How to Quickly Create an RPG Campaign in a Few Hours
How to create a RPG / D&D campaign in 8 steps
INTRODUCTION
This is a repost of my previous blog. But I fixed some typos, currated and added content.
The title may be bold, but it's actually possible. Of course, the number of hours highly varies on whether you have access to some resources, and whether you are used to create some of the particular content. But we'll go through it and make it as simple as possible. The final product will be PLAYABLE. But still the goal is to be MINIMALIST.
It's important to understand that in this case, the goal was to pump up the campaign as fast as possible while making sure it's decent, and that it's a sandbox hexcrawl. If you want to make the best campaign ever, you'll most likely not going to use as much random generation as I did and make some more conscious choices. But in the end the goal is to play no ? It's not necessarily meant for very complex railroading storyline. Some people will find my notes not enough, or too much; but at least it's a starting point.
Also, I realized after making all of this many years ago, that there is a very similar thing on the net: Gygax 75 Challenge. Very good read. I didn't readjust my things to be consistent and transparent, but some points overlap since the source is almost the same. There are also other very good resources on the net and it can help you to do any portion of your prep (thanks Robert !). There are multiple very good methods that are simple, and some people share them for sandbox and dungeons. My method is based on what is present in the LBBs and therefore, expedient. To each his own.
The steps are as follow:
Meta Concept (product: a few sentences)
Regional Map (product: a 5x5 or 10x10 hex map with no keys except for whatever is already in mind)
Factions (product: a few lines)
Main Town (product: a map, keys, rumours, some random tables)
Main Dungeon (product: three level worth of maps; it's actually all randomly generated)
Make Links Between Megadungeon and Outside World (product: a couple of lines)
Finalize Map with New Keys (product: hexmap)
Finish it
Let's go through this.
1. Meta Concept
Needed: Nothing
What you get: Overall concept of the campaign
Product: A few lines to describe your campaign concept
What you need to do:
World
This is where you need to find first a catchy concept, and then expand on it. If you already are using a premade world, or a subset of an existing campaign of yours, it's easier. If not, first of all create a general concept for your world focused on a THEME, such as:
Sword & Sorcery in a Bloodborne world
Medieval Fantasy where social class is represented by fantasy races
Antiquity post-apoc wasteland influenced by Jorodoswsky or Moebius
etc.
Then, you can scribble 1-2 lines about the world (or make a sketch of the map), and pin point where you want the campaign. In my case, my setting for this campaign is this:
Medieval fantasy where feodal relations are Covenants (Old Testament + Dark Souls)
You don't need to be original or whatever: this is for you. No copyright here.
Campaign Region
Now you know what happens at large, which can inform your factions, your random encounter, and so on. Now you need a "localized campaign" per se. Answer the following questions:
What is the terrain type predominance in the campaign region?
Forest, mountain, plains, etc. You can roll one at random if you want to. This will be important for the general dynamic of the region.
What is the regional hook/uniqueness?
In one sentence, describe in your head what you want to be the "moving piece" for your players. For example, B2 Keep on the Borderland is about "a keep in a wilderness replete with monsters and a set of caverns of chaos with factions in it".
This is most likely where you’ll need either creative juice or some kind of generator. If you are really out of idea and you want to do it now as you read the article, then try: roll a high HD monster + it wants to recover an artefact lost in the megadungeon for power/ritualistic purposes.
What is the plot twist?
Find an oddity or special thing about your hook that could be hijacked later for more content or make things more interesting. For B2, it would be: "there's a traitor priest inside the keep".
So for my campaign, it will be this: "Diablo 1". I'll flesh it out for the sake of the exercise: "A newly conquered region by a King is turned to despair when he becomes mad and dissapear while the local monastery starts spewing out undead and demons. Twist: The Archibishop used the King’s son for a dark ritual that summoned a greater demon down in the bowel of the monastery.”
2. Regional Map
Needed: Concept and terrain predominance
What you get: Empty map of your region
Product: A hex map
What you need to do:
Here you can either generate a random map from the net or make your own. It is suggested to go small for now (5x5 or 10x10). I decided to make my own 10x12 (for the sake of it). Here is the result (forget all the keys and numbers for now). It should be based on your terrain predominance.
If you already have some global ideas on your campaign, you can put them there. For example, I put Tristram (town on the right side) with the monastery at the base of a mountain (just north of Tristram). I also decided to put Leoric's tomb elsewhere to engage in the wilderness, so the castle center north you see is both his tomb and castle, aka a dungeon.
3. Factions
Needed: Concept and map
What you get: Some factions to populate your map
Product: A concept for each faction
What you need to do:
You can either invent factions from the get go, or get stuff from your concept (or both). I suggest not having too many factions as it’s easier to add some than remove them.
To invent factions, you can just roll up some random monsters from the terrain type and make it into an actualy faction. In my case, I decided on the following:
Tristram
Evil Priest Lazarus/Diablo (doesn't really count, he's the BBEG and we all know what he wants)
Giants
Barbarians
Paladins
You can create deep faction interaction, or go with a simpler method. For a short or medium campaign (or even just for this guide since it’s a first pass), I suggest this great and short method that I used also.
[FACTION] want(s) [MOTIVATION], but [OBSTACLE]. Therefore, [PLAN OR METHOD OF SURMOUNTING OBSTACLE].
For mine, I stayed pretty low in details and I'll change the rest as per the (only) player action:
Tristram want TO BE AT PEACE, but THE MONASTERY IS EVIL. Therefore, THEY ATTRACT ADVENTURERS TO DEAL WITH IT.
