How to start a new campaign?

[Veneficus the Great]

I have been a DM for some time, but I want to know how other DM's plan their campaign (yes, I am a beginner). How do you plan your campaign? Do you use much time? Do you concentrate on something (maybe a goal, group or something)?

I'm also interested in some campaign ideas!

-Veneficus the Humble

 

[Guillaume]

Personally, I usually start with a general goal. However, since I use a lot of prepublished material, I tend to remain felxible with this goal. The campaign should always be tailored to your players. I have one player who tends to play woodsy/roguish types. I have to take that into account when I plan something.


Hope this helps.

 

[morrolan]

I agree w/ Guilaume. Figure out what sort of game your players want, although this may tak some trial and error if you are new to gming. It also helps if they hqve backgrounds worked out, so you can derive plots from there.
Beyond that, I tend to figure out a main plot, based on a villain or evil organization. Break their main goal down into a few adventures. For instance, first the players are alerted to the villains existance. Next they discover the true extent of his plan. Then they find out a way to stop him. A quest for the thing to use against him. Finally the pc's take the fight to him.
Each of these example steps need not be the main point of that adventure. The main villain could be introduced as a minor player in one adventure, then grow more important as time goes on. Throw in a few unrelated episodes. A good point of reference is a season of a tv show like Buffy or Angel; While the Big Bad is a constant threat/concern, there are many side-treks to break up the plot a bit.

As for the world itself, you may want to use a published setting if you are new. It will be one less thing to worry about. Otherwise, paint most of the world in broad strokes, and save the detail for where the characters will be running around. Build as you go, and if the characters want to know something you haven't accounted for, just wing it, and add the result into your "official" world.

Well I've rambled longer than I expected... hope something here helps! This is how I tend to conceptualize campaigns, but as always YMMV!

 

[Veneficus the Great]

Thanks for the tips!

I have some more information about my campaign. I want to build it around the "behind every man is a strong woman".

The lady in a small town have gain access to the "Chalice of Allegiance" (from Relics - AEG). Everyone who drinks from this chalice must follow every command of the person who holds this chalice. The lady wants to make her own realm and lets her man (who are the mayor in a small town) drink from it.

What should she force him to do? She wants the town apart from the kingdom (lets say Cormyr). She must also do something that hampers the PC's (ban on magic or weapons or something like this). And why does she do it? (There may be a mind flayer behind she).

Any tips or thoughs about my campaign?

-Veneficus the Thoughful

 

[Nightfall]

All I do with my campaigns, I start with an idea, have some vague outlines and see where the players take it. It's kind off the cuff I know but when you have people, planning can only go so far.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

You should figure out some way the PCs can wise up to her plot before she can trick one of them into drinking from the chalice - or else your campaign will take a quick turn into something different.

The ban on magic is a good idea, but it would be a good idea to let the PCs go on a few, seemingly unrelated adventures in the general vincity first. This serves two purposes:

- It familiarizes the players with the setting and the local NPCs, and thus gives them a chance to realize that everyone is suddenly acting weirdly - and a reason to care about it (especially if one of the now obedient people has been a girl one of the PCs has flirted with before... ), and

- it gives them a chance to acquire some magic items which the PCs would have to part with under the new laws.

Nothing induces civil disobedience more easily in player characters than the threat of loosing some of their loot.

I would also recommend reading up on real-world cults and fringe religious sects - Scientology, for example. This could give you some good hints on how to play affected NPCs...

As for the mind flayer idea, you would have to work out why precisely a mind flayer would bother with such an object - after all, they are quite capable of mentally enslaving someone without the aid of magic items...

 

[Nightfall]

My own advice, is the woman in charge is a familiar one to those of you that have Legions of Hell. Yep the Lady Hadriel of Legions of Hell. That would be my choice. She's come to enslave the entire plane to gain greater power. So that's my reasoning for why she's doing this. Devils are great at moving behind the scenes where no one expects them to be.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

Ok, so here's what I try to do (and wish was done when I play) before every campaign.

1. List the goals of the game. Is it about killing stuff and getting treasure? Is it about political intrigue? Is it about seeing neat new places? Is it a thin veneer of jokes about ninja? My current game's goal is to beat up a lot of opponents and generally be better than everyone else.

2. What are the primary aspects of the game? Will the game feature plenty of moments to look cool? Will the game have a lot of Role Playing? Is there a lot of action? Do you want self motivated characters? Do you want heroic posturing and speeches?

3. Pester players for characters and backgrounds backgrounds and that will fit in with the above.

4. Come up with a few detailed NPC's and local power structures, so when players do something I'm not prepared for, I'm ready to wing it, and let their actions decide the consiquences.

That's what I try. That and saying "Hey, I'm thinking of running a game like this, anyone interested?"

 

[David Howery]

I find it helpful to set a long term vague plan to set your adventures against. I've run several that basically led the PCs from one short term goal to another, that eventually led them to realize the master plot I'd formed way back at the beginning. For example, here's an outline of the last campaign I loosely plotted out:
The PCs' home base would be a once thriving town that had fallen on hard times for over a century; the town had once traded with an underground dwarven city (unknown exactly where it was), but the trade suddenly ceased (no one knows why the dwarves stopped coming to trade).
1st goal: the PCs have to deal with a rash of kidnappings and piracy in the area. When/if successful, they find a local wealthy family is behind it all.
2nd goal: the PCs, in the process of moving against the family, finds that they are actually a group of semi-human monsters who worship the evil Wastri (this was set in Greyhawk).
3rd goal: the PCs set out into the swamps to search out and destroy the temple of Wastri that set up the problems in the PCs' home town. If successful, the PCs will find some superb weapons that were obviously made in the lost dwarven underground city.
4th goal: the PCs try to find out where the dwarf weapons came from, which will lead them into a wilderness of underground caverns inhabited by all the big bad nasty underground races. Clues will lead them to a city of kuo toa.
5th goal: the PCs sneak into the kuo toa city and discover that Wastri's people were stirred up by them; the dwarf weapons were part of the bribe to get them to do so. The PCs will have to deal with the kuo toa plotters. They will find evidence that the weapons came from a clan of duergar deeper in the earth.
6th goal: the PCs look for the duergar clan.. unfortunately, they live deep in another wilderness region of caverns. However, if the PCs are successful, they will find evidence that will point them in the right direction to the lost dwarven city (which is where the duergar looted the weapons from).
7th goal: the PCs will find the lost dwarven city.. which is long abandoned by the dwarves, and overrun with lots of underground nasties. The PCs will hopefully get the idea of cleaning it out and encouraging dwarves to move back there again and start up the trade with their home town, and bring prosperity to it again.
final goal: this can vary... if the PCs want to restore the city, they will have to work with the dwarves to clear out the nasties from adjacent areas (including a small city of drow). If not, the PCs can still have fun exploring the adjacent areas....
obviously, this is a vague outline, and each goal includes lots of side treks. It's important too, to not run the campaign too linear... the PCs may not want to tackle a kuo toa city.. in which case, you'll have to dream up something else wherever it is they want to go. Still, it's helpful to have a long term plan like this.. just don't get too attached to it...

 

[Piratecat]

David, you may want to add line breaks to your last post -- it's kind of hard to read without them.

I generally have two different types of campaign starters. One has a pre-planned master plot that arcs throughout the whole campaign. Sagiro has a game like this. In comparison, mine was started without a master plot because I wanted to run separate modules and slowly tie them together. Either way works well; the former requires more advance planning (and is probably better for a really long campaign), but the latter may be easier for a new DM.