How Do You Run a Good Campaign?

[Leopold]

Handouts - take the time to set out some of your notes on your world myth. What is evil, what are the powers of your world, what PrCes you allow, stuff like that. Also note changes or notes you have with spells (harm has will save).

Handouts for the pc's works too "Oh you have a map? Really let me see it?" That flyer for the badguy? Show it off to the other NPC's to get a familar look...interaction is awesome when done right..the players get a feel for game and get enmeshed into it.

 

[Will]

I was just chatting about this topic with some friends. Heh.

My games tend to be very popular. I'm slowly learning why... I'm often pissed with my poor preparation, and how wild and chaotic the games get, but I think I know why.

This is what works for me:

Let the PCs win. No, I don't mean hand them everything on a platter. But if they do something smart and proceed, they should get _some_ positive result. Maybe not the one they wanted, maybe not a complete success, but something.
A game where players feel like they loose in most or all situations will rapidly build a sense of conflict between players and GM. Dark games, where people are tormented in various ways, aren't necessarily games where the players loose. Some players quite enjoy backstabbing one another or acting out the suffering of their characters. The key here is finding what goals the players have, and meeting them.

If the players come up with an idea or plan, _facilitate it_. Nothing is more frustrating than coming up with a brilliant plan, and then having it simply get waved aside. If the players have a lot of fun doing something, give them something for it. Reward it. This is what is getting the people involved.
I was in a game where my character was on trial. The players conferred and came up with elaborate plans to defend me. One PC engaged in this wonderful monologue about the situation. We pulled political strings.
Turns out that due to politics, it was a show trial only, and I was freed. We were so incredibly pissed that it turned out _nothing_ we had done made a load of difference. What did that teach us? Not to bother.


Powerful NPCs. If powerful NPCs are solving the PCs' problems, kick yourself in the ding. Now twice more, for good measure.
This is different than politics or quests. A quest to get a god to save your city from plague, or to destroy an uberpowerful demon, that's cool. Fighting an uberpowerful demon, getting your ass stomped, and having your page turn out to be an avatar who's been manipulating your party, that sucks.
Again, it's about the players being _involved_. Being spearcarriers for your NPCs is no friggin fun.

Anything the players don't know is fair game for change. Rewrite the entire history, if it becomes necessary (though it rarely is). Like a previous poster said, if you have a hermit who knows about lizardmen and they don't go for it, add characters who do.

What they know is not what you know. Players have a marvellous ability to ignore the most 'obvious' of hints and clues about a game. I've been on both sides of this. If it's clear they're not getting it, and they _should_, give them more hints. True, there's only so far you can go with this and still maintain some sense of freedom, but if a player has his character do something the character should know is breathtakingly stupid, let the player know. If they then insist, well, fine.
Often this is because of information lurking in the bottom of the GM's mind. It's easy for communication to bog down, particularly in combat (one plus with D20's encouragement of mapping things).
For example, in one game I ran, the party had armed gunman facing them, and a treeline a distance away. The gunman had just popped out of a helicopter. One player said "I break for the trees." Now, in my mind, this was amazingly dumb. No _way_ the person can get to the trees without being blown full of holes! I asked him if he was sure, frowning a bit, and he affirmed. Then was pissed off when he promptly got shot a bunch.
Turns out we had _very_ different mental pictures of how ready the gunman were, and where that treeline was. Oops! This was completely a matter of communication.
Some GMs would have simply said 'he should have made sure', or otherwise asked me about the situation. Maybe. Maybe I should have been more informative, or mapped it out.
Even if you decided it was the player's fault, is it fair to blow his character away?
Some people may enjoy the dissection of events, and the everpresent danger if ones attention wavers for a moment. Personally, I don't.

Anyhow, that's what works for me and the people I've known.

 

[alsih2o]

many here have already hit the biggest point, but in my opinion have missed a major factor.

the dm-player communication is very important pre-game! but don't ever assume that you can mold your game to your players.

just because you have talked to your players and found what they want doesn't mean you can provide it. if you are a hack-'n-slasher and your players all announce they they want a world made up largely of prebattl;e negotiations and syruppy love stories, STOP! realize then that you have friends who aren't the right group for oyu to game with.

sometimes the best companions in the world aren't right to game together.

communication is THE key. if it helps, make up a list of flavors or moods that strike you all as important, and keep them handy.

one players may rate you "best d.m. ever" while another sees you as a bore, or a twisted pervert.

communication and a good match, just like a marriage!

good luck!

