Hey there adventurers. I'm a new DM and want to run a story arch that involves a little bit of politics. The set up so far. The world is Exandria from Critical Role, the town of interest is Pride's Call in the Dwendalian Empire. The head official of the silk industry (special export that only this city has) was assassinated. The brother of one of the characters is going to be the scape goat. The criminal organization ordered the hit. The criminals wants to have their own person to replace the official (most evil outcome). The Empire that the city is apart of wants to have their own person to replace the official (less evil but not a great outcome for the city). Then there is the secretary of the official who reluctantly wants to replace the official (this would be the best overall for the city). The official is voted in by other high officials then approved by the person in charge of the whole city.
How do I turn this into an adventure? What do I do from here?
I really don’t like saying this but as a new DM as good as this concept is it can be very hard to actually work out where to go, homebrewing a campaign as well as learning to DM is hard, my advice is usually to use lost mines or dragon of icespire peak to get your feet wet but.
Ideally you want to set the scene and then see what your players do and simply react, but, they might not care enough to actually see it though. Or they might simply get the criminal organization to stop framing his brother in return for helping them, or they might smuggle the brother out of town.
You are creating a very open ended situation which is great, but, it makes it almost impossible to predict what they will do so my best advice make a list of all the different NPCs involved, not just the main ones but anyone the party might interact with, hat their aims are, what they want, what they can offer, then see what your players do and more importantly what they discuss and plan accordingly on the fly.
Know all NPCs motivations. So you can improv them. Cause the PCs will not do any of the things you expect them to do.
Give the PCs some motivation. You can just start with the brother being arrested. Give them a timeline before he is tried and hung. Then follow your players lead.
Use less time on "planning" outcomes. In your OP you have already three "planned" possible outcomes. Be sure that when you drop some PC's into the city, they might go for option 4, 5, 6 or 216. Point is, don't spend to much time "planning" for that. Spend your time setting up the situation. If I read you correctly that is: "Old official has died. New will be elected." Drop the PC's into that situation. Have them engaged by one of the candidates to try to thwart one of the others for instance.
And I would have made the first session a really short and simple one. Why? You are more or less dropping your players into a sandbox. They will probably do a lot of choices that will impact your setting/story. Instead of trying top plan for them ahead. Drop the players in, but make the first session short so the players don't have time to run you into a corner you haven't planned for. After you've seen how your players act, you have A LOT more info to use when you plan for the rest of the campaign.
Really. Make the first session a lot "smaller" then you think. You do stand the risk of bombarding your PC's with information. All the background information they need for the first session should be possible to summarize in a sentence (ideally). The rest they should learn as they go on. It is not funny to start a campaign by having to listen to a DM giving a lecture on background information.
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Ludo ergo sum!
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Hey there adventurers. I'm a new DM and want to run a story arch that involves a little bit of politics. The set up so far. The world is Exandria from Critical Role, the town of interest is Pride's Call in the Dwendalian Empire. The head official of the silk industry (special export that only this city has) was assassinated. The brother of one of the characters is going to be the scape goat. The criminal organization ordered the hit. The criminals wants to have their own person to replace the official (most evil outcome). The Empire that the city is apart of wants to have their own person to replace the official (less evil but not a great outcome for the city). Then there is the secretary of the official who reluctantly wants to replace the official (this would be the best overall for the city). The official is voted in by other high officials then approved by the person in charge of the whole city.
How do I turn this into an adventure? What do I do from here?
I really don’t like saying this but as a new DM as good as this concept is it can be very hard to actually work out where to go, homebrewing a campaign as well as learning to DM is hard, my advice is usually to use lost mines or dragon of icespire peak to get your feet wet but.
Ideally you want to set the scene and then see what your players do and simply react, but, they might not care enough to actually see it though. Or they might simply get the criminal organization to stop framing his brother in return for helping them, or they might smuggle the brother out of town.
You are creating a very open ended situation which is great, but, it makes it almost impossible to predict what they will do so my best advice make a list of all the different NPCs involved, not just the main ones but anyone the party might interact with, hat their aims are, what they want, what they can offer, then see what your players do and more importantly what they discuss and plan accordingly on the fly.
Know all NPCs motivations. So you can improv them. Cause the PCs will not do any of the things you expect them to do.
Give the PCs some motivation. You can just start with the brother being arrested. Give them a timeline before he is tried and hung. Then follow your players lead.
Use less time on "planning" outcomes. In your OP you have already three "planned" possible outcomes. Be sure that when you drop some PC's into the city, they might go for option 4, 5, 6 or 216. Point is, don't spend to much time "planning" for that. Spend your time setting up the situation. If I read you correctly that is: "Old official has died. New will be elected." Drop the PC's into that situation. Have them engaged by one of the candidates to try to thwart one of the others for instance.
And I would have made the first session a really short and simple one. Why? You are more or less dropping your players into a sandbox. They will probably do a lot of choices that will impact your setting/story. Instead of trying top plan for them ahead. Drop the players in, but make the first session short so the players don't have time to run you into a corner you haven't planned for. After you've seen how your players act, you have A LOT more info to use when you plan for the rest of the campaign.
Really. Make the first session a lot "smaller" then you think. You do stand the risk of bombarding your PC's with information. All the background information they need for the first session should be possible to summarize in a sentence (ideally). The rest they should learn as they go on. It is not funny to start a campaign by having to listen to a DM giving a lecture on background information.
Ludo ergo sum!