So this is my first time doing a personalized campaign. I have relatively the main plot/story line down, but I don't want it to hop from one main quest to the next. Any fun/cool side quests you've thrown your players into while adventuring?
I like to drive those as directed by the players themselves, either connected to their individual backstories, or something in the world they've expressed a previous interest in.
I'd echo the above, but it's also useful having some stuff sprinkled around that they might latch onto. Stuff I've used in the past has included basics like having wanted posters, relationships with smugglers, and curio dealer fetch quests. I've also done things like given the party a puzzle box that transports them to a Hellraiser-esque dimension they have to escape which can a good few sessions of side/secondary questing if needed for a change of pace.
A really useful tool in setting up future side action opportunities is to take their backstories and your NPCs and create player-player-npc or player-npc-npc triangles of agendas. Each side of the triangle (player-npc 1 for example) has a goal that is mutually exclusive to the other sides, or at least in conflict with it. This takes a both a bit of forward planning to set up and flexibility to deal with stuff on the fly. If your group are particularly invested in the world around them, their characters' relationships, or are just a creative sort of group they'll almost come up with their own quests based on these triangles. Using the random tables in the DMG is a good way to have a bunch of these sorts of NPCs available to drop in as needed. Or taking the player's bonds, ideals, and flaws and arranging them with each other into triangles with some NPC bonds, ideal, and flaws. Depending on your and their style your mileage may vary!
Little girl lost her cat. The party tries and helps her. When they finally find the feline, it is stuck in a "Treant". Similar scenario... noble's daughter is missing her pet cat. Party hired to find it. When they do, they realize it is a Displacer Beast. They now need to tame and return this beast to her, unharmed. An inn is being haunted. Items are flying off shelves and moving by themselves. The party investigates... at the root. A malicious spellcaster telekinesis using a Crystal Ball A local musician plays a song every night to keep an angry beast at bay. The musician goes missing. If the townsfolk cannot find a replacement to play the soothing toon by nightfall, the entire town will be in danger. The players must infiltrate an illegal dice casino run by a Goblin Mob. They will need to find a set of "magical dice" to defeat the goblin kingpin at its own game A monthly tribute is taken to a local Blue Dragon. This month, the players are chosen to interact with the ancient reptile and must adventure out to its lair.
I have about five (soon to be six) Quest/Subquest videos on my YouTube channel if you would like to take a look at these ideas in context along with several other ideas.
Try flipping through the monster manual, see if any of the creatures inspire an idea. Reading about the rakshasa brought up a story about a merchant whose buiessness enemies are mauled by a tiger at night. Sometimes I find it helpful to think about the money that your villain may need. I had a villain starting a counterfeit business to pay for their villainy, only the moneywise dwarf merchants noticed, they hire the party to investigate.
Cults make easy one shot dungeon runs.
My players love having pets so I find a storyline where they discover their pet was very enjoyable. A dieing tiger killed by the local orc tribe uses her last energy to give a player her cub.
The townskeeper can always hire the players to clear out a gang or a group of monsters that raid the town.
I also agree that the best way to come up with sub-plot lines your players will enjoy is to develop their backstory.
I like side quests that also may be tangentially related to the main story line, but wont progress of affect it really. These can come from npc's and situations that were interacted with /played out previously during the story line. and as a reward, the players might gain an advantage for a future obstacle of the story line. or just cool stuff and deeper immersion into the significance of the main story.
i always inflict 2 on my players, the Halloween quest and the Hogmanay quest, the Halloween one is always a short one based round somewhere being haunted, the Hogmanay one always involves a desolate moorland with a castle on it and not much else, some form of vicious wild haggis, a high armour class porridge pot that grapples, inflicts heat damage totters round on 3 metal legs and can in extreme cases swallow people whole, and the terrible skirl of the pipes. that's a set of bagpipes with the stats of a banshee.
i always start them while the party are asleep at night and they always wake up in the morning wondering if what they went through was real or a dream. then they realise they have a nice little reward of some kind for completing it. keep it corny, keep it silly and keep it short.
i mention this as halloween is coming shortly so it's time to get writing.
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All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
There are a few short pdfs by Alan Tucker on DM Guild that have a few short encounters, such as Can We Keep Him? and So, a Cleric and a Vampire Walk into a Tavern. They are free purchases and each have a few encounters that explain how they could be expanded into larger quests.
I have a strange one, but it's one non the less. The players meet a weird bard, and he tells them to go on a statue hunt. Specifically, a duck statue hunt. He tells them they will be greatly rewarded. When they find them all and return, he will say, "Impressive! Now, as promised, you will be rewarded!" He pauses, then says, "Or should I say, serenaded!" He then proceeds to play bad music. However, he will greatly reward them.
