I am about to start a game with my group. I am a brand new DM, only have ran a one shot once before. I have my first session planned but am trying to come up with the ark to go along with it.
I'm thinking that after they kill the hag I have planned for them they go back to her hut and find a cursed gem with someone stuck inside. Who, i dont know. They should have some significance to my world, right? Maybe I'm just having first game jitters. Could use some help with some ideas for my first ark.
First game jitters are perfectly normal, try not to worry about it. If all else fails try to keep thing s as simple as possible.
In this case, the person trapped in the gem could just be a noble who went to the hag for help and ended up getting tricked and trapped. If the party release the noble, they get an NPC who is friendly towards them, maybe enough to give them free room and board at their keep and give them a base of operations to work from. Depending on the party level you can then increase or decrease the favours they get from the noble and his family. This can then lead to others coming to seek out the heroes that rescued the noble and seeking their aid in other matters.
The good witch. The gem contains some good aligned magical being such as a previous guardian of the area or a good aligned spell caster. In the past the hag captured them to avoid them interfering.
The innocent victim. Some non evil being has been captured by the hag possibly as a result of a deal.
The deceiver. Some evil being is trapped in the gem and is pretending to be an innocent victim or good witch. They may be a criminal who made a deal with the hag or a fiend pretending to be human. It may even be another hag with which the previous one quarreled.
Pinocchio. Inside is a spirit that doesn't really know what they are. maybe they are a creation of the hag or have just been trapped for a very long time. They may no longer have a physical form and may posses an object.
So, first question - do you need a story arc? Granted you can watch actual play throughs all around and be tricked into believing that the only way forward is a single story arc across several sessions. Spare a thought though for some of the most popular fiction in the world which are often episodic. Oxventure is a great example of this. They've largely done an 'adventure of the week' format. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach, and in fact is one I would strongly suggest. It's basically stringing together a lot of one shots and you can have a blast doing that!
If however, you want a long, campaign arc it does need a good deal of planning. Without planning it's a bit like saying 'I'm going to travel around Europe starting at Gibraltar'. Great, but where do you go next? How long are you going to travel? Where do you need to get to in order to fly home? A couple of ways you can deal with this. Plan the key moments and key touch stones. I'd suggest four big moments. Pick your end point, one halfway through, and one at the quarters. This makes the improvisation process between the key moments easier. To take our travel analogy it's a bit like saying - we start at Gibraltar, will head to Paris, then Berlin, then Prague, and finally end up just outside Europe in Istanbul. There's loads of scope here to wander from the course, but we know the key milestones.
You can go a step further should you wish and if you want the arc to hang together by planning level milestones. Literally plan twenty quests that somehow link together. That can be very exhausting and very time consuming. My current campaigns (both around 70 sessions in) required around three months of planning a few hours a week. My next campaign already has milestones 1-20 planned out - but I know that these are subject to change and have planned around it. Still that was a whole weekend of sitting down and mapping it all out. Like I say, not for everyone.
The best thing I can say though is - as long as everyone is enjoying themselves it really doesn't matter. For more specific help though here's how I would handle a Cursed Gem found during session 1.
Find Gem
Find someone who can identify the gem's value, or magical (cursed) properties
Upon learning it's cursed, and possibly the legend that there is someone trapped inside, quest to find ritual materials or texts to allow the party to free said person.
The party have assembled all but one item for the ritual - there's one component missing and it's stuck in a dungeon somewhere - the party have to locate this dungeon.
Having located the dungeon now it's time to dungeon delve for the item. This dungeon is protected by creatures loyal to a second hag who haunts the bottom of the dunegon - she warns the party that the ritual should not be completed and the creature inside should not be freed. Party can choose to leave it in the possession of the second hag thus ending this arc.
If the party instead decide the complete the ritual to free the creature inside they find the ritual beset by fiends - familiar or something else determined to stop the ritual.
The creature inside is evil and though it politely thanks the party for freeing it and seems good it kills someone (perhaps it's racist and kills the first dwarf it sees as an example)
The party must now chase down or find out where the creature went...spending a session asking around the town for clues. They encounter someone who will tell the party where the evil creature went if the party solve the problem of the [insert interesting creature here] that keeps killing their livestock.
Party track down and deal with creature from part 8
With info about the evil creature's whereabouts, the party must travel across country to get there. - Random encounters with beast or similar.
Evil creature has assembled some minions that protect their dungeon/castle/ruin/crypt/temple - party must cut through them to get to the evil creature.
Party face off against evil creature - whittle said creature down to zero hp but find out said creature can't be killed as they come back in seven days.
Party research a way to either bind the creature to a gem again or kill it for good.
Party prepare in the location where creature will be resurrected.
Party have final face off with evil creature.
