GM Advice. Running a decent campaign.

[Evilhalfling]

Piratecat: May I ask for an anecdote or example?

*giggle* well there is always his story hour http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=779&page=1
but it may be a little long. I only read part of it, but it made me want to play a high level long term game. When I did, I realized my DM ... not quite as good as PC, it was high level but only lasted 4 months.

As for my personal exp, the games I run tend to last a year. They usually end after a meta plot wraps up, but the first two times I was trying to do it on purpose as earlier games (with other groups) had gone on for years, with no definative ending. One way to maintain interest for slightly longer games is start with a minor plot somehow connected to a major villian or future event. Or link a couple of smaller quests with a mysterious element, before the players finally find out what the link was and go after the source.
Eventually my campigns end as most of the leads are finally tied up. I try and run at least 2 different plots in addition to whatever the players are trying to accomplish. Very little is set in stone ahead of time, as the players tended to finish some plots, miss the resolutions of others and open new plots based on changing char goals or deaths.

Example:
Mysterious link - undead limbs.
1. on routine partrol/ travel party attacked by humanoids, but leader gets away (unplanned)
2. rumors of distant allies getting arms cut off. PC story development.
3. unconected adventure involving players backstory.
4. humanoids raid several villages, players track them down to find the leader from 1
with an undead human arm, but lacking in any powers explaining the change.
5. An Old ex-adventure/mayors town is overrun, with many of the people captured rather than killed. Players free prisoners but never find out where they were being taken.
6. More players backstory plots, brush with a powerful foe who vanishes. Poltical campign to restore town. (as mayor was killed in raid, although body was not found.
7. players investigate find a Necromancers stronghold finding a flesh golem and opperational resources for undead grafts. Records including successful grafts, incluing an arm from 4 and undead heart for an unnamed human.

8. Powerful foe from (6)kills a PC, the others swear vengance. They discover he is the ex-adventurer/ mayor who recieved an undead heart, to avoid dying of old age and has been tainted by it.

9. Finial enemy lured into trap using info from his past, rather than attack his stronghold. As he lives in another city where he has developed powerful poltical allies and is known as a local hero.

Character plots included, recovering from family dishonor, a profecey that one PC was a messiah, developing a new form of specialized force magic, and becoming the head of a temple, avenging the slaughter of someones home village. There was also a minor war with a differernt race of humanoids that took up a few sessions (PCs found out about it, but were called off for other duties after some reconizance of the foe.)
not all of these plots were fnished succesfully, as PCs died. When the messiah died, his followers (who had only been an annoyance to him) started a church the PCs never found out for sure either way, they also missed that one of the archvillians allies ordered the slaughter of another PC's village.

I had forgotten how complicated that campaign had gotten.

 

[Piratecat]

When I started off, 90% of my game was stringing together Dungeon modules. The PCs wandered about clearing out towers and killing monsters. . . and at some point during that time, I asked myself "what happens next?" When they cleared an evil cultist out of a tower, a more powerful member of the same cult inherited and set to work punishing the PCs. A doppelganger in an inn escaped into a snowstorm, waited the PCs out, then came back and invited some friends... so that the next time the PCs came by, he had replaced the innkeeper and fathered a child with the dead man's wife. A teleporter that the PCs discovered in an old dungeon brought in war-like minotaurs from another continent, and the PCs had to talk the militia into driving them back. Gradually, the consequence from each action rippled outwards.

Not just bad stuff, though. The PCs ended up becoming confidantes of the Prince and of several noble families. They got involved in politics. They briefly went to the outer planes. Their enemies were vindictive, and they were creative in killing them and looting their stuff. After about two or three years the players could look around the world and see all kinds of things that were different, just because they'd been there.

One important bit of advice is to not get in a rut. Run different types of adventures: different locales, different goals, different types of NPCs. Keep the players guessing. Make NPCs with complex goals, and as A'Koss said encourage the PCs to have goals. This worked really well for me.

 

[S'mon]

I'd say start low-level (no more than 3rd) and take an open-ended approach where the players decide on the direction of the campaign as their PCs grow and develop. Don't kill PCs frequently unless you allow resurrection - 3e tends to kill PCs a lot, so I suggest Fate Points, which can be spent to stop a PC dying at -10:

"Fate Points
I'm using narrative Fate Points similar to those in the Conan RPG. PCs start with 3, most commonly they are used on the player's behalf for the PC to be 'left for dead' after losing a fight (a common occurrence at first level!). They can also be used by GM or on the player's request to get a 'lucky break' in a dire situation, eg help with escaping captivity, a sudden distraction & such. FPs can be gained for major achievements related to the PC's personality & goals, the GM can also award fate points at his discretion if the PC is "screwed over by fate", eg being arrested for a crime they didn't commit."

