Been workshopping an idea for a new campaign. All characters start at 1st level, standard rules except for one important addition: every player may choose one (1) Very Rare magic item. It can be from any book, and the DM has no say in the matter. They can incorporate that item into their history and begin play with it.
PLOT TWIST: during the first session, the players end up facing a difficult choice, the BBEG will blow everyone away unless they fork over the items. Using the items in any way also results in the characters being disintegrated. It’s made abundantly clear the choice is lose your items or die, leaving the campaign.
PLOT TWIST: The players are left with some clues as to where the BBEG went.
PLOT TWIST: When they find the BBEG’s lair, the BBEG is gone but the items have all been destroyed.
PLOT TWIST: The players hear of an archmage that may be able to repair the items.
PLOT TWIST: When they finally get to the archmage, the mage tells them the items have been permanently destroyed. Enterprising players may interpret the campaign gimmick as a goal, and may suggest finding a way to create new versions of the items, maybe even using the pieces to model the items.
PLOT TWIST: If the players try to get around the destruction, they are greeted with another difficulty. Not only have the items been destroyed, the magic that created them was permanently warped. Those particular items are now impossible to recreate, they are effectively globally banned from the campaign world.
PLOT TWIST: Every once in awhile an NPC suggests that maybe there is hope if the BBEG is defeated. Once the party kill him, they find it changes nothing. Other NPCs periodically suggest that the items were important in some way or that something may still be done to get them back. Unfortunately, it’s always a ruse, a pretext to waste the party’s time or accomplish the NPC’s selfish goal. As the campaign progresses, the ruses become less convincing and the NPCs voicing them become less motivated to do so, moving from “I’m using you by lying about the items” to “I’m mocking you, knowing that mentioning them angers you” to a final, terminal energy of “I’m half-heartedly mentioning what is certainly a lie about the items for no apparent gain”.
Basically the rest of the campaign writes itself. Ideally, the BBEG is dead by level 4 and the rest of the action is whatever. The important part is the items and how they’ll never, ever make it into the campaign. Even future games set in the world should not feature them.
Not sure if it needs any more spice, but anyway that’s the idea
You try throwing that many plot "twists" in and A) your players are going to compare you to M. Night Shyamalan and not in a good way and B) they're quickly going to assume that you're just jerking them around and quit believing anything you tell them. Quite frankly, this whole plan smacks unpleasantly of power tripping.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Have considered this, A) if they made that comparison, I’d be flattered. Tell me that you saw the ending to Sixth Sense coming! In a way I want to do something similiar, but instead of the players being dead the whole time, it’s the items that are dead and not coming back. In this scenario, the items are Bruce Willis. Or, the plot around the items are Bruce Willis? Still deciding, like I said, still workshopping :)
B) this is a good point, that’s why I gotta make first few NPCs pop. They need to say things like “why do you think the BBEG wrecked your stuff? The items are the key” and “hey, if only you break this curse or get this done for me you can undo what’s been done to your items (global removal, permanent removal)” we gotta make those count. They are gonna be pissed at subsequent mentions but that’s why I specified the NPCs are basically just sneering at that point. Then that’ll run it’s course, and finally the only mentions of the items is done in a throughly exhausted, pointless way. Ramping the attitude down over time hopefully creates this effect and dampens the “power trip” any PCs might get trying to get around my plot, but I see your point that they often resort to devious means of undermining carefully laid plots
PLOT TWIST: during the first session, the players end up facing a difficult choice, the BBEG will blow everyone away unless they fork over the items. Using the items in any way also results in the characters being disintegrated. It’s made abundantly clear the choice is lose your items or die, leaving the campaign.
Giving your players a fun toy and then saying "now give it back or I will use my unlimited powers as DM to just end your character" is bad DMing. It just feels like you, the DM, were just toying with the players for the sake of toying with them. That is a terrible way to start a campaign--it sets the tone from the very beginning that player agency means nothing, since you are the kind of DM who will just force the plot along, killing any player who stands in your path.
PLOT TWIST: When they find the BBEG’s lair, the BBEG is gone but the items have all been destroyed.
"Oh, remember how I already gave you a present and then took them from you? The plot twist is I was being unnecessarily cruel just to mess with you guys--the BBEG just tossed those items in the trash compactor and called it a day."
PLOT TWIST: When they finally get to the archmage, the mage tells them the items have been permanently destroyed. Enterprising players may interpret the campaign gimmick as a goal, and may suggest finding a way to create new versions of the items, maybe even using the pieces to model the items.
PLOT TWIST: If the players try to get around the destruction, they are greeted with another difficulty. Not only have the items been destroyed, the magic that created them was permanently warped. Those particular items are now impossible to recreate, they are effectively globally banned from the campaign world.
"Haha, you know how you wanted to play D&D because D&D allows you to do anything you want and come up with clever solutions to problems? Yeah, I am not going to allow you to do that--take that 'enterprising players!'"
