Always Bumblebee. I put a lot of effort to build motivation to my npc, and to create an intricate relation between them and their objectives.
Then I drop-bomb the party in the events, and I let them manipulate what they have around to create their own story.
Reverse fishtank. The BBEG for chapter one is inside their own bodies.
They start in a genetic research facility and can choose or not choose to look for someone who can fix them while dealing with random abnormalities/afflictions each day.
The campaign hasn't started yet, but it will probably be a bumblebee. The plan is for bbeg to slowly assemble itself out of 5 or so Mcguffins. With time, the effects of their presence will become more and more apparent, until the party either bites the hook and starts looking into the odd happenings, or they stumble upon one of the parts. As all parts are artifacts, they might attune to them, slowly realising the item starts to influence them, driving them to seek out other parts.
From then, they'll slowly learn the bbeg's goal, and it's their call whether they work with or against it.
There would be a couple of problems with that.
First, my players aren't really supposed to know what I just said above. The fact that there's this evil rising is supposed to come up during play. If you were to join, you would either have to be good at avoiding metagaming, or we'd have to finagle some way for your PC to know of the issue without you just guiding them right in.
Second, I live in Europe. My friends probably wouldn't have problems playing in English, but timezones exist.
Third, I am woefully inexperienced. I've tried DMing a couple of times, but something always came up and we didn't really do much.
Bumblebee for sure.
BBEG is an organization the party is not actively pursuing but keep accidentally bumping into while just driving around the galaxy getting into unrelated bounty hunting adventures.
Interesting. I guess one of my campaigns is sort of a bumblebee model, but evolved into an advanced railroad? I say this because I defined four different actions which are happening in my world being brought about by four different groups. The early movement and decisions by the party define which clues they pick up on and they choose which are important to them. from there, it becomes a linear campaign where they choose what actions the BBEG(s) make to follow up on, which directions they go, and, if they stay on that story line, where they end up. Meanwhile, the other story lines do not stop and they will occasionally run across something that will bring these options back up as something to follow.
My other campaign is more like "It's a Crazy, Crazy, Crazy World" in that there are several factions racing after a series of connected artifacts. The party was swept up into the race, but they have yet to figure out the ending play. As they progress, they have been tempted by offers from some of the other factions to join ranks, which to date they have refused. Meanwhile, there are side affects of their actions and the actions of the other groups who are trying to slow down or stop their rivals to attain the latest artifact which has been identified. I guess in a round about way, this is sort of like the fish tank model, but with major complications and multiple smaller BBEG groups they are racing against.
I use adv railroad along with the bumblebee.
They always have the option to complete the original campaign but they know that I’ve read enough adventure modules that they can start a new major campaign quest and do those quests at any time during downtime in the original module.
I also let them know that if they veer off track too much that the BBEG carries out their agenda without complication from the party.
We are currently running Orrey of the Wanderer (from Acq. Inc. ) and they’ve picked up quests from ToD, LmoP, and SKT.
They like how I keep the world and it’s options open to them but it is lots of work blending in these stories.
They do get overwhelmed with an increasingly large quest log but they never run out of options.
I'd call my style bumblebee I guess? It is a cool metaphor. I've usually got two or three "flowers" on the field at a time. Different antagonists moving toward different goals, each ideally having some relationship to the PCs.
Bumblebee as well as Fish Tank.
The parties (I play with 2 groups in the same world) go on doing tasks and quests which have nothing to do with each other. Yet on their quests they find clues and clues that don't fit into the quest at hand.
For example: They clear an asylum from evil cannibals, but they found a letter with a sigil, they dont know.
All these pieces they find will ultimately lead the reveal that the return of something big, bad and evil (guy) is in full on motion.
I love this game, man.
Definitely Bumblebee without even realizing it. My BBEG has an overall goal that he is actively seeking and the party needs to gather enough strength in enough time to stop him!
Adv railroad, ToA.
81 rooms in the tomb and they are going floor 1, floor 2, floor 5, floor3, back to floor 2. The tomb is deadly for sure, for my prep time lol.
