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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 4886899" data-attributes="member: 40522">This post might be kinda long, but here goes... In italics, you'll find specific examples for my current campaign.1) I figure out what the campaign or adventure is "about." I start with a general idea about the major themes and progression of the campaign. Sometimes its a narrative epic, sometimes its a beer-and-pretzels hackfest. But no matter what the game is about, I always start out with a clear idea about what sort of game I want and how to achieve it. My current campaign is designed to bring my 4E group into my homebrew. None of them are familiar with it. I'm also using this as an opportunity to work 4E's changes into my homebrew. I'm using the opportunity to have the group's characters have a major impact on the changes in the setting.2) Come up with a "venue sheet." The venue sheet is a short document that explains character options for this campaign, its goals, and my table rules. I limit the venue sheet to two pages or less since I want it to be accessible and easy to use.3) Give the venue sheet to the players and ask them to generate characters. When I have players bring a new character into the campaign, I require them to submit a minimum of two background elements that can be used as adventure hooks for that character. I use one of them to get them into the first adventure and another to use later. Most of the party consists of primal characters, so they are interested in defending nature. The bard is a classic wandering vagabond, dreaming of having a heroic epic sung about her one day. My party's wizard is searching for the assassin that killed his master. The party begins the campaign by travelling the countryside looking for the former students and clues about the master wizard and his doings. 4) I write a "plot map." This is a technique used by screenwriters to explore different options for a script's possible course of events. It's particularly useful for gaming, because you're trying to extrapolate as many reasonable courses the plot could take. Each possible plot point can basically work out as an encounter, or in these 4E days, as a skill challenge. With the wizard and his primal buddies, I get the idea that he was up to something unsavory and one of his students killed him to prevent him from invoking dark forces. The druids and shamans never liked this wizard because he bound and controlled immortals and elementals to do his bidding. Or maybe he faked his own death. That's an interesting concept, so I file it away as a possible plot thread. The primal characters are associated with an elf tribe, so I put in an opposing elf tribe that split on policy over a century ago. The characters have the option to escalate the conflict into an outright war or to seek peace.5) I start plotting out some encounters and a basic adventure. I start with something simple, designed to get the characters involved in the action and interacting with the plot points. For the first adventure, I decide to link together the idea of the unsavory wizard dealing with forces beyond his control and the idea of protecting nature. The campaign begins with the characters running into the hostile elf tribe, scouring the countryside looking for relics from a wizard's tower. Turns out the relics are strange urns carved with arcane sigils, the urns are warm to the touch and thump every so often. The characters discover that elemental creatures are bound into the urns, and the hostile elves want to unelash them on the humans of the land, who they view as interlopers and despoilers of nature. So now I can draw up a list of "big bads" (the assassin that killed the wizard, the leader and warlord of the elf tribe, a powerful elemental in one of the urns). I can also draw up a list of monsters I'd like the characters to fight (I decide on elves, elemental creatures, and the animals and other allies of the hostile elf tribe).6) I start designing encounters and skill challenges, draw up the treasure parcels, and other nuts-and-bolts elements and start running the thing.</blockquote>

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