Davvy's Guide to Writing a Campaign
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- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
- Writing is hard, but it doesn't have to be.
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Song: Kingdom of Bards - Adrian Von Ziegler
I heard "that plotline you wrote on the back of a napkin" and felt that call out in my soul
my setting started as a single idea: what if we had a city that was built entirely on a bridge?
I am in love with the idea of a bridge connecting to mountain peaks. If you watch neebs gaming check out their recent conan exiles videos they make a dope castle like that
Now I have multi-tier 8 Bridge City about the size of NYC that's sitting over a huge hellpit that was created by a demon lord a few hundred years ago. Before the demon lord screwed over everyone, an epic wizard came from another continent and sealed him away by destroying a priceless god artifact and using his own lifeforce, transmuting large bridges of earth to cover up the hellpit in the process.
@@DurdleDers I dig that. Is there any adventuring going on in the pit? Is it a mine for crazy metals or jewels? Is it just a death pit of demons and fire?
@@timstiteler4817 it's definitely a decent chunk of the map in that it stretches down into a huge underdark that was chopped in half, also tons of latent planar instability leads to bleed through and tons of weird stuff coming up thru the cracks
That sounds like a lot of fun. I also like the idea of a giant dam city. Maybe even with some sort of bever humanoid that has incredible engineering skills. Super complex city construction all out of wood making a giant dam.
"I am your farther at some point"
Out of context quotes are the best. Great video by the way!
Players throwing my very easy solution out the window and arguing for 15 minutes on a “better” one is legitimately the best part of dnd
🤣
“Spread the cheeks of your wallet” is possibly the best phrase for throwing money around I’ve ever heard
Prison wallet
you prolly dont give a damn but does someone know of a way to get back into an instagram account?
I was dumb lost the password. I would love any help you can offer me
@@aryanalijah3502 I'm sorry, I can't help you
If ads help you stay afloat, then who am I to complain.
Yup, so spread the cheeks of your wallet and pitch in!
I'd rather they have their own ads then CZcams trying to get me to buy a Truck or some purfume!
Honestly as long as he does something comical, I'm fine with it too.
Just skip it.
Reeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
"all campaigns are railroaded"
Bard and wild mage: *are you sure about that?*
*Dat Game of Thrones Shade*
You really helped my first campaign out. Thanks Davvy, you're the best DnD youtuber!
Indeed
New DMs also need to be prepared for their players to spend 3 hours interrogating the first 2 NPCs they come across.
Also chairs. You never know when your players will demand to spend a hour rolling investigation checks on a randomly placed chair.
"You got an 18 on your investigation and a 15 on perception? Okay. With that, you can tell that it's a chair. Probably locally made. It's no less a chair than it was when the rogue rolled a 15 and the barbarian rolled a 12."
Ffs not everything is a mimic! You use a mimic one time and now they cry mimic all the time.
Hmmm. What if its a mimic rogue?! It could have rolled a 28 on stealth. Let's stab all the chairs to be safe
Litterally just started a new campaign
Have session 1 starting in 12ish hours
So good to have this video here in time
Edit:
Ahhhhh this explained nothing
Really? I found this really helpful actually
Literally, you are probably too new to understand the tips being shared.
this video is more about prep *before* the game starts, but for a 1st session try to have a rough set of bullet points, and adlib your way between them. Cue cards and basic notes that say 'adlib, he's a butt face' are your friend
Dont worry dude. you can do it!!
@@feurgott9332 its been more than 12 hours lol
Overall the session went surprisingly well, definetly need to improve my improve and voice acting abilities though
6:30 "...or *seduce* the amulet."
D&D is a weird game sometimes.
EDIT: Is the villain trying to seduce you to the dark side? Put all your points in Charisma and seduce the dark side to you!
It's time to counter charm and I m not talking about the spell ;)
As a DM I have literally no plan for my campaigns, I just come up with a world, and whatever makes the most interesting story in the moment
And that's a great way to do it.
I'll take a DM that makes stuff up at the very last microsecond over one that gives me the "Telltale game" experience.
True player agency is one of the few things that gives tabletop rpgs an edge over video-games. Taking that away seems to me like a disservice to the genre.
Same
Yeah. Like this video is for a specific kind of campaign like a not sandbox
Welcome to the sandbox campaign. Where we make a little world and send the party through it, letting them do as they please. Y'know. The opposite of railroads. Cause those are bullshit.
My campaign was started out as a module then became loosely based on the plot of the module and now it's a open sandbox where I improvise everything because my players will destroy my plans within the first 20 minutes of play.
As a person who got dragged into being a DM for the first time with 20 min for preparation I can say yeah you right.
