When the story doesn't come...

[MerricB]

I like my campaigns to be about something. Well, perhaps more correctly, I like them to have shape. The campaigns I've enjoyed running the most have had strong villains, the PCs (mostly) aware of their place in the world, and one event following another to form a greater tapestry that, at the end of the campaign, is a great story.

I'd like to emphasize that I'm not talking about railroading. Many of the best events of these campaigns have been entirely player-driven. When a player mistakes a slaver for a slave and "rescues" her... only to be betrayed by her a year of real time later - you can't plan that. All you can do is take advantage of the opportunities your players give you.

The trouble starts - and is well underway in my current homebrew - when the opportunities aren't coming.

It's a combination of hopping plotlines (I'm confused as to which one we're on at the moment - oh wait, it's the African Tigers one) - some weak PC personalities, and general DM fatigue.

The annoying thing is that there are actually some really strong elements to the campaign. One of the PCs has a great history which ties back to earlier campaigns and provides a lot of good character-building roleplay. Another PC turned evil and is now an NPC that I'm using to drive a few story elements. A good nemesis is hard to come by, and Archibald is doing the job superbly.

So, I'm not quite ready to give up on the campaign yet, but I really need to sit down and look at where it's going.

Things like...

...what are the goals of the PCs?
...what are the goals of the villains?
...heck, who are the villains?
...and can we have some connected adventures rather than "adventure of the week"? (Hopefully, yes, if I can get a few hours to sit down and write them!)

Argh! The campaign began quite strongly, exploring Castle Zagyg. Then the rights to CZ went walkabout and I've been improvising a lot since then. Still, I've been running campaigns in this world for over a decade. I should be able to get some inspiration from past games!

Cheers!

 

[kitsune9]

I like my campaigns to be about something. Well, perhaps more correctly, I like them to have shape. The campaigns I've enjoyed running the most have had strong villains, the PCs (mostly) aware of their place in the world, and one event following another to form a greater tapestry that, at the end of the campaign, is a great story.

I'd like to emphasize that I'm not talking about railroading. Many of the best events of these campaigns have been entirely player-driven. When a player mistakes a slaver for a slave and "rescues" her... only to be betrayed by her a year of real time later - you can't plan that. All you can do is take advantage of the opportunities your players give you.

The trouble starts - and is well underway in my current homebrew - when the opportunities aren't coming.

It's a combination of hopping plotlines (I'm confused as to which one we're on at the moment - oh wait, it's the African Tigers one) - some weak PC personalities, and general DM fatigue.

The annoying thing is that there are actually some really strong elements to the campaign. One of the PCs has a great history which ties back to earlier campaigns and provides a lot of good character-building roleplay. Another PC turned evil and is now an NPC that I'm using to drive a few story elements. A good nemesis is hard to come by, and Archibald is doing the job superbly.

So, I'm not quite ready to give up on the campaign yet, but I really need to sit down and look at where it's going.

Things like...

...what are the goals of the PCs?
...what are the goals of the villains?
...heck, who are the villains?
...and can we have some connected adventures rather than "adventure of the week"? (Hopefully, yes, if I can get a few hours to sit down and write them!)

Argh! The campaign began quite strongly, exploring Castle Zagyg. Then the rights to CZ went walkabout and I've been improvising a lot since then. Still, I've been running campaigns in this world for over a decade. I should be able to get some inspiration from past games!

Cheers!

Well, you've identified some questions that I would think give your campaign shape if they are answered.

In my campaign, I kind of take your approach. I outline one major story arc with two side arcs. This gives me my villains, their goals, and the relevant goals of the PC's. I plot out each adventure, the level of the PC's, and make any special notes that the PC's will encounter such as "reveal hidden bad guy here", etc.

As for railroading, the main arc is a background in which the PC's can jump into or not, but it will eventually hit home from time to time and at higher levels will be the focus of the campaign. However, the PC's have the choice to either do nothing, do something, or it will come to them at a later point. There are two side arcs going on that has their attention for the moment.

 

[Piratecat]

Let's brainstorm, Merric.

