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View Full Version : Planning a Campaign (tips for a n00b)



TheLonelyScribe
2010-10-21, 03:19 PM
I'm going to start DMing my first long-term campaign soon (set in Eberron), and thought a plan might come in handy. Basically, I would like some tips that you would have wanted when you were new to DMing. Especially about how to manage the content of a campaign. Here's a run-down of the characters and the meeting-up story:


Everyone's starting at level 1
Unnamed 1: Human Cloistered Cleric, one of the few actual academics in Morgrave University. Serves the philosophy of atheism (as in, actually not believing gods exist) instead of a god. Is the only faculty member of the department of anti-deistic metaphysics, and has no students. Wears specially treated tweed and corduroy armour and uses a reinforced umbrella with a short-sword hidden in the handle as a weapon. Knows many languages, has high intelligence (I switched the main spellcasting stat to int), has Scribe Scroll and lower XP costs for scrolls instead of turn undead and has many knowledge skills. Completely new player, but creative and smart. Older than the rest of us.
Ungar: Half-Orc Gestalt Paladin/Adept of the Dark Six from a nasty part of Droaam. Wishes to get rid of the view of the Dark Six as evil with his experience of them as lawful and good. Secondary healer to Unnamed 1. Experienced player, is known on these forums.
Ermintrude: Beasthide Shifter Gestalt Ranger/Aristocrat. Was stolen away from a barbarian gatekeeper sect in the Eldeen Reachs by wealthy aristocrat from Sharn who raised her up as a wealthy girl, but she always knew of her background. She tries to be as barbarian as possible, but has a taste for fine wine and adores her pet pony, Ji-Ji. Her ancestors were were-hippos. Had brief experience of 4e. Not a motivated player.
Chibbi: Halfling Gestalt Binder/Expert. Used to ride the Talenta Plains on his Fastieth as a bandit, but has now come to Sharn to (hopefully) earn his fortune. Keeps his binder powers hidden most of the time. Good at ranged combat, and has both social interaction and thievery skills. Had brief experience of 4e. Somewhat motivated player.
Unnamed 2: Elf Sorcerer. Player is working on background. Has never played D&D, but is a dedicated geek so knows lots about it. Very motivated.

The idea is that the university has hired all players except for Unnamed 1 to find artefacts and such. They have put Unnamed 1 in charge (technically, shouldn't be too much of a problem in the actual game) in order to give him something to do other that work on his theory that doesn't really get much money rolling in for the university. I think I want his theory to either be correct or probably correct in the end.


I may be asking quite a lot, but I think it would be useful to lots of people if experienced DMs gave some tips, not necessarily tailored to my campaign specifically.

jiriku
2010-10-21, 03:33 PM
1. Avoid big plans. Start small and local, and stay there as long as possible. Depth and richness make for better games than breadth and dizzying, globe-spanning travel.


1a. Don't try to make a sweeping, epic campaign that feels like a grand fantasy trilogy. That's a very advanced type of campaign, and overdone besides.
2. Do develop a stable of NPCs in the area with their own personalities, goals, and motivations. I'd recommend a starting roster of 20-30 named NPCs. They needn't be important, and you needn't make stats for any of them.


2a. Steal. Base your NPCs on the personalities of people you know in real life, characters from books, movies, and comics, famous people living and dead, etc. Ask everyone you know who's interested in gaming but not playing in the campaign to contribute an NPC or two.

2b. Let your players contribute. Ask each player to contribute an NPC who he considers to be a friend or ally, and another NPC with whom his relationship is complicated.

3. Avoid cardboard villains. Masks and black cloaks are out of style. Make the villains real people with sympathetic motivations, perhaps even friends and allies of the PCs who simply have competing goals or are reckless and overconfident or dangerously misguided. The best master villains are the ones the players already know, and even like, not the guys who show up in the last scene of the final act and have to make a long speech to introduce themselves and their goals.

TheLonelyScribe
2010-10-21, 03:38 PM
Gosh! That was really good advice, easy to understand in three short points! Many thanks, and I should probably stop using so many exclamation marks!

PopcornMage
2010-10-21, 03:43 PM
Well, first off, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And the players are not quite the enemy, but they can throw a spanner in the works.

