How Much Do You Prepare When Starting a New Campaign?

[ForceUser]

I've been planning a new campaign for almost a month, and the first session is next weekend. Based on the experiences from my last campaign, my prep this time around has been more comprehensive in some ways and frugal in others.

Mostly, I think about my campaign. I jot down notes detailing specific plots or encounters I intend to present. A few specific NPCs. A lot of adventure hooks. These notes, by and large, are not meant to be comprehensive; they are simply there to remind me of a thing I've put a lot of thought into and want to present in a certain way. Some notes are a sentence fragment, some are a whole page. Some are short lists of related items.

In addition to thinking up the major plots and taking notes on what I've thought up, I've done some research on the internet. When I come to a concept I want to flesh out or something that NEEDS defining in an unambiguous way, I hit google.com and find what I need and download it or print it. I'm running an OA campaign, so most of my background material is right there on the net - religion, philosophy, history, maps, etc.

My experience has been that I am a better DM when I am not trying to flip through notes or books in the middle of a game to find specific details that I've written in novel format. Instead, I use fast, find-at-a-glance bullets that allow me to keep the pace of the campaign where I like it to be. My forte as a DM is improvisation, not research, so I tend to be heavy on mood, ambiance, and drama, and light on concrete, specific, details.

So my prep has been more comprehensive this time around because I have given serious thought to the fundamentals of exactly what is going on in the world around the PCs, and what the ramifications of X and Y will be in the long run. That's a new area of focus for me; I tend to run linear adventures and I want to change that. But my prep has also been more frugal because I am not spending hours detailing maps and NPCs, and writing adventures out in exquisite detail (which I would then have to flip through later during a session..bleh).

So basically, I've laid the plot down, solidified some key NPCs, jotted down some adventures notes, and I'm ready to see where the PCs decide to take me through this world I've created. I've got a good feeling about this campaign.

 

[Atreus]

I like River's advice.

I advocate what I call a Daoist approach to adventure/campaign design.

The best prepreations are the prepreations that let you do your adventures on the fly.

I take out a sheet of paper, and then I jot down very generalized ideas about the game world.

Details are bad. All I want to know is that there is an great forest that contains a xenophobic wild elf nation. They are known and feared for their powerful druidic magic, and are ruled by the dreaded Forest Queen. Maybe throw in a secret, like everyone assumes that the high elves and the wild elves split from a single ancentral elf, but they really didn't (damned if I know what that means, but I like the sound of it).

That is good stuff. It handles nearly everything I'd need to know about the area if the PCs aren't actually there. NPCs can talk about that place, and what they say might be right or it might be wrong, I can decide that later. I also threw in a unknown secret that I can decide the meaning of at any time.

Once you have a general idea of a world at large, you can start your campaign anywhere.

Pick a region, make up a specific location, like a town.

Decide why the town is there, lets say its a mining town that mines iron. Pick out some major NPCs and give them agendas.

Lets say, you want to have a major iron merchant, his agenda is to make money in a neutral manner. Think to yourself, what would he need to do in order to accomplish that. He needs iron, so he has a vested intrest in the mining and smelting of the iron, he needs to move the iron, so he would have a vested intrest in transporation, he wants to keep his iron safe so he has a vested intrest in soliders and bandits, he's making money so he has a vested intrest in storing, protecting and spending his money.

Figure out how he generally meets all of his needs. He probally interacts with other NPCs, like say the mine owner, the caravan master, or the barge captians, the commander of the towns soliders, and the captian of the mercanary guards that protect the shipments, etc. If the PCs meddle in any of these areas, you'd better belive the iron merchant is going to have something to think about it.

I don't stat out each and every one of these people and write their life story, I just kinda know they exist in a non-specific conceptual form until such time as the PCs bump into them. When they do bump into them, I just fill in the details on the fly.

When I design like this, I don't have a plot on rails that will collapse if the PCs want to do something I didn't plan on. By having a general framework but no details, I know what is where, but exactly what is what and where is where isn't set in stone. I can weave in major plot twist on a whim and not have it invalidate anything that hasn't happend yet.

It is also more fun, because you as the DM don't know what is going to happen, and players dig it because they don't have to wait for the DM to decide what they can do. Players can go in any direction they want, I just tell em what is there.

 

[rounser]

Work up some cheddar.

I generally have a dozen pages of so of quick baddies for players to kill. That way if I don't have time to prepare a lot of plot on a particular week I can always throw a little extra combat in. The d20 is scaleable so as your players get better just add a few points to all the baddies relevant numbers (BAB) (AC) (Saves) (Damage) and your "Cheddar" can be kept current to players abilities.

This is good advice. Come to think of it, Buffy tends to have a bunch of generic vampire or demon goons wandering around each episode to get kicked or staked, and they may or may not have anything to do with the plotline. Works for them...makes sense to have baddies from the Zhentarim (or whatever is the status quo evil group in the campaign) doing the same to provide some fodder.

To add to your point, another good piece of advice I saw is that if ever you find the PCs heading for or trying to do something you would like to prepare better for between sessions, you can always slow them down with combat. That's where these "cheddar" would come in handy.

 

[Gospog]

I should qualify my last post a little bit. Reading it, it makes it sound like I skipped preparation this time, in favor of reading from a book. That's not the case.

Prior to writing any finished scenario, I read through the book, planet by planet. After reading about each planet or moon, I wrote a one-paragraph plot hook for each.

Then I set about weaving them together for a campaign, changing things as I go. I had an overall idea for the campaign, and these hooks were incorporated into it. The sourcebook remains a great resource for instant NPCs, however.

I hope that's a little clearer, and I hope it helps.

Good luck, and have fun!

 

[SableWyvern]

How much work do I do?

Not nearly as much as I should.

Which is almost certainly the major contributing factor to my lack of satisfaction with my current campaign.

 

[Jasperak]

I must second the idea of the Dungeoncraft articles on the WOTC site. Using those as a guideline has made my life alot easier when designing my introductory campaign setting. It actually took me longer to cut & paste the articles in one file than to actually form a usable basis for a campaign.