Advice for Creating a Campaign

[Flip75]

Hi All-

I been wanting to start a 4e group for a while now and think the best way to recruit the player's is to be the DM. I have DM the heroic Tier models for the 'Scales of War' path almost a year ago, but had to stop due to my up coming wedding. But not I would like to take up the DM seat again, but my problem is I am having a hard time coming up with a good ideal for a Campaign. I would like to run a story from level 1-10, a connected story and not just a series of disconnected published adventures. So any of your seasoned DM have any tips to help a newish DM design a fun campaign?

Thank You

[Ashdate]

Hi All-

I been wanting to start a 4e group for a while now and think the best way to recruit the player's is to be the DM. I have DM the heroic Tier models for the 'Scales of War' path almost a year ago, but had to stop due to my up coming wedding. But not I would like to take up the DM seat again, but my problem is I am having a hard time coming up with a good ideal for a Campaign. I would like to run a story from level 1-10, a connected story and not just a series of disconnected published adventures. So any of your seasoned DM have any tips to help a newish DM design a fun campaign?

Thank You

I guy I know described this as the four page DMG3 that never existed (http://story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=16138&page=1#Item_0). There's a lot of great stuff in here, drink it up.

As for an idea, I recommend thinking about a really big, overarching quest. Think BIG. For example, my party is on a quest to collect blood from each type of dragon, their combination of which will cause a giant dispel magic they need to remove a curse, so they can defeat the evil necromancer (who cursed them). That's gotten them from level 1 to their current level 13 (I'm planning on ending it ~17-20).

The Monsterous Manuals can give you a good gauge about what kind of monsters would "exist" around level 10. In the MM1, Ettins, Dragons, etc. can all be the evil mastermind behind your campaign. Figure that out and then build downward. Compartmentalizing "quests" or "story arcs" can help you pace how far your players can get.

If you have any ideas, post them and maybe the people on this forum can help flesh it out (or give you some ideas).

[Vrythas]

Hi,

i know exactly the situation you're in, as i was in that same situation just a few weeks ago. i'm currently working on a campaign (with a complementary campaign setting), but what i've decided to do is to simply get the players into the setting, rather than starting with the overarching quest. i tried to follow the gaming articles that the Giant has made (you can find the links in the "Gaming" section of the sidebar), so i started with the landmass, and what the defining characteristics of the landscape will be, and i've been working on some of the initial cities and towns that the player's may want to visit. currently i'm working on some of the characters that the players will meet, characters that i'm planning on being the players' allies for the rest of the campaign. i haven't started thinking about an overarching quest, because that can be added in when you think the players are ready (and because the player's haven't even traveled to the place yet). you can check out what i've done in this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234790) thread here in the forums. however, i am not a "seasoned DM". I've only been DMing for about a year, and i started out as a "Level 1 DM" - i didn't play D&D as a PC before becoming a DM. so yeah, those are my thoughts. hope they help....somewhat....:smallbiggrin:.

Vrythas.

[never_shades]

Yeah, I've always been a fan of the 'huge overarching quest.' You might want to avoid 'collect all seven pieces of the thing so you can do that stuff' type of quest. It's important for the players to care about the campaign.

The most effective trick I've used to make players care (that is easy) is to have someone with a face kick the **** out of them. If they can actively hate someone in your campaign, that's good. The worst thing that could happen is that no one really cares about any of the villains or allies or whatever.

[incandescent]

Just to throw in my two cents, i tend to like campaigns with an exploratory theme and tend to not build towards a grand overarching story (mainly because i'm afraid i'd railroad into it or my players would ignore it by accident :P). In campaigns like that i end up just following the characters as they do cool sidequests i make. Evetually one becomes the ascendant side quest and has the potential to develop into a greater story or I'll get an idea based on who they've met in the game or what they've done and go from there.

I also find it helpful to generate a landmass and fill it in with common sense cities and places (sea ports, mountain astronomers, etc) and work from that base. I find that Dawn of Worlds helps tremendoualy with this. It's an awesome little game that sets up a world framework, google it to find out more (it's only 12 pages and free!).

I guess overall it comes down to what sort of campaign you'd find interesting to run. A campaign can be structured like anything from an exploratory sight seeing tour filled with long forgotten treasures to a test of survival against the horrors that come out each night due to the thousand year curse. Whatever you'd find fun will generally drive ypur creative process.

Sorry if this seems really disjointed, posting from my phone at work.

[Palegreenpants]

I like to build a big storyline out of what the players have done at heroic tier.(sorry if that's not much help, due to the fact that the OP is working with a campaign limited to Heroic)
But that's just me, I like to improvise.

The other suggestion I'd like to make is:
Be ready for players to accidentally (or purposefully) ignore plot points.
Have short encounters ready to fill up the of-track stuff, but then guide them back to the real story.