New DM: How to design the adventure?

[Thereddic]

So some of my friends, believe it or not, have never played D&D before in their lives. Feeling the need to rectify this, I proposed we all play a campaign, and they agreed to it. The problem here is that...I don't actually know how to design a fun campaign. When I was like, 14 or something I DMed a couple campaigns with some other friends, but that was mostly me pulling random stuff with no regard to logic and/or balance out of my ass all the time, not exactly good for introducing people to the game. Besides, I have an actual idea for a campaign I want to do, although I'll post a separate thread on the world and story for advice in the appropriate section.

The problems with my campaign idea come from the level. The scale of the campaign would at LEAST call for characters to wind up around lvl 15 or so, and the players are starting at lvl 1 so they can figure out the game. That means I need to figure out a good starting point. The general idea for the campaign is that Divine magic is (unbeknownst to the world at large) fading from the world, causing the world to slowly die. One man, a cleric (probably more like refluffed Ur Priest though) is trying to create an artificial god of sorts in order to fuel the world, but to do that he needs souls. For this purpose, he's trying to incite a war between two large countries, the excessive casualty rate providing the last bit of power to his plan.

I have an idea for how to start this, namely the players hunt down bandits in one country, where they will find planted evidence of the bandits being agents of the other country, and things could escalate from there, hints being dropped in dungeons and through strange individuals found throughout quests as to something larger than the war. But that still leaves me with no idea how to design the dungeons or encounters, or pace things properly.

TL;DR: How does one design dungeons and encounters, as well as pace a campagin?

PS: One of the players (someone who DOES have D&D experience) is being a cleric, and as such is privy to the knowledge of the fading divine magic, and wants to do a sub plot for his character trying to discover why the magic is fading. The idea soudns cool and engaging, so I okayed it, but I don't actually know how to incorporate it well, especially since its supposed to be hidden from the other players until it gets revealed for whatever reason. Any ideas on how to do this?

[CaptRory]

Don't bite off more than you can chew at the start. Just worry about your first adventure. I strongly recommend that the first adventure be self-contained and its primary function be to teach everyone the rules.

It should have a little of everything:

A couple easy traps.
A wide variety of loot to show that not just the obvious can be valuable (raiding an abandoned dwarven outpost and finding a barrel of pickles and enough mithril to craft a buckler or small weapon might be good).
Some monsters that would use some more advanced tactics (hobgoblins are good for that).

And at the end of it, anyone that wants to change their character, can. Anything. Class, race, gender, feats, its all up for changing. Total retcon. These are new players so this first adventure is also a means for showing them how their character is going to play.

At the end of the adventure they get to level up to two. It shouldn't be a long adventure but its not a long jump from one to two anyway.


The first adventure is also a great place to setup long running challenges. Like, maybe the guy running the hobgoblins is a Fighter/Cleric. And when he dies... he doesn't see anything. Its just static. Maybe his spells fizzle during the battle with the PCs too. Maybe hobgoblins don't generate enough faith to sustain their deity through this period of cosmic waning. So this hobgoblin gets resurrected by someone and becomes either the Big Bad or the Dragon for the Big Bad.

As for the cleric guy, he can skip the first adventure. Do a private session with him, he can help you run the monsters during the first newbie session, and after his PC can come up and recruit the other players onto the Plot Train.

[ksbsnowowl]

TL;DR: How does one design dungeons and encounters, as well as pace a campagin?

Not every adventure has to deal with the end-game.  Drop minor hints initially, then more blatant hints, but without yet revealing what the hints are pointing at.

This is sort of long-winded, but one of the best ways I know to demonstrate this is by example.

I'm running a Viking-themed gestalt game that started at first level, and has recently hit 15th level.  From 6th to ~12th level I ran a heavily revamped version of Red Hand of Doom that ended in the "Battle of Brindol" at a planar breach with demons pouring through.  The 20th level climax involves a great wyrm white dragon, and the cursed silver of Andvari (from Norse Myth), silver that picked up an additional trait from its time hoarded by Fafnir (who held said silver in Norse Myth).  The hoard had come to be owned by someone who was then slowly transformed into a dragon by its curse.  Some of that cursed silver ended getting out into the economy, and thus dragons, which have not been common, are showing up, because its possessors are being transformed by the curse.

On the first adventure the PC's were on (hunting down a fugitive), they came across a corpse that had a note addressed to some of the wise women in the PCs' homeland.  It was from a neighboring ruler (a high-level druid) mentioning that the signs and portents are aligning, so the wise women should make preparations.  It was left purposefully vague, both as a means of keeping the information private if any other eyes saw the note, and because this was only the first clue of the 12th level climax of a planar alignment occurring that would allow demons from the underworld to enter Midgard through a gateway.

Around 5th level, at a celebratory feast following the coronation of a young king, a skald recited the tale of Sigurd's slaying of Fafnir, and his taking of the silver, despite the dragon's warning that the silver would lead to his ruin. (All of this is directly from Norse myth.)  It ended by mentioning Sigurd's fall (his love affair with Brynhild is the subject of a famous opera) and vaguely referenced the downfall of his house (the Volsungs). [I think there was one smaller clue about this earlier, but I can't recall what it was.]

