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5. The Monarch's Forest: What if the thing causing everything is an Archfey who's decided that he likes this particular forest and is going to claim it for his realm in the Feywild.

A friend of mine ran a variation of "what if the bad guys won?" as a goofy Halloween One-shot. The PC's all woke up as fully sentient undead. We still had our items and skills from our previous lives, along with character classes, except we had to choose an undead race and had no memories of how or why we died. The land we woke up in was entirely occupied by undead that continued to live as they did in life. People still went to work and continued to have regular lives, they just couldn't die. Like Dark Souls, but more wholesome!

Never ending winter with a forge that heats a city needing magic items for fuel. Thats a good one. The Ring of Winter comes to mind.

ooo i like the idea of "the project" leading to the "abyss is gone" scenarios. Maybe the party gets tricked by Asmodeus or one of his right hand men into helping the devils win the blood war and the high level party has to deal with all that which they caused. That'd definitely be the plot of my upcoming campaign

With the Monarch's Forest: I know my group. They would burn it down. Not even as a LAST resort either. Something weird happening in the forest? Fire is an option? FWOOM! Watch it burn!

Tiny descriptions: 1. Where'd they go? 2. Re-Posession. 3. Feed the Machine. 4. Gov. Ops. 5. Special Land. 6. Titan Tales. 7. Praise the Sun. 8. Little Shop of Potential. 9. Post- apocalyptic story of the week. 10. Return to monkey or else. 11. Who dun it? Variation.

These are all amazing ideas! For idea 10, I have to borrow this from Pointy Hat: a druid who became a lich and wants vengeance against all civilization.

Here is a idea, slightly inspired by Persona 3. The characters live in a low-fantasy world, no/litte magic or monsters, and instead the big threat is a looming war between nations. Lets say for added drama that the land the PCs live in is a small republic between the opposing powers. Now, one night the characters share a dream, and in this dream magic exists, monsters exist, etc. Its the High Fantasy part. Make it a megadungeon if you want to, but in short the dream is a reflection of reality, that influences reality. In their home town there is a greedy butcher or merchant that takes the opportunity of looming war to raise the prices and suck the small community dry, before planning to run away from the conflict area. In the Dream world the butcher is the first boss so to say, a Demon of Greed. The players defeat the demon, and when they wake up, the merchant have changed his/her mind, returns the overpriced money and starts supporting the community to wether the conflict. This is just a illustrative example of course, but the idea remains the same. Changes done in the Dream World affects the Real world. This also brings up interesting questions of Why this is the case, what can be done, and possibly Who is behind it and Why. From Sweden with Love - Kami P.S A follow-up idea on the first one. Set a time limit of how long the characters dream. As in a physical timer. If you play 3h sessions, set aside 1 hour or so as "dreamtime". When the time runs out, the characters wakes up.

My campaign is Blank Slates, inspired by Dark Urge of BG3. All players start out with no memories of who they are, not even their names and level 1, with no background, but get 2 skills, 2 other proficiencies instead. They were found floating in water and saved. Who are they and why do they not remember? In my own game, they were some of the worst souls condemned to the Nine Hells, the Abyss and Pandemonium, and ended up escaping, assisted by an imprisoned god, promising them new and eternal life. They collected what was needed to free the god, but the pursuers became more relentless and in an epic clash above Styx, most ending up falling in the water. And the last conjured a portal when falling, but still ended up as a blank slate.

I'm starting off my first TTRPG in a Crusader themed world where the party is a scouting party that the the Crusader armies General hand selected to crave out paths for them to survive. They have to make smart decisions because if they don't people are going to get hurt. And the main city that they are going to defend and push back against the Horde is right there. So i'm really excited. Wsh I could pay for the coaching right now but hopefully one day.

I love the idea of the Liminal Bodies.

These are probably the best group of campaign plots I have seen. Nice how real world plots translated over too. 😁

That second campaign reminds me of something from star trek. There's a race of aliens called the trill, where a select number of their species is selected to essentially fuse with these slug alien creatures that maintain all the memories of their previous hosts. It's a symbiotic thing, making the host more intelligent and giving the slug the oppurtunity to explore the world. So having the characters play an item that combines some base personality with the personality of a new character and make it part of the world somehow would be a cool way to give those indecisive players a way to try everything out, awesome idea!

