November 19, 2023 • 24 mins
Get ready to unlock the secrets of theming in Dungeons and Dragons campaigns! This episode, filled with insights and strategies, promises to elevate your D&D campaigns to a new level of engrossing storytelling. We are delighted to be joined by renowned gaming enthusiast, Jay Cerulean. Jay and I delve into the exciting world of theming, exploring everything from the crucial role of a pantheon to the thrill of creating new game worlds. We discuss the importance of maintaining player interest and share our experiences and tips for dealing with the challenges and curveballs that come with D&D campaigns.
Theming isn't always about the big picture; it's also about the tiny details that make your D&D world rich and vibrant. We chat about how to use monsters and biomes to enhance your campaign, and share our tactics for creating narratives that keep players hooked. We also discuss how to effectively pitch your campaign and ensure the prelude sets the stage right for your players. Jay and I both agree that a cohesive theme is a magnet for players, and if done right, can skyrocket the engagement level of your campaign.
Our conversation takes another interesting turn as we dive into the art of creating Non-Player Characters (NPCs). We exchange ideas on how to develop a list of names, races, and vibes to keep your campaign interesting and diverse. We also discuss strategies for dealing with potential fights, and share our favorite resources for determining the best placement for themed locations. Trust us, after hearing our chat, you'll be well-equipped with a unique arsenal of ideas and tips to take your D&D theming to the next level. So gear up and join us on this thrilling adventure!
Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you are interested in seeing more content like this check out our YouTube! We also post weekly game articles on our Patreon and have an active Discord community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome back to episode six of DMI.
Today our topic is gonna betheming and we are joined by Jay
Cerulean.
I would never join you, wouldnever join us on this great
little adventure of ours.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
No, I definitely haven't been here for a number
of the episodes.
That'd be insane.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Theming is a very large topic that I think is very
, very expansive, and it'sprobably the most important part
of any session because itreally sets the dynamic for how
you build all of your encountersWith me.
I like to start based on whattype of game I'm running.
What are your kind of thoughtson that?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I usually try to pick a bit right, whether it be like
oh, I'm doing a story with allthe gods or something, whether
it be like mythological gods,d&d gods or pirates or something
, and kind of base it on that asto where I want the focus to be
, because in one, even if you'redoing making a whole world or
taking a world that somebodyelse has made, you can get a
(00:53):
number of themes within the oneworld.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So it kind of depends on what vibe you're going for
yeah, and for me, when I'mtheming, my major question
really starts out on am Irunning more of a fight campaign
?
Am I running something that islooking at maybe rebuilding a
town, a political campaign, amystery campaign?
That's really my starting pointusually, as I ask myself what
value am I trying to bring to myplayers so that they stay
(01:17):
engaged and they actually wantto chunk out the time in their
busy schedules to actually playin my campaign?
Cause that's a big thing withD&D, the largest nightmare is
scheduling and if you're notproviding value and
entertainment for your players,they're going to be less
interested in actually chunkingout that time.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So if you're just for anything with that like if
you're just doing like run ofthe mill, exact identical things
, honestly something superinteresting that people want to
dive into they're just not goingto be like oh yeah, I want to
go do the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, and I would say that there's definitely an
alternate way to how I do itthat I think has a lot of merit,
which is starting with yourworld and then choosing what
kind of campaign you're going torun second.
I think that's a very valid wayto do it.
That being said, I personallyjust like to start out with well
, I want to run a mysterycampaign, because if I want to
run a mystery campaign then Ican choose my world, like I
(02:08):
could go off of the prebuiltcampaign of Strodd, use that
same kind of atmosphere where Icould really grab from one of my
homebrew worlds or somethingelse to kind of give me that
option to decide where I want mysetting to be.
But sometimes you can choosethe actual physical setting of
the campaign and then decidewhat kind of campaign you want
to run off of that, which I knowa lot of DMs do.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And it depends on if you're doing a world per
campaign or multiple campaignsin the world.
If, like you're doing onethemed campaign per world, right
, let's say a pirate, becausethat's one I've been working on
for a little bit.
You're not going to make a worldthat's also going to be a
mystery thriller, because theworld needs to incentivize your
story and encourage whateveraspects of your story that you
(02:51):
want brought out to the front,whereas if you're trying to make
a world and then make campaignswithin it, you're able to then
have a world that has, you know,a coastal area where there's
pirates and you have yourcastles where you can have a
night and royals type of storiesin the same like larger world.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, and I do personally really enjoy building
a world that can host multiplecampaigns in it, and the reason
that I do that is simply time.
It saves me time.
I don't always have to go backto the drawing board every
single time that I want to starta new session.
That being said, your mileagemay vary greatly from what I do,
but I would say a big part ofevery world is planning your
(03:30):
pantheon, and we already wentover it.
But with your pantheon there'skind of two ways to do it.
You either build it before youbuild your world or you build it
in response to how your worldis functioning, if that makes
sense.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so for me, I think with any pantheon it's
going to be a little bit of both.
A good example is what's yourmain motivator for the plot?
Right, and it might besomething to do with the God,
right, and that can motivate howthe theme ends up going.
And, depending on how you'resetting it up, the world's also
going to affect them.
So they've kind of built off ofthe world and back into it,
(04:03):
kind of like that a giant loopof what's building life and it
is pretty much like thatspherical loop like you talked
about.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I just try to focus more on picking out which gods I
have the intent to use before Iactually go back through and
remove what I don't think isvaluable.
I would say a very largechallenge with that is for me.