Second, you may wish to look us a Planescape Faction, the Athar, who hold beliefs similar to what your first player's character does.

valadil
2010-10-21, 03:54 PM
Don't plan too far in advance. It'll just make you sad when the PCs sidestep your plans. I usually plan for just the next session and only have a vague, hazy outline of what could happen after that. I'll also have a couple backup plots ready to spring at any time.

Make your NPCs dynamic. Give them goals. Pretend they're PCs too, moving about the world in their own way. When the players get back from a dungeon, the NPCs should NOT be doing the same thing they were before the dungeon. Their lives move on. This will make your world feel like it's moving.

Try and figure out what notes you need and what you don't. I think this is one of the hardest parts of DMing because it varies for everyone.

For example, when I started DMing I spent a ton of time making maps. When I showed the players the world map, I'd be lucky if they spent more than 30 seconds looking at it. All they really needed to know was what direction they were going and what sort of terrain was between here and there. I could have made that up on the spot. Northeast. Mountains. Done.

I also spent time on castle and dungeon maps (not that we ever actually went to a castle, I just liked drawing them). When we played, I'd meticulously copy out each detail. I couldn't draw in all the random fun stuff - that would take too long. The players never saw the good maps that I spent time on. Furthermore, I'd sometimes screw up and make a hallway too short or something. The thing was, it didn't matter. The original hallway was arbitrary. Why does it matter if this one is 45 feet instead of 50? Since then I've improvised all my dungeon maps. I'll make a list of features and hazards ahead of time and then draw them as I see fit.

On the other hand, when I first started I wanted to make sure I improvised a lot and didn't get tied down to particular notes. This was good for dialog, but it was bad for description. By nature I'm a quiet person who uses as few words as possible. I wouldn't tell the players what their surroundings looked like unless they asked. Even if I had bothered to visualize the scenery, I never actually communicated it to the players. So I had to learn to take notes on what description to give them. I still improvise dialog, but new places get a paragraph of text read aloud.

The point is, there are some things you can improvise and some that you'll need to prep beforehand. Until you know what those are, you'll waste some time writing things that could be improvised and you'll look unprepared when you fail to improvise something you thought you could wing.

jiriku
2010-10-21, 03:58 PM
Well, first off, no plan survives contact with the enemy. And the players are not quite the enemy, but they can throw a spanner in the works.


Don't plan too far in advance. It'll just make you sad when the PCs sidestep your plans.

QFT.

Lately, what I seem to do is introduce the players to three or four NPCs at a time, or give them three or four plot hooks at once. I let them choose who to talk to and what to investigate, based on what seems most interesting to them.

The elements they pursue get fleshed out and detailed and become a larger part of the story, while the elements they weren't interested in fade into the background. I may modify/recycle those elements, or circle around and return to them later, or I might simply discard them.

A benefit of this approach is that the players begin to feel that the world is bigger than just what's happening to them. There are always NPCs who are doing stuff around them, sidequests they don't have time to complete, interesting people they meet but never really get to know. It creates a sense of immersion. My players often tell me at the end of a campaign that they wish they could go back and play it over again from the beginning and make different choices, explore other parts of the world, and discover all the things that they missed.

dsmiles
2010-10-21, 06:03 PM
1. Avoid big plans. Start small and local, and stay there as long as possible. Depth and richness make for better games than breadth and dizzying, globe-spanning travel.


1a. Don't try to make a sweeping, epic campaign that feels like a grand fantasy trilogy. That's a very advanced type of campaign, and overdone besides.
2. Do develop a stable of NPCs in the area with their own personalities, goals, and motivations. I'd recommend a starting roster of 20-30 named NPCs. They needn't be important, and you needn't make stats for any of them.


2a. Steal. Base your NPCs on the personalities of people you know in real life, characters from books, movies, and comics, famous people living and dead, etc. Ask everyone you know who's interested in gaming but not playing in the campaign to contribute an NPC or two.

2b. Let your players contribute. Ask each player to contribute an NPC who he considers to be a friend or ally, and another NPC with whom his relationship is complicated.

3. Avoid cardboard villains. Masks and black cloaks are out of style. Make the villains real people with sympathetic motivations, perhaps even friends and allies of the PCs who simply have competing goals or are reckless and overconfident or dangerously misguided. The best master villains are the ones the players already know, and even like, not the guys who show up in the last scene of the final act and have to make a long speech to introduce themselves and their goals.

