jguy
2014-04-05, 07:30 PM
I tried a thought experiment to see if I could build a campaign whole-cloth from simple battles. I think there have been several instances where a DM has been mid-campaign and hit a brick wall with the next encounter. What is balanced? What is thematically appropriate? How do I keep it from being the same enemies over and over? What enemies can I grab from the books without having to build something from scratch or try to twist fluff wise? It can be mentally exhausting. So I decided to make all the encounters ahead of time and see what came out.
I started with Fast XP progression and assumed a party of 4. I wanted 4 fights per level. I started at level 1 and went from there. All in all it averaged me 30 minutes per level and I got from 1 to level 6 in an afternoon. After making all my fights I looked over what I had and built a story line around it. Low and behold, it became a twisted campaign based around kidnapping, sadism, and the worship of an elder god. Now I still need to make some set pieces and draw up environments for these fights but I found it very refreshing and rewarding. Now of course I cannot predict how my players will act and no plan survives contact with the enemy but it was fast, easy, and allowed me to use enemies I had never thought of or been able to. I'm playtesting this in the coming weeks and will tell you all how it goes.
I started with Fast XP progression and assumed a party of 4. I wanted 4 fights per level. I started at level 1 and went from there. All in all it averaged me 30 minutes per level and I got from 1 to level 6 in an afternoon. After making all my fights I looked over what I had and built a story line around it. Low and behold, it became a twisted campaign based around kidnapping, sadism, and the worship of an elder god. Now I still need to make some set pieces and draw up environments for these fights but I found it very refreshing and rewarding. Now of course I cannot predict how my players will act and no plan survives contact with the enemy but it was fast, easy, and allowed me to use enemies I had never thought of or been able to. I'm playtesting this in the coming weeks and will tell you all how it goes.