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Hey guys,
how do you go about building your campaigns and ideas for a long running campaign?
My strategy:
The villains are more important than the heroes in the initial planning stages. Villains are best used proactively, heroes are best used reactively. Therefore I build the villains first, I define their goals, ambitions, and current achievements. I also tend to use a 5-bad-band, so five major villains.
The 5-bad-band is the mirror of the 5-man-band, a typical trope in media, and one that Pathfinder/D&D tends to use a lot.
Examples of the 5-man-band, but keep in mind that this goes a lot deeper than just this and characters go a lot deeper than just this basic classification. Essentially any character can fill any of these rolls under the right circumstances, but some are far better than others at given rolls.
Hero: The main character in media, but in Pathfinder this is often the fighter who gets the party into trouble. They are usually fighting for something, be it goodness. Possible examples include: Valeros, Seelah, The Cavalier.
Lancer: The counter-balance to the Hero. Often times cynical, snarky, or just the opposite of the hero in some way be it in fighting style. If the hero is combat oriented then the lancer will be more swave, if the hero is melee the lancer will be ranged. In instances were there is a lot of magic and the hero doesn't use any magic the lancer might be all magic. If the hero is good hearted or idealistc the lancer will be mean and vicious due to his own past experience. To an extent the Lancer might be there to want to prove the hero's cynic views wrong or to show him that his ideals are unrealistic. Possible examples are: Harsk, Merisiel, and Sajan.
Big-guy: This is the muscle. This is the Big Dumb Fighter who resolves everything with brute force. Amiri is an example. There isn't much to say here.
Smart-guy: Often the skill or knowledge monkey of the group. This overlaps and adopts the skill-set of the Uselesss Chick in that this often is also the role that can heal if that role is not satisfied by the Hero, the Lancer, or the Big-Guy. Kyra, Lem, Lini, Merisiel, Ezren, Harsk, or even Seelah under the correct circumstances.
Useless chick: This is most often the vulnerable character. The name is stuck on older ages when female characters were supposed to be vulnerable and weak. In current times this character can be male or female, any age, and the only prerequisite is that the character brings the party together. Often the healer, buffer, and curer of status effects, this character is often extremely important in getting the egoes of the party to work together. If that drama is non-existent, healing, buffing, and removal of status effects are covered then this character becomes obsolete.
5-bad-band:
Big-Bad: The Big Bad Evil Guy that everyone always talks about. This is the head of the evil (or good) organization that the heroes oppose. Often times this objective of the Big-Bad is good in some ways, which makes him less one-dimensional. If his plan succeeds there might be major consequences, but the overall goal that could make the world/universe a better place to live. (In Pathfinder Example: Azmodeus wants to kill all mortals so everyone keeps their words as Mortals are fickle. This is pretty much the only reason he loathes mortality. If everyone kept their word he wouldn't have a problem with them.) Often a caster (divine) or gish (arcane) of some sort, and extremely dangerous.
Dragon: The Mastermind's right hand. He is simultaneously the hand of death and the face of the organization. He is the CEO of the company that the Mastermind is the Owner of. Often more dangerous than the Mastermind in his own way in much the same relationship of the Lancer to the Hero. Often loyal to the Mastermind and caught up in his overall goals as much if not more than the Mastermind himself. Usually the 2nd most dangerous person beyond the Mastermind. Sometimes is literally a dragon.
Berserker: This is the mirror of the Big-Guy, save that he is a loose cannon, he is a while animal (sometimes literally) who lives to destroy things. The Dragon probably keeps him in check so any chance he gets to cut loose and tear things apart is a welcomed chance. Unlike the Big Guy this character's prerequisites only start and stop at the need to destroy. A pyromancer is as qualified as a 2-handed Barbarian, but the only major requirement is that overwhelming force is used to achieve all goals. If someone didn't pay their "protection" fees this month the Berserker kills their dog, drags them into the street for a beating, and if tempted burns their house down (possibly with their family locked inside.)
Mastermind: This is the Go To Guy for dealing with the lower-class enemies. He commands the army, and achieves victory not by brute force but by tactics and numbers. Often times he can bring in more allies to help achieve victory. A Master Summoner would make a decent Mastermind, but so could an enchanter who dominates his enemies to force them to fight for him.
Dark Chick: Unlike the Useless Chick the Dark Chick can fight pretty well. Often a trickster with various goals that might conflict with the 5-bad-band's overall objectives. Sometimes this means that the Dark Chick is the one who leads the 5-man-band into conflict with the 5-bad-band, or sometimes this character is just wildly incompetent. Overall this character can often take on the party just as well as the other members of the 5-bad-band.
So, to campaign design:
I first define the members of the 5-Bad-Band, their goals, and how they want to go about it.
Typically each member of the 5-bad-band has a chance to fight the PCs, but the Mastermind never fights on his own even if he could.
My usual progression is often Dark Chick, Berserker, Mastermind, Dragon, Big-Bad.
Usually the campaign design works like this:
Scenario: Unlocking the progression to capstone enemy (1 of the 5-bad-band.)
Scenario: Getting there and infiltration.
Module: Dealing with the Capstone Enemy's retainers.
Scenario: The Capstone's traps, hazards, or gambit. You fight the capstone here, his encounter always has trusted body-guards, and the encounter is always CR(APL).
Once Capstone is defeated (killed or no) he disappears. Often he teleports to safety after his defeat, and often this last stand was to prevent the PCs from revealing, discovering, or disrupting the activities of the organization that he was tasked with. If he was killed he he revived with the appropriate restorations. Worse is that the PCs hear about him coming back: They Know that the opposition knows about them.
