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I was recently reading the Big List of RPG Plots - which seems to cover nearly ever adventure plot - and was thinking it might be nice to have a similar list for campaign ideas. (Some of the adventure ideas from above could serve well as campaign ideas. Some, not so much.)
Please feel free to add to this with your ideas! It should be fairly generic, as with the Big List linked to above. For example, the Big Bad doesn't have to be a dark wizard, they could be a 1920s mob godfather, a modern politician, or an admiral in command of a fleet of starships.
Explorers!
The players are tasked with discovering - or rediscovering - a territory. They have to survive using local resources, before eventually reporting back to whoever sent them.
Common Twists & Themes: The area is already claimed by someone else, either natives or another civilization. There is some previously unknown natural effect in place (wild magic, sensor scrambling) that hinders them unexpectedly. The players aren't the only group exploring it.
Examples: Star Trek, Allan Quatermain, Marco Polo
Manhunt
The players are fugitives on the run! They must evade capture.
Common Twists & Themes: The players are innocent, and must prove it. One of the party is guilty, but the other players don't know. The players are guilty, but don't remember committing the crime. The players are members of some disliked minority group, and have trouble getting help.
Examples: The Fugitive, Osama bin Laden
Look What I Made
The players must build and run an operation (a guild, an empire, a business) successfully. This means defending it from threats and keeping members/customers/citizens/employees happy.
Common Twists & Themes: The players take over the operation, rather than building it, and not everyone is happy about it. Someone else is building a rival operation. Someone in the organization is a spy and they have to figure out who. The operation must be kept secret. The operation scales up over time. The operation is mobile, and the players move around a lot.
Examples: Breaking Bad, the Roman Empire, Apple Computers
In the Army
The players are an elite military group in a war. They are sent on special missions against the enemy, either in defense of their home or to fight a foreign aggressor.
Common Twists & Themes: The players are on the wrong side, but don't realize it. The players are mercenaries, and will work for whichever side pays more. Political infighting muddies the chain of command and may lead to conflicting orders. The war is a covert one and the players can't fight openly. The war is internal, either a civil war or a resistance movement. Players may have loved ones on the opposing side.
Examples: Delta Force, The Expendables, Star Wars, the Crusades
Who Am I?
The players have amnesia, and have to figure out who they used to be and why they lost the memories.
Common Twists & Themes: The players were very different before, and may not like who they were. The amnesia was their own doing. The players don't have amnesia - they were in fact just created as adults for unknown purposes. They have some special ability to give clues to their history.
Examples: Planescape: Torment, John Doe
Treasure Recovery
The players are professional treasure hunters, seeking out lost relics and taking them back.
Common Twists & Themes: Rival groups are in pursuit of the same treasure. The group's patron is actually planning to use the relics to do evil. The party is trying to destroy the item, not recover it.
Examples: Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider
What about The Arena? Where the players are in a tournament or are slaves forced to fight, or whatever?
Definitely a good one!
How are we distinguishing between "campaigns" and "adventures" here? Because a lot of the adventures could be episodes in a campaign or vice versa, e.g. this week our amnesiac adventurers have to fight in the arena to resume their flight from authority.
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A common campaign plot is "none." Think of any of the episode-of-the-week TV shows, where the only common element is that Jessica Fletcher or Jane Marple is somewhere, commits a murder, and then pins it on someone else and the viewer never notices.
I would define a campaign idea as any overall story that serves as a basis for smaller adventures. But some "campaign level" ideas could easily be single adventures (as you mentioned) and as I mentioned in the OP, some "adventure level" ideas could easily be whole campaigns.
I wouldn't consider "Murder, She Wrote" for example to be a campaign, because there is no overall plot... though there easily could be one added in.
Take the Arena idea - if it was simply an excuse for a series of tactical encounters and fights, I probably wouldn't consider it a campaign. But if you add in background characters, intrigue, fishy deals between stable owners, etc. it easily becomes one. Look at Spartacus, after all.
That's not saying a game is "bad" for not having those elements. If the players enjoy a bunch of tactical combats strung together, then you have achieved the "having fun" objective. I simply wouldn't consider it a campaign.
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I define a campaign as a series of adventures following the same group of PCs (or at least the same continuity, if the first set of PCs dies out over time).
I define a campaign as a series of adventures following the same group of PCs (or at least the same continuity, if the first set of PCs dies out over time).
That's the definition I use. Especially in a genre dominated so heavily by episodic pulp stories (e.g. Conan), comic strips (Prince Valiant), or TV shows (Xena), a lot of RPG campaigns are basically "so, this week our intrepid group of heroes finds itself on board a ship....."
Hmm. Then what would you call the more narrow definition I am using? Obviously, it's still a campaign by either definition. Perhaps we should borrow from TV and simply call them episodic vs. serial campaigns?
Hmm. Then what would you call the more narrow definition I am using? Obviously, it's still a campaign by either definition. Perhaps we should borrow from TV and simply call them episodic vs. serial campaigns?
That's the terminological route I would go. It's not that big a deal, all it does is add "none" to the list of campaign plots. My bigger question remains : what's the different between an adventure plot and a campaign plot? Is this any different (or more meaningful) than trying to distinguish between the plot of a novel and the plot of a short story?
What we might "really" be dealing with is the difference between a background/setting and a plot. I don't think "in the army" is a plot, nor is "amnesia." In the sense that a background is what you ARE and a plot is what you DO..... does this make sense?
Sort of. The difference is between "You all meet in a tavern" and "You have to recover the MacGuffin!"
What we might "really" be dealing with is the difference between a background/setting and a plot. I don't think "in the army" is a plot, nor is "amnesia." In the sense that a background is what you ARE and a plot is what you DO..... does this make sense?
Hmm. Fair point. "In the Army" would be just as episodic as "Arena fighters" unless you tied it together with some overarching story. In which case, the army is a functional backdrop for a different plot.
Might be helpful - or maybe overly anal retentive - to make separate lists to establish manner of meeting, setting (including scope), organizational structures, and overall plot (if present).
I think the idea of investigation into some mystery works as an overarching plot for a lot of campaigns, as does the idea of saving the town/nation/world from some terrible threat.
I'm still not seeing what the differences is between a campaign plot and an episode plot, I'm afraid.
1) The overall theme of this campaign is to save the town from some terrible threat, and to this end, the first thing you need to do is investigate a mystery.
versus
2) The overall theme of this campaign is to investigate a mystery, and to this end, the first thing you need to do is to save the town from some terrible threat.
I think I've played in both of those games.
I'm very close to convinced that the only difference between a campaign plot and an episode plot is the length of time it takes to execute.
Escape the labyrinth!
The party find themselves in an unfamiliar room, the only door leads to a gigantic maze/dungeon/ancient ruin/caverns that their only hope of survival is to escape from. Using only their wits and whatever they can find, scavenge, and loot, can they evade their mysterious prison? Who put them there, and will they so easily allow them to escape?
I've wanted to run a game like this for years now, but haven't had players that I was sure could design characters with the survival skills.
I've wanted to run a game like this for years now, but haven't had players that I was sure could design characters with the survival skills.
I'd love a game like that.
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I've wanted to run a game like this for years now, but haven't had players that I was sure could design characters with the survival skills.I'd love a game like that.
If you're ever in northern Ohio, and hopefully know a couple of other adventurous souls, let me know. I have seven layers of it drawn out. :)