Same. At least we were running a module that I owned because I had bought the essentials kit. (still hadn't looked through it in depth or had even played the actual game before, but y'know)
I think it's overkill to write every possible scenario you can think of. Because 9 times of out 10 the players choose the path you never even considered. Improv is a good tool to have when DMing and it limits the need to write it out.
I'll take a DM that makes stuff up at the very last microsecond over one that gives me the "Telltale game" experience.
True player agency is one of the few things that gives tabletop rpgs an edge over video-games. Taking that away seems to me like a disservice to the genre.
Agency in anything is arguable.
The feeling of agency is more important
The first idea that started the campaign I'm going to run, started with "what if the world worshipped a single door?"
Did you just make Kingdom Hearts in D&D?
The door to every place in earth, understandable.
A random door though?
Wha
I'm running my first campaign but my players are moving through it much faster than I anticipated. This was a well timed video
Add random encounters during travel to allow you to have more time to prep and think about what the players are doing and remember to have down time sessions where they're just shopping talking to NPCs or following side goals for their characters.
The slow zoom on Mercer was the equivalent of inspiring church gospel
I improv every session I've ever done. And I don't think it always comes across this way. I made a fleshed out world, and I know how the world would run without the players there. The players being in the world is what I react to and I let them do anything they want. I have three campaigns right now happening on the same continent at the same time. Everything they do destroys the balance of the world and I love it. Good and evil are constantly struggling to get a step up on eachother because my players are chaos incarnate.
I love your analogies particularly about the dumpster fire behind the DM screen so relatable at times. Hope your still doing stuff, for this was good to watch.
Absolutely staggeringly good video. This is the BEST DM advice I have ever heard and explained clearly and humorously. After several campaigns, dozens of sessions, and countless hours of you tube advice this is EXACTLY how I have come to DM (I wish). This is the only way to do it without loosing your mind!
Bravo!
I'm having a session tomorrow of our freshly started campaign, one I was already having serious doubts about. Thank you for this Davy, it actually helped me a lot.
I love the digs at the Star Wars and Game of Thrones bad writing, lol.
from the bottom of my cybernetic heart i say thank you
thanks for giving that timestamp skip for that ad even if its just up for half a second, you showing it at all make you better than most youtubers.
Thanks for This vídeo, man. You are really helping New DM's to Bloom!
I think its good to do arcs for each character (keep in mind this is probably better for waaaaay longer campagins), start off with a unrelated plot that ties into everyone's arc eventually, then work on what you think their arcs should be, then begin to weave them all together, that way it makes the stakes of the final push more hard hitting as they feel they are part of it from the beginning
Literally writing for my campaign as this is posted, thanks dav
Thank you very much for this video I am new to d&d and I have been trying to learn it everything has been so confusing but this video helps a lot. Thank you so much for making this.
Man, davvy, what lvl of bard are you? This video just gave me 1d100 of inspiration to write my campaign!
Still rolls a 1...
One thing i do for my personal campaign is write up the next session for my group; hidden objects, possible detours ect. and then let their decissions dictate the next thing i write.
Like my group harrassed a "Shady man in bar" who was a random NPC, and by pissing him off they gave me a whole new plot to write up which will set up the next 3-4 story lines.
The accompanying pictures are glorious. So much shade being thrown when they reference something you understand
Jeez, the Nerdarchy guys really bought out every DnD CZcamsr out there.
It's nice to see similar folk support each other.
When your villain is a slave owner
"Where's there a whip, THERES A WAY!"
You're the best Davvy, thank you!!!🙃
Fucking love this guy. That ad was even great
@@timstiteler4817 I know right
I literally was thinking of how I was gonna start my first ever campaign you are awesome Davvy!
This video was absolutely fantastic, thank you for taking the time to make it!
Thank you I am picking up the rains soon and needed this 😘
I dm my first time with the lost mine of phindelver, and they killed next to none of the villains so I had to put those reformed villains in the story wish made for some fun moments. My second older brother taught his goblinoids how to properly fight, and in turn they protected the town they originally stole from; from their own tribesmen.
I'm dming my first campaign, a continuation to LMoP, and so far I have the endgame, but have been running one or two session chapters to keep the game going.