I'm building my world's topdown and when you're theming a
campaign and building a worldtop down to run those kinds of
(04:32):
campaigns and it is a lot moreman hour intensive so when
theming your campaigns it mightmake sense to build out the
whole world roughly and then letyour players build out the rest
of them, the rest of it withinthe campaign.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And like, no matter what, if I try to build the
campaign right and I'm like thisis the path that they're
supposed to do, Unless there'sno other way for them to do
anything else, they're going togo to that spot where you
weren't expecting anyone to go,and it was just kind of
mentioned in an offhand commentof oh yeah, there's this island
over there.
So much would be like we'restopping, we're going there and
(05:06):
kind of using that as a point ofokay, what do I need to focus
on as well?
And kind of improving the worlda little bit as well.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, and I would definitely say when you're
themeing your campaign, a bigthing to look at is take
regardless of if it's a homebrewworld or a premade world find a
copy of the world map and startwith the world map and plan
roughly what different areas aregoing to be useful.
If you want to run a piratecampaign, just take print off a
(05:35):
copy just for yourself andcircle that area where the
pirates are prevalent, like,just do circles of like roughly
where you want things to be.
I noticed that that issomething that has helped my
workflow greatly because itshortens my downtime quite a bit
, and then I kind of know forthe future what I want to do.
Even on the Sword Coast you cankind of do it.
You can circle where there'sdifferent things.
(05:55):
Like, if there's a largevolcano on your world map,
that's probably a pretty goodplace to put an oaky, spooky bad
guy.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Like with that kind of the building your overall
world, making those like asyou're building your world, you
also have to think of who'swhere and what are they doing.
For, like instance, if you'rebuilding your world map right
and you have a peninsula, theremight be a city or something
there that you can then buildsomething out of.
And kind of looking at givenI'm pay attention to the states
(06:22):
of civilizations a little morethan most people but kind of
finding these points at whereyou're oh, someone would have
settled here and made acivilization.
Kind of as you're building youroverall world and then
expanding on those civilizationsinto you can even make minor
themed civilizations of oh, Iwant this to have this kind of
vibe or that kind of vibe withinthem.
Kind of using your maps to helpbuild your cities and nations.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And if you want to hear more about building world
maps, stay tuned.
Next week we're going to do awhole episode on how to build a
world map and kind of give someinsight as to our methods and
hopefully inspire you to kind ofbuild your own.
But yeah, the world map has somuch to do with how you theme
your campaign.
Really looking at it beforehandsuper helpful.
Deciding what nations look likeon your map really depends on
(07:09):
your experience that you want togo for.
You really do need to do someplanning before you start a
campaign.
If there's a nation that is awar hungry nation, they're going
to be a little bit larger thanother nations.
Unless there's a coalition thathas recently defeated them,
then they might be pushed back.
So do some light work on yourworld map, but leave it mostly
for your players to find out astime goes on.
(07:31):
Realistically pick wherethey're starting, pick your
theme circle, that area and justkind of ignore it for right now
.
But I definitely would say themost useful thing you can add to
your binder as a DM is a worldmap just for you to take notes
on.
Right on circle, mark up allyou want that you will never
show your players.
I think that's a very usefultool that I've found, at least
(07:53):
within my own DM binder.
So I have a question, and thisis kind of one that I've been
pondering when is it the righttime to build a new world versus
just run another campaign inthe same world?
Because I have spent thousandsof hours on three homebrew
worlds and I tend to not like toleave my homebrew worlds
because I Dread the idea ofcompletely starting over again.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, so like I think it depends on if you feel like
there's something to explorestill, so in and this is like in
normal games too If you playlike, for example, because it's
been released how many times amillion and two, I think skyrim,
every single thing in the mapof skyrim has been explored.
So people have been waiting forthat next game so they can go
(08:40):
and explore something new in acompletely new place.
So it kind of depends on whenyou especially if you have very
big homebrew worlds that you'remaking when that world has been
Exhausted of things that areactually interesting and unique
to that world.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and in skyrim is a wonderful example of that.
Other great examples would belike.
I mean, I'm pretty sure everyaspect of Zelda has been
explored at this pointEspecially a lot of those older
ones, like maybe in tears of thekingdom.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
There's stuff that's not yet, but most of them
everything's been explored andso you can.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You can do these fun little things that a lot of game
producers like to do, whereit's like loop back in time or
jump forward a thousand years.
I would say that that's a veryfun thing you can do.
Just make sure you plan whereand make sure nations move.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
If you're gonna change around your world map
just because After a thousandyears I promise you that the
country of I'll use a magic namein a straw is not in the same
place Like it's gonna move youcan, especially if you're
jumping forward thousands ofyears in time, the map itself
will change Something that was,you know, hidden away Because of
(09:43):
where your cotton and slidemight now have come up far
enough for it to be rediscoveredand explored and kind of, and
maybe some big bad is hiding inthose depths and has been just A
sleep waiting and when you'retheming your maps.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I know we talked about using this and using
monsters.
Monsters are a very importantthing to do when you're theming
things.
Pick kind of like, what rough?
Like is this a forest, are youin a planes?
Because there's this reallycool thing if you choose your
areas and what kind of biomethey are.
For those of us who are biggerinto science, when you're
choosing what biome yourcampaign is gonna be in, it
makes it a lot easier to planwhat monsters you're gonna use,
(10:19):
because there are plenty ofWebsites out there that have
lists of what monsters live inbiomes.
There's random generators whereyou can choose a biome and then
you don't actually have toworry about building out every
single encounter and Figuringout, well, what fits here, what
fits here, what monster can Iuse?
