I'm new at DMing so I while I've come up with a adventure I want to try and run for my group I could use some help from more experienced DM's on reviewing it before I run it.
The short version of the plot is that the player party get mixed up in the struggles between two small rival nations, having to help a prince and princess against an evil archduke.
It is written with the thought of avoiding murderhoboing as much as possible so that two of the episodes is actually meant to be solved without combat.
Things I especially would like advice on is;
1. How long will it take to play through? Assuming 4 hour game sessions and with the two dungeons being medium sized with maybe a dozen rooms each and a normal amount of encounters. My own guess is 2 sessions but I'm not certain.
2. How much rail-roading does it entail. I've tried to keep things more open ended in the beginning before the group is invested in the story.
3. Does the party spend to much time travelling back and forth between places doing the same thing? It kind of feels like they're just bouncing back and forth between different locales yet at the same time it doesn't make sense to have everything in the same place.
4. How do I introduce the real villain?
The idea is while the player party will spend most of the adventure thwarting the evil archduke, in the end it will be revealed that both nations have been manipulated by an necromancer posing as a friendly, old advisor to the prince and princess and to whom the archduke is only a minion and patsy. I just don't know where and when to introduce the advisor in the plot. I want the party to meet and get help from the advisor so that they know him and sees him as an ally before the big reveal at the end. The problem is that the party is spending most their time adventuring and doesn't really visit any courts or do any political intrigue where their paths would natural intersect with the advisor's.
The adventure:
The plot
The party arrives to the coastal city of Caltagliano, Capital of the Principality of Oresto on the eve the wedding of Princesses Mirabella and Archduke Bortolo Brocchus of the duchy of Benceno.
The city is overflowing with people there for the wedding and the wedding fair. Every where people are either decorating the streets in preparation of the festivities or have already started partying. As a result, there are no rooms available in the city and townspeople are making money hand over fist renting out rooms and even cupboards to visitors. The party ends up sleeping in a shed in a backyard up against the royal keep.
The next morning as they are lounging around in the backyard a makeshift rope made out of clothes and bed sheets is lowered from a window in the keep. A pretty underdressed woman starts climbing out down the wall. Halfway down the rope breaks and she fall.
She survives the fall either through the party intervening or by a fortunately placed compost heap.
After a few awkward moments the woman gets dressed and from the manner of her clothes the party realize that she is most likely royalty and it doesn’t take much for her to admit that she is indeed Princess Mirabella. Mirabella tells the party that she is running away because she doesn’t want to get married to the Archduke because until just six months ago he was the Principalities biggest rival and something fishy must have happened for her father to give her hand away in a marriage without any strategic benefits. About that time, which is only a couple of minutes after she first started climbing down the rope, a guard looks out of the window and spots them. The party then hear shouting from inside the keep. Mirabella curse like a sailor over being noticed the begs the party to help her get past the guards and out of the city, promising to pay them if they do; and showing them a purse full of jewels, borrowed from the crown jewels.
After the party agrees they have to come up with a plan to smuggle her out of the city, and eventually out of the Principality. If asked Mirabella wants to got to an island port outside of the coast where she has relatives but the party can also decide to go to a nearby dwarf kingdom or a wild land of friendly barbarians.
Getting out will require a cunning plan, daring do and the occasional chase but not much fighting except for a single mini boss fight at the end with the Archduke’s personal guard, for flavour. And a lot of exposition as Mirabella along the way explains the political realities in the surrounding lands.
Once the party has managed to bring Mirabella whatever safe destination they choose, Mirabella wants to hire them for another task. She wants them to find her paladin brother, prince Tiberio that that went missing some eight months earlier and return him to her as together she hopes the two of them can fix things. She suggests the party go speak with his fellow order brothers at their keep. She also warns them that it will be dangerous in that not all of the previous search parties have returned.
The journey to the paladin order is short and uneventful as they haven’t left civilized lands.
