11 Incredible D&D Campaign Ideas

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5. The Monarch's Forest: What if the thing causing everything is an Archfey who's decided that he likes this particular forest and is going to claim it for his realm in the Feywild.

A friend of mine ran a variation of "what if the bad guys won?" as a goofy Halloween One-shot. The PC's all woke up as fully sentient undead. We still had our items and skills from our previous lives, along with character classes, except we had to choose an undead race and had no memories of how or why we died. The land we woke up in was entirely occupied by undead that continued to live as they did in life. People still went to work and continued to have regular lives, they just couldn't die. Like Dark Souls, but more wholesome!

Never ending winter with a forge that heats a city needing magic items for fuel. Thats a good one. The Ring of Winter comes to mind.

With the Monarch's Forest: I know my group. They would burn it down. Not even as a LAST resort either. Something weird happening in the forest? Fire is an option? FWOOM! Watch it burn!

ooo i like the idea of "the project" leading to the "abyss is gone" scenarios. Maybe the party gets tricked by Asmodeus or one of his right hand men into helping the devils win the blood war and the high level party has to deal with all that which they caused. That'd definitely be the plot of my upcoming campaign

I had a fresh homebrew world that I made sometime ago and the name I gave it was "The Krakening". The idea being that a group of explorers was plumbing the depths of an ocean and came across the long forgotten prison of the Kraken and unwittingly released it. The world was flooded and the result was a survival based game with the ever looming threat of sea creatures and doom! Tritons were prevalent and druid enclaves were some of things I liked and leaned on.

An idea I had re: "The Demons have gone Missing": 1. Disappearance of the Abyss: The Abyss is a chaotic and ever-changing plane, but a powerful entity known as the Voidweaver has emerged. This ancient being has the ability to manipulate the very fabric of the Abyss, causing portions of it to collapse into voids. The demons, realizing the threat, have fled to other planes or hidden in remote corners of the Abyss to escape the Voidweaver's influence. 2. Consequences on the Material Plane: With the Abyss destabilized, the planar barriers weaken, allowing the devils from the Nine Hells to spill into the Material Plane. The sudden influx of devilish forces disrupts the balance, causing widespread chaos, political instability, and increased demonic cult activity. The devils exploit the situation, vying for control and power in the absence of their demonic rivals. 3. Dragons' Dilemma: Chromatic dragons, tempted by the promise of power and freedom for Tiamat, ally with the devils, seeking to break her out of Avernus. Metallic dragons, loyal to Bahamut, join forces with the celestial beings to prevent the spread of devilish influence. This creates a complex conflict where dragonkind is divided, adding to the chaos and turmoil on the Material Plane. 4. Investigation by the Party: The party learns of an ancient prophecy that foretells the rise of the Voidweaver and its ability to manipulate the Abyss. To uncover the truth, they must seek out the scattered remnants of demonkind, surviving in hidden pockets across the multiverse. Along the way, they encounter displaced demons, cults worshipping the Voidweaver, and Celestial beings trying to maintain order. The party must navigate the shifting alliances and power struggles while piecing together the mystery behind the Abyss' disappearance. The Voidweaver: - Identity: The Voidweaver is an ancient Lovecraftian entity - a Cryptid, essentially. An Eldritch Horror that predates the current order of the multiverse. Its true form is nebulous and ever-changing, with tendrils of void energy that warp and twist reality around it. It can assume almost any form it deems necessary. - Motive: The Voidweaver emerged from the primal chaos that predates the formation of the planes. Its motives are rooted in the desire to restore that chaos, considering the structured order of the Abyss as an abomination. The Abyss is merely its first target. The Hells are also very heirarchical and structured. Indeed, most of the Archdukes of Hell are obsessed with Order. It's possible that Asmodeus has recognised the threat of the Voidweaver and has ordered the Hells to go forth, find the cause and put a stop to it. Asmodeus might think the Hells are the Voidweaver's next target. The problem is, the Celestials see this as the Hells invading the Material Plane and seek to stop them, creating chaos. The Dragons, too, get wrapped up in all this. Ironically this makes the Material plane so steeped in chaos even without the direct involvement of the Voidweaver that it might well leave the Material Plane for last!

