Tag Archives: create campaign

Begin at the Beginning: RPG Campaign Creation Resources

campaign-setupSetting up a campaign can be a challenge. Where do you start? What’s important to develop before play? How the heck do you even start planning a campaign?

Below is a list of campaign creation resources available online:

  • How to Organise Excellent RPG Campaigns (http://dukestreet.org/archives/004096.html): Eleven tips for working with players and what (and how much!) information to prepare for your game.
  • How to Start an RPG Campaign Step 1 — Want It (http://homework.never-ends.net/2010/01/how-to-start-an-rpg-campaign-step-1-want-it/): The first post in a series on setting up campaigns. This one covers getting yourself motivated to begin a campaign. Other posts cover choosing a game system, choosing a genre, story creation, worldbuilding and more.
  • Campaign Creation (http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/category/campaign-creation/). A list of posts about campaign creation on the Campaign Mastery website.
  • Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com/): A site that hosts campaign wikis. A GM can set up a site for his game here, providing a one-stop place for the campaign’s players to look up important NPCs, summaries of previous game sessions, game calendars, and more. Offers both free and paid services.
  • What qualities are important when creating a fantasy RPG campaign? (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/11/what-qualities-are-important-when-creating-a-fantasy-rpg-campaign): Tops for creating a generic fantasy setting for an RPG campain.
  • 11 Questions for starting a new campaign (http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2012/12/13/questions-for-starting-a-new-campaign/): My own post giving eleven questions that will help you set up a new RPG campaign.
  • RPGTable Online (http://www.rpgtableonline.com/welcome.php): This site offers on-line tools to help you run your game, including die rollers, maps, monster stats, tokens, and more.
  • Building RPG Campaigns (http://thewargate.blogspot.com/2011/10/building-rpg-campaigns.html): Advice on choosing a game system, creating adventures, creating a campaign story, setting up for sandbox campaign play, using published adventures, closing a campaign.
  • Campaign, Adventure, and Encounter Design Articles (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/rpg-articles/#design): A list of articles on the Roleplaying Tips website related to rpg campaign creation. Some topics include Choosing a Setting, Preparation of Material for a Roleplaying AdventureWriting the Effective Villain, and more.
  • Creating an RPG campaign for children, pt. 1 (http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/creating-an-rpg-campaign-for-children-part-i/): The first of three posts on planning a campaign for kids, using as an example the campaign the author created for his 7 year old son.

How about you? Do you have any favorite campaign creation resources? Feel free to post them in the comments section below. What do you find the most difficult about creating a new campaign? Any tips for making campaign creation easier? Please share!

[Image courtesy of aleske via Flickr Creative Commons]

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11 Questions for starting a new campaign

You’ve  great campaign idea and can’t wait tell your players. But are you sure you’re ready? Starting a campaign with only a few notes of ideas is certainly possible, but tends to make running the game much more difficult than it needs to be. Unless your campaign is a series of unconnected published adventures, you’re going to want some kind of plan.

Below are 11 questions to ask yourself when you’re developing an new campaign idea. While you may not need to answer all of these, thinking about them can help you solidify what your campaign will be.

  1. What genre/system? Do some research on the genre of the campaign you want to run. What aspects of the genre draw you? These are the things you want to focus on during your campaign. What are the genre’s standard tropes? What aspects of the genre are so cliched you want to avoid them at all costs?
  2. What setting? Maybe your game system has an established setting, like Castle Falkenstein or World of Darkness. Or maybe you’ve found a published setting you’re dying to use, like Ebberon or Midgard. Or maybe you’ve developed your own setting. In any case, take some time to look over your setting or write down some notes about what you’re developing. What aspects intrigue you the most? Again, you’ll want to focus your game on those. Are there any parts of the setting you don’t want to use?
  3. How many players? What’s the minimum number of players you need to run the game successfully? What’s the maximum number of players you feel comfortable handling?
  4. What character types? Are their any specific character types you feel are necessary to the game? Will the party need fighter-types and magic users or techno-wizards? What character types do you not want as PCs?
  5. What rules? What books? Are there any aspects of the game you don’t want to use? Make a note of these so you remember to tell your players. Nothing’s more frustrating to a player than finding out she can’t use the great PC idea after she’s already put a lot of work into developing it.
  6. What props or game aids? Will your game need miniatures, an in-game calendar or some other support or prop? You don’t need to find all of this before you start, but make a list so that you’ll have what you need before you need it. Campaign maps and real-world references such as historical timelines and atlases fall into this category. Also determine if you need dice, playing cards, tarot cards, etc.
  7. What inspiration sources? Make a list of things you can turn to when you’re out of inspiration. Movies, books (fiction and non-fiction), radio programs, websites, podcasts and more related to your setting and/or genre can help feed your creative juices when they run dry. You may feel like you’ve got an infinite number of ideas right now, but after you’ve been running it for several month (or years) ideas may be hard to come by. Do yourself a favor a make a list of idea sources now while you’re researching and they’re fresh in your mind. You’ll thank yourself later.
  8. What’s it about? Come up with a short description of the campaign you can use to find players. Create an elevator pitch. This not only helps you “sell” your idea to your players, it helps you pinpoint what your campaign is actually about. It can also help you figure out what you don’t want in your game.
  9. Who do you need? What major NPCs will you need? You don’t have to flesh them out right now, but make a list of your main antagonist(s) and any patrons/bosses/adventure givers. Who runs the government? What important local residents are you going to need? It can help to keep a running list or spreadsheet of the NPCs you create so you don’t forget anyone.
  10. How does it end? I know, right now the end of your campaign is probably the furthest thing from your mind. But it can help to have an idea how your campaign will end before you start it. That gives you something to work towards and can help keep you on track. If the game’s overall goal is for the PCs to overthrow the current world government, that’s going to require different types of characters and adventures than if you want the PCs to discover a lost continent.
  11. How does it begin? How do you want to start your game? It can seem like you’re putting the cart before the horse to plan the start the campaign after the ending, but knowing where the game is going can make it easier to know where to begin.

Of course, these aren’t the only questions you need to answer when starting a game, but these should help get you going. What are your favorite questions? What do you feel is important to know when planning a new campaign?

[Photo courtesy of CarbonNYC via Flickr Creative Commons]

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