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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 5319357" data-attributes="member: 20323">Haha, great thread! Definitely many approaches... lots for me to think about. Here's what I did for my last campaign (in some detail), but I'm reconsidering a lot of it after reading through this thread... while it worked for my group, there was definitely a (concealed) "railroad" element. “The Heir Apparent” Design ProcessI ran a 10 month long heroic-tier D&D campaign involving lots of court intrigue, and did extensive planning for it. My process for designing the campaign was highly structured. Full disclosure: we had a group of 7 players, several newer to D&D, seemed to get through 3 encounters every session, and met twice a month. I decided to level the PCs every 6 encounters yet still follow the XP guidelines in the DMG; this meant my encounters were significantly harder taking both a smaller number of encounters and the large group into account. So, I had no room to waste time on “filler” fights or tangents not related to the main story. My process went from macro to micro: campaign, adventure, encounter.Campaign Design1: Idea SeedWhat kind of campaign do I want to run? What’s my inspiration? My initial inspiration came from Shakespeare and the Tudors HBO series, as well as our previous DM’s campaign. I wanted an intrigue-laden game but without sacrificing the combat our group loves so much. As a DM, I like a vivid cast of NPCs and challenging the players with dilemmas, puzzles, mysteries. While listening to the Henry V soundtrack I thought up a campaign where the PCs fight a burgeoning tyrant they can’t just walk up to and kill, and the strongest weapon they have against the tyrant is his bastard son and political maneuvering.2: BrainstormI set aside a page to doodle, mind map, or just write down anything that comes to mind. This helps me to overcome writer’s block and I’ll often return to this brainstorm page throughout the design process. One of the brainstorms I wrote down was a made up quote from a holy book called the Canticles. “The dawn rises and what was ere invisible becomes clear as day, yet the stars fade from the sky. Thus, light is both revealer and concealer, for verily you may be blinded by your own brightness to what is truth. [Canticle of the Sun King 3:2]” I had no idea what I’d do with this until I was designing a dungeon and looked at my brainstorm sheet for ideas, saw this idea and made a cool puzzle out of it.3: “Core Ethos”Next I describe the campaign’s story in 100 words or less, basically a paragraph. This should make clear any conceits of the campaign, such as the PCs are all opposed to a wicked prince, or the church is different than the core D&D religion. It also defines the scope, in my case limited to one kingdom over the course of a couple months. The story’s theme should also be evident – intrigue, power corrupts the best of us, etc. Finally, you can tease out several tropes from this “core ethos”, things like the Evil Prince, Succession Fight, or Royal Bastard. I use this “core ethos” to bind the campaign together, and whenever I get stuck I go back to it and use it to guide my design. The core ethos for “The Heir Apparent” was: A power-mad prince stands to inherit his dying father’s throne, and the people are in fear as his abuses are already terrible. The PCs rise from across the land, united in opposition to this evil pretender to the throne. In so doing, they shepherd a bastard heir who may be a prophesied enlightened king, gather allies against the prince, and stop the prince’s schemes in a succession fight to determine the next sovereign of the land.4: List Required ElementsNow I make a laundry list of NPCs, locales, events, artifacts, moral dilemmas, mysteries/puzzles, and any props that I think will feature in the campaign. I don’t have to use all of these, but this page helps me formulate my ideas. At this point I’m not interested in names or well-developed ideas, just the concept – a few words to serve as a touchstone for me later on. In “The Heir Apparent” the NPCs included the evil prince, his bastard son, the bastard’s witch caretaker, the bastard’s mother, the good prince, and the rest of the royal family. Obviously the village the bastard was hidden in would be a good starting place, and the king’s castle would feature at a later point. I also wanted to present a dilemma of what to do with the bastard heir and who to put forward as the new sovereign. Prop-wise I knew I needed a good kingdom map and a royal family tree so the players could keep all these recurring NPCs straight.5: Main VillainMy favorite part is designing a compelling and vicious villain with a powerful motive, interesting backstory, and devious plan to achieve their ends. I’ll also take note of their modus operandi, defining trait(s), henchmen, and how the villain sees him or herself as the hero of their own story. Often I’ll draw on tropes or historical/literary/film characters as an influence. Knowing what steps the villain needs to take helps me plan out adventures where the PCs can foil those plans with panache. I’ll also come up with 3 secrets about the villain which the PCs can exploit or will simply surprise them. For example, my evil prince needed to accomplish four things to take the throne. First, fake the king’s will. Second, acquire the lost high crown. Third, get the kingmaker stag to acknowledge him (or, failing that, kill it). Fourth, obtain support from a majority of nobles/power figures. 