Hello! Yes, hello! This is my first post ever, cuz I need some criticism and feedback! I'm making this post talking about my conflictions on my own Homebrew DnD Campaign I think would be cool! (Also, if this thread doesn't belong in here by chance, that's my bad. I'm sure someone will move this thread to the appropriate place.)
I have this neat idea, where the party would get sucked into a storybook filled with rich lore and events within it and the party would know everything in this world is not real and seeks a way to escape it. I'm not that dumb. I can discern that this is a terrible idea, right off the bat. DnD is a game where players would get lost in roleplaying as the characters they made. If I were a player in this campaign, I would soon learn to hate the idea of playing this campaign that does not allow any place for my backstory relevant characters to appear. That would suck, I would then hate all of these fantasy characters that the DM wrote in, plus they aren't real anyway. I'm leaving this table, what a disappointment.
So that's why I'm here, to ask, "Can we salvage this concept of a Homebrew DnD Campaign."
I was thinking on a way to patch this gapping hole in my cool idea not too long ago. "The Storybook, being magical, has the ability to scan and dissect the collective surface and dormant memories of whoever it sucks in and materializes those memories into the world of the book." Just moments ago I went, "Yes, I found a great way to fix my problem!" Then I soon remembered that the players do indeed know that they are stuck inside a Storybook. Nothing is real to them. So the projected memories thing would still not solve this problem.
So here I am, I came to a place where my question can be ultimately answered. Whether it's a great suggestion that I'd have to credit for, shooting down this idea for it is doomed to fail, or someone going "This isn't the right topic for this thread to be placed in," I am ready for anyone to give me any finite answer!
Not every campaign needs to have a backstory and character arcs. Instead of characters being connected to the plot you can reward you characters with fun gameplay. This is pretty much how I see every store-bought adventure/module running....players are just along for the ride.
OH! This crucial part flew by my head while making the initial post!
I planned for the whole campaign to be involved within the book!
The idea from @Wysperra is a real solution, however, I intend to open the campaign with having the party go on their first quest to retrieve the book and bring it back to this scholar.
This Scholar would then bring the party to his office, he would briefly explain the significance of this book. Suddenly cast a high level spell to freeze them in place from where they're sitting, or standing, suck them into this book, thus beginning the real start of the campaign, all within the book. The campaign ends with it by escaping the book, the Scholar is the BBEG Final enemy, beating them up, and wrapping up the campaign on that ending.
Should've opened up this forum with that, I cannot believe I left out crucial information! But now that I'm typing this out, if I were to guess, this process I'm explaining kinda sounds like Railroading, but I'm sure you awesome people can answer that for me.
So with that explained, how would we go about this out now?
What you're describing reminds me of the '80s D&D Cartoon Series. All of the characters had a backstory that had *absolutely* nothing to do with the world or why they were there. So for this being a dumb idea.... naw. Not even.
Not allowing a place for your backstory? Not entirely true. Everyone is trying to get back to their own specific backstory. Glimpses can be had, voices could be heard. Quests could be dropped in front of the party to lure them towards their goal of getting out. From my POV, the characters would be reliant upon their desire to get home as motivation to adventure, and their background as the method that they use to do it. During the course of the adventure there would be plenty of opportunity for people to get homesick, have memories of who and what was left behind that was important, and opportunities to be reminded of why it's important for them to get out of this environment.
The Neverending Story was also a good trope about characters in a book being effected by outside events. Your idea is no worse than any others that I've seen. Actually kinda similar.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I planned for the whole campaign to be involved within the book!
The idea from @Wysperra is a real solution, however, I intend to open the campaign with having the party go on their first quest to retrieve the book and bring it back to this scholar.
This Scholar would then bring the party to his office, he would briefly explain the significance of this book. Suddenly cast a high level spell to freeze them in place from where they're sitting, or standing, suck them into this book, thus beginning the real start of the campaign, all within the book.
Careful here.
You have an unmovable destination in mind. You need your party to do all of the things you listed here. You need them to do these things despite probably realizing there is danger involved and/or not wanting to.
You've created a flaming hoop and expect them to freely, willingly, and without coaching to jump through it. And if they don't do so, it ruins your entire campaign idea.
You may want to reconsider this. Turn this bit into the backstory and start here, describe it narratively at the start, instead of running it as a RP session. Otherwise you're openly inviting your entire campaign to either 1. Feel railroaded as you're forced to take increasingly more and more intervention to force this result. B, for them to entirely surprise you and derail the entire thing.