This. This is perfect advice for new DMs. Also, villains don't have to be EVIL. They can just be misguided/dominated good-guys, if you like.

arrowhen
2010-10-21, 06:32 PM
The more you plan, the more you end up having to throw out when the PCs do something unexpected. As a beginner it's best to plan a little too much; just be prepared to set those plans aside when the players come up with some cool, crazy idea.

DwarfFighter
2010-10-21, 06:57 PM
Also, make note of the things you introduce into the game world so that you can remain consistent. It helps if the inn keeper doesn't change name/race between each session. :)

Often you'll find that you make on-the-spot decisions as to what does or does not exist in your game world, and keeping track of all these can be tricky. In my experience players tend to appreciate it when you reintroduce characters/places they've interacted with previously.

Example: Before starting their first adventure a PC decides he wants to buy a Sunrod. Since you've already established that the PCs start out in a small village without an alchemist, you quickly invent the travelling peddler Joach Bigboot, a sturdy half-orc that plies his trade peddling his wares in these parts. So you make a not of the character: "Joach, male, half-orc, peddler, big beard, pet monkey"

Later when the PCs have moved on to another village in the area you can reintroduce the character. Even if the players haven't spared him a thought since that first encounter, here he is again and they get the feeling that there's a certain substance to the game world. And who knows? Maybe his pet monkey's been kidnapped by local thugs and held for ransom and he needs the PCs help to sort things out.

-DF

Tvtyrant
2010-10-21, 07:43 PM
Find out what types of fantasy your players read/watch/play. Do they love Lovecraft? Do they like WoT? Do they like Conan? If you know that you know what their expectations of good fantasy are. You don't have to balance for them, its your world, but you have the ability to throw them bones that they each find individually satisfying.

PopcornMage
2010-10-21, 07:49 PM
Also, make note of the things you introduce into the game world so that you can remain consistent. It helps if the inn keeper doesn't change name/race between each session. :)

Unless you intend it that way!

Then you have a major plot point to develop!

Jarawara
2010-10-21, 11:25 PM
Unless you intend it that way!

Then you have a major plot point to develop!

This is a good point, but I suggest you avoid it early on. When you're new, you're likely to make mistakes, and the players will generally accept that and ignore them. But when you then use a subtle clue like having the innkeeper keep changing every session (is he a doppleganger with different disguises, or is the secret police taking the old innkeeper away, and this is the government agent replacement?), the players will see these changes and dismiss them as DMing errors and ignore the clues. Even if they give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you did this deliberately, they might still assume it was just flavor text and not think anything of it. Who knows, maybe in your campaign there are multiple innkeepers to every inn, and this is just normal flavortext.

I had that happen in my game once. An NPC known to the players had previous mentioned that his mother had died recently. They meet him again in the meatmarket, buying large cuts of meat that he was taking home "for his mother, for dinner".

The players didn't know me well, and having had lots of seemingly innocuous roleplays with various NPCs, hadn't taken careful note of the conversations. The one who did recognize the clue thought that I had simply forgotten my own previous dialog, but said nothing (as he didn't want to needlessly offend me).

They were then shocked when "mother" escaped and started ghoul-ifying other townsfolk, leading to a widespread plague of flesh-eating undead. They felt like there had been no warning, no chance for them to prevent it, and were in fact a bit sore about it. What had seemed an obvious discrepency, and thus a clue, was ignored as an 'DMing error of flavortext' by the players.


Keep it straightforward and simple, until you've established to the players what is normal for your world. *Then* you can introduce the abnormal, and they'll take notice of it.

At the very least, they'll accept that they could have prevented ghoulaggedon if they had paid closer attention!

PopcornMage
2010-10-21, 11:37 PM
True, a potential hint like that may not work if the players are unfamiliar with you, but the real point I was making is that a mistake is not necessarily something to be upset about, sometimes it's an opening for potential.

Think of it like the Gazebo story (http://www.duke.edu/web/DRAGO/humor/gazebo.html) for a DM.

It does take being prepared to think on your feet, but if you never even realize there's an opportunity to short yourself.

Jarawara
2010-10-21, 11:48 PM
True, a potential hint like that may not work if the players are unfamiliar with you, but the real point I was making is that a mistake is not necessarily something to be upset about, sometimes it's an opening for potential.