After a capstone is defeated he wont show up again until the Final Battle. Each Capstone defeated should give the PCs 2 levels (scenarios are worth 1/3 a level, modules are worth an entire level).
I used to have a distinct order for these, but instead now I tend to make the lower 3 capstones (Dark Chick, Berserker, Mastermind) variable level. The "Unlocking" and "getting to" scenarios are available from the start. This means the PCs could be level 3 before taking on any modules at all, but once a module is started the following scenario must be tackled afterwards.
The Dragon and Big-Bad scenario, scenario, module, scenario setups are set in stone level-wise. Any bonus experience from the previous content could push a PC up a level, but this is easily worked around.
So my campaigns look like this:
In any order:
Discovery of Capstone (Dark Chick, Berserker, Mastermind).
Getting to Capstone (Dark Chick, Berserker, Mastermind).
Fighting Capstone [Module and scenario] (Dark Chick, Berserker, Mastermind)
In order:
Discovery of the Dragon.
Getting to the Dragon.
Fighting the Dragon.
Discovery of Big Bad.
Getting to Big Bad.
The Final battle.
The Final battle is where things are especially dangerous.
Battles with Captstones are always CR ([APL+4]+[4-number of PCs].
In this battle the Capstone is still built like an NPC, but has PC gold. This puts them on equal footing with the PCs. However, this does not extend to the Capstone's allies.
The Final Battle is always CR ([APL+5]+[4-number of PCs].
All of the previous Capstones are back and are actually 1 level above the PCs with PC gold! Unlike previous Capstone battles there are no extra weaker enemies, the number of capstones the PCs are fighting are equal to the number of PCs. This makes for a truly epic battle for the PCs, and actually puts them at a disadvantage.
So, why are the Villains more powerful than the PCs? Part of this is that it makes it into a battle the PCs cannot steam-roll. The bigger part is that the Villains' party before they began their organization is now complete again. These 4 or 5 villains were powerful enough to achieve amazing things, and now the PCs have torn everything down to place the villains backs against the wall. They are truly worthy adversaries, and have earned a begrudging respect of the villains who have been forced to once more unite.
If the PCs win they may kill the villains, if the villains win they may kill the PCs. However, this is the most basic end. If the villains win they might offer for the PCs to join them, to make their organization even more powerful than it was before, and to create major change on Golarion. If the PCs win they might spare the villains to convince them to abandon their goals for a different life. The ending is based mostly on the desires of the party: Do they want the villains to have heel face turns? If they are defeated to they want to have their own heel face turns to avoid death?
Their desires are important in the ending. It is even possible to not even have to fight the final battle as the party might resolve the conflict in some other way. Maybe Big Bad is looking for some powerful magic to return his daughter who was condemned to Rovagug's Prison to him, and the Wizard casts Wish to make that happen--of course then they fight Big-Bad's Rovagug possessed daughter in a far more epic battle.
I create the world for them to explore, and the PCs explore the world. Overall it boils down to their goals and desires, which is why I like the idea being able to tackle the first 3 capstones in any order.
So what do you all think about this, my process, and the ideas that fuel it. Some aspects are generic, but it does make the game feel more like a Sandbox than it really is.
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I look at the story that I want to tell. I make a Mastermind.
The Mastermind is the main villain, the end of the campaign, he doesn't have to be active or present from the beginning but sometimes he can be. Most of the time the heroes will interact with his minions instead of the main bad guy. It's important to have a good motivation for him, so he doesn't appear to be a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
Example: Arthas in Wotlk was actually a very good example of making care about the Mastermind/the main villain because he kept antagonizing and appearing in all the quests from your arrival in northtrend. Other examples include typical power behind the throne or friendly npc who turns out to be evil in the end.
Then I look at the characters involved and what kind of personal stakes can be put in the game. One guy is part of a Samurai clan trying to restore honor to his clan name? Challenge his honor! Offer him ways to complete his quest etc...
Then I imagine the climax, the last battle. The last battle is always important to me. Like I do want them to fight on a plateform surrounded by armies of the Mastermind vs Armies of the Heroes while the castle is falling down? On top of a volcano? Near the vault of the gods? In some more weird place? Anyway the climatic battle needs to be impressive.
Then, sometime I don't do it all time because they would expect it, I think of the final fantasy moment as I call it. Everytime when you think the last boss is over, one last encounter appears. Like they just beat down the Lich and suddenly coming from the portal, a gargantuan ooze comes out of a portal shooting plasma beams at everybody (Plasma Ooze yeah they do exist). It would be quite a memorable moment for your campaign and your heroes know that they need to do something before this Ooze consumes it all! Usually this fight wouldn't really be super challenging for them but after fighting all day and just finishing the mastermind your PC should be almost out of resources and now giving everything they got to fight off the their last enemy.
I'm just coming up with a new campaign right now actually.
To answer your question of "How do you like building your campaigns?" the answer is clearly "I Don't" since I seem to keep putting it off.
I have a handful of ideas I want to incorporate into the game which I am slowly fleshing out. I would like to actually utilize some of the many books I have bought over the years. I plan to include Mythic levels and Kingdom building stuff, called shots and possibly Words of power for some NPCs. I am going to try to use a few guys from the NPC codex if I can.
So I am creating the game like the first module of kingmaker so far. Found a sweet continent map and I photoshopped out a nice section and overlaid a hex grid onto it. I am including one or two cool and unique things into each hex grid and creating a writer document with narration and encounter ideas for each hex.