At the paladin keep the party meets a grizzled old paladin who is missing and arm and an eye that’s training new initiates. The veteran tells the party that he received his injuries eight months ago when he and the prince along with a group of paladins destroyed a monster. They succeeded but all but prince Tiberio and him were killed while he and the prince were both injured, he mortally so. The prince said he received a vision from their god to embark on a quest and went of on his own after making sure a hunting party would bring back the wounded paladin. The paladin then tells the party that a month later a patrol found the prince horse wandering near a temple ruin but did not find any sign of the prince. He also tells them that the area has been overrun by goblins and monster since then.
The Party’s search for the prince will eventually lead them to the same temple ruins that’s been turn into a goblin camp. If they deal with the goblin and search the ruins the will find an entrance to a crypt under the temple. The crypt will lead them into a cave system where they will find evidence that the cave system has recently been breached by goblin tunnels.
After making their way through the cave system the party will eventually reach a beautiful cave full of flowers and pretty crystals. In it they will also find the worn and wounded prince Tiberio, a beautiful elf priestess and the shrine that they are guarding. But things also seem off both with the cave and with the elf maiden. If the party examine things a closer they will discover that the elf maiden in reality is a green hag and the cave is her lair. The hag has enchanted the prince to have him protect her home from the invasion of goblins and monsters that entered the cave system when the goblin tunnels breached it.
The hag will in her elven form try to trick the party to go down the goblin tunnels to kill an evil wizard. All a ruse to make the party go away and get killed. Once exposed the hag will still try to have them go down and clear out the goblins but this time with a more reasonable expectation on what they will achieve and face. If pressed the hag will however not be willing to give up the prince. And if the party try to make him come or wake up from the enchantment the hag will attack them.
If the party defeats the hag prince Tiberio will be more than happy to accompany them back to princess Mirabelle.
However, when the party and prince Tiberio return they learn that agents of the archduke have kidnapped the princess and that their parents, the rulers of the principality, have been murdered. Prince Tiberio charge the party with going to the capital of the Duchy of Benceno, the city of Angua and rescue Mirabella from the Archduke’s castle. Meanwhile the Prince intends to go back to Oresto and take control of the Principality for the aim of raising the army for war.
After arriving in Angua and sneaking into the castle the party notice three things.
None of the guards that are there are from the archduke’s personal guard. The guards that are there go out of their way trying not to notice the party, servants are strangely helpful while fearing for their lives, everyone seem think the party has a right to be in the castle.
No one they talk to has any knowledge of princess Mirabelle but that they wouldn’t know what goes on in the dungeons or the archdukes personal wing behind the throne room anyway.
If the party choose to go to the dungeons the find three nobles being held hostage but no princess. If released the nobles led the party to the throne room.
In the throne they find the Archduke’s nephew and original heir to the throne- The nephew is drunk and morose telling anyone near that his life is over because his one true love is lost to him and that assassins will come take his life anyhow soon. If the nobles are with the party they try to galvanize the nephew but he just dismisses them to depressed and drunk to care about their problem. Only when the party mention that they are looking for princess Mirabelle does the nephew perk up. He tell the party how he spent a day with Mirabella while the archdukes men brought her to the archduke before the archduke went on to the old royal castle, taking Mirabelle with him. The nephew then explains how his uncle the archduke once was a kind and peaceful man but tne years ago he took power from the nephew after the nephew’s father and mother died under mysterious circumstances. (Think the plot of hamlet without the queen).
At this point the archduke’s assassins burst into the throne room to kill the nephew.
Once the assassins are defeated the nephew tells the party the way to the royal castle along with the route to a secret entrance into the castle that will bring them directly into the royal wing, and ask them to rescue Mirabella while he and the nobles raise the army to take down the archduke and his personal guard.
The party heads to the old royal castle. It is what lefts of the old kingdom before it was split into the Principality and the Duchy. Situated halfway between Caltagliano and Angua it has been used as a diplomatic outpost between the two rival realms. The party has no problem finding and then entering the secret passage way with the nephew’s directions. Moving into the party encounter skeletons and then in the royal wing patrols of the archduke’s personal guards. However, before the party can get overwhelmed most of the opposition disappears and the party hear the sounds of battle from outside. If the manage to look out they see the castle and the archduke’s forces being under attack from the armies of both the principality and the duchy under the command of prince Tiberio and the nephew, along with the prince paladin pals.
