It’s almost always recommended for a first time DM to not start with a homebrew campaign. Although it sounds fun, it’s a lot more work than following along with a pre-made campaign. You have to make the world, the rules, the quests. But is it really as bad as people say?
As a fiction writer, I already have a world I can put my players into and it won’t be too much more difficult. But I know that won’t be the case for everyone. There are a few basic things you need to start a campaign:
A world
A general plot
A couple handy websites
And of course, players.
In fact, the only difference between planning a novel and a D&D campaign is having players. If you have even a vague idea as to an overarching plotline, you can improvise everything else on the spot without necessarily needing to plan it all out. To be a Dungeon Master, people tend to think that you have to have everything planned out, but chances are, you don’t have time for that. Instead, what you really need is the art of improvising. Plan the maps and a couple main quests, but if you aren’t using battlemaps, you can improvise pretty much everything else. This guide in particular will focus on not having battlemaps, as I personally advise against using them when you’re a beginner on a budget. I have comprehensive guides for each section planned out, but if you want to get a feel of what it takes to start a campaign, here’s an overview of what you’ll need to know (with a couple tips and tricks thrown in there).
Setting up a World
Setting up a world might seem difficult, but you can always borrow ideas from other places, maybe a favourite game or movie. Alternatively, grab a couple randomisers and work from that. To make a world that players will enjoy, there are some key aspects to focus on, namely: NPCs, towns and cities, and backstory/plot.
This will probably seem like a lot all together, but I promise it’s not. Though players will ask the wildest questions (that you definitely won’t be prepared for, no matter how much planning you do), you can avoid any awkward pauses or long silences as your scrabble for notes with just a few bits of prep work.
Backstory and Plot
Coming up with both a backstory for your world and a plot can seem like a big task, especially if you aren’t used to doing so. However, to start a campaign, these are the two things you will probably need to plan out before you start your first session. Although this is necessary to know, it’s best to check out a more comprehensive guide to plotting and backstory here, as this guide will focus on improvising backstory and minor plot elements for NPCs or locations.
Improvising a character’s backstory might seem difficult due to the false idea that you need to know everything about them. In fact, to come up with a believable NPC, all you need is a name and the ability to pretend to know what you’re talking about. An NPC’s backstory that is important to your plot doesn’t need to be pages long, but instead just a vague idea as to why they’re important. Chances are your players either won’t even ask (despite you dropping multiple hints that they’re important) or will decide to go on a bunch of side-quests that end up stretching multiple sessions instead of just the one (trust me, it happens more often than you think). If you can think of why the character is doing what they’re doing, then that’s normally enough.
Coming up with a backstory for an area is a little more complicated as it requires a bit more thinking in regards to its importance. As you’ll need to plan out your major areas, this guide will mostly be in reference to those small areas that your party might come across and ask the dreaded question of “Why?”. This could mean many things of course, like why is it there, why are we here, why do we have to do this, and of course why is this important to our quest. If you have a party that will only follow a main quest, chances are they’ll skip over places with ease. But if you have a party that will quite literally do anything but the main quest, then being able to come up with reasons why a place is important on the fly is a good skill to have.
The obvious answer to “why” would be “because”, which isn’t really that great. Replacing that “because” with a miniature backstory that you literally just came up with is a lot better (and a lot easier) than you might think. For example, let’s take a random village your party has come across (because let’s face it, you need something to keep them entertained when they travel), it might seem like a lot of work to plan a village, but a backstory can be as simple as the fact that a church was set up for travellers, or a shrine, or maybe it used to be a small farm. Your players don’t need a lot of convincing as to why they should stop in the village, or even just pass through said village. But having a little bit of information helps with world building and keeping your players interested.
Plotting on the go is a lot easier than it may seem. Plotting in general can seem scary for new DMs, especially when you aren’t following a premade campaign. But I can promise it’s a lot less work than it may seem. Plotting side-quests for your players is as simple as “I need you to take this to [insert location]” and then improvise the route and whatever happens on the way there. This method can be used to get your players from one location to the next, especially if you’re trying to get them to continue with the main story, as now their side-quest has led them right where you want them to be.
Chances are you won’t have to be doing a lot of improvised plotting unless you’re spending hours and hours playing one session (something I will highly advise against you doing). However, when you do need to come up with an emergency plot, for example if your players finished something much faster than you expected, have them take part in some down-time activities. Consider taking your players to a market to look around, or sending them to a library, or even having them help some NPCs with some side-quests.
If you desperately need some quest ideas, try searching for notice-board quests for D&D online, there you’ll be given the premise for some quick quests, which you can then very easily improvise. If you don’t want to scour the internet, then I have a section with a variety of quests available here.
