GM Campaign Frameworks

AX.GHW.14.02 - Campaign Structures & Arc Design

This document covers the three major campaign structures for AX.GM, XP pacing across power levels, threat escalation patterns, and arc design. It is a practical framework, not a rigid prescription, the structures here are starting points that become specific through the particular characters, organizations, and threats in your campaign.

Part One: Campaign Structures

Structure 1: Monster of the Week

Best for: New groups, one-shots and short arcs, players who prefer episodic play, introducing the setting gradually

Power level fit: Street Level (6D) through Regional (9D)

Session count: Open-ended; typically 3–20 sessions before natural conclusion or transition

How It Works

Each session (or 2-session pair) presents a discrete supernatural threat. The characters investigate, identify, and address the threat. The scenario resolves. The next session brings a new threat.

This structure is the genre's default; it is how Buffy and Supernatural run in their early seasons. It allows new players to learn the setting without needing to track complex ongoing threads, and it lets the GM test different threat categories and tones before committing to a longer arc.

The hidden world in Monster of the Week is a populated environment, not a sandbox. The threats don't appear in isolation; they exist in a setting with organizations, lineage communities, and ongoing pressures. Even in an episodic structure, those elements should be present in the background. The BUA shows up at scenes. The Network passes along information. Organization relationships build session to session even if the threats are unconnected.

Session Structure

Session opening: Establish the inciting event. The characters receive the situation through one of three channels: - Direct involvement (they witness something, someone they know is affected) - Professional contact (an organization employer provides a case) - Network call (a contact flags something that matches the characters' pattern)

Investigation phase (1–2 scenes): Follow the three-clue rule. Every key piece of information is available through at least three routes. The investigation ends when the characters have identified the threat and know enough to engage it.

Engagement phase (1 scene): The confrontation. The threat is active and the outcome is not certain. The engagement should test something, tactical creativity, moral choice, resource management, not just attack rolls.

Resolution phase (brief): Evidence management, organizational aftermath, any consequences that carry forward. Even in an episodic structure, consequences accumulate. A contact who helped this week remembers it next week.

Building Episodic Sessions

Vary the threat categories. A campaign that runs six consecutive undead scenarios stops being a horror game and becomes a tactical challenge. Rotate: one undead scenario, one cryptid scenario, one Shadow entity scenario. Each category creates different investigation tools, different evidence signatures, different engagement approaches. The variety keeps the setting from feeling like a single-threat sandbox.

Connect episodes through recurring elements. Monster of the Week does not mean nothing connects. The BUA Agent who showed up in Session 2 shows up again in Session 5, now with a reason to be wary of the characters. The Lore Keeper who provided research in Session 3 contacts the characters in Session 7 because they found something relevant to an earlier case. These connections build the world without requiring the GM to plan a conspiracy.

Give the threat a face. The most memorable Monster of the Week scenarios are about a specific threat with a specific history. Not "there's a Revenant in the warehouse district", "there's a Revenant in the warehouse district, and preliminary research suggests she was murdered by someone connected to a construction project that broke ground six months ago, and one of the characters' contacts works for the development company." The face makes it worth caring about.

Transitioning Out of Monster of the Week

Monster of the Week campaigns often find a natural through-line that wasn't planned. The recurring BUA Agent starts appearing too regularly to be coincidental. The same shadow compact broker's name shows up in three unconnected scenarios. A specific threat category appears with unusual frequency in the same geographic area. When patterns like this emerge organically, follow them, the campaign is finding its conspiracy arc. Transition by:

Acknowledging the pattern in-fiction: a Network contact notices it, a piece of research connects dots, an NPC asks if the characters have noticed
Providing a choice: the characters can pull on the thread or leave it alone
Pulling the thread creates the Conspiracy Arc's opening act

Structure 2: Conspiracy Arc

Best for: Groups who want sustained investigation, political complexity, organizations as ongoing players, escalating personal stakes

Power level fit: Regional (9D) through National (12D)

Session count: Typically 10–20 sessions per arc; can run multiple arcs in sequence

How It Works

The Conspiracy Arc is built around a single underlying truth that the characters are uncovering. The truth is hidden, by an organization, by a threat, by the structure of the hidden world itself. The characters encounter its effects repeatedly before understanding the cause. Uncovering the truth constitutes the arc's climax.