A brief description of the idea of the game is:
Kingdom on the verge of collapse sends three waves of settlers into the uncharted oceans. Players will be in the second wave of three ships. After many many months at sea they finally find land to settle on. Giant monster will destroy the other two ships with ease leaving only the players ship able to land and leaving the colonists with limited resources in this new world. They will be on a decently sized tropical island. At first the players will be tasked with exploring the land and will come across indigenous peoples and remnants of some ancient civilization, probably akin to Azlanti.Eventually they will start the kingmakeresque kingdom building on the island. The island is not far from the mainland which is very large and encompasses most of the major ecosystems to give me lots of room to play with. Endgame BBEG will be a Mythic Magma dragon who awakens every few thousand years to purge the continent of life (Glad Blizzard made me a nice WoW Cataclysm trailer to describe this part). Evidence of long lost civilizations turned to ash will be discovered throughout the game (Inspired by Asimovs Nightfall).
A few key points I have thought of that I want to happen are:
- Finding a conflict between the Derro and the Lizardfolk and having the players help resolve this one way or another.
- Finding the evidence of how the ancient civilizations fell
- Finding agents of the Magma dragon that are bent on starting the destruction of the land.
- Mass combat war between whatever factions the players muster up and the Dragon machinations of war (Elementals, Efreeti, Clockworks ect)
- A unique experience (for my players) of a non tradition fantasy land that includes few to no common humanoid races
- A complete and total lack of resources due to being cut off from the homeland, having to build a civilization from scratch.
- Possibly a war with the originating homeland due to the final colonist wave arriving and attempting to usurp the power...or something.
So yeah I have some keypoint goals and a broad idea of the game. I have a lot of trouble with subplots though. I have been skimming through Kingmaker, Skull and Shackles and Serpents Skull for ideas.
Its and ambitious game I know but I am pretty excited.
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Usually, I have an idea for a story, a theme, a setting or even just a scene. From this I start building the synopsis of a scenario. And I am so enthused and brimming with creative energies that it becomes very long, detailed and convoluted. Which is when it becomes a campaign.
Other times, what starts as a rather simple but interesting scenario takes far longer than I planned to play and gets in many side stories and I end up GMing the first part of a campaign rather than a single scenario :-))
Alternately, I buy an AP (or even just a module), some setting books, have a look at the PCs and find myself with many ideas for twisting and adding to the AP/module's original story ;-)
The boards give some nice ideas too
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BuzzardB, I love your story, especially because it resonates with a short french comic story I read 30 years ago. Except that in that story, the destroyer of civilization was Old One-like.
One question to answer that may give you even more ideas is why the BBEG does this cycle of destruction. Maybe he worships an ancient principle of destruction, or sees civilizations as a risk for himself, or for another (hidden) society that he wants to protect.
Also the PCs could actually be agents of a higher power opposed to the BBEG, whether they know it or not. Abadar could work here, but also a rival power (maybe even an evil one). The reasons why they do this and why they chose the PCs can provide even more ideas
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I guess I build more sandboxy campaigns. That's not to say I always run a sandbox; just that its how I build.
I start with a general setting: temperate forests, hills, etc. I throw some names around. Then I generate a settlement in that setting and try to give it a unique hook. Some past examples were a city that on the surface is a great trading hub but its businesses are propped up by great workhouses of child labor and a quaint village where, once a year, they hide indoors for a night while a spectral horde comes looking for victims to drag into the nearby woods. There was even a town infested with the fey so that most folks in town had the equivalent of the Haunted curse of the oracle.
Then after I know where the PCs are, I start throwing some villains around. Maybe some kobolds or goblins at the bottom as foot soldiers; some NPCs as major players and some kind of big bad like a major NPC, a dragon or a lich or something. Finally I figure out: what do these villains want?
End of the world; domination of the land; all the money and secret control; all of these are acceptable. Finally I sit back and think about the various factions of this network of villainy. Some big bads line up all their minions like a massive club and smash through to their goals (like an evil general who can't be bested by force); others spread their pawns around and have a variety of smaller operations happening at once (like a hag coven with hundreds of charmed victims). Once I have this picture, then I just start making generic adventures.
So for example:
Setting - temperate forested hills and marshes
Settlement - The Vileiron Gate; nothing more than a small mercenary company holding down a rebuilt gate keep. The hook is that the day-to-day ops are run by the second-in-command; the leader of the company is a madman in thrall to a goblin witch.
Villains - well, goblins for a base because of the witch; perhaps also some NPCs like evil adventurers; the top of the pyramid will have to be the witch. She'll initially appear helpful to the PCs and she's known as the magic-dealing source of the settlement and the main attraction of business to the area.
Villainous Desire - security. The witch was driven out of her tribe and a bounty placed on her head. As such she's secretly using her pawns to make surgical strikes on her enemies to ultimately destroy them. Once she has completely wiped out her former tribe, she'll go on to phase two where she constructs and utilizes some kind of McGuffin (an artifact, ritual, disease etc) to completely dominate hundreds of slaves to serve her forever.
And now, with all this background in place, I make some adventures:
1. On the outskirts of the Gate - the PCs meet on the road and have a mini-adventure
2. Into the wilds - the party is given a map by the Master of the Post with some places to explore
3. The witch's bidding - the PCs are hired by the goblin witch to retrieve something from some goblins (secretly she's counting on them to wail on a key rival)
The list goes on from there. Every OTHER adventure will deal in the background stuff while the PCs use their off adventures to explore the setting, get loot and power and eventually unravel what's going on.
