Dungeon Mastering: Campaign building

"Rai opened the heavy wooden door to Midnight Keep's main hall. The smell of hundreds of years of neglect and dust filled her nostrils as she gripped her lantern tightly. She waited inside the crack of the door, listening for any signs of movement. There was nothing but the sound of dark empty halls left to rot. She opened the door the entire way, letting the stone cooled air flow across her face.'

'She heard the sounds of metal sliding against metal, strings drawn taught and heavy footsteps above her. She threw her lantern into the air, lighting the platform above to reveal her ambushers ready to pounce. Her eyes locked on her target, his lightning green eyes and smokey grey hair up the stairs and to the left. The lantern crashed to the floor and she reacted. A flash of arrows filled the door and stone where she once stood."

So you've got a bunch of friends over and you want to start of game of good ol' fashion tabletop huh? No one else volunteers to DM (dungeon Mastering), or perhaps that's your thing, wahtever it is, you've taken the driver's seat to bring the players into a world of interactive storytelling.

I say Interactive Storytelling instead of 'role playing' because the term 'role play' has changed over the years. Before World of Warcraft and equivalent games, role playing was more often recognized as a bunch of geeky guys slumped over a book and scribbling notes on a piece of paper. Now it's recognized by the gaming industry as something you do with an electronic system. To avoid any kind of confusion, interactive storytelling will be the term I use to refer to the guys with the books and scribble paper!

I've got no idea how to play this game, let alone run it.

As much as the interactive game books will try to tell you, Dungeon Mastering is NOT easy. That's what they say to get you to buy the books. My advice? Go out and play with people that know what they're doing. Like anything, you can't just pick up a book, thumb the first ten pages and expect to be the resident expert on a subject.

HOWEVER!

If you have a player that has played the game for years, knows the rules so well they consider tattooing them on their backs, is willing to put up with you being in control (or you're willing to put up with them), then never fear. You have your resident expert. The only thing you need worry about is what I'm about to visit next.

Here's an Orc, there's an Orc, Everywhere there's an Orc Orc Orc!

Yeah. We both have been in those games. Maybe you were the one running it. I won't judge. These are the games that don't last beyond maybe four or five sessions, mainly because it's the same thing. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Why do we do this to ourselves?

We create a world, or play in one, where there's a little town besieged by orcs, filled with orphaned adventurers with dark pasts, and unwilling NPCs that would rather chew their own ear off than answer a simple question. Or perhaps there's a town that, for the first five minutes is OK, and then the city is laid waste by Goblins. Goblins? Really? Alright, we're getting taken over by goblins. That's fine.

We just go along with this. Without ever saying "Wait a minute. I can dream up something more epic in my half-conscious state that I'm in while on the john."

How do we get away from this? First we recognize there's a problem.

Step 1. Evaluate your game.

Has it been three hours since you've put down your dice and done something besides killing? Has it been three hours since you've killed something? How's your inventory? Are any of the NPCs named Bob? How many? yeah. It's time.

Step 2. Are you the DM? If so go to Step 3. If not, it's time to have a nice sit down with them and explain the dire situation.

Perhaps by directing them to this article. Give them some warm milk, play a peppy song. Rub their shoulders perhaps, or tell them everything is going to be alright. After you've convinced them it's time for a change, continue to step 3.

Step 3. If your party is in the middle of a battle, finish it. After that, introduce a chance to get the hell out of this monotonous nightmare. In short, a hook.

What a hook?

you poor thing. It's OK, this is why you're here.

Every written body of literature or spoken word, regardless of what it is or what purpose it's fulfilling, REQUIRES a hook. A hook is something that draws the reader, or player in our case, into the story.

For example, my hook for this article was a short snippet of Rai entering an abandoned keep and stumbling into an ambush. You came this far, so it must've been good.

Anyway, there's plenty of websites to find random adventure hooks to entice and enthrall, but if that's what you were looking for you could've googled "Campiagn Ideas" or "D&D DM help" or something. I assume you want to create something of your own. It's simple. Let the players create the hook.

Oh crap! I put the characters in control. Revolutionary, yes? well no. They are they ones that are supposed to drive the story. They make the decisions, you provide the consequence. Get the characters to create their back stories. I'll write another blog about back stories to refer them to later.

Once you have the backstory you have a world that they have created. They have left strings left untied. HOOKS!

For example:

Rai was an exotic assassin, sent on a mission to overthrow a neglectful Lord of a major trade city. On the mission, she was betrayed by her employer and left to rot in a cell. She escaped, killing the Lord and brought back her contract. She got nothing for the kill, was barred from the employer, and slowly slipped back into the streets. Through the years, she vowed to seek vengeance on her previous employer, and put her name up as a hired sword.

Boom. The player of Rai has given you a hook to hunt down her previous employer. Is the previous employer watching her? Waiting for her to strike? Mayhaps.

Step 4. Let the players make the decisions. You give them the consequence.

I've said this before, and we will revisit it. If you introduce them to a city (connected to a hook you've given them) and they decide to enter through the city sewers, you should say "yeah". However, if they say "Hey, can we get a dragon?"... well, no.

In the sewers they could be overrun by the local thieves living down there, discover perhaps that the sick peasants are thrown there to die, or maybe find that the entire city is sitting on an ancient burial site. Consequences of their decisions. They exist in life. Orcs everywhere do not.

Step 5. Who's the villain?

We gotta kill something. Perhaps we have a backstory that reveals a villain that we knock off. After that? Maybe a contract that doesn't want to pay. Perhaps a rogue paladin bent on the destruction of all opposing his god, including the cleric in your party.

Whoever it is, make sure they have the archetype down, and that they've got escape plans. Refer to my future article "Creating a master villain".