Aside from backstory-related side adventures I sometimes use the idea of arriving in a town during a festival - there are party games, lots of ale, etc. And you can make up some weird and wonderful traditions that the townsfolk always do. Like someone has to dress up as a Hobgoblin and parade around and 'capture' a damsel, etc - and maybe the party can get involved. The great thing is that it can be fully light-hearted fun for the players to RP, but you can also go down the line of someone using the festival as cover for nefarious deeds (heist, kidnapping, etc) if you wanted something else.
That’s great, I had players walk into the tavern on the most bountiful beard competition night at the local dwarven tavern. The players joined in to decorate the dwarf cleric's beard with all the random stuff the thief has ever stolen. The winnings was free drinks all night, losers had to shave their beards.
A village girl is crying because her father hasn't returned from a expedition of your choice.
You can choose race of her, and further details, but what really happened is a werewolf killed him, and the party has to track it down to avenge the girl. In my campaign the girl was a elf and around 20, so she actually accompanied the party. She had a light crossbow, and no special abilities.
If the party is not good, and ignores her or whatnot, when they return to the village next, they find her dead body in a casket being mourned by on lookers
As mentioned here about letting the players drive their own quests. Do it. It works great. I posted elsewhere about listening to your players and I cannot stress this enough. They are a treasure trove of Ideas you can build on.
Hey I am a new DM, and this is a side quest ill be introducing soon, should take about 40 to an hour to clear. I have a tendency to take note of dialogue and narrative for quests, I am fully aware that this is overkill.
On a flyer or a billboard:
"Alligator in the sewer!
Looking for adventurers to slay big Tony, the alligator. For details, ask for Hornan Battleheart at the local tavern"
Hornan looks your group up and down
“Finally, you’re here about big Tony aren’t you?” “That alligator has always been a menace, but we let him be as he took care of the rats. A few days ago, he developed a taste for man meat!”
“The authorities sent a couple of contractors in the sewer to take note of repairs that need to be made, they never got out!”
“People say they just got lost, but I know, I KNOW Its big Tony. Please take care of him for the good of the town.”
“I’ve been saving for repairs of my shack, but ill gladly give you my savings of 17g if you get rid of him for us”
“The contractors were seen taking going in the sewer from the entrance near the shoe maker in the East district”
In the sewer, 3 intersections in, you find two mass of rats
2 swarm of rats to defeat
The rats were busy feasting on the remains of two humanoids, not much flesh is left on them.
Medicine check (15 you see slashing marks on the ribs of one and a deep cut on the skull of the other)
After 4 intersections you see an alligator about 6 feet long 30 feet from you, it is motionless
Looking at the alligator closer, you see that it is dead and rotting, multiple puncture and slashing wounds.
Medicine check (10 Alligator has been dead for roughly a week, 15 wounds were made by bladed weapons, axes and swords)
Perception check (further along past the corner, you hear a faint, clunk…. Clunk….. clunk…. It repeats roughly every 3 seconds)
The sounds comes from further than you believed as you walk another 50 feet before seeing some light reflecting from the corner of the next turn in the tunnel.
Stealth check 8
As you get nearer and peer around the corner, you see a human with a pickaxe digging into the side of the tunnel, he is illuminated by a lantern set on the ground next to him, he is roughly 60 feet away.
Perception check (while the lantern only illuminates so far, you see 2 more humanoids beyond the lantern, one is sitting playing with a dagger, the other is leaning against the wall.
3 x Bandit
Searching the bandits reveal, two shortswords, an axe, 4 gold 17 silvers and a map of what looks to be the sewers with an X.
The spot in the wall where that have been digging has been dug for about 3 feet in, the bricks are all clear and they have been digging into natural rock and dirt.
Strength check of 10
As you dig for about 30min, you feel the rock giving way and falling inward. You have dug a hole with open space on the other side, the size of a fist.
You dig with renewed energy for another 20min before creating an entrance big enough for a person to fit through.
Inside you find a room with seemingly no entrance, the bricks are the same type as those of the sewer. It is roughly 5 by 5 feet with a desiccated corpse lying in the corner. In its right hand it hold a chalice made of gold, its rim encrusted by what appears to be minuscule diamonds, with rubies inlaid on the outside of the cup.
Medicine check (10 you see no apparent cause of death, has been dead for decades)
Arcana check on chalice (10 you feel this item is magical, 15 you feel this item is curse)
You pick it up, it has a weight to it, it weighs roughly 5 to 10 pounds.
