First 3.5 Campaign - Advice Requested

[Noedig]

So I am still in the planning stages for my 1-20 campaign. I've got 1-7 planned out pretty well I think, but my groups traditional DM brought up an interesting point.

He reminded me that while planning is good, I should avoid being to rigid. I understand what he means, but Im having problems coming up with a way to make sure the characters have fun if they go off the beaten path. On the one hand, I fully support them wanting to go and do what they want, but on the other, it's a whole lot more work to make up stuff on the fly. I want them to have fun, but I also want them to advance, both in power and in terms of story progression.

This is just the first of many questions that I have, so when I feel this one is answered sufficiently, I'll be asking more.

[Lucid]

I'm also planning my first campaign and I got some tips from my own DM.

Don't plan too much. Be sure to have a rough outline of the plot, but be ready to improvise. Think of multiple ways a situation might be resolved.

Your players don't know the plot. For example you might have planned for them to meet the barbarians of the plains/get ambushed by gnolls/discover person X is the killer/etc.. and they decide to head to the mountains/go into goblin territory/accuse person Y/etc.. change it around to fit. If you can get this right they won't even notice it.

If they truly throw you a curveball, don't be afraid to ask for a short break while you figure things out. Improvising is something you can learn and get better at the more you do it.

Hope this is of some help, good luck and have fun!

[missmvicious]

Personally, I get irritated when a DM over-scripts.

Putting up with a DM who does everything on the fly is no picnic either, but I'd rather have that than be stuck in a railroaded campaign. After all, if I wanted an over-scripted, linear gaming experience, I'd just play a video game.

Here's what I did the first time I DM'd a campaign:

1. I was really nervous, so I asked an experienced DM for help... not just advice, but help. She helped me set up the framework for my campaign and gave me some tips for things to look out for from my players.

2. I railroaded the character development, but not the campaign itself. By making sure that the characters are all the same basic alignment, similar age group, and definitely the same level (Level 1 in that case) I could ensure that we wouldn't have 1 player's Human LG Paladin of Moradin restraining another player's Half-Orc CE Bard on a good day, or downright attacking him on a bad day (actually happened in a campaign I was in.) And I was able to keep the classes and races simple enough so that I knew how to set up a good campaign for them.

3. I rolled up a bunch of basic NPCs: Aristocrats, Adepts, Experts, Commoners, Warriors, and a few NPCs I made up (priests, slaves, children). I made at least one of each at level 3, 5, 7, and 9 to give the world my group was exploring a sense of depth and versatility.

4. I sort of cheated and used a map of Faerun to create the world they were interacting with. I know that's Forgotten Realms, but to this day, I don't know if there is a complete map of the D&D world, but I wanted a stable environment to put them in, so that if they travelled north on the road out of town, I would always know how many days it took them to get to the next town.

5. I asked the DM to stand in as a recurring NPC and "Co-DM" with me for at least a few sessions. She helped me look up rules if I had to, and texted me advice if I was making a colossal error in judgment, like having a Tarrasque as a random encounter, when my PCs were only level 3 (I thought it would be funny... she thought it would kill the campaign). It took about 4 sessions for me to get into the rhythm, and she backed out of the game and let me run the show alone.

6. I used resources... lot's of resources. Here are some of them:
Monster Finder: http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/
Dice Roller: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm
NPC Generator: http://www.monsteradvancer.com/
Map Tools: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mi/20041007b
General RPG Tools for Mac (mac user here): http://www.nuketown.com/features/macrpg

... and of course, Google.

Most players really enjoyed the campaign, though some were frustrated with a few irreversible blunders I made, but I enjoyed learning from it. I really got into DM'ing way too soon though; I hadn't finished one campaign yet, so I always used that 1st campaign as a great springboard for future campaigns, and I never stopped working on the campaign and fleshing it out, even after we quit playing it as people moved away, or work schedules changed. Even so, since then, I've worked out more of the kinks and have made it a delightful yet challenging sandbox for PCs to play in, and some of the old team has asked to give it a second try with some noobs replacing the ones who can't play anymore. We've done 3 sessions of it so far, and I'm really excited about it... guess there's nothing like the first one. :)

I hope yours is at least as much fun as mine was.

[sabelo2000]

I block out my campaigns in large chunks, then leave it up to improvisation and a few generation tables when it comes to the actual play. So if the adventure is, "A guy in a tavern hires them to investigate the Deep Dark Dungeon," my notes will be:

I. Hook to get them into tavern, description of guy, offer to hire.
a. A different tavern, shopkeep, wandering drunk if they don't bite.

II. Road to the Deep Dark Dungeon: see Encounter Table.
a. A random passerby/map found on dead body if they didn't bite before.

