Ideas for a DnD Campaign

[ceyriot]

This is a repost because I accidentally posted it in the wrong forum.

I'm DM'ing a 3.5 campaign, and I'm not much of an idea person. In order to solve this problem, I'm sure some of you have ideas on how to torture innocent players.

I'm open to basically any ideas, and to give you an idea of where the PC's are right now, they're in an abandoned village. They're level 1/2, but still do a lot of damage. Classes are Scout, Fighter, Fighter, sorceror and fighter. The monsters they've been facing so far have been in hordes, rather than bosses...but I like to mix it up, so don't worry to much about that.

 

[Krakyn]

Force them to go out to sea. That'll show them.

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

What my friends did was almost all subterfuge and diplomacy, very little action besides the occasional assassin. We were a group of people lead by a Badass Bard across the lands of a King who wanted to make sure his vassals were still loyal to him. Very few were. So essentially it was all sneaking around and trying to take down evil vassals by cat's paw.

 

[Glerken]

So. The quest is going along great. But then, a villain by the name of Timmy the Evil shows up. And through his schemes, the heroes end up having to go on funny adventures.

And there are kobolds.

No. I didn't steal this from anything.

 

[Legion]

So. The quest is going along great. But then, a villain by the name of Timmy the Evil shows up. And through his schemes, the heroes end up having to go on funny adventures.

And there are kobolds.

No. I didn't steal this from anything.

A quest like that needs a Walrus. It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

 

[Birras]

Kill them in thier sleep. With a gun!

But seriously, I would try intoducing a situation that the fighters which constitute the majority of the group would be poorly suited for, such as a rust monster, or a powerful wizard that attacks from a distance.

 

[Ernstige Jan]

Set the village on fire, them coming into the village was a trap. A huge trail of oil circeling the village is set aflame by bandits.

 

[randommaster]

Make them face something with DR or regen or undead. Also, force them to slog through a dungeon without being able to rest to put pressure on the sorcerer, then make them face enemies with ranged attackes. Airborne enemies can make things difficult, as well as statuses and illusions. A simple Mirror Image spell will stop people from doing a lot of damage while allowing the enemies to get in some extra attacks. A Darkness, Silence, or Hold spell can similarly incapacitate various party members. If the Sorcerer is enamoured with Majic Missle, the Shield spell stops it cold. Also, if nobody can disarm traps, make them deal with traps. They don't have to be lethal, but a few arrows beween encounters can make a big difference in how people approach the campain.

Basically, just punish them for having a bunch of tanks while taking away the MM spell.

 

[Clashero]

Abandoned village? Sounds like the campaign started with "You all meet in a tavern".

Anyway, the best way to make an interesting campaign is to make the world seem larger and more alive than it really is. Perhaps a group of NPC's has a grudge an opposing group (perhaps the Palace Guards and the Night Watch, like in the Discworld novels), and both groups want you to set things straight. Will your players do what the Night Watch tells them, which is legal but brings less reward? Or obey the Palace Guard and kill the Night Watch, although that will surely get them arrested (which they can comply with or resist), but which will make the Palace Guard confident with them, allowing them to loot the armory and talk to the Count of the city (or whatever).

Basically, read this http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?cat=15
The only really important parts are the ones that begin with "DM Advice:"

 

[The Shade]

-snip-

I'm making an amendment to my homebrew campaign:

New deity
Name: LimaBravo
Domain: Storytelling and war

 

[Mookie_Magnus]

Have your group join a clan and then have them do jobs engage in clan wars. As they advance in levels, the jobs and the enemy clans get tougher. Be sure to involve some kind of story element to it... or boss fights.

 

[LogicNProportion]

Whatever you do, don't do a free roaming mission-based campaign. It almost always crashes in my experience. Go for something generic. Ripping off a story usually works too. Elements from the original Final Fantasy combined with the Hobbit, for an example, is working well in my campaign as DM.

 

[Leorex]

i always thought time travel would be a cool dnd idea, like where you go back in time to do somthing, but you cant disturb anything if you do you have to fix it.

like if you killed some one you have to pretend to be that person to compleat whatever they did in there life.

or if you lost a powerfull sword that wasent invented untill 7 years in the future, you could have the sword be invented because they brougt it back.

or they could have to get the sword back. like in back to the future, with the hoverboard.

 

[Wildrow12]

Start off normally with some prince/princess saving and some orc fighting.....


THEN, right in the middle of a dungeon crawl, bring in ALIEN MUMMIES and start a full planetary
invasion.

It's wizards and warriors vs. saucers and spacemen with some undead action mixed in.

 

[Leorex]

Start off normally with some prince/princess saving and some orc fighting.....


THEN, right in the middle of a dungeon crawl, bring in ALIEN MUMMIES and start a full planetary
invasion.

It's wizards and warriors vs. saucers and spacemen with some undead action mixed in.

that would be cool but have the aliens come from the middle of the earth.

 

[Altorin]

I actually wrote a module about an abandoned prison, purchased "as is" by a necromancer. "As is" meaning with all of the prisoners still inside the prison.. it ended up turning into a very Resident Evil sort of adventure, with zombies and crazy experiments... I attempted to make a Horror type of environment, that would scare little kids, and make gamers grin at the gruesome visuals. There were a couple non-combat encounters with Ghosts, and a LOT of zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and other undead. It also had a blue dragon whelp and a couple displacer beasts that had either been moved in for protection, or had wandered in from the nearby woods (I chose Blue because it's lightning breath seemed the most interesting, especially in an iron room.)

It's final encounter included the Necromancer's living Puppet of a General - a high level rogue/fighter, the necromancer's pinnacle experiment - a flesh golem build from several ogre corpses, and the Necromancer himself. The Golem encounter was pretty neat, because it was the "Execution Room" of the prison, with a wall of force window in a viewing chamber, so that people could come in and watch people be executed.. The players entered the viewing area, and the Golem went berserk, smashing itself against the wall of force and screaming, until the wall went down, and it was able to get at the party.

It was awesome.

 

[ceyriot]

-Snip-

This sounds most like what I'm trying to accomplish with this campaign. LimaBravo also had some good pointers, and yes...I do plan on punishing the three fighters.

I think airborne enemies will do that the best, as none of the fighters have ranged weapons. The scout and sorceror will be able to shoot at them, so maybe a swarm of enemies rather than one big one would be better here?

 

[Sewblon]

They all get drunk at a tavern, have sex with local wenches, and get AIDS. Then they have to cure their AIDS by slaying twin lightning dragons, and singing to a Leviathan at the bottom of the ocean. Then it turns out it was all a dream and they have syphilis and herpes.

 

[About To Crash]

Bring forth a task they morally don't know how to do. Give them very difficult choices. Not just, "Do we attack the encampment from the front or back?" it should be more, "Whose side are we even on." I love seeing players question their true loyalties.

 

[ceyriot]

Bring forth a task they morally don't know how to do. Give them very difficult choices. Not just, "Do we attack the encampment from the front or back?" it should be more, "Whose side are we even on." I love seeing players question their true loyalties.

Thats much harder to do. Off the top of my head...

Something along the lines of a having a corrupt, but legal, government that doesn't really hurt the populace but still doesn't work for them...and then have a group trying to stage a coup (but sense motives checks reveal they are little different from the government)....and both sides need the PC's help, but the PC's MUST choose a side...or both sides will try and kill them. Obviously you get riches and money for helping the government and happy feelings for helping the revolutionaries. That should work well, as Chaotic Good as well as loot-happy players are involved in the campaign.