The "conspiracy" is not necessarily a sinister cabal plotting in secret, though it can be. It is any situation where the truth is obscured and the characters are the ones who uncover it. The truth might be: - An organization has been protecting a threat it should have destroyed (and has reasons) - A Necromancer has been operating under cover inside a legitimate organization for years - A series of apparently unconnected incidents are being managed by a single hidden party - The open design notes in the hidden world (vampire bloodlines, Hollow entity involvement frameworks) have become relevant in a specific way that someone is trying to prevent from becoming known

Arc Structure

Act 1, Symptoms (Sessions 1–4): The characters encounter the effects of the conspiracy without understanding the cause. Each scenario presents a discrete problem that appears unconnected to the others. The GM seeds each scenario with one piece of information that connects to the underlying truth, recognizable in retrospect, not necessarily on first encounter. Establish the key organizations and relationships. At least one organization should be involved in concealing the truth (not necessarily maliciously).

Act 2, Pattern (Sessions 5–10): The characters begin to recognize the pattern. A connection becomes undeniable. The concealing party becomes aware that the characters are getting close, this is when the first active opposition begins. The opposition is not yet direct confrontation; it is information suppression, misdirection, and leveraging of organizational resources to redirect the investigation.

This is the arc's tension peak. The characters know something is being hidden but cannot prove it yet. The concealing party is applying pressure that is plausibly deniable. Every session in Act 2 should make the truth feel closer and further away at the same time.

Act 3, Confrontation (Sessions 11–16): The truth is uncovered. This creates a crisis, for the concealing organization, for the characters' relationships within the hidden world, and potentially for The Veil itself. The confrontation is not necessarily violent; the most interesting Conspiracy Arc resolutions involve the characters making a choice about what to do with the truth, not just stopping the bad thing. Destroying the conspiracy may destabilize something that was held together by it. Exposing it may create consequences no one intended.

Running the Concealing Party

The organization or party concealing the truth is the arc's primary antagonist, but they should not be a cartoon villain. They have reasons. The reasons are probably even understandable, the conspiracy exists because someone made a pragmatic decision that seemed justified at the time and became entrenched. The BUA classified the Breach because acknowledging it would have required resources they didn't have. The Grimoire Compact suppressed the research because publishing it would have destabilized fragile community relationships.

The concealing party should be at least partially right. The truth they're hiding has real costs if it comes out. The characters uncovering it should face a genuine choice: expose the truth at cost, negotiate a different path forward, or accept that sometimes the pragmatic choice is the uncomfortable one. Conspiracy Arcs that end with a clear villain being defeated and everything returning to normal miss the genre's most interesting note.

Information Drip Rate

The conspiracy's underlying truth should be parceled out across the arc in a way that feels revelatory without feeling arbitrary. Use this as a guide:

Act 1: 1 piece of connecting information per scenario, presented without emphasis (part of the scene's natural evidence, not highlighted as "important")
Act 2, early: 1 piece per scenario, now with potential connection visible to the characters if they've been paying attention
Act 2, late: 1 piece per scenario that directly implicates the concealing party; the characters now know something specific is being hidden
Act 3: The confirming evidence arrives; the truth can be fully articulated; the confrontation is about what to do with it

Structure 3: Apocalypse Now

Best for: Groups who want high-stakes campaign climaxes, established characters with strong organizational relationships, players comfortable with moral complexity at scale

Power level fit: National (12D)

Session count: Typically 6–12 sessions (often as a final arc after a Conspiracy Arc)

How It Works

Something is going wrong at scale. Not a single threat to address, a convergence of threats, an accelerating crisis, a situation where the characters are the last competent response before something catastrophic becomes irreversible. The Veil is genuinely at risk, or something that would permanently reshape the hidden world is approaching.

Apocalypse Now scenarios are not just "the threat is bigger." They are structural, the normal tools and institutions are strained or compromised, the clock is real, and the characters' choices have consequences at a scope that Monster of the Week and Conspiracy Arc scenarios do not approach.

Structural Requirements

The clock must be real. The scenario only works if the characters can fail, if waiting, deliberating too long, or making a sequence of wrong choices results in the catastrophic outcome occurring. The GM must be prepared to let this happen. The threat of failure is what makes the choices matter.

