Brainstorming: Campaign "Pitches"

[the8bitdeity]

An idea I've been mulling over is the concept of the "Campaign Pitch". Far too often I invest a lot of energy prepping for a campaign I'm about to run, only to find about .... 3 sessions in the players have NO interest in the actual campaign. Ultimately it leaves me with a lot of wasted work.

To combat said idea, I'm forcing myself to develop what I'm going to call a "campaign pitch". A single page document that when organizing the start of a campaign, the GM (DM in my case) can read off a bunch of pitches and the party can decide which campaign they are most interested in participating in.

In my context it's D&D, so I'll focus my initial thoughts on that, but obviously this is a generic enough concept.

I'm thinking it should have :

1. Title
2. Pitch Paragraph - a single paragraph to read to the PCs to get them interested in the campaign. Should provide some "player but not character" scope knowledge to help PCs properly judge
3. DM Info section - a synopsis of the general campaign
4. Scope - how long the campaign should expect to run (either in levels, sessions, etc..)

Anyone else do something similar? I thought getting a good format nailed down would be a good exercise for me to capture most of the top level ideas I have.

Thoughts?

 

[Gilladian]

I rarely do anything so formal as a written document, but I always run my latest campaign concepts by the two key members of my player pool (my husband and my best friend). Sometimes (if I can get their attention long enough) I ask the whole potential group of players. I usually have at least two choices for them, very often three.

I never pitch "the whole campaign" because I never PLAN the whole campaign. Even if I have a vague idea early who the ultimate villain might be, I don't pitch that, because I almost ALWAYS get bored and shift ideas around before we get there. Or the party does something (like move to a new continent) that upsets the plan...

However, it has allowed me to throw out some ideas that leave my players saying "meh", so it is definitely worthwhile.

 

[Henry]

You know, the "elevator pitch" has a lot of merit -- businesses from Hollywood entertainment companies down to mid-range corporations use it every day.

The RPG version of it would definitely be:

One sentence name of the campaign - "The Fires of Jade's Revenge: An Eberron Tale"

"X crossed with Y" comparison to give players a visual hook to hang it on, or alternately, a single or couple of pictures that gives you the feel of the campaign in a few seconds.
"It's like Mad Max meets The Usual Suspects, but with more death."

One detailed paragraph that explains why your setting is cool, and what THEY would like about it, in very simplified terms. Not "House Medani is gearing up for a trade dispute with House Tharashk over mining rights in the Breland-Droaam hinterlands," but instead "It's got intrigue with Dragonmarked houses, swordfights on lightning rail cars, and maybe even being chansed for your lives by dino-riding halflings in the Talenta Plains, if you say the wrong thing at the right time."

 

[Greatwyrm]

I use a google group to manage handouts and info for my players. On there, I have a page called "Games I want to run someday." Basically, its elevator pitches of ideas I've had. If one generates enough interest, its next. If nobody reads it, I'll tell people those are the ideas I have in mind, so if they don't want to DM, they need to pick one or give me something they want more.

 

[weem]

Yea, I didn't do a write-up but I pitched my next campaign idea to my group after one of our sessions (we are getting close to finishing the current one). I got some good feedback, but really everyone was excited for it.

It's definitely a good idea to do (pitch the idea, whether written up or not).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Its a solid idea.

I have used email to gauge interest in a potential campaign, and when I design one on my PDA, I always make a "Teaser" file that just has a synopsis (that I can either write up later or bluetooth to someone else's electronics.

(Not that it stops me from continuing to develop unpopular ideas. After all, you never know whether tastes will change or you'll wind up with another group.)

Taking it a step further, you can also send out campaign-appropriate documents (distributed physically or electronically) that have adventure teasers so you don't design adventures people are predisposed to dislike. In a FRPG, it could be proclamations posted in the town square.

In a supers campaign set in 1900, I used Page Maker to make an "internal agency memo" detailing the group's previous adventures (and some off-screen developments related to them) and several "News of the World" type "articles" that let the players know what was going on. Buy evaluating the buzz a particular article generated, I could plan out which story seeds to flesh out into adventures.

That generated so much table talk and so forth, the players were inadvertently feeding me ideas with their speculation. I didn't have a second of writer's block for the 3 years I ran that campaign. They thought they were reading my mind...in reality I was reading theirs.

