Today’s Feature is part of the ongoing True Campaign Managery course. You don’t have to read the lessons in order, but they work best that way. And if you’re not sure what the hell True Campaign Managery even means, you definitely want to start at the beginning. So use the Course Index to catch up.

Click here for the True Campaign Managery Course Index.

Envisioning a Campaign

Welcome back, dumbasses. Remember how I used to call you dumbasses when you proved unworthy of the title Aspiring True Game Master? Those were good times, huh?

Last lesson, I rattled off a list of a thousand tiny decisions you’ve got to make when you start a campaign. I then spent the lesson’s remainder telling you it was totally okay to ignore your players and make the decisions yourself. And boy has that drawn some delightful fan mail. Which is why you’re back to being called dumbasses.

Anyway…

I mentioned this thing called a Campaign Vision. And it’s that thing I said was okay for you to develop without any input from your players. Though I did also say it was okay to do so with input. Game first, group first, it’s all good.

The important point is that developing a so-called Campaign Vision is a very important — vital, really — third step when starting a campaign. I assume you remember what the first two steps were. If not, you’ve got some re-reading to do. Because today’s lesson is about that third step and this whole Campaign Vision thing.

From Vision to Reality

Don’t let the name fool you. Your Campaign Vision isn’t just something you keep in your head. It’s a real, written thing. Mere Campaign Supervisors don’t bother writing their Visions down; they think having thoughts in their heads is good enough. True Campaign Managers know better. They take the time to develop written Campaign Visions. Unless I’m feeling lazy. And I always am. But this isn’t about me.

A Campaign Vision is a written description of the campaign that you, the True Campaign Manager, intend to manage. To run. It’s as simple as that. Seriously. This isn’t a, “But the Demogorgon is in the details” thing. There are no hidden depths to plumb. A Campaign Vision is dirt simple. It’s you describing to yourself the game you plan to run. It’s a personal thing and no two are precisely alike. And that makes it tricky to teach you how to write one.

It’s actually easier to teach you what not to write…

Destination, Not Directions

First, a Campaign Vision isn’t there so you can decide everything you’ve got to decide to start a campaign. I was pretty clear last time when I said, “First, develop a Vision and then decide all this other shit about mechanics and options and character generation and clubhouse rules.” That’s because your Campaign Vision is you typing a destination into your GPS. It’s not a set of turn-by-turn directions delivered by whatever hilarious video game character voice pack Waze was giving away for free this month. It’s you saying, “That’s where I want to go.” As you make the hundreds of decisions you’ve got to make and as you plan and run individual sessions, the Campaign Vision helps you make the best decisions as quickly and easily as possible.

A Campaign Vision doesn’t necessarily say, “This is how to handle character generation.” But after you write a Campaign Vision, if you then ask yourself, “Now, how should I do this Character Generation thing,” your Campaign Vision will help you arrive at the best answer pretty handily.

Of course, a Campaign Vision can spell out exactly how you’ll handle character generation. If that’s something you decided as part of your Vision — “I envision a By-the-Book, Core Only Campaign with Random Characters” — build it into your Vision. But if your Vision doesn’t specifically demand a certain way of doing things, leave it out.

Because, really, apart from describing the game you’re going to run, your Campaign Vision also describes the criteria, constraints, and conditions limiting your decisions. Wherever it doesn’t tell you what to do, it at least tells you what you absolutely must not do.

Describe the Game, Not the Plot

Your Campaign Vision is not your campaign’s plot. That’s a separate thing. Your Campaign Vision might include a few plot elements, but it should stop there. You’re describing the gameplay, not the story. If you spend more than three sentences describing your game’s plot, your Campaign Vision is bad and you should feel bad.

Write It Yourself

Regardless of whether you take a Game First or Group First approach, you and you alone write your Campaign Vision. And you write it alone. If you do the Group First thing, you’ve obviously got to incorporate whatever crap your game committee wrote on the whiteboard, but you’ve still got to write the Campaign Vision yourself.

