Come March, I’m going to try to run a D&D campaign. It’s been more than a year since I played D&D, and I miss it. I’ll be using D&D Next, and I’m still in the early planning stages.
When prepping a campaign, you first need to look at the concept. In my case, I know I’ll be playing D&D, and want as wide a variety of options for players as I can, so we’ll be playing in a general fantasy world. Beyond that, I have a few ideas.
1. The Godfell Stone. I loved this campaign, but it didn’t really get off the ground. Combat took up most of our game sessions, as we were playing 4e, so we didn’t get as far into the campaign as I hoped we would before I moved. In this campaign, the players are trying to track down the thief who stole an artifact capable of killing the gods themselves.
2. Midnight Sun. The sun set yesterday, and never rose. The Emperor summons the heroes, begging for their help. Can the heroes find out what caused the darkness, as the world grows ever colder?
3. The Dracos Conclave. In ages long past, two dragons, brothers, wove the deepest magic to become terrible dracoliches. The world was razed, and the dracoliches fell into slumber. It has been over 10,000 years. A council of dragons has met, and seek to reawaken the dracolich brothers. If they do, the world was we know it will end.
Those are the three ideas I have so far. All of them are epic storylines, and will allow the players to rise in power to eventually find victory and save the world… or die in the process.
I believe that a concept is really important in planning out a campaign. Without it, your players will spend a lot of time pointlessly wandering, looking for treasure. While that may be fine, in my opinion, there’s a much more enriching and fulfilling an experience in running a campaign with a beginning, middle, and end.
So, if you were playing in my campaign, which would you choose? Let me know in the comments.
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