The campaign ends with it by escaping the book, the Scholar is the BBEG Final enemy, beating them up, and wrapping up the campaign on that ending.
Why? Why is he the BBEG? What is his motivation? Why did sending a bunch of weaklings (low level) into a storybook, a situation where they could theoretically arm and train themselves and power up (get high level)... help him?
There are plenty of ways to answer these questions. But having some idea why any of this is happening makes his behavior and actions make sense.
Should've opened up this forum with that, I cannot believe I left out crucial information! But now that I'm typing this out, if I were to guess, this process I'm explaining kinda sounds like Railroading, but I'm sure you awesome people can answer that for me.
So with that explained, how would we go about this out now?
As for how to make people care?
Make sure they know that other people have been sucked into this storybook already. Make them aware that anyone in this storybook would might actually be a real person or might not be, and make sure they know there isn't any real way of knowing. Some remember being sucked in, maybe others don't.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
But you do indeed bring a great tip. Have the player's goals, friends, and acquaintances be the driving motivation on getting out!
Combining that with my idea of having projected memories take place within the world of the book, I can narrate that the player's character is then reminded by these not real memories, they have a purpose to fulfill in the outside world and must find a way to escape the book! Yes!
That's a great suggestion! Thank you! Now I gotta watch Neverending Story again. Should I just see the first film? Or see the whole Trilogy? I honestly forgot!
If I were a player in this campaign, I would soon learn to hate the idea of playing this campaign that does not allow any place for my backstory relevant characters to appear. That would suck, I would then hate all of these fantasy characters that the DM wrote in, plus they aren't real anyway. I'm leaving this table, what a disappointment.
FYI -- one of the standard openings/story hooks for Curse of Strahd is "you are kidnapped/taken by the Mists and dropped into Barovia, a place you've never ever heard of before and which has no connection to your character's backstory"
There's nothing inherently flawed about that campaign idea. Characters with detailed backstories/strong connections back in the "real world" just have even more incentive to escape the Storybook world. Knowing it's "just a fairy tale" doesn't make it any less lethal. And there's nothing saying the characters in the party are the only people from the "real world" that have been transported to the campaign world.. Maybe while they're trapped, the BBEG is sending more people into the book. Or maybe a character with an adventuring ancestor who mysteriously disappeared on a quest bumps into their great-grandparent, still at the age when they disappeared... there's all kinds of tropes and ideas you can play around with
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Aw yeah, C R I T I C I S M ! I love it! Okay, Let's see if I can't answer these. Starting with....
Why? Why is he the BBEG? What is his motivation? Why did sending a bunch of weaklings (low level) into a storybook, a situation where they could theoretically arm and train themselves and power up (get high level)... help him?
There are plenty of ways to answer these questions. But having some idea why any of this is happening makes his behavior and actions make sense.
^ This quote.
Yes, the Scholar does have a motivation on sucking these fledgling adventurers. The Scholar has been working on this book for, I'd say a decade. By infusing magical code into this book, he's preparing to extract the powerful contents within the lines of what's described as Magical Items forged by the Gods of Creation and Balance. These Magical items are much more powerful than the Magical Items in reality.
The problem is, there's no way he can go in there, gather his Sigils, and not act suspicious to the characters of the Book. For they, the chosen ones, can kick his ass. His work around is to influence weak and desperate adventurers to lure into his scheme, so he can suck them in and give them a reason to get out, involving his Sigils. He even coded an obvious way to get out, by having these magical items, they can be used for a ritual to open a gate, the way out of the book. They'd have to leave behind these items at the ritual site. Once they leave, the Scholar can pick up those Magical items from the site, and kick their asses in with these items, ensuing the Final Boss. So yeah, its the usual, "Bad guy seeking to rule the world with an Iron Fist," plot. There is to note, I plan for the party finding multiple ways of getting out, other than the 'Obvious Gateway' out. Like the Astral Plain and the Warlock Fiend's influence and stuff.
This magical coding the Scholar is written in is the following 2 things: -1: He wrote in these little Sigils that allows the wearer to wield the Magical items created by the Gods. Why? With the original text saying, only the chosen people can wield these Items for they serve the Gods of Creation and Balance. By having these adventurers be in the book, the Scholar has left breadcrumbs for them to find them, gather them, so the Scholar could just steal them and become all the more powerful.
