Campaign Structure

The length of a campaign can range from just a few sessions to many years. Two main factors determine campaign length: how much time you need to complete the story and how much time players want to devote to the game.

You can estimate how long a campaign will take by looking at the amount of time you actually have to play, or the number of character levels you intend the characters to advance. It typically takes three to four sessions for a group to level up. Since you'll probably cancel sessions on occasion, playing once a week for a year results in roughly a 14-level campaign, playing every 2 weeks for a year gives you an 8-level campaign, and playing monthly allows for a 5-level campaign. If you play monthly, you might consider holding longer sessions and using fast advancement (800 XP to level up) or choosing story milestones to reach the next level. Some groups using milestone leveling might level up every session, or spend several sessions experiencing the new abilities available to them at a certain level, at group discretion.

Some campaigns go all the way to 20th level, ending after the player characters attain the height of power and confront the greatest threats any mortal could face. Others end at a lower level, after the group takes down a major villain or solves a crucial problem. And still other campaigns end when players become unable to attend or decide it's a good time to stop playing.

You should have an end point in mind when you start a campaign. Still, you have to be flexible since you're telling the story alongside other players, and your initial expectations for the campaign might change over time. It pays to be conservative when estimating your campaign's length and scope. It's always tempting to run a 20-level epic campaign with complex, interwoven plots, but such games can fall apart long before the end if your group can play only once a month and the players have other responsibilities.

It's also important to talk to the other players about your progress and everyone's engagement with the campaign and characters. When you think you're heading toward a satisfying conclusion, check in with the other players. You might say, “I think we have about two sessions left. Does that work for everyone? Is there any unfinished business you want to take care of?” or “I know we said today was our last game, but the party's last wish ritual to reincarnate on another planet together inspired so much roleplay that I'm excited about playing a one-shot with those characters. Is anyone interested? Or do you want to start a new game with new characters?” This lets you gauge whether your assumptions match up with the rest of the group—and allows you to make any necessary adjustments if they don't.

When building your campaign, you can use these structures as a starting point. The Adventure Design section explains various styles of adventures on that can be used to inspire the creation of the adventures in your campaign. For a campaign consisting of multiple adventures, you'll need to add some story elements that speak directly to the characters in your game rather than just to the events of the adventure. In other words, the characters should have individual goals in addition to the group's overall goals.

The themes you choose for your campaign are what distinguish it from other campaigns. They include the major dramatic questions of your story and the repeated use of certain environments or creatures, and they can also include embracing genres such as dystopian, high-tech, fantasy, wartorn, into the unknown, horror, weird, and more (see Galaxy Guide). The themes you choose for your campaign also suggest storyline elements you might use.

A storyline's themes usually relate to the backstories, motivations, and flaws of the player characters and villains. For example, if you've chosen revenge as one of the themes of your game, you might introduce a villain whose quest for revenge tears their life apart and causes tragic harm to those around them. You might choose a theme of love, leading to nonplayer characters involved in doomed romances, seeking to regain lovers they've lost, or courting the player characters.

You might choose to mix elements of classic high fantasy, such as the content of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, into your campaign. See Chapter 5: Anachronistic Adventures for advice on how to combine this material with a Starfinder campaign, or vice versa.

In a campaign that includes multiple adventures, a smooth transition from one adventure to the next ties the story together. You might use NPCs who could appear in both adventures, a treasure or clue found in one adventure that becomes important in a later one, or even fallout from choices the PCs made in one adventure that causes the next adventure to take place or creates unforeseen complications. Related locations can help, too. Adventures that take place in the same or neighboring regions of space have an inherent link. If they take place in two different places, you'll need a reason the PCs should travel between the two, and you can use this journey as a short, interstitial adventure or a risky trip through the Drift (or deep space) where random encounters with dangerous and marvelous alien creatures might occur.

Using similar locations and related creatures helps you form connections between disparate adventures. For example, you might have the players explore a frozen corporate outpost on Vesk-7 early on, then later travel to an icy plane filled with more difficult challenges that can be overcome using knowledge they've previously developed. Likewise, glitch gremlins might be tough enemies for your group at low levels, but as the PCs attain higher levels and the gremlins become mere minions of a powerful fey technomancer, the players feel a sense of progression. Over time, the players feel like their characters are becoming experts at negotiating with Veskarium soldiers, navigating the stars, battling daemons, navigating the Drift, or dealing with whatever the recurring elements are.