 

[MonsterMash]

As my campaigns are always involved with the personal histories and backgrounds of the players - when a character dies, the campaign goes skew-iff, and either ends quickly or derails - or occasionally a player wants to try something else, tired of his old character, which the new party never really accepts properly..

Overall, my campaigns reach a successful ending where everyone has fun when it's short. Longer campaigns derail for the reasons mentioned. When I tried a non-character motivated plot though, there wasn't the good roleplaying or whatnot.

Well, what I'm asking.. how is it that you keep your games going past the end of the first plotline?

Well with my campaign, characters backgrounds are not so important to the sessions that I run, which helps it to survive, also the players do become involved in the various threads of plot that I have running at any time and can obviously affect them with their actions. That way campaigns tend to keep providing hooks and ways for things to keep changing.

As I always start at 1st level players aren't so quick to want to change characters after one has had a chance to level up to where they can be able to make some difference.

 

[Hand of Evil]

See MARK's post above...

The most important rule for a campaign I try to keep in mine is: For every action, there is a re-action. If something happens don't forget about it, note it, continue gaming, and then do a 'what if' carring it out.

Sample of this: Players enter a tavern call the Broken Axe, it is on the cross roads of Here and There, they perform for their meal, pass on information, and find out of a dungeon in the area, which they clean out. Next time they are on the road between here and there they stop at the Broken Axe, which has grown, the tavern keeper is married and the players are remember and given free drinks. Why? Because there were no more monsters the tavern saw more trade and travellers, it could grow. The players see that.

 

[reveal]

One piece of advice I would give is to make sure your characters are involved in the storyline. I have seen many a DM just run a pre-written module/campaign and the players think "Is it even important that I'm here?"

Always have your players create backgrounds for their characters. Then make sure you incorporate some aspect of that background into the campaign. If the PCs create a background and you just do your own thing, they will just think it a waste of time. Make them an integral component of the campaign.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Thanks everyone! The advice has been good. So far, I'm resolved to play a longer game - and using one of the previous posters advice on starting a minor plot which leads them to another, continue from there. Previously generally I tend to introduce the main problem and have them solve that, movie-like.

So far, there's a lot of action/reaction stuff, which I'll try to put in as much as I possibly can.

One one point - one poster mentioned simply to let the players have free control of where they go. I tried this, in my homebrew world with moderate success - some enjoyed the ability to find adventure, some found themselves without purpose and bored, so I've resolved not to do such at least with this party in the future. Still, it's probably good advice for another group

Thanks, peoples! Keep advising away if you want; I'd love to hear more.

 

[Evilhalfling]

One one point - one poster mentioned simply to let the players have free control of where they go. I tried this, in my homebrew world with moderate success - some enjoyed the ability to find adventure, some found themselves without purpose and bored, so I've resolved not to do such at least with this party in the future. Still, it's probably good advice for another group

My group has a generational divide over this. I did a player survey recently as I planned an upcoming campaign. The older players 28-43 were fine with the DM setting up all the adventures. The younger players (17-20) wanted more choices and free form gaming.
I decided on 4 themes of adventures, and will plan on setting up a choice between them as often as I can. It isnt easy, normally my hooks are pretty strong and offering 2 or more equal hooks at once is difficult. It is also a lot more work as I am not an on the fly DM.

 

[the Jester]

One thing that really helps me is to ask the players what they want to do next. For instance, a while back my halfling group decided to leave their home continent. They had some adventures along the way (chronicled even now in Of Sound Mind the Halfling Way), then took the first interesting-sounding ship ride they found, which led to shipwreckage, which led to adventuring around some islands for a while, which led to the whale, etc, etc, which is now leading them to want to go back home!

It's a good idea, especially as pcs grow higher level, to plan for a session by finding out what the pcs' intentions are for the session. I've never agreed with the whole 'Won't follow my adventure plot? I guess we'll meet again in a week' attitude some dms cop.

 

[S'mon]

One one point - one poster mentioned simply to let the players have free control of where they go. I tried this, in my homebrew world with moderate success - some enjoyed the ability to find adventure, some found themselves without purpose and bored, so I've resolved not to do such at least with this party in the future. Still, it's probably good advice for another group

Well, it's good to have plenty of stuff happening - including, preferably, 'Bangs' that demand a reaction (any reaction) from the players. Random events tables can be a good starting point, as well as pre-scripted events - anything from natural disasters to food riots to royal weddings. A setting with lots of obvious 'hooks' to adventures that the players can choose from is good - Necromancer games modules seem good for this (Lost City of Barakus has a lot); in my last but 1 campaign I had created a regional map, then plunked down a dozen or so published scenarios or mini-scenarios all over the map; wherever the PCs went, adventure awaited. This worked really well I thought; although 3e has the problem that PCs' rapid level-increase will tend to outgrow such environment-based campaign design.