New DM - Any ideas for creating campaigns?

[Ballista]

Oh boy, the next DM rotation is gonna fall on me :smalleek: and I currently have almost little to no idea of what the heck is gonna happen. This isn't a last minute thing, I have at least a few weeks before the current game ends, but I'd like to start a little earlier to avoid last minute confusions that the current DM had to face.
I've had some experience running a few modules, but this would be the first time I would have to make my own full fledged campaign. Rather than asking you guys for a list of premises and plot lines, I'd rather ask for how you guys come up with your ideas for these type of things.

Also... I've asked myself whether I would live on with the constant Greyhawk Setting or should I move on to Eberron or Faerun. So... favorite campaign setting too?

TLDR; How the heck do you guys come up with such epic campaigns?!?!
Thanks again GitP

[INoKnowNames]

Oh boy, the next DM rotation is gonna fall on me :smalleek: and I currently have almost little to no idea of what the heck is gonna happen. This isn't a last minute thing, I have at least a few weeks before the current game ends, but I'd like to start a little earlier to avoid last minute confusions that the current DM had to face.
I've had some experience running a few modules, but this would be the first time I would have to make my own full fledged campaign. Rather than asking you guys for a list of premises and plot lines, I'd rather ask for how you guys come up with your ideas for these type of things.

Also... I've asked myself whether I would live on with the constant Greyhawk Setting or should I move on to Eberron or Faerun. So... favorite campaign setting too?

TLDR; How the heck do you guys come up with such epic campaigns?!?!
Thanks again GitP

I'm getting ready to try Dming myself, actually. The most important thing is to try to figure out a story or setting that you like, and work on making it capable of fitting the zany antics of (# of players) crazy pcs. It has to be, at the very least, something you like, be it a cliche' plot from your favorite stereotypical stories, or the world of you imagination made real through the power of the dice.

For me, specifically, I'm motivated by my favorite games and shows. Elements from such things usually find their way into the abilities and personality of my characters, and I'll be using such a world for the setting of my first Pbp game ever.

[Water_Bear]

Steal. STEAL EVERYTHING!!!!! TAKE IT ALL!!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

But yeah, its been pointed out a million times (huh) that even the best stories are derived from previous ideas. That is, in essence, what a culture is; common ideas which get re-used and re-interpreted over and over until they get stale and cliche.

So find a theme or a motif from a show/book/movie/comic you like and think about how it would fit into a D&D game. Take rules, items, pre-generated NPCs and monsters from published settings and use them to help flesh it out. Leave enough room in the central narrative for players to make nonintuitive choices and have sub-plots of their own.

With regards to setting, I like Eberron for two reasons. Firstly, it is the easiest setting to run; it has a ton of pre-made NPCs for practically every city or faction, with their own competing goals and personalities, and the maps are plentiful and legible. Secondly, it has awesome flavour being epic and gritty at the same time.

Faerun would be my second choice. It has a well developed setting and NPCs and a lot of fun mechanics and classes unique to itself, plus it has essentially supplanted Greyhawk as the 'default' D&D setting with the focus on it lately. The only problem is that there are an infinite number of books on the Forgotten Realms setting keeping track of continuity over at least three editions now.

Hope that helps.

[Ballista]

Alright... so just take ideas, characters, settings from my favorite media sources? Sounds good! The only problem is that I actually experience very little in the field of high-mid fantasy settings. I'm more of a science fiction type of guy whereas most of the group prefers to play high magic/fantasy over things like d20 modern/future. The closest thing to fantasy besides 3.5 that I'm playing/reading/watching is Game of Thrones but the setting is by far of low magic despite the magic-filled backstory that I'm not all that familiar with. Do you have any suggestions besides things like The Elder Scrolls and Warcraft? Something that's not your run-of-the-mill fantasy setting.