I tend to focus on the kind of story I'd like to tell - small and local, grand adventure, political intruige, etc etc. Then I build a setting suitable to the type of story, or find one in Golarion if I'm feeling lazy, and then create a badguy who would have a logical reason to oppose the PC's almost regardless of there actions. A Cleric of Asmodeus who thinks the only way to stop the big A from nuking all mortals out of the realms is to remove all free will and dedicate them to Asmodeus, for example. Almost any character, anywhere on the good/evil/chaotic/lawful axis will want to oppose that (or possibly hijack the scheme).
Then I come up with certain locations, NPC's and events I think the party will enjoy, but keep most of the details fast and loose thanks to being aware of how badly my players react to feeling railroaded. Finally I come up with the badguy's general plan and the impact it'll have on the PC's and how they'll start getting hints as to what's going on - in the above example, I'd probably have them meet some obnoxious but not evil fellow adventures competing for a prize, and when they show up again the group is brainwashed/got mind control chips/whatever to start hinting at what's going on, or something else equally obvious.
i start every campaign i design from the beginning, literally... i start with a cosmology- how was the universe created and why? knowing that shapes the campaign's religions, prevailing philosophies, political systems, and even influences the geography. from there i design the nations that the players will in any way interact with (or whose politics may interact with the nations they're in). all that creates a more believable world... one with a certain cohesiveness and 'lived in' feeling.
most of my campaigns are pretty sandbox-y, so that's basically the biggest bit of work there. i have sort of over-arching campaign world events that are taking place whether the PCs get involved or not (but which tend to generate a lot of adventure hooks), and also influence the rise of different personalities in different places... i tend to generate NPCs for different locations as the PCs travel there, but i'll also put together a couple of them with long reaching influence (often opposed to each other)- that way the PCs can/will run across their minions at various times, even if they've never been near the actual NPC; i usually leave it up to the party to decide whether or not they want to look in to what's going, but if they've thwarted the same NPC's henchmen a couple of times they may end up getting looked into themselves (or becoming an intentional target...)
I remember working on a level 1 to 20 adventure, and as detailed above PCs will gain 10 levels during their time fighting the five bad band. So where are the other things that enable them to level up?
I always try to ensure there is a lot of traveling to be done. The five bad band are the highly notable members of the organization, but they have limitless underlings to do their bidding.
One such campaign I worked on for about 6 months was "The Arcanum." The Arcanum is an artifact set to be created by a group of rogue magi who are determined to make the world a better place through magic. So, what does it do? It increases all arcane magic by a factor of 10 in every category. For example lets take Burning Hands: it would change from a 30-ft cone that does 1d6/CL[5d6] with a DC save of minimum 11 to a 300-ft cone that does 10d6/CL[50d6] with a DC save of minimum 21. This would likely spark an all out world war that would end with Arcane users becoming the new rulers of the world as everyone opposing them would be conquered without much effort. On the flip side this kind of power could be used to usher in a golden era unlike anything the world has seen since the fall of the last of the Azlanti.
As with many of my campaigns this one started in Absalom with the heroes having just completed their training in their classes. Fresh from their given academies they approached by a rather friendly wizard who humbly offers to pay them to find a missing member of his secret society. He offers them money in reward, gives them a scroll with a near-perfect image of the Half-Elf in question, and sends them on their way.
Unbeknownst to them they are followed by nefarious members of this seemingly harmless old man.
Humble Beginnings:
The PCs find themselves traveling. This counts as the Unlocked scenario. During their travels they fight roughly 1/3 their level's worth of enemies. They travel from town to town, nation to nation attempting to not excite suspicion, while showing their scroll to town guards, tavern owners, and the ilk. They strike up leads, follow them, and ultimately fail to find their charge.
Humble Beginnings Part 2:
The PCs become aware that they are being followed by someone, but any attempt to confront or trap this person fails. However there are notes left behind, and eventually they all wake up with a dagger resting on their chests with a single note: "Find him." It seems the one who is stalking them is becoming rather agitated that they are unable to find their charge. The PCs continue to travel, likely more desperate, and find themselves ducking in and out of taverns to try and lose their tail. It is here that they meet a Half-Elf who slips them some paper, casts a suggestion spell for them to get a few drinks, and then leaves for a different town. The suggestion also forces the PCs to forget about the paper for a time, but as they leave town one of them remembers the paper. They look at it.
"Come and find me (Larrad, Highhelm, Kovlar, Rolhrimmdur, Tagoret, or Tar-Kazmkh whichever is closer.)"
The PCs go, but their tail is becoming increasingly agitated. Bandits start to ambush the party.
Humble Beginnings Part 3:
The PCs are aware that they are being targeted. One of the bandits who ambushed them after they gained the 1/3 of the XP from HBP2 begs them to spare his life. In exchange he offers to give them the hideout of the person who is hiring them to kill them. He even leads them to the hideout with a diplomacy check, but flees thereafter.
The PCs descend into the fortress, but find out that there is more to this place than they thought. A hardened gateway leads into the fortress, but a geology, arcana, or spellcraft check reveals that the doorway is either extremely powerful or that the module within the doorway could not be supported by the geology of the ground it is under. Hence, it is identified as a magical doorway. The party's tail isn't having to go to great lengths to find them, but instead is able to just close the gateway, travel after them, then reopen the doorway when the party settles down for the night. A frightening idea. The PCs travel through the doorway to confront their adversary, but find themselves beset by all manner of horror, chiefly bloody skeletons, intentionally flooded areas, and traps as devious as they come. In the end they overcome the gauntlet and make their way to Humble Beginnings Part 4.
