Questions tagged [campaign-development]
For questions about writing, managing, and expanding campaigns.
325
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21
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How can I involve a PC's backstory in a campaign that's set exclusively in a distant or foreign location?
I like my players to have a firm idea of their characters' backstories, and I like the idea of being able to draw on these (NPCs from the past showing up unexpectedly, etc.). However, in our next ...
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1
vote
0
answers
42
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I Need Help Generating a Table of Effects [closed]
I am writing a one-off campaign that involves an illusion where if the character dies they come back with a random affliction, such as "convinced they are invisible." I want it to be primarily ...
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0
votes
1
answer
289
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Where to get players/DM's to review my campaign ideas/plot? [closed]
I am a new DM on DnD 5e. I have DM'd a bit of Lost Mines of Phandalver, and played some DnD. But recently, I created a new campaign for my players.
I made a map (thank you, Gimp), created a ...
- 1
44
votes
12
answers
12k
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Should I change the entire campaign to please one player?
So, I'm running my first ever dnd campaign - and I'm having a blast doing it. I've found a really great group of players, who are really accomodating to my newbieness, and I couldn't be happier with ...
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22
votes
5
answers
5k
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How do I reveal the Big Bad only by foreshadowing, without the reveal being too early or late?
What I plan for my campaign is to drop hints about some greater evil, and whenever my players reach the natural point of realization, have them go off on a search to stop it. I wanna do it naturally, ...
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10
votes
6
answers
3k
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How to subtly railroad players to go in a certain direction?
Now I know that railroading is one of the cardinal sins of DM-ing, along with hard rules changes to fit your needs, and sloppily homebrewing every other custom rule. However, right now I feel like my ...
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24
votes
7
answers
35k
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How to make sure the players escape but feel like it was because of their wit?
Setting
I'm preparing for my first time as a DM in D&D 5e (as a player I have gotten to level 4 in 3 campaigns so I have a good grasp of the game, in my group everyone wants to have a go as DM and ...
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2
votes
1
answer
2k
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What can I do to make a campaign harder? [closed]
I'm running a homemade campaign for a 2nd level paladin, a 1st level sorcerer, and a 5th level fighter. I was rolling for random encounters, and satyr attacked. They dealt with it in 2 rounds. I ...
- 1,030
12
votes
5
answers
2k
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Post-Act Survey or Same Page Tool
I have been running a campaign for some time now that is winding its way down to finish what I'll call "Act I". Soon my group will take a break from my campaign to let someone else DM and I'm ...
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6
votes
1
answer
410
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How to measure property awarded as treasure
I want to award property and land as a reward for a set of adventures. I'm creating a campaign in 5th Edition, and I want to follow the treasure per level guidelines. I know I can measure the building'...
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7
votes
0
answers
1k
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Running a duet campaign and adjusting difficulty [closed]
I am now venturing, for the first time, as a DM and would like to start a campaign for my girlfriend. I have played D&D for several sessions (some 15?), but I am far from being experienced. ...
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4
votes
2
answers
477
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Can campaigns require PCs to have a certain backstory?
Normally, the player creates every aspect of their character, but what if the campaign requires the player characters' backstories to have certain elements? Like for example in the computer game ...
- 1,713
8
votes
0
answers
461
views
What games other than Ars Magica encourage Troupe play? [closed]
Troupe play is a specific style where the group is encouraged to collaborate in creating and running the game. There's often more than one GM, players often run more than one character and, indeed, ...
- 5,204
2
votes
3
answers
2k
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How should I request a PC sacrifice for the best ending to a campaign? [closed]
The scenario: The BBEG is preparing to unleash a sealed monster and devastate the civilized world. The seal has already been weakened by prior actions. The PCs engage the BBEG as the campaign finale. ...
- 1,353
17
votes
2
answers
22k
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What are all the ways a player can get to the Astral Plane?
I am planning a campaign where the characters must travel to the astral plane several times, though each subsequent time they lose one of the means to do so (i.e., Astral Projection spell, through the ...
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6
votes
3
answers
417
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How can I give one of my players a powerful plot-device weapon without making the other players feel left out?
I am building a custom setting that is medieval fantasy (technology level is almost steam engine) where some pieces of ancient technology (ours) can be found.
Players' weaponry is based off the ...
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8
votes
5
answers
2k
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How do I create a sense of science about magic?
Based off of this question.
