100 Prompts To Start Your Next Campaign

We’ve all been there. You’ve got the itch to start a new campaign, but you have no

ideas to get you started. Well, I’ve compiled a list of prompts to get your creative juices flowing. You can roll randomly on a d100, or just read through the list until it sparks something. There’s not much more to say, so here are 100 Prompts To Start Your Next

Campaign...

1. Explore campaign ideas in a system you’ve never run before. i.e- Allow the system to inspire you.

2. Create a campaign where every player plays as the same race.

3. Pick two books/films/shows/games/boardgames/songs that are completely different

from each other. Combine the two to make a setting, and create a campaign for that

setting. (See "A Crown of Candy" by Dimension 20).

4. What would your game look like if there was no villain?

5. Create a campaign that can only end in tragedy.

6. Create a campaign where the PCs never step foot on the material plane.

7. What if all the enemies are all of exactly the same type?

8. Create a campaign where every player has to play as the same class.

9. Create a campaign where every PC is either very young or very old.

10. Use a random game title generator (https://letsmakeagame.net/game-title-generator/) and create a campaign centred around the title.

11. Create a campaign that takes place in a single day.

12. Create a campaign where healing magic is less effective.

13. What if your campaign takes place in a single building? (A school, a castle, a

prison…)

14. Create a campaign based around surviving a catastrophic event.

15. Create a campaign centred around prophecy.

16. Have your campaign start with the PCs in the middle of combat.

17. Create a campaign where the BBEG appears in the first session.

18. Create a campaign where the BBEG travels with the party.

19. What if all the characters are all animated versions of inanimate objects (toys, food, statues…)?

20. Create a high-technology fantasy campaign.

21. Create a campaign where the PCs rarely/never meet.

22. Create a heist campaign.

23. What if the whole campaign took place on a mode of transport (airship, train, ship…)?

24. What if your BBEG had a good alignment?

25. Create a campaign where alignment is really important.

26. Create a campaign set during a massive war.

27. Judge a book by its cover. Find a book/film/show/game/boardgame/album that you

have never read/watched/played/listened to, and look at the cover art and title. Create a campaign based around the cover art and title.

28. Create a BBEG with no redeeming qualities and build a campaign based around them.

29. Create a campaign where an ally becomes the BBEG.

30. Create a campaign where a PC becomes the BBEG. (You will have to coordinate

this with the player).

31. Set your campaign in a prehistoric setting.

32. If you usually run theatre of the mind, run a campaign using battlemaps. If you

usually run battlemaps, run a campaign using theatre of the mind.

33. Create a campaign that takes place in one massive dungeon crawl.

34. Create a campaign where the PCs are lost and have to find their way home.

35. Create a campaign where the PCs all die in the first session.

36. Create a campaign in a setting where magic is illegal.

37. Create a BBEG that can only be killed in a very specific way. Build your campaign

around finding out how to kill them.

38. Plan the first session of a campaign, and nothing else. Let the players guide the

direction of the campaign and react to what they do.

39. Create a campaign about ordinary people being given extraordinary powers.

40. Acquire a 3rd party resource (Grim Hollow, Stibbles Codex, Strongholds and

Followers…). Create a campaign based around the mechanics in that resource.

41. Create a campaign where each PC has a homebrewed special power.

42. Create a campaign where the PCs discover a new world/realm/continent.

43. Create a campaign of intrigue and conspiracy. (Game of Thrones, Minority Report,

Chinatown…)

44. Create a campaign with a countdown timer to a major event.

45. Create a campaign where the players play two different characters from two different points in history.

46. Create a campaign where the PCs have a deadly curse placed upon them in the first

session that is too powerful to be removed by typical means.

47. Create a campaign where the PCs are framed for a crime.

48. Create a campaign where you feed information to the PCs through dreams and