I think what's stopping you is that you're looking for inspiration in the antecedent details of what's happening. Let's think about what causes those details and work down the chain.

Someone, whether Merric or someone else, give me three hooks: a thing, an emotion and a goal.

 

[Mark]

Someone, whether Merric or someone else, give me three hooks: a thing, an emotion and a goal.

A sword, loyalty and protecting a legitimate heir.

 

[Piratecat]

A sword, loyalty and protecting a legitimate heir.

Curse you, Mark! Generic becomes less easy. But no worries, let's find a premise and then turn it on its ear.

A ruler - not a very important ruler, honestly, a minor duke with some family estates and a lot of debts - finds out on his mother's deathbed that he was actually sired by the King's father, the late king, before the King himself was fathered. "Perfect!" thinks the Duke who's in debt. "Surely being a royal bastard is still enough to get some of my debts excused." He applies to the King's adviser, and the reverse happens: his debts are called in, he is forced to remit his estates to the crown, and he barely avoids being captured and jailed.

So what does he do next?

In one option, he becomes the bad guy. He finds people who will help him take revenge on the King and take his place. In effect, he starts a civil war that is backed by some extremely unsavory allies (cults? Fiends? A foreign power?) who have their own agenda. They need him to possess a particular sword in order to get him to replace the king (maybe it belongs to the king's bodyguard, or it can cut through the king's magical defenses, or the sword itself is the key to an ancient passage into the castle.) The PCs run into the Duke and his allies as an enemy, and the civil war becomes the backdrop for the campaign.

Or maybe the King's advisor and spymaster is the real villain. He dedicates himself to ruining the fairly innocent Duke, and after the PCs try to help he puts them on the "to be destroyed" list as well. The rightful king is ignorant of this treachery. A sword somehow holds the key to revealing the advisor's perfidy to the king's court, and it's a race to get it and reveal him before inappropriately sent royal assassins can get it first.

In either campaign, loyalty would be the theme: who do you choose to be loyal to, and what would make you break those vows?

Okay, three more. Anyone can play!

 

[Kunimatyu]

Here you go, PC:

Thing: crab/crustacean
Emotion: covetousness
Goal: concealment

 

[fba827]

MerricB - I *completely* understand what you're trying to go for, that's how i like my campaigns too. And sometimes I have the same delimma

But, yeah, the questions you listed are part of the key.

To start connecting some of your "plot of the week" stories, see if there has been some sort of theme (was it always a bad guy trying to get an item? was it always started in some religious order? etc). maybe there is someone that hired these guys in the first place do to that task. so what is that head honcho going to do since it has been failing at the hands of the pcs each time? maybe elsewhere in the world he has succeeded at similar tasks. but then what is he trying to get these items for, what is he trying to do? and so on...

anyway, i don't have anything specific to add since that would require knowing more about the setting and some of the recurring plot lines...

but just a little "I know what you mean" post from me

 

[Piratecat]

Thing: crab/crustacean
Emotion: covetousness
Goal: concealment

It started when the humans began raiding the great southern pearl beds of Nifar. The kuo-toa princeling Slirr'ak was selected to destroy the human pearl divers when next they returned. He did, and he (along with his honor guard of monitors and whips) slew the human adventurers who followed in their wake several days later.

These "adventurers" turned out to be wealthy beyond Slirr'ak's wildest dreams.

He took the magic items, the gold and the gems and parlayed them into even more power. This required a plan, because this sort of wealth could be used to tempt even more power from wondrous Blibdoolpoolp (May she forever burble in the salty darkness!) herself. Over several months Slirr'ak mapped out every settlement along the ocean's shallows. He then initiated his plan. In every medium to large city it is the same: use local fishermen to release a highly contagious disease that is carried by Blibdoolpoolp's heralds (crabs and lobsters) and which infects humans but not kuo-toa. Wait until people start to sicken, panic and die. Infiltrate the city using illusion magic to hide his kuo-toa strike force. Attack the sources of wealth in each city, including any adventurers, and then smuggle the goods back into the ocean. And in every case, as a tribute to Blibdoolpoolp, build an idol to the Goddess in the depths outside of each city's harbor.

