So I wanted to run a One-Shot campaign with a group of friends who are all kind of new to D&D, myself included. I prefer to to focus more on the role-playing, story driven component of the game. I decided that a cool one day one-shot would be a simple murder mystery. However, I decided that a good plot twist would be to have one of my players secretly be the murder. I talked with my potential villain and they have agreed to be my villain. The story will focus on a wealthy family that lived in a reclusive family that was recently murdered, and after their murder some people claim to have spotted lights on the island and even some boats heading in the direction. It does not help that the local graves have been disturbed and bodies are missing. So my adventures are sent to investigate, hired by a wealthy individual, this individual will be the villain in disguised as a player. The players are tasked with discovering who murdered the family and whats going on, the villain must throw them off, put them in traps, or encourage them to betray one another while not reveling their secret identity. The reason for the murder is currently to create a ritual circle to turn the dragons skeleton that the wealthy family purchased, that is located in the basement (oooh how spooky) into a full undead creature that will destroy the town. The villain has the corpses, the ritual circle, now he needs a strong sacrifice, and that is why he hired these adventures to come to his island.
I have spoken with my player who has agreed to be the villain and he understands its more of a story for other players and just to have fun while telling a good story. However we agree that if the party makes countless mistakes and even agrees to betray one another, the villain can win (I like to play as the dice lies, no changing).
I am currently expecting 5-8 players (1 being the villain) I was going to let him be a higher level so he could do more epic stuff to mess with the party and be a good final villain (as well as a partially summoned undead dragon but that's a whatever). I wanted the players to be fairly higher level (like 5-10) and my villain like 15. I am wondering if anyone knows what a good ratio of level should be. Also for any tips on how to make the adventure fun for everyone because they are all kind of new at D&D and I just want them all to have a fun time. I want the game to be 4-8 hours long (roughly 6 hopefully).
P.S. currently planned that if someone dies they become a spirit that can help the party so that if my villain does get an early kill it might give him away or not stop another player from having fun
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So I wanted to run a One-Shot campaign with a group of friends who are all kind of new to D&D, myself included. I prefer to to focus more on the role-playing, story driven component of the game. I decided that a cool one day one-shot would be a simple murder mystery. However, I decided that a good plot twist would be to have one of my players secretly be the murder. I talked with my potential villain and they have agreed to be my villain. The story will focus on a wealthy family that lived in a reclusive family that was recently murdered, and after their murder some people claim to have spotted lights on the island and even some boats heading in the direction. It does not help that the local graves have been disturbed and bodies are missing. So my adventures are sent to investigate, hired by a wealthy individual, this individual will be the villain in disguised as a player. The players are tasked with discovering who murdered the family and whats going on, the villain must throw them off, put them in traps, or encourage them to betray one another while not reveling their secret identity. The reason for the murder is currently to create a ritual circle to turn the dragons skeleton that the wealthy family purchased, that is located in the basement (oooh how spooky) into a full undead creature that will destroy the town. The villain has the corpses, the ritual circle, now he needs a strong sacrifice, and that is why he hired these adventures to come to his island.
I have spoken with my player who has agreed to be the villain and he understands its more of a story for other players and just to have fun while telling a good story. However we agree that if the party makes countless mistakes and even agrees to betray one another, the villain can win (I like to play as the dice lies, no changing).
I am currently expecting 5-8 players (1 being the villain) I was going to let him be a higher level so he could do more epic stuff to mess with the party and be a good final villain (as well as a partially summoned undead dragon but that's a whatever). I wanted the players to be fairly higher level (like 5-10) and my villain like 15. I am wondering if anyone knows what a good ratio of level should be. Also for any tips on how to make the adventure fun for everyone because they are all kind of new at D&D and I just want them all to have a fun time. I want the game to be 4-8 hours long (roughly 6 hopefully).
P.S. currently planned that if someone dies they become a spirit that can help the party so that if my villain does get an early kill it might give him away or not stop another player from having fun