This allows the party to get to the throne room pretty much unopposed. There they find the archduke, Mirabella and the real villain. A old trusted advisor to Mirabella’s parents who turns out to be a necromancer and the power behind the archduke. Once the party defeats the villain and his henchmen, along with the inevitable betrayal of the archduke the victory celebrations can start. Mirabella and the nephew announce that they are getting married and will be uniting the two realms into a kingdom again. And the party are richly rewarded with treasure and honours.
I'm new at DMing so I while I've come up with a adventure I want to try and run for my group I could use some help from more experienced DM's on reviewing it before I run it.
The short version of the plot is that the player party get mixed up in the struggles between two small rival nations, having to help a prince and princess against an evil archduke.
It is written with the thought of avoiding murderhoboing as much as possible so that two of the episodes is actually meant to be solved without combat.
Things I especially would like advice on is;
1. How long will it take to play through? Assuming 4 hour game sessions and with the two dungeons being medium sized with maybe a dozen rooms each and a normal amount of encounters. My own guess is 2 sessions but I'm not certain.
So in a standard 4 hour session you can count on an average group of players being able to make it through 5 scenes. This could be more if they can manage to move quickly through some scenes but it could be less if they have to spend any time working through the scene, such as an encounter that is being resolved by combat.
2. How much rail-roading does it entail. I've tried to keep things more open ended in the beginning before the group is invested in the story.
I am going to avoid discussion about railroading because most people get it wrong. However, from what I read you don't have a game plot you have a story plot and frankly you should probably write this up as a work of fan fiction instead of trying to play it out, because you are more than likely going to be disappointed. With that said, you have no fall backs for failure. There are a ton of instances where the story could fall apart if the PCs choose not to do what you think they will or should. Player's are a fickle lot and will often do the opposite of what they know they should just to be difficult.
3. Does the party spend to much time travelling back and forth between places doing the same thing? It kind of feels like they're just bouncing back and forth between different locales yet at the same time it doesn't make sense to have everything in the same place.
I did not bother to read your whole plot, like I said earlier it is more of a fan fiction story plot than a game plot, however, in this instance I would go with your gut. However, moving back and forth between two rival cities in order to avoid a war, save the princess, get the gold, and have everyone live happily ever after is not unreasonable.
4. How do I introduce the real villain?
Just like you do any other villain.
The idea is while the player party will spend most of the adventure thwarting the evil archduke, in the end it will be revealed that both nations have been manipulated by an necromancer posing as a friendly, old advisor to the prince and princess and to whom the archduke is only a minion and patsy. I just don't know where and when to introduce the advisor in the plot. I want the party to meet and get help from the advisor so that they know him and sees him as an ally before the big reveal at the end. The problem is that the party is spending most their time adventuring and doesn't really visit any courts or do any political intrigue where their paths would natural intersect with the advisor's.
The adventure:
The plot
The party arrives to the coastal city of Caltagliano, Capital of the Principality of Oresto on the eve the wedding of Princesses Mirabella and Archduke Bortolo Brocchus of the duchy of Benceno.
The city is overflowing with people there for the wedding and the wedding fair. Every where people are either decorating the streets in preparation of the festivities or have already started partying. As a result, there are no rooms available in the city and townspeople are making money hand over fist renting out rooms and even cupboards to visitors. The party ends up sleeping in a shed in a backyard up against the royal keep.
The next morning as they are lounging around in the backyard a makeshift rope made out of clothes and bed sheets is lowered from a window in the keep. A pretty underdressed woman starts climbing out down the wall. Halfway down the rope breaks and she fall.
She survives the fall either through the party intervening or by a fortunately placed compost heap.