Then you can just kind of lookup a table and be like, oh, all
of these monsters are gonna befound in a forest.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Now I can just choose a general thing and with, like,
making those Rant, those extralike random encounters, you can
also always do something.
If, like, you just have beenwalking for Two sessions or
something, throw in bandits,something generic, oh, they just
happen to be there.
But by adding those like,especially if you can find a
(11:02):
generator that'll come up withsomething for your like
Environment.
It makes it a lot moreinteresting than if it's just
someone's here.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, and I would say a big advantage to theming your
campaign certain monsters,theming where you're at, and
Planning all of these differentthemes to kind of fit together,
making your mystery theme andtheming your monsters and making
it really inclusive is it'sgoing to, if you have this nice
little bow wrapped around yourentire thing, it makes this nice
(11:30):
, neat little package that youcan sell to new players and and
like I hate to say it, but youare kind of selling your
campaign to new players whenyou're starting a new campaign,
like realistically, even me,someone that has a larger group
of D&D players that I know Forme to get my players interested
and the people in that group noteveryone's gonna care about
every campaign I run.
(11:50):
So what I have to do is I haveto be like I'm running a mystery
campaign where it's gonna takeplace in a dark swamp.
There's gonna be all of thesereally nitty-gritty monsters
that you're gonna be chasingafter as you try to figure out
what the Big bad is trying to doas they constantly,
relentlessly chase you.
That's much more engaging thanoh, I have a mystery campaign,
(12:10):
would you be interested inplaying?
It helps you writing yourpreludes a little bit,
especially for that likepitching part where you don't
have players that are like Iwant to play in your campaign,
like it helps you get interestso that you can write an actual,
true, like session zero preludewhere you go over everything in
the world before you start yourcampaign.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
This is a fun little thing I've done for prelude,
which is because everyone thegeneric oh you all and are just
in this tavern, Kind of boring,kind of played out is kind of
for that session zero, tointroduce players to the world
and this could even be just doneover like DMs, not even like in
person is give them like a mini, like 30 minute session of
(12:51):
basically their charactergetting to that tavern and why
are they at that tavern?
And, like for mine, oh, oneplayer they crashed nearby on
their ships, Another one wasjust there, like already for
unrelated reasons, and just kindof helping to create the world
without making it feel as forced.
(13:13):
Well, obviously, in anycampaign there's going to be,
especially in your first session, a little bit of railroading, a
little bit of that like well,there's four of you sitting at
this table, you're all going tobe in the same party.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It's very, very challenging when you're starting
out with that and kind of alsohaving a theme makes it easier.
If your theme is a dark, scary,mystery theme in a swamp and
you give that to people as aninterest before you give them
that world story, that's goingto give those players time to be
like okay, well, what racesmight I see in a swamp?
Well, I could choose this racefor my character, and it gives
(13:49):
your players more of anopportunity to actually build
characters that are going to fitthe theme of your campaign,
which is going to make it a moreinteresting story, and that's
something that I feel like getsoverlooked far more than it
should.
Now there is always the loomingdisaster of NPCs.
(14:09):
Npcs are an absolute livingnightmare.
You kind of have like three waysto do it.
You can either a go on a randomwebsite and try to find ones
that other people have made ashome brews and pick random names
for them and take some.
Take and borrow someone else'swork.
(14:31):
If you have friends that areinterested in D&D your other.
Your second option is just touse the pre-made ones that D&D
and other ones use.
I tend to go for this for someof my characters, so like.
For example, there's thiswonderful book called the
Dungeon Masters Guides toNon-Player Characters.
It's got like thousands of NPCsin it.
(14:54):
I own that book.
I really like it.
I'll use it as inspiration forsome of my characters, but I
won't take exact things out ofit, but I do think that is a
very useful tool.
That being said, the lastoption you kind of have is just
taking a character sheet andduking it out with your own
imagination and building it fromsquare one.
That's what I tend to do, butit is by far the most taxing way
(15:15):
to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So for me, when I'm making like NPCs especially for
like, because you're going tohave your cities and towns and
people they're going to end upat them it's kind of having a
list.
It doesn't have to be for aspecific town, you can modify it
.
You can also have this is amajor town they're going to keep
going to.
We were going to need some likestaple NPCs, but by creating
like a list, you just have alist of like character names,
(15:39):
character names, what like.
Are they a human, are they elf,are they a tiefling?
What are they?
And then vibes so like onemight be a laid back like bar
keep, someone else might be likea laid back, like a carefree,
something else, and you justkind of have those couple things
(16:00):
and then if you want to createa voice, you can use those to
help create your voice for themand just having them be your
shop keep and just kind ofhaving that super basic.
Doesn't need to be a fullcharacter, but enough to like
have something there, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Now, when you're picking NPCs, the biggest piece
of advice I can give you is haveat least three character sheets
behind your DM screen ofdifferent classes, races,
whatever, three different statblocks with attacks planned,
because, I guarantee you, eitheryour party is going to try to
(16:37):
convince them to fight with themor they're going to pick a
fight, and when that happens,you need to be prepared.
Don't attach a name to it, justhave three of those and then
one of your random NPCs.
If they pick a fight, be likeokay, this seems fitting, for
let's say that they go into thelocal potion store.
I have three character sheetsin front of me.
There's a fighter, there's afighter Rogue and there's a
(17:00):
sorcerer.
If they come into the magicshop and pick a fight, I'm gonna
grab that sorcerer sheet, I'mgonna slap a name on it and
combat can go right away.
I don't have to like scramblefor a random stat block.