Slirr'ak no longer goes on these raids himself, and he has dedicated himself to weaving a dark ritual that will somehow use those statues to cement Blibdoolpoolp's influence up and down the coast.

The PCs may enter into this plot at any point, but the most effective way is to have them start to be influenced by the political and social upheaval that these city plunderings are causing. Other adventurers are dying along the coast, either to disease or to violence, and multiple countries are ready to wage war in order to claim rich cities that their neighboring countries seem unable to defend.

-- o --

You're probably seeing the pattern: if you're stuck, break up the status quo. Throw the world into disarray, and build adventures from the scattered pieces. My corollary to this? If you really, really love part of your campaign world (or if part of your world is boring), destroy it and make the heroes deal with the event or the aftermath. You won't run out of plot hooks for years.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

You're probably seeing the pattern: if you're stuck, break up the status quo. Throw the world into disarray, and build adventures from the scattered pieces. My corollary to this? If you really, really love part of your campaign world (or if part of your world is boring), destroy it and make the heroes deal with the event or the aftermath. You won't run out of plot hooks for years.

You never cease to amaze me, sir. You make plotting campaigns look easy! Can you articulate how you go from a thing, emotion, and goal at one end to "break up the status quo" at the other? Or does it just come to you, given those seeds? (In an effort to more precisely articulate my question: I see the three axioms you're given and the theorem you want to prove, but what are the rules of inference? Or is the process not one that can be expressed logically?)

 

[Piratecat]

The whole "thing, emotion and goal" is a little bit of a red herring. I design MUCH better when I have a basis to work off of. It means that I don't suffer from analysis paralysis, and can focus on twisting the plot elements into something fun. I picked "thing, emotion and goal" above because it's enough detail to plant some plot seeds without actually constraining you.

When you do this, especially to jump-start a campaign, think macro instead of micro; think big. Don't even consider the PCs at first. You want an event that is going to cause ripples, and then those ripples cause ripples, and that's what the PCs are going to deal with at first. In this case, it's the economic, political and military chaos caused by the string of plague-ridden cities up the coast. That would cause a ton of ripples and adventures which on the surface have nothing to do with the root cause of the problem.

Extrapolate. Ask yourself: if my bad guy does this, what is the natural result? Then plot out the result of the bad guy's actions, and let that be your hook. Ask yourself what the bad guy's rivals are doing about this as well. Do they want to stop him or help him, and will they intersect with the PCs? Using a temporarily allied bad guy as an adventure hook works really well.

When given a choice, select a plot that lets your PCs be famous and successful heroes who have made a real difference in their world. Then let people recognize this if they do a good job, or blame them if they don't. Let the heroes' anonymity be an enemy to be defeated.

When you're plotting think stylish and think cinematic - I love the idea of statues of Blibdoolpoolp linking together human harbors, or a squad of disguised kuo-toa slinking through plague-ridden streets. Think of a scene or an image that would make great cover art for your module, then work backwards when plotting to figure out how to get there. Use nifty old-school references that make you happy anywhere you have the opportunity. That's why I chose kuo-toa (and their lobster-headed goddess) instead of something dorky like the old 1e crabmen when I was given crustacean as a plot element.

That's actually a good example of the rule "never make your bad guys boring." The prime movers should have names, unique physical characteristics, and memorable personalities. For instance, don't have a goblin shaman if you can have an insane goblin shaman who argues with invisible ghosts.

And remember, not every one of these is going to be a gem; the sword/loyalty/heir piece up there certainly isn't. Don't be afraid to scrap your ideas and try from a different tack.

So, long story short:

1. Get a handful of plot elements. These are your puzzle pieces.
2. Shift them around to get the biggest, most audacious scheme you can think of for a bad guy.
3. Think about how this scheme affects the world around it.
4. Think about how which of those ripples will first impact the PCs.
5. Add cool, memorable NPCs as your prime movers.
6. Elaborate. Build off of what you have, adding complexity and twists.