Also, this brings a fun thing for the party to get accustomed to. They can wear the Sigils to wield these items, but the catch is the Sigils only allows the wearer to pick it up. The magical items would not accept them right away, for they are not the chosen ones. So these special homebrew items would have this humongous attunement bar to fill, ranging from the Common magical tag, and work their way up to the Legendary magical tag.
-2: He added motivations for some of the chosen ones who can be manipulated into finding a way out for themselves. This causes them to betray their factions from the text of the book for their selfish goals in escaping into the real world themselves and serve the Scholar, for he coded in them that they see him as their Master. These programed chosen ones would cause havoc, involving: causing friends to fight each other, killing off important characters, as well as gathering the Sigils and finding even more ways to obtain the Magical Items. I love making multiple evil villains who are not entirely working together, so I think this is a great way of storytelling and conflicts.
Alright, uh... Next quote!
You have an unmovable destination in mind. You need your party to do all of the things you listed here. You need them to do these things despite probably realizing there is danger involved and/or not wanting to.
You've created a flaming hoop and expect them to freely, willingly, and without coaching to jump through it. And if they don't do so, it ruins your entire campaign idea.
You may want to reconsider this. Turn this bit into the backstory and start here, describe it narratively at the start, instead of running it as a RP session. Otherwise you're openly inviting your entire campaign to either 1. Feel railroaded as you're forced to take increasingly more and more intervention to force this result. B, for them to entirely surprise you and derail the entire thing.
This is what I'm most afraid of. I'm aware of Railroading, I've been a part of some Railroading before, I've even heard worse horror stories even. I will not leave this thread until we can solve this Railroading problem for good.
That being said, let's discuss the Session #1. How do we start it?
I came up with 2 introductions so far: -1: The Party would start the campaign in a waiting room, for they all received a letter by the Scholar, listing an adventure to retrieve the 'Stolen Magical items that can end the world' or something like that... There, they can introduce their characters and chat a little bit before the Scholar invites them into his office, briefing them on the mission, then freezing them and sucking them in. Now the party has a reason to get out, someone to hate and want to get back at, but all fall into the Scholar's scheme of gathering the Magical Items.
-2: Start the party and their characters in their rooms or places of rest, open up their doors or wonder into fog and all gathered up in this white void. They would all be confused, they'll all make their introductions, either wonder together or split off finding a way out. Finally they'd walk into the world of the book. They'd have no idea they're in a book at first, they might remember that an evil Scholar sucked them in perhaps, and adventure in the world of the book. They would find out that this is all not real and seeks a way to escape it.
If you think of any ideas of your own, just comment away! I'd be happy to read them all!
Finally we have....
As for how to make people care?
Make sure they know that other people have been sucked into this storybook already. Make them aware that anyone in this storybook would might actually be a real person or might not be, and make sure they know there isn't any real way of knowing. Some remember being sucked in, maybe others don't.
^ This quote!
Great suggestion! Maybe the Scholar has already been sucking people into this book! They could confuse the party by spouting out stuff like, "None of this is real!" or "There's gotta be a way out!" But personally, I don't intend on making those NPCs core characters. I was thinking of having the characters of the book be what the party would interact more with. But now that I'm typed that, I'm doing it again, I'm railroading the party into steering the focus away from these reality NPCs! Let me know if I should go about it either, the way I feel or what the party wants to focus.
HOO boy! I hope I explained all that clearly @Ravnodaus ! I can't wait on how'd you respond!
You have an unmovable destination in mind. You need your party to do all of the things you listed here. You need them to do these things despite probably realizing there is danger involved and/or not wanting to.
You've created a flaming hoop and expect them to freely, willingly, and without coaching to jump through it. And if they don't do so, it ruins your entire campaign idea.
You may want to reconsider this. Turn this bit into the backstory and start here, describe it narratively at the start, instead of running it as a RP session. Otherwise you're openly inviting your entire campaign to either 1. Feel railroaded as you're forced to take increasingly more and more intervention to force this result. B, for them to entirely surprise you and derail the entire thing.
This is what I'm most afraid of. I'm aware of Railroading, I've been a part of some Railroading before, I've even heard worse horror stories even. I will not leave this thread until we can solve this Railroading problem for good.
