Create a Homebrew Campaign | #4: Fleshing Out the First Arc
Introduction
In the previous course, we discussed the core components of the first arc in a campaign: party union, world establishment, character development, and the plot hook. I also described what my first arc will be and how it will hit each of these four components. To recap that first arc summary, my intent is to split the party into two groups that will have slightly different opinions on how to solve a class conflict taking place in the port town of Kessit. This arc will be roleplay-heavy, focused on diplomacy, espionage, and problem-solving. I’ll also start setting up the villain of the broader campaign arc, the king of the region.
You should have something similar to this in mind as you dive into this video. Know what the hook of your arc is and have an idea of how you will be bringing your party together. It’s also important to know how you are going to develop the characters themselves by setting up a vast array of scenarios in which characters of any class, background, and skill set could show off their abilities.
If you’ve got that and you’re ready to get started, we can move on! In this session, we’re going to take what we developed in the previous session and really flesh it out. I’m going to break down how I write my arcs and talk about what I do to ensure successful, cohesive improvisation during a session. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find links to download the template that I use for writing an arc. If you have your own that you’d like to use, feel free to use that! My template is also fairly focused on Dungeons and Dragons, but it can easily be modified to any other system.
And as always, if you’d prefer to check out a video version of this post, you can check out the video below!
Arc Outline Breakdown
I break my arcs down into a few specific outline components: I call them arcs, sessions, beats, and scenes. Above each of these is the campaign, which encompasses everything the players will experience from the first session to the last one. For this part of my campaign creation series, we are going to focus on the arc and everything beneath it. We’ll talk about planning a larger campaign in a much later course within this series. Right now, just get ready to start writing the beats of the arc. Before we can do that, though, I should define what each outline component is.
Arc
Think of your campaign as a long series of serial books, each with its own smaller, self-contained story. An arc would be one of those books. It’s a story that is contained from beginning to end. It may have chapters within that story, but from the first chapter to the last one, you have a singular, cohesive tale that is contained and understandable within that book. You may pull some things from previous books in the series--particularly the cast of characters--and also lay the groundwork for future books, but overall the core story within that book should be complete and self-contained.
This is what your arc is: one book in a series of longer books. In my current campaign, we’re currently in the midst of an especially long third book. We had the first one, which was a murder mystery, and the second, which was something akin to a heist. The third book, which we’re in now, it’s more of a portal fantasy than anything else. While these books are all part of the broader series, they’re self-contained and they all stand out on their own.
Session
A session is pretty straightforward and you probably already know what it is: this is a single period of actual gameplay with you and your players. Whatever you accomplish within that period of gameplay constitutes a session. The length of your gameplay period will determine how many sessions you have within an arc. My players and I tend to play for about six to eight hours every other week, so my session notes tend to be a bit long.
One thing that’s important to note is that you can only plan out a session so well. Because tabletop roleplaying games are largely improvised--and entirely improvised on the part of your players--it is difficult to tell exactly what will occur in a session until you’ve actually had the session. So, when you’re writing out sessions, write out what will occur to the best of your ability. If you don’t get to everything you originally had planned, that’s okay! Move it to the next session. If the session you’d planned out goes by more quickly than you’d expected, that’s fine, too! Keep playing through the gameplay period if you’d like and improvise what you haven’t written down.
Beats
Within each session, there are beats. These are the crucial points you want to hit within a session. For example, the first session that I held in my current campaign had the following beats: the party members meet, they shelter from a blizzard, they deal with a corpse, and they return to town. Those four beats made up an entire eight-hour-long session, though I know this doesn’t sound like much.
Beats are just important parts that will make up the session. When you’re planning out your arc, I would recommend writing out every single beat of the arc first, then go back through and break it down into sessions. That way, when you have to prepare for a session, you’ve already got an outline of what you want to happen and you can start adding the scenes during your session prep.
Having a list of beats is also helpful because you can use this knowledge to improvise should it become necessary. You’ll know what’s coming up regardless of what you’ve thoroughly prepared and are thus equipped to continue a session even if your players have breezed through what you’d fully prepared in advance.
