During my hiatus, I made an attempt at paid DMing. It did not go great! Two of the campaigns I posted got zero interest, one got a single person who bowed out early before a second player could show, and one got a single person who was banned from the platform after two weeks. I’ve not soured on the entire concept, but it sure put a damper on my aspiration of one day being able to afford groceries.
Part of it is that I prefer to build my campaigns based on input from the players rather than making something and exposing it to the world fully-formed to see who’s willing to participate. Heck, Shaman Gates didn’t even have a concept or a name until session zero; it was just “I’m going to run a Zelda campaign, so let’s toss nouns out there until everybody starts nodding”. But I do have loose ideas I’ve been playing with off and on, usually as thought exercises to see if I like them enough to dig deeper. What I’ve verified is that players themselves are what push me to commit to something. Given that D&D is a cooperative game, this should not be a surprise, but I guess I see the game differently than sites for paid DMing gigs.
With that in mind, here are some of the campaign pitches I’ve been playing around with. Some of them have been in my head for months, some for years, and some are older than this blog. If any of them appeal to you, go ahead and steal them or let me know if you’d be interested in playing. (Ideally I’d charge to run these games but, you know.)
The Legend of Zelda: On Ancient Wings
Part god, part person, part extension of the land itself, Great Faeries are representatives of the spirit of Hyrule. They weave magic beyond the knowledge or understanding of most mortals, maintaining the balance of nature and warding settlements from the depredations of roaming monsters. In times of greatest need, they lend a fraction of their magic to heroes with the power, wisdom, and courage to wield it to slay the evil in Hyrule and bring hope back to its people. Tales of their influence stretch as far back as time itself, and not a person alive is ignorant of their might.
Which, in retrospect, makes them pretty obvious targets.
Somebody–or something–has stolen the Great Fairies’ power, leaving the land in chaos. Monsters, darkness, curses, any number of threats lap at the edges of civilization. For now the danger is localized to a small island, but with no great hero in sight, time is the only barrier between catastrophe and the land at large. When all hope seems lost, a group of potential heroes wash ashore on the island, victims of the storm separating it from the mainland. Their only hope, and Hyrule’s, is to find the thieves, return the magic of the land to its rightful owners, and defeat whatever evil came along for the ride.
The Legend of Zelda: On Ancient Wings is a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition campaign set in a retro-stylized Hyrule, back when everything was square and only had four colors. It involves swords, sorcery, exploring the world, slaying monsters, completing quests, getting lost in dungeons, running out of keys at exactly the wrong time, finding cool loot and misusing it on every piece of terrain within 30 meters, hoarding way too many rupees just in case you need them one day, and fashion.
Yes it is a third Zelda campaign.
The Mitigation of Hector Githbert
Hector Githbert is one of history’s greatest warriors. His accomplishments are numerous, counting victories in battle after battle throughout the known world and beyond. His physical prowess is beyond legendary, defying both reason and the limitations of his form. He has never lost a single fight in any theater, and his name alone is enough to cow the very few enemies who have escaped an encounter with him. He is, by any measure, a hero.
He is also reliably, thoroughly, unbelievably short-sighted. His accomplishments come at the expense of allies, hostages, and civilians he failed to notice in his zeal for combat. His raw power shines forth even when not it’s necessary or wise, and it has kept him alive through the annihilation of numerous buildings and geological features, a trait only necessary because he himself tends to destroy everything around him. On the rare occasion that he is in actual danger, he reaches into wells of unknown strength with catastrophic consequences for anything and everything in, adjacent to, and within sight of his path. Through it all, he barely notices the fallout of his actions, and even when forced to confront the destruction he leaves in his wake he seems incapable of remorse. Left to his own devices, Hector is as much a threat to those he intends to protect as those he intends to attack, and he only grows stronger with every passing adventure.
The government and military have decided that Hector cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of the country and society. But he also cannot be kept under control, not with his impossible power. In past years it was sufficient to send him out with a guide, somebody who could point him in the correct direction, but reigning him in has become more than a full-time job, and after the death of his last three handlers no one person seems up to the task. What he needs is a whole group dedicated to putting him on the right path, keeping his boundless energy in check and limiting his collateral damage. He needs people to protect the world from him, make him an asset rather than an unpredictable liability, and use him as a tool to fight for the glory of the nation and the forces of good.
What Hector Githbert needs is babysitters.
