want to finish a campaign of my own making all the way through.
LMK what you guys think.
I am building a world where the players will form a sports team of sorts. said sport being free style gladiatorial combat ( the worlds most popular form of entertainment). As they become more popular and work their way up the ranks, they will be able afford rent. The guild that runs the sport basically just keeps track of the ranking, while the teams are free to pick when, where , who and how they go up against. The guild also runs like an adventurers guild, complete jobs and win matches to earn points and move up the rankings.
Eventually the players find out the the guild is an elaborate front to syphon small amounts of magic on a regular basis in order to keep a spell sealing the Tarasque impowered. The BBEG will have a primal connection to the Tarasque that is causing him to seek it out to either free it or become it.
Story idea is similar to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, great empire falls and is now divided. I think people could enjoy this because it could appeal to a lot of people, intrigue, spy/intel works to straight up combat and leading armies against other warlords. The goal could be as simple as establishing your domain and keeping it safe, to full on conquest. This could let the players have a bit of say how much conquering they do.
I have this idea as a fairly new GM for D&D (just ran 2 oneshots in other systems before, this could be my first real campaign). My goal would be to introduce a few players to the System and get experience: A half-island which is basicly a ancient mechanical ship docked to the main continent. All unknown to current Cultures in the island.
The adventurers start in a village near the hidden "bridge" of the island, when one day a large group of Modrons (mechanical keepers of the island) runs through.
Where are they coming from (no one has seen these mechanical creatures before)? Where do they go?
I plan to give the players a choice, do they want to stop or help the modrons to start up the island again?
What happens after that we will see...
Watching your videos makes me wish I still had friends! Looking forward to the WorldAnvil series. Thanks.
This new "what if"s approach is really cool. Thanks for sharing!
My campaign is a collection of an evil wizard's minions (goblinoids) who's master never returned, so before they get eaten by the cave troll "Grit" or one of the other creepy crawlies collected by the master, they need to plan, plot and gather support and resources or die trying... Players will find gameplay fun as they discover and learn more about their master then they ever cared to know. They will also gather info on the caves that surround them and the explorers that litter the passages... Goal to build a modular adventure where the players establish, explore and expand gaining levels and emerging monster heroes of the cave to plunder the human cities, "if only they could figure their way out"...
That's a very interesting way to change things a bit!
This was exactly the video I needed. Thank you 🙏
The players are in a triple point border where three ideologically different nations have fought over it for years, there is a last ditch attempt to broker a lasting peace between all 3 factions by restoring the area that has been devastated by conflicts of the past, the players are representing one or all of the factions trying to reach a mutual agreement with the others whilst contending with the dangers of the war ravaged lands.
Very nice video I will post my homework when I get some time this evening
Well?? We're waiting!
Players are the young royalty/nobility of a city and they must prove their right to rule by accomplishing a short one - two session quest (slay a beast, find a sacred item). Returning home, they find that no one in the city remembers them (or, imposters have taken their places). The only person to recognize them is a beggar, once the priest of an oracle from a distant land. They set out to find the oracle, along they way building ties to new peoples, ties that make them question whether it is worth returning home at all.
Thank you for this. As a starting GM i struggle to get a good setting, this video does help.
Right as I'm making a brand new setting for a new group! As always, Guy, you are my savior!!!
I'm currently working on a short (3-4 session) adventure I'm calling D&D with a Chance of Meatballs. Essentially, my players get kidnapped into the feywild by a playful Eladrin whose realm is filled with living food. I'm planning to have my players make food-themed characters, so I'm hoping we have a lot of fun with flavor (pun intended)
Okay this is AMAZING please write a blog or something about your PC’s adventures here, I love this concept so much
having a name similar to the main character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, I absolutely love this idea
You say playing as a king in lock-down isn't fun. I immediately think about a king in a war room, looking over a table, with miniatures, sending commands to a small hand full of specialist units.
Brings up an interesting point, though. Not many talk about having players control multiple characters.
Player: "What is your campaign about?"
GM: "My campaign is about a bunch of adventurers taking off stress by playing D&D."
Player: "So we're playing adventurers... playing adventurers."
GM: "Exactly!"
Okay, this map obviously isn't the one in the game, but it looks like it.
A really great video full of loads of info.
Thanks this is really cool and I can’t wait for the next one
Another good vid. I'm planning a shadowrun campaign and am using some of these strategies to build it.
My favorite way of coming up with inspiration for a new adventure is looking over at my stack of dvd's and picking one at random, how do I make an adventure out of this, in my ttrpg there are unique classes with a plethora of races, makes for some fun roleplay and story arcs, right now my wife is exploring aspects of the feywild
I like the parchment texture for the overlay :-)
I’m planning a campaign (it’s going to be my first) that’s using this old system called TMNT and other strangeness. I’m not using any particular tmnt canon and instead mixing elements and making my own, designing the characters and background events from that instead. The focus is basically that the original tmnt are grown up, defeated the kraang and shredder, have families now, and then go missing while on patrol, leaving their children to take up the mantle and find their family. So now these teenagers have to look through the old tmnt rogue’s gallery and a new one in order to find clues, track down their family, and then save them from the big bad. I have ideas for a big bad (including a fun twist) but I’m worried that because I’m inexperienced I’ll have a really difficult time with it. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, let me know!
