Ideas for a DnD Campaign

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The Shade

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LimaBravo said:
Shit, son...

Please tell me that you didn't just come up with all of that just now. I am way too sleep-deprived to have my mind blown to that extent.
 

The Shade

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LimaBravo said:
Yeah pretty much thats my played characters history from back in the day ;D Started on bluebook D&D and ended up in AD&D end them we matured into better games ;D We ruled the Known world with the same 4 characters for about 5-8 years.
Damn. Why couldn't I have been part of that D&D group? If that's the sort of stuff you lot came up with, I am envious.

The best my crew could ever think of was Doppelganger shennanigans and a Doom Fortress.
 

Nemorov

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What ever you do, make sure you keep up the pace. That has to be the most common, tragic thing that happens in campaigns I'm in. Keep the players engaged and try to avoid too much 'converse amongst yourselves' down time. It usually goes something like this:

Fighter: "So, we killed a guy."
Rogue: "Yup."
Cleric: "I don't like you people."

Just a thought...
 

hamster mk 4

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This looks like a job for zombies. A fighter heavy party needs a lot of meat to hack through and nothing says hackable meat like zombies. The cleric's rebuke will also come in handy. For the sorcerer, include a crazed necromancer directing the hoard who can be countered or disabled via the sorcerer's spells. You can run the game like a last stand defense with the only salvation being the rising of the sun. Alternately you could run it like a VIP mission where you need to get a NPC or artifact to a certain location to placate the dead and restore balance. Perhaps I am just playing too much Left 4 Dead.
 

ceyriot

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hamster mk 4 said:
This looks like a job for zombies. A fighter heavy party needs a lot of meat to hack through and nothing says hackable meat like zombies. The cleric's rebuke will also come in handy. For the sorcerer, include a crazed necromancer directing the hoard who can be countered or disabled via the sorcerer's spells. You can run the game like a last stand defense with the only salvation being the rising of the sun. Alternately you could run it like a VIP mission where you need to get a NPC or artifact to a certain location to placate the dead and restore balance. Perhaps I am just playing too much Left 4 Dead.
I've already thrown a few zombies at them, lots of interesting ways to make them appear...Graveyards, old buildings and dirt caves now scare my players.

I'm working on a city section right now, already have a map and an idea...My great idea is to have two factions, that of the city guards and the other is the rebels. Both sides appear to be exactly in balance, and any person joining either side will tip the balance. As I stated in my last post, the reward for helping the city guards (who are also corrupt) will be money and loot, while helping the rebels/citizens results in a good feeling. Also, if neither side is joined, both sides will hunt down the PC's...until the PC's join one of the factions.

The fun part is what happens when the PC's join the factions. As they go along with killing the other side, their side will be depicted as brutal and not very nice, while the other side will seem innocent and just trying to survive. This should result in a moral dilemma, rather than a "which side should we attack from" choice, which has been my experience so far in DnD.
 

Altorin

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ceyriot said:
Altorin said:
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 wrote the module to give our Cleric of The High Honorable St Cuthbert (Yes, that's what we called him.. in my campaign he was fashioned as the God of all Judges) something to do.. The Prison motif, the prominence of Undead and the unjustice of a city selling its prisoners, was all right up my cleric player's alley. It might be difficult to play well without a cleric
 

DreamKing

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ceyriot said:
I'm working on a city section right now, already have a map and an idea...My great idea is to have two factions, that of the city guards and the other is the rebels. Both sides appear to be exactly in balance, and any person joining either side will tip the balance. As I stated in my last post, the reward for helping the city guards (who are also corrupt) will be money and loot, while helping the rebels/citizens results in a good feeling. Also, if neither side is joined, both sides will hunt down the PC's...until the PC's join one of the factions.

The fun part is what happens when the PC's join the factions. As they go along with killing the other side, their side will be depicted as brutal and not very nice, while the other side will seem innocent and just trying to survive. This should result in a moral dilemma, rather than a "which side should we attack from" choice, which has been my experience so far in DnD.
I would not recommend that. No offense, but that seems kinda generic.

