Building a campaign

[TerraDave]

I am going to partially contradict some of the previous advice.

You can plan long term for a campaign. And it can work well. But the execution can be a challenge.

Figure out your big end point and some ideas on how to get to it. Then decide on how to start, and have there be some links. Note that this does not have to be at level 1. In my current campaign, the theme really started to develop at level 7 and has carried through to about level 20. But I was able to do things to link back to earlier events.

Now, how do you get from that start to that end?

• Be ready for a marathon. Even with weekly play, intense weekly play, this will be at least 18 months.
• Take real world disruptions in stride. The players you have at the end may not all be the same as at the beginning.
• Understand that you have to keep the ball rolling. This is not only about in campaign stuff, but is also getting people to show up and play and keep going.
• DM enthusiasm is key here. If the players are cool, thats a problem, if you the DM start to loose interest, the campaign is basically dead.
• But the players need to play along. Keep it interesting and try to accommodate what they want to do.
• Specifically incorporate things for the players that keep them in your broad story.
• Have "sub-plots" under the wider plot, including some that can be more player driven. Here are adventures and stories that are a component of the bigger whole, or can be tangential.
• Hence, be ready for transitions. Hook your players to keep moving forward.
• And be creative to get things back on track, not heavy handed. Remember, you control a lot of things.
• Foreshadow as best you can, but be careful with TMI. Have enough backstory to keep things moving along, but know that players don't tend to remember tons of (relevant) details.
• To help players pick up thematic links they may have missed, have encounters with helpful NPCs where the PCs have to recount what is going on and the NPCs can also help point out story points.

The secret is that, with a determined DM, having a broad overarching plot helps keep the game going. The players realize they are part of something bigger, and even when they grumble in character, they keep coming back for more, in part because they want to see whats going to happen next.

Most player "types" want to see their character have an impact, but they often play for other reasons: tactical and puzzle challenges, char-op, to hang out, exploration, developing a particular character concept. You can accommodate all these but still have a long term goal in mind.

 

[grodog]

I am trying to put together a campaign for a group of friends. I know I want it to end in a epic level 30 fight with some true nasties, but I don't know how to get a story-based campaign from 1st level to this point.
When you are designing your campaigns, how do you start and how do you "fill in the gaps" in your story?

One recent and one older thread with some additional good advice to ponder:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ign-support-group-thread&p=6201142&viewfull=1
and
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?294604-Some-Thoughts-on-Campaign-Design/

 

[mips42]

Ah...

Well, I'd be fooling myself and you if I said "that's exactly what I wanted to know" but it's good to know all the same.
I'd still like to flesh out this idea as I think it could be cool but I guess I'm not feeling creative enough to figure it out.
Thanks for all the guidance.

 

[tuxgeo]

Another really good DM whose ideas you might want to read is the estimable Chris Perkins of Wizard of the Coast. He wrote over a hundred articles titled "The Dungeon Master Experience," and included his commentary about his own campaign that he ran for 4th Edition. It went all the way to 30th level, so if you want to read that, it might help. He goes into details about how to set up a campaign that can last that long.

 

[doghead]

Well, I'd be fooling myself and you if I said "that's exactly what I wanted to know" but it's good to know all the same.
I'd still like to flesh out this idea as I think it could be cool but I guess I'm not feeling creative enough to figure it out.
Thanks for all the guidance.

Most of the responses go to the question as far as I can see. Perhaps the question was not what you wanted.

If you are looking for assistance with building a specific campaign (as opposed to assistance with how to go about do so), you need to provide more specific information. Generally, the most productive approach is to start by presenting an idea and asking for feedback and suggestions.

If the task is seeming a little overwhelming (and it is a fairly big task), an alternative would be to look at some of the published Adventure Paths. They are designed to take characters from 1-20th level (1-30 for 4th Ed i think) and there are quite a lot of them available for a range of settings and genres.

thotd

 

[mips42]

Most of the responses go to the question as far as I can see. Perhaps the question was not what you wanted.

If you are looking for assistance with building a specific campaign (as opposed to assistance with how to go about do so), you need to provide more specific information. Generally, the most productive approach is to start by presenting an idea and asking for feedback and suggestions.

If the task is seeming a little overwhelming (and it is a fairly big task), an alternative would be to look at some of the published Adventure Paths. They are designed to take characters from 1-20th level (1-30 for 4th Ed i think) and there are quite a lot of them available for a range of settings and genres.

