Building a D&D/Pathfinder campaign

[Jeivar]

Me and my friends have played D&D on and off for years now, but it's almost always been of a rather slapdash, semi-sandbox variety. Attempts at something deeper and more cohesive have either not been planned well enough or things have fallen apart for some other reason.

Now we are talking about doing a more genuine campaign after the holidays. A cheesy, old fashioned adventure with travel and heroics and some grand end goal.
I guess my question is, how have you guys (successfully) pulled something like this off? How have you kept things interesting and accounted for the possibility of players going off-script, knowingly or not?

Oh, and what is a good way of handling the "Evil Overlord threatens the whole land! Better send a small band of adventurers instead of the army!"

[Craft (Cheese)]

Oh, and what is a good way of handling the "Evil Overlord threatens the whole land! Better send a small band of adventurers instead of the army!"

Well there's always the obvious way: They did send the army, and the army is failing miserably for some reason or another. The PCs are a third party, trying to fix the problem on their own.

Alternately, the PCs are in the army that gets sent to fight the Evil Overlord.

Anyway, I prefer to run sandboxes instead of structured adventures. But I do have one relevant piece of advice for you: Make sure the players have concrete motivations, then give them concrete tools to fulfill these motivations. A quest giver who barks orders at you is lame and boring, especially when those orders consist of wandering around the world collecting MacGuffins. If the players come up with what they want to do on their own, they'll be much more focused and interested.

Also, follow the rule of three solutions: If you intend to present a problem to the PCs, come up with at least three ways they could solve it, and plan for those. If your PCs go off the rails and throw something at you you didn't expect, likely the thing they come up with will at least partially resemble one of the solutions you came up with yourself. That way, you won't be completely unprepared.

[Lord Il Palazzo]

I made a pretty long post in another thread yesterday. Since it's relevant, I'll link it here (like so (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14392811&postcount=6)) to avoid gumming up this thread with its lenght.

The short version is to start with an outline of what you want to have happen and leave room to connect you players backstories into the main plot (for that personal touch) and to add things you decide the game needs later (like more action, more mystery, more exotic locales, etc.)

[TheThan]

Well, work out reasons why they would send a small band of adventurers. In LOTR it was for stealth since they basically had to walk right up through his front door to destroy the ring.

Maybe the army is being used to fight the enemy, and the PCs are being sent on another task (aka search/destroy the MacGuffin).

Just be ready for the players to jump the rails at any time. I’d have something interesting ready to be placed behind the next bend just in case.

[Jeivar]

Just be ready for the players to jump the rails at any time. I’d have something interesting ready to be placed behind the next bend just in case.

"Break glass in case of emergency" eh? Something interesting, at least somewhat connected to the main plot and substantial enough for at least one session? This is good advice.

[TheThan]

Well it doesn’t have to have anything to do with the main plot. But it should at least keep their interest long enough to sate them. I’d make it atmospheric and part of the gaming world. For example the players might venture off into the wilderness and encounter an elfish encampment, or an enchanted pool deep in the forest, or wild fey that decide to play tricks on them. Just something to keep their attention while you try to get them back on the plot.

[UndertakerSheep]

I'm currently running a very story/roleplaying heavy campaign, where the player characters travel around a lot, meet recurring villains, stop several evils from destroying the world and have fun with their character's backstories. We started at first level, and are aiming for 30th. Our group has been together for two years and this is everyone's favorite campaign, ever.

There are many ways to go about making an 'epic' campaign, most of them good and some of them bad. Here's a short summary of my campaign's structure:

(For obvious reasons, if you're playing in Ending Tranquility, do not read further)


Story-arcs:

My campaign has three campaign archs:

An evil starlord is trying to collide this plane with the Far Realm
Deep underground, the Drow are plotting to overthrow the newly founded Celestial Empire on the surface world
Far in the east, an ancient civilization of dragonborn (thought to have been defeated in a war centuries ago) has been raised as undead, and they're going for revenge!


My campaign has one story arc for each PC:

My first player plays a changeling in service of the Empire's secret service. Working in his field means making some tough decisions: sometimes choosing the sake of the mission over the rest of the party.
The second player played a vampire who owed his survival to the Raven Queen (Goddess of Death), and so he was branded with 5 names on his right hand: targets he has to kill if he wants to return to his mortal self.
Another player plays a war veteran, who spend many years fighting evil dragonborn in a place dubbed the Forest of Death. He is constantly on the lookout for threats to the newly founded empire and would do anything to keep everyone safe.
One player is a bit of an issue; he is not really comfortable roleplaying out of his comfort zone. He plays a fighter who used to be a gladiator, but escaped many years ago. He now serves in the military.
My final player is a dwarven invoker of Bahamut. Her goal in life is to eradicate everything Tiamat-related, to avenge the death of her mother.


This may seem like a bit much, but the individual story arcs are very easy to flesh out. I talked to each player about their character prior to starting this campaign so we could flesh him/her out and give the character a firm footing in the campaign world. I also wrote a dozen or so background examples.

