Being you have a general idea and a few set pieces down on paper. Think how and why PC's are needed to adventure. Is there a patron involved to see evil not prevail in the world. Does the patron hired to seek advenutrers to be the fall guys so evil can prevail. Then as the players make choices think what would the BBEG do for their interferences.Till you get to your set poiece in the game.
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If you aren't worried about railroading, just write out an outline of the story as if it is a story, not a game. Then write out encounters/skill check/relevant NPCs for that session and the next.
No matter how much railroading, you will have be somewhat flexible in session. Allow the players to form thier own mini-paths...but make sure they stay on track.
Sometimes it helps to start with the BBEG and work backwards. Start as high as you're willing to go on the bad guy ladder and think what that entity wants to achieve.
Ex: I have a young fey creature worg witch 6 (white haired witch). He's a white haired worglock who calls himself Frostbite and he works to create a deep and cruel winter. I don't know why - maybe to appease a patron or for revenge...right now its not important.
I'm going to try and stay disciplined to this central theme. Now how can you create such a winter? Well the first thing that leaps to mind is a mcguffin, but I like to have more than one way to skin a cat in my games.
Now every good BBEG needs mooks and elites, and this one is going to have decent Int, so chances are he manipulates more through minions, blackmail and knowledge than through guile or force.
Soo...
level 1-2 would be the rising storm: we meet the lieutenant, HIS mooks, and the temperature starts dropping. Some outdoor adventures, maybe a dungeon where the LT is torturing dwarves for info about the Everfrost Horn and perhaps even a fight over it at a snow-capped mountain chasm.
Level 3-4 is the "these heroes have thwarted my plans for the last time" where the villain makes it personal. Maybe they even MEET Frostbite and he befriends them. But the PCs also learn that a bunch of folks have gone missing after the summer solstice; turns out there was a fey revel and a cold rider was summoned to herald in an epic winter blight.
Level 5-6 is longest night, longest day: as the heroes begin the game in the throes of a perpetual blizzard they find out from contacts, found info or investigation that Frostbite sits in a court of ice so they have to marshall their powers, march on the villain and return the sun and its power to the sky.
...or something like that.
I use the monomyth as a way to get started and adopt a very similar concept to Mark's:
ULTIMATE EVIL GOAL
BBEG
asks trusted person to do something to bring it about
trusted person asks lesser people to do a relatively minor task
lesser people do something that engages PC
SO.. BBEG wants to activate evil spell. Unite the horde. Whatever. To do this, he needs <item>. He asks lower bad guys to get item. Item is in pieces. You find out bad guy has one piece already. Two to go. You can interrupt one "heist" or whatever, and then find out that the second is about to happen, and then go get BBEG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
This works from the PC perspective as:
The Call to Adventure
The hero starts off in a mundane situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown.
Town crier asks for brave adventurers to rescue caravan or some other 1st level stuff.
The Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.
Oh crap. Not bandits but organized bad people group.
The Road of Trials
The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.
You fail to stop first bad guys. You interrupt second. You have to face down the third.
Rescue from Without
Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, oftentimes he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience.
BBEG is about to crush you. You need help and barely escape with your life.
BBEG plots revenge, new adventure starts..
So.. you need locations.
1) Town
2) Tavern
3) Shops
4) Scary road
5) Encounter spot
6-8) Bad guy encounters
9) Safe haven
10) Bad guy lair
11) Place to be chased by BBEG
12) Final confrontation
Good luck!
BZ - what if we compromise and start in the middle? Hear me out:
You like starting with the environment and from the smallest speck upward; I like beginning with the villain and coming down from the top.
What if we begin in the middle and start with the characters and players? Characters in that you roll them up with your players generating logical skill/feat/archetype/trait selections to set tone, determine backstory, and potentially see WHAT kind of fights/enemies they're looking for. Players in that, as you're watching them roll up these characters you listen to their words, watch them vibe off one another and get a feel for what, as players, would make them feel good and useful to a campaign.
For example: you watch a husband and wife set of players roll up 2 characters who are linked but not married (in fact their backstory includes a betrothal they may not have to honor and aren't sure is the right move). One is a braniac wizard with a penchant for abjuration and a bit of a wallflower. The other is a cleric with a bow and ranged feats but with a playful, almost chaotic care-free nature. Then your third player is sort of a loner in the group and the character he comes up with is a curmudgeony old drunk of a dwarf fighter whose family are all heroes or famous brewers but he's haunted by a dark past...including a run in with a wicked fey that scarred him physically and mentally.
Based on that, what kind of game would you run? I know what I did...this is my current campaign.
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Well, my favorite method for adding in plot points based on characters is in the Rivals System.
Starting with the characters is another totally valid was to do it. It turns up a bit more sandboxy than the OP might want, but it can be loads of fun. You need to make sure that they have a big, fun, well-developed world to play in though.
Given those characters, I would do what I usually do. I always make sure to link character backstory into the environment. Or, if you are doing the BBEG approach, make sure to link the backstories into the BBEG. The brianiac studied under the BBEG, or was his rival in the arcane school. The Cleric's god has tasked him on destroying the BBEG, or the cleric is a disillusioned member of the BBEG's private cult of personality. The wicked fey that scarred the dwarf is the BBEG, or the dwarf drinks to forget about the time he fled from the BBEG rather than confront him.
Starting with the characters is good, but it's difficult to plan before hand. I would only really do it in a sandbox, but when it works it's loads of fun. Just make sure the group has a reason to stay together.