A big stumbling block I find myself hitting a lot of the time is, that I’m a new DM - and my players are all new to DnD and aside from one, new to ttrpg in general.
Right now we’re running the Lost Mine of Phandelver module for all of us to learn the ropes. But after that we want to run a campaign.
Unfortunately, every time I ask my players about what type of things they might like or not like, they basically tell me they have no idea yet, because they haven’t had the chance to find out. And it’s not just them being lazy or not invested. They do think about it (and I did get a few morsels of information), but they just don’t really have the frame of comparison yet.
I guess we’ll just have to muddle our way through, but it’s not helping my anxiety about running my first home brew campaign :‘D
Somewhat same situation here. If you are still stuck, what do you think of just getting the general setting and then letting them give you their characters, and then find something that would suit all of them?
@@LeDingueDeJeuxVideos yeah, we’re probably going to go in that vague direction. I’ll provide the world, they’ll provide the characters and then I’ll try to mash them together :D i mean, hooks based on character back story is always something everyone’s interested in :D
We also agreed to have a non-play session every six or seven games to check in and talk about what worked and what didn’t, what they liked and what they didn’t.
Here’s hoping that’ll lead to figuring everything out in time :D
Hey Guy, just a quick question. Would you figure out the idea for the campaign and THEN have a session 0? Or would you have a session 0 first and then figure out what campaign/story to create based on the player's preferences?
I’ve recently been running around with the idea of running some one-shots in the same setting as my eventual campaign. I haven’t gotten to the campaign proper just yet but I’ve set up a lot of pieces before the game truly begins, as well my players are getting familiar with the setting and some of the central elements before we even start. I can’t wait to play this out and see how it ends
I'm about to head to something similar. What are your thoughts on good one-shots or minicampaigns to introduce players to a new setting?
@@LeDingueDeJeuxVideos
Since making this comment I’ve run my players completely through a oneshot that basically became an episodic campaign, and currently running through the second big “oneshot” with the same players/party. It has been a blast for both me and my players. As it stands as the first oneshot was an airship heist to kidnap a king in order to stop a war that he had declared. The second (in progress) is delving into the mysterious tomb of an old hero. The first one introduced my players to a lot of key characters for my future campaign, as well as familiarize them with the political state of my setting. This current run will (hopefully) familiarize the players with the history of my setting, and explore themes that my campaign will share, as well as introducing a big antagonist and ally.
In short for me, doing oneshots/mini campaigns before an actual campaign are not only a lot of fun, but also less stressful as you unravel and hint at pieces of the story to come. As an added bonus you can test homebrew stuff at the same time, which I’m doing to good effect, so I’ve been told at least.
My campaign idea is for the PCs to end a conflict between Waring pantheons of gods, all vying for total control of the realm. My idea is to have one head of each pantheon dispatching several lesser Deities to the material plane to wage endless conflict. The PCs could side with a particular pantheon, or maybe seek out an ancient vestige that long ago held these warning pantheons together.
Thanks for the video.
Still new to this whole thing, but I'd probably pull a lot of ideas from Final Fantasy Tactics for the GBA if I did try to build a campaign. Fantasy world with a fair amount of magic. Players are from another world but may not immediately realize it. I guess I would try to run it as an open setting where the major adventures start from 1 person. After about 7 adventures, I think the players would have seen enough clues to understand how to leave, destroy, or heavily alter the world they're currently in because what really happens is up to them. If they break the world too early without realizing it, then I have some ideas of reforming it with a different focus.
Not sure if it would work well, but there's a lot of potential for combat and exploration. My friends and I are fans of both of those aspects, so hopefully they'd find it fun.
Campaign Idea: The characters are a group of real world people. The first session is the final epic battle of the characters own homebrew campaign. After the battle is won and the table is packing up, a portal appears and the GM is kidnapped by the BBEG they just fought in the game. They jump through after them and end up at the start of the campaign they just finished. But this time, they have to actually live it!
You could essentially use meta-gaming and mechanical terms in-character, without breaking immersion. I think it would be fun, hitting a bunch of teleported-to-a-fantasy-world tropes, while keeping it rooted in the mechanics of the game you're playing.
I have a lot of ideas I wanna do.
I don't find the world building that difficult, what I find the hardest is to read the actual rulebook - and by far, I have no idea how to create encounters.
My campaign idea is to play in Theros, and have the players work with Titans to topple tyrannical gods as freedom fighters. Some Titans need favors done, some challenge players to puzzles, others just need to have strength proven.
My players also wanted me to try and integrate Candlekeep Mysteries in if I can, and all I can think of is to have them doing favours to the library to try and get access to a room with an ancient and powerful secret, like how to open the locks of the chains keeping the Titans in Tartarus.
dude that sounds amazing
@@fanotshadowcloak8155 Thanks! I'm going to have sessions be classic greek myths, but from different angles, things like helping Arachne break Hera's curse, aiding Calypso go free her from her island, etc.
@@Spectrulus do you happen to have any space left in this campaign? lol
@@fanotshadowcloak8155 Thanks for the interest! I'm afraid I don't, 5 players is the most I can personally handle. I really appreciate your kindness and feedback!
