Anyway crafting a campaign can be long depending on just what you are looking to do. A game can last one session, or two, or you can have it run a lot longer.
Here's the thing about a campaign, it is made up of several story lines that forms an over all story about your characters and their adventures. A campaign ends when the group is ready to move on from their characters to others and to not give the old ones a glimpse again.
#1 - Jump On Point
A jump on point is a term used in comics that describes a point where new readers can "jump on" and join the story with out having to worry too much about who and what is going on. This is often done in the form of "Issue #1" sort of stories or origin stories. When you craft a campaign you need to figure out where to start a story and you have to ask yourself some questions:
- How skilled should the player characters (PC's) should be? In this you should know how powerful they should start. Are they just starting on their adventure, or have they already seen some action, or are they veterans of many battles?
- Just how will you bring them together once you figure out how strong to allow the PC's to be?
- And once you figure out how strong the PC's are, and how they should meet, you need to decide on how the first adventure in the campaign will go. How challenging should it be for a starting adventure?
The next thing of course is the story. A story is what gets your group to come each week to play. You have to figure out what combat opportunities will come up, if they can be avoided in anyway, and just give the players a way to flesh out who their characters are and what they can do.
Once you have your first story in place its all about setting up encounters by following a script.
Like writing a the script for a movie you will have lines of dialogue outlined for certain encounters in your story, but its the players who will direct where the story goes. Players have a habit of doing things you weren't planing for, so keep this in mind when writing your game up. Keep things loose so that if the players go in a different direction than expected or wanted then either shift things around to get them to where you want them to go, or allow them to go off track a bit and let them get back to what you had planed later.
#2 - Flexibility
One of the best things you need to learn as a GM is how to be flexible. And I don't mean by doing yoga. No what I mean is like what I stated above, players will do unexpected things and you need to be ready and expecting for them to do that at any given time.
When you write up a game, come up with a few side missions, or short little points of interest that allows your players to have their moments away from the group, like developing a love interest. Its up to to the player to go down that path should they find it, and if not its ok.
So while you may have your main story in place, having a few sites to see is always a good thing to have that adds layer to the story even if it doesn't add to the story. And sometimes the side things may give little clues as to what is really happening in the main story if the players are willing to take a risk and look into things. These are good ways of getting players who go off track to get back on track a bit.
For example: Jason Greyholme, (aka Agent Greyholme of the FBI, aka the super hero known as Torrent - my character) is in the office filling out paper work. The GM tells me, his player) that its lunch time and asks what I will do. I decide to eat in the office cafe because I'm behind on paper work and the boss isn't happy with me right now.
Here I decided not to go with the hook the GM offered me to do something, instead the GM is forced to let me stay in the office and catch up on paperwork which my character needs to do, but its a minor blip on the radar of things that can be done. My character could have gone and met a girl and started a relationship. He could have gone out, gotten involved in a robbery where he steps up and takes down the robbers on his own earning him some accolades from the public. Or any number of things could have happened.
A GM has to anticipate things like this.
Another good example is the recent one that occurred with my friend Ian and his character Jack-be-Nimble. Now I talked about players doing things the GM doesn't account for and Ian did just that during our time on Monster Island...in fact I've probably mentioned it before.
So during an encounter we came across VIPER agents attacking some lizard men. We attacked the VIPER agents and gave the lizard men, who were loosing, time to escape. We also figured that since they were likely more indigenous to the island than the VIPER agents that we would aid them in hope that they may turn a blind eye to what we were doing. Jack took it upon himself to take on the one VIPER agent who wore a higher quality red and gold uniform who seemed to have more skill than the other agents she was around. Alicia (as we learned her name to be) was their commander and Jack not only started to disarm her, but also was hitting on her at every turn. Being our speedster he is nearly impossible to hit most times, and he proved that easily with Alicia, or Boot-Alicia as he has come to call her (as she was indeed fairly attractive). He disarmed her, blocked her attacks, thwarted her attempts to evade our group when she chose to flee, and was knocked out by him.
It then continued on as we went back to the UNTIL base on Monster Island where he visited her in the holding cells they have (which are meant for holding dangerous monsters - not people - but they work), and chatted with her all night turning her death threats into signs of love for him.
This was not something the GM could have anticipated in happening, but he used it. She has sworn t make Jack pay for her disgrace and is thus his first Nemesis (which he is quite proud of). Torrent/Jason - my character - told him to come talk to me when he's got two (like mine has). It was a weak burn, but my character doesn't get a lot of times to do playful banter as he is often the butt of jokes as he is a government agent.
Now to get a bit off track...
Also an odd occurrence with my character is that he tends to get blown up a lot more than anyone else in the group. I've rolled this unusual occurrence which the GM doesn't plan to happen, but it does, into my character complaining about it happening too often to him. In this one in game day alone my character has been through 3 separate explosions. The first was when he got hit by an a 20mm shell (admittedly, Valnovas took 3 hits from the same gun...but he's tougher than my character). Then we faced off against the Nazi tank which shot a round at the ground to catch me in the explosion it would make since it had no turret and its cannon barrel could only adjust its aim so much - and I am flying...and holding a satchel charge to plant on it and blow it up.
First I get hit with the explosion of the first shell. Then the satchel charge goes off in my arms. I was lucky with the first hit that I was high enough off the ground that I reduced the damage taken enough to be survivable. But then the second round of damage came and that was that, then there was the knock back and fall damage. I survived but was knocked out (thanks to the GM rolling fairly low for damage = 32 Stun/11 Body, and 34/12 Body, and 24 Stun/8 Body). Now luckily it was all separate occurrences which my defenses could apply to each separately.
Before this I think I was blown up at least 2 or maybe 3 other times.
Now because this has been an unusual occurrence of regularity for my character, which the GM has acknowledged, I can possibly buy some defensive powers to have against explosions because it has worked out in the game to allow for it.
Its things like this as a GM that you need to be sure to keep an eye out for and acknowledge when they happen. Benefits can be something you just allow a player to get when they have the XP for it (like with Torrent), or maybe you give a reward of some other sort, like if a PC is always working out when not adventuring...maybe for their continued dedication to doing this in character you award them with an Ability score point or a free feat, or talent, or something else that is appropriate.
#3 - The Next Game
The last thing you want to keep in mind is how to roll into the next game. Where is a good cut off point in this game? Are the players having fun? Where do you go from here and how can you keep the players engaged?
Always look to the things you like for inspiration for games. Books, video games, TV shows, movies - all can inspired idea's for game sessions. And don't be afraid to deliberately borrow some things and make some tweaks here and there to make it your own.
And yes, there is "A Song of Ice & Fire" RPG for all you Game of Throne's fans.
Again if anyone has any questions or need help with an adventure, let me know and I'll assist in what ever way I can.
In the mean time, I got an almost 2yr old little boy on my lap right now who just does not want to fall asleep (its 10:11pm). Time to play some video games because that always seems to work for some reason.
Later everyone.
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