With a campaign primer in hand, you sought out players. And players you've got. What now? Let us explore, how you can turn this idea into an actual campaign.
Last time we finished up with our preparations. Up until now, we were in full control of our ideas. But they will not survive enemy player contact. Our primary goal is still to make this as simple as possible.
So without further ado, let's get to the next step in the process.
Step 4: Characters
You will now gather your players and let them create their characters according to the chosen system in step 1. Best time to do this is in a session 0. Here you can also present them some of your house rules for the game (for example how to roll for stats etc.), safety-tools and much more.
This is also were you will start to depart from your primer and incorporate your players more. Small changes to your primer will be okay. Maybe they want to slightly alter some parameters to fit their characters better into the campaign. Let them. Be vary for big changes though.
Once the players are finished creating their characters, create a company - a faction, that represent your player characters. This is basically the reason why they are travelling together. The game only works if they actually band together. I don't like to roleplay this "will-they-won't-they". It is clear that they will end up together. It's part of a contract to actually play the game. You don't need to name your rag-tag team, yet, but give them a first goal with a progress track (rank easy should do the trick).
As an optional step, every character can create a motivation. Why are they doing things? Why are they out there adventuring? It is a dangerous life, so there should be a good reason for it. This motivation is also a goal and has a rank. This highly depends on the length of the campaign you are planning. If it's just a few session, skip this part. For longer campaign, set the rank to something like extreme.
Then let them choose were in the region they want to start (if you gave them multiple choices).
Step 5: Threads and Actors
As a last step we will start a list of Threads and Actors. This is the beating heart of your campaign. Together with the list of Faction it will give you as a GM an endless supply of what to prep for your sessions.
But what are Threads and Actors?
The idea comes from the Mythic Game Master Emulator. There it has a slightly different name: Threads and Characters. I don't like Characters (since it is confusing), so I just renamed it Actors. But the principle is the same.
Threads are specific tasks, that take some effort (most often time) to resolve. Thus we represent them as progress tracks. This are typically quest or questions that need an answer.
Actors are a bit more vague. They are mostly outside of the characters control. They could represent events that might happen, NPC's that act independently or even a location. The only way to interact with Actors is through Threads (getting rid of an NPC for example).
We can seed these lists already.
For each of the characters motivation (if they have one), create a new Thread. If for example, a character has the motivation "To seek revenge for my parents murder", they might have a Thread, that they seek for more information in the town. A potential suspect has been seen, so they want to ask around.
Similarly you can create a Thread from the company goal.
Remember that you can't progress goals directly. You have to complete Threads in order to progress a goal.
To make the world a living place, add a Thread for each of the additional landmarks you placed around the starting towns.
Lastly create an Actor, that is an NPC of one of the factions in the region, and an Actor that stems from your world Truths.
Pre-Made Adventures
But what about pre-made adventures? You can easily fit these as well.
The company goal is one of the adventures hooks. There will most likely a list of those. You can either choose one randomly or not (or let the players pick one).
Threads and Actors can be filled similarly. Starting towns will have quests attached to them. If you look at Rimes of the Frostmaiden again, you have plenty to choose from. I did choose 3 of them, that I liked most and made them Threads. Same goes for Actors. There were multiple NPC's.
Pre-Made adventures are a framework for you to use. You don't have to follow them in every little detail. I made one of the characters having nightmares of the city under the ice. Their whole motivation became to find out, what that means. That was not written into the module, but fit our story.
Session Preparation
There is a lot of advice out there on how to prepare your sessions, so I will not go into detail for that. Do, what looks right for you. What I will do, is explain to you, how you can incorporate this seed into your preparation.
As mentioned, the most important things are your Threads and Actors, and the Factions list. They will constantly evolve. Use these list during preparation to see what scenes could happen. Which Threads do you want to push? How are the Actors influencing the world around the players.
Whenever the players have an idea such as "Let's have a look at this", note it down as a Thread and then use it for your preparation.
During preparation you will most likely also do a Faction Turn. How does this affect the situation for the players. Is there maybe a surprise attack, because the players are getting too noisy (check their Company Tier)?
Summary
As you can see, a lot of the material I previously introduced, is now starting to come together in one cohesive system. It doesn't take month-long preparations either. Everything is created as needed and flows naturally from what came before.
Start a new campaign today with these easy to follow steps.
- Core Concept
- Game System
- Frame
- Theme: Why / What
- Setting: When / Where
- Tone: How
- (optional) Twist or Setting Distinction
- World Truths
- (optional) Special Mechanics
- Inspiration
- Starting Region
- Create or select an area of the world that includes a settlement and its surrounding area
- For each settlement in the area, create or select a landmark in its vicinity
- Create 2 factions
- one should be at least Tier III
- Compile Campaign Primer
- Keep it short, to one-page
- Characters
- Create characters according to chosen system
- Create a Company for all characters
- Create a Goal with Rank Easy (since Rank 0)
- (optional) Each character creates a Motivation
- A goal with Rank Extreme
- Threads and Actors
- (optional) Motivations - Add new Thread for each goal
- Company Goal - Add new Thread for goal
- For each additionally added Landmark - Thread
- Create new NPC for one of the factions - Actor
- Add one Actor coming from the Truths - Actor