Every DM does it to some extent or another. The nature of preparing the game creates some expectations that you have a semblance of a path for them, or even in some cases a iron-clad, steel reinforced railway. The trick isn't always not having paths for them to walk...it is not letting them think they're not allowed off the paths. When they step off your story-trail, don't immediately shove them back onto your path forcefully.
Anyway, more to the specifics here, you have more than just aa path, more than a trail, you have an exact pinpoint destination you need them to reach, without fail, or else your campaign can't even happen. Right? They must retrieve the book, bring it to the guy, and then fail to save against a spell effect. That is a huge ask for a party to just stumble their way into doing on their own.
That being said, let's discuss the Session #1. How do we start it?
I came up with 2 introductions so far: -1: The Party would start the campaign in a waiting room, for they all received a letter by the Scholar, listing an adventure to retrieve the 'Stolen Magical items that can end the world' or something like that... There, they can introduce their characters and chat a little bit before the Scholar invites them into his office, briefing them on the mission, then freezing them and sucking them in. Now the party has a reason to get out, someone to hate and want to get back at, but all fall into the Scholar's scheme of gathering the Magical Items.
-2: Start the party and their characters in their rooms or places of rest, open up their doors or wonder into fog and all gathered up in this white void. They would all be confused, they'll all make their introductions, either wonder together or split off finding a way out. Finally they'd walk into the world of the book. They'd have no idea they're in a book at first, they might remember that an evil Scholar sucked them in perhaps, and adventure in the world of the book. They would find out that this is all not real and seeks a way to escape it.
If you think of any ideas of your own, just comment away! I'd be happy to read them all!
These could work, sure. How your storyline resolves isn't the hard part for handling this. What will make or break this campaign start point is your narrative framework.
Let's look at 2 ways to handle it:
1. You introduce the scholar, he narrates the mission for them, you start doing skill challenges or a fight or whatever as they seek out the book. Maybe they succeed. Maybe they get bored and go find a bar. Who knows. IF they get the book, and IF they bring it back to the guy, they'd have to also not fail their saves against his attempt to trap them or whatever. Lots of ways for this to go wrong and each time it steers off path you're going to have to force things to work. Fudge numbers. Cause events to rearrange themselves to drive the players in the 'correct' direction. Might go well, might be a disaster, no way to know ahead of time.
-or-
2. You narrate the party's return from having retrieved the book, and narrate their handing it over. Then narrate his villain speech, and them reawakening inside the book-world. Then relinquish control and start their game-time interactive play. Skill challenges to figure out whats going on, fight with story-book encounters, etc.
Starting the 'game' at point 1 invites disaster since you NEED it to get to point 2. Starting it at point 2 skips all the potential railroading since you basically narrate the parts that needed to have happened.
Switching between referee and narrator is one of your jobs, as DM, and knowing when to do which is a huge key to avoiding railroading-feel while still keeping the story moving in the general direction it needs to.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Thanks, @Ravnodaus ! I'll refer to this post when doing the first session!
I think this is how I'll describe the Prologue,
I'll starting by not giving the world overview right away, but I'll instead deluge them something about, "Distinguishing what is real life, and what is make belief." or some speech or lesson.
Then, I'll take control of the opening scene with their characters first appearance, without giving any dialogue. Maybe something on the lines of,
"It was a dark a stormy night, a group of adventurers walk inside a college with a mysterious book in hand. There, they exclaim a Man in shades that they've returned. The Man in shades gives out his hand, then askes to relinquish the book to him. After some bargaining, they do so, they give the book to the Man. Suddenly, they all freeze in place! The Man cackles with the book in hand and tells the adventurers are foolish! Then precedes to suck them into the book, as the adventurers true adventure, begins!
Finally at that point, I can continue by using my second idea I wrote down earlier here,
-2: Start the party and their characters in their rooms or places of rest, open up their doors or wonder into fog and all gathered up in this white void. They would all be confused, they'll all make their introductions, either wonder together or split off finding a way out. Finally they'd walk into the world of the book. They'd have no idea they're in a book at first, they might remember that an evil Scholar sucked them in perhaps, and adventure in the world of the book. They would find out that this is all not real and seeks a way to escape it.
^ This one.
I can start giving the reins of the player's introductions through here, as if that whole introduction didn't happen.
What do you guys think?
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Hello! Yes, hello! This is my first post ever, cuz I need some criticism and feedback! I'm making this post talking about my conflictions on my own Homebrew DnD Campaign I think would be cool!