Humble Beginnings Part 4:
As opposed to many capstone scenarios this one has a low ranking member of the secret society in it. She is just a pawn with a desire for power. Like all of the Capstones this one is a Gish, and like all of the Capstones she has a band of allies who are ready to fight until the bitter end. Unlike other Capstones this battle happens at the beginning of this scenario after the PCs have had a chance to rest and gain their level--hence meaning she can be a level higher than if they were level 1.-- After defeating her they escape from the now crumbling fortress and make their way to the dwarven town offered in their note. There, they find the half-elf who gave them the paper, and the face on the parchment they were given. However, it has become clear that they were only supposed to find this half-elf so they could be tied up as loose ends by their tail and the half-elf returned to the society. Their allies are their enemies, and the only lead they have is the smiling man with the Nosoi standing on his shoulder who explains to them what his former allies wanted to create.
This takes the PCs to level 3.
So, the Filler for between the gains in levels. At level 7 the PCs hear about a Ship called the Arcantis. 30 years ago it was created in secret by a rouge group of magi who wanted to experiment with the limits of magic. The Ship is powered by a prototypical Arcanum, and it was with this boat that the secret society realized the kind of power this magic engine could produce. It could change the world instead of simply powering a ship!
Unlike the general scenario, scenario, module, scenario setup this filler covers the span of 2 levels. The PCs gain no XP getting to the Arcantis, but once they are on-board things go horribly wrong. The Arcantis, they are told before coming, was designed to be a warship capable of taking on entire armadas with its magical cannons, self-repairing armor and chassis, and pack the firepower to level towns that opposed its master. However, it vanished after its test run of its teleportation drive and just now reappeared in the Inner Sea. The ship, unbeknownst to the heroes, has been to the space between planes that changed Dou-Bral into Zon-Kuthon. Much like that twisted god the Ship itself has been given a sentience that seeks to destroy life. However, time is variable on the ship.
The Arcantis modules have 13 "hours" where the ship wakes up. The 13th hour is the great escape where the PCs dives out of the Arcantis into the open waters, and a moment later the ship falls through a shadowy portal under it. Oddly enough they do randomly encounter living members of the crew who are unable to leave the ship. Are they ghosts, bound souls, or mere illusions given physical form by the will of the ship? No one knows. Zombies attack the party on a regular basis, but each hour objectives must be satisfied, meaning that the PCs have to split up to achieve their goals. The Arcantis itself is able to cast illusion spells on the first hour, but this is limited to Cantrips. Each Hour the ship's caster level goes up, and by the 10th hour it can cast level 9 illusion spells each round. The only haven is in the Captain's Quarters where the once paladin captain's soul holds back the Arcantis's power. After the 11th hour even he is overwhelmed which is the high point of the first module's worth of experience where zombies flood the area, the ship lashes out at the PCs and the Paladin's soul with spells, and attempts to overrun them.
The 12th hour is where the paladin instructs the PCs to reenable the ship's teleportation drive to send it back into the darkness. They do this as a group, fighting to each objective, beset on all sides by that which wishes them to die, and then return to the Paladin. He confesses to them that he lied about coming with them if he ever made such a claim and explains that he is trapped here with the other souls of the crew. He flips the switch activating the extra-planar drives to start warming up. The 13th Hour has began, and now the PCs are on a Count Down. From here on the PCs must venture out, but now the ship bars their way at every turn. A slug-fest of battle after battle ensues, and the paladin forces doors open from his end to allow the PCs to continue. Eventually they hear him scream in horror through the magical communication device, and then fall silent.
With the exit in sight they encounter others who are also trying to escape. An army of the undead shuffle after the party in the darkness within the ship. When the heroes reach the outer railing they see the truth: These people are all ghosts who are trapped within the binds of this immortal and evil ship. Worse is that they cannot escape by jumping off! The ship! It is already sinking into the darkness! The undead reach the mass of people, and a massive battle ensues. Ghosts fall left and right as do the zombies. The battle forces the PCs to higher and higher ground as the ship sinks into the unknown. There, atop the ship, is a magical trebuchet. As they reach it they hear the voice of the paladin once more. He tells them to get into the firing sling. The ship sinks beneath the darkness, and the hole begins to close above them as they load themselves into the siege engine, then are fired out before the hole closes.
Anyone who dies on the Arcantis is trapped on the Arcantis forever. Anyone who doesn't make it to the trebuchet is also dead. Anyone who jumps over the railing into the darkness around the ship dies, even with natural flight the ship's defenses shoot down anyone trying to escape by conventional means. Teleportation is disrupted by the ship.
The climatic finish to the Arcantis finds the PCs hanging onto the flotsam of the ship they came on that the Arcantis blew apart with its main cannons. They are rescued, of course, since the inner sea is a major trading route for many nations.
Just to give ideas as to how I build my stuff.
Some of it is story oriented, while other is very gamey under the hood.
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Y'know, a big influencer of how to craft a campaign is how often you'll play. TON, your Humble Beginnings stuff sounds awesome but I don't think it'd work at my table. I play 1/month, and because of holidays and vactaions I am having to skip over January and go right into Feb, meaning that it'll be a month and a half between last session and this one. No amount of recaps and writeups could jog THAT much lost memory.
So my campaigns tend to be a lot more episodic and have much shorter, simpler arcs. My current game is a megadungeon campaign that looks like this:
1. PCs meet at Ravenhurst (generic gritty fantasy city)
2. Party is hired to guard a corpse; corpse rises while PCs are attacked
3. PCs retrieve the body and return to morgue; this gets them a powerful ally in the city
4. PCs are then retained to help find a lost adventuring troupe in the megadungeon
5. In the course of the rescue the party finds some info on the BBEG
6. Interlude - while the party's NPC contacts work on getting more info on BBEG the party goes and liberates a nearby shrine-forge
The overall story arc is that the BBEG, an evil mastermind kobold, is in cahoots with the city. The folk of Ravenhurst are sending him slaves to torture and kill for a variety of magic items. He in turn is providing the city with items, gold and resources for their continued existence. Both sides have side projects in the wilds which is where the PCs will have their "interlude" type adventures.
