Hello fellow DMs! If you're reading this I'm going to assume you're as intrigued as I am about the Strixhaven setting sourcebook coming out later this year! I'm a very casual MtG player, and SH was a set I bought a lot of in an uncharacteristic manner for me because I loved the art and the lore. A magical college founded by 5 dragons. Teaching the mystical secrets and arcane knowledge of the realms to their gifted students, and secretly to a few Planeswalkers. From the cards along I have several story ideas I'd like to explore. One I'll share is in regards to something very Harry Potter-esq; the sport of Mage Tower. I think it'll be a grand way to sorta build team spirit. Get that sense of belonging I feel the campaign will really need. I mean alumni make for great adventuring pals right? Also get some of those pesky "We're playing D&D now!" sort of mechanic tutorials out of the way for new players in a pretty fun and different environment. I kinda wanna run a game where real combat isn't even something players think about for several sessions / levels / maybe months. Very RP, lore, and exploration heavy. Which is what I liked about the cards. For a MtG set it was less about the combat and more about the adventure / lore for me. Plus ya know losing to my friends is just a way I pass time now a days. What are you thinking as potential hooks / play styles you're hoping to pull off with Strixhaven? This would be a little different for me. I finished up a 2.5 year quite political Eberron campaign, but it was pretty heavy. I'm feeling very Saturday morning cartoon with this personally.
I'm also quite excited for Strixhaven although I'm not really a fan of Harry Potter. I love what Dimension 20 did with Fantasy High and will definitely put some humour in the game as it feels like a fairly light hearted setting.
As for ideas I've had two so far:
1) Each player makes two level 1 characters, and then before the 1st session they roll to see if either character is admitted to the university. DC12 and you add your highest mental stat. This has a few benefits, such as making the party of PCs a mixed bag with some potential overlapping classes or missing roles (like no healer or no tank), which I think would be interesting. The other is their 2nd characters that don't get played are either NPCs that got into the uni or they're rejects. The villains in the setting, the Oriq (basically death eaters) could snatch up their 2nd characters and then the big reveal towards the end of the campaign is that they have to fight the characters they made before the campaign even started.
2) Matt Colville's Codex items. In his two books released, he's written about really powerful books which I think should all live in the restricted section on the lowest floor of the biblioplex, and the Oriq want one of these books.
I've not seen a lot of hype for the setting, but I personally think my style of DMing. Its all about the PCs and not too much about the overall plot. Would love to hear what others think about the setting and if anyone had other ideas especially for additional quests to run.
I've always wanted to do a magic school adventure that I'll probably borrow a lot from Strixhaven for, but I wouldn't use the setting verbatim. I did thread about it a while ago (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/56715-how-would-you-run-a-magic-school) but I thought it would be cool to have the players play as teachers at a magic school having to rein in troublesome and hormonal students, worry about getting research grants and executing research projects, and exploring a vast secret dungeon under the school. I could also be interested in running a more traditional student-focused game.
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Hello fellow DMs!
If you're reading this I'm going to assume you're as intrigued as I am about the Strixhaven setting sourcebook coming out later this year! I'm a very casual MtG player, and SH was a set I bought a lot of in an uncharacteristic manner for me because I loved the art and the lore.
A magical college founded by 5 dragons. Teaching the mystical secrets and arcane knowledge of the realms to their gifted students, and secretly to a few Planeswalkers. From the cards along I have several story ideas I'd like to explore.
One I'll share is in regards to something very Harry Potter-esq; the sport of Mage Tower. I think it'll be a grand way to sorta build team spirit. Get that sense of belonging I feel the campaign will really need. I mean alumni make for great adventuring pals right? Also get some of those pesky "We're playing D&D now!" sort of mechanic tutorials out of the way for new players in a pretty fun and different environment.
I kinda wanna run a game where real combat isn't even something players think about for several sessions / levels / maybe months. Very RP, lore, and exploration heavy. Which is what I liked about the cards. For a MtG set it was less about the combat and more about the adventure / lore for me. Plus ya know losing to my friends is just a way I pass time now a days.
What are you thinking as potential hooks / play styles you're hoping to pull off with Strixhaven? This would be a little different for me. I finished up a 2.5 year quite political Eberron campaign, but it was pretty heavy. I'm feeling very Saturday morning cartoon with this personally.
I'm also quite excited for Strixhaven although I'm not really a fan of Harry Potter. I love what Dimension 20 did with Fantasy High and will definitely put some humour in the game as it feels like a fairly light hearted setting.
As for ideas I've had two so far:
1) Each player makes two level 1 characters, and then before the 1st session they roll to see if either character is admitted to the university. DC12 and you add your highest mental stat. This has a few benefits, such as making the party of PCs a mixed bag with some potential overlapping classes or missing roles (like no healer or no tank), which I think would be interesting. The other is their 2nd characters that don't get played are either NPCs that got into the uni or they're rejects. The villains in the setting, the Oriq (basically death eaters) could snatch up their 2nd characters and then the big reveal towards the end of the campaign is that they have to fight the characters they made before the campaign even started.
2) Matt Colville's Codex items. In his two books released, he's written about really powerful books which I think should all live in the restricted section on the lowest floor of the biblioplex, and the Oriq want one of these books.
I've not seen a lot of hype for the setting, but I personally think my style of DMing. Its all about the PCs and not too much about the overall plot. Would love to hear what others think about the setting and if anyone had other ideas especially for additional quests to run.
I've always wanted to do a magic school adventure that I'll probably borrow a lot from Strixhaven for, but I wouldn't use the setting verbatim. I did thread about it a while ago (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/56715-how-would-you-run-a-magic-school) but I thought it would be cool to have the players play as teachers at a magic school having to rein in troublesome and hormonal students, worry about getting research grants and executing research projects, and exploring a vast secret dungeon under the school. I could also be interested in running a more traditional student-focused game.