The Mitigation of Hector Githbert is a campaign originally set in the Eight Arms universe. Low-powered characters do their level best to rein in a single terrifyingly powerful NPC whose combat prowess far exceeds his common sense or situational awareness. Hector’s actions are largely determined randomly; he does what he wants, but the PCs can affect his choices by keeping him calm, limiting opportunities for collateral damage, and never making him think the mission is in danger. With Hector around, success is inevitable. That’s the problem.
Relegated
A golden opportunity! Your esteemed family has been gifted a holding on the edges of the empire’s territory, in a land rife for settlement and exploitation. In recognition of your boundless potential, this holding has been bequeathed to you, a domain entirely within your purview, far from the meddling and maneuvering of the capital. Truly, this is a sign of the faith your elders have in your wisdom and education, and they have no doubt that your estate will soon become the pride of the family.
…or so you were told. In reality, you know a punishment when you see it. You’ve been exiled to the provinces specifically to keep you out of the way, whether as a punishment, a warning to others, or a step toward the eventual ascension of a relative favored by those at the top. And if your circumstances alone hadn’t made your situation painfully clear, your cohort does: a small collection of nobles in similar situations, the shames of their respective houses condemned to a life on the fringes where they can’t cause trouble beyond their station.
So be it. They can take your resources and influence, but they can’t take your ambition. Powered by a heady combination of pride and spite, you will turn this to your advantage. Maybe you could mold this lawless frontier into a new jewel in the family’s holdings, be it industrial, cultural, or technological. In time you could make it the seat of a new noble house, ground zero for a revolution against the elders who shunned you. The other nobles in nearby estates may be your key to survival, the closest allies in your new plot, or the greatest enemies to the growth or your fledgling empire. Trapped on a small property with the bare minimum staff and no amenities, surrounded by unmapped wilderness, with little to your name but your name itself, how will you claw your way back to the prestige you have been denied?
Relegated is a campaign about rival nobles forced into a situation where they are each other’s only allies. PCs will go on missions together to gain resources and opportunities, some of which may come at the expense of other members of the party. In between, they will manage their holdings, settle–or continue–generational grudges, and build the sort of life they (want to) deserve. Part D&D and part Civilization, the campaign allows players to build their kingdom over years, decades, or even generations while still going on the sort of ill-advised escapades typical of adventurers.
Odzihodo
Attention [PIONEER NAME]:
You are currently entering the atmosphere of exoplanet Tabaldak. You and your team will land planetside within ten minutes. Due to the abundance of resources on the planet and the low capacity of this lander, once you recover from the effects of cryosleep your team will be responsible for establishing a sustainable outpost. Per the terms of your agreement with Trailblazer Industries, your primary objective is to map as much of the local area as possible and establish a footing for future operations when and if they occur.
Please note that forty-five previous landing missions on Tabaldak have all failed. Sporadic final transmissions suggest that a hostile form of alien life is responsible. Caution–and heavy weaponry–is advised.
—
Inspired by exploration and survival games like Subnautica and No Man’s Sky, Odzihodo is a D&D 4E campaign about exploring an unknown sci-fi world. It involves venturing into unknown lands, discovering new forms of life, startling freedom in equipment management, handwaved technology based on my limited understanding of how science works, and cool future guns.
The pitch proper ends here, but I wanted to put this. The mechanical thrust of this campaign is loot management via tech tree. During their adventures the players acquire tech points, which they put into certain types of equipment. When they get enough points to reach a given level in a given category, they can manufacture limitless items of that level and type. For example, getting up to L5 in weapons means you can create a flaming sword…or six dozen of them. Loot is almost entirely driven by the players and their actions, and characters are encouraged to have multiple loadouts and switch among them as the situation warrants. That’s why this has to be 4E; no other edition has items with levels that provide tangible benchmarks for power and effectiveness.
And the Rest
A few other ideas that have been rattling around in my brain but haven’t received enough attention to warrant a narrative pitch:
- Evil campaign — Bound by an agreement with some powerful evil entity that can compel servitude, like Asmodeus or a red dragon, the characters commit evil acts for some greater goal they cannot fathom. Rather than just letting the party rampage across the landscape, each mission from their patron has very specific parameters, like “kill the prince and make his bodyguards disappear, but deal physical harm to nobody else” or “help this business defeat its competitors without making those competitors close shop or allowing any of these business to become aware of your actions”. Like a game show, the patron may also add additional goals or complications mid-mission; it’s all part of their grand world-spanning scheme, and no, they’re not obligated to explain it. Depending on player preference, this may suit a more narrative system than D&D.
