Working on a new campaign and I’m stuck on pacing.
Premise:
World was created from a shattered dragon-god. He fell fighting the extra planar forces and that created the world. It cut off the other planes. Keeping it isolated. The pieces of the Progenitor Dragon became “warden dragons” (Class archetypal dragons that hoard people of that class not gold/stuff, THANKS POINTY HAT.) They keep everything stable.
Now multiple planes (Aberration/Star Spawn, demons/devils, Mechanus, Fey) are pushing in at the same time → and it’s destabilizing those wardens, causing disasters.
Important part: the party is basically the reason this is happening and are the ones able to save it.
Each of them is tied into it (god-fragment weapon, time magic, artificial warden, broken soul-cycle, etc). So it’s less random apocalypse, I want to feel like they are tied into why the invasion is happening.
Main question:
Do I start with:
A) Everything already going wrong
Multiple threats at once, open world, players decide what to deal with
B) Build it in waves
Introduce factions over time, cleaner arcs, less overwhelming
I like A for tone (feels big and dangerous), but I’m worried it just turns into noise.
I like B for clarity, but it might lose the danger and drag out plot.
What I’m trying to get right:
- Players can actually change things (stabilize regions, deal with wardens, etc)
- Ignoring problems makes other ones worse
- Multiple invading factions
- Wins that matter without ending the campaign at once.
Has anyone run something like this?
Did starting in full chaos work, or did it just overwhelm your table?