Edit: You can now download the complete Instant Campaign Builder.(pdf file)
What is the Instant Campaign Builder Project?
Campaign Planning is what the PCs will experience in their sessions. For this, don't worry too much about the Worldbuilding aspect. (like D&D 5E's default. D&D DM Suite 3.5 A suite of tools designed for at-table use to assist dungeon masters running D&D 3.5 campaigns. Includes a combat tracker that sorts by initiative, dice roller, and experience calculator supporting up to level 40.
As a DM I always have 2 objectives when I plan a campaign.
Create the best campaign ever.
- Not spend any time doing it.
They seem to be contradictory goals. Well, they are. Compromises have to be made. The more time you spend planning and plotting, the better your campaign should be. But I believe that it is possible to prepare a quality campaign without spending too much time at the drawing board.
Over the next 2 weeks I’ll share my thoughts on optimizing prep time, channeling inspiration and creating unforgettable scenes.
The objective
What is too much time? In my opinion anything over 1 hour of prep time for 4 hours of play is unnecessary but you can spend as much time as you want creating and writing – I wish I could.
Expy the dragon says:
Always wear a helmet when
building a campaign.
So let’s say you’re planning a campaign that will last 100 hours of play – roughly 25 4-hour games. You should be able to plan the whole campaign in 25 hours so you’ll probably need as much as a few weeks of preparation in your spare time – or 1 week-end if you’re really pumped up. (to get pumped up, you can browse this collection of gaming motivational posters)
The objective of the Instant Campaign Builder is to give you the necessary tools to keep that prep-time to play-time ratio under 1 to 4.
The prerequisites
As long as you’re not Dming your first game ever, I think this project will help you. If you’re just undertaking the Dungeon Master profession, I think you would be better served by using a published campaign setting, or at least a published adventure to get your feet wet, see what your players like and what your strengths and weaknesses are as a dungeon master.
Download the complete Instant Campaign Builder! (pdf file)
Or read the articles online:
- Instant Campaign Builder #2: Props
World Anvil is a set of worldbuilding tools that helps you create, organize and store your world setting.
With wiki-like articles, interactive maps, historical timelines, an RPG Campaign Manager and a full novel-writing software, we have all the tools you’ll need to run your RPG Campaign or write your novel!
The Core Features
Features for every worldbuilder! This doesn't include the specialized Campaign Management or Author Features - there's so much more to discover!
Write
Write articles to detail and keep track of everything in your world! Choose from over 25 templates designed to inspire you with prompts and deepen your worldbuilding! Embed your maps, and include images, music and sound effects, and even secrets and spoiler markers, for an immersive reading experience.
With World Anvil you can create...
- Buildings
- Characters
- Conditions
- Wars & Conflicts
- Countries
- Important Documents
- Ethnicities
- Geographic Locations
- Items
- Languages
- Materials
- Myths & Legends
- Natural & Supernatural Laws
- Religions
- Towns & Cities
- Spells
- Science & Technology
- Vehicles
- And so much more!
Design Interactive Maps
Maps are great, but you know what's really cool? Linking your worldbuilding directly to a map! Or even linking maps to other maps, going from your world map all the way down to a city or a dungeon!
The maps feature will inspire you during the worldbuilding process, allowing you to quickly create articles you can flesh out later. Then, your readers and players can explore your world in an interactive way like never before!
Link & Cross Reference Everything
Worlds are interconnected, and the rigorous linking system in World Anvil helps you reflect that! You can
- Link in articles you've already written
- Create links for articles you've not yet created (these are added to the to do list!)
- Create an article on the fly whilst writing another article and then link it in
You can capture all your ideas, and you'll never lose track of your flashes of inspiration again!
Put your history in order
Keep track of everything that's happened in your world with Timelines! Use parallel timelines to track events in a specific country or for a character. Separate your timelines into eras and use a variety of specialized timeline features to display your events the way you want.
Explore, Search & Find
When you're writing in flow or mid-game session, you need your information at your fingertips.
World Anvil allows you to search and find everything in your world quicker than ever!
Search your whole world by typing 3 letters in any search bar. Mark your articles with tags to find them even more easily!
Organize
Organization is beautiful! Keep your worldbuilding organized with nested categories - and nest articles under articles - and create a stunning table of contents for your world!
Display the most important categories on your world's main page with book-style covers, to help your readers dive into your world.
Family Trees & Bloodlines
Track & Present the relationships of your characters
Family trees and bloodlines are the perfect way to track the important families and dynasties of your world. They’ll help you track who’s related to whom, as well as decide who inherited the crown, the magical gene or that pesky ancient curse! Share them with your players and readers to help them navigate the political tides and generations of your amazing novels and RPG campaigns.
Organization Charts
Visualise the inheritance of your species, organizations and anything else you want.
D 26d Campaign Planner Download
Show off your magic system, your thieves guild hierarchy, or your evolutionary tree with Organization charts! These are the perfect way to display information in your world and help your readers or players navigate your world - and they’re interactive too!
Diplomacy Webs
Display the relationships between nations, kingdoms and megacorporations
Diplomacy, hidden agendas and secret feuds - it can be hard to keep track. Our visual diplomacy webs help you track which organizations are working together, which are in all out war - and everything in between! It’s an easy-to-absorb way to present political information, too, something which readers and players can often struggle with.
Interactive Roll tables
Sortable, Rollable, Searchable roll tables!
D 26d Campaign Planner 2019
Create rollable tables to quickly decide a location’s weather, loot, or a random encounter. OR create a whole series of tables which link together. Perfect multi-step random creations like creating new characters, regions, magic items or even whole new worlds!