(Also, if this thread doesn't belong in here by chance, that's my bad. I'm sure someone will move this thread to the appropriate place.)
I have this neat idea, where the party would get sucked into a storybook filled with rich lore and events within it and the party would know everything in this world is not real and seeks a way to escape it.
I'm not that dumb. I can discern that this is a terrible idea, right off the bat. DnD is a game where players would get lost in roleplaying as the characters they made. If I were a player in this campaign, I would soon learn to hate the idea of playing this campaign that does not allow any place for my backstory relevant characters to appear. That would suck, I would then hate all of these fantasy characters that the DM wrote in, plus they aren't real anyway. I'm leaving this table, what a disappointment.
So that's why I'm here, to ask, "Can we salvage this concept of a Homebrew DnD Campaign."
I was thinking on a way to patch this gapping hole in my cool idea not too long ago.
"The Storybook, being magical, has the ability to scan and dissect the collective surface and dormant memories of whoever it sucks in and materializes those memories into the world of the book."
Just moments ago I went, "Yes, I found a great way to fix my problem!" Then I soon remembered that the players do indeed know that they are stuck inside a Storybook. Nothing is real to them. So the projected memories thing would still not solve this problem.
So here I am, I came to a place where my question can be ultimately answered. Whether it's a great suggestion that I'd have to credit for, shooting down this idea for it is doomed to fail, or someone going "This isn't the right topic for this thread to be placed in," I am ready for anyone to give me any finite answer!
Hope this goes well, be nice, Scrub.
Not every campaign needs to have a backstory and character arcs. Instead of characters being connected to the plot you can reward you characters with fun gameplay. This is pretty much how I see every store-bought adventure/module running....players are just along for the ride.
Backstory is not always necessary.
And who is to say that the backstory needs to be implemented at the start of the campaign?
Sometime during the adventure, maybe as part of a quest, the PCs need to find a book. If they open the book, *POP* in they go *end session*
Find a fairy tale, make sure all of the players read it as reference for the next session.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
OH! This crucial part flew by my head while making the initial post!
I planned for the whole campaign to be involved within the book!
The idea from @Wysperra is a real solution, however, I intend to open the campaign with having the party go on their first quest to retrieve the book and bring it back to this scholar.
This Scholar would then bring the party to his office, he would briefly explain the significance of this book. Suddenly cast a high level spell to freeze them in place from where they're sitting, or standing, suck them into this book, thus beginning the real start of the campaign, all within the book. The campaign ends with it by escaping the book, the Scholar is the BBEG Final enemy, beating them up, and wrapping up the campaign on that ending.
Should've opened up this forum with that, I cannot believe I left out crucial information! But now that I'm typing this out, if I were to guess, this process I'm explaining kinda sounds like Railroading, but I'm sure you awesome people can answer that for me.
So with that explained, how would we go about this out now?
What you're describing reminds me of the '80s D&D Cartoon Series. All of the characters had a backstory that had *absolutely* nothing to do with the world or why they were there. So for this being a dumb idea.... naw. Not even.
Not allowing a place for your backstory? Not entirely true. Everyone is trying to get back to their own specific backstory. Glimpses can be had, voices could be heard. Quests could be dropped in front of the party to lure them towards their goal of getting out. From my POV, the characters would be reliant upon their desire to get home as motivation to adventure, and their background as the method that they use to do it. During the course of the adventure there would be plenty of opportunity for people to get homesick, have memories of who and what was left behind that was important, and opportunities to be reminded of why it's important for them to get out of this environment.
The Neverending Story was also a good trope about characters in a book being effected by outside events. Your idea is no worse than any others that I've seen. Actually kinda similar.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Careful here.
You have an unmovable destination in mind. You need your party to do all of the things you listed here. You need them to do these things despite probably realizing there is danger involved and/or not wanting to.
You've created a flaming hoop and expect them to freely, willingly, and without coaching to jump through it. And if they don't do so, it ruins your entire campaign idea.
You may want to reconsider this. Turn this bit into the backstory and start here, describe it narratively at the start, instead of running it as a RP session. Otherwise you're openly inviting your entire campaign to either 1. Feel railroaded as you're forced to take increasingly more and more intervention to force this result. B, for them to entirely surprise you and derail the entire thing.
Why? Why is he the BBEG? What is his motivation? Why did sending a bunch of weaklings (low level) into a storybook, a situation where they could theoretically arm and train themselves and power up (get high level)... help him?
