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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5205493" data-attributes="member: 3820">A way that's worked well for me of late is to come up with as many ideas as I'm willing to run, then put them together into a list, and send it around to the players. The list might be 30 or so items long, and in very broad strokes, so something like:1: Dynastic China inspiration, potentially kingmaking, potentially just adventures in a Chinese-inspired setting2: Viking adventures in the frozen North3: Gothic Fantasy; think Ravenloft with elaborate plate mail, halberds and greatswords4: Divine intrigues in an Ancient Egypt-motif culture with D&D tech and sensibilities; a bit Hamunaptra, a bit other stuff5: Arm of the Faith: character group in employ of a temple, monster-hunting and spreading the light6: Old School-inspired "Classics": new takes on old tropes7: Etc....Once I've got a sufficiently large list, full of settings and other themes (some of which are setting-agnostic), I send it around to the potential players, telling them to point out any ideas that are particularly interesting and any that they'd want to veto. From there I can usually pick out three to five campaign ideas that the group seems to mostly agree upon. I flesh out each of those with a longer pitch, about a paragraph or so, and then send those three-to-five around, asking people to rank them accordingly. And that gives me enough room to pick one.I find that selecting items that sound neat from a big list tends to be easier on players; they don't have to articulate specifics (which suits many), and at least in round one, they can pick as many as they like, so they don't have to worry too much about prioritization. It also gets me to establish ahead of time the things I'm most enthusiastic about running, so everyone's expectations are all on the same page.</blockquote>

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