Consider how each adventure's theme plays into the campaign as a whole. You might want to keep similar or recurring themes, especially if each adventure is part of one overarching storyline. On the other hand, this can feel repetitive, and some groups prefer variety and seeing their characters play off of different situations. To convey shifting themes, you can show established parts of the world changing to reflect the new theme. For instance, if you're switching from a dystopian campaign to one with futuristic and fantasy elements, the PCs could buy their impounded starship back from an azrinaran oligarch on Apostae but then face magically controlled fungal constructs and corrupted Skyfire pairs on Triaxus after they arrive looking to join the legendary Skyfire Legion.

Ask what everyone enjoys and what your players would like to see in the game. You can use these ideas as touchstones to build off of. When you get into the campaign itself, the PCs' goals come to the forefront. Find out what each character wants to achieve and look for opportunities you can place in the game world and its adventures. Consider which part of the game most closely ties to each goal. A PC who wants to become a celebrity needs fame and interpersonal connections, so you can use NPC interactions to give them the resources they need. For a character whose purpose is to help people in danger, build some encounters that include people who need to be rescued. A character who wants to upgrade their gear and become more powerful will most likely enjoy getting a chance to find or shop for new equipment. Character goals can always be progressed through roleplay in downtime or between sessions.

Look for good times to recap the state of a character's goals and remind the player how their character has progressed, particularly when something changes in relation to their goals. Consider rewarding players who keep track of their character'sgoals and their progress, potentially giving out extra Hero Points to incentivize engaging with the campaign's long-term story. The Long-Term Goals section gives you more details on how you can use goals in downtime.

As the group moves through the campaign, the events of their adventures and downtime should change the world and galaxy around them. Show this through the responses the characters get from other people, the scenery they see around them, and their environment. You might be able to anticipate some changes, but most will come up in play and require you to make adjustments later on.

Enemies come and go, but a nemesis is forever. Consider including villains who can appear multiple times over the course of several adventures. They don't necessarily need to be masterminds. Imagine an unscrupulous mercenary who works for major villain after major villain, or a series of clones deployed over and over by a corrupt corporation or galactic leader. When you create a recurring villain, it's best not to make them too integral to the story since the PCs might take them down earlier than you expect! Have some contingency plans in place.

The advice about roleplaying NPCs applies especially to these recurring villains. As they reappear throughout the campaign, they should change in some of the same ways PCs do. Think about how previous run-ins with the PCs have shaped the recurring villain's emotions and plans. Which PC do they have the biggest grudge against, and why? Do they bear scars from previous battles? Have they developed a countermeasure against a PC's spells or tactics? What's memorable about them?

Before your first session begins, communicate back and forth with the players about the following details to make sure you've planned your campaign to fit their preferences, then recap and communicate your final decisions.

• Establish the expected schedule and, generally, how long you expect the campaign to last. It's okay if you aren't certain about the total length, but you should still give an estimate.
• Inform the players when and where the first session will take place, what they should prepare in advance, and what materials to bring. If you're running a session zero to create characters first, let them know. You might also need to tell them whether to bring food, drinks, and other supplies beyond what they'll use for the game itself if you're playing in person.
• Let the players of know any restrictions or extra options for character building. Even if you plan to run a session zero, give them a heads-up before the session starts.
• Tell the players where in the game universe the first session will take place.
• Give the players a basic idea of the genre or theme.

A campaign might have a well-planned, emotionally resonant ending that executes perfectly, or the group might die in a ridiculous fashion at the worst time possible. The ending doesn't always match the idea you had in your head at the start of the campaign. Check in with your group, especially when you're getting close to the end of each adventure, to see how long they want the campaign to go on and if they're still having fun. Check in with yourself, too, and express your opinion to the other players. Ideally, you know at least a session in advance that the end is coming, allowing you to prepare for a thrilling conclusion. You might plan for the final session's gameplay to be a bit shorter—possibly just one big showdown—to allow time for an epilogue and for the group to reminisce and decompress at the end.

An epilogue can make the end of a campaign more fulfilling. First, let the group finish out their roleplaying in the final moments of the adventure until they're content. Then tell the group the results of what they accomplished in broad terms, with concrete details of what happens to certain places or allied NPCs. Ask the players what their characters do after the adventure. You might want to narrate a few short scenes. When your epilogue is done, thank everyone for playing. If the campaign ended in success for the PCs, give yourselves a round of applause. A victorious ending warrants celebration!