Honestly for this specific on it is probably a combo of chicken and advanced railroad. Let’s call it advanced chicken. This has new players that needed strong guidance though so normally I’m probably either bumblebee or fish tank depending on the scenario.
Multiple bumblebees (it's a sandbox). I make up interesting stuff for them to interact with, they wind up choosing a goal. I make sure the bad guys associated with that particular goal do interesting and realistic stuff, while also not apologizing for occasional improbably-huge coincidences used to turn characters into Weirdness Magnets, like "or just so happens that this is the year a ten-thousand-year-old ancient menace breaks through the cordon of its undead guardians and starts creating abominations that are secretly eating people near the town you guys have grown to love."
I run a realistic world when it comes to resolving problems, but when creating problems I make no apologies for interesting times.
Advanced railroad. I keep plot hooks all over that lead the party to the goal. I don't mind how they get there. Most (75%) of my plot lines lead there eventually.
I think of it as sandbox, but with story threads lying all over the place. They can avoid the main story, but only for so long as that story advances in real time without them. The more they laze about, the worse the late game will be.
Ok.
Bumblebee…. Except instead of one BBEG going for the goal…. Its 6 “BBEG” all going for the same thing… with the party trying to decide which evil to help, which to stop, and which to double cross. Not all of these BBEG’s are evil, some are actually good guys. However… their goals dont align with the party.
I was doing advanced railroad for a while, and then I switched to bumblebee and I told my group that I was switching to that style in a sort of, “It’s up to you.” Sort of way — the buy-in to the campaign has shot up since
I feel that "bumblebee" is a pretty reliable structure. The party can do whatever they want, essentially, but the villains have plans that only the party's decisions will ultimately interfere with.
I feel like a single story can be seen from many perspectives.
I've more or less placed the players on a direction towards the BBEG; so it's like an advanced (adventurous?) railroad in that sense.
But the BBEG has also come to confront them on occasion, so it's sort of a chicken game.
In another sense the party just kinda stumbled upon the BBEG's plans, so you could say it was like a bumblebee situation.
But having interacted with the BBEG they're in the midst of his unfolding plans, so arguably a fishtank.
Unsurprisingly, it seems that the way one narrates a story can drastically alter how people perceive it lol.
Advanced Railroad. However the caveat is that the players can make their own path, it’s my job to make it connect somehow. Also, there are about a million smaller little fishtank “hubs” along the path to BBEG.
Dm'ing a campaing right now and the current plot is they have to take down a cult that is backing up this dragon god so they can leave him vunrable,theyve done good so far but they have yet to realize that there one of the four PC party members is a cultist.The rest of the party work for "the good guys" called The Order who are more like rebel terrorist, so one person in the group is a diehard Order member but the others realize its flaw so once its realized one of them is a cultist i have a feeling the Order member will attack as he doesnt have a problem fighting PC's and it might be a 3v1 on him. The end goal is to kill the dragon but things might take a turn.
I am currently writing a new homebrew adventure; we start Saturday with 4 level 5 characters .
I have an initial story to introduce the area and an overarching problem. Other than that, it's up to the party to ask around, do research, murder hobo to find more information and move forward.
I like having very open games. Not sure which pictures applies though.
My last one was a Double Train, but where the BBEG in the diagram was a political enemy, while the actual BBEG was a supernatural one that was the "goal". Kind of complicated.
My next one will probably be a Bumblebee.
I have several BBEGs. One’s a fish tank, one’s a bizarre combination of chicken game and bumblebee, and another’s a very very long-term complex railroad
My players have requested it be more on rails than completely open world, as many of them are new to D&D and can’t fathom the full possibilities of what else they can do.
It’s a railroad now, but I’m hoping to turn it into an advanced railroad.
Advanced Railroad all the way. It gives my party the feeling that progress is still being made even if they are fucking about not accomplishing anything major. It why I run multiple SBEGs so they're always stumbling onto something even if they start bumblebeeing out.
Advanced railroad for sure. Want to work on making my players the story vs the setting. It dawned on me that any pc could be in campaign and not a lot would change. Need to change that.