After a few awkward moments the woman gets dressed and from the manner of her clothes the party realize that she is most likely royalty and it doesn’t take much for her to admit that she is indeed Princess Mirabella. Mirabella tells the party that she is running away because she doesn’t want to get married to the Archduke because until just six months ago he was the Principalities biggest rival and something fishy must have happened for her father to give her hand away in a marriage without any strategic benefits. About that time, which is only a couple of minutes after she first started climbing down the rope, a guard looks out of the window and spots them. The party then hear shouting from inside the keep. Mirabella curse like a sailor over being noticed the begs the party to help her get past the guards and out of the city, promising to pay them if they do; and showing them a purse full of jewels, borrowed from the crown jewels.
After the party agrees they have to come up with a plan to smuggle her out of the city, and eventually out of the Principality. If asked Mirabella wants to got to an island port outside of the coast where she has relatives but the party can also decide to go to a nearby dwarf kingdom or a wild land of friendly barbarians.
Getting out will require a cunning plan, daring do and the occasional chase but not much fighting except for a single mini boss fight at the end with the Archduke’s personal guard, for flavour. And a lot of exposition as Mirabella along the way explains the political realities in the surrounding lands.
Once the party has managed to bring Mirabella whatever safe destination they choose, Mirabella wants to hire them for another task. She wants them to find her paladin brother, prince Tiberio that that went missing some eight months earlier and return him to her as together she hopes the two of them can fix things. She suggests the party go speak with his fellow order brothers at their keep. She also warns them that it will be dangerous in that not all of the previous search parties have returned.
The journey to the paladin order is short and uneventful as they haven’t left civilized lands.
At the paladin keep the party meets a grizzled old paladin who is missing and arm and an eye that’s training new initiates. The veteran tells the party that he received his injuries eight months ago when he and the prince along with a group of paladins destroyed a monster. They succeeded but all but prince Tiberio and him were killed while he and the prince were both injured, he mortally so. The prince said he received a vision from their god to embark on a quest and went of on his own after making sure a hunting party would bring back the wounded paladin. The paladin then tells the party that a month later a patrol found the prince horse wandering near a temple ruin but did not find any sign of the prince. He also tells them that the area has been overrun by goblins and monster since then.
The Party’s search for the prince will eventually lead them to the same temple ruins that’s been turn into a goblin camp. If they deal with the goblin and search the ruins the will find an entrance to a crypt under the temple. The crypt will lead them into a cave system where they will find evidence that the cave system has recently been breached by goblin tunnels.
After making their way through the cave system the party will eventually reach a beautiful cave full of flowers and pretty crystals. In it they will also find the worn and wounded prince Tiberio, a beautiful elf priestess and the shrine that they are guarding. But things also seem off both with the cave and with the elf maiden. If the party examine things a closer they will discover that the elf maiden in reality is a green hag and the cave is her lair. The hag has enchanted the prince to have him protect her home from the invasion of goblins and monsters that entered the cave system when the goblin tunnels breached it.
The hag will in her elven form try to trick the party to go down the goblin tunnels to kill an evil wizard. All a ruse to make the party go away and get killed. Once exposed the hag will still try to have them go down and clear out the goblins but this time with a more reasonable expectation on what they will achieve and face. If pressed the hag will however not be willing to give up the prince. And if the party try to make him come or wake up from the enchantment the hag will attack them.
If the party defeats the hag prince Tiberio will be more than happy to accompany them back to princess Mirabelle.
However, when the party and prince Tiberio return they learn that agents of the archduke have kidnapped the princess and that their parents, the rulers of the principality, have been murdered. Prince Tiberio charge the party with going to the capital of the Duchy of Benceno, the city of Angua and rescue Mirabella from the Archduke’s castle. Meanwhile the Prince intends to go back to Oresto and take control of the Principality for the aim of raising the army for war.
After arriving in Angua and sneaking into the castle the party notice three things.
None of the guards that are there are from the archduke’s personal guard. The guards that are there go out of their way trying not to notice the party, servants are strangely helpful while fearing for their lives, everyone seem think the party has a right to be in the castle.
No one they talk to has any knowledge of princess Mirabelle but that they wouldn’t know what goes on in the dungeons or the archdukes personal wing behind the throne room anyway.
If the party choose to go to the dungeons the find three nobles being held hostage but no princess. If released the nobles led the party to the throne room.