It's a very bland, simple story so far I know. But with playing every month, even with recapping previous sessions I usually get a lot of "who's that again" and "where are we" type questions.
I'm more or less like Taku Ooka Nin, I think. I think the best way to make your players feel like they aren't being railroaded is to create the villainous movers and shakers, create some clear motives for them and let them do what they are going to do. Let the PCs respond to what they are going to do. Creating the locations for encounters shouldn't really be secondary to this but more like complimentary. It should reflect the PCs going to the vital spots to stop their plots.
I try not to create a lot of predesigned plot, more just motives and how the villains plan on carrying those motives out. I also try to create my villains all on a sliding scale so that it may not necessarily matter which order the PCs tackle them in. They can tackle them in the order of importance that they set them in. The order they are revealed in is somewhat more within my control.
I don't usually have a single BBEG. I think of it more as different sects working seperately but with a somewhat common goal. Each sect has their own BBEG. The last one the PCs fight is always the current BBEG.
... hope that didn't come accross as just crazy rambling. It all makes perfect sense in my head.
Usually I pick something I want to happen (players owning a town) then go from there anything that crosses my mind makes a appearance (pudding filled waffle "exotic dancers" and the flying spaghetti monster oh and the one eyes one horned flying purple people eater) lol
But probably gonna steal taku ooka nin's ideea for this one campaign coming up
- I start with a setting and some terrible stuff about to happen or already in progress.
- I add a villain.
- I add another villain who hates the first villain.
- I let these guys concoct schemes against each other and anyone else who might stand in their way. These schemes usually come to me while I'm doing yard work in the form of monologues. You learn a lot about villains by the monologues they would give if given half a chance.
- I create an adventure for the party based on the above.
- Over the course of the first adventure, the PCs screw up everything, jumping completely off the rails, usually by accident.
- The campaign goes a totally different direction than planned.
- I adjust by looking at the party's various actions, and consider unintended "natural" consequences, with an eye toward favoring worst-case scenarios. Thus the destruction of everything they hold dear is on their heads.
- I also consider what might have happened between major NPCs in the absence of the party doing what I thought they were going to do. This gives the world that illusory depth that makes it feel more "real," i.e., their actions aren't happening in a vacuum.
- The PCs attempt to fix what they broke.
- In the process, they achieve various levels of success, while spinning off new horrible consequences (usually due to their murderhobo ways).
- Rinse and repeat.
I also borrow heavily from what I call a J.J. Abrams / Lost approach, i.e., I introduce dozens of random details that don't seem connected to the main thread at all, and that I don't care if they ever get properly explained. These serve as little plot hooks. I don't worry about whether they all fit together; I simply make them just vague enough that they don't conflict. Later on - sometimes months later - I'll think of interesting ways some of these little plot hooks might be connected to each other and to the party. This creates the illusion of grand DM master planning when it all seems to fit together later.
All this planning happens on an ongoing basis about three sessions ahead of the party...on good days. More often it happens the day of. Which means I often find myself winging NPC stats.
Ah hell, who am I kidding? I always wing the NPC stats.
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What seems to be unusual, I always start with the same homebrew setting I have used for years. Then how will this AP, module, or idea be fitted to the campaign world. When I am creating my own adventures, it is more like a flowchart.
First define the villain or villians with their capabilities, personality(s) and goals
Then decide the key locations that the events encountered are most likely to be.
Then decide how the party is goind to be introduced to the adventure as a whole and where they will most likely to after the initial set of encounters.
Especially with my crazy players, trying to plan everything in detail would not be worth the effort.
I always start my games thinking cosmology and the gods influence in this tale. I think about the threat they will face and what kind of exotic locations, factions and kingdoms might be involved.
Then I shift gears and think about how the characters meet, low level adventures, and how I can transition from that to the bigger story.
I seldom start with villains. As the game progresses I keep an eye out foes that can be promoted to the role of villain where I can find them. I never really know what NPC's draw the players ire until played out at the table. If none present themselves then I do my best to make one.
Anyway it's like a ball that gets rolling picking up steam. I'm constantly adjusting and creating week to week as I try and keep up with the players.
Anyway, interesting thread Taku. I love seeing all the various approaches.
-MD
my real build scheme
So, I basically do in real life what you do? See the stuff I've posted upthread is what I've done for the very first game session or what I'd love to aspire to but your bullet points here are basically the same as mine. Only difference is I usually come up with the monologues while shaving and brushing my teeth. Like practicing for a speech or presentation, I often find practicing part of said monologue in a mirror lends even greater depth of understanding of the villain's character.
Seriously, why does every campaign go off the rails after like adventure 1? My current game WAS going to be about a straight dungeon hack to a young red dragon. Instead it's turned into going after a torturing kobold and there's been lots of interludes.
Sometimes I think my players read into certain clues, like voice inflection or facial expressions, to try and determine where I'd LIKE the game to go, then purposely go ANY OTHER DIRECTION just to mess with me. Ah well...keeps me young right?
Ok, so I'm a very setting-centric type. I create a basic premise/world, populate it with a bunch of potential actors (bad guys & good guys), then devellop whichever actor the players decide to focus upon. I'm a world-first, improvisational guy. Dont want to waste hours working on something the players will never see. Kinda like google maps, I up the detail when you bother looking closer.