I had a fresh homebrew world that I made sometime ago and the name I gave it was "The Krakening". The idea being that a group of explorers was plumbing the depths of an ocean and came across the long forgotten prison of the Kraken and unwittingly released it. The world was flooded and the result was a survival based game with the ever looming threat of sea creatures and doom! Tritons were prevalent and druid enclaves were some of things I liked and leaned on.

1. Campaign would be even funnier if it were the devils that went missing and suddenly everyone would feel the burden of carrying the Blood War against demons to save all of existance.

An idea I had re: "The Demons have gone Missing": 1. Disappearance of the Abyss: The Abyss is a chaotic and ever-changing plane, but a powerful entity known as the Voidweaver has emerged. This ancient being has the ability to manipulate the very fabric of the Abyss, causing portions of it to collapse into voids. The demons, realizing the threat, have fled to other planes or hidden in remote corners of the Abyss to escape the Voidweaver's influence. 2. Consequences on the Material Plane: With the Abyss destabilized, the planar barriers weaken, allowing the devils from the Nine Hells to spill into the Material Plane. The sudden influx of devilish forces disrupts the balance, causing widespread chaos, political instability, and increased demonic cult activity. The devils exploit the situation, vying for control and power in the absence of their demonic rivals. 3. Dragons' Dilemma: Chromatic dragons, tempted by the promise of power and freedom for Tiamat, ally with the devils, seeking to break her out of Avernus. Metallic dragons, loyal to Bahamut, join forces with the celestial beings to prevent the spread of devilish influence. This creates a complex conflict where dragonkind is divided, adding to the chaos and turmoil on the Material Plane. 4. Investigation by the Party: The party learns of an ancient prophecy that foretells the rise of the Voidweaver and its ability to manipulate the Abyss. To uncover the truth, they must seek out the scattered remnants of demonkind, surviving in hidden pockets across the multiverse. Along the way, they encounter displaced demons, cults worshipping the Voidweaver, and Celestial beings trying to maintain order. The party must navigate the shifting alliances and power struggles while piecing together the mystery behind the Abyss' disappearance. *The Voidweaver:* - Identity: The Voidweaver is an ancient Lovecraftian entity - a Cryptid, essentially. An Eldritch Horror that predates the current order of the multiverse. Its true form is nebulous and ever-changing, with tendrils of void energy that warp and twist reality around it. It can assume almost any form it deems necessary. - Motive: The Voidweaver emerged from the primal chaos that predates the formation of the planes. Its motives are rooted in the desire to restore that chaos, considering the structured order of the Abyss as an abomination. The Abyss is merely its first target. The Hells are also very heirarchical and structured. Indeed, most of the Archdukes of Hell are obsessed with Order. It's possible that Asmodeus has recognised the threat of the Voidweaver and has ordered the Hells to go forth, find the cause and put a stop to it. Asmodeus might think the Hells are the Voidweaver's next target. The problem is, the Celestials see this as the Hells invading the Material Plane and seek to stop them, creating chaos. The Dragons, too, get wrapped up in all this. Ironically this makes the Material plane so steeped in chaos even without the direct involvement of the Voidweaver that it might well leave the Material Plane for last!

Another idea is to try and put a twist on classic fairytales everyone is familiar with. Something like the sword in the stone, but King Arthur becomes a tyrant that you must fight can make a very fun campaign.

I love the name “The food chain” for what it is :D There be some really creative ideas here

Campaigns 8 and 9 are ABSOLUTELY AWESOME thank you so much, definitely will use some of these 🎉

Excellent stuff! Current campaign has 3 intertwined questlines leading to Dante's Inferno as capstone adventure but some of these starting points are perfect add-ins! Love the shopkeeper ideas

I actually tried a One-Shot with a similar theme to Campaign 10 a while ago, and it was a lot of fun! It was a low-level adventure, but it turns out that a level 4 moon druid makes a pretty epic aquatic-themed bossfight, especially if they have magic items that can make them fly. 10/10 recommend this sort of adventure to anyone looking for a unique premise and villain for their campaign or one-shot, especially if you like situations where the villain might go unnoticed for a while due to their control over nature/access to wildshape.