NPCs
Making NPCs (or non-playable characters) can seem really difficult if you’re not used to making characters. However, unless they’re key to your plot, they don’t really matter too much. Most players will be happy with just a name, but a brief description can also help with immersion.
Name generators can be found all over the internet, but my personal favourite has to be fantasynamegenerators.com as it has a wide selection of fantasy races to choose from, including those commonly found in D&D. If you’re looking for a quick name for a random NPC, and you’re not that quick with thinking on your feet, then this gives you the chance to be just a click away from a list of names that your party won’t think twice about.
If you’re planning on having an NPC that joins the party, I highly suggest you make a simplified character sheet for that NPC beforehand. I specify simplified because unless you’re making a magic-user, you won’t need to plan any spells for them, and focusing on just their stats is a lot easier than making them up on the fly. Online, you can find a range of simplified D&D character sheets to use which are specifically for Dungeon Master’s and so will only have the key boxes such as stats, armour class, languages, and weapons.
Another way to deal with important NPCs is to find premade characters online to use. Depending on the world you make, this might seem impossible. But people are always interested in making characters to share. Having a whole roster of NPCs to use seems like a lot of prep-work, but when your only job is to download a file, or save a tab, your life will become a lot easier (I can whole-heartedly promise you that). Premade NPCs can be found across the web with a few simple searches, but finding the right one might feel impossible. Not everyone has the time to trawl through pages and pages of someone’s Tumblr, or Pinterest, or even Instagram. But if you have a few minutes to quickly roll some stats with, you can always start by just jotting them down for later use.
Towns and Cities
There’s a high likelihood that your campaign is going to involve a town, city, or village, that’s just the way D&D works. If you’ve planned a plot, then you’ll have major settlements in mind, but chances are you won’t be prepared for the question “Where did the ship come from?”, or “What’s down that road?” when you’ve been trying to get your party down one route in particular for the last hour. Well, instead of saying “it doesn’t matter”, which will kill the vibe of the session immediately, you can make something up! Yeah, improvising extends to making entire towns because who actually has the time to plan an entire world alongside real life, unless you make worlds for a living.
If you aren’t quick at coming up with place names on the spot, or just so happen to crumble under pressure (much like I do), then there are ways around it that don’t require a lot of time, in fact most of them will take you no more than five minutes in total.
The first will sound very familiar in the way that it is basically the same as NPC names. By finding a name generator, you’ll be able to find the type of place you’re looking for without having to spend ages researching the conventions of Elven place names. My favourite for this is fantasynamegenerators.com as, much like with NPC names, you can look at different types of places and find a name that correlates. This includes smaller locations such as hideouts, camps, farms and forests, but also includes a whole sub-section for the different types of cities and towns. The only problem I have with name generators is the fact that sometimes I’ll have to click through multiple lists in order to find a name I like, but it’s a minor issue that won’t make-or-break your world building.
The second is one that you can do to get that fantasy feel you’re going for, without having to click through a bunch of ridiculous names that name generators throw at you. I’m sure many people have passed places with names that just don’t feel real, especially if you’re driving through an area you aren’t familiar with. Although I’m pretty desensitised to odd place names from growing up in Devon, if your players don’t live where you do, there’s nothing stopping you from stealing the names of real towns. You can do this the easy way of just taking it letter for letter, however, you can also switch it up a bit so your players have less of a chance of noticing that you’re stealing place names.
For example, when I’m on the train home, I pass places like Umberleigh, Eggesford, Copplestone, and Kings Nympton. I can very easily just throw these names into my world without my players thinking they’re actually real places (especially when my main towns are called Ashenport and Emberhelm). Of course, you can just note down place names when you pass them, but if you aren’t going anywhere, then there’s nothing stopping you from opening up a map – either a real one or online – and just looking at all of the village names until you find one you like.
It might not seem like either of these are ‘improvising’ as such, but you can take a few minutes to write a long list of places to stick on your DM screen that you can either roll for, or just pick one at random. Alternatively, if you don’t have a DM screen, then you can keep it in a notebook solely dedicated to DM stuff.
Coming up with actual town layouts can be a lot more difficult on the fly, but if you enjoy playing games then there’s nothing stopping you from simply taking the town layout from your favourite game. One of my favourite games for doing this is Skyrim, as there are plenty of main cities, towns, and settlements for you to very easily find on the go. Using the Skyrim Wiki is a good place to find all of the existing town layouts that you can then just describe to your players.
That’s the basics of improvising different parts of your campaign. I hope you found something useful to you, and be sure to check out the rest of my D&D resources, there’s something for every type of campaign!
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