New Campaigns

[Eye Tyrant]

I'm wrapping up my current game soon and looking ahead to the next campaign I'm going to run. I am curious how other DMs prepare for a new game. What suggestions are there for outlining a new campaign? What do you look at as a DM when you decide to start over at 1st level?

 

[Ambrus]

First and foremost, talk to your prospective players. Find out what they'd be interested in playing and then make sure what you end up running reflects their desires.

 

[Ravenknight]

Hi..!

Some things I can think of right now...

Choose a campaignsetting that You feel comfortable with. Of course depending of what sort of feeling You want in Your adventures.

The players.
What campaign do THEY want to play? What kind of party do they want to play.? Any other input.?

Take one evening making the characters and discussing the coming campaign. Having ready characters makes it possible to work in quirks and plothooks that will involve the players at the beginning.

Start out simple. Make some simple low lvl adventures. When they are done You will have a better feel for the characters and in what direction the players want the campaign to go.

Make a good villain. It´s a good wy to keep a campaign focused having the players fight the same fricking bas*ard all thru the first lvls.. In the end they will love to see him beaten at their feet and the party is connected in a common cause.

If You have access to Robin´s Laws or Dungeonmasters Guide II they both have excellent advices on how to start a new campaign... Read them if You get the oppurtunity.

(Sorry for any spelling errors since english is not my native language...)

 

[Eye Tyrant]

Any suggestions on making the new campaign less magic intensive? Should I just limit spells/items available in the game? How about restricting the resources allowed (ie. nothing out of books x and y)? That's easy at low levels, but once the PCs reach the mid levels they start having excess loot and want to spend it all on magic. I plan on making the oppurtunity to buy magic are rarity, with probably the exception of potions and scrolls. That doesn't stop Item Creation though...

 

[Ravenknight]

Hi..

I´ve tried to limit magic in the past. It can be done by restricting classes and as You say making it hard to find and buy magic stuff. But if You allow spellcasters then You´re in for a balance issue. A wizard can function really good at mid levels without powerful loot since his spells are his primary weapon. A fighter on the other hand is helpless against high CR monsters if he doesn´t have the loot to back him.

An solution is of course to limit the spellcasters abilities or outlawing them all together. If You want a lowmagic feel I guess this is the way to go. Magicusers would then become mystical Gandalf-like figures with powers beyond the players reach. Then it doesn´t matter much if the other classes lack their +2 swords, plates, daggers boots or whatever.

If You want a campaign that focus on humanoid or human opposition this can both be fun and playable since You can limit their access to magic aswell. But any monster with a CR around 10 or below will become really really hard to beat so You may have to adjust them according to the characters abilities.

Skip Magic Shops. Magic is found in the end of dangerous quests and they all should have names and history.

All this said. I believe that D&D isn´t a game suitable to change to low magic. You will have to do a lot of tweaking and the gamebalance will suffer if You limit magic. There are some lowmagic campaignsettings floating around out there that could give You a hint and I believe there is a new supplement calles Iron Lore or something that will focus on players abilities instead of their loot but I don´t think it´s out yet.

Best of luck.

 

[GlassJaw]

Any suggestions on making the new campaign less magic intensive?

Grim Tales

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm wrapping up my current game soon and looking ahead to the next campaign I'm going to run. I am curious how other DMs prepare for a new game. What suggestions are there for outlining a new campaign? What do you look at as a DM when you decide to start over at 1st level?

Assuming the players are the same, my key target would be to make this new campaign different than the previous. There's lots of tricks that one may consider to do this....