Here is a idea, slightly inspired by Persona 3. The characters live in a low-fantasy world, no/litte magic or monsters, and instead the big threat is a looming war between nations. Lets say for added drama that the land the PCs live in is a small republic between the opposing powers. Now, one night the characters share a dream, and in this dream magic exists, monsters exist, etc. Its the High Fantasy part. Make it a megadungeon if you want to, but in short the dream is a reflection of reality, that influences reality. In their home town there is a greedy butcher or merchant that takes the opportunity of looming war to raise the prices and suck the small community dry, before planning to run away from the conflict area. In the Dream world the butcher is the first boss so to say, a Demon of Greed. The players defeat the demon, and when they wake up, the merchant have changed his/her mind, returns the overpriced money and starts supporting the community to wether the conflict. This is just a illustrative example of course, but the idea remains the same. Changes done in the Dream World affects the Real world. This also brings up interesting questions of Why this is the case, what can be done, and possibly Who is behind it and Why. From Sweden with Love - Kami P.S A follow-up idea on the first one. Set a time limit of how long the characters dream. As in a physical timer. If you play 3h sessions, set aside 1 hour or so as "dreamtime". When the time runs out, the characters wakes up.

I'm starting off my first TTRPG in a Crusader themed world where the party is a scouting party that the the Crusader armies General hand selected to crave out paths for them to survive. They have to make smart decisions because if they don't people are going to get hurt. And the main city that they are going to defend and push back against the Horde is right there. So i'm really excited. Wsh I could pay for the coaching right now but hopefully one day.

These are all amazing ideas! For idea 10, I have to borrow this from Pointy Hat: a druid who became a lich and wants vengeance against all civilization.

My campaign is Blank Slates, inspired by Dark Urge of BG3. All players start out with no memories of who they are, not even their names and level 1, with no background, but get 2 skills, 2 other proficiencies instead. They were found floating in water and saved. Who are they and why do they not remember? In my own game, they were some of the worst souls condemned to the Nine Hells, the Abyss and Pandemonium, and ended up escaping, assisted by an imprisoned god, promising them new and eternal life. They collected what was needed to free the god, but the pursuers became more relentless and in an epic clash above Styx, most ending up falling in the water. And the last conjured a portal when falling, but still ended up as a blank slate.

Tiny descriptions: 1. Where'd they go? 2. Re-Posession. 3. Feed the Machine. 4. Gov. Ops. 5. Special Land. 6. Titan Tales. 7. Praise the Sun. 8. Little Shop of Potential. 9. Post- apocalyptic story of the week. 10. Return to monkey or else. 11. Who dun it? Variation.

I love the idea of the Liminal Bodies.

These are probably the best group of campaign plots I have seen. Nice how real world plots translated over too. 😁

That second campaign reminds me of something from star trek. There's a race of aliens called the trill, where a select number of their species is selected to essentially fuse with these slug alien creatures that maintain all the memories of their previous hosts. It's a symbiotic thing, making the host more intelligent and giving the slug the oppurtunity to explore the world. So having the characters play an item that combines some base personality with the personality of a new character and make it part of the world somehow would be a cool way to give those indecisive players a way to try everything out, awesome idea!

Campaign 9 is basically the 3.5 campaign setting: Midnight. Good guy turns bad, takes over world with monsters. Its fun

Congratulations, I am actually going to steal that Monarch's Forest idea, Mothman bbeg and all xD

I love the name “The food chain” for what it is :D There be some really creative ideas here

Another idea is to try and put a twist on classic fairytales everyone is familiar with. Something like the sword in the stone, but King Arthur becomes a tyrant that you must fight can make a very fun campaign.