Magic in many games is considered well-understood, but ill explained (hence 'magic'). Assuming that I control the environment and have a mild will to bend mechanics, how ...
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54
votes
10
answers
15k
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How can I use powerful NPCs without overshadowing the player characters?
I’ve been playing P&P for years and have taken my first tentative steps into DM’ing over the last year, mostly leading One-Shots. I am also a passionate world-builder and so I jumped at the chance ...
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4
votes
2
answers
4k
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How to reverse the Balance card from a Deck of Many Things? [closed]
At the end of the last story arc, I gave my players the chance to let their characters draw from a Deck of Many Things. I told them beforehand that this could mess up their characters and the whole ...
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2
votes
1
answer
310
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Would it be a bad idea to make a joke campaign? [closed]
I want to DM for a group of friends that have had minimal amount of tabletop role-playing experience (two sessions of a D&D campaign and three sessions of a Dungeon World campaign, both DM'ed by ...
32
votes
20
answers
7k
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How can I best implement a recurring villain when the players are not opposed to killing? [closed]
I am writing up a campaign for D&D4e that I will be playing in a couple of months and, though I do not have the storyline 100% all thought out, I know the general tone I am going for already, and ...
- 1,061
4
votes
0
answers
314
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How to handle low-magic, fantasy banking? [closed]
How would you handle the transfer of large quantities of gold in a low-magic, medieval fantasy setting?
I'm am running a campaign based on a homebrew variation of Pathfinder in which magic use ...
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14
votes
5
answers
3k
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How to balance/time a campaign where a player character is the final boss?
I suggested to my GM a campaign idea where one of the player characters would secretly be the final enemy boss and the player would play and campaign alongside the group trying to further his goals ...
- 4,077
6
votes
4
answers
818
views
How can I transform my script into a campaign?
I have the idea, the script is written and it looks like a sci-fi novel.
Now how can I make this world "playable"? Do I just put a few players' characters into the scene where a series of actions are ...
- 171
2
votes
0
answers
76
views
Where to share RPG adventures? [closed]
Is there a good place to share some RPG modules that I've made? There's no IP information. Combat information is generic and things like magic item treasure are randomly generated. It's based in my ...
4
votes
2
answers
383
views
Help with defining which Mage the Ascension faction most likely in an assassination [closed]
After waiting for years for the right moment, I'm finally about to start a short Wraith the oblivion campaign (hopefully. Last time I started what I wanted to be a short campaign it lasted more than ...
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19
votes
3
answers
3k
views
How can I satisfy two groups who want the same quest in a West Marches campaign?
I recently started a West Marches style game because of our group's increasingly deteriorating attendance. We still wanted to play when we get a chance to get together but not everyone will be able to ...
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1
vote
0
answers
840
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Would it be a mistake to run a monster campaign the first time I DM? [closed]
I would like to run a scenario where the players have humanoid monsters as characters, such as orcs, goblins, kobolds, trolls — basically anything that doesn't have game breaking abilities.
Would it ...
- 11
5
votes
4
answers
645
views
How many (loosely linked) layers of story are managable for the players? [closed]
While plotting the course of our "campaign", picking up adventure or story ideas, I have come to a point where multiple plots interleave. But not in the classic, homogeneous "adventure -> story arc -> ...
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30
votes
8
answers
6k
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My players want a tighter narrative, but have wandered off course. What now?
I started a new campaign yesterday for a smaller group of players that are new to pen and paper roll playing games. Before we started actually playing the players and I were talking about how P&...
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1
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0
answers
160
views
What would be the best way to capture a storm giant? [closed]
I am building a campaign for my group and one story idea I am toying with is to have an island cult who are keeping a storm giant captive and forcing him to create bad conditions, in order to wreck ...
- 893
0
votes
1
answer
355
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I have no idea where to take the campaign I'm running, need some advice [closed]
I'm a brand new GM and decided to run my first campaign with Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. When helping my players create characters I told them they should make they make like the crew in firefly, ...
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13
votes
1
answer
811
views
How strictly should I obey the "Updating the Campaign Map" instruction in Dungeon World?
Dungeon World has the following instruction regarding the game world:
The campaign map is updated between sessions or whenever the players spend significant downtime in a safe place. Updates are both ...
- 2,698
5
votes
1
answer
712
views
How can I keep my players interested in the main plot during an open world campaign?
I'm going to DM my second campaign as an experienced DM. I already have the main lore all planned and also the initial events that will (or maybe won't) happen.
