What’s the difference between preparing a D&D campaign and planning one? These two might seem semantically the same, but there’s more of a philosophical difference between them that can actually make or break your campaign. In this article, I describe a change in perspective and a way to approach the way you design and run your campaigns to avoid some potentially huge headaches down the road.
I made a video a while back about the dangers of railroading your players and how it killed my D&D campaign. Check it out. “Railroading Killed my D&D Campaign!“
In that experience, I had put a great deal of time and energy into crafting what should have been an epic campaign with deep plot hooks, high stakes, and big rewards. If the players had made the choice that I had written into my campaign, then things would have been epic, as planned.
Instead, the players made a different choice and the whole thing fell apart. And it was 100%. My. Fault.
What I did was plan. I what I failed to do was prepare.
Here’s the difference.
Planning Entails Plot
Plot is a good thing as it ties encounters, sessions and adventures into a coherent and cohesive campaign. Where planning breaks down is when the DM doesn’t just make assumptions about player choices, but has implicit requirements for the players to make those choices for the campaign to continue.
An example might be a pivot point in the campaign that requires the party to go on a particular quest to advance the planned story line. But what happens if the party chooses to do something else?
When Players Do Something Unexpected
When the players deliberately or even accidentally choose to go east instead of west, this may throw a goblin’s wrench into your campaign’s plot. If you planned your story in a way that hinges on them going west, you’re now in a pinch where your plan has gone sideways.
Plans, by their nature, make assumptions. Good plans play the odds, focusing on what’s likely but also being prepared for what else may happen, however unlikely. Notice I just used the word “prepared”.
A good plan considers the possibilities and includes contingencies for how to respond to each of them. A great plan understands the likely events and outcomes, but instead of focusing on all the possibilities — which is impossible when it comes to player choices and behavior — it is prepared for whatever may come without assumption.
Avoid Pivot Points
One of the most important things to look for as a DM when preparing an adventure are pivot points that require some event or action to take place in order for the plot to move forward. Identify anything that is required, then hone in on that pivot point and determine what happens if that doesn’t happen.
Truly flexible campaigns don’t have these requirements. I’m not talking about the simple things, though. Obviously, a dungeon can’t be explored if the party never enters the dungeon in the first place. That’s a requirement but it’s a local one.
What I’m talking about are plot-level requirements. When the overall adventure or campaign plot can’t move forward unless some choice is made or action is taken by the players, that’s when planning can fail.
What Does Preparation Look Like?
First, preparation lets things like encounters and locations and monsters exist without some hard prerequisite. That dungeon a few leagues from town filled with undead? It exists but can sit there undiscovered until the party either chooses to investigate it because of clues or rumors or quest hooks, or until they happen upon it at random (or seemingly at random) and choose to enter it.
As you watch this video, be sure to share in the comments your thoughts on the difference between planning and preparation. I’d love to hear your perspective on this.
It’s Like Food
Think of it like a pantry and refrigerator filled with various foods. You don’t have a specific meal plan in mind or a set of recipes you intend to make, but when guests come over (your players), you can prepare whatever meal suits everyone’s mood at the time, based on what ingredients you have available.
That dungeon filled with undead is a selection of produce and proteins ready to be cooked up as needed, although I imagine zombies taste terrible. The wilderness encounter that takes place on the way to the dungeon is some pasta you have sitting on the shelf. The NPC the party meets along the road is a bottle of wine you had on hand, ready for a special occasion.
Requirements Versus Optional Situations
You can think of all kinds of plots and storylines and micro- or macro-level quests for your D&D group, but the difference is requirement. When one thing requires another, that’s where you face higher risk of plans going awry. When a high-level storyline pivots on some other event occurring, that’s when you are more likely to face frustration, or even the total 180 flip of your campaign plan.
The trick is to develop your master story and campaign idea, but be wary of individual requirements and prerequisites along the way. Those things can exist, like the dungeon that must be found and entered in order to be explored, but give serious thought to what happens to your master plan if that dungeon isn’t found.
There Are No Laws In D&D
This advice isn’t so much a hard and fast law of D&D physics that causes gravity to reverse itself if you don’t play by the rules. Very little in D&D is like that; there really aren’t any absolutes in the game. Ultimately it’s what you enjoy doing at your table and with your group that matters in the end.
What I’m talking about here, though, is some hard-earned advice based on my own experiences and through witnesses the trials and tribulations of other D&D groups where campaigns either completely fell apart or the DM had to do some serious regrouping because one or more pivotal parts of their plan didn’t go as they intended.
If you look at your campaign and its components from a perspective of preparation rather than planning, you’ll be readily able to shift and adjust as needed with much greater ease. If there is one absolute in D&D, it’s that sooner or later no plan will play out 100% as you predict.
