The Dungeon Master Idea Pool
 

I'm in the middle of starting up a campaign, and while I've got plenty of distraction for the PCs I'm still kicking around ideas about what to do session-by-session. So I figure it'd be nice if we had a big pool of ideas and tips for DMs.

No, I am not putting the responsibility of my campaign on you, and your hateful lies are not appreciated.

So yeah, some of my favorites for individual sessions;
Earthquake splitting open the ground and revealing an underground crypt.
Orc/Goblin/Hobgoblin population in the mountains causing issues, kill the chieftain and it causes havoc and disarray.
Prized treasure of the city stolen and the thief is fleeing.
Someone is summoning the undead at night and sending them after the town, turns out it's an undead cult.

I have had an idea kicking around for a while, useless because I'm roughly half a light year away from ever having a game session, so what the heck, take it if you like it.

You've got this basically decent man who somehow stumbles into infinite or nearly infinite power. Reality bends as he desires. So he makes the sacrifice for the betterment of the world: He builds an evil castle and summons hordes of legions of evil monsters and taints the hearts of the weak and slowly spreads a circle of corruption and decay around the land and turns the sky blood red and generally makes a mockery of all that is living, fair or good. Because he wants people to set aside their differences and unite to fight him, to be heroes and spin legends and grow stronger through hardships and shine the light of hope ever brighter as the dark come crashing in. And of course he himself is corrupted by the power and seduced by the dark side and there you have a Big Damn Villain to campaign against.

A villain who might create any imaginable challenge for the heroes, help them out if it turns out too hard and even let them defeat him.

Add setting and protagonists to taste.

On reflection, that's probably not what you're asking for. But I like to share anyway. :)

My number one tip for DM's: Learn how to generate NPCs in seconds. Learn what kind of bonus the average level 12 fighter should have. What kind of spells a wizard would have prepared day to day?

My number two: Don't plan out sessions for your pcs. Plan out worlds. If you have a big end boss don't have him waiting around for the pcs somewhere. Work out his bases and his day to day, month to month activities. Thus your pcs could stumble across him right away or never at all. It feels much more real and your spcs will appreciate it.

*Is starting up a campaign on the 11th with his friends* This is perfect timing. *Starts stealing ideas taking notes*

One of my favorite concepts to run a campaign with is a basic idea of "You fuckers all converged for a one-time deal, but shit happens and now you can't leave the group." (Our DM actually summarized why our party didn't split up after the first mission by saying exactly that once. He was, of course, completely right) For example, maybe they're hired to clear out a minor vermin problem in one town, and accidentally discover that someone in the town is creating the problem. That person flees town, and the group is told they won't get paid unless they bring that guy back to town. PCs, being the predictable mooks they are, will not even consider ditching the quest in favor of finding something better to do; they will decide to chase the guy, because otherwise killing all those rats/bats/gators/whatever would've been pointless, and that just won't do.

As a result of the group constantly trying to hunt down this guy, they can stumble across mission after mission, eventually getting down to a final showdown with the guy and dragging his sorry ass back to town. Nobody is likely to think "This guy just isn't worth it," and quit, because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that DnD players have some of the worst tunnel-vision I've ever seen in my life. Trust me, I've lived through it WAY too many times >.>

And by then, most characters realize this group actually works pretty well, and so for in-character reasons they won't want to separate from the party. After all, they just sent the last couple in-game months chasing one SoB down with this group of people, so they can trust them all well enough now.

And then there's always throwing the group into an video game setting too, just to help get event ideas rolling. Make them be the NPCs that were present during a big event in the game itself. Suikoden is one of my favorites for this, and I'm currently working on setting up a campaign that takes place during the second game; there's a bunch of major war battles, and enough minor characters/villains spread out among the world that the party could interact with several over the course of the campaign without any of it seeming forced. And considering that Suikoden creates enough background for each character that a DM can make reasonable sidequests relating to each one... *Laughs*

Yeah, normally I go for building a world and letting my players roam, but as of late I've gotten tired of players trying to just wander and ignore the main quest so instead I just drop one before them and tell them "If you don't want to do the quest get out of my group, I am not taking part in your attempts to screw over your DM."

Also: Seriously, smaller-scale guys.

I am working on a Massive city-scape campaign right now. The players are debating on whether to use 3rd or 4th ed rules. I am pushing for 4th so we don't have to make the switch later.

Anyway, the city is huge, measuring in at around 400 miles or so, and is a mini-planetoid in its own dimension. (Think King Kai's place.) The city was designed by a powerful Wizard who want to study other planes as a base of operations, and over time evolved into a sort of crossroads for the various planes of existence that inhabit our D&D reality. This makes it easy for cameos of retired PCs, memorable NPCs, and even familiar items to happen.

While relatively easy to get into the city, it is very expensive to leave the city, this problem is magnified by the fact that rarely people "fall" into the city from their own dimension. The expense of getting back to one's own dimension is not really an issue for a high level player, but can be mighty motivation for a low level party. PCs can be from the city or people that have fallen in.