How I tie it all together:

I use the tried and true Famous 5x5 Method (http://critical-hits.com/2009/06/02/the-5x5-method/) for writing adventures. I have a small list of 5 'steps' of every campaign arc, and 3-4 points for every individual character arc. Every fifth step of the campaign arcs is supposed to take place near the end of heroic tier, with enough stuff remaining to last them until 13th level or so.

Whenever I prepare for a session, I always make sure it has something to do with one of the big 'campaign threats'. Then I find a way to add a character's story to it.

Example: next Friday, the party will be rescuing the dwarf's father from the drow, who are using him to convince her clan to stop supporting the Celestial Empire. One of the drow is a recurring villain who just happens to be the vampire's Warlock's first target (last session the party went back in time to alter history: the vampire never became a vampire and the fighter never became a gladiator and is instead serving in the army).

I also write the adventures like episodes from a tv-series (I even keep an online episode guide up to date). I pick a 'star character' for every episode and tie his/her story to the current campaign threat.

When preparing for a session, I start with a short summary of what happened in the last episode. I then write down the names of every PC and NPC who are going to be involved, the rest really flows from there. I also cut every episode in three parts:

The threat is introduced / tension is built up
The climax
The aftermath



My group don't know any of the mechanics I posted here, but they've told me they feel as if they're really living a story, that they never have a dull moment and they're really involved with their characters.

Just my two cents of how to run a 'cheesy, old fashioned adventure with travel and heroics and some grand end goal'. If you're planning on running a shorter campaign (we're okay with this taking 3 years), you can just cut down the campaign threats to one serious danger. Maybe add a smaller second evil for some side questing from time to time.

Sorry if my post doesn't make much sense. I'm writing this from work after a very short night.
People familiar with Chris Perkin's Dungeon Master's Experience might recognize several things mentioned here. I'm a big fan of his and his articles always teach me a thing or two about being a good DM.

[GoatToucher]

Make sure all the essential party roles are covered,and that, overall, everyone has their own unique role to play in and out of combat.

Make sure the characters know each other/ have a reason to be together in their back stories. This will make for better play in the long run than everyone making their own unique snowflake whose back story has to be twisted nine ways from Sunday to fit in with the group, or even tolerate the other players.

Establish from the get-go whether or not you are willing to entertain inter-party conflict. If you are not, it will likely be simpler to disallow evil alignments (or, more to the point, characters who behave evilly regardless of alignment).

[EccentricCircle]

First off talk to the players about the characters they want to play. Have everyone make characters together and play up the links between the characters, how did they come to be working together, what secrets do they have in their past. Try to get all of the players to come up with interesting events in their background and then sit down and build the campaign around that. Find connections between random things which your players have no idea are connected. Figure out how they are already deeply embroiled in whatever you want to be going on, so that they will find they want to fight the insidious evil spreading across the world, rather than being forced to.

If there is a massive war brewing there are a thousand and one reasons why a band of adventurers would want to run for the hills and stay as far away from the action as possible, so give them a reason to fight. Maybe one of them is a wizard looking for the lost tomes of magic. Have the enemy army being led by a tyranical king who plans to destroy the tomes in part of his crusade against magic. If one of the player's characters exiled from his homeland until he can right a wrong he committed at some time in his past... Well then the invading army is headed for his homeland and he is going to have to end his exile to return and try to save the people he loves.

Make sure that the campaign has space to change and evolve as it progresses. If the players start out fighting orcs in the hills above their town they don't want to go on a long journey to fight orcs in some different hills above a different town. You need to ensure that each episode on their journey stays fresh and different, but still familier enough that it feels like the same story.

Every so often sit down and come up with what amounts to a fresh adventure, then sit down and look at your new plot and figure out all the ways its connected to the ongoing storyline. In my current campaign the Party became stranded on a wierd extraplanar island, it wasn't until they were there and I realised that it was going to take longer for them to get back to the real world than I'd planned that I sat down and figured out who created the island and why. Linking it all back to the main plot. I had said from the start that a strange obsidian citadel lay at the heart of the island but had no idea what it was or who might be there, but decided to suprise them. Months previously in the campaign an NPC they cared about had been possessed by an alien entity of unknown origin and vanished. They ventured to the heart of the spire at the centre of the Silent Citadel and there found their friend in the body of the Archfay who had possessed her in the mortal world, setting up all sorts of things i'd planned for later in the campaign.

Ultimately until you tell the players something (and sometimes not even then) it is up in the air and can be changed and tinkered with as needed. Don't try to plan everything out from the start. I'd work no more than 6 sessions ahead. Just have a general idea of whats going on, what the broad sweep of the campaign is about, and where you intend to end up. That way how they get there can be up to the players and your future self, all of whom will come up with interesting ideas over the course of the campaign that you will want to try to work in to the ongoing storyline.