[Fable Wright]

Aside from finding and recycling ideas from the forums, the best way I've had to make settings is to read a bunch of the established fluff from sourcebooks, and then find plot hooks in them that I really like and mesh them together in a campaign. For example, I was once reading through Sandstorm and Frostburn, and I saw the epic spells Dire Winter and Global Warming. I wondered to myself what would happen if two different factions started warring using the spells to control the world... and came up with an epic campaign idea of a Xixecal, an epic Dry Lich, and the forces their struggle gives birth to as the premise for a setting. Another campaign premise that I came up with was after reading Heroes of Horror, and wanting to try out a campaign based on that. I saw the idea of the PCs making a choice to doom the village they came to help, and after reading the SilverClawShift Campaign Archives for a while and the description for an encounter with an Elder Brain and the segment about an escape from an impossible to defeat force, I wound up making a setting where leftover waste from Quintessence extraction from Mind Flayers of Thoon's works caused the area around a village to become a Tainted area, as described in Heroes of Horror, causing the dead to rise in mindless waves. A sect of necromancers, whose control over their undead was weakened from the tainted waste, started attacking the infested town to root out the mindflayers, prompting the town to hire some enterprising heroes for its defense...

The entire premise came from wanting to mimic the scene in the Halloween campaign from the SilverClawShift archives with the hollow eyed undead wildlife just starting at the party, slowly turning to watch their progress, and somehow integrate the idea of the party going down into a closed off water supply, with a psionic horror's tendrils oily moving through their minds, them helpless to do anything about it, while they desperately try to escape, and it's right behind them. It was horrifying in my mind, at least. I just worked on trying to merge the two ideas together, and it turned out fairly well.

[JadePhoenix]

Aside from finding and recycling ideas from the forums, the best way I've had to make settings is to read a bunch of the established fluff from sourcebooks, and then find plot hooks in them that I really like and mesh them together in a campaign.
This is very good advice.

Also, talk to your players. Maybe they want a lighthearted sandbox game, maybe they want a LotR-esque epic, maybe they want a game of intrige and betrayal, maybe they want a dark fantasy 'save the world' thing. Make sure you're DMing the game your players want to play and make sure they know which game you want to DM.


Alright... so just take ideas, characters, settings from my favorite media sources? Sounds good! The only problem is that I actually experience very little in the field of high-mid fantasy settings. I'm more of a science fiction type of guy whereas most of the group prefers to play high magic/fantasy over things like d20 modern/future. The closest thing to fantasy besides 3.5 that I'm playing/reading/watching is Game of Thrones but the setting is by far of low magic despite the magic-filled backstory that I'm not all that familiar with. Do you have any suggestions besides things like The Elder Scrolls and Warcraft? Something that's not your run-of-the-mill fantasy setting.
Videogames: Dragon Age, Skyrim, Baldur's Gate
Books: anything Dragonlance, anything Drizzt, Year of Rogue Dragons
Movies: The Princess Bride, Legend, Stardust
Also, you don't have to get ideas only from medieval fantasy. Most movie plots can be applied to a D&D game if you give it enough thought.
How about a murder mystery, considering the effects of speak with the dead? Or planning a heist on a wizard tower (not just storming the gates, actually planning it)?

[Water_Bear]

Do you have any suggestions besides things like The Elder Scrolls and Warcraft? Something that's not your run-of-the-mill fantasy setting.

With a High-Powered game like D&D there usually isn't a single good fantasy universe; most modern fantasy is focused on low-magic struggles between near-humans. I would look specifically at stuff like the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books if you want Fantasy literature at a D&D 3.5 power level.

Other than that, I personally tend to draw a lot on Anime* and Western Sci-Fi. Sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology right? With Eberron (Artificers / Magewrights, Elemental Vehicles) and Faerun (Mythalars and High Magic) material you can recreate anything up to and including space travel.


*I tend to like using Giant Robot anime; they are usually high-stakes massive battles between groups of memorable high-powered characters against a backdrop of war. Replace the Mechs themselves with 9th level or higher characters and it usually works for me.

[smarti]

I like the village approach - starting at low levels with novice characters that discover themselves little by little. Have something threatening their village - something like a raid of goblins - nothing all to epic, and while descending their first dungeon you unravel the epic story line - let them eavesdrop to some conspiracy and go from there.

Has the advantage of getting to know the characters through and through (rather than being surprised by plot busters all of a sudden) and gives the players some sort of identification with their chars.
Speed up the leveling the first 5 levels or so.

I always think it's fun to come up with some non classic d&d effects, like cursing players so that they are forced to say the truth or have them get a bonus to attack rolls if they do evil deeds or something rather - tempting them a little.