III. Deep Dark Dungeon: see maps/tables
a. If nothing else, they find the dungeon on their own, wherever they happen to be.

IV. BBEG.

and so on. I rely a lot on improv and pre-generated monster/encounter tables, but I scale the simple strategy to make overarching plotlines for the campaign.

[agentnone]

What I do with mine is start from the end and work my way backwards. You say you want the campaign to get them to level 20. With that in mind, make your BBEG a decent challenge at that level. I find working backwards is easier. Instead of trying to figure out where to go next in your story, you already have it and just need to a way to tie it in with what happened before, in the time-line of events that is.

As far as letting them have the freedom to go off on their own, that could actually help you out as well as help them. I always have a handy stack of about 50 small to medium side-quests with me for my whole campaign. Some are pointless delves into old ruins for some XP and maybe a special trinket. Other, the same, with the exception of me dropping in a clue or hint that pertains to the main story line.

But like others said, don't plan out every little detail. The important stuff, sure. But railroading the players to follow the story without devation isn't really fun. I made that mistake the first time I ran a campaign. Didn't turn out well and we ended the campaign early. But that's my 2 cp. Start from the end and work your way backward, and have a handful of side-quests available to be dropped in at a moments notice.

[Dayzgone]

I agree with above, have some side quests worked out ahead of time. This will help when you hit a plot wall and you need the time to rewrite a section of the story to fit with the situation.

I also recommend the plot tree, where you actually write down the outcomes of each chocie the players make ahead of time but making them "yes or no" outcomes. This alows you to really let the players craft the world they are in.

So each plot point should look something like this (http://i.investopedia.com/inv/dictionary/terms/TREE_D~1.gif)

Starting on the left and working your way right

[S_Grey]

The easiest way to make sure your players do everything that you want them to, is to know your players. If you know how to motivate, manipulate and control their emotions, you can greatly influence their actions.

When good players are faced with good plot hooks, they take them, because never forget that your players want to have fun too.

[Kenneth]

I kinda do what agentone does..

I start with knowing what the final evil guy/girl is going to be, then I toss in his/her sub bosses

I make a lot fo random sidequests

this is of course probabyl due to my severe ADHD so my brain jumps around, so I would not recommend it for you, but I'll give an outline of my latest campaign creation I did and have yet to finish, (RL happened and then one fot hem discovered pathfinder and belvies that its vastly supierior to 3.5 wanted me to covnert at which pint i siad ' uh.. you do relazie it 95% the exact same right?")

anyways contiuing,

I knew the main bad guy was going to be a demon lord who was making a bid on coming to the prime and setting up a 'hell on earth'

one of his underlinsg was the paladins' ex wife, who he raped becuase e wnated some and she was liek 'no' she turned to dark and forbidding things to becoem powerful enough to get her revenge gathered up a horde of orcs and almost took out a kingdom.

then there were power crazy drow who captured a dwarven mine with help formt heir bugbear slaves the leader was a mystic heruge who had the nasty habbit of teleporting form cleft to cleft and zapping the PCs

at one point the heroes found a map off an dead orc of an old keep with lots of treasure, little did they know adult black dragon claimed it now, yeah they were level 7,and dragon is CR 11.. but A) it was 100% optinional B) i do not kill my player just cuz and C) i love reward cleverness and incororating awesomeness.

I think at some point the save soem gnome from the orcs ( the orcs were teh main bad guys for the first 8 ish level, no not 1 hd orcs but level 7 warrior orcs and lvl 5 shamans etc) and got soem cool rewards for that becoming perm gnome allies gaining a +5 to diplomacy on any gnome the encountered ( i dd this wrogn as sicne its not actually In the rules technically it should not be allowed, but.. i play more story wise and thought that was a just reward myself /shrug)

I try to have at least 1 adventure in a campagin where one particular player's charatcer shines, and incorptaitng their backstory in the campaign like i did with the paladin and his wife. again i am not sure if that is allowed according to the rules or not.. but Hey it made for a damn good story, it was amazing when he dealt the killing blow via smite evil and knokcing her back 10 feet via homebrewed feat i made, and she said ' thank you, my love, you set me free." then kissed him gently on the forehead. he had no idea what was going on becuase as she was a fiendish warlock/adept he did not recognize her untill as she fell and her last breathe left she dropped her wedding band.. again this is soemthing that is not allowed according to the rule as -15 HP means dead and not able to talk for a couple of minutes afterwards but agian.. don't it make for a much better scene?


for me the biggest rule I have about DMing, whether it is wrong or not, is forget the rules when they get in the way of a cool scene/awesome fight/just plain old neatness.