Back-story that the PC's don't know is that a great conquering army of trolls about 400 years ago extorted wealth from many regions, and got the cursed silver as protection money.  The commander was a Half-Fiend Ice Troll, and he took all the cursed silver, and was transformed into a Great Wyrm White Dragon.

Shortly after the coronation where they heard the tale of Sigurd, the conversion of the Red Hand of Doom adventure began.  They were traveling cross-country, and were ambushed by some Tanarukk.  They backtracked them to a cave.  After slaughtering all the tanarukk at the cave, they found an old note written in blood, on a tanned hide made from human back skin, that urged the tanarukk to breed furiously and build an army.  A few sessions later they encountered the first ambush of the Red Hand of Doom conversion, which I had converted to use a Tanarukk army with demon support instead of a goblin army with dragon supply.  When they get back to their "home town" the local lord asks for their help with Tanarukk/Troll raids on the farms outside of town.  If you've ever run through RHoD, it pretty much follows a similar framework.  While investigating the simple raids, the PC's learn it is actually an advanced scouting operation for a Tanarukk army.  They then learn bits and pieces of the army's goal, which is to disrupt a ritual to block a planar gateway that will open on the winter solstice.  This whole adventure, from 6th to 12th level, is unrelated to the big 20th level end-game.

At 12th level, after resting for the winter, the PC's had an in-town confrontation with a party of specialized soldiers from a Roman-like empire that many of them have reason to detest.  The imperial soldiers are far outside their homeland.  The confrontation doesn't turn violent, though it almost does.  The soldiers then move on their way out of town the next day.

The PC's had shacked up for the winter with the young king they had saved and seen coronated at 5th level.  One of the PC's who had recently been out buying crafting components was sitting in his room when someone snuck in and tried to steal his coin purse.  He noticed, and grabbed the purse before the female intruder could do so.  When he refused to give her the purse, she became impatient and reverted to her true form... a wingless Song Dragon, and breathed lightning at him, burning through about 75% of his hit points, and making him shaken.  He wanted to figure out as much as he could, but had realized he wasn't going to win this fight, so he dumped the coins on the floor, and thus was able to see she was interested only in a particular coin, which she snatched and teleported away.  He noted that the coin she took was a very old looking silver coin, but that's all he could remember about it (how much do you pay attention to the coins you get back as change?)

Later that same night, a shadowy figure intruded into the king's hall and assaulted and kidnapped an NPC (former player character that had earned someone's ire back around 4th level) by teleporting away with her unconscious body.
This clued them in that another former player character might be in trouble too.  When they later get a chance to investigate, they find two former party members have been kidnapped by the Unseelie Court, and when the party shows up at a special location seeking advice from the Seelie Court (not understanding some of the planar interactions in play) they intrude upon the imminent execution of one of their friends by the Unseelie Court.  Thus, the party gets blackmailed into two McGuffin adventures to save their two friends.

The first blackmail quest is to investigate rumors of dragons out west.  They must find one, kill it, bring its body and all its possessions back and give it to the Lady of the Unseelie Court.  They start shadow-walking west, and find ruins of an old city beside a lake, figuring that might be a good place to look for a dragon.  [BTW - this city was destroyed due to the conqueror from 400 years ago.]  Though it is a ruin, it is the largest city the characters have ever seen.  There is a black dragon there, and they hunt it and kill it.  When they search its body, they find several coins stuck in his scales, two of which look very old.  They don't want to chance breaking the deal, so don't keep either of them, but they do thoroughly examine them first.  With detect magic they learn that both coins have an invisible Arcane Mark upon them.  The mark is an amalgamation of several runes all built off of each other.  They puzzle out that it is a name: Hunnar

After delivering the dragon's corpse and the coins, they seek the insight of the wise women of their homeland, asking what they know of Hunnar.  The wise women say they will research it while the party goes off on the second blackmail quest.

They recently learned from the wise women that Hunnar was the name of a great conqueror several hundred years ago.

The second blackmail McGuffin quest failed, so the party is on a last-ditch rescue mission to save their friend.  Last night they just "killed" the shadowy kidnapper (he is a Lich-like undead, so he'll be returning later, and he knows about the cursed coins, so he'll be seeking some of those out too, and will slowly become a draco-lich shadow dragon).

Gotta jet, but I'll continue adding to this in about an hour.

******************

Going forward, I plan to have the party encounter one of those "Roman" soldiers, who now is a half-dragon (the soldiers were headed west to investigate the rumors for the empire, and they killed a dragon and got its coin), who became jealous and possessive, as the curse does to one who possesses one of the coins, and he killed his party mates.  The PC's will find some of the things he looted from his dead friends, including the commander's written orders to search out the dragons and the coins.