I really like all of this advice. You brought up a lot of points I haven’t heard elsewhere, so I really appreciate the additional perspectives. I like the idea of building out a timeline from one catalyst/climax/singularity, that’s an interesting way to make something out of nothing. As someone who struggles with writer’s block, that’s something I’m keen on trying. From one Dave to another, thank you
Learned alot that will help with my style. Def can't be a huge note crafter like you but alot here rings so true
I have tried twice to make a campaign and once to build a world and have failed in all attempts I need this video so thank you
Hey chappy thanks. I was about to end my campaign in a a couple chapters but you talking about this makes ME the dm want to write more for my players so I wanted to take time out of my day to say thanks
I put all my players back story in my campaign this is how. I have a fighter who’s village got raided while he was away and his sister died because of the raid. I have a rouge who’s master was a samurai . And a alchemist who’s parents were also alchemist. My alchemist got a letter from her parents soon after they died. Something really cool that my alchemist let me do is put what ever I wanted in to the letter. So I made the letter say that a man was raiding villages trying to get ingredients for a potion of immortality. Then it was going to be revealed one of the villages that was raided was the fighter’s village. Once they finally tracked down this man it would be revealed that the man was the rouges master. The master was trying to make the immortality potion because he was promised by a necromancer that he would bring the samurai masters wife back from the dead, if he got the materials for a immortality potion. A emotional battle was supposed to ensue between the rouge and his master.
Sadly this never happened one of players had internet issues and could not play after the third session. So rip.
This video helped me so much, thank you. I was making all of these mistakes, and this is the first video I've found to point them out for me big thanks👍
Really great stuff to hear! Two sessions into my first campaign dming, perfect timing
I really needed to hear the "don't worry as long as your players are having a good time" near the end, I'm currently writing a campaign and I'm super stressed. I've got all these ideas and plots I want to incorporate and I just feel like I'm way over my head. I appreciate this video, thanks
One of my favorite of your many awesome videos. Well done.
This is has helped me as a DM who's ending a campaign that's I and most of my players have definitely lost their initial interest in and starting a new game with which all I have are ideas but no outline. I like the idea of winging a game or 2 because I've never done it and the thought that I could develop a plot from just winging a few games sounds like the coolest thing ever!
Thanks for your video Davvy! Fuck thank you for all your videos, I've been able to take away something from every single one of them and I really appreciate it!
i liked the subtle reference to matt mercers plight
I've just sat down to begin writing a new campaign when i got the notification. Lol
Yeah definitely felt that my last campaign lacked cohesion, I should try out that trick with writing down notes for each session. It will probably save me one time I come completely unprepared and make the story flow a bit better.
To be honest, I genuinely believe the worst thing to happen to DnD was in the early 2000s when forums and CZcams vlogs like Counter Monkey fetishized the idea of the charming rogue who defeated the evil GM and their railroading, which to this day plagues the game with its stink that TTRPGs are about player vs DM instead of the two cooperating.
Great vid and that ad was hilarious. Seriously great content
hi davy! agree with everything except the including of backstory in a campaign. there is one exception to that rule that should be noted. meatgrinders. if you're running a deadly adventure like barrowmaze or rappan athuk and you have party members frequently or semi-frequently dying like you would irl in those types of dangerous situations then you can hardly work backstory in for a charachter that might be dead before the end of the next session.
Yes... This came in at the right time. Thanks Dav
I just have a basic idea and don't really have an end goal, I feel like that takes a bit of pressure off. There's a war about to break out, and the PCs choose who to help and how the dominoes fall.
“Spread the cheeks of your wallet”
Thank you sir, I will now use that expression.
my first time DM-ing is a one shot since i always dread the day they want a real campaign and this helps, quite a bit. also take a nice little happiness when players somehow make shit up of an excuse to do things in paranoia when in reality i was like "huh...... great idea"
I'm more in the habit of making a framework, as opposed to planning everything or planning nothing, I go to the half-way point. Better than flying by the seat of my pants, or having to throw away plans.
I think your DMing method is a bit exhausting, you're putting in tons of effort before the game starts which will inevitably go to waste.
buuuuuuuuuuut then again you run several campaigns at once so the method I use of going session by session probably wouldn't work there
As a DM currently writing my first campaign, I'm planning on just writing loose plot points that will happen regardless of what my players do behind the scenes, and adapting session by session based on what happens, because eventually, those big plot points are going to be reached by the players.
We'll see how it goes, but some of myy favourite roleplaying experiences have been when the DMs adapt their story to the choices their character make.
i had to rewright my campaign two times. tow complete times.
One thing I do every once in a while is I'll talk to a single player in private and offer them to be an assistant of mine, if they accept only the two of us will know. Their job is to keep the group in the right general direction. They still wont know the overall plot but they will know ahead of time, hey this town will be important or it would be nice to visit the bar. That way in game and at the table it feels organic but it helps the story progress
I'm starting to write my first DnD campaign and this helped a lot more than some other ones, I play DnD with my family and I've been wanting to write a campaign for ages, I just have had no clue where to start. I really hope this goes well and thanks a lot!
