GM Advice. Running a decent campaign.

[Jürgen Hubert]

If the PCs can't be relied on to stay alive to provide consistancy to a campaign, you need some good arch villain to tie everything together. Great some big threat looming in the background - and don't let the PCs meet him until the climax of the campaign! Instead focus on his schemes and henchmen, and how your PCs can interact with them and (hopefully) thwart them.

This way, even if some individual PCs die, the campaign can continue and have a common theme...

 

[yennico]

@Evilhalfling

I like your undead graft idea. From which book do you have the effects of the undead grafts e.g. a undead heart, undead limb?

Does the mayor with undead heart get a half-undead template?

 

[yennico]

If the PCs can't be relied on to stay alive to provide consistancy to a campaign, you need some good arch villain to tie everything together. Great some big threat looming in the background - and don't let the PCs meet him until the climax of the campaign! Instead focus on his schemes and henchmen, and how your PCs can interact with them and (hopefully) thwart them.

This way, even if some individual PCs die, the campaign can continue and have a common theme...

Your idea have a side effect.
If the PCs are constantly threatened by a constant force (the arch villain and his henchmen) they will stay together. This can be good but I dislike mastering a group of PCs who perhaps dislike each other and stay only together because of the constant threat.

 

[barsoomcore]

I rely on two things:

Lots of uber-cool bad guys. Come on, who doesn't like coming up with bad guys? Crazy princesses with a sadistic streak, necromancers who need fresh souls, ambitious viziers and foul demonologists, bad guys are good. Er. Anyway, have LOTS of bad guys. Lots of really TOUGH bad guys. And keep 'em busy. They don't sit around waiting for heroes to come after them -- they've got things to do, souls to crush, nations to subjugate. If the heroes don't come after them, bad things will happen. And since they're so tough and so busy, they'll have plenty of minions to deal with pesky adventurers, so your PCs will have to hew their way through large sets of mooks -- and by the time they've gotten the first bad guy, the others will start paying a little more attention...

Cool stuff. I know I said your bad guys should be cool, and they should, but in a way they're a subset of the vast amount of cool stuff your campaign should contain. The great thing about cool stuff is it's so easy to generate. Just decide what you think is cool and put it in. Ruined jungle temples? Sure. Flickering rifts in the sky that lead to other worlds? Rock on. Talking penguins? Whatever you like. Stuff your campaign with all the cool stuff you can think of, and then whenever you get tired of what's going on right now, pull out your list of cool stuff and bingo, you've got half-a-dozen adventure ideas.

 

[yennico]

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

This advice is only for creative players or players who want to explore the world besides the adventures, players with PCs who want to leave their mark in that world.

Not every player is such a player One of my former players play only PCs who are workoholics. These PCs do not have any interest besides adventuring. Without an adventure the player does not know what to do.

IMC every player has to write a background for his PC. I will use the information of these backgrounds in my adventures. I totally agree with Hand of Evils action/reaction rule.

I also like the idea to give the PCs hobby and other skills (crafts), so they can have a life besides adventuring during a rest from adventuring.