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So I'm getting ready to start my new D&D campaign. I intend to use this thread as sort of a blog, but more of a workshop so that you can see what goes on in another DM's head as he works through planning and developing a campaign.

Speaking of campaigns, I prefer serial campaigns that last for at least 2-3 years. I put a lot of work into my campaign development, and I feel cheated if it ends after just a couple of months.

Right now I'm preparing to run in/around the city of Zoa in the Kingdoms of Kalamar setting by Kenzer & Company. I happened to write a fair bit of that setting, so I'm very familiar with it. Also, I've run two previous campaigns set there.

Why Zoa? Well, I haven't run a campaign set in a busy city, and I want to do that. Zoa has a variety of geographical types nearby. If I want to use monsters that live in mountains, or hills, or forests, or plains, or the ocean, I can use all those.

Zoa has competitive guilds, the threat of racial violence, pirate activity, escaped slaves, religious conflict--all great adventure seeds.

At this point, I write down about a dozen or so adventure ideas. I don't flesh them out yet. I just want to have a general idea of what to expect. I like to write my own, but I will adapt a good enough adventure from the pages of Dungeon Magazine (of which I have nearly every issue) or from older adventures (of which I have nearly all).

I note what level/terrain each adventure is used for (or can be adapted to). As I do this, I look for patterns that I can develop into themes. If I'm using several pirate adventures, can I make the pirates a major recurring villain?

A good campaign should have one major theme and two or three sub themes. Just like in a TV episode, where you usually have an "A storyline", which is primary, and then a B and sometimes C storylines, which are secondary. If you're not familiar with this concept, next time you watch your favorite show, track the different story development. See how much time they get and how many different scenes they need to grow.

Enough for now. Article time.

Okay, I've outlined the first 50 or so adventures in general terms of their purpose. Some will explore the player characters' background and goals. Some further the storyline. Some will be planned breaks, using light-hearted adventures to "cool off" after an intense bit of drama or horror.

I've planned out where some of the adventures take place, again in general terms. I want to blend city and wilderness adventures to point out the nature of the campaign setting--Zoa's a big city set in a fantasy world. You could be torn to part by insidious fiends only a hundred yards from 50,000 people going about their lives.

I've also outlined how I plan to go from seemingly random dungeon crawls and city adventures to the major earth-shaking storyline that menaces the world.

At this point, I'm also writing in notes about things that I don't want to include. Like everybody, I have my favorites. If I used something in the last campaign, I'm likely to avoid it this time around. The players probably won't run into beholders, for example. Or a dragon. And definitely not githyanki, since I ran the githyanki incursion event described in Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Adventures as the secondary events in my previous campaign.

I've also finished up my campaign guide (see my article on campaign guides here http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art40884.asp). While I didn't mention it in the article, I went a step further. I found a very nice image online and asked the artist if I could use it for my purposes. She approved it, and I have a beautiful picture for the 16-page handout I'll give to players before we start. If I had any graphic design talents, I'd use a simple but decorative page border, too.

I've planned out in a fair amount of detail the first two gaming sessions. I'll need to know my characters' backgrounds before I can round out the rest of the detail, so that part has to wait. Otherwise, I'm ready to send out the guide and plan for our first session. It should be next week, if all goes well.

First game session went about as planned, except for two no-shows. I had short, 15-minute sessions with each player in a solo adventure designed for each different class group.

As far as party build, we have an interesting mix. One ranger, one never-left-the-city paladin, and one druid. One of the absent players is making up a rogue next week.

No arcane spellcaster.

One character was called on to heal a boy who works at the inn. He fell downstairs carrying a tun of wine, broke it, and the rats were nibbling on him by the time the druid decided to go down there.

The ranger received the task of kicking a local card cheat out of the inn the party's staying at. He's a brand-new player, as in "never played before." He did fine. In miniatures terms, he earned a partial victory; he kicked the cheater out, but not before cheater took some money and cheater won't stay away long. On the other hand, cheater didn't come back and pound the ranger with a couple of friends, either.

The paladin took news of a son's death to a retired cop outside of town. The man received it as you'd expect, and the paladin expressed his sympathy. Investigation into the son's death will probably become an adventure during this first season.

Next week, our first group adventure, will set the tone for the first season or so. I'll have a little spookiness, a fair dose of fun, some local troublemakers, and the inevitable merchant conflict (in Zoa, you can't spit without hitting a merchant conflict).

Hopefully the 4th member of our group will show up and we can talk about suggestions for a 5th. I won't add a new player without the approval of everyone at the table.

Last night fizzled.

The two teenagers I had in the game bailed out, but I'm replacing them with two great roleplayers I know from my store. I haven't seen either of these two in years, but they'll be a great addition to the group.

The game's back on. The new player is using straight cliches for his background, but he's playing a dwarf, which will be excellent for this campaign.

The dwarves are at odds with the human-dominated government, and they actually began a full-scale riot last year (in campaign time). Having a dwarf in the party will have the potential for introducing plot lines that didn't make much sense before.