Why? Because The Vision is how you make sure you understand and internalize your game’s goals. If you do the Game First thing, the goals are already internal. Writing it out is just about refining and clarifying. But a Group First approach means the goals aren’t internal. They’re a hodgepodge. And you need a good way to lock them into your own brain.

And remember what I told you last time: Group First doesn’t mean Group Owned. True Campaign Managers know communism never works. Especially not at the game table. They can invite the players to help spell out their game’s parameters, but the Campaign Manager must take ownership of and accept full responsibility for actually running the game.

But Before Opening the Box

By the time you sit to write your Vision, your mind is probably already a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas. And if you’ve spent any time talking to your players — either in a casual, “You know, I’d kinda like to run a game” way or in an official “I call this Session Zero Breakout Meeting to order” way — you’ve also got some idea of what your players want. Or at least what they’re most likely to invest in. Hell, if you’ve ever run one, single game for any of your players, you should have some idea of what some of them will respond best to.

And if you don’t have so much as a dust devil swirling in your skull, maybe a road trip or a long shower or a stare at your game shelf is in order. Even if it’s only to get the tiniest seed of an idea. Not that you need one. You can develop a Campaign Vision without even a seed. It’s amazing what happens when you just start writing.

My increasingly unfocused, rambling point is that, by the time you sit down to write your Campaign Vision, there’s probably some shit in your head you know you’ve got to get in there. Or else to write a firm, hard “No” around. And that’s good. It definitely helps to have some fences to build and seeds to plant.

Thus, before you start writing your Campaign Vision, you want to get some preliminary shit down on paper. And to classify it. You need a list of Needs and Wants, Yours and Theirs.

What You (Really) Need

Needs are dealbreakers. They’re things that, for whatever reason, your campaign must provide or must eschew. And anything can be a Need. And there is nothing wrong with any Need.

One Need, for example, that always finds its way into my Campaign Visions — or it would if I ever followed my own advice — is No Evil Characters. I don’t run games for evil PCs and I don’t reward evil; I refuse. It’s a deal breaker. Another Need I’ve been calling out a lot is Easy Prep. I’m now running — sort of — three games; the time I’ve got to invest in prep is pretty minimal. Two of my games Need very Flexible Schedules because my players are unreliable, uncommitted adults with lives and jobs and families. Bunch of selfish assholes. We can’t meet more than twice a month and we can’t even guarantee a regular every other week thing.

Keep in mind that Needs must be deal breakers. Which means you need to do some hefty and honest self-reflection. Much as I want to say Not D&D 5E is a Need because I’m sick to shit of that system and it chaffes me raw, the truth is if I were given a choice between not running D&D 5E and not running a game at all… I’d suck it up and run D&D.

That’s the key. When you note a Need, ask yourself, “Would I really not run the game rather than compromise on this point?” Or, “Would I really let one or all of my players walk away over this?” If I had a player insist on an evil character, would I tell them “Sorry, no evil or no game,” and let them walk out? Yes. I would. And if my entire group said, “Either let us be villains or we’re all quitting,” I’d say, “You don’t have to quit; you’re fired.” Seriously. And I also know that if I did give in on the “No Evil” thing, I’d hate the game until it collapsed. Which is also part of self-reflection.

But if the same players said, “Look, we’re only willing to play Dungeons & Dragons. The current one,” I’d run that game. Because however much I say I hate the system, I can have a good time running pretty much anything. The system just doesn’t matter that much.

But Needs aren’t just deal breakers. Needs can also be things that’ll scuttle the game if you don’t allow for them. That scheduling thing? That’s a Need. Not because I’m demanding it — not because I’d quit or kick players over it — but just because a game can’t happen if people can’t show up for it.

Knowing What You Want

So those are your deal breakers. But what about all the things that you wouldn’t actually let break up your game but that you do really want to push for? What about the things you’d do almost anything get? Or avoid? Those are your Wants.

Wants are priorities. They’re high priorities. They’re worth shaping your Campaign Vision around and they’re worth bargaining for, but they’re not worth letting the game die for. Wants are things you could live without — or live with — but which you really, really don’t want to.

