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Origomar
2013-05-27, 03:53 PM
What is the quickest way to make a decent campaign for fairly new players?

I only have a few days to make the campaign and im not sure if i should just use a premade setting or not.

Rhynn
2013-05-27, 04:11 PM
Create a dungeon (or other adventure location as appropriate). Create a village or town nearby to serve as a base. Come up with hooks. (Just "rumor has it there's treasure in that place" is enough, but "my child fall down a cave" etc. work too.) Think a bit about what kind of world they are in.

The dungeon only needs to be 1 level (maybe 20-30 rooms) to start, and only 25-33% of the rooms need to have monsters in them. (25-33% should have treasure, and the overlap should not be total.) They don't all have to be interesting, and you shouldn't write more than a couple of sentences of description for most of them - something that will spur your own imagination at the table, preferrably. Leave room to add stairs down (behind a secret door, for instance) later.

Expand the setting as you go along: more levels into the dungeon, a map of the surrounding countryside and/or wilderness (with more dungeons and lairs), the nearest somewhat bigger settlement, then the entire country/kingdom and its capital, etc.

This is mostly for fantasy RPGs, obviously, but most other RPGs are more plot-oriented anyway, so you'd just come up with a scenario, some characters, an idea of what these characters are going to do in that scenario, and then unleash the PCs and let their actions on the scenario and characters direct and drive the story forward.

Some games give you tons of tools to make creating a setting fast. Adventurer Conqueror King System (see my sig) does this. Stars Without Number does this for science fiction, and amazingly well.

Basically, IMO, there's no type of game for which creating a setting needs to be a lot of hard work, especially done up front. Pick the right system that supports what you're wanting to do, come up with stuff to do for the first 2-3 sessions, and then expand between sessions (make sure that before the end of each session, you know what the players are going to do next - by asking them directly).

The birth of Dwimmermount as described on Grognardia (http://grognardia.blogspot.fi/search/label/dwimmermount) is exactly this process: creativity and inspiration combined with efficient laziness (or lazy efficiency). Never do more work than the minimum needed, unless you happen to enjoy doing some bit of work (like thinking about some weird aspect of some specific society or culture).

Edit: Also, many 1st-level modules for AD&D 1E (and BECMI) make wonderful starting points for entire campaigns, usually with very little work (converting to your system). My favorites are Under Illefarn (Forgotten Realms) and Village of Hommlet.

Xeratos
2013-05-27, 04:19 PM
How new are we talking here? The newer the player, the lower the level you should probably go with. I'm not saying you have to start at 1. I usually like to introduce first timers at level 3, just enough to get a bit of flavor for the class, not so much as to overwhelm them with options. And unless you have something particularly epic already in mind, start with a simple dungeon with some basic plot hooks like:

bandits/goblins/appropriate low level monsters are raiding the roads, and the mayor of the village wants them stopped.

an abandoned keep/monastery/old, large, ruined building is said to be haunted, and the party goes to investigate.

miners have been chased out of a nearby mine by... something..., and the foreman hires the party as muscle to clean it out.

There are literally thousands of plot hooks for low level parties, and while I personally like to custom write my sessions, there's nothing wrong with using a module if you don't feel you have the time or creativity.

As far as continuing it on, the best advice I could give is not to plan too far ahead. Almost invariably, your players aren't going to pick the route you expect them to, either because what seems obvious to you isn't to them, or because they come up with a way better idea than you thought they would, or just because they plain don't want to. At most, maybe have a loose plan for 1-2 sessions in advance, but don't spend a lot of time working on your notes for a place they may end up bypassing completely.

Alternatively, if you do end up with a chunk of dead notes, feel free to recycle them. That haunted keep ended up not getting used? Reuse the floor plan when they need to sneak into a noble's home and update your descriptions from dilapidated to richly decorated. Swap out zombies for living guards, make that ghoul guarding the treasury a summoned defense instead of just being there.

yougi
2013-05-30, 10:43 AM
My favorite campaigns were those with an overarching plot. I think this is the main thing to think of: do I want one large plot, or multiple bite-sized ones? If you want an overarching plot, what is it? Stopping an evil cult that's converting people across the world? Stopping a large group of slavers? Murdering the evil chosen one? Leading a revolution against an evil empire?

Once that's done, I wouldn't put too much energy in the actual setting: think of a few city names (depending on the scale of your overarching plot), write 3-4 lines for each, and wing the rest. If you have no overarching plot, it's even easier, as the PCs likely won't care for descriptions of the world outside the city they've settled in and its direct surroundings, so you can create the rest of the world as you see fit depending on what you need to be there for narrative purposes.

neonchameleon
2013-05-30, 10:49 AM
What is the quickest way to make a decent campaign for fairly new players?

I only have a few days to make the campaign and im not sure if i should just use a premade setting or not.

