How to write your first Dungeons and Dragons campaign

Ready to start creating a Dungeons and Dragons campaign? This video covers the five key areas I focus on when building my own campaigns.

Music Credits: "Papov" by Yung Logos
Used in accordance with YouTube Audio Library guidelines

[crazyrussianman]

Don't change the world around the players. If they go to an empty cave instead of fighting the vampires in the castle, don't just say the vampires were living in the cave the whole time. Let them screw around in the cave. Then when they return they find the town has been raided by the vampires while they were gone. The villains should have a plan that the players interrupt. The vampires wanted to raid the town and the players would have stopped them if they were there. They weren't, so the villain's plan went ahead.

[notbloodylikely]

For anyone wondering, the maps in the background are made with Inkarnate. I highly recommend this online resource. It's cut my campaign build time down massively and gives players plenty of eye candy.

[Greg_Rock]

Step 1: The gang starts in a Tavern.
Step 2: Rogue gets the party jailed.
Step 3: Rogue gets the party un-jailed, with a bounty on their heads in this region.
Step 4: Mandatory adventure to run from the po-po begins.
Step 5: Encounter a goblin that coughs on the Wizard, killing him of 1d2 damage.

[themachbuster]

The more long form stuff is great! Very helpful for me, a homebrew dm who's starting out.

[IWubYooz]

12 minutes is considered long form now? God, I'm old.

[anarchyahoy]

Never played any D&D, but the concept of creating my own campaigns and building worlds and DM'ing is incredibly fun. So much so that I've decided to write a one on one campaign for my partner to experience based on farming sim games we enjoy. I excel as a writer at building worlds and stories and improvising creative situations and I'm starting to really enjoy the process of creating campaigns. This video is super helpful! If the mini campaign I write up and put together for my partner goes well, I might expand it into something for lots of people to join. I love the concept of D&D but I love the concept of it being less rule heavy and more flexible. And I love creating my own worlds and npcs and plots. Having a specific set of rules catered to campaigns I've personally created sounds so much more fun. Thanks for the tips!

[tobiasburke]

I have never played DnD, but I still find all of these shorts and this longer video extremely entertaining and informative. Keep on keeping on!

[gallahad]

As someone struggling ALOT with getting things in order to kick off a homebrew campaign. This was incredibly concise and valuable information. Please continue these excellent guides! If you're taking suggestions (An in-depth guide of session prep for beginners with visuals would be incredible as it is under discussed and taught, and a walkthrough of building the aforementioned story arcs!) Thank you again!

[ClocksTickin]

The way you packaged story arcs by combining various 3-4 smaller quests in a region to create influence in a region really clicked for me. I've heard and played this concept many times, but somehow you saying it made me really understand the power of structured story arcs and how they can add some gravity to side quests and help them feel like they still build towards a main quest end game. Thank you!

[destrious]

I needed to hear that part about worldbuilding by sections. I have an awful habit of wanting to know EVERYTHING in my world before I even start. This video rules!

[mikeb.]

This! This is how I run my games. No "railroady" overarching plot line, but instead I throw out a "sandboxy" handful of leads and let the players choose their own fate. Eventually they become fully invested in a single story arc (the players transform the story from "sandboxy" to "railroady" themselves), and from there it is easy to build that to a grand climax with an epic BBEG.

Man, you have no idea how much grief I got in various D&D groups on FB when I told people this is how I run my game.

Great video. New subscriber. Can't wait to see what else you have to share with us.

[danielelsom]

I appreciate how you put this concept simply, succinctly, yet with enough variety that showed off the myriad of directions and forms a campaign can take. Thanks for the video!!!

[farseeraradrel]

Dedicating time to the starting area of the campaign is very important because there's a high probability that the players will instinctively use that place as a refuge or base of operation (or something within that area). If they start in a small town, that town might become their primary source of income, ressources and informations.

So it's important to focus on said town and filled it with places and details that your players can use. The entire politic of the town and its relationship to neighbouring area is not necessary, nor useful, at the start of the Campaign, but it should provide a few things for the players :

-Somewhere to Rest (Especially Long ones. A Tavern or a House will do depending on the player's status).
-Somewhere to get information (Like a Library, or even a Network if one of the players happen to be a Rogue or some sort of Criminal). This place doesn't need to be where the players gets all their info, but it's always rewarding for players to know they can check their intel or add more to it without waiting for Random NPC (and of course, you can control what information they find here and alter the truth).
-Somewhere to shop for ressources and items. Nothing too fancy, but that's always important should the players require even basic equipement, like ropes or arrows.

And finally, that area could (and should) possess places of familiarity to the players, something that either call to their Race or their Career choices. The Wizard can have a Library, the Dwarf a Forge, etc. It's not only an easy way to fill your town or kingdom with stuff that makes it alive, it also gives the players the sentiment that their characters belong to greater community, be it their people, species or career path. They can even represent interesting plot hook or NPC factories for your campaign. The players are likely to take any attack against the town more seriously if people important to them are placed in harm's way.

Basically, flesh out the starting area cleverly to make it a living area, but also one that players have a reason to stay and call home. Of course, this doesn't apply to Adventurers with a Nomadic lifestyle (and even then, you could replace the Town with a Caravane the players have an habit to travel with).

[YellowTissueBox]

2 years later, old mate here is flourishing. Great to see. he deserves it.

[SERPENTONORTHAM]

As a new DM your videos have been the most resourceful and helpful. I come back here to watch them again and again. Thank you. Awesome content.

[XxPjaypitxX]

Great video! As a new DM myself running my first homebrew campaign, these are some very helpful tips!

[Jebster_]

I've never played dnd before but have been wanting to get into it more and more lately, I wanted to write a campaign and ended up here, this has given me a couple of ideas and I'm super excited to get started, thanks!

[xander]

Awesome video!

You mentioned the concept of “real time travel” in the video, could you expand on that, perhaps in another video? I’d be really curious how I can make that work without just repeating “you walk though the woods” ad nauseam for a session 😅

[benjaminholcomb]

DMinspo: I'm in the same boat as you guys
His boat: has a cool accent and nice mustache

[mrmediocre]

I always use a specific "Genre", if what I do can be called that. I mix gritty realism and high fantasy together.

A massive city with huge stone walls banded with massive iron beams, nestled between a mountain pass, making it a huge fortress city and a massive spot for traders and travelers, the city is a marvel of engineering, marble churches and comfy homes line smooth and uniform cobbled roads that wind through city roads lined with grass and bushes, with a massive castle sitting dead in the center of the city imposing over the entire town.

This city is beautiful, and magical, it has many elements of high fantasy. It adds that sense of being in a grand world of magic, but that's cliche on its own.

Before they reach the city, the players go off the beaten path looking for food, and find a village razed to the ground. The few survivors say that they were accused of harboring troops from that Empire's enemy military, the Empire's military razed it to the ground. The smell of scorched flesh fills the air as near the players, the body of a woman lies burnt to a crisp laying over her child, also burnt, presumably in an attempt to save her child, as the remnants of an arrow stick out of her back.

In this, the world is dark. These huge and beautiful cities filled with magic and wonder stay afloat on a river of war and blood. My players will find people starving as their farms have been razed during war, as disease spreads in poor towns due to the massive number of corpses left behind from the war.

The world is both magical and dark, and one upholds the other.