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Creating a Campaign Guide

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Preparing to Run a Game

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 16
Great Game Masters make running a game look easy, weaving memorable characters, breathless action, and vivid descriptions into unforgettable tapestries of fantasy. Players in a well-run game have a sense of danger (and a sense of accomplishment in overcoming it), plus a general feeling of spontaneity as events unfold and the characters rise to meet new challenges.

Such magical experiences require plenty of preparation, even a sense of spontaneity—it’s tough to seem spontaneous when you’re shuffling though notes.

Things to Have at the Table

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 16
Supplies and materials on the list that follows keep the game from derailing as you fumble for what you need.

Rulebooks and Other Game Materials: You need copies of whatever rules are in use, plus a copy of any supplement or expansion that deals with player character abilities. If it’s a book that’s referenced frequently by players, it’s often appropriate to ask players to provide their own copies. Dice: An inadequate supply of dice can slow a game to a crawl. At minimum, make sure each player has a full set of the dice most commonly used in the game: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20.

Writing Materials: Everyone needs a pencil and some notepaper. In addition, it’s a good idea to keep a supply of blank character sheets handy.

Miniatures: Many GMs use miniatures to keep track of the action. These work best on a scale map of the adventure scene, typically a gridded battlemat suitable for use with erasable markers (such as GameMastery Flip-Mats), though the right computer equipment can project or print maps to scale.

Props and Associated Supplies: Props and player handouts, such as sketches of important items, maps for player reference, and written notes, can speed play and help hold the players’ interest. SEVEN ESSENTIALS FOR GOOD PREPARATION Exactly what kind of preparation is needed varies from game to game. If you follow this checklist, however, you’ll be ready for just about anything.

Seven Essentials for Good Preperation

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 16
Exactly what kind of preparation is needed varies from game to game. If you follow this checklist, however, you’ll be ready for just about anything.

Published or Homegrown

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 17
A one-shot game is a scenario intended to last for a single play session. These scenarios might be “standalone,” with little or no connection to other campaigns you run, or merely a diversion for your regular characters to give you extra time to put together the next major challenge. Paizo’s Pathfinder Society Scenarios are designed for just such situations, and can be downloaded from paizo.com. Keep in mind that the characters in these sessions can be the usual PCs, affiliates such as hirelings, or totally new characters intended only for a single game—one-shots are often perfect for unusual character ideas that might fail or grow stale in a longer game.

Sharing the Load

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 18
Unless you’ve got a very short scenario to run or a very long game session planned, create new characters ahead of time. In a time crunch, you might create them yourself and allow your players to pick from the bunch. In this case, you should make a few more than you’ll need so that nobody feels stuck with the leftovers. If you decide to have players create their own characters, be clear about the power level, gear, and other game details you’ll allow and reserve the right to review and edit characters to better fit the group. You might even want to meet up with players one-on-one or have them submit characters early for review.

One-Shot Games

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 18
Introduce the scenario in a way that engages the players. Don’t give away any secrets, but let the players know why each of their characters is getting involved—having several “adventure hooks” allows you to pick which one would be most compelling for a given character. You can also always start the action with the party already committed to the adventure or facing a situation that leads in to the rest of the scenario, so as not to waste any playing time.

The concept of the macguffin often proves useful here. A macguffin is some element that drives your plot forward, but that you can ignore once it’s served its purpose. Your macguffin might be a rumor, a mission or request from a friend, a cryptic message, a treasure map, or anything else that piques the group’s interest without giving away too much.

Campaigns

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 18
Your campaign world provides the backdrop for all your adventures. Take some time to consider the lay of the land and what it might be like to visit the place—Chapter 6 provides some specific ideas on creating a setting.

The sheer scope of your campaign world can also affect play. You can confine all your adventures to a single country or similar geographic area, or even to a single town or city. The kinds of adventures you can run in such a confined setting, however, will be different than what you can do with a whole continent. An epic, world-spanning campaign offers an endless variety of adventure sites, while a localized campaign offers a more intimate feel and a strong sense that the characters are part of the world.

Essentials of Good Campaigns

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 19
Your campaign need not have an overarching storyline, but having one (or more) continuing plots can help tie your adventures together into a continuous narrative, and inspire new ones.

Don’t overdo this element. Your goal isn’t to script your campaign, but rather to explain how and why things happen. Keep the story general, with an eye toward details your characters can notice and perhaps change through their actions. Choose something that can unfold slowly so that the story can move along even when your player characters aren’t actively involved in it. Consider how the player characters might shape or redirect the story, but also establish what happens if they don’t get involved.

Winging It

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 19
Even though you’re the GM, you don’t have to do everything yourself. You can pass along any number of tasks to your players.

Bookkeeping: This covers all the little tasks necessary to keep your group organized. You might ask one player to be the recorder, keeping notes on what the group accomplishes in each game. The recorder can keep tallies of party loot and foes defeated, saving you effort when it’s time to divide the spoils. You can also ask this player to note key pieces of information the PCs discover, names of important people they meet, and places they go. These notes can help your group get back up to speed when they return after a break.

Rules Knowledge: If you have a fair-minded player with a talent for explaining the rules, use her as a resource. When you expect to tackle an unfamiliar rule, discuss how it works with this player. When disputes about the rules arise during a game, get her opinion. It’s also frequently helpful to team her up with rookie players as an advisor, keeping the game moving.

Round-Robin Campaigns: No one says you have to GM every session. Sometimes a team of GMs can rotate the responsibility of running the game, each GM taking up the game where the previous one left off each week, while the other GMs play. This requires significant coordination, and expert roleplaying (as some players already know the plotlines), but the chance to play in your own campaign and regularly experience different GM styles can be extremely entertaining and rewarding.

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