You place it in your pack as you make your way out to the sewer, however you are not able to let go of the chalice. Try as you might, you cannot let go. You can switch the chalice from hand to hand, but you cannot let it go or throw it. They cannot give the chalice to another person.
You can have alot of fun with a character who can only use a single handed weapon, although they can use the chalice as a club. The chalice does not get damaged and does not get dirty. It attracts alot of unwanted attention from unsavoury people.
Party will have to find a way to remove the curse. When they do so, the gold oxidizes quickly and crumbles, the diamond and rubies are left, and are worth 60G.
There is a missing person's report on the wall of the local tavern. The person who is missing is a teenager of your race of choice. the last known place of this would be at their father's home when the party gets there, the dad explains some of the backstories and after the conversation offers the party a sum of money you find fair for the level. the father says that he was on his way to a city called Durish, its a city that (unbeknownst to the party) lets people in, but never lets them out as the population is falling, and there is a harsh govt in place. The party needs to find the missing person and find a way to exit the city.
Our DM decreed that we would have some down time after a session that we could spend around town and let each of us describe to him, one-on-one, how we would like to spend that downtime.
He thought that because I was a bard, I'd sleep till noon, futz about until dinner, and then play in the tavern for money, food and drink.
Instead I started transporting goods from here to there in a cart and making money, hoping to make more money in the evenings performing. Because I could negotiate this with the DM, it was a rewarding side quest for me.
The nature of your campaign, levels of your players, interests and all that prevent me from giving you very specific advice.
Good luck.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I made one recently that is kind of cliché, but fun. It’s a mad inventor, but he created the first firearm. The final boss is a goblin fighter(gunslinger) L7 with a bad news. But, since it’s the first one I set up a table for it. The first 2 times he fires, it’s a guarantee. Every shot after that, he has an increasing 5% chance of it exploding in his face. Aka: (shot,%chance) (3,5%) (4,10%) so on and so on. This way, he only has 22 possible shots before it is a 100% chance.
So this is my first time doing a personalized campaign. I have relatively the main plot/story line down, but I don't want it to hop from one main quest to the next. Any fun/cool side quests you've thrown your players into while adventuring?
I like to drive those as directed by the players themselves, either connected to their individual backstories, or something in the world they've expressed a previous interest in.
I'd echo the above, but it's also useful having some stuff sprinkled around that they might latch onto. Stuff I've used in the past has included basics like having wanted posters, relationships with smugglers, and curio dealer fetch quests. I've also done things like given the party a puzzle box that transports them to a Hellraiser-esque dimension they have to escape which can a good few sessions of side/secondary questing if needed for a change of pace.
A really useful tool in setting up future side action opportunities is to take their backstories and your NPCs and create player-player-npc or player-npc-npc triangles of agendas. Each side of the triangle (player-npc 1 for example) has a goal that is mutually exclusive to the other sides, or at least in conflict with it. This takes a both a bit of forward planning to set up and flexibility to deal with stuff on the fly. If your group are particularly invested in the world around them, their characters' relationships, or are just a creative sort of group they'll almost come up with their own quests based on these triangles. Using the random tables in the DMG is a good way to have a bunch of these sorts of NPCs available to drop in as needed. Or taking the player's bonds, ideals, and flaws and arranging them with each other into triangles with some NPC bonds, ideal, and flaws. Depending on your and their style your mileage may vary!
You bet, here are a few of my ideas:
Little girl lost her cat. The party tries and helps her. When they finally find the feline, it is stuck in a "Treant".
Similar scenario... noble's daughter is missing her pet cat. Party hired to find it. When they do, they realize it is a Displacer Beast. They now need to tame and return this beast to her, unharmed.
An inn is being haunted. Items are flying off shelves and moving by themselves. The party investigates... at the root. A malicious spellcaster telekinesis using a Crystal Ball
A local musician plays a song every night to keep an angry beast at bay. The musician goes missing. If the townsfolk cannot find a replacement to play the soothing toon by nightfall, the entire town will be in danger.
The players must infiltrate an illegal dice casino run by a Goblin Mob. They will need to find a set of "magical dice" to defeat the goblin kingpin at its own game
A monthly tribute is taken to a local Blue Dragon. This month, the players are chosen to interact with the ancient reptile and must adventure out to its lair.
I have about five (soon to be six) Quest/Subquest videos on my YouTube channel if you would like to take a look at these ideas in context along with several other ideas.
