Having difficulty coming up with some new campaign starting points? Look no further! Here are a few examples for you and your gaming group to use.
Sometimes the best campaign has a simple base. This one uses the long road. It’s simple to give the character a task like the delivery of a fairly mundane object, the only catch being that it needs to be delivered to a very, very far away place by land.
This campaign only works if the characters don’t have a quick method of travel. Then the DM can use a series of small unrelated adventures to give the players a campaign feel with the work of single adventures with small town and rural locations tied together by the journey. The bonus to this type of campaign is the DM can flesh out areas of their world one small adventure at a time. By the end a DM will have all the towns, cities and non-player characters filled in over a great distance of their world.
Sometimes when searching for an adventure you can overlook the obvious. Changing the genre of an adventure (either published or of your own creation) can totally alter the adventure. For instance imagine your favorite Dungeons and Dragons Adventure; now place that adventure in the future on a far off planet, or aboard a space station.
Don’t let the game mechanics hang you up, just change what you want and leave the rest. It works, trust me. This is a simple way to get more use out of your hard work and even if the players recognize the adventure they will deal with problems in a new and fun way.
This campaign uses titles that are most often only given with level. The DM chooses one of the characters to make a Knight (they should be low level, 1st is best). The chosen character need not be a fighter, remember the title is honorary and given as a symbol, not of ability but power. The king then awards the character a keep on the farthest edge of civilization. The DM then informs the player to choose a group to accompany them on their trip or the DM may assign an escort made up of the other players. This is a good time for the DM to let players play old characters, who have lost their party, or have gone into retirement. Their appointment should seem like a promotion or positive opportunity although it is not.
The truth is the Kingdom is on a new kick of expansionism and wishes to probe in the direction of the last expansion, long ago. The keep will not have been used for a long time and is in a hostile valley surrounded by crazy warlord types and dangerous elves as well as the possibility of barbarian invasion. The DM should create a bizarre cast of NPCs to give the character a hard time. The big trick to running the campaign is that even if the characters are mixed level it should not matter. Through use of non violent but combative encounters with the leading NPCs for even the first few adventures it should allow you the DM to develop both allies and enemies, and flesh out the valley.
The Keep is a huge source of combat and fun. Is it occupied? Is it haunted? Or, my favorite, does it have an unclaimed dragon egg in the basement (the same alignment as the Knight of course)? When the players explore the valley, the "Dark Wood" calls, will they answer? Are the elves friends or foes? What of the mad Knight who lives in the mountain or the new Orc cheiftain? This is a campaign you can really have fun with, as well as make some of your own!