The orders, and the half-dragon Roman soldier (they will recognize the armor) will be the first real evidence that the dragons are not just collecting the old coins; the coins are causing the recent increase in dragon activity.  This will happen 11 levels after the first nebulous clue was dropped innocuously about Fafnir's cursed silver hoard, and 4 levels after the first time the PC's encountered one such coin (having it stolen from them by a dragon).  They've slowly learned that others are beginning to take an interest in the coins, and they'll finally have the info to put 2 and 2 together.  I can't wait to see the look of dawning realization on their faces when they figure it out.

Then, after having killed the half-dragon soldier, assuming they keep any of the things he had looted from the other soldiers, my PC's will be harassed by the Spectral Mages resulting from the other dead Roman soldiers (they were all gestalt gishes), as spectral mages can automatically sense and locate any of the items they possessed at the time of their death.

As the party starts to really investigate the heart of the dragon matter, and encounter more and more dragons, they will be targeted and harassed by the shadowy kidnapper lich-thing, who is hunting the coins for his Unseelie employer (and ferreting a few away for himself), as well as other dragons, who are searching out the coins.
[Major back-story here, some adventurers succeeded in raiding the Great White Wyrm's hoard while he was elsewhere, and by the time the Wyrm had returned to discover what had happened, several people in the adventurer's town were already transformed into dragons (the more coins you have, the faster you grow and age), and thousands of coins had left the area with merchants, etc.  The Wyrm took back all the coins, save for one per newly-subjugated dragon (one coin will maintain the curse and the resulting dragon will age at "normal" rate), and has ordered them to hunt down all the coins and return them to his hoard... or else.]

There are also fiends on the loose (from the planar gate that opened at 12th level), and some of them are now hunting the coins.  With the rules on Possession from FCI, the PC's might have to face the same Pit Fiend and Kluricher several times before they are actually able to kill them, and each time they face it, it will become more and more dragon-like, with the Pit Fiend eventually turning into a Hellfire Wyrm. (I plan for this campaign to go into epic levels before the players can "clean up" the loose threads created from the cursed coins).

Anyway, the big 20th level climax will be the PC's facing off against Hunnar, the Great White Wyrm.

So, there is my advice via example, on how to pace a campaign, and drop clues along the way.

Edit:  I haven't updated it in a while, but you might find this insightful:
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1969.0

[Thereddic]

Well, that gives me a lot of pacing ideas, but pacing is the part I could piece together somewhat. The main thing I'm worried about is dungeon design itself. I'm not sure how big to make rooms, where to put traps, chests secret passages etc. I have no idea how to balance loot, and I'm not sure how to make sure the monsters are tough but not falling under killer DM jurisdiction. Any ideas on how to learn that beyond screwing it up until I get it right?

[ksbsnowowl]

Err on the side of too easy until you get a better handle on it.  A lot of low-level adventures have you up against squads of goblins and the like.  Go easy on the numbers, then introduce a "second wave" from down the hall if the PC's are wiping the floor with the first set.

Another thing I've used on occasion are "minions" and "bosses."  Minions get minimum HP's (ie: 1+Con mod per level) but only provide 50% the XP.  Bosses get max HP, but grant 150% XP for defeating them.  You can then adjust on the fly, turning some into minions if the PC's are getting overwhelmed, or turn one into a boss if you want him to stick around for another round of the fight.  It also allows an interesting element where the PC's don't know how tough a squad of guards are... "Are they minions or normals?  There are quite a few of them..."

As far as planning out dungeons... Read published adventures.  Those will give you some good ideas that you can steal and adapt to suit your story.

Loot: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/treasure.htm#monstersWithTreasure

Also just take an inventory after a level or two, and see where the PC's fall vs the wealth by level guidelines.

As for room size, a perusal of published adventures will tell you the rooms in D&D-ville are HUGE compared to the real world.  So, just make them as big as you need them to be.

Traps aren't always needed.  My Viking game has had... two traps in 15 levels of game play.  But if you want them, put them on chests and secret doors.

[CaptRory]

When designing rooms and things, try to think about who built it, who is there now, and what the circumstances are. If a human village is taken over by an orc warband while they're looting it, and the players go there to clean things out and rescue whoever is left, you need to go through a few levels of thought:

What were the humans who built this place thinking? What is the point of this settlement? What buildings have they constructed?

What are the orcs doing with it? Where are any survivors? How would the orcs modify the town while they are there? How did the humans modify the town when they saw the orcs coming?

So, building from the ground up you have a big market, and a jail, and some shops and businesses like a blacksmith. Maybe there's an underground ice house and instead of paying taxes the local wizard comes in and casts Cone of Cold down there once a month to provide ice for his fellow townsfolk.

So, the townsfolk see this bigass orc army coming and the women and children get put underground and the blacksmith moves his shop to the ground floor of the ice house because all his stuff is heavy and smokes and smells bad. "What? We sent all the women and children out of town when we saw you guys coming!" And the orcs know he's lying because their scouts have had the town surrounded for half a month.

So the orcs have the most dangerous townsmen still alive locked in the jail and the rest are stuck in a warehouse while the orcs cart off everything that isn't nailed down.