What game, what type of players, what do they enjoy?

An adventure path (I'd recommend the ENWorld ones) is an easy fall back. Or start with somewhere like the Keep on the Borderlands or the Nentir Vale and only create wider areas after they express an interest.

Man on Fire
2013-05-30, 11:10 AM
1) Think of a location, it may be a castle, village, city under siege or a ship, or caravan going through the desert.

2)Ask every player to give you reasons why they are in that particular location and what is their goal here.

3) Set up the element that woudl either be a threat to player's goal or would help him advance it if obtained.

For example, players are at the village that has been struck by a plague. For paladin trying to find a parent of orphan he meet this might be a threat, especially if child gets sick. For Rogue working at local thieves guild it woudl be a threat. For Necromancer who plots revenge against village's elders finding a way to control the plague would be an opportunity.

Yora
2013-05-31, 09:13 AM
For new players, especially for new GMs, start very simple. Let the PCs explore one ruin and fight the local critters and then return back to the town, and then start to think about what they could be doing next. Doing long, complex, and good campaigns is really quite a difficult art and in my experience it's much more fun and rewarding for everyone to start with simple fun first. Once everyone knows the basic rules of the game, you can start thinking about three-adventure mini-campaigns, in which the PCs go to a number of different places, each times fighting against a different group that follows the same main villain, which they will face at the end of the last part.

Rhynn
2013-05-31, 09:33 AM
Doing long, complex, and good campaigns is really quite a difficult art and in my experience it's much more fun and rewarding for everyone to start with simple fun first.

This is very true. Good GMing requires skill, and the only way to develop that skill is experience. That takes years. The first 6-8 years I GM'd, it was all crap in critical retrospect (although we still had tons of fun and still remember some of the campaigns, adventures, and characters). The bigger/more epic I tried to make it, the more likely it was to get "out of control" (I labored under the illusion that as a GM, I should have a lot of influence over the direction of the campaign) and to just generally spiral into something unsatisfactory for everyone. Fortunately, nothing says you need to play a specific campaign for X amount of time - you can always start a new one.

Amphetryon
2013-05-31, 09:44 AM
Step 1: Ask every Player to provide a one-sentence goal for his/her Character, whether short-term ("find a Flaming falchion") or long-term ("unseat the heretic Xugoober and re-insert Winibbler to his rightful place of power").

Step 2: Read all the responses.

Step 3: Pick the one you'd like to start with.

Step 4: Plot it out, hopefully dropping a couple of breadcrumbs relating to other Character goals.

Step 5: ? ? ? :smallconfused:

Step 6: Profit!

Step 7: Frantically adjust on the fly as your Players tear through and around your plot-points in ways you didn't anticipate. :smallwink:

Jay R
2013-05-31, 10:16 AM
1. Have them meet in a tavern.
2. Set the tavern on fire.

Saving people from the spreading fire will eat up the first session, and somebody they rescue will provide an idea for the next session.

Man on Fire
2013-05-31, 01:31 PM
1. Have them meet in a tavern.
2. Set the tavern on fire.

Funny thing, I started my first campaign by having playrs be mind-controlled into setting tavern on fire.The entire campaign was build around finding out who did this and why.

Water_Bear
2013-05-31, 01:52 PM
Buy or download (or buy and then download) a premade module, ideally one of the classics like Keep on the Borderlands, and then run it.

This should ideally give you 1-3 sessions to hash out the rules with the players, let them grow into their characters a little, and since most of the intro modules are setting-neutral gently introduce some background fluff. By the point they finish the module you should have a good idea what sort of campaign is appropriate (hexcrawl, megadungeon, intrigue/kingmaker, war, doomsday plot, etc.) and be able to work from there.

Asmodai
2013-06-03, 09:05 PM
Honestly if you're after a quick campaign you should just wing it. Create a few plots and roll with it... you'll manage to create thrads and characters that will connect them.

When I need to improvise a story on the fly and don't have something in one of my notebooks, I just rush over to http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/plots.htm

Just adding the actual game you're playing and maybe a random monster to that should sort you out. Once the game is rolling you can easily figure out a bigger arching plot.

geeky_monkey
2013-06-04, 09:07 AM
Last time I was in this position I got the players to do most of the work.

I gave them a generic starting quest (locating and clearing out a cave used by local bandits) and filled it with multiple plot hooks – I can’t remember everything but there was a broken sword that glowed with a mysterious light, deeds for a distant silver mine, a yellow gem that whispered barely perceptible calls for help, and a long dead body wearing a ring with the seal of a nearby dukedom on it.

Nothing was planned any further ahead than that first session but it gave me a chance to see what the players were interested in and go from there.

Also – come up with a few set-piece encounters. Any the players don’t find can just be reskinned and used during session 2+. Don’t let your work go to waste just because the players never went down the right corridor.