D&D Subquest Ideas - Wally DM
Hope this helps!
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
Wally DM on YouTube
Try flipping through the monster manual, see if any of the creatures inspire an idea. Reading about the rakshasa brought up a story about a merchant whose buiessness enemies are mauled by a tiger at night. Sometimes I find it helpful to think about the money that your villain may need. I had a villain starting a counterfeit business to pay for their villainy, only the moneywise dwarf merchants noticed, they hire the party to investigate.
Cults make easy one shot dungeon runs.
My players love having pets so I find a storyline where they discover their pet was very enjoyable. A dieing tiger killed by the local orc tribe uses her last energy to give a player her cub.
The townskeeper can always hire the players to clear out a gang or a group of monsters that raid the town.
I also agree that the best way to come up with sub-plot lines your players will enjoy is to develop their backstory.
I like side quests that also may be tangentially related to the main story line, but wont progress of affect it really. These can come from npc's and situations that were interacted with /played out previously during the story line. and as a reward, the players might gain an advantage for a future obstacle of the story line. or just cool stuff and deeper immersion into the significance of the main story.
i always inflict 2 on my players, the Halloween quest and the Hogmanay quest, the Halloween one is always a short one based round somewhere being haunted, the Hogmanay one always involves a desolate moorland with a castle on it and not much else, some form of vicious wild haggis, a high armour class porridge pot that grapples, inflicts heat damage totters round on 3 metal legs and can in extreme cases swallow people whole, and the terrible skirl of the pipes. that's a set of bagpipes with the stats of a banshee.
i always start them while the party are asleep at night and they always wake up in the morning wondering if what they went through was real or a dream. then they realise they have a nice little reward of some kind for completing it. keep it corny, keep it silly and keep it short.
i mention this as halloween is coming shortly so it's time to get writing.
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
There are a few short pdfs by Alan Tucker on DM Guild that have a few short encounters, such as Can We Keep Him? and So, a Cleric and a Vampire Walk into a Tavern. They are free purchases and each have a few encounters that explain how they could be expanded into larger quests.
Highly recommended.
Hi. Is your campaign location-based or event-based?
You can steal some ideas or whole structure of location-based campaign from my current project: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/By3s5Uqqf
I have a strange one, but it's one non the less. The players meet a weird bard, and he tells them to go on a statue hunt. Specifically, a duck statue hunt. He tells them they will be greatly rewarded. When they find them all and return, he will say, "Impressive! Now, as promised, you will be rewarded!" He pauses, then says, "Or should I say, serenaded!" He then proceeds to play bad music. However, he will greatly reward them.
Prepare to be serenaded!
Aside from backstory-related side adventures I sometimes use the idea of arriving in a town during a festival - there are party games, lots of ale, etc. And you can make up some weird and wonderful traditions that the townsfolk always do. Like someone has to dress up as a Hobgoblin and parade around and 'capture' a damsel, etc - and maybe the party can get involved. The great thing is that it can be fully light-hearted fun for the players to RP, but you can also go down the line of someone using the festival as cover for nefarious deeds (heist, kidnapping, etc) if you wanted something else.
That’s great, I had players walk into the tavern on the most bountiful beard competition night at the local dwarven tavern. The players joined in to decorate the dwarf cleric's beard with all the random stuff the thief has ever stolen. The winnings was free drinks all night, losers had to shave their beards.
A village girl is crying because her father hasn't returned from a expedition of your choice.
You can choose race of her, and further details, but what really happened is a werewolf killed him, and the party has to track it down to avenge the girl. In my campaign the girl was a elf and around 20, so she actually accompanied the party. She had a light crossbow, and no special abilities.
If the party is not good, and ignores her or whatnot, when they return to the village next, they find her dead body in a casket being mourned by on lookers
As mentioned here about letting the players drive their own quests. Do it. It works great. I posted elsewhere about listening to your players and I cannot stress this enough. They are a treasure trove of Ideas you can build on.
Hey I am a new DM, and this is a side quest ill be introducing soon, should take about 40 to an hour to clear. I have a tendency to take note of dialogue and narrative for quests, I am fully aware that this is overkill.
On a flyer or a billboard:
"Alligator in the sewer!
Looking for adventurers to slay big Tony, the alligator. For details, ask for Hornan Battleheart at the local tavern"
Hornan looks your group up and down
“Finally, you’re here about big Tony aren’t you?” “That alligator has always been a menace, but we let him be as he took care of the rats. A few days ago, he developed a taste for man meat!”
“The authorities sent a couple of contractors in the sewer to take note of repairs that need to be made, they never got out!”
