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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bodhiwolff" data-source="post: 4755582" data-attributes="member: 71196">My advice ... a)  don't buy a single campaign product, megadungeon, or anything of the sort.  You wind up investing in a single throughline, which might not play out.  More to the point, it locks you in too early in the process.  Nothing hurts worse than designing a campaign about slave-rescues and finding out that the players are completely disinterested in that topic. b)  your campaign has to grow as a natural extension of your initial ideas and your player's reaction to these ideas.  Furthermore, you want to include the player's interests, and the PC's backstories.  The campaign doesn't develop all at once, but rather as a series of responses to the player's responses.  You can try to guide it a little, but it is better if they wind up guiding it as well. c)  towards that end, pick a simple initial hook -- a stylistic/adventure style -- and write up a simple adventure that hints that this is the driving force behind it.  Have the players run through it, and see how they respond.  If they're 'into' it, then you run them through another adventure which reveals more of that style, introduces a minor villain, etc.  Take their responses and build the next part.  Eventually you introduce your major theme, and you're off. Example:  I picked up "Open Grave", and was intrigued with some of the concepts.  I read in the FR guide about Wheloon (prison-city, walled off from the world) and was intrigued.  I also was intrigued with the shadow realm, and the country that had replaced the Anarauch, etc. I wanted to see if I could make anything with necromancy, the prison-city, and the shadow realm. So I ran a little adventure where the 1st level PCs ran into some Shadar Kai while dungeon-busting.  These Shadar Kai were obviously in league with somebody, looking for artifacts of necromantic power.   The PCs dug it.  So I invested in designing a second adventure. I re-vamped "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" and played up the necromantic angle on it, and made the Shadar-Kai villain at the end talk about some menacing, mysterious overall plot.  One of his henchmen had a zombie arm-graft ... oooh, mysterious ... The PCs dug it.  So I invested in the next major chunk.  Now I look at the character's backstories. One PC had in his backstory that his religious sect had been wrongly imprisoned.  Another PC hates drow, with a passion.  He wants to eliminate them all from the face of the earth. So I wrote those two factors in.  I had the religious order wrongly imprisoned in Wheloon, but actually they went in voluntarily, because some of the higher order had switched to worshipping Shar, and were now manipulating things behind the scenes.  In fact, the PC himself was "off on a mission" when this all happened, because they didn't think they could convert him.  He'd be a thorn in their side.  They had access to a node inside Wheloon, and could use it to hide their nefarious activities in plain sight, while coordinating with their allies -- a disaffected Shadar Kai sect and a Drow family seeking power. The PCs are asked by an agent of the crown if they would investigate the mysterious goings on *inside* Wheloon.  Since nobody is supposed to be getting out of the city of Shadow/Shar worshipping prisoners, then how come new weapons and signs of prosperity are showing up inside the prison-city?  The PCs agree, and are promptly told that their cover-story is that they are wanted criminals.  Wanted posters are even now going up outside in the village.  Good luck! The PCs escape the village, find their own way into Wheloon (the just didn't want to get thrown in, after all!) and then proceed to fight gangs, earn their bones, investigate a ruined chapel where the PC's old Order was doing nasty necromantic experiments.  They discover remnants of the instigators there -- some Shadar Kai, some drow, and a few Shar-worshipping members of the PC's order. The PCs are now thoroughly invested in this campaign, have an ongoing villain or two to chase, have direct connections to some of their backstories. .............. Is it as cohesive and smooth as a campaign designed from the very beginning?  No. Are the PCs feeling that this is *their* story, and invested in following it through?  Yes. Is it cheesy and over the top at times, reminding me of a soap opera where plotlines get added and forgotten?  Absolutely -- but the players recognize that this ongoing soap opera is *their* soap opera, and they're as invested as any fans.</blockquote>

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