|
I'm DMing and my party is rapidly approaching a set piece I had in the background that wasn't intended to be approached, at least not for a while. The cliffnotes version is that they're heading to a city under siege by an absurd amount of orcs. They had a near-miss with this horde previously and elected to walk in the other direction because, and I quote, "no thank you please." Now their express intent is to help free the city from the siege. Ya'll got any resources for what a medieval fantasy city would be like under siege? Any suggestions for objectives they could complete? I've got next to nothing for this, because the intention was to make this area undesirable to go to and obviously I got the opposite of that. This is a party of 5 adventurers so I genuinely doubt they're going to single-handedly save a small kingdom from orcs but I don't want to disappoint them by letting them show up with nothing to do. This is supposed to be Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms, if that informs/changes the input.
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2017 22:38
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 10:08 |
|
|
Thanks for the input! I'm not terribly well informed about the Forgotten Realms, so when I established this absurdly large orcish horde I kinda just picked a direction for them to march and the natural terminus was Waterdeep. It was only later that I looked into what the poo poo Waterdeep is and realized what I'd done. Their first encounter with it had the entire township nearby disappear overnight, but I'll probably need to inflate the size of the threat considering how Waterdeep is equipped. This can't just an exceptionally large army, this has to be something of nearly apocalyptic proportions. The party has been on an exceptionally long win streak lately so giving them a taste of War Is Hell sounds like a good idea. Especially since they immediately turned around from their last adventure to "yeah let's go save a city," I'd like to kinda punish them for their cocksuredness.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 12, 2017 07:01
|
|
|
Sanford posted:I think one of the biggest issues with them going off-piste is that the plot hooks as written in the book are boring. We had a Skype catch-up today to talk about what's going on (and so I could ask them to head for one of the routes I have fully prepped, not one straight out the book), and one of the players said "tell me again exactly why I should give a gently caress about this dwarf?" The dwarf is literally the main plot thread of the whole adventure. They're now discussing ways they could find out the info they need from the dwarf without rescuing him, because anyone stupid enough to get captured by gerblins probably deserves it. I just know they're going to try and torture the fortune-telling banshee... Okay, a key part to the banshee in Phandelver is that as-written, she's not omniscient or oracular. She's just very old and knows a lot of poo poo about the area. So she knows the location of several key areas in the module, but not everything. You can certainly change that for your campaign, but I'm just going off the book. That being said, she's still a loving banshee and can probably TPK with a single scream. So let them be cocksure on their way to her lair. Let them think they've got the power to control or force her. So the moment they start talking poo poo or trying to force her to answer, she either fucks off or retaliates. Personally, I'd have her retaliate. Put the fear of god in them. That way they aren't so gung-ho about loving with poo poo they can't possibly comprehend. The whole scenario could even give them reason to go back after the dwarf, especially if he's their only reliable source of information.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2017 20:00
|
|
|
The betrayal could easily have happened in the mine itself, Vibram wanted to make off with some especially powerful artifact and Nikki specifically got in his way, so she was maimed in a scuffle and bled out in that "hole in the ground." Why he's returning? The artifact's power is tied to the mine, and/or now the Black Spider is a threat to it. Maybe it needs to be renewed once a century and he's coming up on the anniversary of the betrayal. This leaves room for him to be the Black Spider if you want to combine the characters.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2017 20:47
|
|
|
Set up the Forge of Spells to be limited-use. The reignition went wrong from the party interrupting it, and since they'll probably kill the Black Spider & Vibram, anyone with any knowledge about the workings of the forge will be dead. That way you can limit the magic they get from the forge, and you can even set up an action movie run-from-the-explosion if you're so inclined.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 14, 2017 23:21
|
|
|
So in an effort to vary the game from smash & kill, I'm sending my group into a social encounter at an estate auction. One of the party has an invested interest in something in the sale, but the rest are probably going to be clueless and just there to see what sort of garbage they can pick up. Do you guys have any advice on how I can run the auction in a fun way? Any ideas as to what kind of other fun and/or stupid objects I could throw in it?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 9, 2018 21:26