PLOT TWIST: Every once in awhile an NPC suggests that maybe there is hope if the BBEG is defeated. Once the party kill him, they find it changes nothing. Other NPCs periodically suggest that the items were important in some way or that something may still be done to get them back. Unfortunately, it’s always a ruse, a pretext to waste the party’s time or accomplish the NPC’s selfish goal. As the campaign progresses, the ruses become less convincing and the NPCs voicing them become less motivated to do so, moving from “I’m using you by lying about the items” to “I’m mocking you, knowing that mentioning them angers you” to a final, terminal energy of “I’m half-heartedly mentioning what is certainly a lie about the items for no apparent gain”.
You are literally saying your goal as a DM is to constantly put in objectives to "waste the party's time". That's inexcusable. Stall a party sometimes? Yes. Maybe send them on a silly side quest to buy you time to prep the next part of your main campaign? Sure. Have "waste the party's time" as a primary goal? Any self-respecting player would leave your campaign posthaste.
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Now, normally, I am fairly adverse to critiquing someone's campaign ideas without offering in-depth fixes, but your idea--and the open contempt it shows for your players' enjoyment--makes me doubt the utility in offering suggestions to refine your idea. After all, before your idea can be refined, you must first recognize the significant portions which are rotten to their very core. At this time, I am not sure you get that based on your follow-up post, where you seem to think 6thLyranGuard was commenting on your players having a power trip. They were, in fact, talking about you, the DM, going on a power trip with all this incessant messing with your players for no reason other than messing with them.
Yeah, I was not comparing this plot to The Sixth Sense (which was a twist that I actually did see coming, thanks to having read a Goosebumps story with an identical twist as a kid), I was comparing it to The Happening or The Last Airbender.
The idea that there's a Big Bad Evil Guy who's going to take these magic items and destroy them so thoroughly that not only are they irrevocably destroyed but so are every other copy of those items in the world forever is just horrendously bad by itself. But then the PCs are supposed to beat this guy at level four? Sorry, but that's really not remotely believable. It's definitely not going to come across as remotely fun for the group: how is this foe simultaneously so cosmically destructive and yet simultaneously so weak? It'd be like Lord of the Rings if it turned out in Rivendale that yes, the One Ring actually is vulnerable to a dwarf hitting it with an axe.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The Sixth Sense worked because while there were clues that indicated the Big Reveal, they were subtle and the Big Reveal wasn't present in the public consciousness. Due to Sixth Sense's popularity, you can't really pull it off these days. In fact, Unbreakable played on people's investigative attitudes created by Sixth Sense in order to keep the suspense going for its less dramatic Reveal. The Village played on it to lead people to the opposite conclusion.
What I'm saying is, the instant you hand me an object intended for L11+, I'm going to be looking for your move to take it away from me again, or it's cursed, or in someway persuade me to not use it. Your first "plot twist" isn't going to elicit any reaction other than "...and there it is". Any attempt to persuade me that I can get it back not long after will be met with skepticism and the expectation that I'm being teased and led down the garden path.
Honestly? Best case scenario if I were a player ijnthis campaign, I'm not engaged by the plot and instead enjoy the other aspects of the game. Kind of like when you read a book for the second time - you're not reading it for the plot twists, but enjoying the other trappings. Worst case scenario, I'm actually engaged and I just get frustrated by your antics. Want to know the effect of constantly teasing people with people they want? Watch National Treasure 2. You see how the Gates family feel about the treasure? After constantly coming across clues, solve them, only to be "rewarded" with more clues? Yeah, that's pretty realistic, and having fun isn't how I'd describe it.
At best, your energy and effort will be ignored and wasted. At worst, well, what would you do?
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
To make a BBEG work I think it’s good for them to have some goals that truly inspire fear/anger from the players. This one’s trait is knowing the players have powerful magic and hating it above all else. If they want to direct their ire at anyone it should be the BBEG, they’ll just learn that slaying him doesn’t mean the damage is undone. Sometimes it IS too late. Luckily, on the other hand, the suggestion from other NPCs that the items were an important key to the campaign doesn’t appear to be true from what I can tell, so fortuitously, their destruction only matters so much.
even though my idea is internally rotted I appreciate you still going point by point through it, letting me know what you predicted. Looking for something similar from the players who I assume will be moved to continue despite such initial, followed by prolonged, apprehension. I’m not sure what LyranGuard meant but either way it caused me to think more about how a frustrated player might try to derail things so it’s a win-win
Really like your point about the Sixth Sense and I want to incorporate your feedback—you’re right, there should be more subtle clues rather than just a clue where the BBEG is staying. Here are a few ideas—
VILLAGER OUTSIDE BBEG DUNGEON
”BBEG lives in there. It’s said that he he can detect powerful magic items, and hates them. He destroys them with impunity”
ARCHMAGE CASTLE
described like the wizard of Oz castle. Clever players will discern it’s a reference. Even more clever players will realize it’s a suggestion the archmage holds no true power.
MERCHANT IN CAPITAL CITY
He’s selling items that look EXACTLY like the items that were destroyed. If they talk to the merchant he says they are “replicas. I have an interest in lost magic, the kind of magic that can never be restored” with an insight of at least 12, they can tell he’s telling the truth. The magic items aren’t real, and the items they are based on are not coming back. It’s also honest that he has an interest in that.
