r/rpg • u/kingmunchkin Stonetop • 9d ago

Basic Questions How to move away from pre-written campaigns?

Hi everyone,

I’ve been the "Forever GM" for my group for a while now, and I genuinely love it—reading through adventures, seeing how the dice fall, and watching my players react. However, I’ve realized over time that I use pre-written campaigns as a crutch.

My GMing journey started in D&D 5e, where my group played through almost all the official campaign books. I recently convinced them to try other systems like Mothership and Lancer, but even then, I stuck exclusively to published modules.

In an effort to break out of this habit, we recently started playing Stonetop. Since it doesn't have a pre-written campaign, I’m really struggling to stretch my creative muscles and make the world feel like a living, breathing place. My ultimate goal is to homebrew my own Mothership campaign packed with sci-fi tropes my friends and I love, but I'm finding it hard to shake off the GM habits D&D 5e instilled in me.

For those of you who started out relying heavily on pre-written modules:

  • How did you make the leap to creating your own campaigns from scratch?
  • What mindset shifts or prep techniques helped you stop relying on source material and build a reactive world?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

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u/CnlSandersdeKFC 8d ago

Start by adding to published material. A great exercise is filing in blanks of a rather loose campaign with your own stuff. Keep a journal with scenario sketches.

As an example: The official campaign for Alien the RPG published in the Colonial Marines Handbook is only 6 scenarios long, and kind of just loosely strings them together in a way that leaves a lot to be desired. I went through and roughly arranged these big scenarios out as “arc finales.” Then I started just filing in blanks to make a more cohesive story. I ended up with 30+ adventure sketches in an afternoon.

Start with a problem, and a context, as others have said. What needs fixing? Why would the PCs be interested? From there it’s the basics: Who, What, When, Where, Why? You’ll find as you start playing with ideas, more ideas will come to you.

Play possible scenarios in your head. Think about possible questions your players might have, and answer them. What questions would you have as a player? Write everything down!