How about this: Keep the two factions but the PCs find out that the zombies they encountered earlier were actually summoned by warlocks on both the guard and rebel sides. With further investigation, they find out that both sides have the same spell/ritual/item. The PCs could use the spell/ritual/item for their supporting faction, use it to further their own goals, or they could find the origin of the spell/ritual/item. What happens after that, is up for you to decide.
 

PedroSteckecilo

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LimaBravo said:
You all fail as GM's. You dont punish players for not playing the way you want.
This isn't entirely fair,

you and your players should have an "understanding" that it's not "GM versus Players" it's everyone working together to have a good time and tell a dramatic story (at least in my opinion).

You need to meet your players half way, if they don't like your game, you do need to change it, however if they just want to screw around, you either need to reign them in or find a new game group.
 

freebiewitz

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Hmm, well a good way to rail road a game while at the same time making it feel natural is give them a boss. In dark heresy the DM plays as an inquisiter, who basically is the boss, tells them what to do etc.

But at the same time you have to make them like the 'boss' so you've gotta give him personality, give him a proper story and purpose, heck make him give the players good rewards after everything, sorta like a quest giver only the boss may also have other people working for him, in other words he could send a cleric with the group to fight undead, or maybe an extra fighter for power, or a thief to break into a stronghold.

Not only does this make the player appreciate the boss NPC but it makes rail roading feel just that more natural. It will never be 100% natural but it helps.
 

pffh

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A necromancer is raising undead to create an "army" to fight intolerance against undead, this army roams the land helping farmers, protecting traders etc and the players have to stop them. This works best in a highly religious area where necromancers and undead are hated and the players are working for the ruling body and/or the church.
 

olicon

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Put them up against impossible enemies that chases them around the map. These enemies can either be very strong, or simply innumerable. However, the heroes can lure these enemies into traps around the map to get rid of 'em, and taking turn to slow down the enemies while the rest scout ahead for proper route that isn't packed with more enemies, or while they activate the traps.
Thus the main focus would be in separating the team, and how they balance ways to slow down enemies and not taking too much damage.
 

whaleswiththumbs

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ceyriot said:
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.
Honestly after reading the first few replies, you chose the wrong webiste, too many scrubs failing to be funny by making UR references.

Uhh, considering I don't play DnD at all, or most tabletop games that people would recognize, try somthing on the fly, but it ends with like a giant battle against an evil Necromancer named Jesus, ho can self-rez, but only if his head is attached. I don't know if that is plausible for DnD, but you can change it P.D. for yah.
 

ceyriot

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whaleswiththumbs said:
ceyriot said:
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.
Honestly after reading the first few replies, you chose the wrong webiste, too many scrubs failing to be funny by making UR references.

Uhh, considering I don't play DnD at all, or most tabletop games that people would recognize, try somthing on the fly, but it ends with like a giant battle against an evil Necromancer named Jesus, ho can self-rez, but only if his head is attached. I don't know if that is plausible for DnD, but you can change it P.D. for yah.
I'm ignoring any failposts that happen...and anything is possible in DnD when one is the Dungeon Master. I like the idea of a self-rezzing Necromancer, and having him come back with full health would be even better.

Come to think of this, combining this with other ideas that have come up in this thread would be pretty awesome.

DreamKing said:
How about this: Keep the two factions but the PCs find out that the zombies they encountered earlier were actually summoned by warlocks on both the guard and rebel sides. With further investigation, they find out that both sides have the same spell/ritual/item. The PCs could use the spell/ritual/item for their supporting faction, use it to further their own goals, or they could find the origin of the spell/ritual/item. What happens after that, is up for you to decide.
The ritual/spell/item will make more sense for my purposes if it is an item.

Both sides have obtained the item from the necromancer, and both sides know that he has more. When the PC's obtain the item to further their own goals or help their faction, the necromancer will want it back and will use force to get it back. However, as the items are tied to the necromancers life force, when he finally dies the items disintegrate.
 