There are plenty of ways to answer these questions. But having some idea why any of this is happening makes his behavior and actions make sense.
As for how to make people care?
Make sure they know that other people have been sucked into this storybook already. Make them aware that anyone in this storybook would might actually be a real person or might not be, and make sure they know there isn't any real way of knowing. Some remember being sucked in, maybe others don't.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Aw! I love Neverending Story!
But you do indeed bring a great tip. Have the player's goals, friends, and acquaintances be the driving motivation on getting out!
Combining that with my idea of having projected memories take place within the world of the book, I can narrate that the player's character is then reminded by these not real memories, they have a purpose to fulfill in the outside world and must find a way to escape the book! Yes!
That's a great suggestion! Thank you! Now I gotta watch Neverending Story again. Should I just see the first film? Or see the whole Trilogy? I honestly forgot!
FYI -- one of the standard openings/story hooks for Curse of Strahd is "you are kidnapped/taken by the Mists and dropped into Barovia, a place you've never ever heard of before and which has no connection to your character's backstory"
There's nothing inherently flawed about that campaign idea. Characters with detailed backstories/strong connections back in the "real world" just have even more incentive to escape the Storybook world. Knowing it's "just a fairy tale" doesn't make it any less lethal. And there's nothing saying the characters in the party are the only people from the "real world" that have been transported to the campaign world.. Maybe while they're trapped, the BBEG is sending more people into the book. Or maybe a character with an adventuring ancestor who mysteriously disappeared on a quest bumps into their great-grandparent, still at the age when they disappeared... there's all kinds of tropes and ideas you can play around with
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Aw yeah, C R I T I C I S M ! I love it! Okay, Let's see if I can't answer these. Starting with....
^ This quote.
Yes, the Scholar does have a motivation on sucking these fledgling adventurers. The Scholar has been working on this book for, I'd say a decade. By infusing magical code into this book, he's preparing to extract the powerful contents within the lines of what's described as Magical Items forged by the Gods of Creation and Balance. These Magical items are much more powerful than the Magical Items in reality.
The problem is, there's no way he can go in there, gather his Sigils, and not act suspicious to the characters of the Book. For they, the chosen ones, can kick his ass. His work around is to influence weak and desperate adventurers to lure into his scheme, so he can suck them in and give them a reason to get out, involving his Sigils. He even coded an obvious way to get out, by having these magical items, they can be used for a ritual to open a gate, the way out of the book. They'd have to leave behind these items at the ritual site. Once they leave, the Scholar can pick up those Magical items from the site, and kick their asses in with these items, ensuing the Final Boss. So yeah, its the usual, "Bad guy seeking to rule the world with an Iron Fist," plot. There is to note, I plan for the party finding multiple ways of getting out, other than the 'Obvious Gateway' out. Like the Astral Plain and the Warlock Fiend's influence and stuff.
This magical coding the Scholar is written in is the following 2 things:
-1: He wrote in these little Sigils that allows the wearer to wield the Magical items created by the Gods. Why? With the original text saying, only the chosen people can wield these Items for they serve the Gods of Creation and Balance. By having these adventurers be in the book, the Scholar has left breadcrumbs for them to find them, gather them, so the Scholar could just steal them and become all the more powerful.
Also, this brings a fun thing for the party to get accustomed to. They can wear the Sigils to wield these items, but the catch is the Sigils only allows the wearer to pick it up. The magical items would not accept them right away, for they are not the chosen ones. So these special homebrew items would have this humongous attunement bar to fill, ranging from the Common magical tag, and work their way up to the Legendary magical tag.
-2: He added motivations for some of the chosen ones who can be manipulated into finding a way out for themselves. This causes them to betray their factions from the text of the book for their selfish goals in escaping into the real world themselves and serve the Scholar, for he coded in them that they see him as their Master. These programed chosen ones would cause havoc, involving: causing friends to fight each other, killing off important characters, as well as gathering the Sigils and finding even more ways to obtain the Magical Items. I love making multiple evil villains who are not entirely working together, so I think this is a great way of storytelling and conflicts.
Alright, uh... Next quote!
This is what I'm most afraid of. I'm aware of Railroading, I've been a part of some Railroading before, I've even heard worse horror stories even. I will not leave this thread until we can solve this Railroading problem for good.
That being said, let's discuss the Session #1. How do we start it?