@@Spectrulus ah ok, well glad to help
My campaign idea revolves around a genuinely good halfling (and fake pc), receiving way to much power from the deck of many things and using it mercilessly to increase their favored candidate chances to access the imperial throne.
My players are a mix of veterans who already know my world, and total newcomers to TRPG. I want to please everyone through a rather complex story they should appreciate, grant them the complete DnD experience, create moral conflict and set up the scene for the true campaign, a civil and ideological war arc between the imperial princes and princesses (a rival geopolitical power, the Democratic Alliance and their infernal allies, intervening more and more overtly to shatter the Empire). My players must be able to play whatever they want, but the scenario coherence requires one of them to play an heir of high nobility of the Empire. My newcomers only have video game RPG experience and should require incentives to roleplay. The adventure goes from 1st to 3rd/4th level, but the number of sessions needed depends on my players. Two short dungeons, at least eight encounters.
To this end: the campaign in The Savety, headquarters of the Northern Legions, trading hub between the Empire and the Mountain lands and sanctuary for slaves on the run from the Empire, due to the egalitarian approach of its commander, the First Imperial Princess. Villain is one of these former slaves, the old friend of a pc and a devout fan of this princess. Early in the campaign, the players and him will all drew three cards from an altered and set-up Deck of Many Things. Villain get Moon, Sun, and a card that compels all who drew a card from the same deck to follow to their best every single one of his orders. First order is for high nobility heir to kill his grandpa and inherit his power.
Player Goals are liberating themselves, dealing with their cards bad effects, stopping the villain from killing people or offering cards to them, invoking the fallen archangel of Rebellion, and starting a civil war. This should be obtained by receiving the Deck Fates card from the company who created it (said company being obviously run by devils).
What is revealed before Endgame: villain was set up by demons and used by the Second Imperial Prince (players must hate him, but recognize that he makes an excellent ruler) to gain the support of both the nobility and the Senate, someone is slowly poisoning the Emperor and Civil War can't be escaped, for the Empire citizens actually don't want their slaves to be freed.
I am working on a campaign, set in the Underdark. The party are all members of different drow houses, not necessarily drow but with a reason to be associated with a house. They must renounce their house and work solely as the queens investigating team. They have been commissioned by the queen to discover the truth about their deity (whoever it may be), not being the primary god and possibly from an entire different pantheon. The deeper they get the more cover-ups happen, the higher in society they go, the more people involved in the plot.
I Had the Idea to create two different Magic Cirlcles, that stopped themselves to Work. Both are created by one of two villians and on the Point, when one of the Cirlcles ist destroyed, the other Villians will eventually rise.
The island you are shipwrecked on has been invaded from below by drow. They have used some strange magic to darken the sky around the island allowing them to inhabit the surface comfortably.
Topside is the surface world 🌎, the entire ship that. Your world suspended in a perpetual fog realm, haunted by fish for which the "crew" feed off of.
@@kalinthealias9382 huh ?
ehhh, my first time trying out as a GM. My loose outline of open ended descriptions/rumors about every location/unique NPC is almost complete (a week of effort). It's essentially about a Dragon God who wants to cull the world but cannot do so immediately despite his immense power due to the possibility of the rest of the nations uniting against him, which would be quite the nuisance. So, he created seven shards that, when powered through ritual sacrifice, would open portals to hell and summon demons to fight for him. He trusted all of his shards to his chosen agents and, overtime, some agents lost their lives (and the shards) to other nations, while others are still going around attempting to charge them. In addition to charging the shards, they would sow discord amongst the other races which hopefully leads to war and thus, more sacrifices while making the world easier to cull.
What great taste in animated films. A legend is sung of when England was young... 🎵
Great video, helps a lot! Guy, I have a question: how to reveal master plan of baddie, without super monologue/ journal finding/ torturing- essentially without heavy exposition dump?
This is a good question. I tend to leave environmental clues of what the baddie is doing as open knowledge and gradually fill in the gaps.
Like, if the PCs find a bunch of gems in one area, the names of several demons in another, and a circle with strange markings in the last one it should be apparent what the baddie is up to.
Let the players figure it out through discovery. Think of Gandalf trying to understand what The Ring was and doing his research before he figured it out.
My own homebrew setting is sort of a dumping ground for other worlds. If teleportation spells or technology goes wrong, there's a chance it ends up there. You might run across someone from Eberron in the same party with Aquilonians from Hyboria and Halo Spartans.
whenever I hear about a dumping ground for other worlds, my mind always goes to Marvel's Thor: Ragnarok; which would be absolutely amazing with all the dnd homebrew added in, especially Halo stuff
You seriously remind me of shad from Shadiversity. Good stuff mate
*What If:* The players are all elves, living in The Moon Forest, looking after its creatures and borders, when one of the Pegasus mares is looking for a tranquil place to give birth to its foal, but the Dark Lord Sungorean has heard of this and wishes to capture the pegasus with his minions of orcs and goblins, to transform it into a Nightmare for it to become his ride for his upcoming incursions into the heart of human land.
*Players would want to play it:* It will be an introductory campaign for young children, and they want a good, help the animals and plants versus the evil being who wants to hurt young animals.
