“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Setting up a new game in a new system can be a bit bewildering. Faced with learning new rules and dealing with the logistics of managing a group is stressful. So – when it comes time to start the new game, its easy to make preparing for the campaign slip. Many role-playing games include a module in the back to “quick-start” your party on their way. I’m not a big fan. Before you start running the game, you need a plan. You need to prepare.
I run a game where the players are free to do pretty much anything they want. They know that that the plot hooks I give them are all optional – and sometime they’re traps. I prefer to run campaigns where the players have to take control to prosper. That is the first step to planning your campaign – figure out how you want to run your game.
What are your options? Here’s a sampling:
1 – Buy a box campaign and run a module-of-the-week game:
If you look fondly back on Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors or the Dragonlance modules – this may be the path for you. It’s a great way to get a group together and go through a well-written story without having to do all the footwork of setting up your own campaign. Generally module-of-the-week games are going to force the players to follow a set course or path through the story – if the story is much more than “here is a dungeon to explore.” It is a tried and true and very successful strategy for running a game. One advantage of this format is the players can take turns being the DM without much disruption.
To prepare to run a module-of-the-week campaign you need to buy the modules you plan to run and read them before the game starts. You may want to highlight key parts of the module (for example skill checks or hidden doors and traps).
If this is your first time trying to run a game – start here.
2 – Buy a box campaign and run your own story:
One step away from running stories out of a module is to purchase and learn a campaign and then run your own stories in the campaign. If you’ve read the fiction of the campaign world then you may already be thinking of places you want to take your players and scenes you want to play out again. The sheer volume of material that’s out there to support these published campaigns is a great strength. On the other hand, anyone who’s ever tried to run a Star Wars campaign can tell you that all the expanded universe material means that your players may challenge your vision of the universe with their own completely valid and well cited argument for how things “should” be.
To prepare to run a box campaign story – read the fiction and talk to your players about your expectations. Tell them whether you intend to take the campaign outside of cannon or not – and whether you want them to correct you or not. Then, make an outline of your story – identify significant characters and locations; plan out a few encounters for the first night; don’t write a module – plan to improvise a bit.
Again, another great kicking off point.
3 – Build your own campaign:
The big-bad of preparation work is to design your own campaign world from the ground up and then run your campaign in it. I’m biased toward this option – it’s what I enjoy most. Generally, I don’t recommend trying to write up a whole world at once – pick a location, a valley, a town or neighborhood in a city. Identify the nearby cities, figure out who governs the area the game is set in and what kind of government they run (Lawyer thinking at work).
For my money, the best way to prepare to run your own campaign is to have enough of detail worked out to guide the players through character creation – the use their characters to help design the world they live in. As with the box campaign, just write up a few NPCs to guide and interact with the players and a few quick encounters. Keep it simple. Once you’ve started to run the campaign for a few weeks you’ll start to fill in the blanks in the campaign with useful answers that came up during play.
Keep notes.
4 – Something else:
It’s your game – you tell me what you do to prep.