Campaign writing advice

[Foolster41]

I am working on a homebrew roleplaying game, and being not very experienced I'm am unsure about writing the campaign for it.

The game's story is about a bunch of human kids who find themselves in another world of monster that they befriend. (Yeah, not incredibly original (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digimon)though it's something I was interested in playing and I havn't seen a whole lot of RPGs on the subject.) Anway, I'm using original monsters and the plot is after they meet their monsters they find out a monster called Aojar is ruling the world with in Iron fist, and some of his henchmen attack them right away, and they are given the hint that he might have something to get them home.

Anyway, I'm going to design little encounters of different kinds around, and different types of areas (deserts, mountains, cities, etc.) but I'm not sure how to proceed after that. It seems too aimless to just have the players go around meeting the different encounters, even with the main goal (defeeating Aojar) is set. How do I build something that works up to defeating Aojar at the climax, and yet isn't rail-roading them ("ok, so now this boss is within your challange range, so beat this boss")

Thanks!

[Triaxx]

Randomly and invisibly assign each one an item that will eventually show them as immune to one of Aojar's powers. So if he can stop time, one of them is immune to the effect and can continue to attack him.

Then combine Mook tossing and artifact hunting. He's after a portal to another world, and your players are looking to use it to get back to their world, so they want to get the parts to finish it themselves. Thus they'll have to defeat him to use the machine, so their monster buddies can bust the thing after they leave.

[Storm Bringer]

One trick is to have a intermediate goal for them to travel too, which takes them past encounters A, B, and C. For example, they need to see a "wise mon", or symbolically pull the Staff of Macguffin form the Stone of Plot Coupon to furfil an old prophsey, which would unite the local mons agianst the hated Aojar. Or just travel to meet the base of La resistance. Or......


you get the idea.

[Sipex]

Yeah, you need to scatter short term goals all over your campaign. Also, don't give away the boss so early, let your players get attached to the world first, that way when Mr. Big Bad shows up (or they learn about him) they WANT to take him out.

[Storm Bringer]

even better, introduce him in a neutral manner very early on (PC: "how do we get back?" mons: "only Aojar would have that power...."), and let the players find increasingly clear evidence of Aojars evilness as they journey to him. That way, you can focus the players on the long goal early (meet Aojar and Go Back Home), but as short term goals pop up, you can casually expose the evil of his rule.

[Cespenar]

If you aren't afraid of furthering the unoriginality, do the "collect the n macguffins to rob the big bad guy of his invulnerability" schtick. Mix that with the old "n lieutenants of the big bad" cliché, and make each of the lieutenants uniquely bizarre.

Also, make the last lieutenant/macguffin a TWIST!

[Foolster41]

Thanks, great advice. I'm working on a series of artifacts scattered around (tied to the seven virtues, so not exactly same as the ones in digimon). I'll probibly not reveal those right away, maybe after a visit with the "old wise man", or they find an old book in a library. I like the idea of not right away saying "Aojar's evil" though, wouldn't these monsters who've been here a while know that? That'd be kinda of a weird thing to leave out...

(And I realized I posted in the wrong forum after I posted, should really be in homebrew. Oops. Sorry about that. :P )

[Storm Bringer]

ture, but if Aojar's PR is good enough/he's been in power long enough, the mons may not realise how evil he is.

if he has been disguising his evilness behind a fascade of Lawfulness (i.e. fighting and defeating Nasty Insurgentrs Bent On Destorying Our Glorious Nation), then those mons not directly affected may buy into his propaganda.