I do highly recommend that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Some of that comes with knowing your players well
enough, like if you have a, ifyou have a party who you know
aren't or just gonna try to talkto people and maybe talk a
little too much to people andSometimes just follow the
enemies into their base.
It happens.
We've seen it happen.
You don't necessarily need tohave a full stat block for those
NPCs because you know thatparty is just gonna be like yeah
(17:34):
, sure, leave me to thebutchering table instead of
actually like putting up a fight.
Well, first, if you have aparty who's gonna walk up to
your tap like your, you knowblacksmith and be like Give me a
hundred percent off on that,and the blacksmiths would say no
, and they're gonna try to stealit.
There's go.
You know your party's gonnamake a fight happen and again.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
That's why I say don't leave names on them, but
always have like threecharacters character sheets
filled out without names on them, because I guarantee you
someone's gonna push that Buttonat least once.
Even in my most peacefulcampaigns I have ever had, I
have that one player that justwants to poke the big red button
and I have to be prepared well,that's how you have your level
(18:14):
20 fighter as your tavern keeper, just just to be casual sitting
there, you know, chilling theparty.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
mess with them, they die.
They lose that fight absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I love that idea.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
All right.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
So one thing that I do I do think is often
overlooked is Almost nowhere onthe internet Do they give advice
for how to pick when a swampshould be, where your themed
places in your world should be.
You're picking for themedplaces, themed countries.
What not?
Your best resource you can everhave is go find a random
(18:48):
Geology book for kids.
It is going to be your bestfriend if you don't really want
to get into geology or politics.
Get a random history book, geta random geology book.
Aim towards like third, fourthgrade.
You really don't have to paymuch attention, but it is super
helpful and I know it's not D&Drelated, but it has probably
been the biggest thing forhelping me theme because I I
(19:11):
personally was in college forscience for a long time, so I
understand what biomes need tobe together on either side to
make a swamp.
Most people don't have thatknowledge, whereas if you get
like a fourth grade Science bookon environmental science, it's
gonna be like, oh well, you'regonna find swamps next to a
forest and a river and that'sgonna help you quite a bit Then.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
For some levels.
It's also just if you you canlook at a map and see these some
of some of the different biomes.
Like Great example in theUnited States, if you look on
the West Coast you have a bunchof green, then it suddenly turns
to like sand and brown, yeah,and then the mountain range Is
what's causing that suddenchange on the map.
(19:55):
So kind of also just looking atthe general geography of the
world, which maybe me as ahistory major, where we have to
pay attention to why is thisplace here, is part of that.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
But yeah, and I definitely think that's
important now when you'retheming your campaigns.
I'm gonna rope back to monstersfor a minute.
Make sure that you are planningyour monsters Ahead of your
campaign.
You can always re-skin amonster.
You cannot always Do that inthe moment, though.
If you're grabbing a monsterlike, let's say, the false hydra
(20:28):
, it's one of what's one of bothof our favorite monsters of all
time.
False hydras are gonna bemostly found in planes and in
forests.
I know that well in advance.
So I I have to choose whether Iwant my players to be surprised
by it being there or whether Iwant it to be like oh yeah, a
false hydra being there kind ofmakes sense.
So that's kind of one of thosethings of if I'm going to put a
(20:50):
false hydra in a desert, I haveto have a reason why that false
hydra is in the desert.
So that comes back to themingyour campaign.
If your big bad of your campaignis a wild scientist doing
experiments and trying to figureout exactly how he can change
the world to make it in his ownwarped image, maybe he's been
taking random monsters andchucking them in places where
they shouldn't be.
So a false hydra in a desertthat makes sense, because he
(21:12):
abducted this false hydra,shoved it in a desert to see if
it would survive, and then itgrew way bigger than it should
have been because there wasnothing to stop it.
Things like that are veryimportant to pay attention to
and you'll see that a lot withcreatures like for that wild
scientist Honestly, that couldbe anything like a dragon
Dragons live long enough.
(21:33):
They're curious enough wherethat could definitely be a
possibility.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And then what's just?
In general, monsters tend to bekind of thrown around into
pretty like stereotypical placeslike Sphinx's.
You're going to find them in adesert temple even though they
could be anyway.
So kind of making sure there'sways to have something a little
more interesting if you need ita little surprising so that it's
(21:57):
not just hitting the basiccheck marks of a war on a desert
adventure Sphinx check, mummycheck.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And that's where those tables because I know DND
beyond has it on there where ittells you every single monster
that lives in that region can besuper helpful for adding some
spice while still meetinganimals that are going to live
in that biome.
Another great way to do this,I'm sorry you can get them
anywhere on the planet thosethree, five handbooks, the DND
(22:29):
first edition handbooks.
There are some monsters thatwe're not translated over that
people haven't seen unless theywere playing in first or third
edition.
You can go back to those and Ithink it's definitely a good
decision to on occasion pickthose up, because some of those
old books you can get likeslightly used copies a lot
cheaper than other than even amodern book on eBay or something
(22:52):
else from people that don'treally want them anymore because
they don't have the shelf space.
I mean most of us as DNDplayers.
We either have gone fulldigital and I know we can get
most of the stat blocks on there, or you are like me and you
have had to buy a bookshelf justfor your DND books because
they've exploded all over yourhouse.
There's a few too many, just acouple.
(23:14):
Overall, though, I do thinkthat it is a very good decision
to kind of play at that angle,and I know this is kind of going
to be a shorter episode.
We were focused on just kind ofgetting some of these ideas out
about theming or the next coupleof episodes we're really going
to dive into the concept of howyou can theme your campaign, how
you can theme your battle mapsand how you can theme your world
(23:35):
maps and really go intomonsters later.
