Where have your favorite campaign ideas come from?

[Imaculata]

Sources of inspiration

I have three main sources of inspiration: I have a muse who came up with the world in which the current campaign takes place, and I incorporate her ideas into the main narrative. We often have very lengthy discussions about this fictional world, and what future political developments are likely, while also expanding the lore together.

Another source of inspiration is my travels. A lot of my current campaign revolves around traveling, and just the awe of seeing amazing locations. I try to inject that same feeling of awe and wonder in my descriptions of what the players see, so that it feels like a real place. It helps when I've actually been to the sort of exotic locations that my players visit in the campaign.

And lastly, I study the subject matter that my campaign covers A LOT. I make sure to inject some historical accuracy in my portrayal of the world. For my current pirate campaign I not only studied real life pirates and pirate weaponry, but also tropical food and drinks. I make sure that when I describe a type of fruit to my players that they've never heard of before, that it is accurate in the way it looks, the way it is eaten, the way it tastes, and the type of tree it grows on. And to some this may seem like a ridiculous attention to detail, but I prepare all of that in advance, and it really helps add that extra bit of realism to the campaign.

Developing new campaign ideas

A new idea for a campaign, usually starts with a location that the players are traveling to. I want my world to be fantastic and awe inspiring, so I spend a lot of time thinking of how to make a new location interesting. It should invoke this feeling as if walking through Disneyland. At every step there should be something to amaze the players, and defy their expectations.

For an upcoming session, I had to think about the island of the Oarsmen dwarves, who are a faction of pirate-dwarves that specialize in underwater salvaging and exploration. I had to think about what their island (Stoneoar) looked like, and what made it special. I came up with a unique exterior and interior look for the island, that ties in directly to earlier plot lines that I introduced in the campaign. From there it was easy to come up with more sub-plots and supporting characters. The location is the framework for everything else. For example, I came up with an underwater transit system, similar to the cable carts in the game Riven, that connects between the island and various underwater locations.

 

[Bitbrain]

Ray Harryhausen films. John Carter of Mars book series.
Almost literally every single fantasy/science fantasy film and book I've ever watched and read.

 

[Caliburn101]

I once ran a game that was a mixture of Mad Max, Waterworld, Dune and Clash of the Titans.

The Diluvi were the Waterworld catamaran-riding race
The Badlanders were the Freman (from Dune) - living in Badlands with giant scorpion hives
The Inheritors were the survivor human race of the flood-cataclysm - in their last bronze age city

There were Githyank and Githzerai trapped in the world due to a collapse in the Astral Plane locally; Demon-possessed Gnoll Tribes (who had been a peaceful Plains Indian style race before the cataclysm) and Winter Elves living on the northern polar reaches (like Drow, but neutral and cold-aspected).

One cool area was the Shoaling Sea - the very shallow mid-world ocean that had once been a continent - and where if you sailed over a once-city, the dead of it (as zombies) would rise up in their hundreds to grab your catamaran and pull you off it - such areas were know as 'Dark Water'.

Thee was a lot more to it - including Demon Lords trapped in deteriorating containment circles throughout the world (the Ancient race known as the Progenitors had trapped them) and Dragons only existing as Ghosts - teaching magic to the worthy.

The Gods were gone (it was a BAD cataclysm...) - with one of them remaining, dead, within the world and an Order of Paladins (the most powerful wielders of Divine Magic in the world) only able to use their magics by keeping parts of the body in Reliquaries on their person, and keeping their one sanctified Temple guarded and hallowed.

Druids were all of the Vermin or Plant variety - and nasty - hating what civilisation did to the world and rarely helping it without ulterior motive.

Again, there was a lot more. My players and I have fond memories of playing in it.

It was a cool gameworld, and one I intend to dig out my notes for and run again one day.

EDIT: Oooh - I forgot The Fennish - a race living in the Great Morass, using necromancy to animate the bodies of their honoured dead (preserved in smokehouses) to protect themselves from snakeman vampires that came out of flooded monolithic ruins to prey on their settlements. Zombies actually make good defenders against vampires as they cannot be fed upon, never sleep and cannot be charmed. I also developed a vampire slayer prestige class for them.

Fun days...

 

[Nevvur]

To echo some others, my favorite campaign ideas emerge from players and their character ideas. I strongly prefer character driven plots, and until session 0 has concluded, I won't do more campaign design than daydream some very vague ideas, and even those are likely to get thrown out unless they're particularly suitable for the PCs.

 

[mrpopstar]

I have a lot of interest in telling stories that are low magic, human-centric, and heavy on exploration. My ideas come from dungeon crafting. I set time aside to doodle on graph paper, imagine creatures, and find flow. Once I'm inspired, I consider the players and their characters' bonds. — The story usually writes itself from there.

 

[Satyrn]

The Borderlands video games are especially influencing my current megadungeon campaign, which was initially seeded by another DM being inspired by a D&D-inspired anime series.

 

[Laurefindel]

Some movies, video games (usually pre-release trailers and cutscenes), and random images found in books, comics, graphic novels and the broad internet. I guess I'm a visual guy...
[edit] oh, and boardgames. For some reasons, I find boardgames, miniature wargames and trading card games very inspiring for RPG.

These will inspire an ambiance or a theme that can be developed upon.

Then I usually start with a villain (or villainous organization) and think of some kind of epic endgame. Then I work downward from there. At this stage it is pretty rough.

The next step depends on the players (and their preferred style of play) and their character concepts, in order to built a good introduction. I usually end-up starting with a pretty solid introduction (played in 3-4 sessions), a clear ending objective, and a murky in-between that I develop as the story moves along.

 

[mrpopstar]

Also, carving out time to lose myself in a good library does wonders for my creative spark!

 

[Sacrosanct]

In no particular order:

Media (movies and TV. Even cartoons. I did a great adventure where the adventure took place in a nightmare world where they had to rescue an NPC who was in a permanent slumber and was being tortured in her dreams, and the PCs had to go into dreams themselves, find out who it was, and then come back into the real world and stop them. Based on a SMURFS episode )
Books
Myth and folklore
Real life exotic cultures
Historical conflicts/exploration
My own ideas
Player suggestions

 

[jgsugden]

My campaigns tend to be stews collected and melded from several sources over a long period. When I start running campaign A, I start thinking about Campaign B. It usually takes about 2 or 3 years to run a full campaign and I'm gathering ideas and fleshing out the next campaign as I run the current one. I steal ideas from Books, TV, Movies, my imagination, and anything else that crosses my path and I figure out how they play into the storylines, scenarios, locations and personalities. By the time I unleash the game, I'm eager to put the NPCs, storylines and locations I've been toying with for years into play. In truth, there are often multiple campaign percolating at any given time - and I never forget campaigns I ran in the past that I might reboot for a different group of players.