Ok I'm kind of rambling here, my point is you need to sort of try to think this stuff through. Like, the orcs made some big holes in the town wall, and they're gonna be here for a few days. "Ok, the orcs dug some pits and put some stakes down as a stop gap measure."

Most people won't scatter traps around randomly. They use them to protect things or to give an advantage of some kind.

[h45hc0d3]

I try to run about a third of my encounters in the outdoors. This gives you a chance to throw around rough terrain, fliers, large trees, and small trees with abandon.

There's as many different approaches to creating dungeons and encounters as there are DMs. The CR of creatures is supposed to be a good ballpark for that, but truth be told, it's really not. So here, I'll throw some things out there.

For creating dungeons, I have three major strategies. First, if I have plenty of time to prepare (or even just relax) I'll take a graph paper notebook and doodle up a dungeon, with little symbolic notes on the page showing me which things are where. This will typically take the form of a cave, a gnomish/dwarven/kobold excavated structure, or an abandoned military structure. I don't necessarily give it a place in the world immediately; if the characters steer the adventure towards going deep into a cave because one of them wanted to go monster hunting, I'd use a cave; and so on. Secondly, if I think up a trap that does more than just attack the characters/apply a debuff to the characters, I'll sketch it out, and keep it handy for a situation where I think it would make sense. Third, and specifically to traps, I'll use the traps in the DMG and suchlike as a starting point. A pit trap is an interesting article at level 2 or 3; by level 10 characters can fly if they want to, basically. The sweet spot for devious traps tends to be around level 6 or 7 for this reason: someone will have flight but not everyone. Some prior favorites include the gelatinous cube in the bottom of a pit trap (perhaps with metallic treasure visible inside it), a trap door that opens ABOVE someone when a floor plate is triggered releasing another gelatinous cube, and a sideways gravity trap (turning a LONG corridor into a DEEP trap, based off of, and requiring, the reverse gravity spell). I've found that nuisance traps tend to combo with monsters very well; I've also found that often-fatal traps aren't terribly fun for anyone (though, NEAR-fatal traps can be great). Save extremely fatal traps for NPCs the party has grow attached to, that you feel the need to kill off. Oh, right, NPCs. Statistically, humanoids should be the MOST common foe the party faces. However. Except for 1st-level warriors, they tend to be the most laborious to set up. As you think of interesting builds and antagonists (besides just the main plot related guys), stat them out in case you need a sudden antagonist at some point.

As you can see, I tend to take the pieces provided in the DMG and SRD, and assemble them into slightly larger components that can easily be strung together for a set of encounters.

Now, to actually run the dungeon, if you don't have a map already planned out, it's fairly simple. Start at the beginning, which is to say, the entrance. Describe it in whatever way strikes your fancy, and if necessary, represent it for your players on your playing surface. As they move through the dungeon, keep adding pieces to it. Try to think ahead a little bit; traps go where they won't bother or impede dungeon denizens normally, and where they'll protect them from intruders. Living quarters and barracks are two separate things: if there's guards they'll be handy to muster near the front, where a lone wizard is likely to have his bed hidden faaaaaar in the back. Keep a sketch of the map so you don't try to have a room occupy the same space as another room (unless something magical is going on).

If putting a dungeon together is still really hard for you, try making 6-in-square "rooms" and 2inx8in "hallways" out of card stock and arranging them as you go along. As you get more comfortable, you'll start varying the shapes more, and you'll have it down before you know it.

I've found a decent dungeon usually has six or seven encounters, but that may just be my DM style; some people enjoy going back to the same dungeon repeatedly, over and over. A wandering monster encounter in a dungeon is fun, but it doesn't have to happen every time, just like random encounters overland don't have to happen every single time.

Speaking of encounters and monsters, some monsters are dumb and some aren't. Play the dumb ones dumb. Don't play the smart ones dumb. Ask yourself how the monster was successful enough to make it here (only to be slain by the party now)? What strategies would it use to succeed often? What weaknesses would it seek to minimize, and it what circumstances is the party likely to encounter it?

So that's how I structure encounters and build dungeons. I'll freely just generate the stuff all day long. As a result of my spontaneous methodology, my pacing sometimes suffers because I'm not forcing the characters to do anything interesting. Pacing is hard, anyways.

Don't be afraid to throw out random hints, suspicious plot-related items, and red herrings for the characters to chase down; just, if they pick up anything with more than just a cash value, make sure you write it down in a shortlist. Sometimes it's easy to make it appear you've been building towards something all along when it's really just serendipity.

[Unbeliever]

I'm going to reiterate the scale it back for the beginning advice of others.  Nothing has killed more campaigns than overambition. 

You might also try and do some pregenerated 2nd or 3rd level characters for everyone.  You can ask them what they're interested in playing and take care of the legwork for the first time out.  What I'm thinking is that viewing the first adventure as a "trial run" or "starter mode" is probably very good and very healthy.  There will be a lot of beer and pretzels and levity, which is fine starting out, but might be harder if you were aiming for your own epic campaign.  I'd also expect people to not want to be locked into what was their first character their first time out.  This way, people can continue with these characters if they like, or change if they don't, or a combination of the two.