This is going to be kind of aseries that we're going to go on
and follow this path downwards.
We just wanted to do a realshort introduction, just so that
it kind of got some of the baseideas out of the way and people
could have some time to bereally thinking about it before
we went into some of the moreintricate topics.
So thank you for listening tothis point if you are still here
(23:57):
.
If you would like to see morecontent from us, check out our
YouTube channel.
We upload unique videos there,product reviews and other ideas
for people that are interested.
We also have a Patreon if you'dlike to support the show.
On there we do put out articlesthat are just elaborations from
the show, things that wethought we should expand upon,
(24:17):
and they're all in nice neatlittle formats so that they look
similar to how D&D books look,and they're just kind of a nice
little.
All right, welcome back to episode six of DMI.
Today our topic is gonna betheming and we are joined by Jay
Cerulean.
I would never join you, wouldnever join us on this great
little adventure of ours.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
No, I definitely haven't been here for a number
of the episodes.
That'd be insane.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Theming is a very large topic that I think is very
, very expansive, and it'sprobably the most important part
of any session because itreally sets the dynamic for how
you build all of your encountersWith me.
I like to start based on whattype of game I'm running.
What are your kind of thoughtson that?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I usually try to pick a bit right, whether it be like
oh, I'm doing a story with allthe gods or something, whether
it be like mythological gods,d&d gods or pirates or something
, and kind of base it on that asto where I want the focus to be
, because in one, even if you'redoing making a whole world or
taking a world that somebodyelse has made, you can get a
(00:53):
number of themes within the oneworld.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So it kind of depends on what vibe you're going for
yeah, and for me, when I'mtheming, my major question
really starts out on am Irunning more of a fight campaign
?
Am I running something that islooking at maybe rebuilding a
town, a political campaign, amystery campaign?
That's really my starting pointusually, as I ask myself what
value am I trying to bring to myplayers so that they stay
(01:17):
engaged and they actually wantto chunk out the time in their
busy schedules to actually playin my campaign?
Cause that's a big thing withD&D, the largest nightmare is
scheduling and if you're notproviding value and
entertainment for your players,they're going to be less
interested in actually chunkingout that time.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So if you're just for anything with that like if
you're just doing like run ofthe mill, exact identical things
, honestly something superinteresting that people want to
dive into they're just not goingto be like oh yeah, I want to
go do the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, and I would say that there's definitely an
alternate way to how I do itthat I think has a lot of merit,
which is starting with yourworld and then choosing what
kind of campaign you're going torun second.
I think that's a very valid wayto do it.
That being said, I personallyjust like to start out with well
, I want to run a mysterycampaign, because if I want to
run a mystery campaign then Ican choose my world, like I
(02:08):
could go off of the prebuiltcampaign of Strodd, use that
same kind of atmosphere where Icould really grab from one of my
homebrew worlds or somethingelse to kind of give me that
option to decide where I want mysetting to be.
But sometimes you can choosethe actual physical setting of
the campaign and then decidewhat kind of campaign you want
to run off of that, which I knowa lot of DMs do.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And it depends on if you're doing a world per
campaign or multiple campaignsin the world.
If, like you're doing onethemed campaign per world, right
, let's say a pirate, becausethat's one I've been working on
for a little bit.
You're not going to make a worldthat's also going to be a
mystery thriller, because theworld needs to incentivize your
story and encourage whateveraspects of your story that you
(02:51):
want brought out to the front,whereas if you're trying to make
a world and then make campaignswithin it, you're able to then
have a world that has, you know,a coastal area where there's
pirates and you have yourcastles where you can have a
night and royals type of storiesin the same like larger world.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, and I do personally really enjoy building
a world that can host multiplecampaigns in it, and the reason
that I do that is simply time.
It saves me time.
I don't always have to go backto the drawing board every
single time that I want to starta new session.
That being said, your mileagemay vary greatly from what I do,
but I would say a big part ofevery world is planning your
(03:30):
pantheon, and we already wentover it.
But with your pantheon there'skind of two ways to do it.
You either build it before youbuild your world or you build it
in response to how your worldis functioning, if that makes
sense.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, so for me, I think with any pantheon it's
going to be a little bit of both.
A good example is what's yourmain motivator for the plot?
Right, and it might besomething to do with the God,
right, and that can motivate howthe theme ends up going.
And, depending on how you'resetting it up, the world's also
going to affect them.
So they've kind of built off ofthe world and back into it,
(04:03):
kind of like that a giant loopof what's building life and it
is pretty much like thatspherical loop like you talked
about.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I just try to focus more on picking out which gods I
have the intent to use before Iactually go back through and
remove what I don't think isvaluable.
I would say a very largechallenge with that is for me.
I'm building my world's topdown and when you're theming a
campaign and building a worldtop down to run those kinds of
(04:32):
campaigns and it is a lot moreman hour intensive so when
theming your campaigns it mightmake sense to build out the
whole world roughly and then letyour players build out the rest
of them, the rest of it withinthe campaign.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And like, no matter what, if I try to build the
campaign right and I'm like thisis the path that they're
supposed to do, Unless there'sno other way for them to do
anything else, they're going togo to that spot where you
weren't expecting anyone to go,and it was just kind of
mentioned in an offhand commentof oh yeah, there's this island
over there.
So much would be like we'restopping, we're going there and
(05:06):
kind of using that as a point ofokay, what do I need to focus
on as well?