After about the third plot twist I was bored and frustrated and that was just from me reading this. I can only imagine how much worse it would be to play in it as a campaign.
This sounds like a "How far would you go to get your magic item back" literally followed by you stating the the rest of the campaign is ....whatever
Granted, a lot can depend on execution and the methods with which you tell the story, but I wouldn't really call this a campaign. If anything its a ploy or a hook, but the story is missing - just a hunt for magic items.
I appreciate that sometimes a little railroading can be necessary to set a scene, but this method seems kinda cruel - letting them get this amazing item, only to categorically take it away with no options
What happens if the players go "You know what - I am ok without my +3 double-bladed scimitar"?
Between the first and second PLOT TWISTS lies the entire campaign - since the party won't be powerful enough to deal with the BBEG until they've been adventuring the entire campaign.
Great point about the +3 scimitar. Acceptance is one of the valid answers. Players do have choices in this game, and choosing to go on without pursuing them is valid. That being said, there will be constant references to the scimitar. Flashbacks to the first 10 mins of the campaign with the character holding the blade, NPCs in town (“weren’t you the guy with the scimitar?”), maybe lovers/friends changing their feelings do to its loss (“you were more fun when you had the scimitar, now I’m moving on”). Acceptance is a healthy choice but they’ll find they are still caught up in a network of signs sustained and held by pure lack
That’s how most campaigns work. In this one, the BBEG is discovered in an underground fortress around level 4. They can be slain instantly, and the BBEG never returns. This solves the problem of the PCs having to grind away for XP for so long. At this point the BBEG dies happily anyway, as his raison detre is to have destroyed something so beautiful as the items. Before they slay them, he’ll note that since their destruction he’s felt full and happy, and is ready now to accept death.
Trolling your players is a great way to never play D&D with them again. Plot twist doesn't mean what you think it means - each of these is a plot hook, any of which your players may not bite on. I think your plan falls apart when you anticipate players are going to try to go after a BBEG that just beat them AND took all their magic items. Like, yes, we are weaker, now is our time!
Though I could see this kind of overall plot line working as a single item in a town that was very important to the town being perma-destroyed by a BBEG, with an open-ended campaign goal to restore the item or its functionality. The characters might chase down rumors, hit dead ends, but should eventually find The Answer - if nothing else, than at least through a Wish. Like maybe there was a giant immovable rod that is key to an enormous water wheel working, a water wheel that pushed water from a magically refilling lake to feed all the rivers of the land. And the BBEG utterly destroyed the rod, the wheel fell and was damaged, the town ends up flooded, and as the years go by, the land dries up more and more. Then maybe the few able to cast Wish in the entire land come to try and restore things to the way they were, but wishes to restore the magic of the rod fail because that magic no longer exists and is blocked from returning by a stronger power, wishes for the water to automatically flow works only for the current volume of water in the lake, and so on, with each person casting Wish and failing loosing the ability to ever cast it again. Only a Wish for the BBEG to fail at destroying the item in the past will work, and having gone through the trials and ordeals to get to the point the party can achieve this - whatever level that may be - the players should see decades pass where they develop relationships with the NPC's, see new generations born, and ultimately have the final decision to make - undo all of this, all of the hardships and strife and suffering brought about by this evil act as they originally set out to do, or continue forward in the world with the people they have come to know and love, hardships be damned?
Yeah if I were playing in this game, I think I would take the loss of my magic item in stride, knowing in the meta-sense that I wasn't meant to keep it anyways since I'm only level 1. Then after the first "Gotcha!" I would say something like "oh no! Anyways..." and say let's go find a dungeon and maybe find more cool loot there.
I think a way more compelling gimmick for a campaign centered around the magic items would be if you let the level 1 characters keep the magic items, but have them level up slowly or not at all. Make it so most of the abilities they have come from the legendary artifact they carry, and they have to deal with being under-leveled against the opponents they face, using their artifacts more strategically. Maybe they only ever reach a max of level 3, but they can even find *more* high level artifacts to offset the lack of experience, so their kit of magic items essentially becomes their class. That would be a more intetedting magic item centered twist.
Side note: "I don't love you anymore because you don't have the sword" sounds unnatural. Like it's something someone would only say to make your campaign work, and as a player I'd be instantly turned off by it.
Yeah if I were playing in this game, I think I would take the loss of my magic item in stride, knowing in the meta-sense that I wasn't meant to keep it anyways since I'm only level 1. Then after the first "Gotcha!" I would say something like "oh no! Anyways..." and say let's go find a dungeon and maybe find more cool loot there.
I think a way more compelling gimmick for a campaign centered around the magic items would be if you let the level 1 characters keep the magic items, but have them level up slowly or not at all. Make it so most of the abilities they have come from the legendary artifact they carry, and they have to deal with being under-leveled against the opponents they face, using their artifacts more strategically. Maybe they only ever reach a max of level 3, but they can even find *more* high level artifacts to offset the lack of experience, so their kit of magic items essentially becomes their class. That would be a more intetedting magic item centered twist.