In the throne they find the Archduke’s nephew and original heir to the throne- The nephew is drunk and morose telling anyone near that his life is over because his one true love is lost to him and that assassins will come take his life anyhow soon. If the nobles are with the party they try to galvanize the nephew but he just dismisses them to depressed and drunk to care about their problem. Only when the party mention that they are looking for princess Mirabelle does the nephew perk up. He tell the party how he spent a day with Mirabella while the archdukes men brought her to the archduke before the archduke went on to the old royal castle, taking Mirabelle with him. The nephew then explains how his uncle the archduke once was a kind and peaceful man but tne years ago he took power from the nephew after the nephew’s father and mother died under mysterious circumstances. (Think the plot of hamlet without the queen).
At this point the archduke’s assassins burst into the throne room to kill the nephew.
Once the assassins are defeated the nephew tells the party the way to the royal castle along with the route to a secret entrance into the castle that will bring them directly into the royal wing, and ask them to rescue Mirabella while he and the nobles raise the army to take down the archduke and his personal guard.
The party heads to the old royal castle. It is what lefts of the old kingdom before it was split into the Principality and the Duchy. Situated halfway between Caltagliano and Angua it has been used as a diplomatic outpost between the two rival realms. The party has no problem finding and then entering the secret passage way with the nephew’s directions. Moving into the party encounter skeletons and then in the royal wing patrols of the archduke’s personal guards. However, before the party can get overwhelmed most of the opposition disappears and the party hear the sounds of battle from outside. If the manage to look out they see the castle and the archduke’s forces being under attack from the armies of both the principality and the duchy under the command of prince Tiberio and the nephew, along with the prince paladin pals.
This allows the party to get to the throne room pretty much unopposed. There they find the archduke, Mirabella and the real villain. A old trusted advisor to Mirabella’s parents who turns out to be a necromancer and the power behind the archduke. Once the party defeats the villain and his henchmen, along with the inevitable betrayal of the archduke the victory celebrations can start. Mirabella and the nephew announce that they are getting married and will be uniting the two realms into a kingdom again. And the party are richly rewarded with treasure and honours.
Okay so I posted some brief responses to your questions but then I thought about it and decided that those were not actually very helpful by themselves. So to be helpful, when it comes to a good game plot, less is more. Your plot should be a handful of bullet statements or a flow chart. Something like a to do list: 1) rescue princess, 2) escape city, 3) fight off bandits, 4) etc. etc.
Also plan for failure, what if the heroes can't escape the city for some reason? What then? What if they don't want to save the princess? What if they would rather conquer the city themselves? Players make bad decisions, players have bad die rolls, sometimes they have bad die rolls while making bad decisions and they are going to fail and you have to let them fail or you are truly railroading your players.
This isn't very long but perhaps it will be more helpful.
I'm new at DMing so I while I've come up with a adventure I want to try and run for my group I could use some help from more experienced DM's on reviewing it before I run it.
The short version of the plot is that the player party get mixed up in the struggles between two small rival nations, having to help a prince and princess against an evil archduke.
It is written with the thought of avoiding murderhoboing as much as possible so that two of the episodes is actually meant to be solved without combat.
Things I especially would like advice on is;
1. How long will it take to play through? Assuming 4 hour game sessions and with the two dungeons being medium sized with maybe a dozen rooms each and a normal amount of encounters. My own guess is 2 sessions but I'm not certain.
2. How much rail-roading does it entail. I've tried to keep things more open ended in the beginning before the group is invested in the story.
3. Does the party spend to much time travelling back and forth between places doing the same thing? It kind of feels like they're just bouncing back and forth between different locales yet at the same time it doesn't make sense to have everything in the same place.
4. How do I introduce the real villain?
The idea is while the player party will spend most of the adventure thwarting the evil archduke, in the end it will be revealed that both nations have been manipulated by an necromancer posing as a friendly, old advisor to the prince and princess and to whom the archduke is only a minion and patsy. I just don't know where and when to introduce the advisor in the plot. I want the party to meet and get help from the advisor so that they know him and sees him as an ally before the big reveal at the end. The problem is that the party is spending most their time adventuring and doesn't really visit any courts or do any political intrigue where their paths would natural intersect with the advisor's.
