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A few months into a campaign, it's easy to have notes everywhere and still not find the one thing you need. This planner keeps it in two places. The campaign page is for what doesn't change much: what the campaign is about, the factions, the villain and their plan, and what each player character wants. The session sheet is for everything that does. Fill in a new one after each game. Before the next one, that sheet is all you need to read.
Whatever you write stays in your own notes or on your own paper, because this site doesn't save any of it. If your campaign's already running, start by filling in the player characters and a session sheet for where things stand now. Below the blank planner, you'll find the same planner filled in for a fantasy campaign.
The campaign page
Fill this in before the first session. After that, you'll only need to touch it when something big changes.
Part 1. The campaign in brief
The pitch
Two sentences you'd say to a friend you want at your table. Who are the characters, what keeps them together, and what kind of trouble are they in?
The question the ending answers
Pick one where yes and no would both make a good last session. If only one answer would, you've already decided how it ends.
Go deeper: 120+ Story Endings by Type
Part 2. The parts of the world that matter
You don't need the whole world, only the parts this campaign will use. The 16 Domains of Worldbuilding breaks a world into sixteen domains, each with four parts. Pick the three to five your campaign leans on most.
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A few months into a campaign, it's easy to have notes everywhere and still not find the one thing you need. This planner keeps it in two places. The campaign page is for what doesn't change much: what the campaign is about, the factions, the villain and their plan, and what each player character wants. The session sheet is for everything that does. Fill in a new one after each game. Before the next one, that sheet is all you need to read.
Whatever you write stays in your own notes or on your own paper, because this site doesn't save any of it. If your campaign's already running, start by filling in the player characters and a session sheet for where things stand now. Below the blank planner, you'll find the same planner filled in for a fantasy campaign.
The campaign page
Fill this in before the first session. After that, you'll only need to touch it when something big changes.
Part 1. The campaign in brief
The pitch
Two sentences you'd say to a friend you want at your table. Who are the characters, what keeps them together, and what kind of trouble are they in?
The question the ending answers
Pick one where yes and no would both make a good last session. If only one answer would, you've already decided how it ends.
Go deeper: 120+ Story Endings by Type
Part 2. The parts of the world that matter
You don't need the whole world, only the parts this campaign will use. The 16 Domains of Worldbuilding breaks a world into sixteen domains, each with four parts. Pick the three to five your campaign leans on most.
Domain facts
For each domain you picked, write down the one fact that most changes what the characters can do, or what it costs them. Say which of the domain's four parts it belongs to, too. If you want to fill in a whole domain, the 16 Domains page is the place for that.
Go deeper: 16 Domains of Worldbuilding · 35 Fantasy Cities & Urban Adventure Hooks
Part 3. Three to five factions
Any organized group that wants something counts, whether it's a guild, a church, a noble house or a criminal syndicate. On the 16 Domains page, you'll find factions under the Affiliation domain.
For each faction's kind, pick one of the twelve that the free preview of The Faction Design Blueprint describes: Guild, Order, Syndicate, Church, Crown, Cabal, Movement, House, Company, Academy, Tribe, Legion.
Wants now: Something it could win or lose before the campaign's over.
Wants from the characters: What does it ask them for, and what will it do if they say no?
Faction 1
Name and kind
Wants now
Wants from the characters
Faction 2
Name and kind
Wants now
Wants from the characters
Faction 3
Name and kind
Wants now
Wants from the characters
Faction 4
Name and kind
Wants now
Wants from the characters
Faction 5
Name and kind
Wants now
Wants from the characters
Go deeper: The Faction Design Blueprint (Premium Toolkit) · 7 Directions of Leaders
Part 4. The villain and their plan
Your villain is whoever makes things worse if the characters do nothing. That might be one of your factions. It doesn't even have to be a person: a plague or a hard winter works too. If yours is something like that, still give it a plan, and skip the two questions marked for a person or group.
Who
Why they think they are right (person or group only)
Pick one of the 40 Villain Motivations and write it the way your villain would say it if the characters asked.
The plan, in four to six steps
Make each step something the characters could see happen or hear about, so the players can tell the plan is moving. The last step is what the world looks like if your villain wins.
What moves it on
Does it move with time, say one step every so many sessions? Or is there a trigger, like the characters failing at something or leaving it alone?
What would stop it short (person or group only)
Something the characters could do, give or prove that would make your villain change course without being destroyed. That way, defeat isn't the only ending.
Go deeper: 40 Villain Motivations · Designing Memorable Villains (Premium Toolkit), which has a five-step escalation ladder you can model the plan on · 7 Dials for Dramatic Control (Premium Toolkit)
Part 5. The player characters
Do this part with your players, once they've made their characters.
Wants: Something this campaign could put within reach. If it couldn't, ask the player for another one.