Multiple fronts simultaneously. Apocalypse Now scenarios present more problems than the characters can fully address. They must prioritize. A Reality Fracture and a Voidwalker and a compromised BUA response team and an escaping Necromancer and civilian evacuations all happening at once creates genuine decision-making pressure. The characters cannot do everything. What they choose to prioritize defines the ending.

Organizations are strained but present. In an Apocalypse Now scenario, every organization the characters have interacted with becomes relevant, as a resource, as an obstacle, or as a casualty of the crisis. The Vanguard's containment perimeter might be holding, or it might have been breached. The Network's emergency assembly might have been called, or it might be unavailable because the threat is happening faster than the Network can respond. The relationships the characters have built across the campaign determine what organizational resources are accessible when they need them most.

The Veil is at genuine risk. The scenario's scale should be large enough that The Veil is a secondary crisis alongside the primary threat. Managing civilian exposure while dealing with a Legendary-class Aberration is not possible, choose one. The aftermath of an Apocalypse Now scenario includes significant Veil repair work, regardless of whether the primary threat was stopped.

Common Apocalypse Now Triggers

The Unwritten approaches: The campaign-ending aberration from 08-aberration.md. The Breach has been widening for months; the characters know it but have been managing smaller consequences while building toward the ability to close it. The final arc is the Closure operation.
A Greater Shadow Entity's compact reaches term: A Shadow-Bound Marked whose compact was negotiated before the characters were involved has reached the fulfillment date. The Shadow entity is collecting. The characters have discovered what the terms are and must either prevent the collection or renegotiate in the window before the entity fully manifests.
Vampire court collapse: A Master Vampire's control over a regional court has been disrupted (by the characters, by a rival, by external pressure). The destabilization is sending Vampire Elders into territorial competition, Thralls into panic behavior, and uninitiated blood-feeding into open patterns that the Veil cannot absorb. The characters are the ones who have to stabilize a supernatural political structure in active collapse.
Veil fragility threshold: The accumulation of poorly managed incidents over the campaign arc has brought the Veil in a specific region to a tipping point. One more significant incident will produce undeniable public evidence. The characters must address whatever is applying the final pressure while managing the existing exposure, with full organizational response from BUA, Vanguard, and every other institution that has a stake in the Veil's integrity.

Part Two: XP Pacing

Baseline and Advancement

From core rules: 3 XP per session baseline. Stage 1 unlocks at 10 XP (~3–4 sessions), Stage 2 at 25 XP (~8–9 sessions), Stage 3 at 50 XP (~17 sessions).

Bonus XP (0–1 per session, GM discretion): - Exceptional roleplay that advanced the story or revealed character - Creative problem-solving that changed the scene's outcome in a meaningful way - Character decision made against personal interest for a principled reason

Reduced XP is not a punishment mechanic in AX.GM, sessions where the characters struggled or failed still award the full 3 XP. The learning is in the difficulty; reduction would compound the problem.

Pacing by Campaign Structure

Structure	Typical Session Count	XP at End	Expected Stage
Monster of the Week (short)	6–8 sessions	18–24 XP	Stage 1 unlocked; approaching Stage 2
Monster of the Week (extended)	12–18 sessions	36–54 XP	Stage 2 unlocked; some at Stage 3
Conspiracy Arc	10–16 sessions	30–48 XP	Stage 2 solidly unlocked
Apocalypse Now	6–12 sessions	18–36 XP	Stage 2–3 range
Full campaign (MoW → Conspiracy → Apocalypse)	25–40 sessions	75–120 XP	Stage 3 reached by mid-Conspiracy Arc
### Power Level Transitions

Characters begin at one power level and advance through play. The transition from Street Level to Regional to National should feel like a change in scope, not just statistics.

Street Level → Regional (around 25 XP, Stage 2): The characters have proven competence in their initial domain. Their reputation precedes them. Organizations that were Neutral begin to notice them specifically. The threats they face should begin escalating from Standard to Elite tier consistently. The characters' access to resources has grown; they can source Restricted equipment, their Network contacts are higher-tier, their organizational affiliations have provided standing.

Regional → National (around 50 XP, Stage 3): The characters are operating at the scale where their actions have implications beyond the immediate scene. A resolved conflict at this level changes organizational relationships, shifts community power dynamics, and may affect how The Veil holds in a region. The threats they face are Champion-tier; Legendary threats become possible. Their organizational relationships are deep enough that their choices have political weight, organizations they've Allied with owe them something; organizations they've Opposed actively consider them a factor.

