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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ninjayeti" data-source="post: 8517463" data-attributes="member: 6789120">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.</blockquote>

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