Campaign Pitches

This page outlines how to put together a campaign pitch document, or if you are a player, what the information on the document means. The pitch document is designed to give the players a list of campaigns the DM is interested in running, give some insight into each, and let the players voice their opinion about what kind of game they want to play in.

Description

This gives a paragraph or two to describe the general idea behind the campaign. It won't contain spoilers, but should provide a rough idea of what will be involved in the story and what aspects of the game the campaign might focus on.

Role Playing, Exploration, Tactics, Politics

The exact terms used might vary from document to document, but the idea is three to four categories with which to rank each campaign. This allows for easy comparison for the type of game each campaign is designed to be. Each category is given a value of low, medium, or high. Note that "None" is not an option. Any campaign will have aspects of each category. Other categories might be used as well, if they better suite the available campaigns.
None of these values on any category directly affects campaign difficulty. A high tactics game could be an old-fashioned meat grinder, or it could be a heroic walk-in-the-park. In the same way, a low tactics game might have few encounters where each is a life-or-death situation, or the combat might just serve occasional narrative purposes and be rather easy to survive.

Examples

These examples are just examples. In any given pitch documents, the levels of low, medium, and high are relative. The description should provide enough information to infer more detail. A "high" in one campaign might only be rated a "medium" in another. Again, don't consider these values as absolute, but as guidelines.

• Tactics:
• A high tactics campaign will be combat-heavy, such as a mega-dungeon.
• A medium tactics campaign is likely to have a relatively even balance between combat and non-combat activities.
• A low tactics campaign will have little combat, preferring other types of encounters. Alternatively, it might include opportunities for combat that can be avoided or diffused peacefully. Every campaign will have at least a little combat.
• Exploration:
• A high exploration campaign might involve extensive travel, perhaps to other continents or planes.
• A medium exploration campaign might involve traveling around a single continent, or briefly to other continents or planes; it also might include exploring large dungeons or stretches of wilderness.
• A low exploration campaign might take place in a single city, such as a political intrigue campaign or a campaign working on an urban thieves guild.
• Role Playing:
• A high role playing might involve heavy reliance on NPCs and significant interactions with NPCs. Interactions will be important and have lasting effects throughout the campaign. The interactions need not all be in character.
• A medium role playing will involve moderate amounts of importance based on NPC interactions.
• A low role playing might have the characters working largely on their own. For example, a monster-of-the-week style campaign might have relatively little interaction with NPCs. Interactions that do happen are less likely to have long lasting implications.
• Politics:
• A high politics campaign might have the characters directly affecting the outcome of warring nations or dealing with complex diplomatic nations. There might be many factions, and their intentions might not always be clear.
• A medium politics campaign might have the characters dealing occasionally with politics or maybe with the politics of cities, organizations, or small factions.
• A low politics campaign will likely not revolve around politics. It will likely never be a complete non-issue, however, as opposing factions in a small dungeons can be as much about politics as warring nations. Please keep in mind, the politics of the world continue to evolve, even if the characters aren't directly involved. There will be fewer factions and the motives might be clearer.

Player Buy-In

Player Buy-in describes what the player and character should want to do to see the campaign through to the end.

Examples

• A mega-dungeon would require players/characters to want to explore a giant dungeon for most of the campaign.
• A large sandbox campaign might require players/characters to desire to figure out solutions to problems on their own. Player/character self-direction will be key to progressing. Solutions might not be obvious and may require more extensive work on the players/characters to see through.
• A high-exploration game might require players/characters to enjoy visiting new locations and meeting new NPCs. Keeping track of important information from different locations might be important and require effort from the player.

Voting

Here is where they players let their voices be heard. After reviewing the pitch document, they will have an opportunity to influence which campaign is chosen. The voting will be held either over direct messages, or a small survey. Voting will be ranked choice. This allows players more say than just which one is most desired. This means that even if your first choice isn't picked, your subsequent choices still have influence.
For example, in Matt Colville's the Chain of Acheron, the campaign they play was nobody's first choice, but everyone's second choice, I think (out of four or five choices).

Extras

For more information on the idea of a pitch document, original credit to Matt Colville: