D&D 5E New DM with campaign anxiety

[fendermallot]

I am not too far off from my group of new players finishing the essentials box and I don't think things have gone too badly. I know the rules pretty well (I've played before), but I'm having problems figuring out my next campaign arc.

my group is moving down to waterdeep and we plan on basing ourselves from there. One of the characters has immersed himself in the 3e (maybe 2e) waterdeep lore guide we found and has decided that he will be a gnome with connections to the tinkers guild there. Our other members will be hired guards for the gnome player as he delivers some important tinkering plans to the guild. They are waylaid at sea and wake up floating in the wreckage of their ship only to see a Caravelle with a specific flag and name sailing away.

that is my introduction to the campaign.

My overarching story, at this point, may be too hard for a new dm to pull off. I was thinking of something along the lines of shapeshifting demons have established a cult to the East of the Sword Coast. Their goal is to summon their master to the mortal realm. I haven't decided if that should be via a ritual of sacrifice or maybe through opening planar rifts in order to weaken the barrier between the planes (thanks crit role for that idea). This is a pretty big idea and I have an idea of the steps that the bad guys would have to take in order to be successful, but not how to present it or set it up for the players.

I'm feeling really at a loss and overwhelmed.

any advice?

thanks everyone!

 

[DWChancellor]

You got this. Keep asking yourself questions and be ready to grow.

Remember that it is okay for some things to be unfinished. Only the stuff for your next session or two needs real polishing. Maybe have some solid ideas for what is next but don't spend too much time on them too early.

It is okay to change your mind, and revise, revise, revise! Even better, purchase a module or two with good reviews and file off the serial numbers.

Keep a big idea in mind and drop a few hints. Flavor a few straight-forward sub-quests. If the players grab on, move with them. If they go somewhere else, just rewrite it all to fit with the new direction.

 

[DWChancellor]

So how do you set up a doom cult over many sessions? Start with a basic series of enemies by CR. At low levels players can deal with weak things like kobolds, goblins, and some humanoids in the books. These are the guys doing basic grunt work for evil plots.

Thieving to get cash. Kidnapping for ransom and sacrifices. Somewhat generic bad-guy things that get in the way of the PCs one way or another. But drop some hints. They have the same contact. They have orders written in the same hand. One always has a panther medallion.

Next CR up you see humanoid casters start leading the missions. Their goals are bigger and more dangerous. Maybe a town disappears and your players get a hook to investigate. Choose a style of monster the cult likes that has versions at a few CRs and have them start showing up. Theme it.

Beg, borrow, steal. The first Season of Critical Role is stuffed with cliches and they work great. Players are fine with it. Give them a sense of momentum and don't let the game have too much dead air. And do not, do not remove player agency. Just find a way to write your ideas into their choices so they work together.

 

[fendermallot]

So how do you set up a doom cult over many sessions? Start with a basic series of enemies by CR. At low levels players can deal with weak things like kobolds, goblins, and some humanoids in the books. These are the guys doing basic grunt work for evil plots.

Thieving to get cash. Kidnapping for ransom and sacrifices. Somewhat generic bad-guy things that get in the way of the PCs one way or another. But drop some hints. They have the same contact. They have orders written in the same hand. One always has a panther medallion.

Next CR up you see humanoid casters start leading the missions. Their goals are bigger and more dangerous. Maybe a town disappears and your players get a hook to investigate. Choose a style of monster the cult likes that has versions at a few CRs and have them start showing up. Theme it.

Beg, borrow, steal. The first Season of Critical Role is stuffed with cliches and they work great. Players are fine with it. Give them a sense of momentum and don't let the game have too much dead air. And do not, do not remove player agency. Just find a way to write your ideas into their choices so they work together.

thanks for the reply! As I've sat here trying to sort some of my ideas and how to get them to gel together, I looked at a map of Toril and realized that I could easily use a mostly unexplored landmass to the west for my campaign and have everything be new and fresh.

My players are starting in a shipwreck. I might have them be shanghai'd and taken to Returned Abeir (Laerakond) as slaves then maybe have them take jobs to earn their freedom. Keeping in mind that there will be ways for them to gain their freedom that does not include working for the "bad guys". Then I think I might introduce them to a group who is not happy to be ruled by dragons, or the worshippers of the dawn titans, etc.

thanks for the ideas on how to slowly set it up. It's still really good info to adapt!

 

[ninjayeti]

Sounds like you have some cool ideas.

First, focus on the next adventure rather than trying to map out the whole campaign in advance. Doing a ton of planning in advance is unnecessary, and stories often go in unexpected directions, so it can be counterproductive. Sounds like your PC's start stranded at sea - how do they survive and return to land? Wash up on a mysterious island? Captured by sahuagin? Rescued by sea elves? You can run this adventure perfectly well even if you have no idea what the next step is.

Second, if you know what the bad guys are doing, you can figure out how the PC's intersect with that. Sounds like the bad guys stole some tinker guild plans. The PC's have a motivation to recover the plans and lead on the thieves. How do they find them and what happens when they do?

Third, a linear structure, where each adventure provides a hook to the next one, is fairly easy and can work well for a campaign like this. Each adventure has 1) a hook that gets resolved (the stolen tinker plans); 2) some information on the overall plot (the thieves were not simple pirates, but members of a demonic cult); and 3) a hook to the next adventure (the the cultists have a captive gnome artificer, who built the device from the plans; the artificer and device were taken to a new location).

Finally, don't try to stretch things out too far. You don't need to map out a years-long adventure path that takes the PC's to level 20. Build in as many or as few adventures into the arc as make sense and cap it with a satisfying finale before the players start to lose their enthusiasm for the story.

If all else fails, an episodic campaign is a great option. Writing one adventure is easier (and less intimidating) than writing a longer arc, and is probably the best option for newer DMs. Once you have a few successful (or even no-so-successful) episodic adventures under your belt you will have a lot more skill and confidence to tackle a more ambitious projects.

 

[Dausuul]

IME, the most important thing is not to try too hard to control the game. You can play off the players' ideas. If they seem interested in something, that can be your hook for the next adventure (even if it wasn't what you had in mind). Get them engaged and they'll do a lot of the work for you.

And I second the suggestion to keep to a more episodic approach; it's a lesson I am finally learning after repeatedly burning myself out on epic campaigns. We start out with visions of "The Lord of the Rings," but D&D is really better suited to "Conan the Barbarian"--short stories full of action, larger-than-life heroes, and fangorious monsters.

 

[billd91]

A little anxiety is normal. I still have bouts of it and I’ve been running games about 40 years. Comes with the introverted territory in my case. Just remember that having fun together is the most important part. Keep at that and the rest gets easier as you you go along.

 

[darjr]

I run public games and home games and I get stage fright every time.

Use it as fuel.

 

[darjr]

Also sometimes my anxiety is excitement and adrenaline my mind mistagged.

 

[LordEntrails]

Great advice so far. If you can afford it, pickup Dragon Heist. (Don't run the module as written though.) Its a great resource for things in Waterdeep. Lots of locations and a bunch of personalities that are pretty focal for the city. You can use the Cassalantar story parts for your demon cult, or at least the Waterdeep part of your campaign.

Don't read Dragon Heist front to back. Skim it, get the overview. Then take a look at Dragon Heist Remix – Part 1: The Villains (and the rest of the series) as it shows you one way you can take the content from DH and re-use it for a better and more complex (but not complicated) campaign.

Then, again if you have the money, you can take a look at Princes of the Apocalypse, as that takes place to the east in the Dessarin Valley. Again, use it as a resource for maps and key NPCs, but put your own plot to it.