Side note: "I don't love you anymore because you don't have the sword" sounds unnatural. Like it's something someone would only say to make your campaign work, and as a player I'd be instantly turned off by it.
An interesting alternative idea, but yeah, you're gonna find that there will be call backs to the item despite your acceptance of its loss. That lover? She was there because people saw you were a great warrior because of the object, but now it's gone, strangers no longer gravitate to you, the luster apparently worn off. Though loss of love due to material loss may sound harsh, I don't think it's necessarily arbitrary. That being said, there will be more subtle ways of reminding you what you lost even after accepting it: say one player had a belt of fire giant strength. They'll run across an iron door that can't be moved, but will realize if they still had the belt, they could have moved it. They'll run across creatures blinded or destroyed by daylight, and have flashbacks to the loss of the Helm of Brilliance. Encounters will be built with the missing items in mind.
That’s how most campaigns work. In this one, the BBEG is discovered in an underground fortress around level 4. They can be slain instantly, and the BBEG never returns. This solves the problem of the PCs having to grind away for XP for so long. At this point the BBEG dies happily anyway, as his raison detre is to have destroyed something so beautiful as the items. Before they slay them, he’ll note that since their destruction he’s felt full and happy, and is ready now to accept death.
This new “twist” is also problematic. From a player perspective it reads “All the effort you put into finding and fighting me? I, the DM, decree your victory was only because I let you win because my NPC wanted to die.” Players do not like to feel as if they are being let off easy—and certainly not in the capstone of an entire campaign. It leaves a sickening feeling that the entire campaign was predetermined from the start, and all their time was wasted.
In response to an earlier post, it is also important to note that, while it is important to give the players a reason to fear or hate the BBEG, the real trick to DMing is not doing so in a manner where they hate you, the DM. Everything you post here hits a DMing red flag—railroading the players into failure after failure, taking away any thrill of victory, doing things for no real plot reason other than trolling your players, and, most importantly, needling people when they do not want to engage with your tomfoolery, refusing to listen to the fact that every single respondent has told you “your post is a huge red flag for a bad campaign”. After all, if you are ignoring warnings given on a thread where you are seeking out feedback, why is there any expectation you would heed the inevitable, unsolicited complaints of your players in the game?
Again, there are ways to fix this idea and turn it into something fun, but you need to first abandon your assumption that what you have would be fun. It might be fun to you—but DMing, even in DM v. Player dynamics, is about making things fun for everybody. Right now, you are DMing for yourself; you need to try a bit more empathetic DMing if you want your idea to be successful.
That’s how most campaigns work. In this one, the BBEG is discovered in an underground fortress around level 4. They can be slain instantly, and the BBEG never returns. This solves the problem of the PCs having to grind away for XP for so long. At this point the BBEG dies happily anyway, as his raison detre is to have destroyed something so beautiful as the items. Before they slay them, he’ll note that since their destruction he’s felt full and happy, and is ready now to accept death.
This new “twist” is also problematic. From a player perspective it reads “All the effort you put into finding and fighting me? I, the DM, decree your victory was only because I let you win because my NPC wanted to die.” Players do not like to feel as if they are being let off easy—and certainly not in the capstone of an entire campaign. It leaves a sickening feeling that the entire campaign was predetermined from the start, and all their time was wasted.
In response to an earlier post, it is also important to note that, while it is important to give the players a reason to fear or hate the BBEG, the real trick to DMing is not doing so in a manner where they hate you, the DM. Everything you post here hits a DMing red flag—railroading the players into failure after failure, taking away any thrill of victory, doing things for no real plot reason other than trolling your players, and, most importantly, needling people when they do not want to engage with your tomfoolery, refusing to listen to the fact that every single respondent has told you “your post is a huge red flag for a bad campaign”. After all, if you are ignoring warnings given on a thread where you are seeking out feedback, why is there any expectation you would heed the inevitable, unsolicited complaints of your players in the game?
Again, there are ways to fix this idea and turn it into something fun, but you need to first abandon your assumption that what you have would be fun. It might be fun to you—but DMing, even in DM v. Player dynamics, is about making things fun for everybody. Right now, you are DMing for yourself; you need to try a bit more empathetic DMing if you want your idea to be successful.
I'm attempting to DM for a party of 4-5 PCs, lv 1 with one Very Rare Magic item apiece, so not just for myself. I want to do this in an empathetic way, one of my strategies might be asking some pre-campaign questions about why they value the item so I can be more specific about the feelings associated with its loss
That’s how most campaigns work. In this one, the BBEG is discovered in an underground fortress around level 4. They can be slain instantly, and the BBEG never returns. This solves the problem of the PCs having to grind away for XP for so long. At this point the BBEG dies happily anyway, as his raison detre is to have destroyed something so beautiful as the items. Before they slay them, he’ll note that since their destruction he’s felt full and happy, and is ready now to accept death.
This new “twist” is also problematic. From a player perspective it reads “All the effort you put into finding and fighting me? I, the DM, decree your victory was only because I let you win because my NPC wanted to die.” Players do not like to feel as if they are being let off easy—and certainly not in the capstone of an entire campaign. It leaves a sickening feeling that the entire campaign was predetermined from the start, and all their time was wasted.
