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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DaLich" data-source="post: 7959399" data-attributes="member: 7021833">I’m going to sales pitch here. Check out my channel at YouTube.com/allthingslichI’ve gone over campaigns, worldbuilding, adventure design, and planning quite a bit. Spend some time browsing and I’m confident you’ll find something useful.Now for practical - do this, step by step sort of stuff:1. Find players. Don’t commit or promise anything (a setting,etc.) other than, “I‘ll DM. Do you guys want to play?”Finding players put you on track to answer the single most important question - “what sort of world/style/game do your players want to play in?” Dark and gritty? Heavy skirmish level combat? War-sized combat, demon invasions, WoW cinematic stuff? Intrigue, heavy Ravnica guild politics stuff?If you can’t embrace the idea that the game should be about your players, you shouldn’t be the DM. If you want your world, your way, write a book - that way no one can come in and muck up your places or characters.2. Make the game about the players. See #13. Plan 1 session at a time. Let’s say you play for 6hrs. Focus on what will get you through 6hrs of play. A good fight might soak up 1hr. Ok, what’s next? A mystery and investigative/skill stuff might soak up 20 mins. PC introductions and a quick blurb on the current state of the place takes up what? 30 mins? Regardless of what you fill it with, by thinking in blocks to fill up the session, you’re on the right track.4. The great Elmore Leonard said something along the lines of, “don’t write the stuff that people skip.” So don’t plan the stuff that PCs skip. Starting out, it is important to detail the food they are eating, the cost of shield repair, the type of wood the inn is built of and the rumor of the dark thing in the woods that’s stealing cattle. It is not at all important to detail the events that led to the assassination of King Gorlan Griffonbane. Nor do you need the 3,000 years of history that speak of the gods influence on the volcano that is way up in the north.Are your PCs in the north? Then who cares about the volcano? Is your PC cleric having a hard time with domains and faith and determining a spell casting focus? If not, who cares about your 19 pages of pantheon. Is your group sent to investigate the kings assassination? If not, who cares about your king and flowchart of his lineage and the 19 pages of civil war that have resulted from the fractured kingdom and throne.I’ve rambled enough. I know you like to plan, and this well and good, but plan what will happen during the session, not what might happen 4 sessions down the road. By sticking with tonight’s session, you allow the PCs actions and the worlds reaction to those actions to create your next session.Worldbuilding and Campaign building are the same. As is anything else in life. 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day at a time. There is no such thing as planning a great campaign. You RUN great sessions. Stack them one on top of the other for 2 years, and you have a great campaign.</blockquote>

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