In my mind, the most important part of the campaign from the GM's side of the table, is the time before the game begins, when the GM has time to plan. Once the campaign is rolling, everything happens very quickly. If you're running a weekly game, the encounters and sessions pile up very quickly, and things start flying thick and fast. I will also admit to a certain dirty little secret.

As I'm sure most GM's would be willing to admit after some teeth pulling, I think the campaign is closest to my original concept before the players enter into the picture. There's something really wonderful about having your little castle in the air up and running, without those prying, lets-see-if-it-can-bleed players running around inside of it. GMs spend a significant amount of time preparing for a game, and a part of us always mourns the loss of the original vision. Most good GMs would also admit that the game doesn't truly live and breath until the players are playing, though. The players interactions with the npcs and the story are what truly makes roleplaying what it is.

The key is to make sure that you're well prepared for the players to start running around inside the game.

1. Outline the story -
   All campaigns begin with some basic ideas about what sort of story the GM is going to run. Even gamemasters that run more extemporaneous games usually have some idea of what they'll be gaming about when they actually begin the game. Making an outline is an easy and thought provoking way to lay out your plans. Don't get overly detailed with it, just lay out the basics of what you expect to happen in the campaign. Don't go down to the level of individual encounters, unless they're going to be important. Facing the archfiend would probaby warrant a bullet point, the orc village probably not. Make sure and keep the language simple. Fragment sentences and simple statements are what you're looking for. If you find yourself using prose to describe the campaign, you're writing a short story, not an outline. After you're done, go back over the outline and imagine the story as you've laid it out. Check to make sure that one event flows somewhat logically into another. A big point to consider is whether you want to build in the inevitable in-character downtime or not. Most campaigns have logical break-points, and you may just want to make notes where the players can choose to have some time "off the clock" if they so choose. Overall, the outline is meant to be a tool you can refer to if you find yourself wandering. So, it only has to make sense to you.

2. NPCs, NPCs, NPCs -
   The critters and people the players interact with are the campaign's lifeblood. As such, they're the pieces you want to make absolutley sure you have in place before you start the wheels turning. First, you want to start with the major players. Who are the characters going to be interacting with on a regular or prolonged basis? If you have some idea of who these people might be, you can get them ready for their closeups. In movies, actors need makeup. In campaigns, NPCs need backplot. How did Thadarius come to be the town's blacksmith? Why does Zalasi hate ducks? In addition to the NPCs the players may come across in town, your antagonists need motivation too. Why does the archfiend want to wipe out all the bunnies in Christendom? These little quirks and questions will keep your players coming back to your game, if only so they can figure out these small but burning questions. Once you have the big pieces in place, you'll need to prep the stage with extras and foes-of-the-week. The easiest thing to do for extras is simply go out to the web and use one of the random name generators available. Pull down a list of between twenty and thirty names, and have it at the ready whenever the players go looking for information. Don't bother coming up with rigid NPCs ahead of time, as it's much easier to assign a name to a character at the last minute. Most settings have pre-made foes of a type or two to give you ideas, and there is no reason not to have your foes at the ready when the gaming begins. It's also helpful to scrawl a few notes concerning rules for the foe in question. This will save you from flipping through books when combat begins. The idea here is to save you work during the gaming sessions by being ready with answers, stats, and a witty comeback.

3. Dangling Sideplots -
   Just as it's a wise decision to have NPCs at the ready for unforseen situations, it's often a good idea to have sideplots thought up ahead of time for when the players wander off of the trail you've set for the main plot. Like the main plot, these should be preoutlined pieces, one sheet of paper at the most. NPCs, the motivations for the characters, and what's involved should all be on the reference page, so you can pull it out in the middle of a game. The types of sideplots you want to outline ahead of time depends on your campaign and what sorts of places they players are likely to wander off the trail. All the plots should, ideally, have a way to lead back to the main plot. The most convenient sideplots are those that can relate directly to major NPCs in the main plot. Try to work up some variety. If the main plot is serious, some humorous sideplots would probably be in order. If you've mostly played in the wilderness, perhaps some city adventuring is in order? Changing up what the goals of the campaign are keeps things fresh, and most importantly, the players slightly confused.

4. There's no Plan like Plan B -
   Okay, so you've spent all that time on the main plot, and you've come up with all these lovely sideplots. There's no way to prepare for it in a concrete way, but eventually the session will come when the players blow past the main plot and skip merrily past the sideplots. It's not a matter of if but when. If you're going to GM, it's going to happen. The first time this happened to me, I inflicted the players on the DnD version of a quilting bee. A better approach would be to just devolve into some simple action for the rest of the session, and then bring the players back to the plot using one of the more forceful side-plots during the next session.

5. Storytelling Decisions -
   One of the bigger decisions to make in the pre-production phase is how exactly you're going to be storytelling. The level of description you use in game should be geared towards your players. If they simply can't live without knowing where every blade of grass is on the lawn in front of the palace, lay it on thick. Some players can't stand that level of detail, and only want to know the level of detail neccessary to have an accurate tactical appraisal of a situation. In combat, detail is extremely important to ensure that players know where they are and where their opponents are in relation to them. Combat detail should be terse in general, but heavy on the gory details. (Pun intended.) Another aspect to consider is which person you'll be using in NPC interactions. 2nd person is just dumb. So, your options are basically 1st person and 3rd person. Just to make everything clear, 1st person is when you speak as if you were the character. "How be ye, little man. What do you have for Karl today?" 3rd person is when you speak about the character. "The balding man smiles condescendingly and greets you." Which style you choose is really up to you. If you feel comfortable in actually acting, 1st person is usually more immersive. Otherwise, 3rd person is not only respectable but a good way to make the game feel more like prose for those players who may not be up to the challenges of acting out their roles. 3rd person is also a perfectly acceptable form to fall back on for quick interactions or for things like interacting with a shopkeeper. Do you really need to talk to the armorsmith in 1st person after you've done business with him for the 100th time?

6. All Good Things... -
   Although it's likely to change, one of the last things you should work on in the pre-production stage is how you're going to end the campaign. Having an end in sight from the beginning can make your storytelling more meaningful by always allowing you to allude to where the plot is going. Knowing where you're going to end is also reassuring for the GM because he has a sense of how far from the end of the story he is. Ideally, you should have two endings. The first ending should be a grand blow-out where the campaign comes to an end and all the gloves come off. The second ending should be a convenient way to wrap up the campaign if for some reason the campaign has to end before you reach your grand blowout. It happens to everyone, because even gamer lives are complicated. Both types of endings can and probably should change as the campaign is played out and you get a better grasp on where you want the story to end up. Good players can even provide a concrete, definitive end they want to strive for, allowing you to have even more endings available to you without any extra work.

Finally, the best thing to do before, during, and after your campaign is talk to another GM. This will ensure that your ideas stay fresh and interesting, and (most importantly) aren't crazy.

Hope you've found this interesting. Feedback is always appreciated.