[prufock]

Steal. STEAL EVERYTHING!!!!! TAKE IT ALL!!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Basically this. Take a story you like, or that your whole group likes, and alter it. I've done this with George RR Martin's The Hedge knight in a recent game. Details were changed, it was adapted to fit a party of 3, and lots of changes came as a result of the players' behaviour.

Another option is to take a story you like and change something major to completely turn it on its head.

[Golden Ladybug]

*I tend to like using Giant Robot anime; they are usually high-stakes massive battles between groups of memorable high-powered characters against a backdrop of war. Replace the Mechs themselves with 9th level or higher characters and it usually works for me.

As part of the Eberron suggest; take Gurren Lagann. Replace all the mechs with Warforged. Set it on top of a moving Lightning Rail. Watch as an Epic Campaign just unfolds in front of you :smallcool:

But seriously, I echo the suggestion to just pillage as many cool ideas from all your favourite books, tv shows, movies and other people's campaigns. Take a read through your favourite sourcebooks, and just find cool stuff. Browse some cool magic items, or wierd prestige classes. Read as much fluff as you can, and jot down ideas as you go. Think about the wierd eccentricities of the game (what would the economy be like if Wizards actually tried to sell Walls of Salt all the time? Why do people farm when they could take a level of Cleric instead and just cast Create Food and Water all the time?) and take it to its logical conclusion.

If all else fails? Break out the monster manual, close your eyes and open it to a random page. That creature is going to take over the world, and the PCs have to stop it. It could be anything from a Kobold to a Gelatinous Cube, but its the BBEG. Figure out how to make it happen, and then give it to your PCs.

[Bharg]

How about a super deadly low-magic-powered fantasy world in which something supernatural caused something like a "zombie outbreak" except everyone that dies turns and comes back as a ghoul.

[Ranting Fool]

The only problem is that I actually experience very little in the field of high-mid fantasy settings. I'm more of a science fiction type of guy whereas most of the group prefers to play high magic/fantasy over things like d20 modern/future.

Thats easy enough, just replace future tech with magic.

Want Cyborgs (Oh look half golems)
Robots (oh look Warforged)
Being Beemed up by some bloke named scotty (There's a spell for that)

There are a fair few Science fiction plots that are remakes of other genres *Cough* Dances with smurfs *cough*

As always my advice on starting out as a DM is... Start simple, have fun, and learn what worked and what didn't, get feedback. Did your players think the NPC too silly? Too Scary? Too Muhahahahahahahaha Evil?

[Ranting Fool]

If all else fails? Break out the monster manual, close your eyes and open it to a random page. That creature is going to take over the world, and the PCs have to stop it. It could be anything from a Kobold to a Gelatinous Cube, but its the BBEG. Figure out how to make it happen, and then give it to your PCs.

Tried that. Turns out that an Army of Fungus will soon be ruling the world! :smallbiggrin:

[Rift_Wolf]

For a comedic setting, I'd suggest Discworld books, especially The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic.

However, there's no shame in DMing a published campaign for your first game. The main problem with published campaigns is a) sometimes they're far too easy (especially with a large group) and b) it can be a bit restrictive in terms of what characters can and can't do. But for a first-time DM, they can give you some good ideas of where a campaign can go after.
A few other tips;

Come up with some reason why the party know each other or are working together other than 'you all met in a tavern'.

Their first fight shouldn't be against anything poisonous, especially at 1st level.

GMs are supposed to have fun too. If someone in the group is deliberately being antagonistic towards you or trying to ruin your game, ask him out-of-game what his problem is, or kick him out. I wish that players like this didn't exist, but sadly my first gaming group exposed me to the troll player early.

Don't panic.

[sol_kanar]

TLDR; How the heck do you guys come up with such epic campaigns?!?!
Thanks again GitP

You know, this is actually a very good question. To this day, I've DM'ed only three full-length campaigns. Two of the three ideas were stolen by things that the players did not know. One of the three was a campaign that I played as a player. I loved it so much that I re-wrote it for the Eberron setting (I played it in a generic setting)...and surprisingly, it fitted like a glove. Actually, it was even better!

It was so good that I am going to write a short summary here.

The Hunt for the Rings (Campaign for levels 3rd-8th)

From level 1 to level 3, the PCs have small adventures unrelated to the main plot. But they make some allies and some enemies that will return later on.

