D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Campaign Themes

[Minigiant]

Anything to inspire DMs to create new and exciting game is good to me.

My campaign then to have mystery and intrigue themes the PCs are pawns in The Grand Game of X and whether or not they figure out who is pulling their strings to finish Quest Y or Quest Z and why.

 

[Shadowsoul]

Whenever I run a campaign based on my own world, the players will encounter multiple themes depending on where they are in the world.

 

[KidSnide]

What I find is really useful is then to tie this back into character creation. If your campaign is about the conflict between the gods of Order and the primordial forces of Chaos, then this should echo in the characters that are played in these games. Backgrounds, classes, feats, whatever, any character made in such a campaign should bear the mark of that campaign. If you make Joe the Fighter in that campaign, then Joe should have some distinctive element that ties him into this conflict between divine order and elemental chaos.

I always feel like every campaign should start with a premise of who the PCs are, in a joint discussion between the players and DM. It's ok to have a campaign where the PCs are a bunch of ruthless treasure seekers, a band of nomadic Robin Hood figures who wander about righting wrongs, a handful of unfortunates press-ganged onto a pirate ship, a team of hopefuls seeking to carve a new kingdom out of the wilderness, the agents of a DM-created organization (with its own goals) or just a bunch of good-hearted mercenaries who go around looking for evil to defeat and beneficiaries to pay them.

Those are all good bases for a PC party, but the DM and players should get on the same page for character creation. A campaign theme is closely related to this, but the real point is that everyone participating in a campaign should get on the same page regarding what the campaign is about.

I've played in campaigns where the DM shares a lot of information and the players come into the game with characters designed to fit into the game where that the DM wants to run. And, I've also played in games where the DM shares nothing about his plans and every player creates their character in a vacuum, producing a party who have no reason to work together or to pursue the DM's plot hooks. I think the first type of game is a lot more fun.

-KS

 

[MarkB]

What a pathetically silly survey. There seemed no good reason to respond any differently to the second and third question than to the first.

The article itself felt bland and uninspiring, and seemed flawed in its lack of discussion of the PCs' and players' roles in shaping a campaign's themes (which, in my experience, tends to fairly swiftly outweigh whatever tone the DM originally set out to portray).

 

[MarkB]

I always feel like every campaign should start with a premise of who the PCs are, in a joint discussion between the players and DM.

The Dresden Files ruleset is one of the best systems I've seen at handling this, with creation of both the setting and the PCs being a fully collaborative exercise between the GM and the players. It does a good job of identifying and setting expectations on all sides.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've played in campaigns where the DM shares a lot of information and the players come into the game with characters designed to fit into the game where that the DM wants to run. And, I've also played in games where the DM shares nothing about his plans and every player creates their character in a vacuum, producing a party who have no reason to work together or to pursue the DM's plot hooks. I think the first type of game is a lot more fun.

Part of what linking character creation to a theme in some mechanical way does is make sure that even when every player creates their character in a vacuum, that the DM knows how to make their plot hooks count.

That mark that the campaign leaves on Joe the Fighter works in both directions. Joe the Fighter's player can talk with the DM and they can arrive at some sort of negotiated link. OR the DM can say "Pick any background from the Divine Order vs. Primordial Chaos theme, that's the kind of game this is." OR the DM can not say anything, and Joe the Fighter's player can pick a background, and that background might happen to key into the Divine Order vs. Primordial Chaos theme (such as via a keyword or key phrase). And then the DM works that into the game.

Either way, the player gets to basically choose a character element that gives the DM a way to link the character to the campaign theme (and the adventures about that theme).

And if themes are "off," that background still works fine for any generic sandbox.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Makes me think, i'd like someday to run an all-halfling party centered campaign as a theme, where the stout folks explore the big man's world, and have them start like the Willow movie does, with the party escorting a human baby out of their border....

 

[Derren]

I fail to see the point of this article. It reads to me a bit like rambling without much indication of the design or vision for 5E. And it not the first article that way. Can it be that the closer 5E gets to the release date the more vague the articles become as to not provide anything which could be taken as a negative by potential customers?

And in the case there is advise about campaign themes in the DMG I really hope WotC broadens their horizon of possible themes. The ones presented here are rather narrow (PCs fight against big monsters fits most of them.)

 

[Quickleaf]

While campaign themes are a fine topic for discussion, I have no idea whatsoever what that article has to do with 5e's design. Nor is there even a nod to that discussion in the article.

Don't get me wrong- it's a fine article (for being, essentially, a list of a few themes). But I thought that WM was supposed to be about the work on 5e, so I found it disappointing.

You know what I'd like to see in a Wandering Monsters article? A discussion of the corrected monster math. Or, if it's in the cards, an article about the rehabilitation of some loser monster or other (tirapheg, umpleby, tojanida, phantom fungus) into something with a chance of seeing some use. Or, really, anything about 5e's monsters.

EDIT: Also, I find the idea that "exploring a world" is a theme on the same level as "there's an Elder God and a cult and..." to be kinda silly. Classic 1e-style sandboxes tend to NOT have a single theme, instead moving from one to another as the group moves from one adventure to another.

I commented on the same curious lack of connection to 5e.

Several others also commented on the issue other folks are raising that theme doesn't exist in isolation from the player characters. Hopefully James Wyatt and company are listening.

 

[Plaguescarred]

The conenction to 5E i get from the article is they want to know our thoughts on campaign themes, and what advice future DM product should include regarding them.