In response to an earlier post, it is also important to note that, while it is important to give the players a reason to fear or hate the BBEG, the real trick to DMing is not doing so in a manner where they hate you, the DM. Everything you post here hits a DMing red flag—railroading the players into failure after failure, taking away any thrill of victory, doing things for no real plot reason other than trolling your players, and, most importantly, needling people when they do not want to engage with your tomfoolery, refusing to listen to the fact that every single respondent has told you “your post is a huge red flag for a bad campaign”. After all, if you are ignoring warnings given on a thread where you are seeking out feedback, why is there any expectation you would heed the inevitable, unsolicited complaints of your players in the game?
Again, there are ways to fix this idea and turn it into something fun, but you need to first abandon your assumption that what you have would be fun. It might be fun to you—but DMing, even in DM v. Player dynamics, is about making things fun for everybody. Right now, you are DMing for yourself; you need to try a bit more empathetic DMing if you want your idea to be successful.
I'm attempting to DM for a party of 4-5 PCs, lv 1 with one Very Rare Magic item apiece, so not just for myself. I want to do this in an empathetic way, one of my strategies might be asking some pre-campaign questions about why they value the item so I can be more specific about the feelings associated with its loss
"Doing something for one’s self” does not mean that you are playing alone - it means you are setting a situation up for your own enjoyment, at the expense of your players. And the fact that you define empathy not as “think of how to make my players have fun” but “think of how I can better make this unpleasant for them” really speaks to my concerns that you are putting your own enjoyment and your own idea of how the campaign should be over the others in your group.
Yeah if I were playing in this game, I think I would take the loss of my magic item in stride, knowing in the meta-sense that I wasn't meant to keep it anyways since I'm only level 1. Then after the first "Gotcha!" I would say something like "oh no! Anyways..." and say let's go find a dungeon and maybe find more cool loot there.
I think a way more compelling gimmick for a campaign centered around the magic items would be if you let the level 1 characters keep the magic items, but have them level up slowly or not at all. Make it so most of the abilities they have come from the legendary artifact they carry, and they have to deal with being under-leveled against the opponents they face, using their artifacts more strategically. Maybe they only ever reach a max of level 3, but they can even find *more* high level artifacts to offset the lack of experience, so their kit of magic items essentially becomes their class. That would be a more intetedting magic item centered twist.
Side note: "I don't love you anymore because you don't have the sword" sounds unnatural. Like it's something someone would only say to make your campaign work, and as a player I'd be instantly turned off by it.
An interesting alternative idea, but yeah, you're gonna find that there will be call backs to the item despite your acceptance of its loss. That lover? She was there because people saw you were a great warrior because of the object, but now it's gone, strangers no longer gravitate to you, the luster apparently worn off. Though loss of love due to material loss may sound harsh, I don't think it's necessarily arbitrary. That being said, there will be more subtle ways of reminding you what you lost even after accepting it: say one player had a belt of fire giant strength. They'll run across an iron door that can't be moved, but will realize if they still had the belt, they could have moved it. They'll run across creatures blinded or destroyed by daylight, and have flashbacks to the loss of the Helm of Brilliance. Encounters will be built with the missing items in mind.
I still think presenting these items as the keys to unlock gameplay avenues to inscentivize the players to quest after them without any intention of the players succeeding and actually unlocking those gameplay avenues seems like you're tricking them needlessly into playing the game.
Like, yes, they'll encounter a door that could only be opened if they still had the gauntlets of super strength. But the gauntlets no longer exist. Magic has been warped so the gauntlets cannot ever exist again. This door can never be opened. Why include the door? To make the player want the gauntlets. Why do the players want the gauntlets? To open the door. It's an endless loop, and therfore without an end it is without a point. I just feel like there's something else you could center a plot around to motivate your players that isn't so DM-serving.
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Been workshopping an idea for a new campaign. All characters start at 1st level, standard rules except for one important addition: every player may choose one (1) Very Rare magic item. It can be from any book, and the DM has no say in the matter. They can incorporate that item into their history and begin play with it.
PLOT TWIST: during the first session, the players end up facing a difficult choice, the BBEG will blow everyone away unless they fork over the items. Using the items in any way also results in the characters being disintegrated. It’s made abundantly clear the choice is lose your items or die, leaving the campaign.
PLOT TWIST: The players are left with some clues as to where the BBEG went.
PLOT TWIST: When they find the BBEG’s lair, the BBEG is gone but the items have all been destroyed.
PLOT TWIST: The players hear of an archmage that may be able to repair the items.
PLOT TWIST: When they finally get to the archmage, the mage tells them the items have been permanently destroyed. Enterprising players may interpret the campaign gimmick as a goal, and may suggest finding a way to create new versions of the items, maybe even using the pieces to model the items.
PLOT TWIST: If the players try to get around the destruction, they are greeted with another difficulty. Not only have the items been destroyed, the magic that created them was permanently warped. Those particular items are now impossible to recreate, they are effectively globally banned from the campaign world.
