Starting a New RPG Campaign

I am looking at starting up three separate campaigns in the near future, and wanted to share my process. This may work for you, this may not, just understand that if this process does not work for you that does not mean I am wrong, nor does it mean you are wrong. But maybe something you see in here will help you, or strike a bit of inspiration. Whatever works for you and your group is the important part. 

Starting a new RPG campaign for me starts with the rules and the setting. What rules do I want to play with? And yes, it does matter, as there are some rules out there that are just... ugh. Like Palladium's Rifts - do not mistake me, I love the Rifts setting, the history, the lore, but cannot bring myself to play it because the rules are way too complicated. And while I love the setting, the power creep that was in every successive Rifts book was way out of control. While there are a bunch of folks out there who will claim every set of RPG rules is equal, they are completely wrong. Does that mean you should ignore all of the rules that I do not like? Only play the rules that I do like? No. Rifts does not work for me, and these others that I am about to talk about do, but that does not mean Rifts cannot work for you, or that these other systems will absolutely work for you. You have to be willing to peruse rules that are out there, give them a try, and see for yourself if they do or do not work for you. So, rules - obviously Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, as my last 5e campaign died a while back and I need to start a new one, at some point, and with the new Eberron book just taunting me with all the tasty lore, I know what particular D&D setting I want to run; I have talked a bit about Cyberpunk Red since it came out (before it came out, to be honest), and I really want to throw some cyberpsychos, some corporate security types, and maybe even some plague-ridden puppies (thank you, Uncle Mike) at a bunch of edgerunners and see how they handle it; and a new interest, Savage Worlds universal role-playing system. The others I have talked about, because the internet needs another old gamer grumbling about the good old games that never were, but Savage Worlds is not quite as new an interest of mine as I mentioned, I have actually been thinking about using that ruleset for a little project of mine for more than a few years. That project, well, I will save that for later, but I have a new interest that uses the Savage Worlds rules - Monster Hunter International. Yep, an RPG based on a bubblegum pop series of action/adventure novels. What can I say, I am a fan of the novels and, well, I will talk about the idea I had for the game in just a bit.

What story do I want to tell? That is the usual thing you see from those aspiring creative types, trying to convince themselves and the world they are five seconds away from writing that next great Lord of the Rings style epic, but for me, asking this question is simpler. For D&D and specifically Eberron, the story I want to tell is Indiana Jones with magic, swords, and airships. Trips into the Mournland to retrieve ancient artifacts, discussions with warforged on what the meaning of life is, chasing rivals across the air bridges and passages of Sharn. What pieces of fiction have I seen or read lately that feel like this? Red Notice on Netflix, that heist kind of movie (it was okay, but not worth getting Netflx just to watch) with the humor and the action beats. For Savage Worlds and Monster Hunter International, the books the world setting is based on are what I want to emulate - hunting monsters, getting paid lots of money from the government (you have to be familiar with MHI, it makes sense), and generally trying to fight the forces of evil while retaining what sanity PTSD allows. For Cyberpunk Red (CPRed), it is shows like Altered Carbon (at least the first season, which is worth getting Netflix for) and movies like Johnny Mnemonic and Blade Runner 2049, and books like Neuromancer by William Gibson and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan (the book series is excellent, if you like the show, read the books). But for story, just surviving in Night City after the Time of the Red is usually enough. Or maybe I want to visit my old CP2020 playground and take the edgerunners to Kansas City in 2045. Story wise, a bunch of street rats trying to accomplish edgeruns just so they can pay the bills, get that next meal, pay for their flop, and maybe get some new cyberware. 

Okay, so I have an idea of what rules I want to play, what worlds and settings I want to play in, and a "story" (theme, really) I want to tell. What else do I want to throw in on top of this? Do I want to play in real life or virtually? IRL is my choice, but could I go virtual in case this global pandemic springs back up? Yes, but seriously folks, go get vaccinated for COVID (and all the rest of your vaccines updated, in case you have not had a chance to get them updated in a bit while you are at it), and quit making it about politics. *feh* So, IRL, which then begs the question of logistics, something near and dear to my former military heart (amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics). Which books do I need to run these games? What books do the players need? As you probably well know, I like using miniatures and a grid under plexiglass for my tactical combats, am I using that for this? For my three games, I need the classic D&D DM books - PHB, DMG, MM, XGtE, TCoE, and then the base Eberron: Rising from the Last War book. Do I need anything beyond those? At this point, no, but I am always on the lookout for new things to toss into the mix of my D&D games. Can I use Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers or Kingdoms & Warfare in this campaign? I have not had an excuse to pick up Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, do I need to acquire it? These are all things I am thinking of as I type out the campaign document (more on this in a bit). As for the players, they will need their own copy of the PHB (I require my players to have a physical copy, D&D Beyond is neat and all, but hard to quickly find the info you want, and electronic devices are flaky at the best of times) and E:RftLW, plus any other supplement (specifically XGtE and TCoE) they want to use classes, subclasses, spells, equipment, whatever. CPRed is easier, mostly because there is basically the core rulebook available. R Talsorian Games does have a new book that just got published, and I will grab that shortly, but I doubt my players will need it, just the core book. RTG has been teasing a Chrome book for CPRed (the Chrome series were where all the fancy gear for CP2020 that did not show up in the core book appeared) but with the pandemic (GET VACCINATED! GET A JOB!) the whole dead tree publishing industry is in slow down mode, so no telling when Chrome will be out. For now, then, CPRed core rulebooks for everyone. Savage Worlds is also easy - Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE, the latest edition of the Savage Worlds rules) and the MHI world book for myself, and both for the players, but not at first. Why? The nature of the game - I want to gather a group of five players who are interested in playing SWADE and a modern action/adventure setting, and then run an intro game, sight unseen. One of the cool things I like about the MHI books and world setting is that most folks who get into the monster hunting business do so because they were attacked, as the governments of the world keep the existence of monsters a secret from the populace at large. I want to do that for the players, give them some pregenerated characters and then spring a monster attack on them, to introduce the world and the rules to the players. After the intro, if the players want to continue playing MHI, they can pick up SWADE and the MHI book, even create new characters or keep the pregens, but this one I want to be a surprise.