Now that's a really good point! Look over your own mistakes, and brainstorm over how and why that might be true. The analogy being that my 'clue' about the NPC's mother could have been my mistake, but instead of fretting over the mistake, I used it as an opportunity to create ghoulaggedon!

Examine your mistakes, look for opportunities that arise from them. That's good advice for newbies and veterens alike.

Godskook
2010-10-22, 01:35 AM
Also remember the rule of 3, in that anything worth dropping a clue about is worth dropping *3* separate and independent clues about.

dsmiles
2010-10-22, 07:38 AM
Also remember the rule of 3, in that anything worth dropping a clue about is worth dropping *3* separate and independent clues about.

In case your players are utterly oblivious to the first two.

TheEmerged
2010-10-22, 12:58 PM
Another point of advice: your players are a remarkable source of advice, especially when they don't realize they're giving it to you. One of my players absent-mindedly saying, "Wouldn't it be weird if <NPC> turned out to be <Evil NPC>'s father or something?" led to me practically re-writing the villain's motivation, and was worth every moment of the retcon :smallcool:

Another one that works better in some campaigns than others: roll the dice from time to time whether you need to or not. It helps to increase the sense that something dangerous could happen and keeps the players on their toes.

A trick that is worth doing at least once: prepare fake notes, and leave them where the players can see them when you go to the bathroom etc. A couple of the younger players in our group (the children of the remaining players) got the idea to start trying to sneak peeks at my notes. One appliication of this trick appears to have cured them :smallcool:

----------------------------

One final campagin-creation advice: remember this is the player's story, not yours. There's a reason people mock DM-PC's, for example. It's okay for there to be other characters in the story more powerful than the players (in some genres, it's essentially required) but they shouldn't be the stars of the story. That's the player's role.

Tharck
2010-10-22, 01:07 PM
Build trust with your PCs. Know the material and special abilities of monsters you plan to throw. Roll your dice in the open and give them fair challenges that dont introduce home-brewed monsters or made-up statistics. After you build a good amount of trust then you can start to bend it.

TheThan
2010-10-22, 01:42 PM
Stay off the rails.
Players have a knee jerk reaction to being railroaded (Railroading is forcing the players to do things YOUR way), so they typically try to jump the rails as soon as possible. My advice is to avoid the rails entirely. Give the PCs freedom to explore the world and let the PCs create the campaign. Pay attention to what sorts of plot hooks interest and disinterest them. That epic plan you had involving the invading army might not have any interest to your players, but that little note you made about the secret cult might.


Multiple pathways to victory
Pcs are a chaotic bunch, as a result they tend to do things in game that can throw the DM a curveball. It makes things harder for DMs to prepare encounters for their players. So it’s a good idea to create multiple pathways to victory. Plan more than one way (minimum 3) to defeat an encounter. Nothing stops play like the Dming being caught unprepared. This will help alleviate this problem.

Short term planning
The longer the plan, the more likely things will get mucked up by the PCs. So it’s best to have a vague idea of where you ultimately want your campaign to go. Plan the details out ahead of time, but only one session at a time. Short-term goals are perfect for this. a good idea is to give these short term goals long term ramifications.

Let the players fill in the gaps.
When it comes to flavortext and descriptions, only bother with important descriptions. Players have imaginations, so let them use it. Describing everything in your game world will be time consuming and very taxing both on your players and you. so let their imaginations fill in what you don’t describe for you. also note that this can help you in pointing the way for your players. I’ve had people latch onto one piece of flavor text, like the names of books on a bookshelf, when the real clue was on the desk on the other side of the room. I made the mistake of describing the bookshelf and books too much and the desk not enough, and the players though that the bookshelf was more important than the desk, which it wasn’t.


Constructive criticism
The only way to get better at Dming is to get feedback. Ask your players after the session what they though of it. as them if there is anything they think you could do better. Was there anything they didn’t like or absolutely loved?

Pisha
2010-10-22, 06:27 PM
It's great to say "don't railroad," but sometimes there are certain actions that need to happen. If you're playing through a module (either one you bought or one you wrote out), for instance, there is some flexibility but it's not infinite. If your players decide to go haring off on some imagined side-quest that has nothing to do with anything, you're going to be at a bit of a loss (especially as a new GM.) Even with more free-form campaigns, sometimes you need to give the players a little nudge to keep things running smoothly. How to do that without making them feel railroaded?