Though short, that outline could conceivably last 15 sessions (or more) and would to my mind be the framework for 15 levels of milestones. Hopefully, it at least sparks some ideas and is helpful (I won't be offended though if you think it's all useless) :D
It could be an Elemental Gem or a gem that contain a trapped wizard's soul (Deathlock Wight) or a fiend (Spined Devil) that could be bind to help the party in a mission or give them their next one
Wait and see what/who they think is trapped in there. Don't ask them. Don't tell them. Just listen to what they say and do and build out the answer based on that. They'll feel brilliant a few sessions or more down the road when their guess hits the mark!
They could do a mission or two to find out how to get him out or actually get him out. (make them work for it)
The freed noble could thank them and offer them a few rooms like mentioned above. He is being nice since he would only offer this to people better than just commoners.
He then goes away back to his home only to find his brother took everything over and in a mission or two he finds the group again and asks for their help getting things back.
He is the hook you could use to bring missions to the group over and over again.
They could even find out later that he was the one who stole everything from his brother in the first place and that is why he was in the gem.
hags hate other hags, other hag, now friendly to teh party
hags love making people miserable. a random poor jamoke who got trapped
hags are extraplanar. a genie (who may or may not grant wishes), a celestial, a feind, and abberation, an elemental
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Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
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I am about to start a game with my group. I am a brand new DM, only have ran a one shot once before. I have my first session planned but am trying to come up with the ark to go along with it.
I'm thinking that after they kill the hag I have planned for them they go back to her hut and find a cursed gem with someone stuck inside. Who, i dont know. They should have some significance to my world, right? Maybe I'm just having first game jitters. Could use some help with some ideas for my first ark.
First game jitters are perfectly normal, try not to worry about it. If all else fails try to keep thing s as simple as possible.
In this case, the person trapped in the gem could just be a noble who went to the hag for help and ended up getting tricked and trapped. If the party release the noble, they get an NPC who is friendly towards them, maybe enough to give them free room and board at their keep and give them a base of operations to work from. Depending on the party level you can then increase or decrease the favours they get from the noble and his family. This can then lead to others coming to seek out the heroes that rescued the noble and seeking their aid in other matters.
there are some options
So, first question - do you need a story arc? Granted you can watch actual play throughs all around and be tricked into believing that the only way forward is a single story arc across several sessions. Spare a thought though for some of the most popular fiction in the world which are often episodic. Oxventure is a great example of this. They've largely done an 'adventure of the week' format. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach, and in fact is one I would strongly suggest. It's basically stringing together a lot of one shots and you can have a blast doing that!
If however, you want a long, campaign arc it does need a good deal of planning. Without planning it's a bit like saying 'I'm going to travel around Europe starting at Gibraltar'. Great, but where do you go next? How long are you going to travel? Where do you need to get to in order to fly home? A couple of ways you can deal with this. Plan the key moments and key touch stones. I'd suggest four big moments. Pick your end point, one halfway through, and one at the quarters. This makes the improvisation process between the key moments easier. To take our travel analogy it's a bit like saying - we start at Gibraltar, will head to Paris, then Berlin, then Prague, and finally end up just outside Europe in Istanbul. There's loads of scope here to wander from the course, but we know the key milestones.
You can go a step further should you wish and if you want the arc to hang together by planning level milestones. Literally plan twenty quests that somehow link together. That can be very exhausting and very time consuming. My current campaigns (both around 70 sessions in) required around three months of planning a few hours a week. My next campaign already has milestones 1-20 planned out - but I know that these are subject to change and have planned around it. Still that was a whole weekend of sitting down and mapping it all out. Like I say, not for everyone.
The best thing I can say though is - as long as everyone is enjoying themselves it really doesn't matter. For more specific help though here's how I would handle a Cursed Gem found during session 1.
Though short, that outline could conceivably last 15 sessions (or more) and would to my mind be the framework for 15 levels of milestones. Hopefully, it at least sparks some ideas and is helpful (I won't be offended though if you think it's all useless) :D
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
It could be an Elemental Gem or a gem that contain a trapped wizard's soul (Deathlock Wight) or a fiend (Spined Devil) that could be bind to help the party in a mission or give them their next one
Wait and see what/who they think is trapped in there. Don't ask them. Don't tell them. Just listen to what they say and do and build out the answer based on that. They'll feel brilliant a few sessions or more down the road when their guess hits the mark!
I love this! Thank you, I'm totally going to use it!
Along with the noble in the gem idea....
They could do a mission or two to find out how to get him out or actually get him out. (make them work for it)
The freed noble could thank them and offer them a few rooms like mentioned above. He is being nice since he would only offer this to people better than just commoners.
He then goes away back to his home only to find his brother took everything over and in a mission or two he finds the group again and asks for their help getting things back.
He is the hook you could use to bring missions to the group over and over again.
They could even find out later that he was the one who stole everything from his brother in the first place and that is why he was in the gem.
The hooks and twists just keep coming.
hags are fey, so the sky kinda is teh limit.
hags hate other hags, other hag, now friendly to teh party
hags love making people miserable. a random poor jamoke who got trapped
hags are extraplanar. a genie (who may or may not grant wishes), a celestial, a feind, and abberation, an elemental
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!