“People say they just got lost, but I know, I KNOW Its big Tony. Please take care of him for the good of the town.”
“I’ve been saving for repairs of my shack, but ill gladly give you my savings of 17g if you get rid of him for us”
“The contractors were seen taking going in the sewer from the entrance near the shoe maker in the East district”
In the sewer, 3 intersections in, you find two mass of rats
2 swarm of rats to defeat
The rats were busy feasting on the remains of two humanoids, not much flesh is left on them.
Medicine check (15 you see slashing marks on the ribs of one and a deep cut on the skull of the other)
After 4 intersections you see an alligator about 6 feet long 30 feet from you, it is motionless
Looking at the alligator closer, you see that it is dead and rotting, multiple puncture and slashing wounds.
Medicine check (10 Alligator has been dead for roughly a week, 15 wounds were made by bladed weapons, axes and swords)
Perception check (further along past the corner, you hear a faint, clunk…. Clunk….. clunk…. It repeats roughly every 3 seconds)
The sounds comes from further than you believed as you walk another 50 feet before seeing some light reflecting from the corner of the next turn in the tunnel.
Stealth check 8
As you get nearer and peer around the corner, you see a human with a pickaxe digging into the side of the tunnel, he is illuminated by a lantern set on the ground next to him, he is roughly 60 feet away.
Perception check (while the lantern only illuminates so far, you see 2 more humanoids beyond the lantern, one is sitting playing with a dagger, the other is leaning against the wall.
3 x Bandit
Searching the bandits reveal, two shortswords, an axe, 4 gold 17 silvers and a map of what looks to be the sewers with an X.
The spot in the wall where that have been digging has been dug for about 3 feet in, the bricks are all clear and they have been digging into natural rock and dirt.
Strength check of 10
As you dig for about 30min, you feel the rock giving way and falling inward. You have dug a hole with open space on the other side, the size of a fist.
You dig with renewed energy for another 20min before creating an entrance big enough for a person to fit through.
Inside you find a room with seemingly no entrance, the bricks are the same type as those of the sewer. It is roughly 5 by 5 feet with a desiccated corpse lying in the corner. In its right hand it hold a chalice made of gold, its rim encrusted by what appears to be minuscule diamonds, with rubies inlaid on the outside of the cup.
Medicine check (10 you see no apparent cause of death, has been dead for decades)
Arcana check on chalice (10 you feel this item is magical, 15 you feel this item is curse)
You pick it up, it has a weight to it, it weighs roughly 5 to 10 pounds.
You place it in your pack as you make your way out to the sewer, however you are not able to let go of the chalice. Try as you might, you cannot let go. You can switch the chalice from hand to hand, but you cannot let it go or throw it. They cannot give the chalice to another person.
You can have alot of fun with a character who can only use a single handed weapon, although they can use the chalice as a club. The chalice does not get damaged and does not get dirty. It attracts alot of unwanted attention from unsavoury people.
Party will have to find a way to remove the curse. When they do so, the gold oxidizes quickly and crumbles, the diamond and rubies are left, and are worth 60G.
There is a missing person's report on the wall of the local tavern. The person who is missing is a teenager of your race of choice. the last known place of this would be at their father's home when the party gets there, the dad explains some of the backstories and after the conversation offers the party a sum of money you find fair for the level. the father says that he was on his way to a city called Durish, its a city that (unbeknownst to the party) lets people in, but never lets them out as the population is falling, and there is a harsh govt in place. The party needs to find the missing person and find a way to exit the city.
Our DM decreed that we would have some down time after a session that we could spend around town and let each of us describe to him, one-on-one, how we would like to spend that downtime.
He thought that because I was a bard, I'd sleep till noon, futz about until dinner, and then play in the tavern for money, food and drink.
Instead I started transporting goods from here to there in a cart and making money, hoping to make more money in the evenings performing. Because I could negotiate this with the DM, it was a rewarding side quest for me.
The nature of your campaign, levels of your players, interests and all that prevent me from giving you very specific advice.
Good luck.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
A Mansion but its a mimic.
Options
I made one recently that is kind of cliché, but fun. It’s a mad inventor, but he created the first firearm. The final boss is a goblin fighter(gunslinger) L7 with a bad news. But, since it’s the first one I set up a table for it. The first 2 times he fires, it’s a guarantee. Every shot after that, he has an increasing 5% chance of it exploding in his face. Aka: (shot,%chance) (3,5%) (4,10%) so on and so on. This way, he only has 22 possible shots before it is a 100% chance.