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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NewJeffCT" data-source="post: 6546202" data-attributes="member: 10784">I used to DM all the time when I was younger, then took a break from D&D for a few years as my original gaming group graduated college and moved out of Connecticut to other environs.  When I got back into gaming, I was part of a group that had a fantastic full time DM, so was happily a player for a few years.  However, some job changes and a move for me, and the fantastic DM becoming permanently handicapped kept me out of gaming for a few more years - until I got a chance with a new group with me as DM.  So, I was a bit rusty.  Plus, my job is in accounting & financial analysis, so I'm pretty analytical as well.What I did was plan out just the first adventure using a published low level adventure that was somewhat open ended in that it had a timeline of events that happened in game rather than a linear progression of encounters leading up to the conclusion.  I had that, plus I had a few loose ideas for where the game could go once we finished up that starter adventure, but I did not want to commit to anything in case it all fell apart.Well, I ran the players through that starter adventure and the group picked up 2 more players along the way (a soon to be married couple).  I thought I integrated them into the game pretty smoothly and they were there for the climax of that low level adventure, an encounter with slavers.   Then, since that final encounter was with slavers, one of the original PCs decided that he was inspired by the fight against slavery and would become a Paladin of Freedom and dedicate himself to the anti-slavery deity.  From there, one of those "loose ideas" suddenly surged to the forefront in the PCs (all good aligned) challenging the masters of the slavers of that first encounter - the lawful evil deity of slavery and tyranny, who ran an oppressive theocracy across the border.    And, I also picked up a new player as well.So, while I was fleshing out the long term goals of the campaign and what it would build to from there, I basically ran a mini adventure I created on my own that I could probably call "The Slavers Strike Back" - the few slavers that escaped managed to get together a more powerful force of allies and then attempted to strike back at the PCs and a few of their key allies (a dryad, a pseudodragon and a few brownies) that ended with a huge encounter/showdown.  So, creating this mini adventure (run over 5-6 sessions maybe?) gave me additional time to flesh out the long term stuff, but also increased the PCs' hatred of slavers, since it was the slavers that were striking back and attempting to kill/capture their allies.By the time that The Slavers Strike Back was done, the group has really come together well and everybody was united in their hatred of the followers of this deity of slavery and tyranny.  From there, it was just a matter of grabbing ideas from different published adventures that I thought suited the campaign and pointing the PCs in the right direction.  Not everything went smoothly every time out, but there were a lot of memorable encounters and moments along the way with the climax underneath the great temple of this deity of slavery & tyranny. Plus, I picked up two more players for a grand total of 8 (the soon to be fiancee of one player, and the teenage son of another, so I couldn't  exactly turn them down...)  For each encounter along the way, I would probably over-prepare (putting the "anal" in analysis) for each one to compensate for having such a large group, but I became really good at challenging the PCs down to their last hit points and last spells/powers.  I wasn't always good at thinking on my feet, but I got better along the way.So, don't overdo it to start.  It worked out great for me to run a published adventure to start and have a few ideas for longer term that kind of took care of themselves once that published adventure was completed.</blockquote>

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