|
|
|
My group was pretty fond of Sunless Citadel, though it was edited for use at level 5. I think several people in the D&D thread have voiced fondness for that module, which starts at level 1 normally. It might be a bit longer than your time frame, though.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 10, 2018 00:39
|
|
|
I think there are Frost or Ice Mephits, they're kind of lowish level. You could reskin a Water Weird as an Ice Weird. These are in the MM or Volo's Guide, if I recall correctly.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2018 22:32
|
|
|
Well, suddenly they re-emerge from the temple of trials or whatever and they're not in the same part of the desert. They don't know where the gently caress they are, the sun beating down upon them, and probably low on resources. Make it an ordeal for them to return to civilization alive! Maybe throw in a sandstorm or nomadic bandit types if you want it to be a bit more present and exciting of a threat.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 9, 2018 17:20
|
|
|
Okay, two things for my current 5e game's arc: Y'all got any ideas for setpieces in a magic-laboratory type area? It's supposed to be the like, magical research lab from an ancient civilization. I was thinking of covering the staples with the Owlbears, But Worse wing filled with the remains of mismatch monsters, and a library with ~forgotten knowledge~ and ~ancient spells.~ Anything else you'd think would be here? I was also considering a defunct magic item forge with still-lingering magic in it. I just want this stuff to have obvious points of interaction, so my players won't poke their heads in the door and go "nope moving on." Second, set in the same ancient-magical civilization: What kind of gatekeeping/warding would you think the aristocracy would use to separate itself from the lower classes? I wanted to avoid the bog-standard "magical bubble shield." My current line of thought involves gatehouses that only respond to displays of sufficiently high-level magic. Otherwise, the peasants (and, by extension, the player characters) would have to climb over walls or up sheer cliff faces to gain entry.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2018 00:56
|
|
|
I struggle most with travel time. It's the only reason I'm grateful one of my players picked a class with long-distance teleportation, because otherwise I was just making poo poo up about road length.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2018 00:53
|
|
|
loving Christ your players are gonna fuckin love that.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2018 15:18
|
|
|
Keeshhound posted:Instead of a wand, make it a trumpet that when played requires a comically low performance check. If the player fails, they get 1d6 standard 1/4cr skeletons, but if they succeed they get a whole skeletal brass band (how are they playing without lungs? Yes. This one. Just give the kobolds all like a 6 in Charisma or something to really hammer it home.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 19, 2018 23:35
|
|
) who provide a comedic soundtrack to the goings on, but will do nothing else. The kobalds are just that bad at playing it
|
Have the wizard head for the goblin hideout at the castle. He'll add a new element to the encounters there, and maybe the party can eavesdrop on him arguing with the bugbear leading the goblins. It'll give them more opportunities to fill in blanks about Phandelver, and solidify the Redbrands as part of the conspiracy.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2018 14:51
|
|
|
That works! My PCs apprehended Albrek and took him to jail, so I wound up bringing that around on a later date. Albrek broke out of jail, and the PCs were hired to recapture him. The Black Spider also evaded capture/death, so I got to reuse him as a recurring antagonist for a bit, until my party drowned him in a water barrel. I'm kinda fond of the PCs being familiar with their antagonists.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2018 21:13
|
|
|
So y'all, I spent some time lovingly crafting a Cold War-type scenario for my players to engage with. The general gist is that I've set up a city, divided north-south by a river. The northern half is occupied by a dragon and her various underlings, the southern half by some unsavory criminal folks that were in the process of taking over the city before the dragon showed up. The dragon has been noticeably inactive, so the dragon's underlings are stagnating on any attempts to continue taking over. The party meets each group and both are willing to hire the party to help destroy the other. The dragon side is moustache-twirlingly evil but very honest about their intentions, and the criminal side is full of lies and bullshit about their future as rulers, but a little more morally gray. The dragon side has an obvious advantage in numbers, but are unwilling to engage without the dragon's explicit & present backing. The criminal