One of the biggest requests that I hear asked, about Garage Gaming, is how to run a campaign. Well saddle up your pack horse, get your paymaster on board, and tell your quartermaster he needs to start quartering stuff up; because today, we’re going to start a series of articles, that delve into this topic with both hands; starting with today’s topic: The Planning Stage!
Honestly, and it doesn’t even need to be said but I will anyway, campaigns are often times the height of the Garage Gaming experience; and most groups aspire to have the kind of cohesion necessary to pull one of these off. I’m not going to lie, it takes a lot of teamwork, planning, and effort to finish a campaign. They are a lot of work on the organizer (in this instance I’m assuming if you’re reading this, then you are the organizer), as well as cooperation from players, managing schedules, and planning for the inevitable issues that may arise throughout the course of the campaign.
Player burnout is a real thing, and it can gut a campaign that overstays its welcome, or is too complicated in its execution. Organizing a campaign can also be a thankless job. I don’t say this to discourage anyone from trying to do a campaign. Far from it! A campaign is a wonderful experience, that everyone should have in their gaming careers at least once; and hopefully multiple times. The stories you tell through your battles will be the stuff of legend
There are 5 things that I feel are crucial to the planning stage of a campaign. There are other things that you may decide to do or not to do, but these 5 things are necessary to keep your campaign from petering out when it isn’t halfway done.
Simplify
This should apply to every step of your campaign, but especially in the planning process. Everything that you design for your campaign should be done with the idea that you are going to have to keep this up, for however long your campaign runs, whether that’s a weekend or for several months. Ask yourself whenever you design something, whether it is going to help propel your campaign forward, or if it has the potential to bog you or your players (or both) down in needless details. Always trim the fat with your campaigns, especially if this is your first time running one.
Set Expectations
Before you begin writing down plans, take time to talk with your players. Find out what they want, and try to implement it into the campaign within reason. This can include things like how the campaign battles should affect one another, timeline for the campaign to run, ideas for heroes in those campaigns, and other things that might be interesting. You should also take time to examine your own expectations for the campaign and what kind of investment you are planning to put into it. In all honesty your role could be more like that of a Dungeon Master for a D&D campaign, and you need to make sure that you are okay with that. If you’re not, make sure that you have a fairly clear vision of what you want your campaign to function before moving forward.
Give yourself time
Running a campaign can be challenging, and the more prep work you can do, the better it’ll likely turn out. This includes getting terrain painted, scenarios decided, and any props you decide to include built/written/painted will be helpful in keeping the campaign moving once it’s started. Another thing to consider, make sure that you have the whole length of the campaign mapped out, and double check your dates, particularly for big events. Allow Yourself the time you need between the player’s battles to tabulate everything, and give feedback (scores and standings), on a regular basis to your players. Nothing is more off putting in a campaign than when you go weeks without hearing from the organizer, and being unsure if it fizzled out, or if the campaign is still going.
Have a set plan of Communication
Have a solid plan for how you are going to communicate with your players in your campaign. While you might have a Facebook chat, or a texting group set up to talk to each other, I’m talking about having something that the players can refer to, to check in on the campaign regularly. Whether that’s creating a Facebook page, or an actual website, there should be something that you can create, that your players can look over, and find the rules for the campaign, player standings, any fluff pieces written for the campaign, and fun smack-talk can be found. Basically picture something that you would want to look at while on your lunch break at work, and that can be a great way of maintaining interest in your campaign.
Lastly, have fun
Ultimately, it’s important to remember that this is a game and that you are here to have fun. While there will be some work involved with running a campaign, overall you should enjoy the experience, and if you’re not, it’s time to go back to the first step and simplify. You need to be ready for some things to go wrong; players will complain, somebody’s regular life will force them to drop, and players won’t show up for scheduled game nights. Being able to deal with these dilemmas is an important part of running a campaign. In all things, keep this in mind; it is just a game, and a game is meant to be fun, if it’s not fun, then change it to make it fun.
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail
As a final piece of advice, don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to borrow from other players and ask for advice, either. We are a global community, filled with creative people, just bursting with ideas that can help you to organize your campaign. Several of the campaigns that I have run have ended in less than spectacular ways. Sometimes they’ll run for a few weeks, then fizzle out, as life interferes with our hobby. However, for every failed campaign, there are thoroughly enjoyable ones, too. So don’t be afraid to try your hand at organizing a campaign, and see how much fun they can be.
That’s it for this time, be sure to come back for the next installment, where we’ll be talking about common campaign pitfalls that cause them to fail and tips to avoid them.