Thanks for the content! Always glad to see more from you!

great ideas and a really lean video, looking forward to checking out more of your videos

Great stuff here. I’m working on my first home brew campaign now.

I used campaign 8 setting, its literally the jrgp "Recetear", the mc inherits a magic shop indebted and you have to earn money to pay it off while adventuring, hiring adventurers to scort you, craft items and unlocking their backgrounds and quests. Awesome wholesome game.

The Monarch's forest sound super epic, I would love to see more about it

The music you used indeed sounded familiar haha. Thanks for the great campaign ideas and for speaking about our new tool Opus!

The last one is kinda like the campaign I am running now. I should check out the coaching to see if I could get a slot that fits my schedule, but its a mystery campaign where the players were jojo eyes above heaven style completely reset into a parallel world's past. They have no memories of what they even are, and are trying to find out their past to uncover the truth of the villian, the heros before them, and who they were. Its been a slow start, but slowly picking up speed.

My table actually does campaign 8 as cool down one shots for beloved characters that we completed the main campaign ark at lvl 17…. So these characters have become legends but live very quiet lives until something creeps up that needs their attention. It’s RP heavy and they sometimes interact with our current PCs if they travel to the small town in a secluded valley they have made their home.

This is an excellent video which provides such strong and well-structured foundations for people to grow their campaigns from. You are the life giving acorn to so many oak trees.

Lots of neat ideas, great video :D

I was looking around for some inspiration for a Starfinder campaign I'm booting up for some friends, and some of these really hit the bill. The Monarch's Forest, The Project, The Endless Winter (Engine), The Never Setting Sun, and Druid's Wrath specifically struck a chord with me. When hearing your details about the Monarch's Forest, my mind immediately went to the Outer Gods dilemma of Starfinder (Lovecraft). Specifically Shub-Niggurath and her thousand young. The "Monarch" could be a secret cult leader for the Black Goat or the Woods. The Project campaign idea made me think of an organization wanting to unlock the inner secrets of the universe and seeking a bridge to Yog-Sothoth or possibly even Azathoth. I don't want to make the overarching story of my full campaign to be overrun by Lovecraftian horror, but those would be some incredible "detours" from the typical encounters and stories the players would likely find themselves in.

Going to try out #3 with some friends, tomorrow is session 0. A few adjustments I made were that there isn't just one engine but hundreds across the world meaning that there is a lot of competition for resources and magical items. Also external politics are just as important as internal, depending on who my players encounter while scouting and how they deal with them, they can end up making enemies and allies of other settlements. Lastly the engine itself is gonna be upgradable, in the begining it's gonna be just enough to keep people warm but down the line they can make it hot enough to grow basically whatever they want and with an overbundance of food their village's population will boom. This idea was really cool, I have high hopes for this going well.

Campaign 9 is basically the 3.5 campaign setting: Midnight. Good guy turns bad, takes over world with monsters. Its fun

Congratulations, I am actually going to steal that Monarch's Forest idea, Mothman bbeg and all xD

I am making a vampire campaign for a couple years now, seeing this and I realize I've intentionally made a combination of the monarchs forest and the never setting sun. But you sir did give me ideas for forest encounters 😈

Just wanted to complement your transitions between the different campaigns. They were done very well!

Running the campaign 4 idea. My players are helping a shadowy organization that is trying to suppress evil across the land and decided to employ well known adventurers. They are tasked with collecting items used by cults and monsters, and payed once they relinquish those items at the end of their mission. But what if the organization is actually using those items for something dark. Maybe a former fighter of good, cursed with knowledge of a fallen god, made to battle evil his/her entire life has had enough. Maybe through their travels they managed to collect some forbidden knowledge about the very essence of divinity, and, maybe, a clever way to hijack it. Fun stuff, like your ideas mate

Campaign 7: for more information about how you could adapt a similar world, look at Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. My suggestion is Lorwyn until lvl 6-7 then flip to Shadowmoor for the second half. This will allow time for the players to have fun in a generally idyllic world with the plethora of weaker monsters (ogres, goblinoids, etc) then you can flip into the more grim monsters at perfect time where the lower CR monsters can reasonably be thrown at a party in mass (a party of 4 lvl 7-8 would be easily pressed by two waves of 10-14 (send a second wave when half of the first wave has been killed / turned)) or you can send higher CR creatures w/out fear of overpowering the party (A Vampire is a solid threat to a CR 9 party, especially if they have been playing the characters since lvl 3.)