side, however, is smaller, has fewer resources, and sorely lacks a large, magical, winged lizard. The last bit of the scenario, the party is already on an explicit quest to kill the dragon. Regardless of outcome, their goal is to slay the dragon. So after two sessions that establish the central conflict and some of the smaller conflicts within, the party has a good viewpoint of their options on how to accomplish their goals. I intended this to be fairly open-ended leg of their quest and challenge them morally and strategically. They're relatively ~good~ so nobody's really fans of working with either side, but short of declaring war on basically two armies, it's basically necessary to pick someone to back. After all this establishing, one of my players, gives a large sigh and groans "I don't like this." He then says he hates how there's "no good answer" and how he'd rather leave this, if it weren't for their already established dragonslaying job. Part of me is delighted by this, I'm pretty sure I hit my mark with the rock and the hard place. And then he continues to repeat this sentiment throughout the party's planning phase. And after the planning phase. And into the remainder of the session. I attributed it to in-character speak to begin with, but it obviously grew to be beyond that. So can I get some input here? Did I gently caress up by not giving clear-cut heroic deed to fulfill? It isn't like this is tonally inconsistent with the sword and sorcery bullshit they have adventured through before. Really I'm kinda pissy that all my preparations were met with the same reception as a grind in the World of Warcraft.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 18, 2018 23:22
|
|
|
Okay, just a few things. I've asked for some feedback on the current scenario from my players, and most (read: all but the one mentioned in my OP) have expressed positive reactions to their current scenario. There were some mentions that they felt the open-endedness of the scenario left them with a loss for a clear course of action, but there was next to mention of the whole "lesser of two evils" element. Even in their discussion on how to move forward, several of them expressed interest in simply not backing either side and doing the difficult, but not impossible, task of annihilating both. I feel like I missed a mark on providing them with some clear routes of action and that slowed down the game, even after they were presented the opportunities to work with either side. But still, none of the feedback I've received seems to be that they're upset over the "no good answer" of the story line. These players are a year into a campaign and sitting at level 11, they've done several feats that have changed the world irrevocably and weren't all just clear-cut heroics before. I just want to be clear that I wasn't driving the school bus on Harry Potter Street and then took hard left onto Titus Andronicus Lane. We've been driving through some sort of high fantasy "bad poo poo happens" neighborhood since day one. While yeah, my goal was to make a hard choice for them, it isn't the first time they've made choices like this, although it's got a notably larger amount of moving parts. I tried to leave it out of the original post so I could get some more ~objective~ feedback, but now I feel the need to mention that the player has always been my sort-of problem child. He takes issue with the system we're playing (5E) and not-infrequently makes disparaging comments about it in favor of 3.5/Pathfinder, to the point of disrupting actual gameplay. He's had habits of ripping up the rails the party is on because he just "doesn't like" the direction they're going, including shooting down plot hooks because of things he, as a veteran D&D player of Forgotten Realms, already knows about the setting. I've long since given up trying to please him fully and he says he's still playing with us because he enjoys the story, so when the last game ended with groans and "I don't like this" being basically his only vocalizations, I was especially concerned that the rest of my group shared the sentiment. That's apparently not the case. My Lovely Horse posted:I'd say if anything, sending your party in with explicit instructions to kill the dragon and setting it up so they have to back someone maybe closes off some approaches for them that might lead to a more satisfying outcome. Taking on both armies should be tougher but not impossible. Even letting the dragon live should be on the table, with appropriate consequences later on, although simply turning their backs on the whole situation now goes a bit in the area of "we go in the opposite direction from the obvious plot hook." All of this was on the table and thoroughly discussed by them! They didn't really reach a conclusion because they're slow to reach consensus as a group, but like, even dropping the dragonslaying part of the job was tossed around as a possibility. Part of my design was that they'd be presented with opportunities to work with either side, but those weren't the only way forward. As I said earlier here, that didn't seem to get picked up very well, so communicating that was a failing on my part.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2018 20:07