At the moment I'm starting a dwarf-centric campaign like that; basic setting is a large dwarf city in the underdark. There are about half a dozen potential enemies (drow, aboleth, illithid, dwarven politics, dwarven history, etc.) for the players to latch on to, and I'll focus on whichever one they show the most interest in.
I've yet to really think of anything villain-centric, because I've yet to have any good villain ideas.
A couple folks now have started with cosmology. Honestly, I don't think I've done a proper cosmology in like 20 years. More often than not when doing the setting I think of the society where the players are. The gods are the gods; they can do whatever they want and be ANY aspect that fits their domain. Thus to my mind making a cosmology to explain them to the players seems rhetorical. They just are.
But the church; that's a different matter.
Go get your CRB and look at Pharasma and Abadar. Both will have LN followers and are basically lawful faiths, so they should both be about the same right? Except, imagine how they would influence a town. No matter HOW jubilant the Pharasmin make their funerals, no one is excited to die. But everyone likes money.
Therefore I'd imagine that while knowing the cosmology of Abadar and Pharasma isn't really important, knowing that the Abadaran clergy built up this city from a tiny village by getting the charter for a market and dropping a big cathedral on the edge of said market is kind of big. Also the fact that the "Vatican" type church of Abadar 100 miles away expects constant shipments of gold while the somber shrine of Pharasma is tended by an Abbess and her nuns (all experts/adepts) who live quietly outside of town, in the Barrow Downs where the dead are housed. The central church of Pharasma 100 miles away places no expectation on this sect other than faith; the nunnery is like the Trapists or the Benedictine monks who are just sort of out there.
Maybe its cause I played a lot of Greyhawk as a kid, but I don't think the gods or the cosmology should have a lot of influence on the gameworld. But there should be logical extensions into culture and society based on what the clergy values, their Domains and their alignments.
Lawful faiths will have lots of rules and a rigid structure to their shrines and churches; Chaotic faiths then will have more personalized influence and setups based on the whims of the faithful participating there.
My favorite way to plan a campaign is something I've been trying out recently. Relationship mapping. It's detailed in the L5R 4th edition core rulebook but can apply to just about any game. The idea is that the world will go on regardless of what the pc's do. Time doesn't stop just to say "hey you there with the magical sword, good job, now we shower you with nobles wanting their daughters to marry you." I fully flesh out about 7 characters, their motives, their ideals, their stats, their goals, their families, who they are connected to etc. Then I get an idea for a few groups or a handful of people who are watching my 7 movers and shakers. They have plans, their plans will move on as the campaign goes on. If the pc's happen to cross paths with one of the 7 (not all of them are bad, some of them are watching the others and trying to stop them or get in their way) then maybe the course of the overall world will get changed. But I highly doubt that since the pc's should not have any idea what other npc's are doing unless they are involved or have dug too deep. In addition to how the pc's affect each other I run scenarios through my head at important times during the pc's adventures to see where my npc's timetables are at. Then the idea is that the end of the campaign the npc's storylines along with the pc's would all intersect in some grand epic episode where the players have to decide who is their friend and who is not.
Im lucky enough to have a weekly playing group, and we take turns with DM´s now which is good since I (the usual DM) get to play! Woot!
I recomend reading "The dungeon master experience" blog on some Wizards page, it has lots of cool stuff and nice info that is good for DM´s. This guy tought me the "Three pronged campain" style hat I use.
The three pronged campain is about setting three undertones or storylines for the campain at once, rather then one all-consuming arc. The three parts however arent completely exclusive, and may connect sometimes, especially during major arcs or chapters.
The three parts in my story:
The kingdom is under attack from another plane! Despite periodic attacks, there is no clue as to the perpetrators. To deal with this storyline the players had to work with the local Mage guild or travel themselves to any elemental plane, and get going on investigating a stormy diplomatic adventure. If the players wouldnt investigate immediately then the attacks would intensify and some elements might go so far as to possess some cityfolk and go on killy rampages. If the players still werent interested then the diplomatic situation would die down however, turns out a rather important elemental prince managed to possess a dramatic wrathful pyromancer, his "father" wants his son back, and its for the players to resolve the fragile situation.
(The players completely failed to deal with any of the elemental storyline, which is fine caus there were other problems to deal with.)
The kingdom is under attack by Ratfolk!
In fact, the rats are merely attempting to set up trade, with some difficulty due to the Kingdoms extreme xenophobia. Its up to the players to find out why the royal Prince spends all his time hunting rats in the sewers and negotiate a peace between the two peoples.
After picking a side and deciding whether the rats are worth anything as allies or if they would rather kill them the Prince, and his nemesis the Spiritual leader of the ratfolk may or may not abandon their responsibilities to continue their feud, regardless of their racial bretheren.
If the Prince is killed the players may be held responcible, which will make life hard for them in the city, and if the Ratman is killed certain ratfolk Adventurers may take offence, again making life difficult for the players and their presumed human allies.
("Fireball" was all the diplomacy my players needed in this arc, it made for a very happy prince and very unhappy ratfolk).
The kingdom is under attack by weird zombies!
The kingdom is having a bad day isnt it? Yes the streets are plagued by zombies in the night and at day their deadly "Owner" prowls the crimescenes. Who is the man who presumably controls these undead, and is he really a necromancer? Why can he control acid? As it turns out the zombies are made wih alchemy, and their leader is on a vengeful quest to destroy the city so he may "save the world". It was up to the players to shut-down his zombi production plants, find out where he got all his extra corpses from and identify the danger hat he seeks to stop from threatening the world. And how is this all connected to the sewers and elementals?