And kind of improving the worlda little bit as well.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, and I would definitely say when you're
themeing your campaign, a bigthing to look at is take
regardless of if it's a homebrewworld or a premade world find a
copy of the world map and startwith the world map and plan
roughly what different areas aregoing to be useful.
If you want to run a piratecampaign, just take print off a
(05:35):
copy just for yourself andcircle that area where the
pirates are prevalent, like,just do circles of like roughly
where you want things to be.
I noticed that that issomething that has helped my
workflow greatly because itshortens my downtime quite a bit
, and then I kind of know forthe future what I want to do.
Even on the Sword Coast you cankind of do it.
You can circle where there'sdifferent things.
(05:55):
Like, if there's a largevolcano on your world map,
that's probably a pretty goodplace to put an oaky, spooky bad
guy.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Like with that kind of the building your overall
world, making those like asyou're building your world, you
also have to think of who'swhere and what are they doing.
For, like instance, if you'rebuilding your world map right
and you have a peninsula, theremight be a city or something
there that you can then buildsomething out of.
And kind of looking at givenI'm pay attention to the states
(06:22):
of civilizations a little morethan most people but kind of
finding these points at whereyou're oh, someone would have
settled here and made acivilization.
Kind of as you're building youroverall world and then
expanding on those civilizationsinto you can even make minor
themed civilizations of oh, Iwant this to have this kind of
vibe or that kind of vibe withinthem.
Kind of using your maps to helpbuild your cities and nations.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And if you want to hear more about building world
maps, stay tuned.
Next week we're going to do awhole episode on how to build a
world map and kind of give someinsight as to our methods and
hopefully inspire you to kind ofbuild your own.
But yeah, the world map has somuch to do with how you theme
your campaign.
Really looking at it beforehandsuper helpful.
Deciding what nations look likeon your map really depends on
(07:09):
your experience that you want togo for.
You really do need to do someplanning before you start a
campaign.
If there's a nation that is awar hungry nation, they're going
to be a little bit larger thanother nations.
Unless there's a coalition thathas recently defeated them,
then they might be pushed back.
So do some light work on yourworld map, but leave it mostly
for your players to find out astime goes on.
(07:31):
Realistically pick wherethey're starting, pick your
theme circle, that area and justkind of ignore it for right now
.
But I definitely would say themost useful thing you can add to
your binder as a DM is a worldmap just for you to take notes
on.
Right on circle, mark up allyou want that you will never
show your players.
I think that's a very usefultool that I've found, at least
(07:53):
within my own DM binder.
So I have a question, and thisis kind of one that I've been
pondering when is it the righttime to build a new world versus
just run another campaign inthe same world?
Because I have spent thousandsof hours on three homebrew
worlds and I tend to not like toleave my homebrew worlds
because I Dread the idea ofcompletely starting over again.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, so like I think it depends on if you feel like
there's something to explorestill, so in and this is like in
normal games too If you playlike, for example, because it's
been released how many times amillion and two, I think skyrim,
every single thing in the mapof skyrim has been explored.
So people have been waiting forthat next game so they can go
(08:40):
and explore something new in acompletely new place.
So it kind of depends on whenyou especially if you have very
big homebrew worlds that you'remaking when that world has been
Exhausted of things that areactually interesting and unique
to that world.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, and in skyrim is a wonderful example of that.
Other great examples would belike.
I mean, I'm pretty sure everyaspect of Zelda has been
explored at this pointEspecially a lot of those older
ones, like maybe in tears of thekingdom.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
There's stuff that's not yet, but most of them
everything's been explored andso you can.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
You can do these fun little things that a lot of game
producers like to do, whereit's like loop back in time or
jump forward a thousand years.
I would say that that's a veryfun thing you can do.
Just make sure you plan whereand make sure nations move.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
If you're gonna change around your world map
just because After a thousandyears I promise you that the
country of I'll use a magic namein a straw is not in the same
place Like it's gonna move youcan, especially if you're
jumping forward thousands ofyears in time, the map itself
will change Something that was,you know, hidden away Because of
(09:43):
where your cotton and slidemight now have come up far
enough for it to be rediscoveredand explored and kind of, and
maybe some big bad is hiding inthose depths and has been just A
sleep waiting and when you'retheming your maps.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I know we talked about using this and using
monsters.
Monsters are a very importantthing to do when you're theming
things.
Pick kind of like, what rough?
Like is this a forest, are youin a planes?
Because there's this reallycool thing if you choose your
areas and what kind of biomethey are.
For those of us who are biggerinto science, when you're
choosing what biome yourcampaign is gonna be in, it
makes it a lot easier to planwhat monsters you're gonna use,
(10:19):
because there are plenty ofWebsites out there that have
lists of what monsters live inbiomes.
There's random generators whereyou can choose a biome and then
you don't actually have toworry about building out every
single encounter and Figuringout, well, what fits here, what
fits here, what monster can Iuse?
Then you can just kind of lookup a table and be like, oh, all
of these monsters are gonna befound in a forest.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Now I can just choose a general thing and with, like,
making those Rant, those extralike random encounters, you can
also always do something.
If, like, you just have beenwalking for Two sessions or
something, throw in bandits,something generic, oh, they just
happen to be there.
But by adding those like,especially if you can find a
(11:02):
generator that'll come up withsomething for your like
Environment.
It makes it a lot moreinteresting than if it's just
someone's here.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, and I would say a big advantage to theming your
campaign certain monsters,theming where you're at, and
Planning all of these differentthemes to kind of fit together,
making your mystery theme andtheming your monsters and making
it really inclusive is it'sgoing to, if you have this nice
little bow wrapped around yourentire thing, it makes this nice
(11:30):
, neat little package that youcan sell to new players and and
like I hate to say it, but youare kind of selling your
campaign to new players whenyou're starting a new campaign,
like realistically, even me,someone that has a larger group
of D&D players that I know Forme to get my players interested
and the people in that group noteveryone's gonna care about
every campaign I run.