*Goal of the Campaign:* A short campaign (6-8 adventures) to teach the younger players (7-12 years) about the world, and how they can become heroes and save the day. Maybe even learn to be independent of adults as they will have to take decisions without the adults presence.
I tend to start with a campaign pitch with three different ideas and then wait for player feedback. I'll create inciting incidents and then riff off the player reactions to develop further. This, in theory, should work smoothly. HOWEVER, there's always at least one PC that is made intentionally to rub against whatever the rest of the players are doing, or one player is stuck in a constant loop of wanting to try out new characters... Both tend to wreck the player driven narrative, and plot points that would have driven the story evaporate. Even when the players vote on the campaign they want, they usually end up doing something that was described in the pitch that they didn't want.
I'm considering a variant on the campaign pitch. This variant means each pitch is a one-shot game. By one-shot, I mean one session only. Like a television show pilot. Characters are made for each one, but the depth of the persona is left open for later development. Each one-shot is run a couple of weeks apart to allow the players to both think about what happened and to plan for the next. Prep for each one-shot should be no more than maybe a couple of encounters and one intense moment that hints as to what may come later (a war or invasion is brewing, an assassination sparking intrigue, there's an outbreak of disease that seems to coincide with a rise in undead, etc.). They always end on a cliffhanger. If players build characters that do not fit the setting, or if they build characters that sabotage the concept, the rest of the players will likely sort them out, as they will likely miss out on the best interactions with that setting. They get one shot at this so engagement is likely higher.
The players then choose their favorite. It sounds like a lot of work, but it's a lot less work than prepping a campaign only to abandon it because the players changed their minds. Nothing sells like handling the real product.
My campaign idea is inspired by Modern Music of the Dark Ages youtube channel. All of the background music played in taverns is modern old-timey music where there has been some type of apocalypse that sent the world back into the dark ages. Hints of the old world remain but have been lost to time.
My thought is that there would be a number of factions/societies that have risen up whose culture surrounds something from modern-day (Harry Potter is a sacred text and now there is a wizard college based around it / Yo-Yos are the symbol of a monk order: “What descends will rise again” / Furby Warlord). This would be a world similar to Fallout, Mad Max, or Station 11.
I would love all the help I can get in fleshing this out. Thanks!
A sci-fi survival adventure. The players begin onboard an "Ark". Some long-term migration ship fleeing their home star system after having progressed far enough along the Kardashev scale and catching the eye of some, more advanced civilization or perhaps a bizarre interstellar-scale of locust plague. Hibernation technology wasn't adequate enough to guarantee long-term suspension would be free from fatal side effects and so while they spend much of the voyage in a low-energy state, a small "city" has been built into the ship. Maybe it's been 2 or 3 generations onboard the ship and an entirely new culture and social system has been brought up. The upper class formed from those who were able to contribute the most to the ships construction when the imminent catastrophe was discovered. Perhaps they have a more "life-like" upper deck with a self-contained mini-ecosystem, able to provide a small amount of fresh fruits and vegetables and can access more resources to synthesize more realistic meat products. They hold positions of command and oversee the lower decks, as well as are responsible for parsing sensor readings for potentially habitable planets nearby, elevating their status further through the perceived importance of their mission. Meanwhile on the lower decks are many of the standard crew operators for maintaining normal functions of the ship. They have access to the most basic nutrient goop and aside from their normal duties to keep the ship operational. Then there are the underdecks, the forgotten guts of the ship with either experimental long-term hibernation pods with low guarantees of success in awakening, or those who've gone mad on the lower decks escaping deep into the internals of the ship/ They're finally starting to come across a new planet that could be habitable, but it seems there's already inhabitants. Technology levels are lower than what they (or their ancestors) possessed, but they are one ship vs an entire planet approaching level 1 status on the Kardashev scale. Thus, the party is a selection of individuals from this ship to scout the planet and assess it's viability as an option for them to integrate into or conquer and make their new home.
Players would need to be willing for a more gritty, survival based campaign. Probably an interest an espionage or politics would serve well. Quite likely, it would make sense for them to be all the same race. They'd need to be willing to determine how the Ark/mothership and it's survival and ultimate mission is important to their character prior to the start.
Just started my first campaign, and probably unwisely, I want it to be an epic. So, the basic premise is that a "fallen angel" is trying to free all his "evil" brothers imprisoned in this pocket world/dimension, take it over, then go world hopping in a wave of destruction. My players, a leonin paladin/noble, a dragonborn fighter/outlander, and kalashtar fey-pact warlock, all have been summoned to this world to defeat the BBEG by a "neutral" brother (who doesn't want to be bothered but also wants to preserve the world ). Their current adventure is discovering a kidnapping ring which was orchestrated by one of the imprisoned fallen's associates, which they'll figure out next session, tying the mundane adventure back to celestials. They have no, (or very little, depending on how well they've been listening), current knowledge of any shadow organization but will hopefully figure it out in the next two sessions. Oh a crazy flavor I added was that the more populated cities would also be more technologically advanced b/c they have access to a worldgate. So a mid-population town would be very anachronistic. rural= middleages, City= eighties-ish modern. lol. We'll see how well it plays, been good so far. The young dragonborn from the woods was astounded by books and bought all he could find in a general store, thinking they were magic. They turned out to be about farming and blacksmithing, etc., hahaha. Uh, I thought it was a fun idea for players that might be interested in world hopping, and playing with the multi-plane/ dimension/ timeline theme/mechanic. This is world 1 of 5 that the players have possible access to, so far.