As with Needs, Wants demand some honest, brutal self-reflection. Because Wants aren’t just preferences. They’re not just things you’d like. Wants are things that will be painful to give in to — or to give up — but not so painful they’d ruin your ability to run a good, fun game for as long as it lasts. Wants weigh down your scale — remember your scale? — but they don’t break it. As such, Wants occasionally demand some concessions and compromises.

As I said, Anything but D&D 5E is a Want for me, not a Need. And it’s not that strong a Want. I can run D&D 5E indefinitely and run a great game but then, I’m a mature and talented Game Master and I can run pretty much anything indefinitely and get a great game. I could run a great Fate game indefinitely and have a good time. I shit you not. But if I weren’t as mature and talented, I might demand a concession to take the sting off running D&D 5E. I might say, “But this campaign is over in six months because that’s all I can take.” Or I might say, “But we stop at 10th because I’m sure as shit not doing D&D in double-digit levels.”

Yours, Mine, and Ours

You’ve got Needs and you’ve got Wants. And, unsurprisingly, so do your players. So, insofar as you’re aware of your players’ Needs and Wants, you should incorporate them into your Campaign Vision. For hopefully obvious reasons. Needs are, by definition, deal breakers, so if you’re not meeting your players’ Needs, they’ll quit. Or, if they don’t quit, they’ll get bitter and resentful and miserable to run for until you wish they’d quit. And campaigns don’t survive that shit. Meanwhile players are more invested in games that give them what they Want.

But here’s where you’ve got a problem. Most people — you included — are barely aware of their Needs and Wants and they’re rarely honest and they’re never self-reflective. People often mistake Wants for Needs and claim things are deal breakers just to get their way. Or they think they Want things that don’t turn out to be a big deal after all. And coaching them through this shit will only get you so far.

You can ask your players what they Need and what they Want — and they may just assert themselves, loudly and stubbornly — but there’s no way for you to know if they’re actually giving you any good information. You can’t know if they’re overstating or understating things, wittingly or unwittingly, or if they’re so lacking in self-awareness they have no idea what they want and what they don’t, or if their Needs and Wants are part of a delusional narrative they’ve told themselves so long they can’t tell it’s a lie, or if they’re leaving a bunch of stuff out.

Then again, you can’t know for sure that you’re giving yourself good information. I mean, I can assert all I want that I could happily run a five-year Fate game and have a blast, but I can’t be sure until I’ve actually done it that I won’t strangle myself with the drawstrings on my Fudge dice bag at the eighteen-month mark. And maybe you actually can spend a grand ole time running a by-the-book, core-only D&D 5E campaign for years and you only think you’ll hate it. And maybe that dumbass player who insists they’ll quit if they can’t play a warlock won’t actually quit if you stand your ground and they’ll have a fantastic time taking their bog-standard fighter through years of epic adventure.

There is literally no way to know any of this shit.

Welcome to Hell; here’s your accordion…

The only balm against this crap is experience, self-reflection, and your own best judgment. You’ve got to learn your own Needs and Wants, you’ve got to challenge them frequently, you’ve got to be honest about them, and you’ve got to be hella protective of them. You can’t let your players’ Needs and Wants trample on yours.

Meanwhile, don’t waste your time asking your players to spell out their Needs and Wants. Such lists are extremely untrustworthy. If a player asserts a Need or a Want, take them at their word and assume they’re being honest, but also know they’re fallible. So trust your own gut. And if your gut disagrees, don’t try to talk the player out of their Wants or Needs. Instead, negotiate or ask for concessions and compromises. Especially if your own Needs and Wants — or other players’ Needs and Wants — are on the line.

I promise I’ll teach you how to negotiate and compromise before this course is done.

Above all, remember that your Needs and Wants are the ones that make the game happen. They’re the ones that determine whether the campaign succeeds. Any given player’s Needs and Wants only determine whether they’re in the game. If my new player, Eli, insists that he either be allowed to play an evil servant of Asmodeus or he’s quitting, my Needs and his are in conflict. If the game doesn’t meet his Needs, he walks. But if the game doesn’t meet my Needs, there is no game. Either I won’t run it at all or I’ll run it into the ground through resentment and bitterness.

