Creating a new campaign

[Noble Phantom]

Now, I'm a fairly experienced player, but have never DMed before in my life. I would like to give it a try, but haven't got anyone in my local area who will play. So I turn to the online community.:smallsmile: Does anyone have any tips for an online campaign (absolutely anything, from campaign ideas to a good place to host it, but not generic DMing tips), and if I were to create one, would anyone be interested in joining in?

[DonEsteban]

Well this forum (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3) here has a PbP gaming section. You may or may not like the community here, but for technical reasons alone I'd recommend RPoL (http://rpol.net), which has a very large and active community and nice tools for GMs (though nothing comes without drawbacks).

If you have never played by post as a player before, I don't know if it's a good idea to start as a GM, because there are challenges that are quite different from table top GMing. If you're determined to try, however, I'd go with a published, relatively short adventure. I definitely wouldn't recommend planning a long campaign in the beginning. Online gaming is slooowww and players (or GMs) often disappear without a word sometimes causing campaigns to die suddenly. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to discourage you. Online gaming really is fun once you've found the right people.

[2-HeadedGiraffe]

Have you considered playing with a private chat or something where you could still play in more-or-less real time? It's slower than a normal, in-person session because you have to wait for people to type and everything, but it'd be much faster than playing through a message board, forum, e-mail, etc.

I ran a game for a while through AIM, getting everyone together once a week just like it was a regular D&D game, except that we were online instead of all in one room. Another time, we had two players join our in-person game via Skype, so we could either have voice or video communication with them.

[Salanmander]

Personally I would recommend trying to use an online tabletop program of some sort. I ran a single session to try one out once, and it worked fairly well. There can be some technical issues, so make sure to do a test connection before your first game, but not spending tons of time describing positioning of things is /good/.

[Noble Phantom]

Thanks for the tips guys (and those handy links). Joining a play-by post first does seem like a good idea, but I kinda wanted to experience DMing, so... :smallbiggrin: The idea of a short published one first is good too, but I don't really want to be spending money on it (hence my own campaign). If anyone knows some good ones that are online, please link to them.
The ideas of instant messaging and stuff are pretty cool, it just seems like a pain getting everyone together. Again, recommendations would be appreciated.
I've never seen an online tabletop program (or if I have didn't realise what it was). Again, recommendations would be helpful

Thanks for all the help guys!

[Baka Nikujaga]

http://i52.tinypic.com/qn1lqa.jpg
Here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b) is a list of official adventures. But...I can't say if any of these modules are particularly good or not (though Tomb of Horrors should always be...fun).

[BlueInc]

http://i52.tinypic.com/qn1lqa.jpg
Here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b) is a list of official adventures. But...I can't say if any of these modules are particularly good or not (though Tomb of Horrors should always be...fun).


I've read through most of them. There are some awesome ones like "Something's Cooking" (which I'm going to run soon and possibly make a sequel to), some pretty good ones, and some mediocre ones. There are a few that would work pretty well as a campaign hook for a much larger adventure, but most of them with a bit of tweaking could work well in any campaign.

I would also recommend "The Ettin's Riddle" and "Bad Moon Waning," both of which I hope to slip into my next campaign.

[Noble Phantom]

Those adventures look pretty cool... Thanks for the link. I'm liking the look of 'bad moon waning' at the minute, but then I like werewolves so... Has anyone played it before? And do you guys have any tips for running it (classes that become overpowered, campaign being too easy/hard etc)

Thanks again guys, this stuffs been really helpful