Everything you Need to Know to Run a D&D Campaign

you are finally ready to take the plunge to play that dragon game everyone's talking about or go back to another round of a full-blown proper honest to God D and D campaign you gather the four friends that you feel remotely comfortable playing pretend in front of at your grown age spend an inordinate amount of money on sparkly dice bonus points if you do so while playing online so you will just not use them it's just a muddy sinkhole and you are ready to play or are you I Antonio Deo this is pointy hat and today we'll be looking into everything you need to know before starting your next campaign on this brand new episode of tip of the [Music] Hat D andd campaigns are the wide whale of many players there's only so many disconnected on shots and unfinished Adventures someone can take before you start craving the real thing I'm talking character arcs I'm talking development I'm talking ongoing story lines I'm talking backstory exploration I'm talking most likely never actually finished wait wait wait I'm supposed to sell you on this never mind but I don't really need to sell you on this do I everyone one wants to play a campaign there's a very big difference between having light consequence-free fun in a one shot and getting actually invested in your and the other players characters but a campaign is a commitment a massive one from both the players and the DM and I think that it's very easy to just get excited about a cool idea you got after watching a show or playing a game or something scream at your buddies that you are starting a new campaign and they need to come right down and then let it fizzle out or just flat out never start because you didn't do the work that it takes before you even start to make sure your campaign actually goes well but fear not this is what this video will teach you so let's get right into it this is everything you need to know before you start a D and D campaign first off this guide is more of a DM's perspective on starting a new campaign but wait stop I very very much think players can and should use this to your DM is not your waiter they're not here to entertain you knowing the ins and outs of what a campaign requires to to start will set you up for success as a player too and will certainly make you kinder to your DM get them a fuit basket or something because they are going through it and better yet you can become their favorite player if you know exactly how to help them and also get them that fruit basket come on in this video I'm going to concentrate on the narrative side of things what narrative work you must do on the story World building narrative side of things before unleashing your Gremlin players onto your game I have plenty plenty of thoughts as to what to do on the gameplay side of things and that's going to have to be its own video because I started writing this as just one video and it GPT up to like 10 plus pages of script before I was even finished so scream in the middle of your living room or the comments if you want more tips let's talk how to start your campaign narratively and let's do it through a numbered list cuz I know you love it number one tone before you scream at me about the high concept anime tier world you are setting your campaign on you need to be 100% on something that I think a ton of people just never Define clearly and that mysterious and very important thing thing is tone the tone of a campaign is the general Vibe of it to use less vague words it's the mood of your campaign it's sort of similar to genre but not really we'll talk about that later is the tone you're going for comedic horrific emotional epic this is the feel of your story but how do you find out what the tone of your campaign is simple ask yourself how you want your campaign to feel like think about your favorite shows or movies or games or books and ask yourself which one of those you want your cign not to play like not to resemble plot-wise but to feel like the Lord of the Rings is sort of the poster boy for epic totens if you're going for this you want that high fantasy feel of grand adventures with world-ending stakes and plenty of NPCs with names full of apostrophes it's serious it's big it's Earnest it feels like the most important thing happening in this world is the story you're telling that's what going for an epic tone in a story is there's no wrong answer to this it just needs to be something you are excited to run I for example don't generally like dming or really playing in campaigns with epic tones the tone I personally go for most of the time I call adventurous think of stuff like avatar the Last air bender or the tales off series or misor I guess early mbor though I like running games where the general tone is light fun concentrating on adventure with plenty of room for joking around but with also plenty of room for very emotional scenes and even darker scenes I never Veer into Grim dark or horrific but my favorite stories are those where I light and fun tone is punctuated by a more serious more emotional tone and rarely but still present darker moments I think the J stos works perfectly with the Indie where at the end of the day people are sitting around a table to have fun but also to explore their characters and get invested in them emotionally and in the story we are telling defining the tone of your campaign will make it feel cohesive and more importantly will allow you to explain to your players that this is indeed what you're going for have you tried to run a grim darkg horror game about a world on fire where everyone's miserable and it's really sad and dark and edgy I don't know bloodborne only for your players to crack jokes constantly and never take it seriously part of that issue is that you never communicated an expectation of tone or maybe you did and your players are in which case find new players but if your issue was not communicating now you can because you know what tone is and now that you have the tone of your story we can move on to number two concept a ton of people start here and I get it for those of us that like World building nor Al amount this is the most fun part but we can start with dessert now that you have established the tone you're going for you need to find a concept this is of course assuming you're not running an adventure off of a book if you are this work is already done for you congrats if you aren't or if you are but one day you will like to make your own listen up are you going high concept or low concept High concept