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Message: <blockquote data-quote="random user" data-source="post: 1830260" data-attributes="member: 16581">I guess I develop my campaign much differently than the way listed here.If this were my world, I would simply create some NPCs, give them some background and personality, and then give them some motivation.As a simple example (ie this is kinda 2 demensional, but does take into account some of what you want to change) I could do something like:1. create an magician / scientist.  He's trying to alter horses to be intelligent and fiercesome.  He reasons that if he can successfully breed them, the horses can defend the caravan and obviate the need for mercanaries to be hired (or at least lessen the need).  Unfortunately, his experiments have gotten a little out of hand and some of his "horses" have escaped.  They've started to breed and now harass the countryside.2. create a mayor one of the biggest villages.  He's the main proponent of expansionism.  His hidden agenda is a war with the elves because he feels his grandfather was wronged by an elf.  He thinks if he can get some 'backbone" into the humans, they will be able to take over the land.  And if some elves get killed, well, so much the better.3. the local religious authority of the place the characters start in (not the same village as the mayor) is in favor of co-existance, and has been preaching that -- regardless of what the official doctrine is.  He's level-minded and isn't interested in seeing a war break out, which is what he knows will happen.  Though various sources, he knows about the dragon, and knows the elves have their backs against the wall.  In addition, he feels that if elves and humans mingled more, he might get more recruits for the church.4. The leader of the forest needle clan.  He simply wants to be left alone, and he thinks what he is doing will lead to the humans going away.  He's motivated by a sense of honor.  He feels that these lands are elven lands, and they shouldn't have to kow-tow to humans.5. A retired elven adventurer.  This guy is wise and has been among humans, more so than most of his fellow elves.  He knows that while the elves generally view themselves as superior to humans, the elves could learn some things as well.  He's the main opposition to #4.  He's been using political connections to put up roadblocks to further harrassment, and is advocating setting up a "demilitarized zone" where elves and humans can co-exist.  He also thinks that this will lead to more trade, which will further strengthen his political situation, which will allow him to rise in power.OK, now you have 5 people set up, all with some (basic) motivation.  Now plan their moves.#1. He has a tower and he's not too concerned about the escaped horses (ie the demons).  He's protected in his tower, and he's working on his project.  Actually, he thinks if he can capture a tiger cub or two that would help his research.  Unfortunately, he doesn't have the time to go get one... A couple months ago, he went to the biggest village to buy a lot of horses to use as his base stock.  It was a big purchase -- very unusual -- so a lot of people would remember it (perhaps if you don't want to have money, he performed some sort of service instead).  Oh, did I rememeber to mention, these demons look kind of equine?#2. He's looking for willing adventurers/mercanaries to "stir things up" in the frontier, to protect the humans who want to stay here.  He's willing to pay, and he says (whether or not it is true is to be determined) that once the humans settle in, the people who help out, will get free land grants.  He's spread this story to other towns as well, and is thinking about sending someone (or a group) to the city to try and get recruits.  He has some money but not too much, so he's trying to lure people mostly with the free land speech.#3. He's thinking about trying to send a message to the city to convince them to build a new temple on the frontier.  He thinks if he can just talk to some elves, he can make some headway.  He thinks that the elves and humans can learn a lot from each other.  But before that happens, he borrowed a set of carpentry tools from a friend in the nearby big village, and needs someone to return them.#4. His plan is to just keep on doing what he wants to do.  He wants to try and make an example of villages like he's done.  The players probably won't interact with him in the first couple sessions, so table any further development of him.#5. Again, the PC's won't encounter him for a bit; table his development.Now to start: players start in #3's hamlet/village, so you'll need to flesh that out a little.  They are probably going to move in one of two directions.  They can either go to the city on behalf of the elder to deliver the message for the new temple, or they can deliver the tools to the main village.  Alternately, if they frequent the pub, they may hear about the mayor there.Flesh out the big village; you'd probably have to do this no matter what they do, since you're going to need them to move from one place to another anyways.  The mayor exists, and probably has someone helping him.Flesh out the big city some.  Since this is the "coolest" place, chances are your players are going to want to head there at some point in time, so you might as well do it now.And you're mostly done.  You probably have to come up with some more stuff, but if absolutely necessary, the city stuff can be done on the fly (ie you meet with someone in the temple, there is nothing to say that each person's word is the gospel of the temple, if you meet people trying to recruit them you don't have to worry that their word is gospel either.The next key thing is to get an idea of which way they want to go, but then have stuff to occupy their time until the end of the session.  At that point, you can see where they are headed and only concentrate on what they are going to face (like for right now you can not worry about both of the elves, for the most part).  For example, you could say that at some point in their traveling, they will get attacked by the horses (unless, of course they take extrodinary measures to avoid that, but at level 1 that's unlikely).  If they choose to pursue it, it can become something more; if they don't, it will just be a random encounter.With some DM-fu, you can probably get the session to end right after the combat or right after they make some indications of moving one way or another.  (Having a combat you can drop the players into is often a good stalling technique.)If they later decide to head in a direction you haven't worked on, you can "catch up" those NPCs (ie let's say a couple months go by: in the time that has passed, #4 has convinced another faction to join him, but now he has troubles.  One of his subordinates is hotheaded, and proclaimed that there would be a civil war if the rest of the elves did not bend to #4's way.  #4 doesn't actually want that and now has to deal with that.  Meanwhile #5 has seized upon this opportunity to try and convince people #4 is a lunatic.  Also, he's decided to lead by example and decided to move out to the frontier himself.  He's been getting back into shape and preparing to move.)Now I'm by no means at all telling you this is what you should do with your campaign.  But this whole thing took me about 3 mintues to think up and perhaps 10-15 minutes to type out.   I find that when I just set up a framework of NPCs with some motivations, no matter what the PCs do, things fall into place.So what am I trying to say? Just that I think that it's possible to allow all 4 possibilities to exist without having to do that much work.That's my 2cp.  I don't mean to suggest that everyone should run a campaign this way; however, if you hadn't thought to run it that way before, perhaps this is something to think about.</blockquote>

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