Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello,

My FLGS was going to Sanction Search for the Diamond Staff, the new D&D Encounters, but cancelled at the last minute, sadly.

Now, my group (myself and 5 other players) are waiting until August for Murder in Baldur's Gate.
Thus, we decided that we'd run a couple of small campaigns in the meantime.

Here's what I was thinking for the first one:
It begins with the party wandering into a small village. (An intelligence check will tell them that this village is on the outskirts of human civilization and is constantly plagued by evils.)
Almost immediately, they'll run into a soothsayer who will be ranting about a darkness consuming the people of the town. She will mention that people are being taken and that the first to be taken was the local sage.(I'll let them do a bit of roleplaying with the crone and when they're done, I'll move on).
Then, they hear a piercing scream as a mother cries that her son is being taken and she needs help. The players (whether they rush to help or not) will see a party of Orcs passing through, carrying a screaming boy.
The party will end up pursuing this Orc party through the forest that surrounds the village. As they go, the magical members of the party will be able to sense a powerful dark aura in the air, getting stronger the further they press on.
Shortly after, they'll reach a guarded entrance to a tunnel. The guards consist of a few Orcs and (possibly) a corrupted Treant (a check will allow them to discern that this Treant was once a tree possessed by dark magic, resulting in its mobile, yet decaying form). Here they will have the option to try and sneak in/disguise themselves if they think of it. Failure will result in a conflict.
Once they get into the tunnel, there will be the occasional encounter with a goblin. Should they spare one, they can make it tell them about what's at the end of the tunnel and it will guide them.
At the end of the tunnel, they will find a decaying stone tower, well concealed in the mountains that they have just passed under. It will be guarded by more Orcs and will allow for a bit of sneaking/climbing (possibly climbing into a window).
Once in, the adventurers will find the body of the boy who was taken, mangled and incredibly aged. If they go higher in the tower, they'll be a couple more Orc guards to fight, then they'll reach the top.
At the top will be an elderly man, the sage. He will trap the adventurers, do a typical evil rant (he's draining life force in exchange for more power from Orcus), and then will attempt to drain the players, leading to a boss fight.
When the players beat him, he will cry out to Orcus, begging for power. He will shed his corporeal form, becoming a lich (his phylactery being a gem that adorns the lich). When the players beat him, he will disappear and the gem will drop to the floor (it will glow slightly).
If the players keep the gem, with the intent to sell it, the lich will be able to possess a remaining Orc (he still has power over them), and be able to drain the Orc's life in order to restore his ethereal form. He will then rush back to the town to finish his work (killing everybody in the town), the players will have to fight him again.
If they destroy the gem, realizing that it is his phylactery, he will die, but the players will have to chase one last Orc raiding party back to the town and stop them from causing more destruction. It will end with the mother coming up to the party, sobbing, to ask if they found her child.

Also, this town will be the base for other campaigns, allowing them to trade in the local market. There will also be a reputation system (if the players try to steal or kill villagers, the other villagers will lock their doors and refuse to sell to them).

Thoughts?

You need to give motivation and context first. If you want your players to buy into your story and travel roughly along the lines you've planned for they need to have a good reason to go along with it. You're making assumptions that they'll care about some random things going, that have nothing to do with them/their characters. They might (just for the sake of being the types who jump at every plot hook), or they might go off the rails entirely. Either way, it'll probably be sub optimal enjoyment.


I generally like providing some basic setup or framework for them to create their characters in:

"You're mercenaries in debt"
"You're members of the local militia who have been tasked with tracking down some Orcs. Each of you recently had a family member kidnapped by them - who was it?"
"You're a team sent out by the church to investigate rumors of a cult"
"You're bodyguards for a minor noble on a trip to a neighboring province"

All these set up expectations for the tone and initial events, as well lets players develop an understanding of how their characters relate to each other and their circumstances before the game begins. It gives the common motivations, and allows you to deliver later hooks in a way that will feel organic for them to follow. Ask each of them to provide a sentence or two about how their characters met, or even yet do a very abbreviated role play 5-10mins for each of scenes, about how the group came together and got this point.

"You're a bunch of random guys, kind of wandering around and then some lady screams" isn't a way to get characters that are really invested from the outset.

Questions for you to ponder

1 - what's to stop the party from killing the orks in the town and saving the boy without the long chase to the tower?
2 - Assuming the orks make of with the boy, the party should have an opportunity to save the boy before the life draining.
3 - How will the boss trap the party & then how will they escape?
4- The party really has to beat the big bad three times? Feels redundant.
5- If the party is strong enough to defeat a Lich, why are they staying in a little village. Shouldn't they be moving on to bigger and better things?
6 - why the need for a reputation system? If the party is good enough to save the boy, they should be good enough not to steal/murder.

I hadn't thought of that, I think putting them in debt at the tavern could be neat. Basically they'd be a cross between civil service agents and bounty hunters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RanTheCid wrote:
Questions for you to ponder

1 - what's to stop the party from killing the orks in the town and saving the boy without the long chase to the tower?

I'll have the Orcs almost out of sight before the heroes see them (or they'll run right past the heroes).

 RanTheCid wrote:
2 - Assuming the orks make of with the boy, the party should have an opportunity to save the boy before the life draining.

