How To Be A Somewhat Successful DM - Part 1 - Writing A Campaign In 10 Easy Steps
Step 1: Get an idea. Your idea doesn’t have to be super specific, it can be as simple as “hey, pirates are cool, what if I made a campaign with some pirates”.
Step 2: Get yourself a notebook to scribble your idea in. This is the breeding ground of idiocy and genius alike. I have two notebooks because I’m insane and write too many campaigns
Step 3: Develop that idea from earlier. You want pirates? What do the pirates want? Are they good or bad? And why do the players care? What is their quest? Most importantly, come up with an end objective for the campaign. You want a goal for the players to aim for. Even if you don’t reveal the true goal immediately, you’ll need one to plan around.
Step 4: Vomit up all your general ideas and notions about what you might like in the campaign. Just take a page in your notebook and write a list of everything you think you might include. Plot points, monsters, loot, whatever, just put it down on paper. You can sort through it later. This is what my idea page looks like (censored in some places for spoiler reasons):
Step 5: How to get from the start to the end. You’ve got the end point, the Big Bad, but you need some slightly smaller bads along the way. I usually plan around 5 or 6 lower level villains to defeat before the players reach the Main Fight. These fights are best connected to the end goal, where we get major story progression. Between these fights have a variety of smaller challenges, some story related and some more in the ranks of random encounters.
Step 6: Develop a world. It can be anything you like but make sure that you establish the rules and stick to them. Consistency is important. Figure kingdoms/cities/planets or whatever and how they all work together in your plot.
Step 7: Make some NPCs. This is the fun part in my opinion. Give them some depth, an actual personality and motives of their own. How do they serve the plot? Why do the players need them? Do they get to join the party? They can be an ally, a villain, a betrayer, anything. Just so long as you give them a purpose.
Step 8: Detail time. Time to flesh out those enemies. Give them appearances, abilities, personality. The Big Bad needs a purpose and a way it can be defeated. If you want to make your own monsters as well, I’d advise thinking of one or two traits that make you Uncomfortable and adding those. If you want a monster to be scary, be descriptive. If it makes your skin crawl, it will probably do the same to the players.
Step 9: Time to start writing sessions. Don’t write anything too specific or detailed, the players aren’t about to cooperate with that. Just write the most important points of what will happen, notes to yourself of what you need to mention and the stats of monsters or characters that are relevant. You’ve got to be prepared to improvise.
Step 10: Finishing touches. Get yourself a list of loot. Get the backstories of your players so you can add finer details to the campaign to give them a personal stake. Make a map (and let no one touch it). Figure out how you’re going to hook your players into the story. Make yourself a roll20 or discord or what have you. Find some music. Then you can play.
areudirty
origamiaround
yousharknotpass
janainaart
annaxmalina
titsay
gummygunk
stormborns
snowghoul
germansingergirl
