Looking for help on running Campaigns!

[tamane1]

So my biggest problem in running D&D sessions as a DM is coming up with a enticing story. It seems all of my campaigns, no matter how I start the story, it always comes back to, "Hey look at that big powerful enemy! We have to stop him from taking over the world!!". And it gets boring for the DM and the PC's. Any tips or suggestions to overcome this problem? What are some good campaign hooks that are intriguing, but don't have the PC's save the world every session? Thanks.

[VoxRationis]

You could do an about-face and encourage a more proactive, rather than reactive, approach from your PCs.
"You are the lords of baronies X, Y, and Z. Here's the map of the kingdom. Go." That approach requires a lot of prep-work, though.

You could try to make the stakes smaller, compensating for any loss of drama by making them more personal.

You could have the PCs have some more constructive goal, with the villains merely obstacles in the way. They could be trying to bring a city out of an age of squalor and corruption, and the villains could be the merchant princes who benefit from the status quo.

[(Un)Inspired]

Ya. Saving the world is kinda played out. What you need is some storyline that the players will become personally attached to.

Run a game where all your pcs are trying to build a small hamlet into a town, then a city, then a kingdom. Sure their will be threats to smash but it's also gonna be a lot if building homes and fortifications, gathering sustainable resources, establishing trade relations and maybe attracting talented people from around the world to join you're city.

I ran a game like this where my pcs started out as a run away chain gang that took refuge in an old shack in the woods. I kinda expected it to just be a place they would sleep one night but they decided it was their new hideout. As they completed quests, they shelter some other people at their hideout and their little civilization kinda took off.


Another great idea that I read about on a thread here a few months ago was the idea of a party that revolves around taking care of a baby. A bunch of adventurers that don't really know anything other than how to kill they enemies are stuck using enchantment magic to teach a child the basics of life and contemplating summoning a succubus to breast feed it.

Having a campaign centered around creation rather than distraction is often different enough to keep players interested.

[VoxRationis]

Having a campaign centered around creation rather than distraction is often different enough to keep players interested.

Players get off-topic so easily, I think distraction is inevitable.

[(Un)Inspired]

Players get off-topic so easily, I think distraction is inevitable.

Ehhh that was an autocorrect error. Sorry I'm on my phone. That should say destruction.

[tamane1]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. Another thought I had was doing something similar to Skyrim: the PC's are mad aware of this power source they can tap into, but they aren't strong enough yet. They must travel around the world finding dungeons and caves and doing quests to get experience, then once they are strong enough, they go into a mystical cave and unlock their new powers.

This would also be a nice transition into running an epic level campaign, where the "power source" is something that enables them to go to level 21 and beyond. Thoughts?

[NickChaisson]

I really wanna do that baby campaign now XD

Knowing my party they would probably apply any template they could to it and raise it to become their bodyguard.