In between the three arcs were tons of subtle quests that might change the course of arc one or the other, the human king and his prince might have been ousted completely from the story if the players had helped a Paladin take the crown for the betterment of the city. The city would have been able to contain the zombies if the players had dissolved the Corruption in the city guard. The rats might have been good allies if that one player had´nt broken that holy cheese of peace.
In my games, I like having a general theme - revolutionaries trying to take over a kingdom, war between nations, invasion of baddies on someone's turf. Then I like it to be completely open to the players as the route they would like to go - side with the good guys, side with the bad guys, don't take a side, form up their own army and beat both sides. I try to have many groups (9+) of npcs all vying for their own objectives. How the players react to various groups affect their reputation in local or regional towns. I like to throw all sorts of CRs against my PCs. Some groups are easy, others are moderately difficult, while others are extremely difficult. Most encounters can be bypassed by avoiding, fighting, talking, or various creative alternatives. Retreat should always be an option and never feel bad for killing PCs that do stupid sh...
Three weeks ago the paladin did the stupid 'lets go through town detecting evil'. They stumbled upon the L9 evil boss's secret hideout that I wasn't planning on mentioning for a couple weeks. A L4 character jumped out a 2nd story window chasing the L9's tactical maneuver to more open ground. The L4 got crushed.
Bosses that get away should be rewarded XP for 'defeating/bypassing' the party and should level up over time. NPCs that the players recruit should get a XP pool separate from the party (to encourage hiring NPCs). They should also level up over time. The gear that the PCs choose to not grab gets nabbed by the helpful NPCs - which gears them up.
1. I start with trying to figure out who my players are likely to be and what my experiences with them tell me that they will find engaging. I set the “themes” and “moods” based on that.
2. I try to figure out what the out-of-play time frame of the campaign I’m writing is going to be ... 6 months, 2 years, 20 years, etc.
3. I try to figure out if I’m going to be both the architect and sole builder of the campaign or if I’m likely to share GMing with someone else who may also be a PC so that I can adjust the levels of “discovery” and lengths of plot arcs accordingly (as well as keeping better / clearer notes).
I set my expectations for writing the game that comes from the above before I start any “real work” (ie beyond writing down brainstorming thoughts like “need to revisit the dark folks with low level characters because … new dark folk!” or “use that NPC you wrote up because you spend too much time reading the Advise threads on Paizo and not enough time posting on them” [I’ll post my “Understreets Devourer” Worm-that-Walks build-that-turned-into-an-encounter-that-has-scaling-adjustments-built-into-it soon, honest!] ).
If there are folks I’ve never played with before I go over my ever-updating “Gaming Culture Expectation Lookouts List” to make sure the new folks and I are on the same page in a lot of areas that can cause out of play contention.
Once that is done I normally sit down and try to figure out if I’m running in an established Campaign Setting (usually pre-Stupid Plague FR, but leaning more towards Golarion now that I own a lot of their stuff for PFS use) or building / re-using my own. If using established settings, I make sure that I write down any house rules that will jar with player expectations (ex “no gunslingers”) and have one of the folks that I normally play with look over the list before its final as I know I’ll forget things.
I then spend truly dumb amounts of time writing up inane details on things that will never come into play and force me to come up with things on-the-fly when PCs remind me that they use non-Euclidean geometry as well as any chthonic entity when it comes to the directions that they will run when they encounter a plot-line.
-TimD
Anyone ever try completely random? I did it once.
1. In the GMG I rolled a random starting environment from table 7-59: terrain types
2. I grabbed the old 1e DMG and rolled up random surrounding hex terrain
3. I made a quick sketch map
4. One hex had a settlement, so I went back to the GMG and fudged together a way to roll up a random settlement from the alignments, government types and the qualities.
5. To populate monsters in the area I rolled on all the random encounter charts I could find. I scattered a few encounters here and there
6. The only non-random thing I did was then weave a story to incorporate it all.
What I ended up with was a Large Town of CN alignment run by a secret syndicate. It stood in a hex that was largely water but was surrounded on 2 sides by forest, one side was plains, one side was the fen I originally rolled, one was badlands and one was scrub. There were some goblins wandering around; also a wight, a bulette, a handful of centaurs and a dragon.
So I made the syndicate a bunch of folks allied with a blue dragon. The creature employed kobolds (not a random encounter I know) as minions and the town was secretly swarming with them. Each year the taxes "for the king" were carted to the dragon; as well other minions within the syndicate were skimming for their own schemes. Since no other major settlements were rolled up I decided that outside the town nothing larger than a Village existed for miles. All the surrounding area was wild fens, forests and swamp while the town stood on an island in the midst of a marsh lake.
The dragon lived out in the badlands. Goblins infested the swamps while a small tribe of centaurs were known to patrol the western woods. Out in the "scrub" were dozens of old ruins atop low hillocks rising up out of the heath and marsh. These were ancient cairns and the remnants of a civilization long since destroyed; the dead here were restless, aligned under a wight bent on reclaiming the former glories of the lost kingdom.
The good guys of the campaign were the centaurs (sort of) and folks in town. I figured a good foil to the dragon and the wight were 2 churches: Pharasma and Iomedae. The defenses of the town were handled by the church of Iomedae where a roll of the dead was listed; within this church a small contingent of Pharasmin ministered to the dead and sought adventurers to pacify sites in the barrow hills so that they could re-sanctify them.
I also added some NPCs - a sorcerer with a small orphanage where she could watch kids for signs of magical talent; a guild of horse breeders and rangers working with the centaurs; and a mercenary troupe operating from a ramshackle hideout in the swamps.
I never really had a story to go along with all this. Just wondering if anyone's done anything similar?