How Do You Run a Good Campaign?

[I'm A Banana]

Most DM's have some sort of vague idea of how to do it....many have tried to make dough off of it....

But it's something that there's no real instruction manual for, no real way of how to do it.....

So, here's the question from me to everyone who has some idea. If we're lucky, we can help some of the newer players get some experience doing it, and inspire those who don't have a whole glut of imagination power to come up with stories that can be gamed in.

How do you make a good campaign?

This is a very relative question, so one person's good campaign may not be anothers, but I'd like any and all ideas...an individual DM could decide for themselves and their group what is best...

Is a good campaign made by stringing together dungeon crawls in a story line?

Is it made by making the PC's the main characters?

Is simply fighting increasingly tougher monsters a good campaign?

What advice would you give on how to construct a good campaign...side-quests or no? How long should they last? Do they need a Big Bad Enemey? Must they all revolve around saving the world? What about for evil or neutral characters?

Shuold you emulate books? Movies? TV shows? Videogames? What would you have to do different in each case? How can you make the characters real to the players? How can you keep the players interested in your story?

Start it off, and we'll see how it goes. If we're lucky, we can get some real juicy ideas, and maybe archive this bad boy for some beginner D&D-player's advice.

Have at it, geniuses!

 

[Crothian]

I mix it up. I have a large on going plot with a thousandd and one little plots. The PCs are free to follow any of the little plots they want, the big plot they can ignore but is much hardier. I have all sorts of adventures. I do dungeon crawls, mysteries, city based, etc. There is something in my games for everyone.

One of the important things is to give the PCs what they want. Not in terms of items and things of that nature, but in types of adventures. You have to cater to the group. Don't force a group to be something they are not.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I think one of the most important things a DM has to do is get to know the players. The better you know thier likes and dislikes the more you can tailor things in that direction, the more the players like what you're doing the more copperative they'll be.

Know the rules of the game. The better you know the rules the smoother the game runs. The smoother the game, the more fun it is.


Don't be afriad to improvise, you never know when the players will do the unexpected.


Always be impartial and fair. Your the Judge not the compitition, if you want your villians and monsters to succeed, they will. I can't garenty that the players will be to happy about it though.


Players like handouts and props, it makes it look like you envest a lot of time in thier entertainment.


Don't be afraid to put your foot down and let the players know that you are in charge of the game when nessasary.

i think thats all the DM wisdom i got in me right now, Happy gaming.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think that reading some of the good storyhours can help! Esp Sagiros for heavy duty plotting and Piratecats for high-level play goodness. Other storyhours are good for ideas on other issues.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

Well, as a DM who's just started to pull his head out of his ass and start doing stuff right for a change, let's see if I can come up with anything worth anything. Some of this is general GMing advice, some strictly for campaigns, like the thread is actually wanting... lol

1. PREPARE! for the love of god, don't slack off in the preparation department, your campaign WILL suck.

2. Get the background stories of the PCs--they are perfect for giving you instant adventure ideas. Not to mention they give players a chance to see their characters grow and change. What I'm starting to do with my current campaign is doing a big general quest, maybe a sidetrek or two in the middle and then a character-specific story.

3. If you make something up about the world on the spot, make sure you write it down--consistency is pretty cool...

4. Recurring villains rock.

5. Have some interesting NPCs for the PCs to run into.

Okay, enough with the list format--I think i'm just rambling now.

Anyhow, I like my campaigns to be structured fairly loosely--a lot like a T.V. show really; mostly self-contained stories with a few big cliffhangers. Once and a while I will throw in some interesting story arcs and overall themes and such.

I hope this makes sense, i'm nearly dead right now... lol

Let's get some pro's like P-kitty and Mark in here! (jesus i'm a brown-noser...lol)

 

[LostSoul]

The game is about the characters, for the players playing them. I think that the job of the Dm is to give them an enjoyable game.

With the characters in mind, you create plot lines and encounters that show their skills and engage them personally. This means throwing out engaging and logical plot hooks, making sure the PCs aren't stuck with only one course of action, and keeping NPCs out of the spotlight.

With the players in mind, you have to respond to what kind of adventures they want to run and give it to them. This means giving action-oriented players lots of action, puzzle-solving players puzzles, etc.

If you don't like what you have to do to run the game (ie. 'crack the whip so they fall in line with "your" game'), try being a player.

 

[Lela]

Don't be too afraid to go to the extreems sometimes. Sometimes it's good to get them moving constantly. No rest, no relaxation, no time to prepare spells. Other times let them wander around town, buying things and getting into trouble. During the former, you will be running things and during the latter, they will be forced to think about what they want to be and do.