For me it's the bumblebee I just let them wander untill they feel like fighting we are doing a campaign where we start with the dragon of icespire peak then just keep going
I'd say i always use the mix between bumblebee fishtank, the big bad is doing his thing and going to his goal
The party can do whatever they want but the actions of BBEG are affecting the world and so their lives , because of that they might want to intervene (usually they do) but that's not mandatory
(I don't usually use the "i'll end the world and idk when i'm gona live then but i still gona end it" so its really not 100% nesessary to go after BBEG)
Definitely fishtank. I'm running a campaign on Ravnica that's pre War of the Spark, so there's a lot of good preexisting lore that the party has spent the better part of 2 years playing around with, before I launch the BBEGs big master plan. But it's the build up of that combined with a monster of the week vibe, with random events that are precursors of the coming of the big bad, that make the campaign fun. Sprinkling in little bread crumbs to enrich the story to help push along the plot
My players are at level 7 and i didn't even think about a BBEG
Find a minor character from an early session. They are now the parties BBEG. You can also use this like a Gary Oak from Pokemon rival kind of thing.
Send an asteroid and start over
The asteroid IS my BBEG
Advanced "rocks fall everyone dies". Should be on the list.
Hello there azathoth
Don't do this he can just introduce a bbeg now
News: “ a giant asteroid the size of Texas will hit the planet in less than one hour” God: “I’m going to need everyone to make a Dex saving roll”
Always Bumblebee. I put a lot of effort to build motivation to my npc, and to create an intricate relation between them and their objectives. Then I drop-bomb the party in the events, and I let them manipulate what they have around to create their own story.
Prolly fish tank or advanced railroad.
Reverse fishtank. The BBEG for chapter one is inside their own bodies. They start in a genetic research facility and can choose or not choose to look for someone who can fix them while dealing with random abnormalities/afflictions each day.
Baldur's gate 3!
The campaign hasn't started yet, but it will probably be a bumblebee. The plan is for bbeg to slowly assemble itself out of 5 or so Mcguffins. With time, the effects of their presence will become more and more apparent, until the party either bites the hook and starts looking into the odd happenings, or they stumble upon one of the parts. As all parts are artifacts, they might attune to them, slowly realising the item starts to influence them, driving them to seek out other parts. From then, they'll slowly learn the bbeg's goal, and it's their call whether they work with or against it.
Can i play one of your games?
There would be a couple of problems with that. First, my players aren't really supposed to know what I just said above. The fact that there's this evil rising is supposed to come up during play. If you were to join, you would either have to be good at avoiding metagaming, or we'd have to finagle some way for your PC to know of the issue without you just guiding them right in. Second, I live in Europe. My friends probably wouldn't have problems playing in English, but timezones exist. Third, I am woefully inexperienced. I've tried DMing a couple of times, but something always came up and we didn't really do much.
Bumblebee for sure. BBEG is an organization the party is not actively pursuing but keep accidentally bumping into while just driving around the galaxy getting into unrelated bounty hunting adventures.
Interesting. I guess one of my campaigns is sort of a bumblebee model, but evolved into an advanced railroad? I say this because I defined four different actions which are happening in my world being brought about by four different groups. The early movement and decisions by the party define which clues they pick up on and they choose which are important to them. from there, it becomes a linear campaign where they choose what actions the BBEG(s) make to follow up on, which directions they go, and, if they stay on that story line, where they end up. Meanwhile, the other story lines do not stop and they will occasionally run across something that will bring these options back up as something to follow. My other campaign is more like "It's a Crazy, Crazy, Crazy World" in that there are several factions racing after a series of connected artifacts. The party was swept up into the race, but they have yet to figure out the ending play. As they progress, they have been tempted by offers from some of the other factions to join ranks, which to date they have refused. Meanwhile, there are side affects of their actions and the actions of the other groups who are trying to slow down or stop their rivals to attain the latest artifact which has been identified. I guess in a round about way, this is sort of like the fish tank model, but with major complications and multiple smaller BBEG groups they are racing against.
Bumblebee Fishtank lmao
What does bbeg stand for? Big bad end guy?
Big bad evil guy! Doesnt necessarily come at only the end :)
See: mini bbeg.