PLOT TWIST: Every once in awhile an NPC suggests that maybe there is hope if the BBEG is defeated. Once the party kill him, they find it changes nothing. Other NPCs periodically suggest that the items were important in some way or that something may still be done to get them back. Unfortunately, it’s always a ruse, a pretext to waste the party’s time or accomplish the NPC’s selfish goal. As the campaign progresses, the ruses become less convincing and the NPCs voicing them become less motivated to do so, moving from “I’m using you by lying about the items” to “I’m mocking you, knowing that mentioning them angers you” to a final, terminal energy of “I’m half-heartedly mentioning what is certainly a lie about the items for no apparent gain”.
Basically the rest of the campaign writes itself. Ideally, the BBEG is dead by level 4 and the rest of the action is whatever. The important part is the items and how they’ll never, ever make it into the campaign. Even future games set in the world should not feature them.
Not sure if it needs any more spice, but anyway that’s the idea
You try throwing that many plot "twists" in and A) your players are going to compare you to M. Night Shyamalan and not in a good way and B) they're quickly going to assume that you're just jerking them around and quit believing anything you tell them. Quite frankly, this whole plan smacks unpleasantly of power tripping.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Have considered this, A) if they made that comparison, I’d be flattered. Tell me that you saw the ending to Sixth Sense coming! In a way I want to do something similiar, but instead of the players being dead the whole time, it’s the items that are dead and not coming back. In this scenario, the items are Bruce Willis. Or, the plot around the items are Bruce Willis? Still deciding, like I said, still workshopping :)
B) this is a good point, that’s why I gotta make first few NPCs pop. They need to say things like “why do you think the BBEG wrecked your stuff? The items are the key” and “hey, if only you break this curse or get this done for me you can undo what’s been done to your items (global removal, permanent removal)” we gotta make those count. They are gonna be pissed at subsequent mentions but that’s why I specified the NPCs are basically just sneering at that point. Then that’ll run it’s course, and finally the only mentions of the items is done in a throughly exhausted, pointless way. Ramping the attitude down over time hopefully creates this effect and dampens the “power trip” any PCs might get trying to get around my plot, but I see your point that they often resort to devious means of undermining carefully laid plots
Giving your players a fun toy and then saying "now give it back or I will use my unlimited powers as DM to just end your character" is bad DMing. It just feels like you, the DM, were just toying with the players for the sake of toying with them. That is a terrible way to start a campaign--it sets the tone from the very beginning that player agency means nothing, since you are the kind of DM who will just force the plot along, killing any player who stands in your path.
That's not a plot twist, that's just how a campaign works--you get the call to action and receive clues on how to move forward.
"Oh, remember how I already gave you a present and then took them from you? The plot twist is I was being unnecessarily cruel just to mess with you guys--the BBEG just tossed those items in the trash compactor and called it a day."
"Plot twist again! I am still just toying with you! By this point you should just expect the archmage is a trap or hoax or something."
Called it.
"Haha, you know how you wanted to play D&D because D&D allows you to do anything you want and come up with clever solutions to problems? Yeah, I am not going to allow you to do that--take that 'enterprising players!'"
You are literally saying your goal as a DM is to constantly put in objectives to "waste the party's time". That's inexcusable. Stall a party sometimes? Yes. Maybe send them on a silly side quest to buy you time to prep the next part of your main campaign? Sure. Have "waste the party's time" as a primary goal? Any self-respecting player would leave your campaign posthaste.
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Now, normally, I am fairly adverse to critiquing someone's campaign ideas without offering in-depth fixes, but your idea--and the open contempt it shows for your players' enjoyment--makes me doubt the utility in offering suggestions to refine your idea. After all, before your idea can be refined, you must first recognize the significant portions which are rotten to their very core. At this time, I am not sure you get that based on your follow-up post, where you seem to think 6thLyranGuard was commenting on your players having a power trip. They were, in fact, talking about you, the DM, going on a power trip with all this incessant messing with your players for no reason other than messing with them.
Yeah, I was not comparing this plot to The Sixth Sense (which was a twist that I actually did see coming, thanks to having read a Goosebumps story with an identical twist as a kid), I was comparing it to The Happening or The Last Airbender.
The idea that there's a Big Bad Evil Guy who's going to take these magic items and destroy them so thoroughly that not only are they irrevocably destroyed but so are every other copy of those items in the world forever is just horrendously bad by itself. But then the PCs are supposed to beat this guy at level four? Sorry, but that's really not remotely believable. It's definitely not going to come across as remotely fun for the group: how is this foe simultaneously so cosmically destructive and yet simultaneously so weak? It'd be like Lord of the Rings if it turned out in Rivendale that yes, the One Ring actually is vulnerable to a dwarf hitting it with an axe.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The Sixth Sense worked because while there were clues that indicated the Big Reveal, they were subtle and the Big Reveal wasn't present in the public consciousness. Due to Sixth Sense's popularity, you can't really pull it off these days. In fact, Unbreakable played on people's investigative attitudes created by Sixth Sense in order to keep the suspense going for its less dramatic Reveal. The Village played on it to lead people to the opposite conclusion.