Scenes
Scenes are the detailed components of a specific beat within the arc. I don’t write out my scenes until after a session, and I only draft scenes one session at a time. This is because scenes require quite a bit of work and preparation when you start getting in-depth, so I don’t want to spend a couple of hours drafting scenes that may never happen if the players aren’t headed toward them.
A scene is part of a story beat. This is anything that is going to happen within that beat, usually challenges, encounters, and other conflicts. The story beat I mentioned earlier, “sheltering from a blizzard”, featured many different scenes. Reinforcing the shelter, dealing with hunger, and getting out of the snow are all examples of scenes within that beat.
I try to break my scenes down by type, which helps ensure that I am adding enough variety to a singular beat. I may have a combat scene, a roleplaying scene, a skill challenge scene, and a puzzle scene all within a single beat, though this level of variety is rare for me because this can be just as exhausting as monotony.
Drafting the Arc
All right, so those are the different pieces of the arc, now it’s time to actually start drafting it. When I draft an arc, I don’t bother splitting everything into sessions right off the bat. I do that later on, as I start planning each session. Instead, I list out every single beat that I want to take place within the arc. Depending on the arc’s length, this can be a pretty lengthy list. The arc we're in for my current campaign has north of two hundred beats, but this is pretty uncommon for my arcs--I try to keep them below fifty when possible, as this will typically constitute about five or ten sessions for my players.
The Beats
For this first arc, I don’t think my list of beats will be tremendously long. What’s important to me is that over the course of the arc, I am able to hit all of the important notes I mentioned in the previous video: a challenge for every skill, development of my player characters, the establishment of the world, and things that bring the party together. This isn’t necessary for every arc, but I find that you need to be extremely thorough with the first one to ensure your players are engaged and ready for the bigger picture they’re about to experience.
So, let’s start listing out our story beats! I won’t be listing every single beat I have for the arc in this course because that would likely be pretty boring. Instead, I’ll list enough beats to cover one or two sessions so that you can get an idea of what you need to do for your own campaign. These are my beats:
- The first group moves through the town toward the meeting.
- The second group prepares the meeting place for the new arrivals.
- The two groups meet, introduce themselves, and start discussing solutions for the dilemma in Kessit.
- A fight takes place outside of the meeting place between a guard (seen as protecting the aristocrats of Kessit) and a few farmhands. The farmhands are willing to kill the guard, who can’t defend himself well against them.
- A mob kills a trader in the port who refused to give away the wool he had brought. A select few individuals who were accused of initiating the violence against the trader are sentenced to hang.
- Trading in Kessit, which it relies on, begins to slow down not just because of the mobs, but because of the increased fees on those who do business in the port, further threatening Kessit’s ability to survive.
- Graffiti begins appearing on Soylu’s Crossing, typically portraying threats of death to the aristocrats on the ait.
- These threats of death become more than threats when the bodies of two of the aristocrats are found hanging beneath the great stone bridge.
Those are my eight beats that should cover the first two or three sessions of this arc. As you can see, the violence and desperation start picking up really quickly, making this arc exciting and tense right from the start. Blood is being spilled right from the start and matters are continuing to escalate. This will help to draw the players in and encourage them to act quickly, no matter what their plan is.
When I prepare my sessions, I’ll select which beats will be part of that session and then I’ll go through and draft the scenes for those beats in advance of the session. The players can do things in a session that will alter the other beats that I have in the future, so there’s no sense in spending time writing scenes for every single beat (unless I’m planning to sell this adventure, in which case I would be more detailed than you see above).
Scenes for the First Session
For the first session, I want to have beats one through four. Each of those beats will have a few scenes within it that I want to make sure I hit during the session. I’ll break those all down here.
Group One Moving Through the Town
The session will open with the first group moving through the town. In the first scene, I will describe what they see: a quaint town, illuminated by a setting sun. They’re moving along the cracked, dirty cobbles of the mainland. I’ll have each player describe their characters.