Or maybe your PCs will see this new place and its status as a cross-roads as a golden opportunity. To explore, to gain wealth, to gain power. Who knows what awaits?

Major organizations include:
The Magister's College of Inter-Planer Study and Observation
The Tampul Mercenary Troupe
Society for Concerned Merchants and Salesmen
City Watch
Thieves' Guild

I like this one--but instead of having him kill people for their own good, I've always found it more fun to have the villain HELP people... forcibly.

Replace army of hellish beings with an army of angels, or animated sets of holy armor, etc. All things that seem good aligned at first. Have the 'villain' not kill and slaughter, people, but rather protect them so completely that they are robbed of their free will. Lawful Good to the extreme that no one can truly be happy.

Someone breaks the law? They aren't killed. They're hauled in, their mind is twisted and rebuilt, and they leave a happy zombie. They may as well have died, but our 'good' dictator can rest assured that HE doesn't murder people. HE's not the same as other villains. HE's only doing what's best for the world.

I actually play in two games now (One monthly, the other bi-weekly), with another on the way, and I must say this...

They way the bi-weekly game unfolds is awesome. Why? We have two separate groups of PCs, one group good the other... ahem less than altruistic, with me being the straight man (Lawful Evil Bard) to a bunch of homicidal maniacs and power hungry megalomaniacs.

Originally, the situation came about because the DM only runs one world. Every Campaign he plays takes place in the same world, not all of them happen at the same point in time, but they are always in the same world. Long story short we were all over there at once and both our parties happened to be in the same bar. There was a bar fight, our Necromancer (Prestige classes /shrug) kills one the Paladins and raises him to be her undead consort. This pisses off the other party and they are still battling our machinations trying to retrieve the corpse for a proper burial (This is the only way the paladin can find peace as his soul is caged inside his rotting body. )

Our characters don't know who keeps interfering with our plans for world conquest, so we move onto our next plan while keeping our eyes out. Basically, we couldn't play this way if our DM didn't know his world and players so well.

Our latest plan has actually left them reeling as we managed to mentally enslave 1 of them, albiet at the cost of one of our own. (Keep in mind this is a higher level 3rd edition campaign, but the gist is that the Necromancer and our resident Psion, who also happens to be a Thrallherd*, combined their powers and created 2 items, a set of boxes that copies whatever is placed in them into the other, and a cursed diadem (IE Can only be removed with a Remove Curse spell) makes whoever wears it unquestionably loyal and obedient to whoever is wearing the command rings, without impairing their normal intelligence so they don't become nonfunctional slaves without orders. They each gave up levels of exp to make these items and then had to rest for months. While they were resting we put the diadem into the boxes doubling them until the box would not hold anymore, and then just kept removing the diadems as they were duplicated (It takes a week to make a duplicate.) We then filled up a bag for ourselves, and gave the rest and the boxes to the Psion's Thrallherd and gave them the instructions to convert everyone they met. By the way, our plan is working.

Err where was I?

... There was a point somewhere...

OH! Maybe you could have a friend who can't join in on the regular games PC the Big Bad. You could give him a goal IE World Domination and set resources and let him decide how to do it. If the big final climactic battle approaches you could unveil him and they could match wits in person, or you might be able to get him on the phone or on IM. It would be interesting to say the least.


*We have so many henchmen it is pathetic. All of us but the psion have the leadership feat but that doesn't matter as he is a thrallherd and we have a necromancer.IE We have started wars with armies and won.

Krylo: That's an interesting scenario for its own reasons, with a nicely hateable villain who thinks he's doing good. But my guy I think is more original, he's consciously deciding to do evil, just so other people can be more good in comparision and feel better about themselves for fighting him.

Plot Hooks:

1. Panic is starting to creep into the town/city. For the past month, each night after midnight dark clouds roll in over the city, covering up the moon and most stars. Bloodcurtling screams and shrieks are not uncommon, along with a dull rumbling of the earth as if something large is on the prowl. Bodies are found every night, and the evil presence seems to focus on guards and merchants. Their bodies are discovered mangled, torn asunder, partially devoured, punctured by hundreds of small wounds, impaled by gnarled wooden spikes, and charred to a crisp. Each night seems to offer a new horror, though oddly, women and children have been spared.
DM hook: The town's new logging activities and commodity trade have enraged a Chaotic Neutral (or NE, depending) Druid of significant power and he is eager to take revenge on those affiliated with the town. PCs must use ample Knowledge and CHA-based skills to lead them on the right path.

Tips:

Learn your players and their characters well. I do not believe in total free roaming, but a balanced approach of world-building and creating a "path of least resistance." Though adamantly against rollercoasting, I believe you should be capable of predicting the actions of your PCs and designing adventures accordingly. Practice improvisation so that you can add extra spice into what may be a deceivingly simple adventure or plot hook.


Edit: Will add more hooks as I got em. We're all probably rather experienced DMs/Players so I don't really have many tips to offer.