In this Blog We Discuss
Inspiration Board: Capture ideas from anywhere using notes, apps, and AI tools to build a repository of creative sparks.
AI Assistance: Use ChatGPT and MidJourney to expand ideas, create NPCs, and generate visual inspiration.
Campaign Outline: Use AI to organize story arcs, sub-arcs, factions, and key NPCs using storytelling structures like Pixar’s story spine and a campaign outline template.
Encounter Design: Leverage ChatGPT Projects to create and prepare your encounters.
Game Master Platform (GMP): Leverage AI in TGMP to build factions, encounters, and assets.
Session Prep: Start strong with vivid opening scenes, review encounters, and refine details for immersive gameplay.
Run the Campaign: Stay adaptable, use AI for on-the-fly adjustments, and create a responsive, engaging experience for players.
Creating a campaign for a tabletop role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons can be as thrilling as the adventures themselves. By integrating modern tools, you can streamline the
process and focus on crafting a story that resonates with your players. Let’s explore a practical approach to campaign creation, from collecting inspiration to preparing for your first session.
Inspiration Board: Capturing the Spark
Every great campaign starts with an idea. Inspiration can strike anywhere: a stunning landscape, an intriguing news article, or a random conversation.
To ensure these moments aren’t lost, capture your ideas in a mobile app like Notion and create an inspiration board using tools like patchwork.midjourney.com.
Organize them into categories, such as potential settings, plot twists, or character concepts. Over time, this collection becomes a treasure trove of ideas ready to fuel your imagination.
Supporting Assets
Using AI to Expand Ideas
Once you’ve gathered a range of ideas, start exploring them with AI tools. I use ChatGPT Projects, and GPTs to begin to think through my campaign. This is what I call the dreaming phase. It is really about letting the content and ideas take you where you want to go around a campaign, act, organization or encounter.
Here are GPTs that help me refine and structure my campaigns.
Below is my current campaign captured in ChatGPT projects. Please note that this comes with a paid version of Chat GPT. Try NotebookLM for a good free option. Once I have my content from the GPTs, I will upload my documents to a project named with that campaign name.
Next, in the instructions I tell ChatGPT Projects what this campaign is all about, what setting I am running in, who my players are, and what happened last session. This brings the AI up to speed on what is going on in my campaign. You will find my session summary template at the end of the campaign creation process.
Building the Campaign Outline
With your ideas in place, it’s time to organize them into a campaign outline. Start by dividing your story into acts. Each act should be a part of the overall arc but have its own sub-arcs with clear stakes and objectives, ensuring the players feel a sense of progression.
Here is a good Campaign Planning Guide (PDF) that I use for each of my campaigns. Feel free to steal it to train the AI on your campaign. You can also use this campaign template to structure your campaign.
I incorporate storytelling structures like Pixar’s modified story spine (“Once upon a time...”) to provide a narrative backbone. This approach helps you maintain a cohesive plot while allowing for player-driven twists.
I then like to populate the campaign with organizations and factions that have distinct goals and relationships, ensuring the setting feels alive. I use these goals to build tension between the organizations and the player characters.
Break the story into smaller arcs that highlight different aspects of the world. Sub-arcs could include a political intrigue plot, a heist, or a journey through a treacherous wilderness. Include key NPCs and their motivations, as these characters will anchor the story and provide meaningful interactions.
Bringing the Campaign to Life
Once the outline is complete, it’s time to build the campaign in your Game Master Platform (GMP). This outline is what trains the AI on your campaign.
The main edit page contains all of the details about your campaign. It includes the campaign overview, acts, organizations, encounters, assets, players and sessions.
Designing Encounters with What-If Planning
Encounters are the building blocks of your sessions. Use AI to outline major combat, social, and exploration scenarios, thinking about potential outcomes. For each 4–5-hour session, I create 4-7 encounters and one or two random encounters.
To do this I use ChatGPT Projects and The Game Master Platform. ChatGPT projects is where I explored different ideas and concepts for the encounter, once I land on what I want to do, I then build out that encounter in the GMP. The GMP is what makes the encounter playable as it aggregates the information the GM needs to run that encounter.
In each encounter I include descriptions, images, NPCs, Foes, and Items. All of these can be shared with my players during the session, helping to pull them into the story.
Then for each encounter I will chat with the AI assistant to build out specifics, descriptions, dialog, and do my planning for each encounter. I save each one of these chats for when I run my session.
Encounter Planning
Preparing for five main possibilities ensures you’re ready for anything:
Parley: Players negotiate or persuade their way forward. Consider motivations and goals for the NPCs involved.
Trick: Characters bypass the challenge using cunning tactics or stealth. What obstacles might arise?
Combat: If players choose to fight, prepare balanced stat blocks and tactics.
Discover: Include opportunities to uncover information, whether it’s a clue, a secret, or lore.
Avoid: Allow players to skip the encounter with creative problem-solving.
When players go off-script, use AI to quickly generate descriptions, dialog, or new NPCs, keeping the session flowing without missing a beat.
Preparing for the Session
Before each session, I like to focus on three key items.
The first is outcomes. What are the outcomes that I want to deliver from this session? This is usually from a story perspective. How am I going to move the story forward?
The second is a strong start. What am I going to do to grab the attention of the players within the first 5 minutes of the campaign?
Lastly, the Rule of Cool. Since the game is all about the players, I like to think through how I set up the encounters that allow the players to do something cool.
In addition to those items, I do one last review.
Double-check NPC motivations, refine maps, and ensure all tools—both physical and digital—are ready. Prepare prompts for roleplaying major characters or improvising when the unexpected happens.
In the image below you will see the date and time of the session, the players, important items, possible encounters, outcomes, rule of cool and strong start as well as a session summary.
Running the Session
During the session, stay flexible. Let the players lead while keeping your prepared encounters adaptable. If they approach a challenge in an unforeseen way, use AI to generate quick solutions or expand on their ideas. For instance, if they attempt to talk a villain into surrendering, ask the AI for dialog that reflects the villain’s personality and goals.
Post-session, take notes on player decisions and adapt the story to reflect their actions. This ensures the world feels responsive and grounded, making the players’ choices meaningful.
Here is the live encounter running in the session. You can see that the GM has a striking image that shows the hallway. All images can be shared with the players during the session helping the GM to better story tell. The GM has access to the NPCs and Foes, the encounter overview, and assets.
AI Assistant for on-the-fly Reactions
Here is the same encounter with the AI assistant open enabling the GM to react to bot planned and unplanned situations during the encounter. With the AI assistant at your fingertips you can easily generate relevant content related to this encounter.
Also, Whisper allows for the players to chat with each other and the GM. I will often use this to send a secret note, provide content or additional context about the encounter and capture important session highlights for a session summary.
Campaign Creation Process for RPG GMs
The Campaign Creation Process is designed to guide you through the process of creating a campaign, from initial concept to the first session and beyond. It incorporates campaign ideas, structure, organizations and tension. Then it talks about character integration, and structured storytelling to help you plan an engaging and dynamic campaign.
If you would like to learn more or chat with me about this process, feel free to reach out here and we can get time scheduled.
Conclusion
By combining your creativity with AI’s capabilities, you can focus on what matters most: crafting unforgettable stories and moments for your players. Start with your inspiration board, build a flexible outline, and use technology to enhance every stage of the process. With a little preparation and the right tools, you’ll be ready to guide your players on their next great adventure.
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