You can rehash the races (some examples ):
- ditch a race or two if they were too popular; or make it too powerful to be played without a high ECL (if you are bored by elf PCs but you still want elves in the world, you can make them much more powerful, and suddenly you won't have many PCs)
- make an underused race central to your setting (gnomes)
- introduce a couple of new races from the MM or somewhere else, and make them important to the setting (goblins or kenku)
- concentrate the campaign on a few monsters previously uncommon (yuan-ti or rakshasa ) or different from what they used to be (Warcraft orcs)

You can change the character creation rules:
- focus on regional benefits instead of racial benefits
- give everyone a chosen innate ability
- try out UA weapon groups instead of proficiencies
- ban a couple of base classes that were already perused, and replace them with a couple of new ones
- use spontaneous versions of all caster-types

You can use other rules variants and see what comes out of them:
- try a an AC/DR variant
- try a metamagic variant
- try an action-point system
- incorporate a single supplement and _enforce_ its use (e.g. Book of Exalted Deeds, Manual of the Planes, Seas of Blood, Codex Anathema)

There are so many options possible, but the key point is not to overuse them. If you always allow everything from every book, all your campaigns will have the same "vanilla" flavor. Now you can do this too, but concentrating on different themes is what makes campaign really different IMXP.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I went for a low magic feel by having lots less magic around: NPC spellcasters were very rare, there were less than 30 wizards in the kingdom, clerics were divinely blessed miracle workers - most priests were experts. Most people had never even seen a magic item or spell in action.

The PCs were special - being a group with several spellcasters in. Lots of people would ask them for help, hassle them, etc. They caused a stir wherever they went. Rapidly became semi legendary.

Evil NPCs were similalrly rare, just took a great deal of interest in the PCs!

Found this changed the feel of the game a great deal, without changing any mechanics around.

As for starting a new game, I tend to take the time to talk to the players 1 on 1 and later as a group... get a feel for what they want to do and possibly plant some of my own ideas.

 

[Stormborn]

Grim Tales was already mentioned, but I would also add Black Company and even d20 Modern to the mix. Using d20 Modern in a fantasy setting can give you suprising level of flexibility and will keep the magic toned down.

I agree with the balance issue. I am running a low magic campaign, no casters and rare but pwoerful magic items, and have run into problems. The PCs just hit 9th level, and have a few magic items amoung them, but sometimes CRs are very difficult to figure and I have been suprised out some of the outcomes.

If you want to play a low magic game, I suggest finding a system that is designed for it. Like one of the ones already mentioned, or even a non-d20 game like GUPRS.

As everyone has said, know your group? Do they want a lower magic game?

 

[Delemental]

I recall from your other thread that one of the problems you had was your players mining multiple sourcebooks and squeezing advantages out of them. I think reiterating the advice you got there is good; limit them to core rules only, or a few, very specific supplements (like the Complete series, for example). You may want to avoid FR books, because the Realms tends to a 'high magic' feel. Of course, if you're playing in the Realms, you kind of need those books, but you can limit things there (no using Lost Empires, for example, or Underdark, or things not easily accesible to 'modern' surface worlders in the Realms).

The best way to limit magic items is not to allow them to be bought and sold like you would buy a suit of clothes or a sack of flour. Were I to run a lower-magic game, I might limit purchasable magic to potions and scrolls below 3rd level. Permanent items would have to be contracted out to a caster willing to do the work; no "Ye Olde Magick Shoppes" with cases of wands and miscellaneous magic items just lying about. And a wizard or cleric contracted to make an item might very well demand more than the DMG market price, or demand services in addition to payment (which can fuel adventure ideas). In order to stem the "I have lots of gold to spend" problem, you could give the PC's non-monetary rewards; ranks, titles, lands, promises of favors from powerful NPCs, etc.

In terms of stopping the PC's from using item creation feats, there's little you can do. You could ban those feats outright, though then the players have the right to wonder why they can't take them but NPC's can. You could have role-play restrictions, saying that magic item creation is only allowed by those who are licensed by the government; they can use the feats, but risk legal consequences. You could change the requirements for the feats, or change the item creation rules to make them more expensive, harder, take longer, etc. IF you do allow PC's to make item creation, realize that technically being able to make magic items that aren't in the DMG is an option, not a rule; you have the right to say they can only make items that are listed in the book. THough that still gives them lots of choices, I find the abuse is more likely to happen when players can make 'custom' items. Finally, you could structure your campaign to not give the PC's a lot of downtime; if you do this, it's only fair to warn them before character creation, so they don't buy feats they'll never get to use.