Well, that gives me a lot of pacing ideas, but pacing is the part I could piece together somewhat. The main thing I'm worried about is dungeon design itself. I'm not sure how big to make rooms, where to put traps, chests secret passages etc. I have no idea how to balance loot, and I'm not sure how to make sure the monsters are tough but not falling under killer DM jurisdiction. Any ideas on how to learn that beyond screwing it up until I get it right?

The CR system is a huge help.  As is having characters with a few extra hp, which is why I would advocate for 2nd or 3rd level.  They also can do more stuff -- almost nothing is a bigger turnoff than playing a fantasy "hero" who can be killed by small children with rocks (real example from AD&D).  While we bitch about the CR thing, and it is an imperfect system at best, it gives you a very good framework to start off from. 


As others have said, err on the side of easy.  Encounter difficulty is like salt -- it's easy to add, hard to take away.  If they thrash the orcs, then another wave shows up, attracted by the sounds of battle. 

For dungeons, there are lots of ones available online probably.  But, I wouldn't sweat it that much.  I tend to try and think about what the place is or was:  is it a natural cave formation?  Is it an abandoned keep or castle or ruins?  And, then I go from there.  That can also serve to narrow down the monsters you include, too.  I think CaptRory mostly said this stuff above, and it's good advice. 

Maybe you can throw up your vague idea for an adventure here and we can give you more pointed insight.  Honestly, though, DMing isn't that hard.  Or, this part of DMing isn't.  If you have a handful of interested invested players, whose characters have a motivation for adventure (or you can give them one, e.g., their town was attacked, their loved ones were kidnapped by orc slavers), the rest falls into place once you get the hang of the numbers.  I always find breathing life into the world and the NPCs to be the more subtle and challenging part.

As a personal note, I kind of hate traps.  I only use them for specific reasons -- like an Indiana Jones type of adventure -- or if someone in the party is playing a trap-focused Rogue.  I know they are classic, but they are also boring (just skill checks) and sort of incomprehensible (many dungeons and environments shouldn't have them).  Just a personal preference. 

For example, for a starter adventure, I might do something like this (completely off the top of my head): 

• The PCs are residents of Hamlet Blah.  Or, a couple of them can be passing through merchants, etc.   Hamlet Blah is raided by orc slavers, who kidnap people for profit and seriously wound the local sheriff/guard types.
• The PCs, motivated by good deeds, rescuing loved ones, adventure, or profit start hunting down the orcs.  This leads to a few orc encounters plus some "wandering monster" types as they get further away from the Hamlet of Blah.  All of this works especially well if at least one member of the party is a "woodsman" (i.e., Ranger) who can track.
• Sick of being dogged by these annoying PCs, the slavers hole up in a long-abandoned keep.  What they don't know, being orcs and not familiar with the local history like the PCs are, is that the keep is reputed to be haunted.  There is a sad/tragic/horrific backstory there.  But, the PCs have to go in to rescue the people they have kidnapped.  The twist is that the orcs, who were planning on waylaying the PCs from fortified and advantageous positions (orcs have darkvision, for instance) are all murdered by the keep's undead. 
  
• The kidnapped victims are now within the winding, crumbling, cavernous keep, which is itself a "dungeon" and of course replete with actual dungeons.  The PCs have to find them and try and lead them out of peril.  You can even close the ways behind them via some of the undead, a trap (think Temple of Doom), or some suchness.  Opens up the opportunity for a series of undead encounters, maybe leavened with some disgusting vermin.  A little bit of a horror/Diablo change of pace, which is classic D&D and partners well with the more Tolkienesque beginning

That's several sessions, especially if your players get into it and can do some role-play amongst themselves and with some of the townsfolk they rescue.  Hope that helps.

[ksbsnowowl]

Lots of good insight here.  Not enough "+1's" in a day to acknowledge them properly.

I'll also agree that 2nd level may be a better starting place for some first timers.  Second level makes them a lot more survivable, but doesn't actually introduce any extra complexity (no 2nd level spells yet; at best they have an extra feat or a class ability like evasion).  Just start them as 2nd level characters, but at 0 XP.  Until they've earned 1000 XP, run them against what would be typical of 1st level characters, then level them to 3rd at 3k XP.

Having a "trial run" first time out isn't a bad idea either.  You could either make an unrelated story for three or four sessions, to get the hang of things, then "start over" with remade characters as the players see fit, or you could just continue on with the same story, but allow any character changes they want to make, and don't sweat the continuity changes.  The second option is generally what I do with any players that join my group.

[kitep]

I also think you should go with a pre-generated adventure.  You can even download some free ones from the wizards web site, though these tend to be pretty small.  But it'll let you and the newbies get a handle on things without getting too invested in an adventure.

I also agree with the pregenerated characters.  Let the players jump right into playing instead of trying to make a character when the don't know what any of it means.  Also, pre-selected spells can help.

