...and this is how I planned it.

The Pre-campaign

Session 0. Game pitches. All the non-game technical stuff. This isn't a session 0 blog post, so I won't talk about that, but I might link it there in the future.

Game pitches: This is where the planning begins. A lot of campaigns I've seen (both those I've run, and some run by others) were doomed to fail before even starting. The hook might have been cool sounding, but lacked depth. Easy to say, but what does that mean?

After years of worldbuilding, a lot of it has been for naught, because it's a lot of surface information with no depth. This is why people like running in pre-made settings. Forgotten realms, Middle Earth, the Avatar universe - all have so much story and depth, that this work can be skipped. However, when you start a custom setting from scratch, instead of reading, a lot of time needs to be spent writing and creating. Too much time in fact. So screw it. Let's do the minimum viable campaign pitch.

The Minimum Viable Campaign Pitch

The MVCP has to contain a few important things. Everything else is fluff that can be thought of later:

1. The problem. What do the players need to/want to solve? This is what they'll be basing their characters around. Ideally, the problem is big enough that the party needs to band together, and maybe causes a lot of micro-problems that affect the players. Ideally, these problems have room for exploration in case you're lucky that the group wants to continue after the first arc.
2. The setting. IS TOTALLY NOT NECESSARY. Have a sprinkling of what kind of flavor you want. But it could literally be anything. For example. Curse of Strahd is about (oversimplified version) a vampire who's trapped you in his plane because he's a sad emo boy (again, oversimplification). What if instead of Barovia, it was in space! Or in the time when Dinosaurs existed. Or in the Feywild, or in a Southeast Asian setting or whatever. The problem is the same, regardless of the location.
3. Lastly, an idea of what kind of characters the players need to make. We've all seen that meme of players who don't show up or don't have a session zero. Players aren't aligned. Overall, they don't always have to be aligned, but it really helps with the campaign flow if the problem persists across all party members.

I had sent 3 pitches to the group (Team Aswang Inquisition, this is you). Without going into too much detail, this was the player buy-in I sent:

The party will be known hunters and/or investigators with history with the Aswang. Did one kill your family? Abscond with a loved one? Corrupt your village? Regardless, tales of the fabled Mauna, first of the Aswang, have reached your ears, and these tales may be so much more than mere myths. Now, will you take this opportunity to hunt that which was once just a tale?

Problem: Aswang. What the hell are aswang? These are just Filipino mythological monsters - a good hook is to choose something unique or special. People like lots of Japanese lore or Humblewood or Drakkenheim stuff. You don't have to dig deep to find something spicy. You can replace Aswang with vampires, werewolves, eldritch horrors and whatever you think is exciting to you. That's important, cause if you're not interested, how can you expect your players to be?

Setting: Filipino mythology. Notice how I didn't put much into the pitch?

Player Characters: They should all have a stake in the aswang problem. I've even put in some suggestions to get those creative juices flowing.

Now that the party has agreed to a pitch, how do we prep for the arc formally?

The First Session

Assuming the above have been done properly, you are now set up for success. Player Characters are involved in the lore, and this should give you lots of ammo to come up with plot points and potential hooks. We will need to work through the following:

• Tying the character's backstories and lore
• Factions that complicate things
• How the problem presents itself

I knew from the get go that I wanted a little murder mystery to emphasize how Aswang are somewhat hidden creatures. Only the hunters and elite know of their existence. This was perfect. This solves the third point - an unsolved murder is a great way to present a problem. You can have someone get kidnapped, something or someone important get destroyed, or even just the threat of something bad about to happen, and it's early signs. If the world is about to be destroyed by an eldritch horror, how are people going crazy? If there's a lich, who's souls are being consumed? If the Evil Space Lord is running an oppressive regime, who are forced to become rebels or die? 

I already have one faction - and by faction I mean any "team" - the Aswang. Teams can be made up of powerful enough individuals. In this case, while I do have nobles, I've primarily presented one noble to the party; the Advisor to the Sultanate. She is an individual, but has the power of an army behind her. Your player characters count as their own faction as well. Great - 3 factions are a great place to start, and this is honestly enough to set up the next 3 to 5 sessions. Complicate things by establishing the relationship between these factions. Players hate the Aswang. The Advisor sees the players as a valuable asset. The players see the advisor as a non-aswang individual with great power. However, secretly (they already know this so no spoilers), the Advisor has been collaborating with the Aswang to prevent her people from being massacred or hurt by the Aswang. 3 factions, 6 directions of relationships. That's all you need for now, make sure one of those relationships don't mesh well with the others.

Lastly, I tied up the PCs backstories. Won't go into too much details here, but I'd recommend tying that third faction to a bunch of the NPCs or backstories related to the PCs. This way, you can hit a bunch of different characters backstories at one go. 

This all goes back to that one murder mystery session. this provides me with all the ideas I need for improv, since I know where everybody stands.

Session 2+ (Maybe, 3,4, and 5)

Let the players explore the world, and discover the secrets. That weird relationship between the Advisor and the Aswang. What Aswang are interested in the party, and why? What are the possible ways of the party finding out about the Advisor? 

I do not know how the players will react in game. What I do know is how the NPCs FEEL depending on their responses. During the session, if improv isn't one of your strong suits, it is 100% fine to take a second to collect your thoughts, and then say what you believe the character will say. Take a minute if you have to. Drink some water. Slowly. That's all you need to get clarity. Not gonna lie, I have said to my players before that I don't know what the character would say, I'm dumbfounded, and this character most probably is too. Or that I'd need a second to look something up. I might be actually looking up something or I might be stalling to come up with ideas. Doesn't matter. You know the feel, you just need to find the words to express it.

The town has other NPCs, you have those in mind and have had between session 0 and 1, and between session 1 and 2 to think about them. That's typically at least two weeks for me, and more than enough time to think about 2-3 NPCs. Not even write things down, just occasionally think about how they act and think.

The Ending Session

This could be session 3 or session 5, or whatever really. This is the end of the arc, and honestly, it'd be the end of a campaign too if you go on long enough. If you want to continue the tale, you only need to do one thing - complicate things more. The easiest way to do this is  to create another faction that has - again - a relationship that doesn't mesh well with the existing relationships. With the PCs backstories, there should be a wellspring of ideas here. From parents, siblings, best friends, rivals, whoever, figure out their faction, and develop it just a bit. If you're lucky, they're another one person faction. 

Fun part is to complicate it right before the party resolves the first problem. In retrospect, I was actually intending this to happen when the party figured out who the murderer was for the murder mystery, and end in a big fight. That didn't happen, because that's what happens in TTRPGs. Plans don't go according to plan. The party figured out the murderer in session 2, so I took it up a notch, and made the new problem the person who turned the murderer into an Aswang. A powerful ancient noble BIG BAD EVIL GUY who toyed with the players... who also died in session 5 because he (and I) got too cocky, and couldn't escape before we got critted on... oh well.

Who's awesome? You're awesome.