Now, your entire campaign shouldn't be like the above. When it seems like you're completely in control all the time, the players feal like they might as well not be there. If they are always in control, then they don't know where the campaign is going and get frusterated. These should be occational occerances, not constantly going on.

If you don't like what you have to do to run the game (ie. 'crack the whip so they fall in line with "your" game'), try being a player.

Huh?

 

[Phasmus]

Here is some elaboration on two general guidelines I've employed in my game with some success:

1: Plot early, plot often. Plot out the events of your game as if you were writing the initial outline of a book. Run your game sessions as if you were writing the 'meat' of the story... with the players determining the actions of the main characters. Note that, with few exceptions, the characters themselves can't deviate from the plot, because they -are- the plot. It is the DM's responsibility to provide for whatever they do, wherever they go... even if it doesn't coincide with the originally plotted outline. It is a good idea to have a few pre-plotted not-so-random encounters set up for use in emergencies. Random encounters are best avoided when a hand-crafted plot-encounter can be used instead.

2: Listen to your players. Get all the feedback you can. Change things to make the world fit your characters, when necessary. The game-world may or may not revolve around the characters, but the events of the game probably should. Strong character backgrounds are very helpful. I've made it a common practice to build up my game-world's background by expanding and integrating concepts produced by my players for their character backgrounds. It may not be feasible for some campaign settings, but it has worked very well for me.

 

[Corinth]

Build the world first. This applies even if you use someone else's work for your campaign. Once you do this, then you can move on to devising some sort of direction. Don't go nuts with the plot; the PCs will derail things soon enough, so you are better off with a well-built world wherein NPCs do their own thing on and off-screen. Once you know what's going on where, then you can tell the PCs what's what and let them decide what to do on their own.

 

[Xarlen]

Okay, I'm going to go on personal experience. Warning: DM for only a year. Just for reference, my group started at 5th level.

First: Know your players, and also, know their characters. Ask the player about their character's motivations, what he's like, so on. If he's the sage-type, then gold isn't going to be as great an incentive as an ancient book, or information about so so. A coward may not be attracted to simple heroics. The way I handled this is, I cooked up a pretty normal first adventure for my party: They went and captured a creature for a wizard, because he's a breeder of the strange and profitable. Doing this, allowed me to learn the PCs personalities, and gauge how they act.

Prepare, as Trevalon said. Think about how something happens. If your PCs are dealing with disapperances, and it's caused by a ghost assassin, first understand where the ghost came from, and how it's finding it's victims. Ask yourself How and Why about the plot, and have backup answers, because the PCs will find out, and Will ask, and you don't need to give 'because' or 'it's magic'. But, you *are* the DM, and thus, breaking rules for background is Okay.

However, only prepare So Far, or go in a lot of angles. Your PCs may not go the direction you wanted, so in case that happens, do the following: 1) Prepare for other avenues they take, and how to get them back on track, and 2) If they do something totally unexpected, go with it, and simply try to weave it into what you've got. If the Hermit at the edge of town is supposed to tell the PCs there are lizardfolk in the nearby swamp, and they don't pick up on the clues to go the hermit's shack, have them come across some kids playing who will gladly share they saw monsters or dragonpeople or funnymen in the swamp.

Never have an 'only x will happen if PCs do y'. This is Okay in the sense of puzzles, immunities, going somewhere, but you can't do this too often, or your PCs will feel pigeon-holed.

Try and occasionally drop hints and hooks for the next adventure into the one that's currently happening. For example: My group was traveling into the arctic, to fetch those winterwolves. While camping, two of them went hunting, and found a cave. Inside as a collapsed tunnel, with a stick raising out of it. They pulled the stick out, and moved the rocks. There was a dwarven skeleton there, and a broken axe across the room. What had happened was, they had unstaked a vampire, and stole his axe haft and blade. They didn't even Realize what they had done, until they were on their way back, stopped to look in the cave, and discovered the corpse was missing. Now they had a vampire stalking them.

Give the impression the world is alive around them. If they don't have any interest in a guy passing out maps on the street, have them hear a week later that some group got rich after buying one of those maps.

For those times when you want suspense, end on a cliffhanger.

Try and develope NPCs. Maybe that farmer that they're talking to has a habit of trailing off into tangents, or finds a way to talk about wheat in every conversation. Maybe the Innkeeper and his wife get into a shouting match while the PCs are talking to them. How about those Orcs having a tribal ritual, with firedancing, or tests of strenght, while the PCs watch before attacking them by surprise. That evil wizard has a soft side for the misfortunate, or is actually very, chipper and charismatic instead of lording his power. Maybe he's insane. 'I'm just trying to give these skeletons a second chance at life!'