I'd also keep things simple.  Keep to the 3 basic books (PHB, DMG, MM) so they don't have to go from book to book looking for things.  Unless of course someone asked to play something that requires another book.

And the main thing is have fun.  New DMs can often be way more interesting than ones who know what they're doing.  It doesn't really matter if things don't fit together perfectly, as long as people are enjoying themselves.

A battle map and minitures can be really handy for helping people keep straight what's going on.

Good luck!

[Thereddic]

On the topic of using a premade campaign, I'm really opposed to the idea. I already know how to keep things running from my past experience pulling random ideas out of nowhere, but running a campaign that's already predefined just strikes me as really boring. The main allure of DMing to me is making your own adventures, your own stories, etc. I feel like just reading everything out of a book would kill the experience for me. Besides, I already have a bunch of ideas cooking and the cleric is already writing backstory for himself, and be damned if I'm not letting what I already have go to waste. I AM keeping everyone to core though, with the exception of one guy who wanted to be a mongolian (because they are the exception, apparently. I suggested a halfling swift hunter on a war dog) and possibly another who might go Warmage since that's the closest class I could think of for turning people's blood into steam. Nothing major though.

Anyway, as for ideas for an intro ideas... I was thinking that finding themselves in a village for whatever reason (I'm trying to think of something beyond "they met in a tavern when..."), but they hear stories of a village that had been raided by hobgoblins/bandits. Upon investigating the town, they will find the local wizard, who hid in fear and let all the villagers be taken. given some hints by the wizard, the PC's will hunt down the location of the stronghold, perhaps the wizard overheard the raiders talking about the next target, and the PC's set up an ambush. From there, the PC's can follow the tracks of the raiders to their stronghold, which they will clear out. Hints as to the overarching plot could be dropped subtly, when they find all the villagers that were kidnapped have been killed, and their bodies piled in one room. The kills may appear to be done in some ritual form to suggest that there is something going on here, but nothing that really states that this is anything large scale, possibly just these raiders are really really evil, or some such. Followup adventures could be based on other races being increasingly aggressive, more villages being raided and their inhabitants killed etc.

I was also considering something for the BBEG style enemies. Whenever the players are up against a big boss (or even just the final boss of that particular dungeon) the boss is a gestalt character. This sound like a good idea? I feel like it would be a good way to give bosses that really strong enemy feel without making them too much higher level than the PCs.

As for some dungeon drafts...does anyone know of a good free program for building maps for this sort of thing? I'd rather not start using paper until I've gotten some good ideas for layout.

[Tonymitsu]

As for some dungeon drafts...does anyone know of a good free program for building maps for this sort of thing? I'd rather not start using paper until I've gotten some good ideas for layout.

http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/  is a pretty good resource for generating some quick layouts.

I'd also agree with using a pre-made module for at least the very first session, just to lessen the preparation load on you.  You can easily work it into your established campaign idea if everyone really enjoys it, and they frequently have much better plot hooks than, "You all meet in a tavern..."

The other thing I will second is ksbsnowowl's suggestion for the use of published modules for the maps.  If you are in need of good dungeon layouts lift them directly from the books and tailor the encounters and location to suit the needs of your game.  For instance, some module has a castle layout that you really like, but the PC's are currently headed to a haunted tomb, so when they arrive they discover that the castle was built on top of the tomb's remains.  In this instance the castle becomes the "dungeon" and when they reach the bottom the tomb is just a simple walled crypt.

[Unbeliever]

I would be a bit leery of pregens, too.  I haven't had a lot of luck with them.  My wife ran us halfway through Savage Tides, which is pretty good incidentally.  But, she was doing an awful lot of work, which kind of defeated the real allure of a pregen adventure.

That being said, it might be nice to grab some of them and pillage them for ideas and for encounters, dungeons, and settings. 

Two other quick comments, as I've already conjured ye olde wall of text in this thread.  Thereddic, you seem a little too obsessed with, I don't know, avoiding pitfalls or something.  It's your first time out.  A tavern is fine.  Or, as I would recommend (i.e., as I have done for every campaign for the past decade), have everyone know each other in some fashion before the game starts.  Let them figure out what their relationships are and come up with them, though you can help.  There's nothing wrong with a preestablished adventuring company to start.  They could have collected to investigate the rumors you mention in your post. 

Also, you mentioned keeping things to Core.  There's a tension between not overwhelming folks, but as you're probably aware, Core kind of equals "casters rock and everyone else sucks."  And, it also holds the most complicated character classes:  Druids, Wizards, and Clerics.  Opening up things, which you have, so that people can play things like Warmages, Warlocks, etc. is probably a good idea.  It might not matter a ton if you do what has been suggested above -- let people change or rebuild characters if this becomes a campaign later.  But, it's worth considering whether it's better to have that Fighter guy just start off as a Warblade, even though the mechanics are a bit more involved. 