6. Imagine getting to make a mech suit (artificer/inventor) or channel being a divine avatar (cleric/paladin/champion), amongst other ways to be Kaiju sized later on in the campaign

That 2nd idea is really cool. Love that it has a gameplay hook too

You inspired me to start up my dark sun campaign again thank you

A twist on Campaign 6 based on one of my favorite shows. Yes, there are kaiju, but the player characters are visited by an otherworldly race of Celestial beings who are _just as tall as the Kaiju_ and they need hosts. The characters are given devices to summon the 'Ultras' (you can guess where I got the idea from) and when used not only can they become them, but they can also channel their own capabilities and skills through them. Imagine Yuma as a cleric and he can use _cure wounds_ through Ultraman Arc.

Excellent - many thanks! 😊

These are all great ideas, thank you

Great video! I want to run all of these! Actually I'm currently running a custom Planescape game that has strong similarities to Campaign 11.

These are all great ideas! I wanna run them all!

One campaign idea I had years back was that the untamed use of magic all but destroyed the world and over ran it with horrible twisted creatures of mad creations. The survivors fled through portals to the planet’s hostile moon. But now, 100’s of years later, the magics that protect the people are starting to fade so the survivors have to use the portals to return to the planet for various missions. What will they discover there? There was a serious that came out not long ago with a modern twist on this called The 100.

I think my most successful campaign involved the players as agents for a magic suppression organization. It started when 2 perennial kingdoms, at odds for generations, finally go to war. Eventually they drag in allies, satellite states and trading partners to both sides. The monster nations, long held in check by the power of the human nations, seizes their chance to attack. The non-aligned neutral nations align, as more devastating rituals and more powerful artifacts are being used. Then, the looming Empire on a neighboring continent finally uses the conflict as their chance to invade and conquer new lands. Eventually the war ends. Now enter the players. They are part of an organization that wants to put all the various genies back in the bottle. Various ritual sites need to be neutralized. Devastating artifacts need to be collected for destruction, suppression or secure storage. Other-wordly entities need to be captured, killed or banished. Had so many good adventures. A good way to start players small and work towards larger goals. Also: What if their 'Organization' proved to not be so benevolent and now had all this accumulated power?

Great ideas- thanks for sharing

oooh... This is very inspirational. Gives me some wicked ideas.

Love videos like this!

Great video man

As soon as I heard idea 2, I subscribed. These were all heat

I participated in a 36 player death match at a board game pub. We were in groups of 6 and it took place in a mansion. There was a choice of 8 pregenerated characters and you picked one at random. Once you died, you would pick another one. The table with the least deaths won lol There was one person who died 9 times, so he had to reuse a character.

I am in love with Running the Shop.

Thank you for bookmarking headings

All these are such interesting ideas for a campaign

Nice work on the video!

There's some good stuff in this, you got yourself a new sub!

One of my favorite RPGs, that I always have a lot of fun playing, is the Italian game "Anime e Sangue" (souls and blood, basically) and it's entirely based on the idea of players being eternal-ish spirits trapped in a weapon. They possess the body of those who wield their weapon, consuming their souls, and journey through the multiverse, usually looking for a way to free themselves from the chains of the powerful entity that locked them into the item.

I like the shop keep one

I do enjoy idea number 8 and going to try to create a campaign from it as a first-time dungeon master. I am going to tinker with it by having some of the items stolen by the shop used to summon an ancient evil. For example, a jewel, yes a basic item, being a key to summon an undead legion. Also, another idea I can throw in is some of the items stolen the players learn about the negative consequences of the wrong hands and need to get them back. Still need to plan more and if anyone has ideas, let me know.