I watched a video on some interesting monsters a while ago (although I forget their names), and ever since have been thinking of a campaign with these disturbed elemental creatures showing up everywhere as a sign that something is out of balance and the quickly developing technology in the cities are having trouble keeping up with the hordes of them until the PCs travel around and learn about why they're disturbed and have the PCs locate and destroy the secretive invaders throwing nature out of balance
Do u make videos of u behind the screen dungeon mastering a session of d&d 5e ?
I want my campaign to be a seafaring adventure where the PC's are part of the crew of a ship captained by a former adventurer. That way it can be both open (new port/new monster of the week), and tie into an epic campaign.
I think my players would like it because we've never done a sailor-style adventure before, so there are a lot of fresh grounds to explore. I'm unsure about the length, but want the players to discover that during his adventuring days, their captain's former party accidentally unleashed a powerful Marid, who is now trying to take over the world's oceans.
My idea for a campaign would be time overlaps in a world that repeats it's Fate until someone breaks it.
I wrote something like this as a multi-part adventure/chapter in a longer campaign... quite fun!
@@erokvanrocksalot7545 cinematic universe? Combined Cannon...mmm
reminds me of Dr. Strange "Dormamu, I've come to bargain" lol, sounds fun
@@kalinthealias9382 the short answer is “No, not really” ... but I mean kinda the same gimmic/MacGuffin... (want the long answer click to expand)
Based more on the Adventure Zone’s: 11th hour chapter, and (which is based on) Groundhog Day.
But mine:: buckle up: so the homebrewed world (my Braxcia) is classic D&D fantasy, but set on top of a world that was once populated by a now extinct yet impossibly more advanced culture, that got destroyed by, (what I described as an asteroid, but in the words of the NPC’s was always called the) GodBomb. There’s a big crater land area (think all of Russia and most of Europe, with huge mound/mountain range that’s composed of the land that was western and Southern Europe but now is just a big mountain on the edge that foothills in Northern Africa, (which got pushed into S.America.)
Anyway, the penultimate chapter the PCs were going into the heart crater lands, where no one but Orcs and Goblins and monsters dwell... only to find “working” machinery powered by a piece of the GodBomb!.. a 6’ in diameter sphere that exploded and instantly rematerialized about every hour... the explosions were being harnessed to power the growing encampment..
Soo at this point (when PCs get to perceive this explosion and rematerialization) all the other magical items the PCs gathered in the previous chapters all float off of their bodies and conjoin in the into 1 shape that then enlarges into (what the PCs DON’T recognize is a) Spaceship, that can obviously manipulate its own size.. a door opens (an AI unit has been controlling and creating all the “magic” behind their magical items: shield pendant, fire sword gauntlet, etc) PCs get in, the craft takes off, shrinks and docks with the GodBomb, which at this point, [big reveal] is actually a space ship.. once inside, it’s actually a dysen sphere, and 1 crew member has survived and has been trying to save the planet (not a star) contained in the dysen sphere but is overrun constantly by the hoards of the BBEG/Nemesis’ drones and instead, for 1000’s + years and with the “help” of a glitching AI, the ship and survivor are stuck a time loop that starts just after the GodBomb first crashed, then shrank just prior to it exploding and... anyway...the PCs get on the ship she(survivor) recognizes all of them as former crew members (another long story) and tasks them with stopping the hoards and preventing explosion... they fail a bunch of times and blow up, but instantly rematerialize to the moment they boarded the ship. Couple cycles of failing dying and blowing up before they can save the day and safely move the ship or prevent it from blowing up and kill the hoards, but discover the actual Nemesis and why the world they have been in is how it is, and who/what/where/WHY they have to do next- last chapter PC+World vs Apocalypse.
My next champagne as dm is going to have a church of the wendigo as my big bad. I am using various undead templates as the base for most the enemies. My selection was due to undead being one of the best enemy types as they are unnatural, a great horror trope and easy to incorporate with out having undertones. My inspiration is, well Ojibway lore mixed with the closest tv monster to them Rameroes ghouls. Undead can also be diverse enough to keep the players challenged, with out getting stale. I am also pulling from The last man on earth, and lycanthrope myths.
Hmm... Wendigo champagne, nice...
My campaign Idea; The PCs have accidentally become trapped in another world/plane. (Standard Planar travel doesn't work as usual but requires a link book, à la Myst) Their goal is to find a link back out, which will entail exploring and figuring out how several diverse and fantastical worlds operate. And occasionally solving puzzles or fighting their way through never before seen creatures. Optionally: Discovering and righting some terrible wrongs done to a civilization they will discover.
Perfect from the lens of life purpose.
My campaign idea is to work as a covert team for a Duke investigating the recent arrival of a Thieves Guild in his capital port city where the ultimate goal will be discovering that the Duchess is actually the ring leader. This will obviously involve lots of intrigue, some combat, some possible political maneuvering (if the PCs are noble born), etc
After all, how can you tell the Duke that his new wife is the ringleader of the recently arrived Thieves Guild without having any evidence?