150 pop in town
150 pop in farms
15 militia
Giants want to REGAIN THEIR KINGDOM, but HUMANOIDS CONTROL THE TERRITORY. Therefore, they MAKE ALLIANCE WITH MONSTERS (Minotaur, Centaur, etc.) TO PUSH BACK HUMANOIDS. They’ll also enslave humanoids to sell them up north.
8 (4 at camp)
Barbarians want to LIVE IN PEACE, but THEY ARE LOW IN RESOURCES. Therefore, THEY TRY TO STAY LOW AND RAID OTHER FACTIONS.
50 pop/fighters
25 farmers/herders
Wandering Paladins want HOLYNESS, but EVERYTHING IS EVIL. Therefore, THEY PATROL THE LAND AND HACK EVIL.
10
This help you:
Build rumours
Build random encounter
Determine reaction to PCs (for example, in Tristram, they will be VERY nice to the PC because they are afraid of the monastery and they don't want to sacrifice their own people - they already did)
Hooks
And so on
4. Main Town
Needed: Concept, a map, factions
What you get: Detailed town
Product: A map, rumours, some tables
What you need to do:
Take up a map generator for the town. When it is to your liking, put some keys in it for major stuff and roll random NPCs from online generators. In my case I already had the NPCs from the game. This is the result:
Afterwards, write a short briefing sheet for NPCs. Something along those lines:
Name (class/career/in game title)
Illustration or 1-2 sentence appearance block
How to roleplay (one key mannerism + one personality trait/attitude trait → can include stuff like how he does trade) + Archetype
Quick Bio (context for why/how the NPC acts/talk)
Key info (clues, actions, triggers, etc.) which can be just a small (1d6) rumour table
Rumours can be based on multitude of factors, and can be either true or false:
Sub hook/quests
Main campaign hook
Factions
Random encounters
Keys in the world
Another NPC
If you have no idea, you can literally put down one of each and it will give you 6 rumours. You could also put "triggers" for some rumours, where they will only speak about X if the PC did something first. Like Griswold don't trust strangers, so he won't give information about the Magic Stone prior to him going at least once in the Monastery to kill some monsters.
I also personally created a table for hirelings possibility and so on. Hirelings are critical in this campaign since it's solo play, so it's up to you.
There are other ways of generating simple RPG towns. As long as you have one at the end of this step.
5. Main Dungeon
Needed: Concept, a map, factions, a starting town
What you get: Three dungeon level
Product: Dungeon map with keys
What you need to do:
Open up donjon, select AD&D, take your concept for your options, fire it up three times (level 1, level 2, level 3). Download in HTML, open with notepad (or notepad++) to make minor modifications to include your hooks. Boom, finished. Next.
Of course you can take more time to do it properly, but keep in mind our goal is to finish the campaign in a few hours. If players don’t actually go in the dungeon, of if you end up having more time to prep, this step is a good one to come back to and do it properly/manually.
6. Make Links Between the Megadungeon and the Outside World
Needed: Concept, a map, factions, a starting town, a megadungeon start
What you get: New keys ideas
Product: Couple of lines
What you need to do:
This part is more "creative" and will depend on each person: you need to come up with links between the megadungeon and the campaign map to make things more interesting and create more incentives for both (so that group with a heavier focus on hexcrawling will also go in the dungeon and vice-versa). Write it down in one line for each. But here are a couple of examples:
Create some ruins in your campaign map that inform your megadungeon history and stuff
Create some wandering NPC that can help in the megadungeon
Have some locked door or stairs in the megadungeon that can only be opened with special keys found in other ruins/villages (doesn’t need to be a mandatory section of the dungeon)
Create some mcguffin that will make a level of the dungeon easier (e.g. a level with lava and you can cool it with some magical item found in a ruin)
And so on
For us, it could be something like this:
King’s Leoric tomb is in the castle to the north, but it gives information about what happened and who is the Archbishop
A group of cannibal worship the Butcher in the mountains
A magical anvil is deep down in the megadungeon and can be used to craft a magical object with a meteorite stone that fell in the swamps
Etc.
7. Finalize Map with New Keys
Needed: Concept, a map, factions, a starting town, a megadungeon start, couple of lines of ideas
What you get: New keys
Product: Updated map
What you need to do:
Just put your keys ideas on your map. If you have less than 25% of your map filed with stuff, now's the time to put random hex stuff: landmarks, mountains, new roads, new village, ruins, etc. Just go nuts to create a little more attraction. Now's a good time to put down where your factions have their camp, and how it's defended. You could use this tool to create it from the start if you so wished. Use hex content generator to create the "padding" of it.
8. Finish it
To finish, you could do any of these:
Create random encounter table (one for each terrain type, with some unique encounter here and there)
Give NPC leaders to each faction
Have at least one powerful artefact hidden somewhere in your campaign with rumours related to it
Make a list of 10 critical information about the main plot. Then, choose one of these as being 100% secret from the player no matter what; put two in very difficult places to find; and then put the others in rumours, NPCs, books, etc. that can be gathered. This makes for an interesting campaign mythos. For an added benefit, don’t just put the information per se, but rather, use clues.
Anything else you can think of !
Well now you are done. The rest will be up to the players action and you to prepare accordingly. They go deeper in the dungeon? Build more levels. They interact with a particular faction more? Flesh it out, create subfactions, create lieutenants NPCs, etc. They explore hexes? Flesh out the other ones knowing they’ll get to it.
I hope this help some people starting their own campaign!