A movie that was a great concept but missed the mark would make a great campaign. 30 days of Night. Set in Alaskan winter. Vampires, no sunrise for a month.

I like watching Enter the Dungeon's videos like this.

This is why I buy and read many different game systems. Converting a scenario from one system to another provides many more options, and options players have not read. The key to conversion is concepts over numbers. Ask what effect is happening or what level of difficulty is being represented, and convert these concepts rather than trying to directly convert mechanics.

I like several of these ideas.

Taking something from the campaign is a good idea. It's what led to Dragonlance! Campaign 8 is Recettear, and Campaign 9 is Dark Sun. :P

I actually once played a campaign very similar to #7, with even the same motivation for the never-ending day, plus some more sinister stuff, like an ever-regenerating titanrat i temporarily killed by shoving a grenade down its mouth. It's very fun, and I highly suggest it

I really LOVE the Druid's Wrath. Brings to mind the Deathworld Trilogy by Harry Harrison!

Love these

Good stuff!

#9 is pretty much the Midnight campaign setting. Which is awesome and you should check out if you want to run a villain’s world.

Good stuff, thank you!

Bro, just yesterday i read the Cairn RPG manual, and campaign 5 of this video is exactly the type of shit i was hoping to run using that system. This video is a godsend omg

I was listening to this minding my own business when suddenly there's a Magnus Archives mention?! I've always thought the fears would make amazing additions to a DnD setting as background forces

Ha! Funny, I’m in the middle of my campaign called (not that my players know this) the shattered emerald, it’s a Druid civil war (well, it will be) one side has become fantastical about destroying the civilised world and bringing everything back to nature whilst the other side are wanting balance with the world and everyone should live in harmony with tolerance. Plenty of wildshape battles, and there maybe an event where a number of high level druids surround Waterdeep and combine cast earthquake and send half of the city into the sea cracking open the dungeon of the mad mage and all manner of evil spews out.

I'm making a campaign centered around an island that starts off simple with a party being hired to stop pirates and slavers raiding ships, then steadily begins to escalate with uncovering the origin of the pirates that leads into the cursed history of the island and a lovecraftian cult attempting to destroy not only the island itself but the world.

Honesty the Lego Heroica board game lore would make a dope campaign. Plus you have magic items and dungeons planned out for you

And NOW YOU WANT TO TAKE MY BLOOD MOTHRA IDEA TOO?!?!?!? I literally had an idea for a far realms MOTHRA/last of us zombie plague where re-skinned rot grubs had to hatch out of fungus trees grown from the infected in order to mature in a sick symbiotic relationship. What if you weren't infected and a worm got you? Here, have a warlock level and remember to make a increasingly difficult int save before bed each week or secretly get taken over and become part of the Queens Army...very erks of animorphs esk.

Gonna need a lot more of these videos. Mmmkay? Thanks

Some good ideas ! 👍

those were all good. thx dude

About a year ago my family wanted to run a casual DnD campaign but couldn't come up with a plot, so I thought of something akine to your 10th idea and expanded on it when I got to boot camp The party starts off dead, their spirits taking in by a new up and coming goddes, she's claimed your souls in varies ways, grabbed them apone your death, toke them from the afterlife, made a death with another god who had claimed your soul. She has done this to make you her vassals, to walk the earth and spread her name so that she can gain renown and because a full deity. Here's a neat little twist, the party doesn't remember how they died and must either learn and gain memories from working with the goddess who sends the party in multiple missions around the world. Another neat thing to keep the campaign light hearted is the PCs are immortal, when ever they die they'll be sent back to the goddess's realm, which also works like a hub for them, and they'll basically have to wait to respawn which they'll return to their body and it will fully heal I ran about 3 sessions in boot camp to test this idea and, they seemed to enjoy it just had very different veiwa