How would you plan for this? I have hard time wrapping my head around "investigating the thieves guild" thing
Ask the players.
That's the best advice.
The most enjoyable campaigns I've done has been with material from the players backstories and their characters goals with some element or plot thread that can stitch those backstories together.
(Not an easy thing to do).
Campaign Idea:
The players are explorers/adventurers in a world undergoing an apocalptic time of change. They are searching for natural sources of elemental essence (fire/earth/water/wind). These elemental essences are gathered from and delivered to settlements to help protect and provide for their people.
First time GM. Decent into Avernus inspired;
Synopsis:
A city arose around a big demonportal, instead of constand war there is a trade system between Hell and the normal plain. The players are tasked to bring valueable resources to hell to trade using Infernal Warmachines like vehicles and find dangers along the way.
Type:
I don't really now an overaching story but see it more as a sandbox adventure where there is a strange encounter. I wanted to make it low level to begin because I also have new players (how many sessions I'dont know). The progression is how deeper the PC's get into hell the more difficult it gets.
I have a whole lot extra ideas like a driving city hub and the city around the demon portal that can be visited. I was wondering how to begin the campaign at a low level because hell is pretty dangerous.
Thanks in advance :)
I like to start campaigns with a situation that seems very safe but than things are getting wild. For example my last campaign started on the ship my PCs were on. They had some NPC's to interact and test out their new characters (gambling, sneaking ,...) but the moment they saw the harbour of their destination, The ship was attacked by a mage throwing fire from the sky. The ship exploded and sank into the sea. At the same moment sahuagin creatures rose from the depth and attacked. Two other powerful wizards rushed flying towards the scene to capture the attacking mage. Their objective was to escape and reach the shore.
This scenario does 4 things for you:
1. it shows that the world is bigger than just NPC's and monsters fitted perfectly for their level.
2. It is a functional starter, because the PCs are already together on that ship and you can avoid "directing" everyone to the same space.
3. The PCs have their first "mini adventure" together due to the escape.
4. It let's room for questions... "why was the mage attacking?", "why did the sahuagin attack simultaneously, how did they know?" "who were the other wizards who tried to protect the ship? " , "was it all because the load of the ship?"
And now to your idea.
I think you can apply a similar opening to your campaign. Maybe something like:
The PCs drive on an infernal machine towards the city with the portal. Make sure they are not the only ones on that ride. Their task is to... I don't know mine some crystals at the edge of hell maybe?... But before arrival they see the whole mining site is destroyed. Devils fly above the area and are throwing fireballs down. One devil (maybe he is already wounded thus a little away from the main attack) spotts the approaching vehicle your pcs are on. Aaaand that is where the chase begins.
Make sure, they have a chance to escape and keep it fair but realistic. That's the hardest part in my opinion, because you have to describe the situation in that way, that the idea to fight all the devils at once seems way to dangerous and to flee is the only right decision. But nevertheless... They could still charge in there. So be prepared for that. I would think of a scenario where they survive a charge. First thing that comes to my mind is that the devils could be distracted by another party. Maybe some heroes approach giving your pcs time to think or hide.
You can do it. The idea of yours sounds great to be honest.
That's a super nice setting idea, I'm very much into it! Did you get the occasion to do something with it already?
@K ay I have been working on it, yes. Covid prevented me from running it yet. I fleshed out the setting more and worked on the sandbox element in hell. The current bigger setting is that there are multiple hell portals on the earth. The trade aspect between the earth and hell is to bring 'Divine Wind' captured high in the air in air canisters. In the furnaces of hell this 'Divine Wind' is used with 'Hell stone' to create all kinds of stuff. The portal important for the campaign is a recent one (around 10 years). The first convoy (also a driving/walking town) that tried to get to the hell furnace didn't make it.
The PC's found themself on the second convoy going into hell but of course stuff goes wrong. The surrounding area where Ronk Stad has to go finds all kinds of local peril.
I have a few session 1 games in mind:
1. Ronk Stad gets attacked and a part where the PC's are is ripped off. The PC's need to catch up with Ronk Stad
2. The PC's are scouts for Ronk Stad and scout out ahead.
3. Tutorial adventure in Ronk Stad itself where they learn the game and level up a bit.
This is the current broad outline of the setting/campaign. I still need to work a bit on the sandbox aspect and maybe some villain or overarching theme. The overall setting also allows for adventures in a Portal City, deeper in Hell or high up in the sky to catch Divine Wind.
My current inspirations are:
Studio Ghibli, Dark Sun, Eberron, Decent into Avernus
I would love to discuss it more, I'm still very new at being a DM but slowly creating a setting is super relaxing and fun.
Looking forward to your feedback.
These streams sound super Interesting! Guy Will you put them up in the channel after. I night not make in time for all of them.
edit: Nevermind you already answered. really good vid.
I want to build a campaign where the players start at lvl 20 and are sent back in time and need to begin at lvl 1.