What I'm saying is, the instant you hand me an object intended for L11+, I'm going to be looking for your move to take it away from me again, or it's cursed, or in someway persuade me to not use it. Your first "plot twist" isn't going to elicit any reaction other than "...and there it is". Any attempt to persuade me that I can get it back not long after will be met with skepticism and the expectation that I'm being teased and led down the garden path.
Honestly? Best case scenario if I were a player ijnthis campaign, I'm not engaged by the plot and instead enjoy the other aspects of the game. Kind of like when you read a book for the second time - you're not reading it for the plot twists, but enjoying the other trappings. Worst case scenario, I'm actually engaged and I just get frustrated by your antics. Want to know the effect of constantly teasing people with people they want? Watch National Treasure 2. You see how the Gates family feel about the treasure? After constantly coming across clues, solve them, only to be "rewarded" with more clues? Yeah, that's pretty realistic, and having fun isn't how I'd describe it.
At best, your energy and effort will be ignored and wasted. At worst, well, what would you do?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
To make a BBEG work I think it’s good for them to have some goals that truly inspire fear/anger from the players. This one’s trait is knowing the players have powerful magic and hating it above all else. If they want to direct their ire at anyone it should be the BBEG, they’ll just learn that slaying him doesn’t mean the damage is undone. Sometimes it IS too late. Luckily, on the other hand, the suggestion from other NPCs that the items were an important key to the campaign doesn’t appear to be true from what I can tell, so fortuitously, their destruction only matters so much.
even though my idea is internally rotted I appreciate you still going point by point through it, letting me know what you predicted. Looking for something similar from the players who I assume will be moved to continue despite such initial, followed by prolonged, apprehension. I’m not sure what LyranGuard meant but either way it caused me to think more about how a frustrated player might try to derail things so it’s a win-win
Really like your point about the Sixth Sense and I want to incorporate your feedback—you’re right, there should be more subtle clues rather than just a clue where the BBEG is staying. Here are a few ideas—
VILLAGER OUTSIDE BBEG DUNGEON
”BBEG lives in there. It’s said that he he can detect powerful magic items, and hates them. He destroys them with impunity”
ARCHMAGE CASTLE
described like the wizard of Oz castle. Clever players will discern it’s a reference. Even more clever players will realize it’s a suggestion the archmage holds no true power.
MERCHANT IN CAPITAL CITY
He’s selling items that look EXACTLY like the items that were destroyed. If they talk to the merchant he says they are “replicas. I have an interest in lost magic, the kind of magic that can never be restored” with an insight of at least 12, they can tell he’s telling the truth. The magic items aren’t real, and the items they are based on are not coming back. It’s also honest that he has an interest in that.
After about the third plot twist I was bored and frustrated and that was just from me reading this. I can only imagine how much worse it would be to play in it as a campaign.
This sounds like a "How far would you go to get your magic item back" literally followed by you stating the the rest of the campaign is ....whatever
Granted, a lot can depend on execution and the methods with which you tell the story, but I wouldn't really call this a campaign. If anything its a ploy or a hook, but the story is missing - just a hunt for magic items.
I appreciate that sometimes a little railroading can be necessary to set a scene, but this method seems kinda cruel - letting them get this amazing item, only to categorically take it away with no options
What happens if the players go "You know what - I am ok without my +3 double-bladed scimitar"?
Between the first and second PLOT TWISTS lies the entire campaign - since the party won't be powerful enough to deal with the BBEG until they've been adventuring the entire campaign.
Great point about the +3 scimitar. Acceptance is one of the valid answers. Players do have choices in this game, and choosing to go on without pursuing them is valid. That being said, there will be constant references to the scimitar. Flashbacks to the first 10 mins of the campaign with the character holding the blade, NPCs in town (“weren’t you the guy with the scimitar?”), maybe lovers/friends changing their feelings do to its loss (“you were more fun when you had the scimitar, now I’m moving on”). Acceptance is a healthy choice but they’ll find they are still caught up in a network of signs sustained and held by pure lack
That’s how most campaigns work. In this one, the BBEG is discovered in an underground fortress around level 4. They can be slain instantly, and the BBEG never returns. This solves the problem of the PCs having to grind away for XP for so long. At this point the BBEG dies happily anyway, as his raison detre is to have destroyed something so beautiful as the items. Before they slay them, he’ll note that since their destruction he’s felt full and happy, and is ready now to accept death.
Trolling your players is a great way to never play D&D with them again. Plot twist doesn't mean what you think it means - each of these is a plot hook, any of which your players may not bite on. I think your plan falls apart when you anticipate players are going to try to go after a BBEG that just beat them AND took all their magic items. Like, yes, we are weaker, now is our time!
