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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 9050945" data-attributes="member: 97077">Start small. A boring little town, a safe haven for the PCs, a place to buy stuff and long rest. The adventure doesn't happen here.Where it does happen is in a dungeon nearby. Maybe just a small one to start, and there are just tons of them on the internet for free. Give it a theme. Fill it with 6 to 8 challenges your family will enjoy. Have a mix of combat, exploration, and social interaction challenges. Use standard XP and level up as it comes. Hide treasure behind secret doors, guarded by traps, not on monster corpses, so as to incentivize them poking around and interacting with the environment.Somewhere in that dungeon is a treasure map. This leads to another dungeon, perhaps the same size or a little bit bigger, a bit further from town so it requires travel with the chance of difficult random encounter, but no need to camp overnight. Do the same as above, with maybe 9 to 14 challenges instead. Introduce a rival adventuring party in town before they leave for this location, who are also going for contents of the dungeon. They aren't hostile, but they are annoying, and they might get to the treasure first - or maybe there's a team up and a sudden but inevitable double cross!Somewhere in this dungeon is a moldy old tome that notes the location of some lost temple or the like. Yep, it's another dungeon, bigger than the last and more dangerous, perhaps containing 12 to 16 challenges. This one is quite far from town, requiring several days of travel and some thought behind preparing for the journey and delve. Making camp to long rest will be needed, and it's a dangerous proposition. The dungeon contains a dragon that, once stirred, becomes a threat to the PCs' town. If they don't deal with it here and now, it will set upon the town with all its fury, perhaps leading to a fantastic showdown as the characters defend their home.Depending on how fast your group gets through content, this could be maybe 10 sessions of play or more. Along the way, you'll get inspired by the events emerging from just playing together, and more adventures, NPCs, and devious plots will spring to mind. And maybe your kids have a few ideas of their own. Go with it, just don't over-prep, and don't worry about planning a months' or years' long campaign with a whole lot of depth up front. Break a large amount of prep into small bits that you can work on regularly (a challenge a day, perhaps). You can build it as you go and, over time, it will develop a lot of depth and flavor that sprung from your collaboration. You'll know what to do next once you get there.Good luck, and have fun!</blockquote>

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