(11:50):
So what I have to do is I haveto be like I'm running a mystery
campaign where it's gonna takeplace in a dark swamp.
There's gonna be all of thesereally nitty-gritty monsters
that you're gonna be chasingafter as you try to figure out
what the Big bad is trying to doas they constantly,
relentlessly chase you.
That's much more engaging thanoh, I have a mystery campaign,
(12:10):
would you be interested inplaying?
It helps you writing yourpreludes a little bit,
especially for that likepitching part where you don't
have players that are like Iwant to play in your campaign,
like it helps you get interestso that you can write an actual,
true, like session zero preludewhere you go over everything in
the world before you start yourcampaign.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
This is a fun little thing I've done for prelude,
which is because everyone thegeneric oh you all and are just
in this tavern, Kind of boring,kind of played out is kind of
for that session zero, tointroduce players to the world
and this could even be just doneover like DMs, not even like in
person is give them like a mini, like 30 minute session of
(12:51):
basically their charactergetting to that tavern and why
are they at that tavern?
And, like for mine, oh, oneplayer they crashed nearby on
their ships, Another one wasjust there, like already for
unrelated reasons, and just kindof helping to create the world
without making it feel as forced.
(13:13):
Well, obviously, in anycampaign there's going to be,
especially in your first session, a little bit of railroading, a
little bit of that like well,there's four of you sitting at
this table, you're all going tobe in the same party.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It's very, very challenging when you're starting
out with that and kind of alsohaving a theme makes it easier.
If your theme is a dark, scary,mystery theme in a swamp and
you give that to people as aninterest before you give them
that world story, that's goingto give those players time to be
like okay, well, what racesmight I see in a swamp?
Well, I could choose this racefor my character, and it gives
(13:49):
your players more of anopportunity to actually build
characters that are going to fitthe theme of your campaign,
which is going to make it a moreinteresting story, and that's
something that I feel like getsoverlooked far more than it
should.
Now there is always the loomingdisaster of NPCs.
(14:09):
Npcs are an absolute livingnightmare.
You kind of have like three waysto do it.
You can either a go on a randomwebsite and try to find ones
that other people have made ashome brews and pick random names
for them and take some.
Take and borrow someone else'swork.
(14:31):
If you have friends that areinterested in D&D your other.
Your second option is just touse the pre-made ones that D&D
and other ones use.
I tend to go for this for someof my characters, so like.
For example, there's thiswonderful book called the
Dungeon Masters Guides toNon-Player Characters.
It's got like thousands of NPCsin it.
(14:54):
I own that book.
I really like it.
I'll use it as inspiration forsome of my characters, but I
won't take exact things out ofit, but I do think that is a
very useful tool.
That being said, the lastoption you kind of have is just
taking a character sheet andduking it out with your own
imagination and building it fromsquare one.
That's what I tend to do, butit is by far the most taxing way
(15:15):
to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So for me, when I'm making like NPCs especially for
like, because you're going tohave your cities and towns and
people they're going to end upat them it's kind of having a
list.
It doesn't have to be for aspecific town, you can modify it
.
You can also have this is amajor town they're going to keep
going to.
We were going to need some likestaple NPCs, but by creating
like a list, you just have alist of like character names,
(15:39):
character names, what like.
Are they a human, are they elf,are they a tiefling?
What are they?
And then vibes so like onemight be a laid back like bar
keep, someone else might be likea laid back, like a carefree,
something else, and you justkind of have those couple things
(16:00):
and then if you want to createa voice, you can use those to
help create your voice for themand just having them be your
shop keep and just kind ofhaving that super basic.
Doesn't need to be a fullcharacter, but enough to like
have something there, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Now, when you're picking NPCs, the biggest piece
of advice I can give you is haveat least three character sheets
behind your DM screen ofdifferent classes, races,
whatever, three different statblocks with attacks planned,
because, I guarantee you, eitheryour party is going to try to
(16:37):
convince them to fight with themor they're going to pick a
fight, and when that happens,you need to be prepared.
Don't attach a name to it, justhave three of those and then
one of your random NPCs.
If they pick a fight, be likeokay, this seems fitting, for
let's say that they go into thelocal potion store.
I have three character sheetsin front of me.
There's a fighter, there's afighter Rogue and there's a
(17:00):
sorcerer.
If they come into the magicshop and pick a fight, I'm gonna
grab that sorcerer sheet, I'mgonna slap a name on it and
combat can go right away.
I don't have to like scramblefor a random stat block.
I do highly recommend that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Some of that comes with knowing your players well
enough, like if you have a, ifyou have a party who you know
aren't or just gonna try to talkto people and maybe talk a
little too much to people andSometimes just follow the
enemies into their base.
It happens.
We've seen it happen.
You don't necessarily need tohave a full stat block for those
NPCs because you know thatparty is just gonna be like yeah
(17:34):
, sure, leave me to thebutchering table instead of
actually like putting up a fight.
Well, first, if you have aparty who's gonna walk up to
your tap like your, you knowblacksmith and be like Give me a
hundred percent off on that,and the blacksmiths would say no
, and they're gonna try to stealit.
There's go.
You know your party's gonnamake a fight happen and again.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
That's why I say don't leave names on them, but
always have like threecharacters character sheets
filled out without names on them, because I guarantee you
someone's gonna push that Buttonat least once.