Though I could see this kind of overall plot line working as a single item in a town that was very important to the town being perma-destroyed by a BBEG, with an open-ended campaign goal to restore the item or its functionality. The characters might chase down rumors, hit dead ends, but should eventually find The Answer - if nothing else, than at least through a Wish. Like maybe there was a giant immovable rod that is key to an enormous water wheel working, a water wheel that pushed water from a magically refilling lake to feed all the rivers of the land. And the BBEG utterly destroyed the rod, the wheel fell and was damaged, the town ends up flooded, and as the years go by, the land dries up more and more. Then maybe the few able to cast Wish in the entire land come to try and restore things to the way they were, but wishes to restore the magic of the rod fail because that magic no longer exists and is blocked from returning by a stronger power, wishes for the water to automatically flow works only for the current volume of water in the lake, and so on, with each person casting Wish and failing loosing the ability to ever cast it again. Only a Wish for the BBEG to fail at destroying the item in the past will work, and having gone through the trials and ordeals to get to the point the party can achieve this - whatever level that may be - the players should see decades pass where they develop relationships with the NPC's, see new generations born, and ultimately have the final decision to make - undo all of this, all of the hardships and strife and suffering brought about by this evil act as they originally set out to do, or continue forward in the world with the people they have come to know and love, hardships be damned?
Yeah if I were playing in this game, I think I would take the loss of my magic item in stride, knowing in the meta-sense that I wasn't meant to keep it anyways since I'm only level 1. Then after the first "Gotcha!" I would say something like "oh no! Anyways..." and say let's go find a dungeon and maybe find more cool loot there.
I think a way more compelling gimmick for a campaign centered around the magic items would be if you let the level 1 characters keep the magic items, but have them level up slowly or not at all. Make it so most of the abilities they have come from the legendary artifact they carry, and they have to deal with being under-leveled against the opponents they face, using their artifacts more strategically. Maybe they only ever reach a max of level 3, but they can even find *more* high level artifacts to offset the lack of experience, so their kit of magic items essentially becomes their class. That would be a more intetedting magic item centered twist.
Side note: "I don't love you anymore because you don't have the sword" sounds unnatural. Like it's something someone would only say to make your campaign work, and as a player I'd be instantly turned off by it.
An interesting alternative idea, but yeah, you're gonna find that there will be call backs to the item despite your acceptance of its loss. That lover? She was there because people saw you were a great warrior because of the object, but now it's gone, strangers no longer gravitate to you, the luster apparently worn off. Though loss of love due to material loss may sound harsh, I don't think it's necessarily arbitrary. That being said, there will be more subtle ways of reminding you what you lost even after accepting it: say one player had a belt of fire giant strength. They'll run across an iron door that can't be moved, but will realize if they still had the belt, they could have moved it. They'll run across creatures blinded or destroyed by daylight, and have flashbacks to the loss of the Helm of Brilliance. Encounters will be built with the missing items in mind.
This new “twist” is also problematic. From a player perspective it reads “All the effort you put into finding and fighting me? I, the DM, decree your victory was only because I let you win because my NPC wanted to die.” Players do not like to feel as if they are being let off easy—and certainly not in the capstone of an entire campaign. It leaves a sickening feeling that the entire campaign was predetermined from the start, and all their time was wasted.
In response to an earlier post, it is also important to note that, while it is important to give the players a reason to fear or hate the BBEG, the real trick to DMing is not doing so in a manner where they hate you, the DM. Everything you post here hits a DMing red flag—railroading the players into failure after failure, taking away any thrill of victory, doing things for no real plot reason other than trolling your players, and, most importantly, needling people when they do not want to engage with your tomfoolery, refusing to listen to the fact that every single respondent has told you “your post is a huge red flag for a bad campaign”. After all, if you are ignoring warnings given on a thread where you are seeking out feedback, why is there any expectation you would heed the inevitable, unsolicited complaints of your players in the game?
Again, there are ways to fix this idea and turn it into something fun, but you need to first abandon your assumption that what you have would be fun. It might be fun to you—but DMing, even in DM v. Player dynamics, is about making things fun for everybody. Right now, you are DMing for yourself; you need to try a bit more empathetic DMing if you want your idea to be successful.
I'm attempting to DM for a party of 4-5 PCs, lv 1 with one Very Rare Magic item apiece, so not just for myself. I want to do this in an empathetic way, one of my strategies might be asking some pre-campaign questions about why they value the item so I can be more specific about the feelings associated with its loss
"Doing something for one’s self” does not mean that you are playing alone - it means you are setting a situation up for your own enjoyment, at the expense of your players. And the fact that you define empathy not as “think of how to make my players have fun” but “think of how I can better make this unpleasant for them” really speaks to my concerns that you are putting your own enjoyment and your own idea of how the campaign should be over the others in your group.
I still think presenting these items as the keys to unlock gameplay avenues to inscentivize the players to quest after them without any intention of the players succeeding and actually unlocking those gameplay avenues seems like you're tricking them needlessly into playing the game.
Like, yes, they'll encounter a door that could only be opened if they still had the gauntlets of super strength. But the gauntlets no longer exist. Magic has been warped so the gauntlets cannot ever exist again. This door can never be opened. Why include the door? To make the player want the gauntlets. Why do the players want the gauntlets? To open the door. It's an endless loop, and therfore without an end it is without a point. I just feel like there's something else you could center a plot around to motivate your players that isn't so DM-serving.