Flying-Emu

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ceyriot said:
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.
Send them into a Necropolis to punish them for including four warrior archetypes and no Divine.

Seriously, what kind of idiocy is that?
 

Biek

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My advice is to put in situations that can end up in fights, but can also be avoided if one of the characters is a smooth diplomat.
 

Goldeneye1989

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ceyriot said:
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.
one idea that i love doing is if they are evil players or even good players, make it their goal to spread the owrd of their diety. however since all the people they face will be against them and therefore evil. make it so that they are the wrong doers forcing eveyone into their diety under death :D
 

Ernstige Jan

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pffh said:
A necromancer is raising undead to create an "army" to fight intolerance against undead, this army roams the land helping farmers, protecting traders etc and the players have to stop them. This works best in a highly religious area where necromancers and undead are hated and the players are working for the ruling body and/or the church.
Best idea I've seen here yet. I'm stealing this idea!
 

PedroSteckecilo

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Feb 7, 2008
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LimaBravo said:
PedroSteckecilo said:
LimaBravo said:
You all fail as GM's. You dont punish players for not playing the way you want.
This isn't entirely fair,

you and your players should have an "understanding" that it's not "GM versus Players" it's everyone working together to have a good time and tell a dramatic story (at least in my opinion).

You need to meet your players half way, if they don't like your game, you do need to change it, however if they just want to screw around, you either need to reign them in or find a new game group.
Its unfair to assume your players wont to do anything, and if they do they will say, you change and adapt. As a GM your job is to give them a game to play. They are playiong their roles, hence the name, their not playing 'What you want them to do' : The Game tm @ Lima Enterprises :D If that night they dont feel like struggling against the overlord & feel like tipping the were-cows of langerack to steel their precious strawberry milk. Let em. Although why you have were-cows in your campaign is a different issue. Thats my opinion anyway.

Also how exactly do you find a new gaming group ? Guys you didnt do what I want you to so Im no longer friends with you anymore ;D Thats just silly.
I suppose saying "find a new game group" was very hypocritical on my part since I'd be in the same boat seeing as all my players are my friends and Gaming (We do Star Wars for the most part) is basically what we do instead of just "hanging out".

The thing is, the GM should have fun as well, not just the players. If the GM isn't having any fun, why should they bother running the game at all?

That's why you need the 50/50 ratio of give and take, as a GM you need to be willing and able to balance what you want out of a game with what your players want out of a game. As a player you need to respect the fact that the GM, YOUR FRIEND, has put a lot of work into running a game for you and you should "play along" to a certain extent. I'm not saying that the player needs to stay on the rails, or that there should be no deviations, but a Pen and Paper RPG needs to have respect between the players and the GM or it doesn't work and NOBODY has fun.

Also certain GM's like yourself Lima have fun watching everything go mad, but some of us want to try to create a narrative and without that element to the game, we don't have fun.
 

ceyriot

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LimaBravo said:
Id keep both factions, and the idea up to now & have teh undead turn on their summoners in a climatic battle, based on the premise that one of the factions had been infiltrated by a sect of liche worshippers & resurrected their old boss. The characters could them fight a running retreat as a city became decimated and turned.

Then the players are lumbered with two leaderless factions and a disenfranchised population of a city.

Finding them all homes, drama, intrigues, lotsa widows, in fighting.

Xenophon & the 10000, sans their ability to fight and much more feet dragging ;D.
That seems less plausible than my idea of having both sides kind of controlled by a power-hungry necromancer...But as I'm the DM...I can make anything happen.

Just an update on my progress....I have the city map almost complete, with designs for individual buildings (such as shops/taverns and other influential buildings that the PC's will most likely enter). I also have decided that I will include the 2 faction idea, but to what extent I don't know. I like the idea of the item that summons undead, and I am looking into incorporating that.

I am still open to ideas as to how the PC's get to the city, what happens after the city and of course what will actually happen within the city (read - everything).