It’s on Eli to bend. And if he can’t bend, he walks. The end.

Put a Bullet In It

The point of all this Need and Want shit is this: before sitting to develop your Vision, take a day to identify your Needs and Wants. Make a list. Also, try to identify your players’ Needs and Wants. Don’t ask them for a list — that’s flirting with disaster — just make your best guesses based on whatever experiences and conversations you’ve had with the players — if any — to that point.

As you list this shit, label it all clearly. Call out the Needs, call out the Wants, and put your Needs and Wants on a separate list from your players’ Needs and Wants.

Once you’re done writing the list, walk away. Stay away for at least an hour but, if you can manage it, give the list a day to sit. Then, sit with the list and systematically challenge each and every item on the list. Justify its inclusion. “Is this really a Need? Would I cancel the game over it? Is this Want strong enough to fight for or is it just a preference? Is it just a whim? Do I really think Adam would quit over this or be so miserable he’d wish he could quit? How do I know Beth wants this; what am I basing that on?”

Here’s the deal: your goal is to knock as many items off the list as possible. Seriously. If you can knock the list down to nothing, you’re in great shape. And whatever does survive your brutal challenges are likely to be real, true, honest Needs and Wants. That said, if you try to cross something off your list and you can’t get your hand to move — if your gut is insisting you can’t cross this off even if you can’t find a good reason why — trust your intuition. It knows something you don’t.

Once you’ve challenged the hell out of every item on the list, it’s safe to actually develop a Campaign Vision.

Now Finish Drawing the Vision

Your Campaign Vision is what you do after you decide to run a campaign — and identify relevant Needs and Wants — but before you work your way down the list of ten thousand choices that launching a campaign entails. As noted, your Campaign Vision might make some of those choices for you, but otherwise, it’ll help you make good choices as quickly and painlessly as possible.

So… get writing.

Seriously. Grab a piece of paper — or open a new document; there’s no reason to handwrite this shit — and describe the game you want to run. It’s that simple. There’s no magic to this. No template. No format. Just explain, to yourself, how you want to run your game. Describe how you see the game playing out. Start writing — or typing — and see what comes out.

And no, I’m not going to give you examples. Well, eventually, I will. But not this week. You don’t need examples. Examples would do you more harm than good. And before you insist that’s not true, why not try actually effing listening to me for once. Just try doing what I’m telling you before you tell me you can’t. At least try to do the homework at the end of the lesson.

That said, if you’re having trouble getting started, start by addressing yourself like you’re writing a letter. Try something like this…

Dear Angry,

I want you to launch a tabletop roleplaying game campaign for your friends. Here’s what I’m thinking…

Yes, it’s silly, but it works. And it puts you in the right mindset. Because the right mindset is letting your inner Game Mastering intuition tell you what it’s thinking. Just write. Just do it. You should be able to write a letter to yourself about a campaign you want to run. If you can’t, you sure as hell can’t launch a campaign.

Red Penning that Crap

I’m a huge fan of Game Mastering intuition. It’ll usually give you the right answer if you shut up and let it talk. And that’s because what we’re calling intuition isn’t actually intuition. It’s really experiential learning, practice, professional judgment, and a willingness to experiment. Your conscious brain is good at logical, factual processes, but when it comes to the social and the subjective and the creative, it’s total ass. Your brain is capable of way more than it can explain.

That said, your intuition — or whatever — isn’t good at long-term planning or goal-setting or explaining. That’s why intuition writes first drafts and not final products. So, as with your Needs and Wants, once you’ve written something and you feel like you’re done, walk away for a day and then come back to your vision with a red pen in hand.

Now, you’re the recipient of the memo. You’re the Game Master and Campaign Manager who will have to pull off the crap in this so-called Vision. And you know these instructions are a mess. Read over them very carefully. Is anything unclear? Is anything contradictory? Is anything impossible? Is there too much of a focus on the plot and not enough on structure? Are there huge, gaping holes? And, also, does it conform to the list of Wants and Needs you’ve got sitting nearby? Is anything missing? Are there any conflicts?