The adventure:
The plot
The party arrives to the coastal city of Caltagliano, Capital of the Principality of Oresto on the eve the wedding of Princesses Mirabella and Archduke Bortolo Brocchus of the duchy of Benceno.
The city is overflowing with people there for the wedding and the wedding fair. Every where people are either decorating the streets in preparation of the festivities or have already started partying. As a result, there are no rooms available in the city and townspeople are making money hand over fist renting out rooms and even cupboards to visitors. The party ends up sleeping in a shed in a backyard up against the royal keep.
The next morning as they are lounging around in the backyard a makeshift rope made out of clothes and bed sheets is lowered from a window in the keep. A pretty underdressed woman starts climbing out down the wall. Halfway down the rope breaks and she fall.
She survives the fall either through the party intervening or by a fortunately placed compost heap.
After a few awkward moments the woman gets dressed and from the manner of her clothes the party realize that she is most likely royalty and it doesn’t take much for her to admit that she is indeed Princess Mirabella. Mirabella tells the party that she is running away because she doesn’t want to get married to the Archduke because until just six months ago he was the Principalities biggest rival and something fishy must have happened for her father to give her hand away in a marriage without any strategic benefits. About that time, which is only a couple of minutes after she first started climbing down the rope, a guard looks out of the window and spots them. The party then hear shouting from inside the keep. Mirabella curse like a sailor over being noticed the begs the party to help her get past the guards and out of the city, promising to pay them if they do; and showing them a purse full of jewels, borrowed from the crown jewels.
After the party agrees they have to come up with a plan to smuggle her out of the city, and eventually out of the Principality. If asked Mirabella wants to got to an island port outside of the coast where she has relatives but the party can also decide to go to a nearby dwarf kingdom or a wild land of friendly barbarians.
Getting out will require a cunning plan, daring do and the occasional chase but not much fighting except for a single mini boss fight at the end with the Archduke’s personal guard, for flavour. And a lot of exposition as Mirabella along the way explains the political realities in the surrounding lands.
Once the party has managed to bring Mirabella whatever safe destination they choose, Mirabella wants to hire them for another task. She wants them to find her paladin brother, prince Tiberio that that went missing some eight months earlier and return him to her as together she hopes the two of them can fix things. She suggests the party go speak with his fellow order brothers at their keep. She also warns them that it will be dangerous in that not all of the previous search parties have returned.
The journey to the paladin order is short and uneventful as they haven’t left civilized lands.
At the paladin keep the party meets a grizzled old paladin who is missing and arm and an eye that’s training new initiates. The veteran tells the party that he received his injuries eight months ago when he and the prince along with a group of paladins destroyed a monster. They succeeded but all but prince Tiberio and him were killed while he and the prince were both injured, he mortally so. The prince said he received a vision from their god to embark on a quest and went of on his own after making sure a hunting party would bring back the wounded paladin. The paladin then tells the party that a month later a patrol found the prince horse wandering near a temple ruin but did not find any sign of the prince. He also tells them that the area has been overrun by goblins and monster since then.
The Party’s search for the prince will eventually lead them to the same temple ruins that’s been turn into a goblin camp. If they deal with the goblin and search the ruins the will find an entrance to a crypt under the temple. The crypt will lead them into a cave system where they will find evidence that the cave system has recently been breached by goblin tunnels.
After making their way through the cave system the party will eventually reach a beautiful cave full of flowers and pretty crystals. In it they will also find the worn and wounded prince Tiberio, a beautiful elf priestess and the shrine that they are guarding. But things also seem off both with the cave and with the elf maiden. If the party examine things a closer they will discover that the elf maiden in reality is a green hag and the cave is her lair. The hag has enchanted the prince to have him protect her home from the invasion of goblins and monsters that entered the cave system when the goblin tunnels breached it.
The hag will in her elven form try to trick the party to go down the goblin tunnels to kill an evil wizard. All a ruse to make the party go away and get killed. Once exposed the hag will still try to have them go down and clear out the goblins but this time with a more reasonable expectation on what they will achieve and face. If pressed the hag will however not be willing to give up the prince. And if the party try to make him come or wake up from the enchantment the hag will attack them.