are ideas that are easily communicated in a pitch this story takes place in the near future version of America where teens are forced to fight to the death in a televis spectacle for for the elite this story takes place in a theme park that features actual living dinosaurs and what happens when they escape this story is All About a tornado with sharks in it these are all high concept Stories the concept is easy to pitch because the concept is the main thing that makes the story interesting and as a result the concept takes up a lot of room in the story itself low concept stories on the other hand Leave more room for characters as the concept doesn't take as much room in the story or any room at all this story takes place in a hospital this story is about a family going to a beauty pageant this story is about friends because the concept is not the most interesting part of the story the characters or how the story is told is what shines in low concept Stories the simple concept leaves room for a lot of character exploration if this sounds complicated it isn't let me give you an example a high concept D andd campaign would be in this world spellcasting is heavily regulated because those that can use it are at a higher risk for being possessed by extra pler beings which has led to the systematic oppression of spellcasters whereas a low concept campaign would be the players work for a guild that takes on jobs that are posted on the Guild's bulletin board for the weebs in the audience most anime tends to be like extremely high concept by Western standards like almost anything considered low Concept in anime would be high Concept in the west okay so this show takes place in the future sort of cyber Punk future in a world where there's a system sort sort of an all- knowing system that categorizes everyone by their ment Whole Health level but and it also assigns people a job based on their brain like what would suit them best based on how their brain works and it's mostly an Utopia like it works really well except people that can't adapt to the system or otherwise become mentally unstable are seen as liabilities and are off and the story follows a police officer that believes in the system but also sees firsthand what it does to those that don't fit in it see very easy to pitch barely an inconvenience venience there's no wrong choice here once again you do what you want some stories that were originally High concept when they came out became way less High concept as time passed they became ubiquitous load of the Rings once again Springs to mind although I wouldn't call it low concept even today it has just become generic Fantasy by virtue of everyone copying it but choosing what level of concept works for your story is important for what it's worth I tend to go high concept but not anime level high concept okay once you have your concept high or low it's time for number three setting once again assuming you're not just running your campaign off of an existing book we need to define a setting a setting of course derives from your concept if you're running a campaign where the air outside of cities is poisonous to anyone not carrying I don't know a crystal or something your setting will be very much impacted by that high concept premise I'm just going to repeat General D and D advice here and tell you to stop building a whole world from the start this is a Fant fantastic way to never ever play your game build what you need for the beginning and continue to build as you run your game if you world build until everything in your world is fleshed out you are never playing your game ever but here's where I go against General D and advice because it runs into my least favorite D and D advice don't over prepare I hate it I hate it so much it means nothing so let me be clear you must do some major Your World building before just making a town and letting your players run loose in it if I take the example we just said a second ago that of a world where everything outside of cities is toxic and people must travel with some magical thing to even be able to breathe outside of cities we got to establish a bit of how this world runs in general before starting on a specific town maybe in this world small towns are just not a thing since it would be too expensive to maintain the force field around them for the amount of people that live in it maybe there's a specific job for those that carry the magical protection thing to travel outside of cities maybe that's what the players are maybe these magical protections are issued by a government body and there's some corruption going on in the capital city from which they operate maybe there's a secret group that seeks to take down these magical protections for a reason nobody can quite understand see those are all bigger than the town you start at but they are necessary to make a cohesive World especially if you go high concept and who am I kidding I know you're going to go high concept the tide Rob walk here is prepare enough so that the world makes sense but not too much to stop you from just never ever playing because you just World build endlessly find the balance if only a country is relevant to your story build only that country ever and as a matter of fact build only what is relevant inside that country you do not need to flesh out what the maning forest of carnivorous plants in the south of the country smells like if your players won't get there until they are like 4 months into your campaign or not at all build until you're comfortable but don't build until you're cuddled you got to run this at some point this is D and D not writing a novel once you have enough of your setting decided it's time for the most important one yes really it's time for number four conflict I like any other toxic person like to start campaigns with a conflict this is unorthodox since a lot of campaigns start in a Tavern and I'm going to be measured and kind in my response and say that I hate this I personally cannot stand waffling about the world with no direction for sessions upon session not knowing what's up I just straight up don't like the pure sandbox approach to campaigns but you are welcome to use it but it really really doesn't make sense to me when a DM is not going for sandbox as in there is a main plot to this campaign but they just don't put you on it so the first 5 to 10 sessions are you finding the plot the party sticking together out of obligation because you need to stay together to play the actual game which I find extremely immersion