With your red pen, make whatever marks you need to make. Seriously. Cross shit out, write questions in the margins, circle nonsensical stuff, and stop just short of giving yourself a grade. Pretend you’re going to be sending this garbage memo back to whoever sent it for another pass and mark it accordingly. Because that’s what you’re doing.

I know it seems weird to read this thing as if you’re not the person who wrote it and to mark it up like it’s a real memo being passed between different people. But the reality is, in essence, that’s exactly what it is. There are lots of different people in your brain. In a totally normal, healthy, non-TikTok-whackjob kind of way. And you’re trying to get them to collaborate on a project right now. This little compartmentalization trick is actually super useful.

Make use of it.

Rewrite and Resubmit

You probably knew where this was heading already; now you’ve got to rewrite your Campaign Vision. So, sit for a day, blah blah blah, reread the entire draft and all the markups, yaddah yaddah, write a new Campaign Vision, and et cetera.

Being a True Campaign Manager is a lot of work. But it beats the hell out of spending months building and running a campaign that crashes and burns.

You can rewrite the Campaign Vision however you’re comfortable. But, since you’re trying to do something that’ll actually earn a passing grade this time, feel free to do some organizing and outlining if that’s how you roll. The key is to do whatever feels most natural to you — which isn’t the same as whatever feels easiest or quickest mind you — because this whole thing is a conversation you’re having with yourself. And the goal is to get yourself to understand how to start and run your new campaign and to agree with yourself on the goals and constraints and parameters. However you do that — however you communicate with yourself — is fine.

The dirty little secret here — and the reason why I’m not handing you a bunch of examples — is that the actual final product Campaign Vision matters way, way less than the process of writing, rejecting, and rewriting it does. What you’re doing isn’t really about writing a document, it’s about taking a measured approach to reach a consensus with yourself on where you’re going and why.

Anyway…

Once you’ve got a rewrite, walk away, reread it, and see if there’s anything that still cries out for red penning. You probably won’t find anything much that needs marking. If there are a couple of minor things, make some notes on the page and call it good enough. Don’t bother with another rewrite unless you truly feel like you’re not ready to figure out how to start and run the damned thing.

And remember that it’s okay if there are a lot of blanks to fill in yet. This isn’t the end of the Campaign Startup Process; it’s the beginning. Your Campaign Vision is there to help you make the important calls, it’s not a list of the calls you made. This is why, again, the form it takes doesn’t matter much. As long as you’re comfortable with the Campaign Vision, you’re good to go.

Homework: Don’t Develop a Vision

This lesson’s homework is going to take some actual work. It’s not quick and easy. But you don’t have to do it before the next lesson. Take your time. You’ve got a month before I try to build on this shit.

For your homework, I don’t want you to write a fresh Campaign Vision. You can do that if you want to, but only after you do this assignment.

Write a letter to yourself describing the campaign you’re currently running. Don’t describe the plot, but rather, describe how you’re running the game itself. Imagine that you’re retiring from the game and you’ve selected a new Game Master to take over your campaign and see it to the end. Obviously, you’ll eventually send this GM all your notes and a recap and a plot road map or whatever. But, right now, you just want to tell them about the game they’re going to be running. And imagine they know nothing. They don’t know what rules system you’re using or what setting you’re in or what genre. They’re clueless.

Once you’re done, read the letter as if you’re the clueless replacement Game Master. Do you have any questions? Is anything unclear? Is anything contradictory? Take a red pen…

Yeah, you know where this going. Redpen and reject that shit. Then rewrite it into a final version.

I want you to describe an existing game before you try to develop a fresh Campaign Vision because I’m more concerned with you learning how to communicate effectively with yourself than I am with your ability to pull a campaign out of your ass.

Do you disagree? Do you think I should give some examples and templates and writing assistance? Yeah? Well, who cares. I’ll give you the information you need when you need it. And I know when you need it. Because I’m the professor and you’re the dumbass student. And if you comment or e-mail that you’d really appreciate some examples, I’m canceling the course and sending you all home. So shut up, sit down, and do your assignment.