If the party defeats the hag prince Tiberio will be more than happy to accompany them back to princess Mirabelle.
However, when the party and prince Tiberio return they learn that agents of the archduke have kidnapped the princess and that their parents, the rulers of the principality, have been murdered. Prince Tiberio charge the party with going to the capital of the Duchy of Benceno, the city of Angua and rescue Mirabella from the Archduke’s castle. Meanwhile the Prince intends to go back to Oresto and take control of the Principality for the aim of raising the army for war.
After arriving in Angua and sneaking into the castle the party notice three things.
None of the guards that are there are from the archduke’s personal guard. The guards that are there go out of their way trying not to notice the party, servants are strangely helpful while fearing for their lives, everyone seem think the party has a right to be in the castle.
No one they talk to has any knowledge of princess Mirabelle but that they wouldn’t know what goes on in the dungeons or the archdukes personal wing behind the throne room anyway.
If the party choose to go to the dungeons the find three nobles being held hostage but no princess. If released the nobles led the party to the throne room.
In the throne they find the Archduke’s nephew and original heir to the throne- The nephew is drunk and morose telling anyone near that his life is over because his one true love is lost to him and that assassins will come take his life anyhow soon. If the nobles are with the party they try to galvanize the nephew but he just dismisses them to depressed and drunk to care about their problem. Only when the party mention that they are looking for princess Mirabelle does the nephew perk up. He tell the party how he spent a day with Mirabella while the archdukes men brought her to the archduke before the archduke went on to the old royal castle, taking Mirabelle with him. The nephew then explains how his uncle the archduke once was a kind and peaceful man but tne years ago he took power from the nephew after the nephew’s father and mother died under mysterious circumstances. (Think the plot of hamlet without the queen).
At this point the archduke’s assassins burst into the throne room to kill the nephew.
Once the assassins are defeated the nephew tells the party the way to the royal castle along with the route to a secret entrance into the castle that will bring them directly into the royal wing, and ask them to rescue Mirabella while he and the nobles raise the army to take down the archduke and his personal guard.
The party heads to the old royal castle. It is what lefts of the old kingdom before it was split into the Principality and the Duchy. Situated halfway between Caltagliano and Angua it has been used as a diplomatic outpost between the two rival realms. The party has no problem finding and then entering the secret passage way with the nephew’s directions. Moving into the party encounter skeletons and then in the royal wing patrols of the archduke’s personal guards. However, before the party can get overwhelmed most of the opposition disappears and the party hear the sounds of battle from outside. If the manage to look out they see the castle and the archduke’s forces being under attack from the armies of both the principality and the duchy under the command of prince Tiberio and the nephew, along with the prince paladin pals.
This allows the party to get to the throne room pretty much unopposed. There they find the archduke, Mirabella and the real villain. A old trusted advisor to Mirabella’s parents who turns out to be a necromancer and the power behind the archduke. Once the party defeats the villain and his henchmen, along with the inevitable betrayal of the archduke the victory celebrations can start. Mirabella and the nephew announce that they are getting married and will be uniting the two realms into a kingdom again. And the party are richly rewarded with treasure and honours.
Okay so I posted some brief responses to your questions but then I thought about it and decided that those were not actually very helpful by themselves. So to be helpful, when it comes to a good game plot, less is more. Your plot should be a handful of bullet statements or a flow chart. Something like a to do list: 1) rescue princess, 2) escape city, 3) fight off bandits, 4) etc. etc.
Also plan for failure, what if the heroes can't escape the city for some reason? What then? What if they don't want to save the princess? What if they would rather conquer the city themselves? Players make bad decisions, players have bad die rolls, sometimes they have bad die rolls while making bad decisions and they are going to fail and you have to let them fail or you are truly railroading your players.
This isn't very long but perhaps it will be more helpful.
As for me, I choose to believe that an extinct thunder lizard is running a game of Dungeons & Dragons via Twitter!