Medieval D&D

ashephard2003

Hi guys,

I'm relatively new to the concept of D&D. I have the necessary books (PH, DMG, MM) and plenty of dice. Where I am, not many of my friends are into D&D, so I was looking to create a campaign for them to try out. Lots of history buffs amongst my friends, so I was going to write a story that fell in around the crusades/inquisition so as to allow for the mysticism and magic of D&D to fit into a more historic setting. My big issue is that when I try to write the story. How do you guys do it? Is it just a general idea that the players develop with a little help from you? This is how I'm trying to make it, though I'm not sure how to keep them on track (my friends are all analyzers -- think angry gazebo minus dictionary mistake). Ideas?

DevoutlyApathetic

Alright, I think these are what I'm thinking of. They give you general ideas of what are good ideas and bad ideas for a DM to do to entertain his players.

I'm more familiar with the series after Monte Cook picked it up but I don't think they're around free online. The previous ones were good, you'll just have to ignore most of the system specific stuff.

Thanatos

You should really try to run a couple of prefab adventures before you start trying to write your own. Trying to create your own campaign from the get-go is pretty much doomed to failure, because, despite having read the books, you don't really understand the game.

ashephard2003

Sorry, I guess I should have clarified.

I have pretty much been an on-again off-again PLAYER of D&D. This is due to scheduling conflicts, group falling outs, and girlfriend threatenings (no, I'm not dating her anymore). All in all, I've got about 6-7 months of experience of playing, with myself dabbling in the idea of DMing now. I like telling stories more than being an actor in them, so I figured I'd try.

I'll look into some pre-fabs though, always a good way to start. Any suggestions?

DevoutlyApathetic

The Dungeon Adventure paths are fairly uniformly good. I'm really enjoying the Savage Tide. Could be a bit of an issue to get all the adventures though. You'll need a hobby shop that stocks back issues of Dungeon.

Horseshoe

DevoutlyApathetic wrote: »

The Dungeon Adventure paths are fairly uniformly good. I'm really enjoying the Savage Tide. Could be a bit of an issue to get all the adventures though. You'll need a hobby shop that stocks back issues of Dungeon.

You might be able to get them from the Paizo website too.

Squashua

Use your PLAYERS to set the game FOR you.

Check out this post and especially the details under the SPOILER button. Get your players to fill out that form (adjust it for your setting - it's currently curbed to modern Call of Cthulhu), read what your players wrote, and see what sort of adventure you can make with that data.

When you make the adventure personal to a player's character, that gets them more invested in the adventure than a generic "quest".

Rend

When I design adventures (and this can even help you to run the prefabs too, as a new DM), I take a lot of care to get to know the characters (NPCs, i mean) and to flesh them out. If you can think like a character, then you'll know how he acts and be able to come up with that when you're presented with something unexpected. It's a great way to plan for your players without having to think of every single thing they might be prompted to do.