When they hit level 3, one PC is invited to the opening of the last will of a distant relative, an Arteficer employed in House Cannith. This Arteficer used to work in the main enclave of the House in Cyre, before the Day of the Mourning. He escaped death only because he was on a mission near the border. Since then, he refused to take a side in the struggle between the factions, and retired in Aundair.

Since his moment was drawing near, he decided to store an important secret about House Cannith inside five magical rings. The rings possess relatively powerful properties when taken individually, but when they are put together they reveal the secret. He then proceeded to sell and/or donate the rings to people from every corner of Khorvaire, without revealing them the secret. But if a ring is taken by one of the relatives of the Arteficer against the will of its current owner, the secret is forever erased!

Now, everything is explained to the PCs that attend the reading of the will...but they are not the only ones there. Other two groups of adventurers, each with a relative of the Arteficer, comes there.

So, a massive treasure hunt starts! The first clue is in the house of the Arteficer. One of the other two groups will run side by side with the PCs, while the other will dismiss the competition as "pointless madness" and leave...only to spy on everyone with Scry and facing the PCs as the final encounter.

The hunt for the rings includes:
- stealing a ring that is going to be used as a wedding ring by one of their enemies. The ring is actually cursed with Zone of Truth because the enemy does not trust his bride-to-be; the PCs can ally with the bride or try some other tactic;
- taking a ring that has been carried to Haka'Thorvak (and is obviously in possession of the Black Dragon);
- bargaining for a ring currently in possession of the Lord of Blades;
- help a House Tharask heir to join the Gaash'Dala in the Demon Wastes against the will of his family, in exchange for his ring;
- helping a merchant to climb the levels of the Aurum, in exchange for his current ring (that he will no longer need when he will rise as a Gold Councilor)

[Andorax]

Strangely enough, you can make a short adventure/campaign arc out of nearly any saturday morning cartoon episode*, with a little creative refluffing. In most cases, it also has the virtue of not being familiar to the players already (your milage may vary depending on your players).

Use the heck out of these forums. Come up with your three best/most inspiring ideas, and bring them back here. "Got a Basic Plot, Help Me Build It" thread with the rundown of the ideas...see what people can come up with. DMs are outnumbered at the table...get reinforcements between sessions!

If you haven't DMed much, it's not a crime to turn to modules for inspiration and use either. Use them wholesale, or even just pirate some of the plot and storyline...if you're doing this, you have the full range of modules going back to 2nd, 1st, 0D&D...whatever you wish...just build the stats to fit.


*A tribe of centaurs, decades ago, settled in an inhospitable region of the world and managed to make it habitable through a powerful artifact known as the Sunstone. Through its use, the valley has become fertile and productive. However, these lands were once the domain of a trio of hags who cannot abide the changes wrought by them, and now dwell in a ruined manor on the fringes of the valley that was once entirely theirs by right (and by virtue of nobody else wanting it), having only the company of animated portraits of past generations of hags that still possess their knowledge and wisdom (converse with them as per speak with dead at will).

The artifact is coveted by another neighbor, a hive of Abeil (MM2) who have scraped out a marginal existance on their own in the neighboring valley, and seek to improve their lot in life. They responded quite willingly to overtures from the hags to plot to steal the Sunstone and use it for their own benefit...and perhaps take the valley of the centaurs back as the domain of one of the juvenile queens after the centuars are driven off or slain.

This is, essentially, the plot of a My Little Pony movie that my daughter is altogether too fond of...with some D&D-appropriate adaptation.

[White_Drake]

I like looking for a monster that interests me, and then seeing how I can build a campaign around it. i.e. I found out that there are actually 4 different varieties of Rakshasa (that I know of), a monster I've always liked. Solution: after looking through the fluff on the subspecies I had them as a puppet gov't for a city, & then added in detail until there was a point low enough for the PCs to start at. Then they could work their way up through the whole sordid affair. On a more answering-the-actual-question note, I like classic Greyhawk, although I find the idea of playing in a post apocalyptic Tippyverse very appealing...

[Roncorps]

This : The Campaign Launch Pad (www.dungeonmastering.com/campaigns-adventures/the-campaign-launch-pad)