6: SettingHere’s where I choose what setting best matches my campaign’s “core ethos”, required elements, and villain. I could see deciding this at an earlier point. When designing my homebrew kingdom I restricted myself to one page at first, capturing the vibe, major conflicts, snapshot of geography/culture, ruler and government, economy, religion, military, etc. Like with the villain I create 3 secrets pertaining to the setting.7: The Player HandoutSo far I’ve been designing in a vacuum, but now that I have a strong sense of the campaign I want to run, I talk with my players and get their input. I then put together a one-page campaign handout (setting brief, limits, house rules, character creation guidelines, and so forth). Once I know what sorts of PCs they’ve created, their backstories, and what they’d like out of the campaign I move forward. Others might make this step 0, but I do in this order because I know I’ll burn out if I’m not really excited about the campaign; in my experience DM enthusiasm is contagious. My handout basically boiled down to the setting info above, limiting PCs to non-monstrous races and non-evil alignments, and requiring they all have a reason to oppose the evil prince.8: Garden of Forking PathsTo steal the title of a Flashforward episode. I’ll sketch out major decision points for the PCs (usually 1 every level or two) and possible scenarios resulting from those. What to do with a defeated villain, which nobles to approach for aid, how to handle a cursed monster, that sort of thing. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive or even to provide complete freedom of choice – it’s the top two or three meaningful choices the PCs can make at each point. For example, I began with the first decision: What to do about the bastard heir? At the end of the first adventure it’s clear he’s no longer safe in the village, but it’s equally clear he matches the description of a prophesied wise king. He’s young and easily influenced, but he’s a biddable king having both royal blood and the blood of a rival noble family (meaning he could establish a truce), and understands the plight of commoners as he grew up as one. Do the PCs decide to take him to the royal court to have his birthright acknowledged despite the risk of the evil prince’s influence? Do they decide to take the boy to his mother’s hiding place? Or do they decide to support the boy as heir and go after the king’s stolen will (expecting that the boy is named heir, or that they can forge it/destroy it to put him forward as heir)?9: Quest OutlineUsing all of this I then outline the major quests. While this is railroad-ey, I do it with an eye toward situations which I can plunder for encounters and ideas if we pass over the adventure for whatever reason. My outline went something like this…Level 1 – Learn about, find, and protect bastard heir from prince’s redcoats. What to do with the bastard heir? Trust witch caretaker or knight?Level 2 – En route to wherever they are headed they stop in town with corrupt tax collector. Must deal with tax collector to gain information/lead, how is up to them. Risk drawing attention to depose tax collector?Level 3 – Go after king’s will stolen by thieves’ guild in prince’s employ. Alternately, recruit thieves’ guild to fight evil prince. What to do with will? In play my group chose to bypass this quest, but I plundered nearly all of it in later adventures.Level 4 – Rescue the boy’s mother from borderland fortress governed by militaristic lord. Alternately, warn good prince of assassination plot. Trust boy’s mother? Accept good prince’s aid?Level 5 – At king’s castle with political agenda of their choice. First run-in with evil prince over dinner (duel?). King asks help stopping strigha killing loyalists (I know they will to win points with nobility). Strigha is princess. Kill her and end curse forever? Save her and put curse into dormancy for now?Level 6 – Beat Prince’s henchmen to the high crown in Drowned Amanteur. Confront oracle dragon about prophecy. Who will they support as sovereign? The catch: All 5 NPC choices are prophesied to lead to civil war, but the one PC who has a very remote claim to throne is “prophetically safe” choice.Level 7 – King’s Tournament. Two quests: First, gain support among nobility. Which ones? Second, stop evil prince from killing the kingmaker stag (and its protector). Lots of mini quests to choose from: hastiludes, grand melee, romance, vengeance, embarrassing evil prince, etc.Level 8 – Crucial potential ally is under siege by evil prince’s forces. Alternately, the magic banner in the besieged city would help raise army. Mystery werewolf sabotaging defenses, feuding werewolves, hag’s curse. End werewolf’s curse or allow it to continue as weapon against evil prince? In play, we were running out of time so I cut this from the campaign.Level 9 – Evil prince either attempts coup or retreats with forces to his citadel. What to do with defeated evil prince? How to evade prophecy of civil war?10: PropsLastly, I gather any resources I’ll anticipate needing to run the campaign, not on an adventure-by-adventure basis, but overall. For example, CDs that evoke the theme, creating area maps, written center pieces (prophecies, secret documents), lists of names, crucial NPC stats, etc. For “The Heir Apparent” I created a beautiful family tree for the royal line in Photoshop and a kingdom map in Campaign Cartographer.</blockquote>

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