- Castlevania campaign — I like Castlevania (the game series). The focus of the campaign is that it all takes place within grounds of Castlevania (the castle). It might be set in the context of Castlevania (the N64 game, which I didn’t need to say but I wanted to do the parenthetical thing a third time). The players could be adventurers dealing with a Dracula resurrection that doesn’t follow the hundred-year cycle and thus doesn’t have a Belmont around to stop it, which means they slowly advance through a massive dungeon with countless rooms. Or, they could be monsters who survived the fall of Dracula, dealing with adventurers, bandits, warlords, and/or other monsters who follow a false master, which means they’re gradually claiming and defending territory until they triumph over all other parties. Either way, there’s no leaving. This map is the campaign and the campaign is the map.
- Nintendo campaign — Set in the world of Smash Brothers (which I’ve been calling “The Great Fray” based on a possible translation of the Japanese Dai Rantō), the players are C- or D-level video game characters who stumble upon a plot by some entity to disrupt the structure of the universe. My working villains are characters who never made it to a proper game because they were cut during development or their games were never released, and their end goal is to turn all of gaming into a Fortnite-esque grey goo where everything is the same property and there is no more uniqueness. Adventures may include unusual mashups of video games as worlds start merging.
- Greek mythology campaign — It is a time of monsters. Perhaps set after the inevitable fall of Olympus and during the rise of a new generation of gods, it follows a party who protect the common folk and become heroes via trial. There would probably be elements of Faith in that characters would have patron deities whose portfolios and rivalries affect their own powers, but with a weird pantheon to be determined during session zero. Highlights include phased combat against legendary creatures, powerful items whose legacy becomes inextricable from their owners, and the opportunity to improve the world by doing violence to it until it thanks you for the privilege.
- In-over-your-head campaign — The party begins at L1, and through planning, skill, and sheer dumb luck they slay a CR 20 or so creature in the first session. Boom, they immediately gain five levels and a hoard of loot…but the rest of the world now thinks they can handle epic-level threats. The campaign is about solving epic-level problems with mid-level resources, fending off world-rending enemies who now see the party as a threat, and trying to survive against factually insurmountable odds. I do not intend this as a campaign for grifter characters who lie, cheat, and steal their way into success at the expense of others, but for clever, good-hearted heroes who know how to create force multipliers, do their homework, and capitalize on opportunities. I realize this is a hazy distinction.
- Pokemon campaign — I have big thoughts about a Pokemon setting that actually works as opposed to one that only exists for the purposes of a very specific, linear RPG plot. Players are likely the Pokemon team of an NPC trainer, or various trainers with one Pokemon each where the Pokemon is the real focus of the build (if everybody is a Pathfinder summoner, they’re technically balanced, right?). Depending on how much I overestimate my abilities at any given time, I’ve also considered a system where the trainer represents some core aspect of a character and the Pokemon is a mutable set of rules on top of that, like “my trainer is a healer, so I get the cleric class abilities always; while Cleffa is out I’m using these healing-focused powers and while Gastly is out I’m using these radiant powers reskinned to necrotic”. So I guess you could argue I have three Pokemon campaign ideas?
Anything else I’ve considered is more of a one-sentence seed: a campaign where the party is introduced by each one having a little mini-adventure, à la Dragon Quest 4; a dungeon crawl with randomly-generated rooms and enemies managed by dice or cards, so I can play in it too instead of building and adjudicating everything; a traveling campaign where the party has a caravan or starship or big turtle and they have brief stops for adventures and manage their survival resources while moving toward (or away from) some major thing. Some of these concepts can overlap with each other or with the Metroidvania and Devil May Cry ideas I posted recently. Most of them are targeted for low levels to provide room for growth into higher levels, many are accessible for new players, and few of them have a player-count limitation. If I didn’t call something out, assume I’m flexible.
Consider this my tabletop campaign catalog as of the day this post goes live. If you want to ask anything or express interest, the “Ask the DM” link should work again. I also have a (recently purged) Discord server for less asynchronous discussion, but I don’t know if putting that link here would invite catastrophe. The Internet is a treacherous morass of endless wonder.