[veekie]

Here's my thoughts on planning.
Firstly, don't bother with planning the whole route out to 20. A lot of things can change in the span of 4 levels, who the PCs befriended, who they pissed off and what they've learned along the way. Instead, break down the overall campaign into arcs and sub-arcs.  I'd suggest 5 main arcs, spanning 4 levels each, with their individual persons of interest and overarching thematic. Don't flesh out more than one arc ahead of time, they are just there to inform your foreshadowing, minor details you can drop in. Don't daisy chain your BBEGs, or the PCs are liable to short-circuit the chain and go after the later one prematurely. Some of the prime movers might be sparked off by player action, or by someone further up or down the chain.

Next, adventure design. Since these are new players, they have to double as tutorials for mechanics and concepts. Big ones like creature types and subtypes could be fit into the arc structure, allowing you to introduce additional types and traits as you go along. For the first arc, just use types with no particular special features, immunities can make for a very stiff learning experience.  The first arc works well as an introduction to the basic rules of combat, flanking(multiple opponents), special attacks(except grapple, leave that for arc 2 or they might just quit out of frustration), mounted combat, area attacks, traps and the various basic conditions. The second are for the more awkward situations(where they already have buy in), unleashing swarms, action denial conditions like fear or daze, grappling, poison and the like.

Plan individual encounters with player competencies in mind, more than half the party should be able to contribute to any given scene,  and overall everyone should get to do something. Most scenes should have 1-2 pieces of active terrain, where interaction with a player ability can cause additional effects. Climatic encounters like boss fights get one piece per player, and the boss gets to use these to make the fight harder without pumping stats as well. Can't give more specific advice without info on player capabilities and preferences.

[ksbsnowowl]

Here's my thoughts on planning.

All good advice.

[Thereddic]

I'm back, sorry that I'm sorta necroing this, I've just been occupied by other matters and haven't had the time to post.

Anyway, for the first adventure heres my plan:

The PCs are a group of friends/adventurers, how long they've known each other and why they've chosen this life I'll leave to them. They're doing their usual rounds of the town, maybe they work for the town guard (need an idea for what they're doing initially) when a man from the next town over runs in, haggard, weary and with a message. Hobgoblins have been seen mobilizing towards his town, and he was sent to get reinforcements, as he comes from a rather small hamlet with basically no military presence. When the PCs follow him to investigate: they find the town deserted. The town has obviously been raided, but beyond a bit of blood and maybe a severed limb or something, there's absolutely no sign of the former inhabitants of the village. Here the PCs can be introduced to skill checks, searching around the town to try and find out if there are any people remaining, or for some clue as to where the hobgoblins took them.

Depending on their search results, they might find a wizard hiding in one of the houses in a crawlspace that was overlooked. The wizard is a coward who hid and let the village be taken, and is also the son of a noble family, who's parents would reward the PCs for finding him as a bonus to the main objective. They can also try and force the wizard to help them out with saving the townsfolk, either way making the wizard a recurring friend of the PCs. They will also find a small group of hobgoblins scrounging around for a second looting run to pick up anything they missed. The players will overhear plans to raid a caravan passing through to this town, as news of the hobgoblin raid hasn't been spread yet. The players can decide to either eliminate the hobgoblins present, or possibly track them to the main hobgoblin base. If they fight the hobgoblins, the PCs can choose to either intercept the raid on the caravan or try and find the trail to the hobgoblin lair. If they can't find the trail, an experienced tracker with the caravan will point them in the right direction.

They will then raid the hobgoblin lair, a time in which they can be introduced to dungeons and traps and such. As they clear out the lair, the PCs will likely find the corpses of everyone from the village, all killed in one room for no visible purpose, dropping the first hints of the overarching plot.

How does this sound so far?

Also, I proposed the idea of the Tome of Battle for more interesting melee characters, and the players seem fond of the idea. I have a problem though. At least two of my players now want to play an archer type character, which, to my knowledge, never really got any support for the whole no options beyond "I attack" problem, as have voiced a lack of desire to use magic. Any ideas on how I could spice things up for them? I'm a bit uncomfortable using homebrew for them, since they're just getting started with basic D&D.

[CaptRory]

If the PC's come from a small town (500 people or less) everyone is going to know everyone else. Or at least know OF everyone else. So even if they don't see their character as part of the town guard/militia they'd probably be in a position to volunteer for this sort of thing (either just to help or for personal reasons like their extended family lives there) or they'd be asked to go check it out (the ranger is asked to guide the party to the nearby town so they can avoid the roads which may be watched).

The archer thing:

Character's Specialize.
An archer character specializes in ranged weapons of some sort. This doesn't mean he can't do other things. Nothing keeps him from carrying a falchion at his side and using it to beat the snot out of anything that gets too close the same way a melee focused character will carry a longbow for times when the party has to fight at range.

If you want to give them more variety you might consider putting in some minorly magical arrows. Arrows that duplicate alchemical effects. If they buy balls of twine they could tie smoke sticks to their arrows. Replacing the arrow heads with smaller flasks of alchemist's fire wouldn't be too effective as a weapon against living things but would let you start fires at range.