Following this scene, I’ll have them get stopped by a guard. The guards have been on edge lately, so the guard will question them briefly about where they’re going, why they’ve got weapons (if they have them), etc. The guard doesn’t have any intention to detain them unless they act with a level of significant suspicion, he’s trying to find people who may be out to cause trouble during these dire times. This will mainly be a roleplaying session.
Group Two Preparing the Meeting Place
The idea I have is that the meeting place will be a home belonging to one of the characters. However, the second group may have a different idea for where they meet. Regardless, I’ll have a few ideas for how they prepare it. Someone is likely getting mead as a gesture of goodwill, another will be preparing notes, maps, and other documentation that will be helpful during the discussion, and a third may be cleaning or keeping watch for their approaching guests. Each player will describe the actions of their respective characters while simultaneously describing the appearances of those characters.
While they’re waiting, a guard will approach and knock on the door. They’ll need to hide anything they have in the open from the guard while they try to get him to leave. The guard is doing what he claims are routine checks on the houses. Just like the guard encountered by the first group, this one does not want to detain or harm this group, he is just trying to find anyone who may be a potential troublemaker as tensions rise. After a few questions, assuming the party didn’t do anything to arouse significant suspicion, the guard will leave.
The Groups Meet and Start Discussing Solutions
At last, the first group arrives at the meeting place. The six individuals (presuming I have three in each group, as I would expect) introduce themselves. I would encourage small talk, here, letting them start exploring their characters before they settle down and start talking about solutions for the problem in Kessit. This is largely a player-driven beat with little interaction on the part of the dungeon master, with minimal skill checks (if any) prepared.
During the scene, the sun sets completely. I’ll occasionally note how much time has passed by indicating that it has gotten dark, the torches in the street have all been lit, the candles in the home are beginning to burn low, and making other remarks that help establish the setting and passage of time.
The Fight Outside of the Meeting Place
While the discussion is taking place, the party hears a commotion outside in the streets. Four farmhands have all tackled a guard and tossed away his sword. They’re beating him through his leather armor, kicking in his face, etc. A crowd is starting to gather in the dark as well. No one is helping the guard, but some are cheering on the farmhand. The guard calls for help.
The group is at a decision point. What they do here will determine who sides with them. They can try to save the guard’s life, which will turn the common people against them, or they can encourage the fighting or even help kill the guard. Doing nothing is also an option, of course. Whatever happens, they need to move quickly, because the guard will soon be beyond saving. We’ll end the session before this scene is fully resolved and pick it up in the next session.
Characters and Places
Before you begin your session, you need to have a note of all the important characters and places that could appear in your arc. This will help greatly with improvising as you move through the arc. If you have a solid understanding of the personalities and motivations for each of the characters who are crucial to your arc, you’ll be able to roleplay them easily no matter what weirdness your players may throw at you.
Our next session is going to expand the setting of our first arc, so we’ll talk a bit about the organizations and places that are present in this arc next time. Characters, though, are going to be discussed in a few weeks when we talk about shops and notable inhabitants. For right now, just make a note of each of the crucial characters that will play a role in your beats. We’ll start writing details about them in a few weeks, but it’s best to prepare that now!
Conclusion
Between now and the next part of this course in which we’ll start expanding the setting of our arc, take time to write all of the story beats that you expect to see in the first arc of your campaign. I’ll be doing the same; there’s a lot that’s going to be happening in Kessit while tensions continue to rise. Don’t worry about writing the scene for every beat just yet, as those beats can easily change based on the actions of your players. Instead, write every beat that you currently plan to hit in this arc so that you have a solid idea of where the story is going and what is coming up for your players in the next several sessions.
Thanks so much for taking the time to check out this post! I hope that it was helpful to you and that my examples assisted with getting you inspired to start writing out the beats of your arc. If you did enjoy this course and haven’t done so yet, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel! I post video versions of the courses in this series over there as well as video versions of my book reviews and personal content.
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Thanks again for your time, I appreciate your support! Stay tuned for the next post in this series. Bye!