“Childe Roland to the dark tower came.” - Robert Browning, 1852 Chapter 16 of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master describes focusing your game around a single campaign hook and presenting this hook to your players during your session zero. Example hooks include: Prevent the rise of the Ghoul Imperium at the Crossroads of Midgard. Save Ten-Towns from the endless night. End the theft of souls in Ch
This can’t be overstated, I find that when building a homebrew world, I tend to fill it with all sorts of hooks and themes. What happens is my players jump around from one interesting locale to the next, but lack the drive of a “north star” goal as Sly puts it.
My first time DMing Curse of Strahd was a big learning experience; simply having the goal to kill Strahd from the get-go meant players started sessions with more focus and were more committed to their characters and the story.