Managing Mixed-Level Groups

In groups where characters have advanced unevenly, adjust threat encounters to present appropriate challenge without leaving anyone behind:

Standard/Elite mix: Lead with Standard-tier threats that have Elite backup or reinforcement; the Elite-tier characters have more options but the encounter is relevant to everyone
Elite/Champion mix: Champion-tier threats should require coordination; no single character can handle them alone regardless of power level
At National level, character-to-character power variation matters less than tactical approach, the threats are large enough that individual statistics matter less than planning

Part Three: Threat Escalation

Escalation Across a Campaign

Threats should escalate across the campaign's arc, not just getting harder, but changing in kind. A Street Level campaign that progresses to Apocalypse Now should not simply be adding larger dice pools to the same threat types. The nature of what the characters encounter should change.

Street Level (6D), Standard threats are the norm

The characters are encountering the hidden world's everyday dangers: individual vampires, small Shadow entities, isolated cryptid incidents, possessed civilians. The threats are real and dangerous, a Standard Vampire is a serious combat encounter for a 6D group, but they are discrete and addressable. The investigation layer is active: each threat has a specific cause, history, and resolution condition.

Representative threats: Vampire (Standard), Crossroads Demon (Standard), Werewolf (Standard), Black Dog (Standard), Cursed Individual (Standard), Fetch (Minion swarm), Will-o'-Wisp (Standard)

Regional (9D), Elite threats emerge; Standard threats become manageable

The characters have developed enough that Standard threats are handled efficiently. Elite-tier threats now require full engagement. The scale of problems has grown, the vampire isn't working alone; the Necromancer has a network; the cryptid has been active for decades and no one's been able to address it. Organizational involvement has intensified: the BUA has opinions about what the characters are doing; the Network is treating them as significant resources.

Representative threats: Vampire Elder (Elite), Alpha Werewolf (Elite), Banshee (Elite), Shadow Warden (Elite), Hexed Warrior (Elite), Mothman (Elite), Mind Feeder (Elite)

National (12D), Champion threats; Legendary as campaign climax

The characters are operating at scale. Champion threats are the new standard: Master Vampires with territorial networks, Demon Lords whose contracts have come due, Fae Lords whose court instability is affecting a region. The Veil itself is under pressure. Legendary threats, The Unwritten, a fully-manifested entity, are possible as campaign-ending encounters.

Representative threats: Master Vampire (Champion), Demon Lord (Champion), Fae Lord (Champion), Necromancer (Champion), Wendigo (Champion), Voidwalker (Champion), The Unwritten (Legendary)

Within-Arc Escalation Pattern

Within a single arc, escalate in three phases:

Opening (first third): Minion and Standard threats. The characters are establishing what they're dealing with. The threats are dangerous but the characters can handle them with competent play. Evidence management is the primary secondary challenge.

Middle (second third): Standard and Elite threats. The problems are larger than expected. At least one scene should present an Elite threat the characters are not fully prepared for, not to destroy them, but to demonstrate the gap between where they are and what's coming. Retreat and regroup is a valid response. Use this phase to escalate organizational involvement and introduce the arc's underlying complication.

Climax (final third): Elite and Champion threats. The characters should arrive at the climax having used significant resources and made choices they can't undo. The climax encounter should require what the characters have built specifically, if they've invested in tradition abilities, the climax should be addressable through those; if they've built organizational relationships, those relationships should matter; if they've been careful about evidence management, the Veil situation should be manageable.

Escalation Signals

Signal upcoming escalation to players before it arrives. Escalation should feel earned, not arbitrary.

Evidence the threat level is rising: - A threat the characters handled cleanly in Session 2 reappears in a more powerful configuration in Session 5 - Research turns up documentation of a threat in the region that hasn't been seen in decades, suggesting something is drawing it back - An NPC with more experience than the characters expresses genuine concern about what's developing, "This is a Warden problem, not a hunter problem" - Multiple unrelated incidents in the same geographic area, suggesting a single organizing cause

Organizational signals: - The BUA escalates from monitoring to active involvement - The Network's emergency assembly is discussed but not yet called - Vanguard units appear in an area where they weren't previously operating

Part Four: Arc Design Tools

The Five-Question Arc Framework

Answer these five questions before running a campaign arc:

1. What is the inciting truth? The underlying situation that drives the arc. Not "there are vampires in the city"; that is the setting. The inciting truth is specific: there is a Master Vampire who has been operating under diplomatic protection from the Bloodline Courts for forty years, and that protection is about to expire because of a Court succession dispute.

