How to write your first D&D campaign arc

If you are planning a twist, then please foreshadow it. It is the difference between the players going "Oh wow, it all makes sense now!" and "You just pulled that out of a hat"

After getting valuable information from you session 0, you dropped this at absolutely the right moment. Looking forward to it!

13:29 Exactly, the best thing about dnd is that nobody expects how a campaign is gonna go, the dm might know some main points, but if the players decide just to do something completely different in order to reach the goal then that’s a great thing.

I've just recently begun DM'ing DnD 5e... of course i went the hard way and went on to create a whole own world with my own pantheon, world lore etc. xD... Your content has been a great source of inspiration and guidance. and my first few sessions were a raging success! Thanks for the awesome videos mate. Greetings from Germany!

This method is related to the 5 Room Dungeon method, but you've uncovered something like a fractal pattern to a campaign. A DM can design an entire campaign around these steps. (Campaign Arcs: 1. Intro to Adventuring In This Setting, 2. Questing Across the Land, 3. Defeat the Realm's Known Big Threats, 4. But There's a More Sinister Threat Waiting In The Wings, 5. The Final Adventures to Save The World) Each arc has its own quests, each built with the 5 steps, with the last quest of one step feeding into the first quest of the next one. (The party might reach the capital city of the kingdom and meet the king and queen at the end of step 2, at which point they are asked to help fight the Known Big Threats, leading to step 3.) Each quest can be built using the 5 steps, exactly as described here. Individual elements of a quest can also be built along these lines as well -- a dungeon can be built in 5 levels that each use this framework, each level built with the 5 Room Dungeon method. It can be 5 Steps all the way from the top of the world to the deepest dungeon floor. In this way the DM never forgets to include motivation, intrigue, exploration, action, rising tension, and surprises every step of the way.

As an “always player” who is about to DM for the first time, this video is incredibly helpful! Thank you for outlining such a useful and versatile formula; it’ll definitely come in handy.

Funnily enough, D&D provides a mechanism for this as well. Milestone levelling. You can pace your campaign through milestones. Early on, your arcs are short - just enough work to justify bumping them up a level. Each level should come after a satisfying conclusion to a chapter in your story. I actually structure my campaigns using Chapters. It helps break the story into discreet blocks, if players need a break or want to do a separate one-shot, we can schedule it between chapters. The chapters get longer as the amount of adventuring needed to level up increases, and the plots get more complex and more obviously/directly linked to the BBEG and their schemes.

A PDF template of a written version of all these steps would be very helpful! 🙏🏾

You make this content so accessible. Thank you for being awesome.

Great video. Adding this to my must watch content for new DMs.

Long-format!!! Just made my day, mate. Loving the great content! 😎👍

awesome video! your videos are really helping me out in making my first own campaign:)

Love the channel, over 40 sessions into my homebrew campaign, second cast of characters and your videos help a ton in making prep manageable

This is a very helpful video! I’ve not heard this structure idea form any other GM YouTubers!

Great timing! Just having difficulties on my first campaign

Subscribed to your Patreon a few days ago! Your YouTube videos have helped me as a dm but joining the Patreon has defo upped my game already😎 I’m currently running DiA but you’ve given me the inspiration to make my own campaign ready for when we finish

Kingkiller Chronicles reference. Very nice 😉

1. Hook 2. Hindrance 3. Setback 4. Twist 5. Finale My only concern is, my players are very smart lol ... That being said, I find that the "twist" aspect should vary widely from minimal/no twist to major. Sometimes it's okay for it to be straight forward. Then your twists feel more crazy and wild.

Excellent work as always! I'll be applying this to my series of small arcs based off classic Lieber and Moorcock short stories! Also is Hollywood doesn't cast you as a dashing WWII pilot they're nuts.

A good way to consider the difference between planning an arc and railroading is you are primarily concerned with what happens if the players 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. (E.G. The evil lich plans to sacrifice the princess at midnight two days hence). It is up to your players if they intervene, and how. If you know something about the group, you can anticipate what is likely, so you don't have to improvise 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 after the PCs get involved, but you arne't forcing them down a narrative path. Even a plot point that can't be changed, like aliens showing up to demolish the Earth and put up a galactic highway, isn't a railroad. Sure, they'll die if they do 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, but that is the same when facing a goblin ambush. The key is their response (and survival or failure) are theirs alone.