When you set out to write a campaign, do you have a certain amount of sessions and a grand plot already in mind, or do you just go with the flow and do things session by session until you and your party get sick of it?
>>98900369The only thing definitive at the start is the player characters, the starting town, the nearby dungeon and the immediate hexes surrounding both.
>>98900369I don't write campaigns.I write games, in which campaigns are set, though.
>>98900369Never, ever plan more than one session's worth in advance. If you do more, you have to railroad the players to get where you were going and they will notice and resent you for it.
>>98900369>When you set out to write a campaign... when I do what?>>98900396/thread and not even using fucking hexes>>98900501And they would be correct for doing so
>>98900369I start with an epic finale and work backwards, figuring out how I can lead my horses to water.
>>98900369Prep isn't like writing a story. Think of it more like having a box of props to improvise with. Many interesting objects (NPCs, places, items, connections, plans in motion, means of achieving, etc etc) all socked away ready to throw at your players. Each week you pull some out and throw them at your players. Some are evergreen, some break on use and require replacing. Some - when used - suggest more props which go right into the box for next week. You need enough props to start off, and you need to sustain the level in your war chest. That's all.
>>98900369Grand plot yes, number of sessions no, because it's impossible to reliably predict speed of player progress (or lack thereof).
>>98900396>>98900501>>98900498I have never, ever have my players ignore a quest.I could plan like 10 sessions in advance, and it would be no problem because the moment I have an NPC say "please do this for me in exchange for gold" the players will go do the thing.I really wonder what's like to play campaigns where the players refuse to do quests. It just sounds so confusing to me to have players make adventurers that don't want to go do quests.
>>98902391It's all matter of appropriate incentive. If you lowball the payoff don't be surprised when the party would rather keep wandering aimlessly to grind random encounters.
>>98902414I think my players like XP more than GP, and since I give XP for quest completion, they always do all the quests they can even if the reward is low.
>>98900369I start with the end of campaign and move the start of the campaign back enough until it makes sense for the players in terms of investment and reward.
>>98901887>>98902458Train your bot better, cunt. It's visibly repetitive
>>98902508
>>98900369I establish setting, an entry point into said setting and a few dungeons/hooks nearby. Then build a few background events, crisis and other draws that I can tease during the course of sessions.Wherever the players are drawn to is where i continue to sketch out the world.So in answer, I really only plan for session 1, but since that is left open ended to how it plays out ive usually got 3-4 sessions worth of maps and encounter tables set up before comencing the game, whether the players actually use them or they go in the magic pile of quick thinking is determinant on the players choices.
>>98900369>do you have a certain amount of sessions and a grand plot already in mindNo, I have an endgame, the resources available to the final antagonist, and a starting point, the events that make the party aware of the threat.>do you just go with the flow and do things session by session until you and your party get sick of it?No that's retarded, that's how you get a skeleton invasion interrupting your gay wedding. The villain doesn't cease to exist if the party ignores him. If that's the game you want to play, go play GTA.
>>98900369You should know what the NPCs are going to do if the characters don't intervene. If you design your setting so that the characters have to do a specific thing or else the plot doesn't go, either everyone has already bought train tickets and has no right to complain or you fucked up because you assumed someone was going to do something when they weren't.That's literally it. If you can't figure out what your major factions would do if the player characters sat on their ass, you need to redesign your factions. Works best if inevitably they step on a PC's toes often enough so that ignoring it is more trouble than it's worth
>>98902391My quests are built into the character options, and into the game's challenges themselves. Clerics or other holy backgrounds will inherently be on quests to destroy undead and to infiltrate the "cities of the dead" to destroy the dark masters within, for instance.I don't have to divert gameplay to [make NPC say thing and then play game], because what the NPC would say is already built into the game.I already tried the "sit down and listen to hours of exposition" thing other people like to call gameplay; it isn't engaging or fun for me.
>>98903481I did this with my current group for their first 'call to adventure' I had them roll on a table for the reason they're at the yamen trying to get a job/quest from the magistrate. It worked surprisingly well and has set up some character conflicts regarding the magical mcguffin in the old Xia tomb, mage wants to study it, crusader wants to destroy it, venturer wants to sell it, thief just wants to find his family who were kidnaped by the orcs infesting the place, fighter wants to get in good with the magistrate so he can get a job as yamen runner.
>>98902508>no way can two people who spent literally 10+ years on the same website and internet culture have a similar opinion
>>98900369I do, I clearly communicate it with my players too.A short campaign of preferably half a dozen sessions, with small arcs into which the players, situations in which their backstories and their choices can play into and come to fruition.The goal is to have a quick 2 month campaign, assuming we do a 4h session every weekend, after which we're left satisfied and happy.I don't want endless campaigns that lead nowhere or "sandboxes". That shit's lame, gay and retarded, unstructured and pointless.Nor do I want hexcrawls. They're lame and do nothing for me, nor do they convey the actual experience of travel.
>>98903481So your players never interact with NPCs?Weird game.>hours of expositionwhere did you get "hours of exposition" from>I'm hiring adventurers to go do X! I'll pay Y!
>>98904089The monsters are NPCs.>where did you get hours of expositionFrom all the times I sat down expecting to play a game, but only received hours of exposition for my time.
>>98904289Oh I get it, you're trolling.My bad, carry on.
>>98904407>trollingI wish I was.
>>98904089Pretty sure he doesn't have a game, just a bunch of complaints about other games and ideas for how his game would be different. He's specific about what isn't in his game, or what complaints about game design aren't relevant, but says nothing to describe what playing his game is actually like.
I watch how much time it took our most frequent GM to finish a campaign of specific length then increase the number of sessions by one third to account for the fact I'm not as experienced as he is.