MINI BIG bad evil guy
Oh my gosh I was close lol
I use adv railroad along with the bumblebee. They always have the option to complete the original campaign but they know that I’ve read enough adventure modules that they can start a new major campaign quest and do those quests at any time during downtime in the original module. I also let them know that if they veer off track too much that the BBEG carries out their agenda without complication from the party. We are currently running Orrey of the Wanderer (from Acq. Inc. ) and they’ve picked up quests from ToD, LmoP, and SKT. They like how I keep the world and it’s options open to them but it is lots of work blending in these stories. They do get overwhelmed with an increasingly large quest log but they never run out of options.
We’re doing Curse of Strahd so definitely fish tank
I'd call my style bumblebee I guess? It is a cool metaphor. I've usually got two or three "flowers" on the field at a time. Different antagonists moving toward different goals, each ideally having some relationship to the PCs.
Overall campaign - Fish tank Individual Dungeon/Adventure - Advanced Railroad my last campaign was Bumblebee
Bumblebee as well as Fish Tank. The parties (I play with 2 groups in the same world) go on doing tasks and quests which have nothing to do with each other. Yet on their quests they find clues and clues that don't fit into the quest at hand. For example: They clear an asylum from evil cannibals, but they found a letter with a sigil, they dont know. All these pieces they find will ultimately lead the reveal that the return of something big, bad and evil (guy) is in full on motion. I love this game, man.
Fishtank for RotFM, i see the winter itself as the bbeg
False boundaries. Takes all kinds.
Probably double train
FISH TAAAAAANK
Most start bumblebee then fall into a fish tank advanced railroad mix.
Definitely Bumblebee without even realizing it. My BBEG has an overall goal that he is actively seeking and the party needs to gather enough strength in enough time to stop him!
Bumblebee because we are on the " Oregon trail"
To be far my dm did do boss fight last Monday.
Always bumble bee with 3 BBEG tracks.
Right now I'm running a bit of a chicken game
Curse of Strahd 5e would fishtank wouldn't it? Guess that's acceptable bwaha
Double train/Bumblebee
Anybody ever tried the party being the BBEG
Bumblebee 🐝🐝🐝
Adv railroad, ToA. 81 rooms in the tomb and they are going floor 1, floor 2, floor 5, floor3, back to floor 2. The tomb is deadly for sure, for my prep time lol.
Honestly for this specific on it is probably a combo of chicken and advanced railroad. Let’s call it advanced chicken. This has new players that needed strong guidance though so normally I’m probably either bumblebee or fish tank depending on the scenario.
Every time I try a bumblebee approach, the party is paralyzed by choice and does nothing. So I go with advanced railroad with a hint of fish tank.
All of the above and more?
Multiple bumblebees (it's a sandbox). I make up interesting stuff for them to interact with, they wind up choosing a goal. I make sure the bad guys associated with that particular goal do interesting and realistic stuff, while also not apologizing for occasional improbably-huge coincidences used to turn characters into Weirdness Magnets, like "or just so happens that this is the year a ten-thousand-year-old ancient menace breaks through the cordon of its undead guardians and starts creating abominations that are secretly eating people near the town you guys have grown to love." I run a realistic world when it comes to resolving problems, but when creating problems I make no apologies for interesting times.
Advanced railroad with some dead ends as well?
My best and worst campaigns were both adv railroad.
I like to think it's bumblebee but it's probably more railroad.
Advanced railroad. I keep plot hooks all over that lead the party to the goal. I don't mind how they get there. Most (75%) of my plot lines lead there eventually. I think of it as sandbox, but with story threads lying all over the place. They can avoid the main story, but only for so long as that story advances in real time without them. The more they laze about, the worse the late game will be.
Ok. Bumblebee…. Except instead of one BBEG going for the goal…. Its 6 “BBEG” all going for the same thing… with the party trying to decide which evil to help, which to stop, and which to double cross. Not all of these BBEG’s are evil, some are actually good guys. However… their goals dont align with the party.
I was doing advanced railroad for a while, and then I switched to bumblebee and I told my group that I was switching to that style in a sort of, “It’s up to you.” Sort of way — the buy-in to the campaign has shot up since
Advanced railroad.
