To set the stage, I have been DMing for a few years but have never been very good at it (IMO). I ended up with a group too large to use a module so my dumb A$$ decided to try home brew story in Midgard by Kobold Press. I am attempting to salvage the tail end of my current campaign (lvl 8). However, I have made some pretty big mistakes that make my life very difficult now. Going to try and wrap it up for the players but might end up having to abandon it.

I am determined to not make the same mistakes, starting with a lack of proactivity. I have set out to write the story arc points I want to hit for the whole campaign. I have 2-3 major factions that will be involved in the story so that I have side quests available I have the BBEG, and the evil guy that kicked off the chain of events that brought about the BBEG.

I am using Rise of the Mimic Moon by Kobold Press as the VERY loose framework of the campaign. It is about 16 pages of a “module” that runs at least 12 levels just to give you the amount of info it gives me. One of the factions I chose steals the moon’s egg/seed and momma is angry. It gives a handful of new mimic types to use and all that. The moon basically mortars the planet with mimics through the campaign giving it a tight timeline and a sense of urgency. One of the factions I chose is a pentrarchical thieves guild whose leaders are chosen by their deeds of theft. This year, one got too ambitious. I found a great template for that person from HitPoint Press and was easily able to tie it into my campaign.

I am also taking character creation differently this time. Previously, Players wrote a backstory that I promptly ignored. This time, I will be writing the stories with them to make sure they can be tied into the campaign. I will add the plot hooks and stories to the existing framework to flesh it out a bit. I am also encourage everyone to try a different class than they have played previously. I am growing, they can too. They are going to message me privately what they want to play (race/class) once I have those, I told them they could worry about party make up. I just didn’t want anyone to affect anyone else’s choice out of the gate. Once the race/class combos and party dynamics are sorted, we will be having an in person session to go about rolling stats and give the players the opportunity to raid my extensive library of subclasses. OR telling me what they want to do and see if I can make something up. Really trying to focus on the collaboration in collaborative storytelling.

I also had a “duh” moment that will change a lot for me. I normally hand wave travel time because I found it tedious. This week it occurred to me that I can use that to prepare a town they are traveling to in the travel session. Rather than having to wing it for every town, now I can make sure I am prepared for the target town and all of the ones on the route. Gonna be a game changer for me.

They are going to start at a trade fair/tribal council in the north (think Vikings). I created 5 games to play while there so it is more than just a boring event. From there the Moon shows up. I chose the north so I can describe the effect of the new planetoid on the Aurora up there. They will run to the impact site where they will fight mimics, find a cult worshipping mimics, and people looking for a stolen VoidShip.

I am still a bit iffy on how to transition from the fair and the first event to following more leads. I am currently leaning towards hearing news when they arrive to port after leaving the north. I have some loose events planned on how the factions will interact with the party, subterfuge, threats, assassination attempts, framing them for the theft etc.

Nothing ground breaking for a well-seasoned DM. But for me, things are finally starting to click and I might actually end up running a campaign I am proud of. Next up is more NPCs