This will be fun for the players cuz they will have their epic character in mind as they level up. Not restrictive because their goal is to change the future
My goal is to make this epic adventure with a few possible ways to achieve the “epic ending” in case the characters dispatch one too early. And possibly make god slayers.
i like this video a lot
my campaign idea focuses on the world of Elder Scrolls, in Valenwood. Some cultists of Namira through a ritual taking advantage of the necromancer's moon, materialized a dark spirit of the forest, this impregnates the leader of the cult and its union and with the blessing of Namira, a demi-god capable of killing the god of the forest will be born. the protagonists will find themselves involved in all this paraphernalia as they try to survive the horrendous monsters of Namira and their worshipers.
One point is that with the death of Y'ffre, god of the forest. the green pact will end and the Bosmer and Khajitas will return to their original entity, an amorphous slime. Namira's goal is to transform them into hideous creatures at her service.
My idea: my game is set in the Magic: the Gathering multiverse, the players start as warriors in the klans of tarkir before their spark ignite and they go to save the multiverse from new phyraxian invasion. I hope they would be drawn to the setting and a "saving the world" plot
I think there are a lot of great resources on how to start a campaign and tips for writing/designing sessions, but I'm also curious how you conclude a campaign. I'm still deciding on how many side plots I need to tie up before finishing a game, versus allowing PCs to ignore details and summarizing them in an epilogue afterwards (with repercussions for ignoring major NPCs/factions).
After a year of GMing I'm close to a sweet spot in how much dialogue/action/NPCs/etc to add to the story, but I don't know when to start dropping them off since I've never ended a campaign before. Should I keep adding content at the same pace and conclude even though we "just met new factions"? After all, in real life, obstacles and allies don't stop appearing just because we're approaching a goal...
In my case, our next campaign will take place in the same world so introducing new factions towards the end isn't a big deal and they will show up "later" (good opportunity for foreshadowing?).
Well what is the goal of your campaign? Is there a master plot, or were you just trying out the system and things spiraled? If you don't know the goal, maybe check the players and see what their goals for the campaign is, and try to have those be the final goal of the campaign.
@@CCartman69 There is a master plot I'm working towards, and my PCs have very vague self goals such as "find true freedom" that even they don't know how to tie into the story. They are very good at roleplaying, to the point that the blacksmith son's goal is to keep blacksmithing and keep the family business running, even though they've been involved in a country wide Big Brother pre-World War I scheme with ways of expanding the family name and taking over politically. Along the way I've left plenty of loose ends with factions, people, and items in order to tie things in at any moment and keep the motion fluid - so ending the game suddenly would leave a lot of questions unanswered.
Nono, giants and the likes don’t ‘trade’ in access to their passes. But they can sell ice and icecream, much more logical.
The most fun (short) campaign i ever partook in was story driven: players had to invent a good excuse for anything they wanted to happen, it was hilarious!
How did it work?
My idea: The players are rebels against a tyrannical Bronze Age empire dominated by the evil Cult of the Sun. This campaign will focus on the players and the Tribes of Night (monstrous rivals, potential allies?) bringing down a priest within the cult who is conducting a ritual to destroy the moon.
All right. Long spiel ahead. The campaign is based on a story I wrote back in college; eons ago. High magic world with impending war(s) over the territory that was once the human empire. The gods were defeated in the last war almost a thousand years ago, without any new gods taking their places. The world itself is governed by "the Lords of Light", who orchestrated the defeat of the gods. It starts out in a border town, the characters are young people of various races, who are in training to defend the city-state (insert name here). The emperor has been overthrown and killed, his vanquisher was also killed under mysterious circumstances, and thus leaving no clear heir to the throne. The goal(s) of the game, discover the truths of the past, defeat the enemy and save the world from destruction. And maybe becoming the next imperial warlord.
Since this is based on a story I wrote, much of the background has been plotted out. I am working on getting the magic system worked out. High magic with quirks isn't very common in ttrpgs for some reason. So, my personal goal is to beta test my magic system first.
Most of my friends are on board for this, but getting everyone together more than once or twice will not be happening. So, I am planning on a series of one shots, each one with different individuals. Not ideal, but I want to play.
Kings absolutely led armies, hundreds of years after firearms were invented too and even if they're not personally leading the first charge their presence would likely inspire the troops. And if I know anything about player characters they would definitely be the first onto the walls.
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, for instance, died in a battle while invading Germany during the Thirty Years War.
My campaign idea is that in the modern day there is a zombie infection going around which through society into chaos. The players will experience the early stages of the apocalypse and will later have to survive later on based on their looting and survival skills.
Also... and I know Guy is a genre purist... but much in the same way, it’s fun to imagine, what if soldiers from the future were thrust into an ancient battlefield?
What IF a futuristic space faring vessel, either due to some failure either of their own or the universe, get transported through time and space to an ancient Classic Fantasy setting?
Maybe the PCs are a small crew, maybe the PCs are the Commanding officers and have a large crew they must keep safe?
What if an ancient ritual from a chaotic bbeg IS what severed the barrier from their future reality and this ancient fantasy setting, and now they’re marooned? Some of the crew maybe want to get home, indenture themselves into servitude with the BBEG who baits them with being able to reopen the portal?
What if their future tech IS the magic that is being used?