Even in my most peacefulcampaigns I have ever had, I
have that one player that justwants to poke the big red button
and I have to be prepared well,that's how you have your level
(18:14):
20 fighter as your tavern keeper, just just to be casual sitting
there, you know, chilling theparty.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
mess with them, they die.
They lose that fight absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I love that idea.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
All right.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
So one thing that I do I do think is often
overlooked is Almost nowhere onthe internet Do they give advice
for how to pick when a swampshould be, where your themed
places in your world should be.
You're picking for themedplaces, themed countries.
What not?
Your best resource you can everhave is go find a random
(18:48):
Geology book for kids.
It is going to be your bestfriend if you don't really want
to get into geology or politics.
Get a random history book, geta random geology book.
Aim towards like third, fourthgrade.
You really don't have to paymuch attention, but it is super
helpful and I know it's not D&Drelated, but it has probably
been the biggest thing forhelping me theme because I I
(19:11):
personally was in college forscience for a long time, so I
understand what biomes need tobe together on either side to
make a swamp.
Most people don't have thatknowledge, whereas if you get
like a fourth grade Science bookon environmental science, it's
gonna be like, oh well, you'regonna find swamps next to a
forest and a river and that'sgonna help you quite a bit Then.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
For some levels.
It's also just if you you canlook at a map and see these some
of some of the different biomes.
Like Great example in theUnited States, if you look on
the West Coast you have a bunchof green, then it suddenly turns
to like sand and brown, yeah,and then the mountain range Is
what's causing that suddenchange on the map.
(19:55):
So kind of also just looking atthe general geography of the
world, which maybe me as ahistory major, where we have to
pay attention to why is thisplace here, is part of that.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
But yeah, and I definitely think that's
important now when you'retheming your campaigns.
I'm gonna rope back to monstersfor a minute.
Make sure that you are planningyour monsters Ahead of your
campaign.
You can always re-skin amonster.
You cannot always Do that inthe moment, though.
If you're grabbing a monsterlike, let's say, the false hydra
(20:28):
, it's one of what's one of bothof our favorite monsters of all
time.
False hydras are gonna bemostly found in planes and in
forests.
I know that well in advance.
So I I have to choose whether Iwant my players to be surprised
by it being there or whether Iwant it to be like oh yeah, a
false hydra being there kind ofmakes sense.
So that's kind of one of thosethings of if I'm going to put a
(20:50):
false hydra in a desert, I haveto have a reason why that false
hydra is in the desert.
So that comes back to themingyour campaign.
If your big bad of your campaignis a wild scientist doing
experiments and trying to figureout exactly how he can change
the world to make it in his ownwarped image, maybe he's been
taking random monsters andchucking them in places where
they shouldn't be.
So a false hydra in a desertthat makes sense, because he
(21:12):
abducted this false hydra,shoved it in a desert to see if
it would survive, and then itgrew way bigger than it should
have been because there wasnothing to stop it.
Things like that are veryimportant to pay attention to
and you'll see that a lot withcreatures like for that wild
scientist Honestly, that couldbe anything like a dragon
Dragons live long enough.
(21:33):
They're curious enough wherethat could definitely be a
possibility.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And then what's just?
In general, monsters tend to bekind of thrown around into
pretty like stereotypical placeslike Sphinx's.
You're going to find them in adesert temple even though they
could be anyway.
So kind of making sure there'sways to have something a little
more interesting if you need ita little surprising so that it's
(21:57):
not just hitting the basiccheck marks of a war on a desert
adventure Sphinx check, mummycheck.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And that's where those tables because I know DND
beyond has it on there where ittells you every single monster
that lives in that region can besuper helpful for adding some
spice while still meetinganimals that are going to live
in that biome.
Another great way to do this,I'm sorry you can get them
anywhere on the planet thosethree, five handbooks, the DND
(22:29):
first edition handbooks.
There are some monsters thatwe're not translated over that
people haven't seen unless theywere playing in first or third
edition.
You can go back to those and Ithink it's definitely a good
decision to on occasion pickthose up, because some of those
old books you can get likeslightly used copies a lot
cheaper than other than even amodern book on eBay or something
(22:52):
else from people that don'treally want them anymore because
they don't have the shelf space.
I mean most of us as DNDplayers.
We either have gone fulldigital and I know we can get
most of the stat blocks on there, or you are like me and you
have had to buy a bookshelf justfor your DND books because
they've exploded all over yourhouse.
There's a few too many, just acouple.
(23:14):
Overall, though, I do thinkthat it is a very good decision
to kind of play at that angle,and I know this is kind of going
to be a shorter episode.
We were focused on just kind ofgetting some of these ideas out
about theming or the next coupleof episodes we're really going
to dive into the concept of howyou can theme your campaign, how
you can theme your battle mapsand how you can theme your world
(23:35):
maps and really go intomonsters later.
This is going to be kind of aseries that we're going to go on
and follow this path downwards.
We just wanted to do a realshort introduction, just so that
it kind of got some of the baseideas out of the way and people
could have some time to bereally thinking about it before
we went into some of the moreintricate topics.
So thank you for listening tothis point if you are still here
(23:57):
.
If you would like to see morecontent from us, check out our
YouTube channel.
We upload unique videos there,product reviews and other ideas
for people that are interested.
We also have a Patreon if you'dlike to support the show.
On there we do put out articlesthat are just elaborations from
the show, things that wethought we should expand upon,
(24:17):
and they're all in nice neatlittle formats so that they look
similar to how D&D books look,and they're just kind of a nice
little.
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