How to write your first D&D campaign arc

If want to run your next Dungeons and Dragons campaign as a series of plot arcs, this five-step template will help you structure your writing process.

Music Credits: "Hero's Voyage" by Nerdius Maximus Studios
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) or is official artwork from 4th and 5th Edition Dungeons And Dragons (ALL copyright for these images belongs to Wizards of the Coast LLC: I own nothing) and is used here for the purposes of entertainment and education.

[JazzJackrabbit]

If you are planning a twist, then please foreshadow it.
It is the difference between the players going "Oh wow, it all makes sense now!" and "You just pulled that out of a hat"

[hardleers]

After getting valuable information from you session 0, you dropped this at absolutely the right moment. Looking forward to it!

[kTmrF]

I've just recently begun DM'ing DnD 5e... of course i went the hard way and went on to create a whole own world with my own pantheon, world lore etc. xD... Your content has been a great source of inspiration and guidance. and my first few sessions were a raging success! Thanks for the awesome videos mate. Greetings from Germany!

[Draconatus]

13:29 Exactly, the best thing about dnd is that nobody expects how a campaign is gonna go, the dm might know some main points, but if the players decide just to do something completely different in order to reach the goal then that’s a great thing.

[SingularityOrbit]

This method is related to the 5 Room Dungeon method, but you've uncovered something like a fractal pattern to a campaign. A DM can design an entire campaign around these steps. (Campaign Arcs: 1. Intro to Adventuring In This Setting, 2. Questing Across the Land, 3. Defeat the Realm's Known Big Threats, 4. But There's a More Sinister Threat Waiting In The Wings, 5. The Final Adventures to Save The World) Each arc has its own quests, each built with the 5 steps, with the last quest of one step feeding into the first quest of the next one. (The party might reach the capital city of the kingdom and meet the king and queen at the end of step 2, at which point they are asked to help fight the Known Big Threats, leading to step 3.) Each quest can be built using the 5 steps, exactly as described here. Individual elements of a quest can also be built along these lines as well -- a dungeon can be built in 5 levels that each use this framework, each level built with the 5 Room Dungeon method. It can be 5 Steps all the way from the top of the world to the deepest dungeon floor. In this way the DM never forgets to include motivation, intrigue, exploration, action, rising tension, and surprises every step of the way.

[tiredfrog]

As an “always player” who is about to DM for the first time, this video is incredibly helpful! Thank you for outlining such a useful and versatile formula; it’ll definitely come in handy.

[Maiasgameroom]

A PDF template of a written version of all these steps would be very helpful! 🙏🏾

[TasareAlda]

You make this content so accessible. Thank you for being awesome.

[nickmcdonald]

Thanks for this! Started our first session last week and now scrambling to write the rest of the campaign. Really appreciate your videos as a beginner DM

[Teraclon]

Long-format!!! Just made my day, mate. Loving the great content! 😎👍

[angelalewis]

This is a very helpful video!
I’ve not heard this structure idea form any other GM YouTubers!

[eldritchepics]

Great video. Adding this to my must watch content for new DMs.

[MarkoSeldo]

Funnily enough, D&D provides a mechanism for this as well. Milestone levelling. You can pace your campaign through milestones. Early on, your arcs are short - just enough work to justify bumping them up a level. Each level should come after a satisfying conclusion to a chapter in your story. I actually structure my campaigns using Chapters. It helps break the story into discreet blocks, if players need a break or want to do a separate one-shot, we can schedule it between chapters. The chapters get longer as the amount of adventuring needed to level up increases, and the plots get more complex and more obviously/directly linked to the BBEG and their schemes.

[karlmaust]

1. Hook
2. Hindrance
3. Setback
4. Twist
5. Finale

My only concern is, my players are very smart lol ... That being said, I find that the "twist" aspect should vary widely from minimal/no twist to major. Sometimes it's okay for it to be straight forward. Then your twists feel more crazy and wild.

[historyguy]

awesome video! your videos are really helping me out in making my first own campaign:)

[higgybonk]

Subscribed to your Patreon a few days ago! Your YouTube videos have helped me as a dm but joining the Patreon has defo upped my game already😎 I’m currently running DiA but you’ve given me the inspiration to make my own campaign ready for when we finish

[hexvictor]

Great timing! Just having difficulties on my first campaign

[johnmagowan]

Excellent work as always! I'll be applying this to my series of small arcs based off classic Lieber and Moorcock short stories! Also is Hollywood doesn't cast you as a dashing WWII pilot they're nuts.

[yellingintothewind]

You say the first point doesn't apply to sandbox games, but the opposite is quite true. You can run a linear "modern" campaign in an empty world where the players have no ideas what to do _beside_ the main campaign arc and any intended side quests. A sandbox, by contrast, needs to be brimming with the promise of content around every corner (not _actualized_ content, you can invent the real contents just ahead of the PCs arriving).

It's the difference between a sandbox that _only_ has sand in it and one that is piled high with toys and the ruins of past creations.

If you want to run a sandbox game and aren't sure where to start, get yourself a decent map and then grab a 5-6 session mini campaign and inject it onto the world. Start with the party knowing about and pursuing that. Any time you mention anything about the world in passing, jot it down and add it to the world map somewhere. By the time you are done with the first short campaign, you will likely have a long list of locations and hints of past events to create the sandbox.

[brianbays]

Kingkiller Chronicles reference. Very nice 😉