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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 1461702" data-attributes="member: 1106">1)  It makes sense from the PC's perspective as well as the DM's.  Way too many adventures (Dungeon magazine is particularly prone to it) explain a pile of background events to the DM which set up the excuses for the adventure existing, and then never reveal these to the players, making the entire expedition seem arbitrary and devoid of context (i.e. the story is unresolved, or not really a story without that information).  The villain's exposition speech may be a cliche, but it's there for a reason, and a DM's Background section or secret campaign notes don't alleviate the need for it or it's equivalent...at least, not all the time.2)  It should involve at least some meaningful player choice.  Some amount of railroading can be a good thing...but at least keeping up an illusion of occasional meaningful choices from the players, with repercussions for those choices and resulting impact on the world, should be a priority.  Without this, the campaign is more or less just an exercise in level gaining, not an opportunity to interact with the setting or develop character (note how almost the only way characters in novels develop is from making hard decisions and living with the results).3)  Opportunity for exploration.  Perhaps one of the most overlooked and yet rewarding areas of D&D is to present an area loaded with opportunities for adventure and set the PCs loose in it to discover them (think Khare: Cityport of Traps for instance).  Classically this is only done with a dungeon environment, but should perhaps be extended to urban and wilderness areas...not just whitewashed with a wandering encounter table (hex maps might be an aid for populating exploration areas that lack walls to hem PCs in, most obviously wilderness).</blockquote>

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