Campaign Structure

I'm not a fan of the 5e published adventures, with the major exception of "Lost Mine of Phandelver". That said, I am a big fan of one key aspect of those adventures, which is the campaign structure that underlies most of them (and especially LMoP). Indeed, so enamoured am I of that structure that I've essentially adopted it as the way I structure campaigns for my own use. I have, of course, tweaked it somewhat, particularly in light of some of the writings of the Angry GM of whom I am also a fan, and a few things of my own.

That being the case, I'm now inclined to break campaigns down into distinct phases, each 3 levels long (except for the first and the last). Each phase will have a broad beginning-middle-end structure, and each then has a gateway to the next phase. And with each gate, the party moves to a bigger and more dangerous environment.

To get more specific:

• Introductory Phase (levels 1-2): This is the start of the campaign, and should begin by very quickly throwing the PCs into some sort of action. The initial phase has two major objectives: introduce the characters to each other (and gel them as a party), and then introduce a home base for the party. The phase should end with a gating adventure that takes them from 2nd to 3rd level.
  
• Phase 1 (levels 3-5): The party are presented with a local area to explore and a number of minor quests to pursue or not as they see fit. This phase consists of a number of mini-adventures, roughly scoped for 4th level characters, with the party gaining XP as they go. The phase then ends with a gating adventure that takes them from 5th to 6th level.
  
• Phase 2 (levels 6-8): The party now has a wider area to explore and larger, more wide-ranging quests to pursue or not. This phase consists of a number of mini-quests, roughly scoped for 7th level characters, with the party gaining XP as they go. The phase then ends with a gating adventure that takes them from 8th to 9th level.
  
• Conclusions (levels 9 - 11): The various plotlines that have been in place to this point are now gradually wrapped up. This phase consists of roughy three adventures, each scoped for 10th level characters. Whichever adventure the PCs deal with last acts as the gating adventure that takes them from 11th to 12th level, and to the endgame.
  
• Endgame (level 12): The final showdown with the ultimate big-bad. This concludes the campaign with one big adventure scoped for 13th level characters.

I should add one note to this: the structure here applies to my current campaign, and will likely apply to the next one. It could easily be contracted or expanded by adding or removing phases - a full 20-level campaign would have phases 3 (9-11), 4 (12-14), and 5 (15-18), then a combined conclusions/endgame (19 - 20); while a much shorter campaign might jump straight from Phase 1 to the Endgame (as LMoP).

This structure is not hugely dissimilar to that from the published adventures - it's lifted mostly from LMoP, but "Storm King's Thunder", "Curse of Strahd" and "Tomb of Annihilation" all feature largish sandbox-y areas broken up with smaller quests. Where this structure differs from those other adventures is that it's a bit more rigid about defining the phases while simultaneously pitching each phase squarely at the middle adventure within the range. The reason for this is that it first throws the PCs at some really tough challenges, then faces them with somewhat easier challenges when they gain a level and then it gets 'easy' once they're at the top level of their range... before another step change to tougher material.

That last may come as a bit of a shock, especially to groups used to the finer balancing of published adventures... but then 5e's balance really isn't all that finely-tuned to begin with, so I doubt that will be too much of an issue.