Your spellcasters can get in on the act too. Cast light on an arrow and shoot it into a dark room. Or cast darkness on an arrow for that matter.

Having a lack of things to do other than attack is really a lack of imagination on the part of the players mostly but also on the part of the DM who doesn't flesh out encounters enough to give attentive players things to do.

[Captnq]

The first gaming session is always the pilot episode.

This is where you are introduced to your protagonists and you get the general feel for what the game is about. Also, you introduce a connection to this season's main villain.

Then every even session is a monster of the week, with every odd session gets the player's closer to this season's villain.

When you get to mid season, you end one session on a cliffhanger, then pick up the next session for the conclusion and the player's finally get to find out who this season's villain is.

Then the remainder of the sessions is to track down and kill the villain.

Season 2 should be more about PC background development. This guy is a prince, he needs to go home and claim his throne. That guy is a paladin who's god is dying, blah blah blah.

Season 3 is the Giant Plot Reveal!

Season 4 Is the Even More Convoluted Plot Reveal

Season 5-6 usually sucks.

Season 7 is where you give one last push to wrap things up while you still have some credibility left.

There. Just run through the standard formula for the first season with every following season and repeat until you've learned the plural for apocalypse.

I find this to be the best formula for keeping the player's interest.

[veekie]

The PCs are a group of friends/adventurers, how long they've known each other and why they've chosen this life I'll leave to them. They're doing their usual rounds of the town, maybe they work for the town guard (need an idea for what they're doing initially) when a man from the next town over runs in, haggard, weary and with a message. Hobgoblins have been seen mobilizing towards his town, and he was sent to get reinforcements, as he comes from a rather small hamlet with basically no military presence. When the PCs follow him to investigate: they find the town deserted. The town has obviously been raided, but beyond a bit of blood and maybe a severed limb or something, there's absolutely no sign of the former inhabitants of the village. Here the PCs can be introduced to skill checks, searching around the town to try and find out if there are any people remaining, or for some clue as to where the hobgoblins took them.

You can introduce an opportunity here, where they can persuade some of the other people from their town to follow and help with the search, though the next bit already has diplomacy usage.
Some ideas for the skill checks:
-Climb to get up and search a tower or spire where the stairs have been destroyed.
-Disable Device to dismantle unstable rubble without collapsing the whole thing.
-Knowledge(architecture and engineering) to identify buildings that are likely to be relatively intact inside.
-Knowledge(local) to figure out where people might be trying to seek shelter.
-Listen to hear any noises made by trapped survivors

Try to give clues to the nature of the raiders(magic used, numbers, preferred weapons, possible campsites, etc) on successful checks, possibly minor injury on failed ones as the damaged buildings become a hazard.

Depending on their search results, they might find a wizard hiding in one of the houses in a crawlspace that was overlooked. The wizard is a coward who hid and let the village be taken, and is also the son of a noble family, who's parents would reward the PCs for finding him as a bonus to the main objective. They can also try and force the wizard to help them out with saving the townsfolk, either way making the wizard a recurring friend of the PCs. They will also find a small group of hobgoblins scrounging around for a second looting run to pick up anything they missed. The players will overhear plans to raid a caravan passing through to this town, as news of the hobgoblin raid hasn't been spread yet. The players can decide to either eliminate the hobgoblins present, or possibly track them to the main hobgoblin base. If they fight the hobgoblins, the PCs can choose to either intercept the raid on the caravan or try and find the trail to the hobgoblin lair. If they can't find the trail, an experienced tracker with the caravan will point them in the right direction.

I'd suggest using something other than the tracker since it takes the work of finding the bad guys and puts it in NPC hands. Instead, have some clues in the hobgoblin personal belongings, which, with the right knowledge skills, would give them a rough region. Something as simple as a flower(recognized as growing in large quantities near their lair with Knowledge(nature)) or a looted goblet(with old markings that point to the same region on Knowledge(History/Nobility), or even some hobgoblin relics to point the way to likely sites they conduct their sacred rites in.

Also, I proposed the idea of the Tome of Battle for more interesting melee characters, and the players seem fond of the idea. I have a problem though. At least two of my players now want to play an archer type character, which, to my knowledge, never really got any support for the whole no options beyond "I attack" problem, as have voiced a lack of desire to use magic. Any ideas on how I could spice things up for them? I'm a bit uncomfortable using homebrew for them, since they're just getting started with basic D&D.

As mentioned, singleton enchanted arrows are fairly cheap, and could be used to diversify their array a bit. If they approach archery through Ranger, that also gives them a quite varied noncombat skillset, or they could work with an initiator class, focusing heavily on boosts and counters(swordsage or warblade could work, Tiger Claw boosts work just fine with archery). I would however, discourage archery rogue. It takes a good deal more effort to make that work, despite fitting the archetype, due to the close range necessary and the difficulty of getting sneak attack full attacks.

[Unbeliever]

One of them playing a Swift Hunter archer and another playing more of a long ranged sniper will give them some difference, if it comes to that and they both want to play non-magical shooty types.