My Campaign Structure

Campaign structure isn’t actually something that most people put a lot of thought about.. especially if it’s a freewheeling ongoing campaign with no definite deadline. However, our gaming group is currently working on a rolling cycle of multiple “short” campaigns, of about 12 Weeks, or 3 Months long.  This, along with splitting my group across 3 GMs running simultaneously gives players a chance to pick which game they want to run in, and yet still get a chance to play in 4 different games in a year.

That said, my current Deadlands: Reloaded! campaign just kicked off last week and is moving on to game 2 tomorrow.  I’ve been looking at my current plan, and I’ve got some measure of an outline in place… and so Spoiler-Free here’s what I’ve got in terms of campaign Structure:

• Total of 12 Sessions.
• Divisible into 4 story arcs, of about 3 sessions each
• Each Story Arc should escalate the metaplot forward
• Each Story Arc should include a single session dedicated to playing up a character’s backstory and / or personality
• Each Story Arc should have a few scenes dedicated to developing secondary NPCs

These are my primary milestones.  Scattered within these (which I can’t display just yet) are annotations as to Villains, challenges and other things I’m intending to throw at them.  With any luck once this is over, I can actually go and review this structure and fill it out as we go, resulting in a completed campaign structure and outline that I can review, as well as my rationale for each session and what I was hoping to achieve, and if I was able to do so.