I know it will be pure fire at the ...
- 103
1
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0
answers
94
views
How much detail needs to go into my campaign before it starts? [duplicate]
I'm designing a homebrew campaign for me and my friends, where I'll DM. I've decided basic things and written down basic notes of important things I want to happen, etc.
These are only scattered ...
- 319
5
votes
1
answer
418
views
What is an appropriate scope for a new GM's Dungeon World game?
I am going to be starting up a group playing Dungeon World pretty soon (I will be the GM). I have GM'd a very mechanics-driven game about 15 ago for maybe 5 years. In that game (which I wrote myself, ...
- 2,698
10
votes
6
answers
704
views
How can I avoid retreading the same genre themes every campaign?
I've run many post-apocalypse campaigns over the years, using games ranging from Aftermath! to Apocalypse World. Survival is the underpinning for most post-apocalypse settings, but survival alone isn'...
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32
votes
7
answers
8k
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How to set up love interests for player characters
A few of my players (2 out of 4 in the current group) would like having a love interest in our campaign. I feel like it's something that we can achieve, as the campaign is not too dark and into "...
- 1,830
13
votes
7
answers
4k
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Players Characters don't meet the fundamental requirements for campaign
I'm planning to do a DSA (The Dark Eye) campaign. I told the players what characters I need in the campaign (at least one character strong in fighting, one in socialising with royals, and so on).
The ...
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16
votes
5
answers
2k
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How much should I adjust the CR of encounters to compensate for PCs having very little GP?
I'm planning on running a Pathfinder campaign in which the PCs have very little gold. How much should I adjust the CR of encounters to compensate?
(If it's important, the gp will be probably about 25%...
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12
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3
answers
2k
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How can we have individual Embracing preludes, and a group character creation session as well?
I'm preparing a Vampire the Masquerade chronicle and I'm currently figuring out how to kick it off. There are two techniques touched on in the rulebook that I think are important, and want to apply ...
- 143
8
votes
2
answers
526
views
When do you Move for Front Dangers and how do they take effect?
I'm prepping for the second session of my first Dungeon World campaign and so I'm studying the Fronts/Dangers system. The basic concept makes sense as a way to help organize a more over-arching ...
- 1,772
26
votes
6
answers
5k
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How can I limit my players' options in character creation when the reason why is a spoiler?
I am currently preparing for a game of Vampire: The Masquerade. I've got a plot in the works that involves a Malkavian villain. Given the nature of the Malkavian Madness Network I want to exclude the ...
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5
votes
3
answers
2k
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What is the cost of returning to Barovia? (Adventure League Season 4, (04-14) Curse of Strahd)
After getting out of Barovia in Dark Lord, what is the cost of going back to Barovia, in terms of GP or downtime, if there is one?
This is for D&D Adventurer's League 4-14.
After I finish the ...
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7
votes
7
answers
1k
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What can I do when I've introduced an overpowered plot element?
In my homebrew setting, one god gave his cultists the recipe for a special alloy, and a rival god gave to a kingdom that opposes the cultists the same recipe.
The PCs acquired a warhammer made of ...
user30267
2
votes
3
answers
264
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How to allow no-level lackeys access to a secret area/ specially designed demiplane? [closed]
First off, I'd like to give credit where it is due: I was watching a walk through of Jak and Daxter 3, when this occurred to me. Jak gets many special ability that lets him access new areas. The one ...
- 3,621
65
votes
10
answers
16k
views
Player has arachnophobia: what to use in place of spiders?
I have a player who joined an ongoing campaign; after a session which involved a fight against giant spiders and an anxiety attack, I was asked by said player's partner to remove the spiders from the ...
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4
votes
5
answers
2k
views
How do I enforce laws against powerful PCs? [closed]
I've noticed that players, over time, tend to be a "law unto themselves" taking whatever liberties they feel is necessary for the storyline they're trying to figure out / win/ solve, and can leave a ...
- 3,621
7
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Give your players characters to play or let them decide for themselves? [closed]
I am starting out as a DM in my third D&D game (first as a DM),
and during my time making a world and an adventurer I found out that the characters playing your game (ingame characters of the ...
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24
votes
5
answers
4k
views
One of my PCs unknowingly slept with his sister [closed]
So some background: 3 sessions into the campaign, we arrived in Neverwinter and went to the nearest inn. At this inn, one of the barmaids started to flirt with our Paladin. Our paladin had sworn an ...
- 3,061