There are many kinds of campaigns you can run and many ways to
describe a campaign. However, people tend to have certain ideas,
themes, or enemies they prefer to use. One of my earlier posts said
the same thing, and I know I'm guilty of it. Undead are just so much fun. However, it can also be incredibly rewarding to break
out of our comfort zones and do something new. It can be difficult,
that's for sure, but the benefits are often worth it.
Why?
This kind of thing can be a bit risky. The hope is that by going
outside your comfort zone, you can get game experiences you otherwise
wouldn't have. Such a thing can be particularly important when you
hit a wall or start getting bored with running games. However, I find
it works best if you really want to go after that new experience. It
can be very hard to do things you've never done before and having the
resolve and desire to do so goes a long way. It makes it seem less
intimidating. Doing it in a responsible manner is very important as a
Dungeon Master as well. Both sides of the table should be having fun.
Big Bad
One of the most effective ways to get outside my comfort zone for a
campaign is to play around with the mastermind behind the events
opposing the players. Typically, this kind of character influences
the campaign in incredibly large ways based on who they are even if
it's taking place in the same campaign location. What kind of
henchmen do they have? Where are they? What's their plan? How do they
like to achieve their goals? How do they act when they have the upper
hand compared to being bested? All of these details stem from the
adversary of the campaign and can go a long way to inspiring
something you might not have thought of otherwise. It's also one of
those things where we often have a favourite type and need to fight
the urge to repeat the same kind of villain.
Setting
On the other hand we can start with a setting first. Particular
settings can inspire and lend themselves particular kinds of
villains. What that particular kind is can vary based on the Dungeon
Master, but in general I've found it works very well. Even looking at
published adventures, I tend to be drawn to different kinds of
encounters and ideas when running a Ravenloft campaign compared to a
Planescape campaign. It generally doesn't come from general
appearance, though sometimes the appearance can go a long way to help
come up with the rest. A village in a prairie region inspires very
different ideas than being in hell itself. However, in these cases
the appearance aids coming up with ideas and rules for the world.
It's those rules and ideas that tend to have the biggest effect on
me. It's not uncommon for the rules I come up with to influence the
physical characteristics.
There are many different rules we can think of and not all will apply
to every setting. However, some general ones come up fairly often.
Can the players escape? In Ravenloft, the rules of the world
typically try to trap them there with the horrors. How and to where
can players travel? Cities? Dimensions? Other planets? By spaceship
or by portal? The other major one that often comes up is on how magic
is treated. Are spell-casters generally accepted and are magic items
common? A bad guy afraid of death and going to any lengths for a
potion of longevity makes far more sense in a low magic world than in
a world where you can buy one on any corner for a silver. And of
course, such a choice can result in certain themes and situations to
arise that otherwise you wouldn't have thought of. A potion of
clairvoyance can also sometimes be used as the motivation as well,
particularly if the bad guy wants to find something.
Danger
It's very easy to have every campaign in the same kind of level of
danger. Either resurrection magic is plentiful, it's rare, or it's
somewhere in the middle. Regardless of what the preference is, I've
found that Dungeon Masters typically stick to one. This can be fine.
It tends to be the level of danger we are good at. However, playing
with this element of a campaign can result in big changes to the
feeling of the campaign. It can also influence the previous 2
elements if it's core enough. An occasional harder combat encounter
is one thing. No healing magic at all is another. Playing with this
idea can lead to some interesting situations. A deadlier game lends
itself far better to horror type games. A less deadly one can be more
easily played for laughs, since players will need to optimize their
actions and characters nearly as much.
Tone
Tone is a hard one to talk about. Still, the general impression you
want for your campaign can help give inspiration for the previous
things we mention. If you want a darker campaign with an emphasis on
dark humour, your ideas will be different. Approaching the campaign
with that mindset tends to lead me with different ideas. On the other
hand, if I want a more light hearted campaign, it leads me to others.
Some ideas can be played in both ways. A colony of mind flayers or a
creature that takes over a person (from my experience this tends to
be some form of ghost or an intellect devourer, though a doppleganger
can also be used in similar ways) can be incorporated in both types
of games. The horror aspect is fairly obvious but the totally obvious
strange guy with the party that the players always dismiss due to
increasingly silly reasoning is an idea I've seen used before for
comedic effect as well. One thing I want to note here is that
sometimes being aware of the tone you want to go after can make a big
difference subconsciously and actively.
Personally, I find that the first step is often the hardest. Get the ball rolling and things get easier. Good luck to you all.
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