A friend of mine got a really interesting campaign idea: the players were normal people in a village or small town that was hit by a murder hobo party. Now, the players all rise up as revenants, bound to undeath until they kill the entire party. Not only are they up against a much stronger enemy, they have to deal with people immediately distrusting them because undead. However, they aren't blocked from making allies as the enemy is murder hoboing around. The players have to be smart and fighting in a guerilla style is a good idea, making hit and run attacks, slowing the enemy down and forging connections with people to sabotage them. Because the campaign is on an island and if the hobos manage to leave it, that would be rather bad and make things harder. And of course the nature of being a revenant. Sure, the players have resistance against poison and necrotic and exhaustion, and while long rests still are needed (or the body falls apart), there is no need for sleep, eat or drink or air. However they count as undead, which bars them from many sources of healing. We also had the idea that you only get one death save, either you die or immediately get back up at 1 hp. If a revenant dies, the spirit will find a new body, meaning your race will change every time. We also have a table to roll on to see what body you inhabit, meaning a bunch of different scenarios to awake into. The whole idea is that, while the revenant nature makes things more tricky, you will not fully die. The enemy can. So again, be smart. Ambushing becomes a great tool, sacrificing most if not all of the group to permanently take down one enemy, doing things to drain their ressources so that your fight will be as easy as can be. And RP wise, the characters are still having to deal with the trauma of their deaths and the nature of what they are.

Magnus Archives mentioned!!!

These are the very good ideas that instill in me the anger for the fact that I'll never have the time and friends to do these all

On 5., Idk if anyone has seen pointy hat’s Druid lich video but I think it would fit really well as a BBEG because their magic and them using the land for their own preservation could be corrupting the forest creatures

I might actually use this so i combined the endless winter one and the “project” one and it works very well i might just use this ine day

Campaign 7 sounds like the other half of the world in the setting Pointy Hat was making on stream for a bit. He had the world stop turning and was creating the setting of the side forever stuck in nightime

Here's mine - it's middle earth themed. You are brought together at the inn of the prancing pony by none other that Gandalf himself. He's putting together a dream team to take down a dragon.. a dragon named Smaug. The backdrop of the story revolves around Thorin's company failing to kill Smaug and the fallout around that. The PCs are effectively plan B and must adventure across middle earth to slay the dragon. The catch is.. the PCs will eventually realize they aren't actually the plan B team but the back up team to the main team.. a C team perhaps. Can add another layer if you want to make it extra nutty (D team) but either way should create hijinks around the party competing with other fellowships on this quest and interacting with Gandalf and other well known figures from the lore. Tolkien is probably rolling over in his grave as I write this but what can you do.

Where did you get your videos? Like from what game or series?

Interesting. The game I'm currently running is The Project crossed with The Perished--the PCs all died and their souls "fell through the cracks" in reality before being saved by a god on the verge of falling into oblivion, who has a grand project to stop that fall (and coincidentally prevent any other souls/gods falling into oblivion). It's basically a low-effort framework to justify them being sent into different worlds and times on fetch quests, but in the process (they've gone from level 1 to 17 so far), they've interfered with Vecna--who has his own plans for oblivion--and we're building to a final confrontation.

im currently making a food chain campaign where the party is refugies on a continent that seem to be the only one that was attack and overrun with monsters... so the players can choose to help the other refugies or trying to get stronger to go back and reclaim their homeland... the monsters can be anything over the CR of 20 with minions... then i look at the monster like Arasta from Mythic Odysseys Of Theros who has an army of spiders that litarally made a continent into a spidernest

Campaign 4 sounds very Eberron, especially with the potential for touching on eldritch horror Cthulhu-style (which is still on brand for Eberron as a pulp fiction-heavy setting, to which Lovecraft's works used to be part of)

2. Players as weapons. It sounds so cool! I wouldnt have thought about it and it has so much potential. Maybe players feel bad about possesing people and try to make money for them and then leave it while switching to new hosts. Or maybe they use crimnals and monsters bodys and use them as disposable shells. It could become stale if there were no stakes to combat so maybe a mysterous artificer is trying to catch them and use to his purpuse so they cant just lay around on the ground waiting to be picked up.

For those who are interested in the second idea there's an rpg named bloodlust based around that concept

Does anybody know from what the animations for the demon lords are? The ones during the first campaign idea

This is a great idea