Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 WintersKnight Jul 31, 2014 20:37:25	I'm a newer player and a new GM. I got involved with D&D at 4th edition when the playtest for DDN came out. I didn't play much, because it was 4th edition. But I started collecting old modules off ebay--modules I want to play. The Lost City, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, The Assassins Knot, etc.    Anyway, I'm digging 5e and was wondering how different GM's are planning and preparing for their campaigns.  I tend to get myself bogged-down, so I'm aiming for a minimal approach. I don't want to be at the gaming table with my nose in a bunch of material. At the same time, I want to be prepared.
#2 Shiroiken Aug 01, 2014 3:38:35	It partly depends on your style of play and your talents.   I generally focus on my villain, since that's what I'm best at. I design a villain, figure out a plan to fulfill their desires, find a spot to drop the PCs in, and let the game begin. I usually think of what happens if the PCs don't interfere, and some primary event points to focus on.   I also normally run a sandbox style game, where I detail out a single area (such as a city), and let the PCs make their own choices. Because of this, I try to be as knowledgeable as possible, rereading the information many times to commit as much of it as possible to memory.   Since you've got some old advenutres you want to do, I would read each one and think about the order you want to run them. Then figure out a way to connect them sequencially, so that the story flows fairly easily from one adventure to the next. I'm doing the same thing for my first 5E campaign, where I'm running a classic Greyhawk super series (15 modules tied together).
#3 alienux Aug 01, 2014 4:42:59	If it's a homebrew adventure, it's pretty easy to just jump in since it's something I've written. For those, I have monster stats printed out on pieces of paper that I also have lines for HP for however many monsters there are, and initiative boxes. I usually include a picture of the monster on this paper, too. There is one paper per combat, so it's nice to just grab one and have everything ready to go.   For pre-made adventures, I read through everything that I think we'll have time for in a session, and then read through at least another sessions worth in case things move more quickly than I anticipate. I try to imagine different scenarios and actions the players might take so that I can be prepared for the unexpected, and I also just plan on having some unexpected things happen, so I set my mind to respond creatively when something like that happens.
#4 iserith Aug 01, 2014 6:27:31	I start with a dungeon, a group of characters with a few established bonds to themselves and to the adventure, and then as we play through the first dungeon I ask a lot of questions. Those questions flesh out the party, the world, and the party's short and long term goals. I take all that and use it to build the rest of the campaign using the Fronts system from Dungeon World and then improvise as we go along, creating locations to explore as necessary.
#5 Kravell Aug 01, 2014 7:40:03	You could pick up the pdf of From the Ashes:http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/17399/From-the-Ashes-2e?manufacturers_id=44&it=1   Many of the modules you mention are set in the world of Greyhawk. You can get other PDFs on Drive Thru if you want more info on the world or more adventures.
#6 AaronOfBarbaria Aug 01, 2014 9:58:18	I think I have a pretty minimalist approach to campaign prep... it's also pretty chaotic, so let me see if I can smash it into some kind of order that is not just "start thinking about everything all at once".   Outline any world-scale events you want to occur during the campaign, but only in a loose order (specific times are your enemy). Grab some index cards and jot down the name of each organization or significant antagonist (the ones you hope will have "recurring villain" roles), and with each name include goals of that character/group and the prefered methods of accomplishing goals and general attitudes/behaviors. Get together with your players and collaboratively tie the campaign events to the characters they are building, seeing where they want to fit into the events and organizations you've got on hand, and what kind of adventures/challenges they'd like their characters to face. Make sure your outline and your index cards accomodate any alterations from step 3, and start playing - but rather than you setting up every scene and leading the party through your planned campaign scene by scene, you just set up where the characters are and something that is happening and you let what the players have their characters do drive the game from there, with you just reacting and adding. That last bit can be tricky, but it is in my opinion the absolute key technique to a near prep-less campaign - you just watch and listen for cues from your players, like if one of them says something along the lines of "I bet we're going to get ambushed by orcs on our way through the forest," and they seem like they'd rather be right than wrong in their tone, then you fill in the details so that they are right.   I've run campaigns that lasted years doing no more prep than thinking of a singular antagonist and what they wished to achieve and how they'd prefer to go about it, and then asking the players to work together to build a party with shared goals, and besides setting up scene #1 and little interjections of the antagonist as the in-character explanation for various events after the fact I did zero planning (just a whole lot of reacting).
#7 JohnLynch Aug 02, 2014 5:11:06	For 5th edition I've gotten the starter set. I read through it and then worked out where the campaign could go at the end of it. I've got three different paths the players could go down to continue and complete the campaign. I'm not bothering to prep any future adventures until they complete the current one. I run a monthly game so that's feasible for me.