Miniatures. For the longest time in my D&D 5e campaign, this was yes or no question, a set schedule of supplies that I would divide out the necessary ones from the pool, ready for that session, rinse and repeat. But now I have to be difficult and different and change everything up - for all three games, I am going to 15mm scale. Practically half the size of the traditional 28mm (which has been known to stretch all the way to 32mm scale, depending on the sculptor), 15mm is smaller and less expensive, and your battle grids automatically double in size. I am already working on 3d printed terrain to place atop the grid, and have begun collecting minis. Yes, I know, I have built up quite a collection of paper standees and 3d printed terrain for my 28mm game, and I do feel a bit guilty for setting all of that aside to switch my whole operation to a different scale, but I have a tentative plan to get some use out of those in a different project. Anyway, I am still making the jump. Why? I like big, sprawling battle fields with lots of room to maneuver, plenty of bad guys out there to deal with, and I could care less about looking fantastic on the gaming table. Yes, the downside of smaller miniatures is you do not get as good looking a paintjob as you do with bigger minis, but painting minis is my least favorite portion of the hobby, and I would gladly play with bare metal and plastic minis for the rest of my days, so I am not disappointed by that downside. One of the bonuses is that, since I do not have a lot of minis or 3d prints for modern or sci-fi cyberpunk settings, I am not really replacing a bunch of stuff for two of my three games. And the another bonus is that a few of the models I am getting for MHI work for D&D, and some others work for CPRed. Hey, I try to be efficient, especially when I luck into it on accident.

While all of the above is going on, because let me be honest, all of the above is happening at the same time, odd thoughts rumbling through my head at all hours of the day and night, this is not a process I can provide a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP, and yes, the Army really does write them for EVERYTHING) for, it just kind of happens. Anyway, once enough of the above has happened, I create a Google folder in my Google Drive for the game I am thinking about playing and a folder inside the first folder that is where I will toss all the things I am going to provide to my players. Why Google Drive and Docs? Many folks have smart phones and some internet access (and I spend enough on a monthly basis for my own 'net access that I provide my players with my wifi password, so they at least have internet when they are at my house for the game session) and can access Google Drive. Is that the best option out there? For me, yes, well, maybe. I do have an Obsidian Portal account, and I have long toyed with the idea of actually using it as it was intended, but even with my last campaign that lasted most of three years long, I do not trust that I can get players (or even stick with, myself) who can last in a campaign long enough that OP would get properly used, even the basic free version. If you are looking for a Wiki-style campaign management tool, that you can share with your party and they can submit articles and notes and maps and images to, OP is pretty good and one of the first of these aimed specifically at TTRPGs to come out. But I do not use it, because I can barely get players to show up to sessions on time and regularly, and OP is definitely for those whose gaming groups are very invested in the campaign. No, I am not bitter at all, why would you ask that? I have also used Facebook, by creating a private Group and inviting all of the members into the Group, and that is how I organize my Team Yankee in 6mm Escalation League, which you may read about more here on my internet journal (I hate the word blog... hate it, hate it, hate hate hate it). But FB is good as it does provide a communication channel, somewhere to post announcements, great for scheduling sessions, but not so good at sharing documents that multiple people can work on collaboratively. For my RPG campaigns where the sessions are held at my house, I like having the file sharing that Google Drive provides more than the scheduling and communications that FB offers, but nothing saying I cannot combine them together and use both. Back from the detour, I create a Google Doc (specifically a Sheet, which is a word processing document) and start typing all the information I want to pass to the players in the document - this is the world, here is the rules we are using, here are the classes and races you can use, here are the books that are acceptable to use stuff out of, that sort of thing. And much like this post, I just start typing whatever comes to my brain first, total stream of consciousness type of info dump. Before I share this document with any players, I for sure go through and sort everything out into sections, and give it a very real editing pass, actually several passes like I was planning on putting this out for the public at large to view, and I am updating this document throughout the campaign and discussing those changes with my players whenever I do them. Also into this folder goes anything I think the players will need - if I am allowing a certain Unearthed Arcana from WotC, in it goes, but mostly maps and any other computer file I think the party can use. That is all in the players' folder, and in the primary folder, the one that does not get shared with the players, goes all my notes and files that I think I will need for the game - a main document where I type in any notes, or if I am using a pregenerated campaign, my conversion of that campaign, plus anything else I might need, like digital copies of the rules and campaign so I can review them anytime I have a thought about the campaign.