I came up with 2 introductions so far:
-1: The Party would start the campaign in a waiting room, for they all received a letter by the Scholar, listing an adventure to retrieve the 'Stolen Magical items that can end the world' or something like that... There, they can introduce their characters and chat a little bit before the Scholar invites them into his office, briefing them on the mission, then freezing them and sucking them in. Now the party has a reason to get out, someone to hate and want to get back at, but all fall into the Scholar's scheme of gathering the Magical Items.
-2: Start the party and their characters in their rooms or places of rest, open up their doors or wonder into fog and all gathered up in this white void. They would all be confused, they'll all make their introductions, either wonder together or split off finding a way out. Finally they'd walk into the world of the book. They'd have no idea they're in a book at first, they might remember that an evil Scholar sucked them in perhaps, and adventure in the world of the book. They would find out that this is all not real and seeks a way to escape it.
If you think of any ideas of your own, just comment away! I'd be happy to read them all!
Finally we have....
^ This quote!
Great suggestion! Maybe the Scholar has already been sucking people into this book! They could confuse the party by spouting out stuff like, "None of this is real!" or "There's gotta be a way out!" But personally, I don't intend on making those NPCs core characters. I was thinking of having the characters of the book be what the party would interact more with. But now that I'm typed that, I'm doing it again, I'm railroading the party into steering the focus away from these reality NPCs! Let me know if I should go about it either, the way I feel or what the party wants to focus.
HOO boy! I hope I explained all that clearly @Ravnodaus ! I can't wait on how'd you respond!
Every DM does it to some extent or another. The nature of preparing the game creates some expectations that you have a semblance of a path for them, or even in some cases a iron-clad, steel reinforced railway. The trick isn't always not having paths for them to walk...it is not letting them think they're not allowed off the paths. When they step off your story-trail, don't immediately shove them back onto your path forcefully.
Anyway, more to the specifics here, you have more than just aa path, more than a trail, you have an exact pinpoint destination you need them to reach, without fail, or else your campaign can't even happen. Right? They must retrieve the book, bring it to the guy, and then fail to save against a spell effect. That is a huge ask for a party to just stumble their way into doing on their own.
These could work, sure. How your storyline resolves isn't the hard part for handling this. What will make or break this campaign start point is your narrative framework.
Let's look at 2 ways to handle it:
1. You introduce the scholar, he narrates the mission for them, you start doing skill challenges or a fight or whatever as they seek out the book. Maybe they succeed. Maybe they get bored and go find a bar. Who knows. IF they get the book, and IF they bring it back to the guy, they'd have to also not fail their saves against his attempt to trap them or whatever. Lots of ways for this to go wrong and each time it steers off path you're going to have to force things to work. Fudge numbers. Cause events to rearrange themselves to drive the players in the 'correct' direction. Might go well, might be a disaster, no way to know ahead of time.
-or-
2. You narrate the party's return from having retrieved the book, and narrate their handing it over. Then narrate his villain speech, and them reawakening inside the book-world. Then relinquish control and start their game-time interactive play. Skill challenges to figure out whats going on, fight with story-book encounters, etc.
Starting the 'game' at point 1 invites disaster since you NEED it to get to point 2. Starting it at point 2 skips all the potential railroading since you basically narrate the parts that needed to have happened.
Switching between referee and narrator is one of your jobs, as DM, and knowing when to do which is a huge key to avoiding railroading-feel while still keeping the story moving in the general direction it needs to.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Thanks, @Ravnodaus ! I'll refer to this post when doing the first session!
I think this is how I'll describe the Prologue,
I'll starting by not giving the world overview right away, but I'll instead deluge them something about, "Distinguishing what is real life, and what is make belief." or some speech or lesson.
Then, I'll take control of the opening scene with their characters first appearance, without giving any dialogue. Maybe something on the lines of,
"It was a dark a stormy night, a group of adventurers walk inside a college with a mysterious book in hand. There, they exclaim a Man in shades that they've returned. The Man in shades gives out his hand, then askes to relinquish the book to him. After some bargaining, they do so, they give the book to the Man. Suddenly, they all freeze in place! The Man cackles with the book in hand and tells the adventurers are foolish! Then precedes to suck them into the book, as the adventurers true adventure, begins!
Finally at that point, I can continue by using my second idea I wrote down earlier here,
^ This one.
I can start giving the reins of the player's introductions through here, as if that whole introduction didn't happen.
What do you guys think?