|
|
|
Regarding talking to him, yes. I have. It significantly decreased the griping back when I did it, but he slowly slides back into old habits. And yeah, it's unfortunate because he's a friend and I like spending time with him, just in this circumstance it's not sustainable. I expected him to just announce he's done playing with us some while back, and because I am a coward at heart, I figured that would be better than confronting it. But now we're over a year into this and while he doesn't make the game unbearable, I feel like it'd be better if he went to the aquarium while we were getting pizza. Thanks for the advice and sympathy, guys. While I like DMing in its game aspect, I kind of hate that I've been thrust into being Mom for five of my friends.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 20, 2018 14:45
|
|
|
dragon_pamcake posted:Ugh. Mostly venting but I'm in a "no gaming is better than bad gaming" scenario. One of the other players is trying to solo every obstacle we encounter with his wizard cantrips, ignores the rest of the party, thinks we're going to let his character (vampire) feed on us while we're traveling, and just stole all the gold from the bandits we killed. Yeah I would have bailed the moment someone mentioned they're playing a vampire right out of the gate at level 1.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 10, 2018 21:07
|
|
's response was "What are you going to do about it?"
|
In my campaign, I provided my players with a limited-use magic item forge that combined magic items. There were three slots to shove potential items in, and after some experimenting, my players came up with the following combination: a scroll of the spell Danse Macabre, a ring of spell storing with Counterspell stored in it, and a roughly a hundred pixie-stick size magic wands they stole from a magical novelty store. This produced a ring that summoned a skeletal jazz band that could cast Counterspell once per summon and provide bardic inspiration. The very first summon of this was used to Counterspell a Lich's Disintegrate spell, which was roleplayed out as the skeletal trumpet player blasting a note directly in the Lich's face. They did some other stuff with the forge before it burned out, but that was the best combination. I felt the bardic inspiration wasn't going to ruin anyone's day, considering the party has no bard, but it didn't really check a box for "solves Bard problems."
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2018 17:11
|
|
|
Tell your group you don't feel like calculating exp values and make it one less thing for them to track, and tell them they'll level up by story beats/adventure progression. If anyone complains about not doing exp, call them a nerd and tell them to get over it.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2018 15:02
|
|
|
So I've got two bits I'd appreciate a little input on for my 5E game. Scenario cliffnotes: my players are in a voidy/far realm dungeon type area after a hole in reality was ripped open. Because they weren't really expecting this, the party was split when it happened, with three of them in the building and two waiting outside. I'm trying to design the dungeon with two start positions in mind, one for the half of the party that is already inside, and the other for the half of the party that was outside when it started. Should I just give up on that front and hamfist a way to put everyone back together? I'm kind-of fond of the division making them a little more vulnerable, but juggling the crawl from two ends just doesn't sound feasible or fun for both sides. The other bit is the final boss challenge. My plan was to make it two beholders, passive-aggressively bickering over the artifact at the center of it all that ripped open the hole. When engaged, they'll drop the passive part and try to use this opportunity to take out the competition, taking potshots at each other while fighting the party. The party is 5 level 13s, so I figure they're more than a match for a single beholder, but does two sound like too much? Would the beholders squabbling feel like it cheapens the encounter? Also I plan on making dumb eyeball and sight puns during the fight. There's not a question here, I'm just excited and wanted to share.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2018 18:23
|
|
|
habituallyred posted:Lean into the Far Realm angle with two battle maps but the same enemies are on both. So if either group of players punch a monster the other group can clearly see it. The party can't buff each other or help out with most obstacles but I am sure they will waste no time in setting up a punch based communication system. Oh how I wish this had been a little sooner! I'll have to keep this in my back pocket for future encounters. I wound up using a good chunk of everyone's suggestions, thanks. The session ended as they approached the beholders in the room, and after a bit of clever talking, they convinced one of the pair they'll his servants and help in destroying the other. Naturally the moment it looks like he's about to win, he's going to turn on them. I'm hoping this fight will be appropriately threatening. They've gotten kind-of cocksure with defeating villains relatively safely, so I'm hoping to knock them down a peg or two on the confidence scale. Evil monologues and "I can't let you live" kinda lose their weight when the dudes reciting them keep getting chumped.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2018 16:00