One way that works in our group is to make one of the other players your undercover agent. The day before the game, or maybe a few hours before, take one of the players aside and "take them into your confidence." (You don't have to actually take them into your confidence. Just tell them enough to make them feel like you are.) Butter them up a little; tell them they're such a good player, you could really use their advice or their help. Tell 'em how you really, really need the party to go get the magical plot-important McGuffin from the dwarves to the east (or whatever); you're planning to drop some hints in tomorrow's game, but you're afraid no one will pick up on it and can they suggest a better way to bring it to the party's attention?

Done right, the player will be flattered that you trusted them enough to ask for their help. And since they gave you help, they're invested now in seeing you succeed - see, now they're on your side. And when your plot hint comes up, you won't have to push the party into following up on it - the player will do so himself, in character.

Don't overdo this, obviously. But once in a while, it can be a really effective way to get the plot on track without having people cry "Railroading!!!"


...on a completely unrelated note, I love the descriptions of the first two characters. Please let us know how this game plays out!

arrowhen
2010-10-22, 06:27 PM
I’ve had people latch onto one piece of flavor text, like the names of books on a bookshelf, when the real clue was on the desk on the other side of the room. I made the mistake of describing the bookshelf and books too much and the desk not enough, and the players though that the bookshelf was more important than the desk, which it wasn’t.

That's when you take that clue that was on the desk and tuck it inside one of the books instead. They'll be all, "Yay, we found a clue, go us!", and you'll know that since they're interested in examining the books they run across, you now have a fairly reliable tool for feeding them information -- which can actually be one of the tougher DM jobs.

AslanCross
2010-10-22, 06:30 PM
This. This is perfect advice for new DMs. Also, villains don't have to be EVIL. They can just be misguided/dominated good-guys, if you like.

This is also especially true in Eberron, where the villains can even come from the most goodly of churches. (Baby-murdering midwife clerics of BOLDREI! D8 )

OP, What are your initial plans?

TheThan
2010-10-22, 07:11 PM
That's when you take that clue that was on the desk and tuck it inside one of the books instead. They'll be all, "Yay, we found a clue, go us!", and you'll know that since they're interested in examining the books they run across, you now have a fairly reliable tool for feeding them information -- which can actually be one of the tougher DM jobs.

Yeah, I didn’t realize at the time I could have done that. live and learn.

kyoryu
2010-10-22, 07:51 PM
Don't plan the route the players will go on - instead, plan the surroundings. Know the major players in the area, and what potential plots exist. Have a web of relationships set up.

If you're starting in a medium town, for instance, know what the major political powers are (including guilds, temples, etc.). Know the major conflict points between them. Think of a few basic plotlines involving some of them, and sketch out some NPCs for the area. This gives you enough information to figure out what will happen in the environment for many actions the players can take.

If you know who the Thieves' Guild is allied with, and plotting against, then it gives you a lot of information on what might happen when your players run afoul of the Theives' Guild - they might find new allies, or find danger coming from unexpected quarters.

This is much better planning to make than "the players will do this, this, and then this."

Come up with some interesting encounters, and keep them around. Reflavor as necessary for off-the-cuff encounters. An encounter with the local guards can look a whole lot like an encounter with an orc tribe given a new paint job.

Have some interesting characters ready to go - interesting in terms of personality, not necessarily abilities or their jobs. Then, when you need an NPC, just grab one from your stack and go. It doesn't really matter what their original purpose is - an interesting personality is interesting whether it's a merchant, a beggar, or a noble.

Random tables are actually really useful things, though they've gone out of vogue. They can provide a nice intermediate step between railroading and total chaos, as it lets you define the overall flavor of what might happen in an area, without having to totally script everything. If you don't have a random table for something, just asking "how <foo> is this?" and rolling a d20 acts as a quick, off-the-cuff substitute. You may get surprising results - roll with it and find an explanation! These are often the most memorable things!

The illusion of choice is often more important than choice itself! If you've got a hallway with two doors, and the players can only choose one, do you really need to have different encounters behind each one?

Memorable and cool trumps realistic, every time.