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Lazy Campaign Building Checklist

by Mike on 2 February 2026

Recently I had the unique experience of running two session zeros in the same week. Preparing, running, and building campaigns off of these two session zeros helped me refine my own checklist for lazy campaign building which I offer to you today. The checklist below includes links to longer articles on related topics.

Initial Campaign Planning

Before you begin in earnest, consider your system, world, and theme and get your players on board.

Choose an RPG system.
Choose a campaign setting.
Conduct informal conversations with players about your choices to get buy in. See Get Players to Play Other RPGs.

Pre-Session Zero Campaign Prep

Prepare for your session zero.

Come up with your campaign's hook.
Come up with your campaign's truths.
Think up any worldbuilding questions you want to bring to your players like starting location details, gods, factions, and other unique things. Focus these questions on the things you actually want answers to.
Develop your campaign one-pager.

Run Your Session Zero

Spend a session talking to your players about the campaign you're all going to enjoy.

Go over the campaign one-pager.
Discuss the bonds that tie characters to the theme of the campaign and to each other.
Optionally, have players choose a starting faction.
Optionally, have players answer worldbuilding questions.
Go over Lines and Veils.
Go over "Pause for a Minute".
Have players build characters together.
Run a short adventure if you have the time.

After Your Session Zero

Your session zero is complete, now it's time to build off of it and get to the next adventure you're going to run.

Embrace spiral campaign development.
Flesh out the starting location with details important to the characters – what locations do they need to set them off on adventures and to recover from them afterwards?
Prepare three quests players can choose from for the characters next adventure.
Use the eight steps to build future adventures and prepare for your next session.

Develop the World

At this point you hopefully have enough to start putting adventures in front of the characters and running games. Now you can step back and flesh out the larger world around the characters, continuing to focus on the characters and spiraling outwards.

Develop three villains with their own goals and quests.
Develop additional factions: one or two good, shady, and bad. Tie them to villains as needed.
Develop or use an existing practical pantheon – gods and religions the characters worship, discover, or face off against.
Develop a practical history – elements the characters can discover as they explore.
Build a faction list you can roll on to flavor monuments, items, NPCs, locations, or encounters.
Use the magic system and economy of your system of choice. Keep it simple. You can always add more advanced things later if you want.

Prep and run your next game!

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a YouTube video on The Twin Dragons – Dragon Empire Prep Session 52.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Be wary of Groundhog Day adventures where characters repeat a time loop. They can get repetitive and frustrating.
Don’t discount simple adventure structures. An NPC wants the characters to do something at a location.
Seed two or three future quests while the characters finish their current one.
Ask players regularly what they’re enjoying about the game and what they want to see more of.
Write down notable characters’ abilities so you can offer situations where they can showcase them.
Add relics — flavorful items with a single use of a powerful spell — to your treasure rewards.
Keep things simple.

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