breaking and just generally not fun to go through once again again starting in a campaign and waffling about is fine if the game is about waffling about sandbox but if you're doing linear or nonlinear storytelling if there's a plot to this you can do what you want but I heavily suggest starting your players with a clear understanding of the conflict of your game is this campaign going to be an anime tournament Arc great start them as they sign up for it is this campaign going to be about defeating the evil wizard apostrophe hyphen name cool start them as they all entered the dungeon where the first mofen of mystical power that they can use to bring the wizard down is located better yet give them the main plot of the campaign during character creation and ask them to make a character that would want to participate in the plot of this campaign if your campaign is about liberating I don't know a country from Evil Fay influence tell your players about this conflict and let them come up with the reason why they would want to do this conflict is what makes stories so regardless of if you prefer to start in a Tavern waffling about until you find a plot or you are like me and prefer to get to the plot ASAP you need conflict anyway if you're running sandbox I don't know I can't help you with that I have never run sandbox and I don't want to but I've run plenty of linear and nonlinear stories and they all need a conflict having a conflict will allow you to structure the story of your compa prepare the big plot points that players are going to hit and the different choices that could Arise at those plot points without conflict there is no story once again this is kind of non-negotiable you need conflict examples of conflict are evil empire is about to dominate the entirety of the Galaxy and you must stop them a big shark has chosen our quain Resort town as a picnic spot or your dad is sent to mandatory military service just like BTS but he's too old to make it so you have to go in his place once you have your conflict and everything we prepared before it's time for the big one and the one that most people don't do finally five include your players hear me out this might be the most important lesson in this video you the DM are not telling a story telling is something that only one person is actively doing telling a story requires an audience to passively listen and your players are not your audience there is no everyone runs games different here there's no Nuance just straight up don't do this the thing that makes DN D different from reading a book or having a book read out loud to you is the collaborative storytelling aspect of it the DM is not telling a story the entire table is and your role as a DM is to provide a framework conducive to storytelling which is easier said than done once you have your tone your concept your setting and your conflict find players and maybe wait for my video on tips because there's way more to say on that than any other subject ask them to make characters for you and then it's on you to tie those characters into the world and the story you've created how I do this is through the complex magical ritual called communication I ask my players what they are hoping to accomplish in this campaign by playing this character do they want to see a character grow and change do they want a character Arc do they have a specific way that would like to see this take place are they interested in meeting a specific NPC from their backstory are they more interested in UNC covering the answers to some Mysteries they've set up during character creation or any other goal and once I have the answers to these questions and once I've read the one to 78 pages of backstory my players have given me it's time for work you're going to take their backstory and their hopes for this game and sprinkle them into your game your player wants their character to go through a character Arc well by looking at their backstory you can find ways to challenge set character throughout the story to facilitate that for them your player wants to find out what happened to their missing Dad I can't imagine running a game that does not include finding this out somehow now that you have your tone your concept your conflict and your setting you can make sure to set aside moments in play where these things come up for your players this is how you make your players the main characters of the story you're telling and also how you allow them to join you in telling this story this is why I'm so against D MPCs or particularly important NPCs what could you possibly need them for when you have three to six players that you could prop up instead that need so much attention in this narrative in order to who feel like Heroes give them massive character moments tough choices to make great triumphs or great defeats this final step is the time to involve your players expectations hopes and dreams into the campaign to create a story alt together but what about how you select your players can anyone be any DMS player in any campaign how do you handle third party content how do you deal with scheduling and making sure that people actually show up to your table how do you avoid burnout well well that's a whole bunch of questions and they'll be answered in a future video as I said this was already way too long and I wanted to give the narrative part all the focus it deserved so we will visit this topic some other time if you don't want to miss it it's time to you know what it is you know what it's time to subscribe like comment all that prove to the algorithmical god that rules all over us that you enjoyed this and want to see more but what if you're a player getting ready for a campaign and you need help with your character and not to make a campaign well here's a whole video about making your own D and D character or how about a whole entire video on how to World build if you need more of an in-depth look on that and the setting part and now best of luck with that campaign you're going to need it but I know you can do it

Channel: Pointy Hat

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Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, hat, homebrew, trailer, D&D trailer, OneD&D, one d&d, onednd, OGL, WotC, WOC, baldur's gate, baldurs gate, baldur's gate 3, baldurs gate 3, baldur's gate III, baldurs gate III, lore, dnd lore, better than DnD, DM, DMing, DMing advice, DnD tips, D&D tips, tips, DMing Tips, Dungeon Master

Id: 2Iat_gzqqyY

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024