|
|
|
Panderfringe posted:Legendary actions and resistances. Use then liberally. On one hand, don't be a dick to your friends. You want everyone to have fun. On the other hand, sounds like a case of buyer's remorse. You gave him all of the warning signs. I'd say give them an opportunity to reclaim the character, but have some fun or interesting consequences for it. Make it engaging for him and the party. Like above, evil doppelganger or making him into a soulghost could be cool. His body is now the host for a new recurring villain, and his new quest is to get his body back!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2018 20:27
|
|
|
So in the current arc of my campaign, I've got my players in their dream jobs: murderhobo ambassadors. They're being sent out to various townships and cities on behalf of their home city to solve problems (read: kill anything in their way) and extend an invitation to join a regional alliance. So far they've kicked some orcs out of a countryside, and by the end of this week, they'll have stopped a necromancer from annihilating a port town. They're going to get two, maybe three more assignments before I spring a twist on them. My twist is that their home city's regime is actually the one inventing all these problems to weaken the towns and cities into needing their aid, progressing into a sinister evil-empire-dominion-over-all scenario. I've dropped a few hints to a bigger scheme, mostly in the orcs being clearly better-equipped and funded than they should have been, and a few books of magic from the villain's private collection showing up in the possession of the enemies. They don't seem to have picked up on it just yet, but there's going to be more hints before I have to beat them over the head with it. The advice I'm looking for is how to play the heel turn. What would be a good way for them to return home, proof in hand, and see that while they've done a lot of good, it's all been progressing the agenda of a villainous dictator? I'm at a loss for ideas that would convey the sense of betrayal and the clear threat to the stability and peace of the region. Ideally this event would spur them to action against the regime and maybe incite a coup.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2018 20:28
|
|
|
Unfortunately, due to the setup already, the character working as their "handler" isn't really an endearing person, which makes doing the switcheroo plan less useful. However, the increasingly distasteful missions sounds great. Down the line, I'll have them return to the original town they rescued and invited, which is conveniently run democratically. They'll be tasked with ensuring a yes man wins the election, under the impression that this is to strengthen support relations with the town. They won't think much of it; the party's warlock has actually been talking about doing something like this for a while. And then probably on another tour of "tax collection" and other unsavory bullshit working against the good people they saved, until they're deciding to head home prematurely in moral outrage. While the party tends to be very murderhobo, I know at least half of them will have a breaking point before poo poo goes full Third Reich. Maybe then I'll have some sort of public execution of dissidents, a few of which are past allies/friends of the party? They can have a Big drat Heroes moment rescuing them from the chopping block and suddenly they've got a small group of supporters for the inevitable coup. Paramemetic posted:Gotta find their line. Sooner or later the bastard child of the next-nearest pretender is found in a local orphanage and it's gonna need taken down to a man and if your PCs go murder the orphanage you have a long look at alignments, and it's also an opportunity for the NPC that goes "look at yourselves, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?" and hopefully that pulls them out of any murder hoboing. Oh boy, I'll have to use this. The current impending evil overlord's regime isn't even like, the hereditary ruler, so I'll definitely have to put the like, Final Straw as a child that has a legitimate claim to the throne. Malpais Legate fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Sep 26, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2018 14:40
|
|
|
Hasn't Forgotten Realms gotten a ridiculous redux every edition to account for mechanical changes within rules? I don't actually know, I just know I'm endlessly frustrated with running poo poo in FR because of the sheer density of meaningless fluff on stuff I don't use and absolutely no information on the stuff I do. Also I have one of those know-it-all "well actually" players I had to shut down with "these are my Forgotten Realms now, and in my Forgotten Realms we don'tgive a poo poo/know anything about the spellplague or time of troubles."