I like this, perhaps a constitution check and if the majority passes, they'll catch up to the orcs.

 RanTheCid wrote:
3 - How will the boss trap the party & then how will they escape?

Well, if he's a sorcerer, he'd first seal the entrance/exit, then some sort of shield. I'm thinking that he'd have to dissipate the shield to attack one of them, or maybe he'll knock them prone when they come in.

 RanTheCid wrote:
4- The party really has to beat the big bad three times? Feels redundant.

Hmm...what if the Lich simply escapes before they fight him (perhaps allowed each PC to make a reaction attack first).

 RanTheCid wrote:
5- If the party is strong enough to defeat a Lich, why are they staying in a little village. Shouldn't they be moving on to bigger and better things?

This is another good one, I think that if the players bring it up, they'll be given the option of moving on to another town.

 RanTheCid wrote:
6 - why the need for a reputation system? If the party is good enough to save the boy, they should be good enough not to steal/murder.

Last time I played D&D with these guys, there was an old man begging for help and one of them kicked him when he reached out and begged for water...he died.

 Dr. What wrote:
I hadn't thought of that, I think putting them in debt at the tavern could be neat. Basically they'd be a cross between civil service agents and bounty hunters.

Some more question to ponder


-As bounty hunters, are bound to some general contract or license issued by the state, or are they basically free agents?
-Who are they in debt to, how big is the debt and what means does this party have to force collection?
-How are bounties posted & collected?
-What do the authorities require as proof of a bounty? Are bounties worth more alive, dead, doesn't matter?

Think about writing an introduction to their circumstances (~3 Paragraphs). Don't get too long winded, I tend to find players loathing reading long stretches of GM material but anything under about a page is usually easy to digest.

Chongara wrote:

 Dr. What wrote:
I hadn't thought of that, I think putting them in debt at the tavern could be neat. Basically they'd be a cross between civil service agents and bounty hunters.

Some more question to ponder


-As bounty hunters, are bound to some general contract or license issued by the state, or are they basically free agents?
-Who are they in debt to, how big is the debt and what means does this party have to force collection?
-How are bounties posted & collected?
-What do the authorities require as proof of a bounty? Are bounties worth more alive, dead, doesn't matter?

Think about writing an introduction to their circumstances (~3 Paragraphs). Don't get too long winded, I tend to find players loathing reading long stretches of GM material but anything under about a page is usually easy to digest.

Perhaps I'll just make the mother rather wealthy (perhaps the boy's father is the mayor of the town).

She could just offer a ton of money to each of them to get her son back. If he dies, she'll still pay them for their troubles.


Now I'm considering that instead of a lich, perhaps the sage will be contorted into the form of a basilisk, potentially stunning the party and making the fight tougher. Anybody petrified will be freed with the sage's death. Then instead of lich chasing, there'd simply be the last raiding party.

Interesting topic!
When I am planning a campaign, I usually go about it by asking myself a series of questions:
Who are the player characters?
How do they relate to one and other? Do they know each other beforehand? If not how am I going to introduce them?
What classes are they playing? What cultures can they be from? What kind of game do they want to play?

What is the setting?
What is interesting about this setting? What is it similar to that my players might already be familiar with? What is unique about it? Are there any setting specific secrets?

Who is the antagonist?
What is his motivation? How will he be introduced to the PCs? What will he do if engaged? What will he do if left to his own devices?

What are the mood and themes of the campaign?
What genre am I inspired by? How can I communicate that to the players? What details can I include to communicate my mood or themes? What power level do I want? How does my antagonist reinforce this?

I mean, there's more to it than that, but that's how I start thinking about things.

I've got to agree with Da Boss. The campaigns I've made up all start with one of two things: An interesting event or a general theme.

I suppose you can build a campaign top down or bottom up. Top down is "here's a story I want to tell/world I want to use, stick the players in it". Bottom up is "here's a cool encounter/location/monster I want to use, how do I build a world around it?"

I've done both. The campaign I've had going for two odd years now started with "D&D in space...what if your typical adventuring party investigates a strange meteor that fell to earth and find out its a damaged spaceship. How do they fix it? Then where will they go?". I knew one event, the players find a crashed spaceship, and I built a campaign arc on top of that event.

Alternatively I once thought about a general theme of an underwater campaign. I worked at it for a while and came up with the idea of an ancient underwater ruin that had been discovered by scrying. A floating city was built on top of it, and wizards are using magic to slowly pump the water out of the city or explore underwater with water breathing spells. Mercenaries and treasure hunters of all sorts flock to the city, often spending everything they have to get there, because wizards always need dumb muscle to recover artifacts and sabotage other people's excavation efforts. Of course...the fact that this entire city is actually a containment vessel for an ancient evil sea god complicates matters a bit.

I'm afraid I can't really help without just rambling about all the random campaign ideas I've had. I'm a very wargamey/hack and slashy guy, so i tend to think in terms of cool enemies and encounters rather than actual world building details. i feel like the world will build itself if you put interesting things for the players to fight in it. Someday I'll actually have to run a role-playing intrigue scenario to force myself into thinking of things like "NPC personalities"...