 

[the8bitdeity]

You know, the "elevator pitch" has a lot of merit -- businesses from Hollywood entertainment companies down to mid-range corporations use it every day.

The RPG version of it would definitely be:

One sentence name of the campaign - "The Fires of Jade's Revenge: An Eberron Tale"

"X crossed with Y" comparison to give players a visual hook to hang it on, or alternately, a single or couple of pictures that gives you the feel of the campaign in a few seconds.
"It's like Mad Max meets The Usual Suspects, but with more death."

One detailed paragraph that explains why your setting is cool, and what THEY would like about it, in very simplified terms. Not "House Medani is gearing up for a trade dispute with House Tharashk over mining rights in the Breland-Droaam hinterlands," but instead "It's got intrigue with Dragonmarked houses, swordfights on lightning rail cars, and maybe even being chansed for your lives by dino-riding halflings in the Talenta Plains, if you say the wrong thing at the right time."

This is exactly what I'm referring to in terms of a campaign pitch. I'm in a transitionary state currently with no game to run, so I'm thinking of just blasting out a bunch of pitches. Most creative types tell me it's not that they make the diamond in one shot, it's that through sheer replication of the process they eventually find the diamonds.

 

[Rechan]

I've done this for the last campaign and the one I"m about to run.

I usually cut it down to half a page. 3 paragraphs MAX. If you haven't gotten the players by the first paragraph, they're not really going to read the rest.

Mine boil down to this:

1: Title
2: Synopsis paragraph(s). Typically "Here's the setting, mood, and the general direction of the game".
3: Keywords that describe elements of the the campaign: (epic fantasy, horror, nation building, survival, intrigue).
4: Any warnings. As an example, I noted that Wraith Recon was not typical fantasy - it effectively took the fantastic and the epic out, and treated it like modern reality with crossbows and spells.

However, what I do differently than you: I present 3-4 campaigns I'd like to run, and let the players vote on which they like the most. This way, if the players reject your one pitch, you don't need to go back to the drawing board. The downside is that if there's one idea you really like, they may not choose that one.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'll add to the chorus that it's a great idea to gauge if a campaign will interest your group before putting work into it. I like Henry's sensationalist pitch - for most players that's all they need to know. I would add that you explicitly state the style of play your campaign is encouraging, for example...

[sblock=campaign teaser]Wise King Arath is on his deathbed, having served the people of Galeay and kept the kingdom safe for forty years. Only a century ago the Middle Kingdoms were wracked by civil war against the Aquiline Empire, and King Arath’s grandfather made the critical decision to join the resistance, leading to the downfall of the empire. King Arath rebuilt Galeay, often delaying his council to lend a hand to laborers or to visit local children. Now as the king’s reign draws to a close, his eldest son Prince Eydanus, a sleazy selfish sycophant, is poised to inherit the throne and many fear he will ruin his father’s legacy.

You all have your own reasons for not trusting the Prince and wanting to ensure he doesn’t become king. However, you are also bound by common destiny to protect an illegitimate and secret heir to the throne, one who the Prince would very much like to control and keep quiet.

Most of the adventures will take place in Galeay, a large kingdom of pine forests and faerie tales, which lies at the crossroads of trade, and you will be near cities, towns, or villages. Dungeons will be rare and most of the ones you encounter will be small, a couple of encounters at most; this means that you’ll have the opportunity to be horseback more than normal and the city guard often have a significant role to play (whether helping or fighting against you). There will be lots of investigation and solving mysteries, so social and investigative skills will be useful. Combat scenes will be intense and will usually have another goal besides killing the bad guy, like stopping a ritual or protecting somebody. Many of your opponents will be human. Monsters, when you do encounter them, will be very nasty.
[/sblock]

 

[Barastrondo]

Yep, I'm mucking with pitches as we speak. I'm going to be moving soon, and when I do, I've promised to run D&D for my friends down in Atlanta. So I came up with 30 one-line pitches, each one no longer than an elevator pitch line, and distributed them to the prospective group. If they want to narrow them down further, I'll go to the paragraph-length pitches for three or four, and then let them decide from that.

Or I'll just roll a d30. Gotta get some use out of that thing.