That brings me back up to four players, and we're back in action. It would still be nice to have a wizard or sorcerer in the party, but I think it'll actually be fun for me as DM to run a party without an artillery piece in the back lobbing fireballs at the bad guys.

Another player! One of my original invites went unanswered, but we finally got in touch and added him to the group. Now we have a paladin, rogue, druid, cleric and a wizard, so all the major class abilities are covered.

The PCs have started cleaning up the streets of Zoa and are up to episode 1.6 coming this week. I think it's time to scare the snot out of them this week. They haven't had much in the way of a good scare yet.

Okay, 4/5 showed up last night, and we had a decent session. Unfortunately some friends from out of town showed up and I had to give them some attention, which cut into my game time. I love 'em, but it did cut us down to only three meaningful encounters.

The party was on militia patrol. Yes, for the citizens of the city, I keep track of when their civil obligations come up on my calendar, and if it presents an adventure opportunity, we role play it. If it interferes with an adventure opportunity, it happens "off stage."

Also, I got to introduce some player character backstory in the opening encounter. While patrols are being divvied up, the militia commander (an important NPC in the city, now statted out for when I write the setting book later) happens to have met the paladin's father. And by "met", I mean "almost had to kill during a period of martial law."

I could have used it as an opportunity to create a PC enemy, but I figure those are a dime a dozen, and they can use some NPC allies. Of all the major political NPCs, the militia captain is probably the most likely and least influential ally--so he's a good one to give them as a "feel good" freebie. He's not technically an ally, but as long as the paladin PC and the militia captain start out with some mutual respect, it can work out that way later.

So, the party arrives at this village just as the Dead Head goblin tribe is attacking. They design everything with skulls, hence their name (no, these goblins aren't particularly original, even for goblins). Also, they have necromancers, which made for a fun encounter.

The party did a great job. All the NPCs lived--even the relatively helpless villagers. The goblins suffered horrible losses, including their two spellcasters. The Dead Head tribe is going to sit quietly in the corner for a while, I think.

What the PCs don't yet appreciate is that a night's rain is going to make it easy to track down the goblins that they'll encounter next week--using weather & terrain to accomplish what I want it to do, and not just background color. In this case, the party doesn't have a PC with the track feat. By adding the rain, and thus lowering the DC on the track check below 20, any character can make the attempt. With 4-5 party members present, they'll be able to follow the tracks for as long as I want them to.

Also, by introducing the militia captain to the paladin, I include a character who's normally in the background in these rural adventures. He's a self-described city boy, so it was a way to bring him to the fore for an adventure during which he might normally sit in the back.

Yes, pretty much everything happens for a reason in my campaign.

Good game last night, with participation all the way around. My wife, playing the druid, has not yet changed her spells since the real cleric came along, so she's not acting very druidy. Her wolf companion got shot full of arrows and went unconscious early in the big final battle, so she didn't get to contribute much other than a couple of arrows.

The paladin got to be heroic and take down the goblin barbarian, so he was happy. The rogue had some miserable dice rolls, but he'd have been doing some serious killin' if he had hit, because he had sneaks lined up almost every round. The cleric saved a couple of party members, so he was able to do his thing. The wizard didn't add much, but his well-placed magic missiles help bring down the barbarian.

The final enemies were a big group of goblins and their leader, a barbarian hunter who had just stolen a unicorn's horn. How evil!

Sadly, I messed up roleplaying one of the best encounters I've ever devised. In another battle, the goblins had a bard. Okay, what does a goblin bard do? I didn't want him to be a musician. I got it! He makes haikus.

You read right: evil goblin haikus. Here you go:

A spring fight begins.
Humans die so easily.
To the fight we spring!

Birds sing in the trees.
Dying elf cries as she dies.
Both are sweet music.

�The Eternal Bard
Struts across the sky--I
Not so eternal.�

[that last is a reference to one of the campaign's constellations and the haiku's mandatory seasonal reference.]

Unfortunately, nobody in the party spoke Goblin, and I didn't have the goblin speak Common (Merchant's Tongue, they call it in Kalamar) because I don't think quickly on my feet, and I'm a moron. Oh, well.

You are completely mad*

* no offence

I agree. Evil goblin haiku is definitely a major sign of insanity. However, it's like cholesterol: you have bad cholesterol and you have good cholesterol.

I have good insanity.

Which lets me come to another point about gaming.

I mess up. As in the case of not using the right language for the goblin, I forget monster abilities, I forget events that I had planned to happen, and I lose track of stuff.

For that reason, I prefer to give NPCs feats and magic items that are passive, that is that apply to something like AC or stats all the time and don't require me to pay attention to them. when you're handling 5-20 characters per encounter, it's just easier.

Planning out the first couple of rounds of combat helps, too. Round 1, villain casts haste from a scroll. Round 2, he drinks a potion of invisibility and moves to the wizard. Round 3, he sneak attacks the snot out of the wizard. That helps summarize the key abilities and assets that I might forget during a battle.