 

[Nightfall]

Well since I'm trying to get a good campaign started for the Scarred Lands, I thought I'd post what I have so far.

What I feel makes for a good campaign IS the mood. You get mood, you get interest. You have interest, people want to DO things in your campaign. Mood is everything for me. Also another key factor is getting everyone involved. Side quests are fine, so long as others have a quest or two as well. Another good thing to have is a bunch of people willing to work together. You do that, you can kind of get a feel for what they can and can't do.

Finally another important factor is to have some sense of the characters, both the PCs and the NPCs along with monsters and even just hazards/natural elements. You get all that, I think you can have one hell of a campaign.

 

[Rel]

As the responses here show, there are a lot of different things that you should do to make your campaign a good one and they vary widely based on your preferences and those of your players. Instead of listing even more tips like that, I'll take a slightly different tack.

I recently wrapped up a campaign and I think I did a good job overall. But there are some things I wish I hadn't done or had done differently. Here's my list of mistakes.

1) I shouldn't have run them ragged all the time. A fast paced game can be very fun but it is best to let the party take a day or two off now and then. They can use the time for item creation or crafting or whatever but sometimes it's good when they can just relax and have some good hot meals.

2) I shouldn't have put them in over their heads EVERY time. A good game (IMHO) requires some battles that are going to push the party to its very limits. But I had them in life or death situations almost every week. I should have thrown in more encounters that were easy to overcome.

3) I shouldn't have made EVERY encounter integral to the plot. It is good to have overarching plots that give structure to the game and the encounters the party has. It is also good to have encounters that are just random and give the party a switch from what they've been fighting.

4) I shouldn't have been so stingy about letting some of their ideas work. Sometimes a player comes up with an idea that I think is great and I reward them for it. Sometimes they come up with an idea that they think is great and I make it such that it doesn't work that well because of my own tastes. That's fine, but I think I should have been a bit more forgiving about a few ideas they had.


That's about all the bad things I can think of right now. The list didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would be.

One thing that I did do well this campaign is not pull punches. I didn't try to kill the characters, but the monsters did. We only had three character deaths in almost a year of playing (one even got reincarnated - as an elf) but the players knew that they could lose a character in a hurry if they were stupid. The played smart and careful most of the time.

 

[JeffK1966]

Re: How do you run a good campaign

Boy, as a 20+ year game, I think Kibo is right on the money with his DMing advice.

A couple of great NPCs and/or villains can really make a campaign. Can you picture “Star Wars” without Darth Vader? The plot was fairly simple, but the characters and the way the story was told made it great. But, the villain was one of the all-time film greats, and the movie was filled with interesting and memorable NPCs: from C3PO and R2D2, to the Jawas, the characters in the bar in Mos Eisley, the sand people, Grand Moff Tarkin, etc.

And, make sure the PCs are the stars of the adventure. They shouldn’t be the spear-carriers for an uber-NPC, as somebody else mentioned. Nobody wants to be the guy that guards Michael Jordan in practice, they want to be Michael Jordan – the star of the show.

Sure, maybe in the beginning, they serve a more powerful NPC - a paladin in service to a higher up in his/her order, a young ranger in training under an old woodsman, etc – but, something should happen along the way that puts the PCs at the center of the action. Maybe they do not realize it right away, but that can come out eventually.

And, reward the bold character who takes a chance. If a character takes a risk and scores a major critical hit that takes out what is supposed to be a powerful, ongoing bad guy… remember, there is always somebody bigger and badder waiting to take his place.

 

[Kiehtan]

1. Remember that the DM is not the Player's enemy. Your lovely villians are supposed to lose. You are creating a playground for the PC's to have a blast romping around in. It is all about the PC's having fun.

2. Attention to detail, When the PC's go into the Greedy Dwarf Tavern in the town of Tharen, they expect that the bar wench Jillian will be there to welcome our heros with open arms, and maybe one of the heros with something more, and they expect the propriator, Grendal, to try to leach all the coin out of them they can, they also expect the layout to be the same, the same drafty common room, the same uneven table in the cornor they used to sit at when they first got together, they expect all this even if adventures have taken them away from the town of Tharen for the past 6 months.

