Designing my first campaign

[markieje]

I've had an idea for a while to create a campaign under the working title "Devil Wars." I've messed around first in 3.5 and now I'm working in Pathfinder. Devils are lawful-evil, powerful creatures; strong, organized villains.

The pathfinder world has a nice inlet for this; a nation in thrall of devils.

I need to work on the overall structure of the campaign, and then I need to create adventures.
1-3/4 Rattling the Cages: the PCs don't encounter the major villains at all. They encounter monsters riled up by them.
3/4-6/7 The Fringe: Attacks begin on the fringes (barbarian settlements, outposts). Discovery of the main villains.
6/7-10/11 Mobilization: The enemy war machine begins to move, overpowering its foes. The characters are enlisted to help resist the tide.
10/11-13/14 The Elite: The characters are too powerful to be used in simple combat. They are asked to take on special tasks, like inciting revolt amongst the monster slave hordes of the enemy, targeting enemy commanders.
13/14-16/17 Piercing the Heart: A desperate attack into the heart of enemy territory is the only hope of victory. The characters must defeat the high priests and sorcerers for their army to have any hope.
16/17 - Endgame: To end the conflict, the characters must do battle with devils themselves in the Nine Hells.

Any suggestions

 

[The Shaman]

What happens if the adventurers refuse to be enlisted? What happens if they decide to side with the devils?

 

[Imperialus]

What happens if the adventurers refuse to be enlisted? What happens if they decide to side with the devils?

at this point, you ignore it because it's so far down the line its irrelevant. By the time the PC's hit level 6 or 7 you as the DM should have a pretty good idea of what the players goals are and adjust your long term strategy to compensate. Encourage them to build connections with the 'good guys', give them a reason to want to fight for them. One thing I've found worked really well for giving PC's a vested interest in the defense of a given area at higher levels was the stronghold building process that took place at higher levels.

 

[Stoat]

Start small and think locally. It is a much wiser use of your time to map out the area within 75 to 100 miles of where the PC's will begin play than it is to map out a country, continent or globe. Likewise, it is more important to know the NPC's (friendly and unfriendly) that the PC's will interact with in their first few adventures than it is to worry about all the near-epic level devils they'll be fighting later on.

Focus 90% of your attention on the first two adventures, 7% of your attention on the adventures that will carry the PC's to 3rd level and 3% of your attention on anything else. Your outline is as detailed as it needs to be right now.

 

[The Shaman]

at this point, you ignore it because it's so far down the line its irrelevant.

Which is kind of my point, and kind of not.

First, I think there's too much anticipation that the adventurers will do this and do that and do the other. What happens if the adventurers do this, but not that? What happens to the other?

Second, the larger question, for me anyway, is, do the players have any control over the events of the game beyond their characters being shuttled from one adventure to the next by the referee? It sounds like the OP wants to create an adventure path-style campaign, and if all the players buy in at the start, and understand the boundaries which the format imposes, then disco. But that buy-in better be there, and the referee may want to consider what happens if that buy-in is lost at some point during the course of the epic.

Encourage them to build connections with the 'good guys', give them a reason to want to fight for them.

A good idea, but in my experience this can often result in ham-fisted stuff like, "Your family's been kidnapped by the Big Bad Evil Guy!"

Again, an up-front buy in by the the players that their characters are The Heroes of the epic is probably a good idea, to weed out anyone who might have their own ideas about with whom their characters may ally.

One thing I've found worked really well for giving PC's a vested interest in the defense of a given area at higher levels was the stronghold building process that took place at higher levels.

That would be my personal preference, but this means that the events of the game leading up to this should perhaps be a bit more subtle, if they are to be appropriately scaled to the adventurers' abilities. Instead of beginning with an overt war, start with subversion - something devils should be good at - and a rebellion in the 'good' lands before armies begin marching across the landscape.

If the OP doesn't want to wait that long, the adventurers at low levels may be invited to join an organization - a knightly order, a wizard's coven, a holy order - devoted to opposing the fiendish foes ahead.

 

[markieje]

Well, I'm not going to allow evil characters. That should prevent characters from siding with the devils.

I have a leg up on mapping because I'm using an existing setting (the one put by Pathfinder).

The devils don't appear anywhere near the start of their campaign. Nor do their mortal minions. At the beginning, their machinations start to unfold. Monstrous humanoids on the move, that sort of thing...

I don't plan to try to create all the adventures before I get a group. I do need to fit it the character motivations.
I'm not fond of strongholds, though.

I want to open it up to more options the further the game goes. Adventure design takes time though, and I'm afraid of having to take time off to do it.

 

[the Jester]

I too would recommend being careful about railroading, but if you properly motivate the pcs you can probably get them to bite at this.

The basic structure is sound, although you might want to allow for a lot of side missions and distractions, using the same theme throughout an entire campaign can become boring.

Also, I'd be prepared for the party to do very unexpected things at high levels- instead of going to fight the bad guy war machine, they might decide to go recruit extraplanar good help or something.

 

[Hussar]

It never hurts to be up front with the players. Particularly before you've done a bunch of work creating the campaign. Let them know that this particular campaign is not completely open - there are certain expectations up front, such as they are the heroes and not the villains. The campaign is about something - defeating the devils.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a campaign be about something up front. No one watches Buffy and expects her to suddenly start helping Vampires. Superheroes have moral codes for a reason. Being up front with the players lets them anticipate to some degree what is coming next, at least thematically, and build characters and groups that fit within that theme, rather than try to shoehorn characters that really don't work all that well.

Then again, I'm a HUGE fan of directed campaigns and find open ended campaigns to be excercises in frustration, so, I'm definitely biased.