Scrapped Old Campaign, Any Suggestions?

[Brennan]

The campaign in my other post about the black grimoire campaign that you might or might not have read wasn't up to snuff with my perfectionist attitude toward story-writing. (I've been writing fantasy novelettes since I was little. If my story telling skills in a certain story are weak, I scrap it. Evidently, that is also the case when I am GM'ing for D&D.)

I am going to host a meeting on Skype tomorrow on the 20th between my players and I. They're new to D&D, so I don't know how much I can expect to gain from it, but it's better than trying to create a universe without consulting them.

With this campaign, I plan on implementing:
-Custom-Created Races with detailed histories.
-New deities. *Pelor cries his dying tears as he is replaced*
-A continent fully mapped by me. (I draw semi-decent maps.) http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1.jpg&newest=1 (Link to my first map; the only one I have online.)

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I'd like you all to follow certain guidelines in your brainstorming, if you wouldn't mind. I want ideas that involve ancient ruins and a plot that involves taking over the world. I scrapped the last campaign because it disallowed players to travel at a pace suitable for dungeon-delving, something I love to implement into games.

I wouldn't ask such things from people I don't know if I hadn't been working at and (imo) failing at creating a living, breathing world in which the players play a roll in a compelling story. (Huge aspirations for a first-time DM, but a guy's gotta have goals, ya'know?)

Thank you if you participate, I apologize for asking if not.
- Brennan

[dsmiles]

That's a pretty heavy load, brother. I would recommend that you consult the masters...

If you read Fritz Lieber (Leiber?), there's all kinds of world-taking-over-type plots in there, maybe it'll give you some ideas to base your plots on. If you want ideas for epic, plane-spanning plots, try Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series. If you want deific-world-taking-over-type plots, I would suggest looking at David Eddings. If you want dark, gritty realism and dieties that don't care about humanity, I would recommend Robert E. Howard.

I know you want ideas, but I get all of my ideas by reading and mashing plot elements from different stories together. I'm not creative enough to write stories. I have had some small success writing decent campaign worlds, though. My players enjoy playing in them, and that's all that counts, as far as I'm concerned.

[bosssmiley]

Set the campaign in the post-apocalyptic wreckage of the campaign that came to naught. That way you can easily re-use material, and don't mind so much when the players decide to Greyhawk the place.

With this campaign, I plan on implementing:
-Custom-Created Races with detailed histories.
-New deities. *Pelor cries his dying tears as he is replaced*
-A continent fully mapped by me. (I draw semi-decent maps.) http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...1.jpg&newest=1 (Link to my first map; the only one I have online.)

I'd like you all to follow certain guidelines in your brainstorming, if you wouldn't mind. I want ideas that involve ancient ruins and a plot that involves taking over the world. I scrapped the last campaign because it disallowed players to travel at a pace suitable for dungeon-delving, something I love to implement into games.

I wouldn't ask such things from people I don't know if I hadn't been working at and (imo) failing at creating a living, breathing world in which the players play a roll in a compelling story. (Huge aspirations for a first-time DM, but a guy's gotta have goals, ya'know?)

*runs screaming from the excessive work which has been put into this campaign even before it starts*

IMXP you're going about this all backwards. Sure, world-building is fun, but a functioning (actively played) D&D setting is a constantly self-modifying Rube Goldberg contraption, not a precious and immutable Faberge Egg of a thing.

Start small: outline one adventuretown and the surrounding area. Create lairs, haunted mines, ruined keeps, lost temples and mad wizard megadungeons in that area as required. Give thumbnail descriptions of the nearest adventure locales (probably the Halls of Noob, the Forest of Levelling, and the Place of Certain Death Where Be Dragons) and give the players the option of going where they like. Do not stray from the base map area until you or the players become bored with it (which, if done right, they never will).

Everything else, you just steal it from elsewhere, file off the serial numbers and bolt it into place as and when it is required. Conservation of Detail and Just in Time world creation keeps your options open for when the players go off the map edge. The players generally don't know (or care) whether you sweated blood and burnt the midnight oil making it all up, or whether it was rolled it on a table last night. It's all going to be killed, looted and remade in their image anyway.

Story? Is what emerges during play. Everything before the game (yes, all that world-building, all that plotting, all those NPCs and their backstories) is just shuffling the scenery. So stop prepping. NOW. And start playing. Your desperate track-laying and re-writing will spur your DMing creativity more surely than will picking the brains of nebulous interweb people.