Planning Campaigns

[Jürgen Hubert]

I come up with a few "main villains" moving behind the schemes. I don't give them stats at this point yet - I only try to get a rough sense of their powers, motivations, schemes and resources.

During the campaign, I let the PCs run across some of these underlings, and the campaign will develop from there. I can always add the details in later.

But there is no point in writing up everything in the beginning, since the PCs will always do something unanticipated...

 

[shilsen]

I'm running two Eberron campaigns now, neither of which I began with any overarching plot. I threw a few adventure hooks out there and depending on which one(s) the PCs decided to follow and what they did, an overarching plot has emerged in one and is emerging in the other. The plot is constantly evolving and being modified as a result of their continuing actions/choices. The advantage of this method is that it makes the game much more player-driven and it's exciting for me as a DM since I essentially have no idea where the PCs may end up. Plus it completely removes any chances of railroading, since there's nowhere for me to railroad them to. The disadvantage is that it requires a lot more adaptability and willingness to DM "on the fly" from me, but that's only a cosmetic disadvantage, since I am thoroughly enjoying doing so.

 

[Zappo]

I do different things for different campaigns, adapting my style to the players and the tone of the game. Currently, I'm DMing two campaigns: a Planescape campaign, and a Warcraft campaign.

The Planescape campaign is meticulously planned; I have a certain plot and detailed locations and NPCs and everything. You know, maps with numbered rooms, stat blocks telling which spell he knows and how many copper coins he has, the whole shebang. Since I strongly dislike railroading, I also have multiple contingencies planned for whatever action I figured the party might take, and a whole lot of context details that could turn out to become important.

The Warcraft campaign is 90% unplanned. I've got a vague notion that a demon is trying to cause certain dangerous artifacts, long lost, to resurface and the PCs have to secure them before they fall into the wrong hands. That's about it as far as the campaign as a whole is concerned. We're into the 50th session and I haven't even thought about a name for the demon yet. The single adventure isn't much better.

We seem to have about the same fun either way, though the Planescape plots are certainly more involved and more satisfying for me. But after the Abyssal Campaign is over, I'll be running converted modules for a while, and then it'll be mostly ad-lib there as well. I can no longer afford to spend as much time planning as I do playing.

 

[fusangite]

Do you plan most of the campaign before you start to finish or just wing it.

All of my campaigns have a preconceived plot. None of them has a preconceived storyline. I know that in my campaign, the characters will travel through seven cities and, in the process, find the Holy Grail; these cities will be the City of the Trees, City of the Sea, City of Riches, City of Frustration, City of Celebration, the Four Sided City and the City of Glass. I know that arrayed against them are analogues of Tezcatlipoca and Kronos and that these things will be expressed in Celtic, Mormon and Iroquois terms. The basic physics of the world will be a combination of Early Spiritualist Mormonism and Thomistic Catholicism.

I have no idea where the cities will be, what they will be called, in what order they will be encountered, what will happen there or the way in which the city's nature will correspond to its name. And I don't really know what the Holy Grail will turn out to be. The storyline is largely controlled by the players; the plot is controlled by me.

I tend to establish a world structure which will naturally suggest a narrative structure and, from there, I create place-specific background for locations and times through which the characters travel.

I don't plan adventures very far ahead, except in the sense that I know, at some point in the story, that certain a red and a white dragon will show up and fight eachother. While there are certain inevitable events, again, almost everything about the event is left undefined.

 

[fusangite]

I plan far enough ahead that I have something for the PCs to do. Unfortunately, a habit I'm trying to break, I tend to be kinda railroading.

Railroading is only bad when the players can see the tracks.

 

[fnork de sporg]

I find that if I let myself I will overplan a campaign, planning ahead so much that the plot becomes inflexible, or putting lots of work in to encounters that never really happen or end up happening at some totally other EL, or whole plot lines that we just don't have time for.

So I like to only plan ahead one or two sessions at a time. Plus I like to improvise. It's fun. A random encounter here, a freshly made up location or npc here, these kinds of things help keep the game fresh. Plus I love when an improvised element turns in to long term campaign element.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I usually have a general concept for the campaign which later I use as a guide to link the individual scenarios together. Once I have that I brainstorm several encounters that I want to include. Once I have those encounters I use the general concept to help me link them together in a logical progression.

 

[Dog Moon]

Originally posted by fusangite
Railroading is only bad when the players can see the tracks.

That's the problem; the tracks may be translucent, but they are still noticeably there. My first was REALLY bad, but I think I had a lot of forgiveness cause it was a first time. Well, that and because my storytelling was apparently fairly decent. The fact that I had created a reappearing NPC they hated helped a little.

Fortunately, I've gotten better at that, but the tracks have not completely faded from view, which I suppose may be a little necessary on occasion.