How to Make Your Own Campaign

So you want to make your own campaign.

That's good!

Despite what many people will try to tell you, you can 100% start out D&D by making your own game. There is no requirement to use a starter set or a pre-written adventure first. If you're new to D&D and you really want to run your own custom campaign, you can just do it, and I'll tell you how!

If you're not new, maybe you've dabbled in a starter set or another module and think you're ready for the "big leagues" of a homebrew campaign. That's great too! My advice applies to people of all skill and game knowledge, beginners or vets.

We're going to start with the only thing that really matters.

First Things First: Be Excited

Your story, your world, your vision, or your cool characters do not matter anywhere near as much as being excited about them.

You don't just make a campaign to make a campaign. It needs to come from somewhere. If you're the type of person who can be creative by following a step-by-step instruction guide on how to build a campaign you'd be doing that instead of looking here.

You don't need a formal outline, you don't need a master plan, you just need to be excited about running the game. If you're excited then it's easy to come up with stuff on the spot. And trust me, even if you make a complex plan, your players will figure out how to avoid all of it and make you think about stuff on the spot.

If you're excited about your game, use that to fuel your creativity. Just start writing. HAVE FUN! Don't write because "you have to" or because "you need to fill your world out more". Write about the fourth guild that the players won't ever interact with. Design that city floating in the sky. Write an ancient legend that explains how dragons came to be. If those are the things that excite you and that are fun, just write them down. Let your love for your world flow and just put it down on paper.

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The "Real" Prep

So, you let your excitement flow, but we're getting close to having to start the game. Odds are that you don't have anything yet, and that's ok.

What you do now is simple, you just prep session 1. It doesn't have to do anything with all the stuff you planned. Why would a level 1 party matter to your world at all? Hell, have them kill rats in a tavern.

After session 1, you plan session 2. After session 2 comes 3. That's it, that's the "real" prep.

Eventually, you'll add more and more to the foundation that you'll find places where you can start adding some of that cool lore stuff you wrote about. You can start introducing your guilds, your cities, your NPCs.

All of that comes AFTER you start though, so all you need to do is plan the next session and any free time you have after that go back to the exciting part.

How do you do that though? Honestly, you can just ask your players. How do they want to start? Are they starting already having met? Do they want to start already having been hired to some company? Do they want to start as strangers meeting in a tavern?

If you want, just pick one of those, or come up with your own. I personally like to ask my players how they know each other, but you're free to decide it yourself if you have an idea.

That's where being excited comes in. Hopefully you're thinking, "OOH! They can be hired by that guild I made up!" or "oooh, the floating city needs someone to go to the ground and get stuff for them" or whatever! Pick something and just do it, or ask your players for suggestions. (yes, you can do that)

Do NOT Try to be Someone Else

Only you know what is the best way for you to do something. The best way is the way that is fun.
I'm going to tell you a story of my own DM experience.

I'm online a lot, and I see a lot of really cool ideas. I saw people building maps, building fully fleshed out kingdoms, using geology to make sure rivers flow in the right direction and that rivers are physically possible.

Pre-2020 those people inspired me to try to do that too. I made a world, a map. I made kingdoms and towns and factions and lore. I made biomes and explained which races come from where. All I had to do was fill out the map and I was ready to run a multi-year game!

That's when I quit DMing for a year.

It killed me. I did all the work, I followed all the steps, I was almost there. But I was not excited. I didn't love anything that I had done. I was just following the steps prescribed by someone else to do something that someone else had done better. I fell into depression.

Yes, it can be that serious. Before this, I was running multiple games weekly. I ran for newbies, I ran for friends. I had big plans, I was having so much fun. The worst part is that I couldn't see why I crashed and burned so hard. It hit me out of nowhere.

How did I get out of it? I went back to my roots. I copied the first game I ever DM'd and just... did it again! An artificer too busy tinkering to eat hired the party to do errands for him.

That game spanned from level 3 to 20 and lasted over 4 years. The first quest? "Get me some magic rocks."

So, How Do You Make Your Own Campaign?

Honestly? You just do it.

There isn't a secret formula. There isn't a perfect order to do things in. There isn't a checklist you have to complete before you're allowed to start your campaign.

You need enough prepared to run the next session. That's the real prep.

Everything else is optional.

If you want to build an entire world, make maps, write thousands of years of history, design kingdoms, create gods, and figure out exactly why every river flows the way it does, then do it! If that's fun for you, that's good prep.

If all you want to do is write down three NPCs and figure out why the players are going to the dungeon next week, that's good too.

I make a lot of lore. I make things that my players might never see. They might never meet the secret cabal of dragons. They might never learn about the gods of law and order. They might never find the dead god of chaos.

And that's okay.

I made that stuff because I wanted to make it.

Maybe one day the characters will find it. Maybe they'll completely ignore it. Maybe they'll die before they ever get close to it.

But if they do find it?

I'm fucking ready.

That's the part I think gets lost when people start looking for a guide on how to make a campaign. There is no "correct" way to do it.

Make the game you're excited to run.

Prep what you need to run the next session.

If you have time and you want to make more stuff, make the stuff that you actually enjoy making.

Don't try to be someone else. Your ideas are cool enough.

That's how you make your own campaign.