2. Who is hiding what, and why? Every interesting arc has information the characters are trying to find. What is it, who is controlling access to it, and what are their reasons for concealment? The reasons should be understandable, not necessarily right, but not cartoonishly wrong.

3. What is the clock? The condition under which the situation becomes irreversible. Not vague urgency but a specific threshold: if the Necromancer completes the ritual, the Breach expands past closure threshold. If the Infernal Warden's contract term expires before it's renegotiated, the Demon Lord manifests. The clock creates real stakes.

4. What does success look like? The optimal outcome, not for the characters, but for the hidden world they're operating in. What is the best possible resolution? What would it cost? This gives the GM a target to run toward and helps calibrate what "winning" means.

5. What are the acceptable failures? What happens if the characters don't fully succeed? A partial success is often more interesting than a clean win. The Necromancer escapes but the Breach is closed. The Master Vampire is destroyed but the Court succession is destabilized. Define the failure gradients before play so the consequences feel earned rather than improvised.

Session Zero Guidance

Before the first session, establish with the players:

Setting tone and genre blend: AX.GM runs from horror-focused (the threats are genuinely frightening, consequences are permanent) to action-focused (the threats are dangerous but the characters feel competent) to investigation-focused (the puzzle is primary). None of these is the default, discuss what the table wants.

Veil engagement level: How much do the players want evidence management to be a mechanical challenge versus background flavor? Some groups enjoy the Veil as an active constraint that shapes every scene; others find it interrupts the pace they prefer. Calibrate accordingly.

Organization affiliation: Where are the characters positioned in the hidden world? All affiliated with the same organization (creates team coherence), split affiliations (creates built-in tension), all unaffiliated (creates independence but removes institutional resources). Each choice has different campaign implications.

Moral complexity threshold: The possessed-host problem, the cursed-victim problem, the Reformed Threat's history; these create scenarios with no clean answer. Does the table want those scenarios? Some tables love the moral weight; others find it uncomfortable at the table level. Know before you build.

Character connections to the hidden world: Each character should have at least one pre-existing relationship to the hidden world's social fabric, a mentor, a rival organization, a family history, a community they're part of or estranged from. These connections become hooks. A character with no prior connections is harder to draw into the world's ongoing concerns.

Campaign Milestone Table

Use this as a pacing guide for a full campaign arc (Monster of the Week through Apocalypse Now):

Sessions	XP Range	Milestone
1–4	3–12 XP	Characters establish competence; first organization contact; threat category variety
5–8	15–24 XP	Stage 1 unlocked; first Elite threat; organization relationship solidifies
9–12	27–36 XP	Conspiracy pattern becomes visible; first significant moral complexity; Regional power level
13–16	39–48 XP	Stage 2 unlocked; core conspiracy revealed; major organization relationship tested
17–20	51–60 XP	Conspiracy confrontation; first Champion threat; National stakes enter
21–25	63–75 XP	Stage 3 unlocked; Apocalypse Now conditions developing
26–30	78–90 XP	Apocalypse Now arc; Legendary threat possible; campaign climax
31+	90+ XP	Post-climax epilogue; new arc begins if campaign continues
### Between-Session World Movement

The hidden world should move between sessions, not wait for the characters. Between each session, determine:

What the active threat did: If the characters didn't destroy or bind the threat, it continued acting. A Vampire Elder consolidated their territory while the characters were investigating elsewhere. A Necromancer acquired the artifact they were looking for. The Reality Fracture expanded.

What organizations decided: Organizations make decisions based on what they know, which may not be what the characters know. The BUA may have classified an incident before the characters could report it. The Network may have connected the current scenario to a pattern the characters haven't seen yet. Obsidian Solutions may have moved on an opportunity created by the characters' actions last session.

What changed in the community: Hidden-world communities are living social environments. A Bloodline Court hearing was held. A Network contact lost access to a key archive. A Safe Harbor safe house was compromised. These changes are not always relevant to the current scenario, but they should accumulate into a world that feels like it exists between sessions.

Feed two or three pieces of between-session movement into each session's opening information. It takes thirty seconds to deliver and makes the world feel alive.