Next I start looking for players. I post on local Facebook Groups, local gaming store internet LFG/LFP forums, and even just talking to old players to see if they are interested or know someone who is looking.  At least, that is what I try to do, there are so many ways to get players out there these days - Reddit has an entire sub dedicated to locating groups and players; there is an app called GameFor (at least there was, then the COVID hit, and they still have not turned it back on) (again, GET VACCINATED!!) that was, as the Penny Arcade guys portrayed it, like AirBnB except for D&D (which I think we have needed since PA posted that comic, over six years ago); and I am sure there are more options out there that I, as a crotchety old bastard, do not know about. Did we have these when I was a younger man and wanted to get into more games? No, we were lucky if we had friends who played or were close enough to a gaming store that we could check out their cork board, and that was all the choices we had. Even after the internet came out in 1994, it was a long time before anyone was organized enough to make it easier to find games and people to play them with. So I hope you young 'uns appreciate the slog we had a mere two decades ago and before, so you could be enjoying finding players and games with all of these tools today. Why go through all of the trouble, why not just ask my current group if they want to play a new game or games? If your current group of players is up for it, then you can skip the party creation stage, but as it sits right now, I cannot do that. You see, besides some guys who show up once a month to push tiny tanks around a table, I do not have a current gaming group. And no, my last party did not stop because they lost interest in the game, but because everyone in the group had such wildly divergent schedules that it was good the game or kick half the group out to be replaced (and I was not going to play favorites and choose which half to keep and which half to say goodbye to, so we stopped altogether).

Which brings me to a related item I am cogitating on - when and where will we play? I am, by dint of the sweat on my brow, a homeowner so I tend to run my games out of my home, but you may not be that far along in your life journey and do not have enough room in your living space to have the size of party you want. If that is the case, start making plans on where you can play. I have thought on this a bit, and I do have some options to share with you. Local gaming stores are an option, but do they charge a fee for the space that your group can afford (and is willing to pay), and do they have an opening in their schedule that matches up with your schedule? How about your local library, do they have meeting rooms available to use? Does the group have a local restaurant that they like that does not see a lot of business the night your party meets, and would they mind having a regular group in, as long as you do not disturb the other customers and you get all your food and drink there and leave an extra big tip? Does anyone in the group belong to or work for an organization (school, charitable organization like the Elks or VFW, even a church) that has unused meeting space the party could use? My dad was a minister for most of my life, and I had a key to one of the churches he ministered, and it was empty most afternoons and evenings (though this was still during the Satanic Panic, that would have been fun explaining what we were doing in the church after hours). One of my local geek-centric groups that organizes over Facebook meets regularly at our local Mall's food court and plays board games. If you live somewhere that the weather is generally nice and you plan on playing Theater of the Mind instead of with minis, try a shelter at the local public park. There are tons of options out there, you just have to look around and not be afraid to ask (worst they can do is say "no"). Do not forget to define for yourself what times you want to be running this game. If you already have a group and a place to play, then you probably have a time as well, but if you do not have a time, remember that if the time is difficult for you, the game master, then it is not conducive for you to run that game for very long. Take into account your work schedule - unless you are charging your players (if you are, I am so jealous), gaming will not pay your bills, so make sure you still have a job. If some of your players cannot make the session time that works for you, you generally can find a replacement. Trust me, it is far better to set a session time that fits your schedule the best and then see who is available at that time. Yes, our players are generally our friends, but if you have to adjust just to make a small portion of the group happy, then no one will be happy (yes, even the one(s) you adjusted for will not be happy because it will spread from everyone else) and the group will fold prematurely. You want to make your friends happy and play games with them, but you are the one running the game - players can be replaced but the GM is harder (especially if the game is at their house). You are better off setting a schedule you can keep, with a bit of wiggle room to help those just on the edge of being fully able to play at your optimal time, instead of adjusting to try and meet a happy middle ground that just does not exist. Short term, some of your friends will be miffed, but overall your game(s) will last longer. This does not take into account if any of the players' or even your own schedule changes mid-campaign - that is going to happen and you have no control over it, and cannot even plan for it at this point in the process, all you can do is discuss with your players what will happen to the session schedule and the group when the question comes up, because either or both will have to change. 

That is about it, to be honest, but that is merely the beginning. Some of the things I dig deeply into you will barely have to skim, depending on what type of game you want to play, who is going to be in your group, and how long you plan on playing (each session and for the entirety of the campaign), while other aspects you will need to dive much deeper into than I did. Or not at all. Every game is different, and so is every group and every game master. Hopefully this helps someone out there. Keep rolling dice and having fun with your friends!