thotd

This is actually quite likely. I am notorious for asking the wrong question and then being sad when I don't get the type of answer I was hoping for.
I am wanting to design a campaign and I have an idea of he ending but no idea as to the beginning or how to get from that beginning to the ending I would like, although I do have a few ideas of things I thing SHOULD happen. I don't know if that makes sense.
Basically the idea is that a powerful Djinn was imprisoned in a four dimensional space represented on the world by an enormous five stone arcane lock. The PC's stumble upon one of the stones during a completely unrelated adventure. Any inquiries to what this stone is or is for lead them to cult leader who wants to free the Djinn but tells the PC's that they want to ensure the Djinn stays locked up and convinces them that they need to reinforce the lock now that it's been found. However, everything that the Leader tells them is actually ot release the lock.
Eventually, hopefully around level 25 or so, the PC's release the Djinn and then must battle it to put it back in its' cage again.
I think the lock would be a highly complex arcane lock with one stone for each of the elements Earth, Air, Fire and Water and the final stone would be the time-lock (not sure how to deal with this at this point).
I'm thinking that each stone would need a artifact from it's home plane to unlock it (encouraging plane travel).
As previously stated. I have no idea where to start this or how to build it out into a decent campaign.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Well it sounds like you've actually got a decent outline in your head. So there are a couple of questions I guess you need to ask yourself. What are the PCs doing when they come across the first stone? Why do they trust the cult leader to begin helping him? Do you have any back up plans if the party just decides that the cult leader is up to no good and attempts to hack him into little bits?

The first one is easiest to deal with. Perhaps the PCs are off investigating local goblin trouble and come across the stone while seeking shelter from a storm. The fire is warm, the cult leader is nice enough and maybe (s)he even helps them fight off a goblin raid. Pleasantries are exchanged the next morning and the cultist offers them employment in helping him with a research project. "Just come see me after you're done with the goblin mess." If the PCs bite and they start visiting all the different locks, I would allow the PCs to choose which lock they visit in order. To not make it completely obvious that their new leader is evil, try and play up that they're against a hard time limit before something bad happens. Even have him lament that no one at the Arcane University / Church Temple believes him and he needs to do this to save the world and vindicate himself.

Will the weakening of each lock provide a clue as to what's really going on? If they tamper with the Earth lock, are there quakes? Powerful storms from Air or Water? Some players may realize what's going on pretty quickly. Others can be thicker than mud. Or purposefully turning a blind eye to it. But a little foreshadowing never hurt.

Does that help? The more details you can pass along the better.

 

[mips42]

"What are the PCs doing when they come across the first stone?"

No idea, not critical. Could be a simple delve or just about anything.

"Why do they trust the cult leader to begin helping him?"
Plan was that the Cult leader is 'hiding in plain sight' as a respected historian and arcane specialist so that he is trusted by basically everyone.
​

"Do you have any back up plans if the party just decides that the cult leader is up to no good and attempts to hack him into little bits?"

Not at this point. As, at this point, he is the only source of info on this thing, my hope is that curiosity of the artifact will overrule suspicion of the historian.

"The first one is easiest to deal with. Perhaps the PCs are off investigating local goblin trouble and come across the stone while seeking shelter from a storm. The fire is warm, the cult leader is nice enough and maybe (s)he even helps them fight off a goblin raid. Pleasantries are exchanged the next morning and the cultist offers them employment in helping him with a research project. "Just come see me after you're done with the goblin mess." If the PCs bite and they start visiting all the different locks, I would allow the PCs to choose which lock they visit in order. To not make it completely obvious that their new leader is evil, try and play up that they're against a hard time limit before something bad happens. Even have him lament that no one at the Arcane University / Church Temple believes him and he needs to do this to save the world and vindicate himself."
Almost word-for-word what I had thought.

"Will the weakening of each lock provide a clue as to what's really going on?"
​

As each elemental artifact is joined with it's stone, the stone will glow reassuringly.

 

[steenan]

Fair warning:
Never assume that PCs will cooperate with the NPC, or that they will trust the NPC, or that they will fight the NPC, or even that they will be interested in any kind of interactions with the NPC. Whoever the NPC is.

Players are likely to surprise you. If you build a whole, long campaign on assumptions that are proved false, you'll either railroad your players or waste a lot of preparation. Very bad result either way.

Don't try to build a storyline; don't put any player actions in your plans. Build a situation with many engaging parts and later, during the campaign, expand it adding things your players are interested in.

 

[TerraDave]

...
I am wanting to design a campaign and I have an idea of he ending but no idea as to the beginning or how to get from that beginning to the ending I would like.

Yep, you have gotten a lot of advice in that regards. People who have run long games know that the overall "plot" is just a smallish part of doing that successfully, and have focused on more important things.

Your right in that what you have is not really a campaign. In fact what you describe could be resolved in a few sessions. Maybe more. But its not 25 levels. Though, with enough elaboration and side-plots, chasing after the stones and so forth could become that.

Try starting with your story. Why the lock, the prison, the cult? Then think how much you really need to develop this.

Then, decide if you need these themes to run all the way through? Is that important? Should, from level 1, the players know about this genie, or something related to it? Just remember, as noted above, players can't remember crap in terms of details.

Also, come up with other adventurer ideas that are interesting whether or not they are part of this. One thing I like to do is take published and seemingly unrelated adventures, and then think of ways to go from one to the other. But you do have to come up with other stuff, in any case.

Finally, as noted above, you can have some big gaps at first, thats ok. The key is really starting and keeping your players on board.