PS I also love the reverse of this idea, like the Dark Tower series, what if a traditional fantasy setting is ontop of an ancient extinct space faring civilization? Still ancient Tech is the source of magic that posses current residents..? Like the Shield Spell comes from an “amulet” that’s really a tiny personal shield projector- or even better a shrunken tiny space ship that’s still running because a AI is following its programming? Wand of Magic Missile becomes a phaser, limited uses are due to battery life needing recharge? Etc..?
PS... those aren’t exactly new ideas, they’re ideas I’ve been toying with for my next campaign for a while... still wanna Level up my DM skills and find the right group who’ll want to play out this epic campaign.
A kingdom has been overshadowed by heavy clouds for 3 years as the result of a curse placed on them by a dark sorcerer. Without the sun shining, famine has begun to become grievous, and no crops will grow. The king says the sorcerer's curse can only be ended by killing him, and the sorcerer's fortress is on a mountain just at the top of a nearby canyon. Plot twist, the King is a powerful lich who is trying to kill everyone in his kingdom in order to raise an undead army. The sorcerer at the top of the canyon? A shady character, sure, and he'll attack you since you're on an errand for the evil king, but he's actually trying to break the curse the KING put on the kingdom. When he's killed, the storms and clouds grow much, much worse, and undead creatures become more and more frequently encountered as you make your way down the canyon.
what if you play in a monster hunter 5e setting as monster hunters , and the goal is to hunt shadow inflicted animals/monsters and prevent the shadows to take over the world by defeating the shadow lord dinosaur monster evil thing who corrupts the world through a pact with a shadowfell being. (like the whole planet gets sucked into the shadowfell with no reflection of a real world which causes the shadowfell to unbalance the powers of the realms and take over neighbours)
The problem about the method you talk about at 21:30 is that not all players will actively help you construct the world in this way. Many of them will not want to put in the effort in actually coming up with facts and lore bits about their characters beyond the bare minimum required on the character sheet (and sometimes, not even to complete that - and I can confirm this personally). I'll quote Professor DM here and say that I too believe that the majority of the players are too passive - they just want to play during the actual session, and for the rest of their time won't be bothered to care.
In my current group of five pcs, one pf the players actively wants to help me worldbuild from its character perspective (and in fact his backstory has become the backbone of the overarching campaign), another one gladly replies my questions when asked, while the others just don't really care, and any push to enrich their character's' background has fallen flat so far. Two years into a campaign and I still don't know what the character goals of two of the players are.
Well, to a certain extent... "don't fix it if it ain't broke"! If the 3 half involved players have continued to show up for two years, sounds like you're delivering what they want.
But I've struggled with the same thing. I ran a game for a year where the players seemed to have no goals of their own. And story = goal vs obstacles. So, if they have no goals you have no story. On the other hand, those players may not care about story. "robin's laws of good game mastering" says that a lot of players aren't going to care whether you have a story. Some just want to smash things in a fantasy world. Some just showed up for the pizza.
In the story where my characters had no goals, I finally figured out that one of my players was just into his character concept which was largely about his weapon of choice and so towards the end I did start figuring out I could motivate him by sending him on quests to level up his sword. I also introduced him to a female NPC that his character fell for and I killed her off to use his anger as a motivator, which worked, but I maybe could have stretched that one out like Agent Mulder trying to find his sister if I had of had her kidnapped instead of killed.
I've also figured out that a lot of these players will go with whatever plot you give them. And if they're not willing to have goals themselves, then you have to create NPCS who have goals for them and set up road blocks to that. For example, the tavern keeper's daughter has been kidnapped. Finding the daughter is not necessarily a goal of any of the players, but it sounds like most of your players would just automatically latch on to that goal if you supplied it to them. As a player, I know I'm always going to try and help out NPCs that seem even half way sympathetic and need help. Easy motivation. And those who showed up for pizza are probably going to go for that as well.
So, first of all, some players may just not care whether there's a story or not as long as they get to roll dice, hang out with friends, and add new abilities to their character. But if story/plot/campaign is needed that can't exist without at least SOMEONE having a goal. The story is all the obstacles that they had to overcome to reach that goal. If the players refuse to have goals, then the best you can do is to make the NPCs have goals for them. Many players will either latch on to sympathy for the NPC or have just a willingness to go with the flow. But if they can't have their own goals and they refuse to help NPCS reach their goals, there can't be a story, it's just as simple as that. For those players, just do an old style dungeon crawl.
But for your group, sounds like you've got what you need with one or two players willing to help drive the plot forward and the rest willing to just tag along no matter what. One player willing to help drive the plot forward or give the campaign direction is way better than zero. Although, sometimes it might just be that you haven't found what motivates the others. Some of that might be looking at player types and why they game with something like Robin's Laws or some other category of player psychology. And if you're keeping them happy, and you're happy...we're back to "don't fix what ain't broke".
I think next time I start a campaign online, I'm going to have the players audition if I can find enough people interested and a big part of the audition or interview would be to have them submit an interesting backstory with goals spelled out and just pick the best applicants. I'm also using a system where I can grant them character points for having a backstory and roleplaying or just doing things that help out the story teller. So, the more they get involved, the more reward they get. In fact, I'm considering starting a horror campaign where the characters basically get no character points to make their characters above average except the points provided for things like backstory.
If you are not feeling satisfied with that level of interaction it's time to drop those players and find new ones who do care. Why should 2 out of 5 hold back your gaming?