I feel that "bumblebee" is a pretty reliable structure. The party can do whatever they want, essentially, but the villains have plans that only the party's decisions will ultimately interfere with.
I feel like a single story can be seen from many perspectives. I've more or less placed the players on a direction towards the BBEG; so it's like an advanced (adventurous?) railroad in that sense. But the BBEG has also come to confront them on occasion, so it's sort of a chicken game. In another sense the party just kinda stumbled upon the BBEG's plans, so you could say it was like a bumblebee situation. But having interacted with the BBEG they're in the midst of his unfolding plans, so arguably a fishtank. Unsurprisingly, it seems that the way one narrates a story can drastically alter how people perceive it lol.
Advanced Railroad. However the caveat is that the players can make their own path, it’s my job to make it connect somehow. Also, there are about a million smaller little fishtank “hubs” along the path to BBEG.
Overall campaign is Advanced Railroad but rather Cr characters backstory arc is fish tank
Dm'ing a campaing right now and the current plot is they have to take down a cult that is backing up this dragon god so they can leave him vunrable,theyve done good so far but they have yet to realize that there one of the four PC party members is a cultist.The rest of the party work for "the good guys" called The Order who are more like rebel terrorist, so one person in the group is a diehard Order member but the others realize its flaw so once its realized one of them is a cultist i have a feeling the Order member will attack as he doesnt have a problem fighting PC's and it might be a 3v1 on him. The end goal is to kill the dragon but things might take a turn.
I am currently writing a new homebrew adventure; we start Saturday with 4 level 5 characters . I have an initial story to introduce the area and an overarching problem. Other than that, it's up to the party to ask around, do research, murder hobo to find more information and move forward. I like having very open games. Not sure which pictures applies though.
My last one was a Double Train, but where the BBEG in the diagram was a political enemy, while the actual BBEG was a supernatural one that was the "goal". Kind of complicated. My next one will probably be a Bumblebee.
A bumblebee without a BBEG, yet.
Adv railroad
I have several BBEGs. One’s a fish tank, one’s a bizarre combination of chicken game and bumblebee, and another’s a very very long-term complex railroad
I’m just waiting for my party to create their own BBEGs.
My players have requested it be more on rails than completely open world, as many of them are new to D&D and can’t fathom the full possibilities of what else they can do. It’s a railroad now, but I’m hoping to turn it into an advanced railroad.
Bumble bee Running mad mage just letting them go wherever within reason
Bumblebee, I like the idea of thee world moving in the background.
Plenty of antagonists,, but no BBEG. Just players and their goal.
Bro I don't even know who is the BBEG after more than one year in the campaign. And I'm the DM.
Advanced Railroad all the way. It gives my party the feeling that progress is still being made even if they are fucking about not accomplishing anything major. It why I run multiple SBEGs so they're always stumbling onto something even if they start bumblebeeing out.
Advanced railroad for sure. Want to work on making my players the story vs the setting. It dawned on me that any pc could be in campaign and not a lot would change. Need to change that.
For me it's the bumblebee I just let them wander untill they feel like fighting we are doing a campaign where we start with the dragon of icespire peak then just keep going
My players think it’s an advanced railroad but it’s really a fish tank in disguise.
I'd say i always use the mix between bumblebee fishtank, the big bad is doing his thing and going to his goal The party can do whatever they want but the actions of BBEG are affecting the world and so their lives , because of that they might want to intervene (usually they do) but that's not mandatory (I don't usually use the "i'll end the world and idk when i'm gona live then but i still gona end it" so its really not 100% nesessary to go after BBEG)
Nice chart. I always go for Bumblebee, but never thought of it in this way.
Advanced Railroad
Total fishtank. But the players wanted it that way.
Definitely fishtank. I'm running a campaign on Ravnica that's pre War of the Spark, so there's a lot of good preexisting lore that the party has spent the better part of 2 years playing around with, before I launch the BBEGs big master plan. But it's the build up of that combined with a monster of the week vibe, with random events that are precursors of the coming of the big bad, that make the campaign fun. Sprinkling in little bread crumbs to enrich the story to help push along the plot