3. Set rules but let the PC's strive in the direction they wish to take themselves. Don't force histories and plots down their throats. Steer them where you want to go by making them want to go there. To do this, you need to know the wishes and desires of the PC's.

4. Some PLayers bitch about creating backgrounds, but when they have one, it opens up possibilties for the DM in creating a realistic world that ties in with the PC's past.

 

[JeffK1966]

Oh, and don't be wedded to the players having to have extensive backgrounds and family histories. Most campaigns begin at first level, and I've seem some of what people consider as 'simple' background be enough for a 5th to 7th level PC.

 

[Xarlen]

I thought of an analogy which might help those who like to plan.

Plan your plots like a spiderweb. On the most outer side of the spider web, it's an enormous ring. This is the beginning, or where the PCs start. It allows them to run all the way around that ring, if they want. BUT, there are strings that lead right to the center.

These strings are paths that lead them to the next step, the smaller ring, the next 'phase' of the plot. They can still run around that ring, although it's a little smaller, but there are Still the same number of paths. As they get lower, their room to run around gets smaller, but they still have just as much ways to work with.

This way, at each Ring, there is more then One thing that will get them lower. It's not a single line, but a lot of different clues that get them to same place.

This isn't exactly like pigeonholing, when it gets smaller, but there are just more obvious ways to get to it, or atlast, spesific ways to get to it, as aposed to broad strokes.

 

[Number47]

For DMs who have DM'd very little...

When starting your game, don't try to do too much. You're new, so just put together as much as you're comfortable with. A good idea is to first decide what area-type you are starting in. Rural, wilderness, village, town, city or whatever. Make a quick map of it. No need to have too much detail. A good rule of thumb is to make a map with only as much detail as you would want to show players anyway.

Start at first level. Trust me on this. Starting at a higher level will only make your job harder, and you are a new DM here.

When coming up with a world, city or adventure, steal and plagiarize. There is no need to come up with an innkeeper character like no other innkeeper that anyone has ever used. Somebody has done the work for you, take advantage of it.

Jot down some ideas for an adventure. Players start out here, lean this, and need to go there in order to accomplish that. Don't bother with too many details yet.

Have your players make up characters. Even if you own more than the core rules, ignore those accessories for now. Those are for later introduction, when you're more comfortable. Whatever method you use, make sure everybody uses the same method. Make sure they have all the necessary numbers down, and strongly encourage them to have a name. Although you want richly backgrounded characters, people often change their idea of who their character is after playing a little bit and interacting. Ask them to come up with background before the second session, and you will give them XP for it.

Tell the players the type of game you intend to run. If it is a heroic game, a dungeon-crawling type game, a living fairy tale, whatever. You want to adapt to their style of play, but they have to play by your rules.

Tell the players that they are all together in this place and have all agreed (or forced) to work together to do whatever the plothook is. This is railroading the players into working together and doing what you want. Do it this time, for the purpose of making them a party, and then never do it again.

Give the players an opportunity to talk with NPCs and explore the town (or village, city or whatever). Also allow them to not do it, if they aren't the type. If players want to spend an entire session interacting with innkeepers and roleplaying buying equipment, let them. If they simply want you to summarize the information they find over the day in a couple minutes so they can get to the combat, do that. This is adapting to their style.

When running a game:

• Use different voices. Have a least one generic man, one generic woman, one old coot and one monster voice. Try to remember which voice for which NPC.
• Players like handouts. They don't have to be super-cool or take a long time to make. Easy things to do are letters from home (this really makes their characters real for them), hand them the map they find, or use some painted washers for coins.
• Learn to pretend to read from a blank notebook. You will never have everything prepared that you could possibly need, but your players don't need to know that. Just look at your notebook and make up the description, or monster or whatever, and use your reading voice.
• Throw a bone. Especially at early levels. When a player makes an exceptionally good skill check, have it mean something even if you have to change things. If they check for traps on an untrapped chest, then they roll a twenty, go ahead and put a minor trap there.
• Sometimes your players come up with interesting, odd or wild ideas. Often this is because of some error or flaw in your own designs. Don't say "Wait, it isn't supposed to be like that, let's do it over". Instead, just adopt their idea or something that's similar to it. You get a richer background for your adventure, and they feel smart.