Im rounding out my first year as a DM, and when I began, I thought i could create everything. My players are polite, but they were willing to say that there was too much at once. Over time, I was able to develop how much I should prepare. When they would travel to a new town, Id write what should be in it, not exactly what is. Later I would save what I added so later in would make sense in continuity. I definitely prepare more than I need for every session, but I tend to use it more as a personal guideline to how it should go, and when stuff isnt used, I add it somewhere else
I wish I could like this video 1k times cuz this was the best advice I've gotten as a new dm. And trust me I've watched a lot of videos
Good ideas for the campaign
It’s all about having fun
Ha, I actually live in PA
Omg please do voiceovers for audio books. I could sleep to your voice ❤️😂
This helped...
I am a fairly young teenager who has only ever played AL with adults twice my age, I think I’ve only played about 15 sessions. And then I tried to dm a pre-written campaign for my family who had never played dnd in their lives and it went as well as you think it did....
So this helped...
Thank god my friends and I are on the same page (we have a massive world that we’re all developing campaigns for similar to the MCU)
Top ten anime crossovers!:
Nerdarchy and Davvy Chappy
I don't write too much. The most writing i do, is world building, taking notes and writing out temporary stat blocks. Mostly because, you can cast plot hook after plot hook, and often the PC's don't bite. Or worse, they later let go, after they have bitten. I have honestly found great success, in slowly building the PC's up as they world explore, and then i introduce villains or rivals who are threatened by them in some way shape or form. That way, they can plot hook and railroad themselves all day.
I make up the encounters, Stat Blocks, NPC's, Voices, and Loot, as i go along. That way, I'm not flipping through some book all day, for one lousy block of text.
It's incredibly easy to involve a characters backstory if they have a animal companion. Literally just have them encounter another of the animal companions species from the same bloodline
i like to have gods anger level in my sessions to keep my friends in line
I find myself making settings and Key NPCs and just watch the deterministic chaos ensues instead of making stories, this would make the world even more flexible, and truly open ended.
I notes down the best strategic decisions for the bad guys with a goal in mind and let things play out on a sheet of paper behind the dm screen, and the players only perceive the effects of these decisions when it spills over to them, no one that’s not in the bad guy’s executive team knows what’s up unless they are some 20 intelligence military strategists.
If the players don’t pick up on the occasional spillage of consequences, the late game will get really intense.
One technique I use is having a flowchart of interwoven politics between the continent's nations prepared before the first or second session and letting the players actions impact those politics. I also have several dungeon crawls pre-written just in case they're in "THAT" mood. There's always at least 12 McGuffins out there that'll alter the politics if found, but aren't advertised to the players until they decide to look into that weird item they found of that odd looking bandit/kobold/orc/ooze. I let the players be the Butterfly that Effects the world. I love seeing their faces when they realize that the only reason that the home nations of 2 of the players are at war is because of that bar fight they got into 13 sessions back.
One key skill of a DM: Being willing to rework/rewrite anything that has not been established at the table. I cannot count the ways my game has been improved because I didn’t fall into the trap of considering something “canon” just because I wrote it down.
before video reaction: i'm thinking if i made a campaign i would add just enough information and then let the players decide what to do
so you don't have to delete 3 hours of work whenever they roll a nat 20 or derail
I wish my once friend understood this, at least the whole backstory thing as he just went, "Tell your backstories." **Backstories are told** "You are all dead and transported to my world."
So yeah, permanently isolating us from his world to the point because a player decided their character didn't like how the antagonist was doing thing said they wanted to go home, they had to make a character from that world. And this happened in both campaigns I was with him, and really didn't help that he never explained/gave us important info on some of his homebrewed stuff, like giving Wizards "Healing" spells since we didn't have a Cleric in our party and brushed it off saying he was using telekinesis to put the individual back together and other shit that eventually just piled on that unfortunately ruined our friendship due to not wanting to talk about it. Which sucks because there still is a part of me that wishes we were still friends but knows he's too prideful to admit when his homebrew is broken and bends the normal rules to what he wants, leaving the rest of the group to wonder what rules are being in play or not even knowing a certain action exists because the DM fails to notify us the rule is in place. i.e.: dismemberment. Never came up until after my last session in his campaign where he hard focused on my PC (the fight was 4-5 rounds where his homebrewed creature only focused on me for all but one attack against another PC and one AOE) and initially said the puzzle was we didn't kill it fast enough when he homebrews Fireball to ignite the living creature on fire and used contest with his creature with the ability rolls from 14-33 against our 6th-level party instead of setting a DC against the creature's attack/grapple. And even though he was using dismemberment rules, he doesn't tell us and doesn't even randomly roll for the melee attacks against the creature so we could even understand he was using those rules.