Tied to: One faction, person or place from this planner, and how the character is tied to it. Do they owe it something, serve it, hate it, or is it hunting them?
Player character 1
Character and player
Wants
Tied to
Player character 2
Character and player
Wants
Tied to
Player character 3
Character and player
Wants
Tied to
Player character 4
Character and player
Wants
Tied to
Player character 5
Character and player
Wants
Tied to
The session sheet
After every game, start a new one and fill it in from top to bottom. It's the one you'll read before the next game.
- In a notes app, just duplicate the last sheet and edit it. On paper, copy each open thread across by hand. That's when you decide whether to keep it, change it or drop it.
- If you post What happened for your players, you can skip the recap at the start of the next session.
- If you're worn out after a game, fill in only Where we stopped and New names. Those are the hardest to remember the next day, and the rest can wait.
- During the game, keep the newest sheet open and jot down each new name as you say it.
Start with Sheet 0, before the first session. Under Where we stopped, write where the first session opens and why the characters are there. Under Open threads, put one question from each character's past that their player left open.
Session number and date
What happened
Three lines at most, written so you could post them for your players. Leave out anything they don't know.
New names
Every person and place you named at the table, and the one detail you said out loud about each, so it stays the same the next time they come up.
Where we stopped
Where things stood when you stopped playing, and the question the players were asking as they left.
The plan
Which step of the plan comes next, and which session it's due by. If the characters blocked a step, how will your villain try it another way?
Next moves
For each faction, what will it do before the next session if the characters do nothing?
Open threads
Copy over every thread from the last sheet that hasn't been settled, then add the new ones. For each, note when it started and what's true behind it, or write "not decided" if you haven't worked that out yet. Once you have eight, settle or drop one before you add another, so the sheet stays short enough to read before every game.
Next spotlight
Which character had the least to do this session? Which of their wants, ties or threads could come up next time?
Go deeper: 9 Aspects of Ensemble Characters · Ultimate List of Secrets & Revelations (Premium Toolkit) · 35 Conflict Scenarios
To plan the next session: The Session Structure Blueprint (Premium Toolkit)
If your campaign is already running
Make your first session sheet about where the campaign stands right now. List every open thread with what's true behind it, and put the names you keep forgetting under New names. You can fill in the rest of the campaign page as you go.
If you're running a published adventure, the book already answers everything on the campaign page except the player characters. Fill in that part, and keep up the session sheets.
If you use World Anvil, Kanka or Notion
These tools give each person, place and group its own entry. If you paste the whole planner in as one page, you'll end up with the same facts in two places, so split it up instead:
- Give each faction, and your villain, an entry of its own. World Anvil and Kanka both have an entry type for organizations.
- Make each session sheet its own entry: a journal in Kanka, or a page in a Notion database of sessions.
- Give each new name its own entry instead of a line on the sheet.
- Keep the truth behind each thread where your players can't see it: a World Anvil secret (a paid feature), a Kanka entry set to private, or a Notion page you don't share.
The same planner, filled in
This is a fantasy campaign set in Stonestep, one of the cities in 35 Fantasy Cities & Urban Adventure Hooks. Stonestep is a mining and timber city of 15,000 people up in snowy mountains. It has a keep, and it's run by a mayor and an elected council. The group has played three sessions so far. The players' names are in parentheses.
The campaign page
Part 1. The campaign in brief
- The pitch. You're the four road wardens of Stonestep, a mining city up in the snowy mountains, and the council pays you to keep the high road safe. Someone's paying goblins to raid the wagons on that road, and the council's about to vote on who owns the silver mines.
- The question the ending answers. Do the mines still belong to the city when the snow melts?
Part 2. The parts of the world that matter
- Politics (Process). Five elected seats on the council: guild members hold two, merchants two, and the head of House Brannock one. Three votes decide anything. The mayor runs the meetings but doesn't vote.
- Economics (Wealth). The city owns the mines. Each miner takes a share of the silver, and the rest pays for the council and the road.
- Infrastructure (Transportation). Silver and timber go down to the lowland markets on one road, the high road. If the wagons stop, the city earns nothing.
- History (Rise and Fall). House Brannock ruled Stonestep from its keep until sixty years ago, when the council voted to take the mines into the city's hands.
Part 3. Factions
- The Miners' Guild (a Guild). Wants now: to keep the mines in the city's hands at the midwinter vote. Wants from the characters: a guard on the deep shaft every night. If they say no, the guild stops telling them what the miners hear underground.
- House Brannock (a House). Wants now: to win three votes at midwinter, its own and the two merchants'. Wants from the characters: to ride with Brannock guards, so the house gets the credit for a safe road. If they say no, Lady Corra tells the merchants the wardens let the raiders through.
