Campaign Design

[neofax]

One of my current campaigns is about to end and I want to run a campaign of my own design. I have the overarching plot or theme, but do not know where to begin to put thoughts to paper. So, my question is how do you go about building a campaign?

My theme is Red Hand of Doom meets Al'Qadim based in the world of Golarion. I am thinking the adventurers grew up in the same border town in Qadira when Taldoran warriors show up and ransack the place possibly killing some of the players family/friends/lover. It will be a "sandbox" style game where the players can do whatever they want, but the plot keeps ticking in the background. I want the campaign to start at 1st Lvl and go to 12th Lvl.

 

[FreeXenon]

Just start writing your thoughts down and continuously go through them and refine them as you go until you get rid of the crap and the creme rises to the top. You will most likely want a way to keep things organized like MS OneNote, which I love, or Google Docs etc... there is also EverNote, which is free. Campaign planning can be a huge amount of work and keeping it all organized is really important otherwise you will get lost in your own thoughts and ideas.

Good luck!

 

[Gilladian]

You havea LOT already laid out for you. You don't need to design a world, just a play area within a world. I'd say for a sandbox game of the sort you're describing, you need to have a map of your town, a general idea of who runs the town and who the important factions/individuals are, and their goals.

How those goals intermesh with your overall plot/theme is a good place to focus. If the town's Guard Captain is a powerful and influential person, how is he going to respond to the invaders? How will he respond to the PCs as they grow in power and seek revenge?

You kind of need to know where the "adventure sites" are, though not in major detail. If there are cave systems, or dungeons, or lairs, you need to know roughly how dangerous they are and the major inhabitant(s) so you can hint at their presence to the PCs along with proper warnings about the challenge level they might face if they go there.

For example, the town's sewers are overrun with dire rats. Nobody LIKES going down there, but with some basic precaution, it is doable. Whereas everyone knows that the Fellwoods to the west of town are inhabited by giant spiders and some sort of evil sorceress. Nobody who has tried to take the west road in the past two years has made it through...

Imagine leading a group of Taladoran soldiers into those woods!

Concentrate on the things you know the PCs will need early on; a place to stay, things to buy, some simple adventures to get started, but also on the whole tone and flavor of the campaign. In a sandbox, especially, you can really scare them with glimpses of more powerful things!

 

[Rune]

You may find the lessons in this thread to be helpful. They are specifically intended to help in building and running what I call a "streamlined sandbox" with as little prep as possible.

The advice is useful at any stage, but especially so if you're starting a new game up.

 

[ExploderWizard]

You have a setting and a major focus already. The things to detail will be the general starting area, the major power players in that area, and events and schemes taking place in the region. To start:

1) Define the starting region:

Your setting might do a lot of the heavy lifting for you on this. Get a general idea of where the major NPCs are based , adventure sites or dungeons are located, etc. Make custom copies of maps that you draw things specific to your campaign on. Decide generally who or what lives where.

2) Detail Major Players:

Decide who is in charge and of what. Just sketch the most powerful bad guys and good guys, their relationships and general resources and power level compared to each other.

3) Events and schemes:

Come up with a recent history that briefly details how the current state of affairs has come to be then sketch out a rough timeline of how things will come to pass without PC involvement. Give each of your power players some goals and plans to acheive them. You can also sprinkle in some random events like catastrophic storms, eruptions, dragon attacks, etc. that are independent of NPC plans.

This will give you a good foundation to start creating scenarios to get the PCs involved in the area.

 

[halfjack]

I always start with a map, even if it's something the players will never see. It almost doesn't matter what kind of map -- it could be a sector map for Traveller, completely randomly generated and then interpreted. It could be a fantasy geography, which immediately demands that I place and wonder about cities, towns, borders, and terrain. It could be a relationship map, with people and organizations connected by lines of allegiance or conflict. We've experimented with combining these as well, with interesting effects.

Once you have a map, start writing about it. The map should even offer ways to divide and conquer the problem (write about this city first, or that NPC).

 

[Quickleaf]

One of my current campaigns is about to end and I want to run a campaign of my own design. I have the overarching plot or theme, but do not know where to begin to put thoughts to paper. So, my question is how do you go about building a campaign?

With a sandbox campaign I like to use a "quest bubble diagram" clustering quests (and side quests as I or the players think them up) according to region. That becomes my road map for what sorts of resources I'll need on hand if the PCs decide to go to a certain region.

Here's an example of a rather complex "quest bubble diagram":

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y141/quickleaf/psflowchart.png/bmi_orig_img/psflowchart.png

My theme is Red Hand of Doom meets Al'Qadim based in the world of Golarion. I am thinking the adventurers grew up in the same border town in Qadira when Taldoran warriors show up and ransack the place possibly killing some of the players family/friends/lover. It will be a "sandbox" style game where the players can do whatever they want, but the plot keeps ticking in the background. I want the campaign to start at 1st Lvl and go to 12th Lvl.

Have you run the idea by your players yet? That would be my Step #0. Once you know what kinds of characters they'll be playing (and, of course, whether the entire concept appeals to them), then you have more fuel for your sandbox.

I also highly recommend AEG's Ultimate Toolbox in print or PDF; it's an excellent system-neutral resource of tables for everything you could ever need. It's something like Appendix N from the 1e DMG, just made into an entire book. Awesome stuff for sandbox/improvisational play.

 

[neofax]

Have you run the idea by your players yet? That would be my Step #0. Once you know what kinds of characters they'll be playing (and, of course, whether the entire concept appeals to them), then you have more fuel for your sandbox.

I wouldn't play this game with most of my current players. I play strictly online so I would recruit players letting them no up front what the game would be like and then I would interview them to see if they fit my idea of a player that would work in the campaign. 3 of the 5 players I play with are 90% combat 10% role players. For a game like this I think it would work better with a 50/50 mix as the goal is not kill 'em all.
Thanks for the other info. I will check out the bubble quest idea and the Ultimate Toolbox. I like all of the ideas, especially Rune's(although I will have to tweak some of it a little for how I am).

 

[Rune]

I like all of the ideas, especially Rune's(although I will have to tweak some of it a little for how I am).

Cool. Let us know how it all comes together!

 

[neofax]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] that link to photobucket goes no where.