Long Term Campaign Design – Arcs

Before I say anything further, I want to say that when it comes to designing story arcs, there is no better guidebook out there than Hamlet’s Hit Points, by Robin D. Laws. Seriously. Go buy it.

In his book, Mr. Laws explains a process called “Beat Analysis”. This process describes stories as strings of events designed to elicit emotional responses in the player/reader/watcher, specifically, hope and fear: Hope that a given situation will end well, and fear that it won’t. As events make things tougher and tougher for the heroes, tension and anxiety increases as you experience the story, even with regular minor victories being scored by the protagonists along the way. This creates an overall downward emotional slope, with a dramatic upswing at the end. The slope Mr. Laws showed for Hamlet looks like this:

The slope I created for George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones for T.V. fans) looks something like this:

When I’m in the arc design phase of campaign building, I decide how I want the campaign to end first. I think up some dramatic, kick-ass scene that has the players and/or the world in the worst possible situation, but I keep it generalized and flexible to allow for character deaths and player choice. Here’s a trope-filled example:

A massive battle is underway, pitting the last vestiges of the protagonists’ forces against the hordes of darkness. The good guys are losing, and they’re losing BADLY. The party finds themselves in a situation where only the sacrifice of a PC or beloved NPC (or PCs or NPCs) will turn the tide and win the day. The sacrifice is X, and the outcome of the final battle on the world will be Y…

Once I have the end, I start to think about where and how I want the PCs to start their story. This is one of the key elements of your campaign. This is where you decide how you’re going to get a bunch of disparate PCs (and players for that matter) going in the same direction. I try to make this portion of the arc, if not beatific, at least familiar and homey. Comfortable. Routine. Here’s more tropes comin’ at cha’:

They’re starting in a small village waaaay out in the Middle-Of-Nowhere called Buckfutt, that supports a bunch of surrounding farms. Everyone knows everyone, and the PCs are all recognized within the community for their exceptional talent (they’re PCs in a village of NPCs, after all), and play important (but not central) roles in the community. Eg: gifted tradesperson’s apprentice, 3rd born of a prominent farmer, orphan turned church acolyte with an air of destiny, etc.

Okay, I have both the end and the beginning, but it’s not time for waffles yet. Now, I need the line that ties them together. For this purpose I come up with a theme for the campaign. I use theme to give my entire campaign a distinctive “feel” that will be internalized by my players and give this particular campaign its signature.

For the example above, I’m choosing “Darkness descends, and you are the only glimmer of light”.

I think the theme George R. R. Martin picked was “Oh, you like this guy? Well fuck him and his whole family.”

Next, I develop a timeline of major world events (again, generalized and hackable) that I figure will be the chapter markers. In leveling-style systems like Pathfinder or D&D, I find it handy to tie them into level progression. I use an amazing little tool called Keynote NF that makes this part of the work really easy, and it looks something like this:

Every chapter is a sub-arc that looks exactly like the big campaign arc, though instead of spanning the whole campaign, it only spans a subset of adventures. It has its own slope, its own theme, its own locations, and its own Chapter NPCs. Each chapter down the line should represent the situation becoming more and more dire, and the challenges should become more difficult to overcome as time goes on. Further down into the microcosm of your campaign, you’re using even smaller arcs to design each adventure (including Adventure NPCS), and tinier arcs yet for every ENCOUNTER within that adventure (including Encounter NPCs). Seasoned GMs, (especially those without a lot of time) create adventure and encounter level arcs on the fly. Hell, some GMs ad-lib through an entire campaign… but chances are they’re still using some sort of system of story arcs and the hope/fear cycle, because over time, with enough immersion in interactive storytelling you start instinctively using techniques like these ones.

When all of this is done, you have your major overreaching story arc. Not only that, you have the intended flavour that this campaign (and each sub-arc) is going to leave in your players’ brain-mouths.

In Long Term Campaign Design Part 2, I’ll talk about Designing for Party Cohesion. After that, I will continue with World Building and the Benefits of Starting Small, Flavourful NPC Design, and in the final part I’m going to give you my take on The Intro Adventure.

Game on!

Doc