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2018 21:36
|
|
|
I've resolved to do my own fantasy setting in future campaigns, where if anything is bland oatmeal it's my own construction and not because the splatbook glossed over it with British countryside circa 1394 copypasta.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2018 22:01
|
|
|
kaffo posted:Give them a 16x16 grid, make all their loot tetris shapes and go full a Feast for Odin on them. (I'd play this) I unironically love loot Tetris and would lose my poo poo if I played a tabletop like that.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 1, 2018 15:36
|
|
|
Waffles Inc. posted:I know this is probably just a difference in gaming philosophies, but am I alone in thinking that a part of the onus is on the players themselves to create reasons to stay together? I had a player reroll twice because he said "I don't see why he'd stick around with them" and then nearly a third time for the same reason. That's when I told him that I'm not going to keep indulging his apparent inability to come up with an adventurer that wants to actually adventure. So yeah, I agree that players are at least partially responsible for maintaining this, especially when the party is given an active quest or goal.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2019 14:56
|
|
|
I recently started a new campaign with an Original Campaign SettingTM, and was wondering if y'all had any recommendations re: campaign planning and/or world building. My previous go-to was using Google Docs outlines for characters/locations, but this was aided by there being a big ol' wiki of content for Forgotten Realms. A lot of it was useless or irrelevant, especially to me, someone who gives no fucks about Forgotten Realms, but it meant I had an organized resource already pre-made for me. My players did a lot of help in creating the setting, it's just I feel like I need a better system for organizing the DM-only info I have to build their plots and adventures for and Google Docs, as decent as it is, aren't really as efficient as I'd like. Malpais Legate fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Feb 20, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Feb 20, 2019 18:40
|
|
|
Y'all got any ideas how to create a dungeon that's more fun and interesting than just "enter room, fight monsters, proceed?" I've been DMing for like nearly two years now and I still have no idea what I'm doing.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2019 05:11
|
|
|
I'm running D&D 5E, and the general scenario: Necromancer dug up a nearby town's graveyard to make workers to excavate a temple from a bygone age. I intend for them to encounter the digsite, deal with a bit of undead he left outside to stand guard, and enter through the roof of the building, which is the only part that's been excavated. Maybe use some destroyed zombies as breadcrumbs for them to follow the necromancer, as he's expended them to survive the guardians/traps of the temple. I guess what I'm really struggling with is what this breadcrumb trail would look like. Should I focus on making each room clearly having been something used, like libraries or armories, or just lean into the fact that it's a dungeon?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2019 16:22
|
|
|
Strom Cuzewon posted:Have them bring Barovia with them. Killing Strahd causes the pocket dimension to collapse, and the whole place smashes into their home plane. Gives them a kingdom that they've "earned" a bit more, and all sorts of fun shenanigans about a new kingdom that suddenly springs into existence Barovia gets placed right between two warring kingdoms, who are alarmed it is there and immediately think of it as a strategic advantage to conquer the other. Your players, now the owners of Strahd's castles, can pick a side or attempt some sort of neutrality. But they're level 10 adventurers, they can definitely decide the outcome of this war.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2019 16:48
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 10:08 |
|
|
sebmojo posted:give them mysteries and listen to what they think the answers might be, it's quite possible they'll have better ideas than you and you can steal them and make them feel smart I just had a murder mystery for my group and while they correctly determined the murderer, the method of kill and setup they presented was so much better than mine that I just nodded and agreed with the story. I wholeheartedly endorse this.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2019 02:34
|
|