Sorry for the rant. I just miss a friend and just disappointed in how they acted for the potential they could've been if he just came to the table to talk things out.
So proud davvy with an add
I like to watch these for inspiration
I think I will use a lot of this so thank you. But I am planning on a humor improve thing and it's my first time dming, but not my first time playing.
When he said painstaking in the beginning I knew I was screwed because so far mine was doing good and was easy
I really like your process, I am 2 years into my game and there is about a year left from my best guess. I have planned it out like KOTOR so that the players feel like they weren't railroaded but it means that there are certain plot points that I'm holding off on. My biggest problem is not rushing. I want them to get to a certain part so bad that I will skip over the little details I planned out when they are taking too long. DO NOT DO THIS. It has been most effective for me to let them go at their pace and not just water down story elements so that they can get the next plot point or fight.
Also remember, you’re dnd universe is a sea of chaos and nothing is set in stone until the players hear you say it. And even then you can change things up
I played a garlic bread cleric in my friend's dnd campaign and SOMEHOW he managed to work it into the story, and it was actually a good story and the other players soon got invested into my character's side story.
Wow Davvy, too soon.
RIP TellTale
0:24 I Legit thought this was about to be a Seth the Programmer collab...how dare you fool me in this way?
Oh my! you don't realise how much I've needed this video. (I'm helping my DM with how to write their story and this will give then so much assisstance)
thanks for this i have a great time thinking of stories but no group to play with yet but its a good way to make a story so if i find a group i can dm or be a player
also ranger/whisper bard are my favorite classes so thanks for making videos to understand them better
So, I’m one of two people on a server who have any D&D experience. I’m not at all experienced though, I’m currently a player in my first campaign for the past 6 or so months. We both offered to DM so we said hey, we’ll do a pair of oneshots and be players for one another. Yesterday I did the first oneshot, we played for 9 hours, party went a totally different route and honestly made it cooler and then befriended the dragon and I ended up rapidly expanding the map with new places, new NPCs, and a totally new plot and Big Bad. Cool, we’ll wrap it up today right?
NO BECAUSE THEY JUST ELECTED ME DM AND THIS IS NOW THE INTRO TO THE CAMPAIGN.
**I AM NOT PREPARED**.
Howdy!
how in the bloody hell are you this fast!
PJ VC I rang the bell icon? It’s 2am here and I have nothing better to do. Bardic inspiration from Best Bard?
Hello!!!
Nice Video. I think it will help me.
Yeh okay but how do I plan for each sessions in a large scale story. I plan each session and the points I want to see, but I don't know where they will get to by the end. There is no crafting a larger story with my group. I've taken a 3 week break and am trying to crafts story this time.
And ideas, I need the help.
I've DM'ed once and my brother was all of the characters and I was the narrative....we coDMed and wrote a story about an artsy fartsy town full of every form of entertainment possible, the problem was that such a place relies on tourism and recently there have been entire theater troupes just vanishing, only to reappear sometime later completely changed. Ruining the towns reputation and thus it's tourist draw
The problem with running this sort of game was that our players, much like myself as a player honestly, liked to stretch literal definitions and add as much improv as possible...which wasn't too hard for me to BS my way through some stories because a town of story tellers will all try to add their own spin on information.....where this became an actual issue was when one of the players decided that in a town full of all art forms....BDSM must be an option....this led to a long and very weird section of the story that was not my forte ...but that player and a couple other players loved having their ideas be identified and not told that they are wrong for adding to the story.....I did not add a BDSM part of town before the session started......but due to popular demand I made one up on the fly and the players loved it....I did not but hey they had fun....the town never did uncover the twist Eldritch host devouring their performers....but oh well
Story Time:
In a campaign that I'm in as a player I had my character somewhat with an "edgy" backstory (even though he is a really nice guy) that involves him being persecuted by unknown individuals who wanted him whatever dead or alive.
So in one section after having an a ritual for a dead companion (a PC of another player) we woke up exchanged some words about it and go to finish a job (and we couldn't) and we decided to move on to the next city but 2 figures wearing white garment that stick out like a sore tum amidst of a Lizarfolk village.
I personali as a player and as a character I had a really bad feeling about those 2 aaaaaaaand they were THE INQUISITION and they wanted my character because of my backstory
at the end of the section my DM said "that was suppose to be and foreshadowing"
by the way we got all take by the Inquisition and my character was tortured