- The goblins of the old tunnels (a Tribe). Wants now: to stop the guild's digging before it breaks into the tunnels where they live. Wants from the characters: to get the guild to stop digging. If they say no, the goblins collapse the deep shaft, which Corra's paying them to do anyway.
Part 4. The villain and their plan
- Who. Lady Corra Brannock, head of House Brannock and one of the five councilors.
- Why she thinks she is right. Reclaim What Was Stolen. "My great-grandfather found the silver and dug the first shaft with his own hands. The city took the mines from my family with a vote. I'll take them back the same way."
- The plan.
- Goblins she pays raid the timber wagons, and the merchants blame the wardens.
- Brannock guards drive the goblins off the road in public, and Corra repays the merchants' losses.
- The goblins collapse the guild's deep shaft, and the city looks like it can't keep its own mines safe.
- The merchants, who owe Corra for their lost wagons, promise her their votes.
- At midwinter the council votes three to two to give the mines to House Brannock.
- By spring the miners work for wages instead of a share, and the old tunnels are sealed with the goblins inside.
- What moves it on. Time: one step every two sessions. If the characters block a step, she tries it another way.
- What would stop it short. The council minutes from the year the city took the mines. They promise the Brannocks a share of the silver, and it was never paid. If the characters found them and the council paid up, Corra would have back what was taken, and she'd call off the goblins.
Part 5. The player characters
- Brin, clerk (Dana). Wants: to clear his grandmother's name. Tied to: keeps the books for the Miners' Guild.
- Tamsin, hunter (Marcus). Wants: to get her brother out of the mines before they kill him. Tied to: the Miners' Guild, which has her brother working the deep shaft.
- Odo, sellsword (Priya). Wants: a home and a trade of his own, sworn to no one. Tied to: House Brannock, which he swore to serve when he was a boy.
- Sefa, healer (Jo). Wants: a cure for the cough that kills miners. Tied to: the goblins of the old tunnels, who sell her herbs. Nobody in the city knows.
The newest session sheet
Before session 4, this sheet is all the game master reads.
Session 3, played April 1
- What happened. The wardens followed the raiders' tracks to an empty cave above the high road. Back in the city, Brannock guards said they'd driven the goblins off for good, and Lady Corra repaid the merchants for every lost wagon. That night Hesper Coyle, the guild steward, asked the wardens to guard the deep shaft.
- New names. Mattie Fell, merchant councilor, runs the inn on the square. Dace, a young Brannock guard who does the talking for Captain Roe.
- Where we stopped. Midnight in the deep shaft. The wardens can hear digging on the other side of the rock. The players left asking how much time they have.
- The plan. Step 3 next: the goblins collapse the deep shaft, due by session 5. Nothing blocked yet.
- Next moves. The Miners' Guild meets to decide whether to stop digging toward the old tunnels. Corra invites the two merchant councilors to dinner at the keep. The goblins keep digging toward the deep shaft from below.
- Open threads.
- Who gave the dead raider a purse with the Brannock crest? From session 1. Truth: Corra's been paying the goblins since autumn.
- Why was Brin's grandmother dismissed from the temple archive? From Sheet 0. Truth: she was told to burn the council minutes from the year the city took the mines, and hid them under the wrong year instead.
- Why did Tamsin's brother take the deep-shaft shift nobody else wanted? From Sheet 0. Truth: he owes the guild for their mother's burial.
- What's in the sealed Brannock letter Odo has to open "when the house calls"? From Sheet 0. Truth: not decided.
- Why is the miners' cough worst in the deep shaft? From Sheet 0. Truth: the new seam lets out bad air, and the goblins know how to clear it.
- What's digging behind the rock? From session 3. Truth: the goblins, starting the collapse.
- Next spotlight. Tamsin had the least to do. Her brother works the deep shaft, so the collapse lands on her family.
The two earlier sheets
Only What happened and New names are shown for these two. Everything else on them was carried over to the next sheet or rewritten there.
- Session 1, March 4. Goblins raided two timber wagons on the high road, and the merchants blamed the wardens. On a dead raider the wardens found a purse with the Brannock crest. New names: Hesper Coyle, steward of the Miners' Guild, counts everything twice.
- Session 2, March 18. The wardens went into the old tunnels and bargained with Old Mother Skitch, who wouldn't say who pays the raiders. Captain Roe of the Brannock guards told them to leave the high road to his men. New names: Old Mother Skitch, goblin elder, names a price for every answer. Captain Ansel Roe, head of the Brannock guards, missing two fingers on his sword hand.
Two ideas on this page come from elsewhere. Writing the villain's plan as a chain of steps comes from the tabletop game Dungeon World. Asking what keeps the group together, and for a few facts about the campaign's world, comes from Sly Flourish's method for preparing a campaign.
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