I'm a kinda new DM (less than a year) of xp. I have this group for a homebrew campaign and everyone seems to be having fun. However, I really want to incorporate more character centered story lines and connect them to the main plot. Any suggestions on how to do this?
First, take a look at your players’ character sheets. Usually that’s the best place to start. Who or what is their bonds? How about their flaws? What gods do they follow? What drove them to become an adventurer? These things are made to guide roleplaying for the players, but it can be very helpful for you as well.
An advantage you have is that you know how they are playing the character too. Often times, the character sheets are a starting point, and once the game really gets going is when the character is developed. Use what you know from their roleplaying style and the NPCs that they’ve interacted with to add to the information from their character sheet. If you need to, you can observe them during your next session and take notes on their characters.
Next, pick one aspect from each character to focus on. Clerics, Paladins, Warlocks, and religious characters are the easiest to start with. Their deity or patron is often central to their character. The next place the characters are sent to for whatever reason makes sense to your storyline can tie into their religion. A defaced temple dedicated to their deity, a shrine to a rival, another cleric of the same domain who wants to be, or is, better at, serving their god than the character… Even contact or a request from their deity, potentially through an intermediate who may or may not be telling the truth.
It can be harder for other characters, but definitely doable. The character’s bond shows up, in danger from an unknown threat. A member of the organization they left has come to track them down. An NPC they bonded with in the previous town has gone missing. The one treasure they were searching for is nearby, but heavily guarded. Something they’ve never been able to resist presents itself, but with strings attached. A rival comes to town. Let the players and their stories be inspirations.
Now for incorporating into your main plot. If your campaign has a central villain or group of villains, it’s easier. A clue to defeating them is possessed by the relevant NPC or hidden within a dungeon/ location that is involved in the storyline. They are very interested either hunting down or striking a deal with a backstory-centric organization. They’ve been researching the characters, and have learned about their bonds and flaws and want to entrap them. The deity wants to stop the bad guy, or in the case of the warlock, help them. The character’s bond, former organization, or rival has secretly joined the villain’s side.
The key is having completing the backstory quest give them a clue about your main storyline, or a new ally/enemy in the fight.
Final tips:
Ask your players if they want it, and communicate with them separately about specifics. Some players may prefer to not involve their backstories or bonds in the campaign, or have some ground rules about what kind of involvement or how much time they want in the spotlight.
Let your players describe relevant NPCs or places that their characters know, if they feel comfortable doing so.
Be okay if your players don’t engage with your quests, or act different from what you expected when completing them.
Rotate between players so that everyone feels important.
Give everyone a chance to shine, but make sure that the other characters still have things to do.
The best time to do this is when your players create their characters. Have them create one unresolved mystery in their backstory. Some of my current players had:
One day his master was gone, a strange book lay on the floor, and I could suddenly speak abyssal
I was discovered as a baby, washed up on the shoreline with a burn on my face
I was out hunting and I saw a deer with glowing blue eyes. I shot it, and my goliath markings vanished
These storylines have then been running in my campaign for 15 months and have gone all manner of crazy directions.
As you're already mid-campaign, you need to go back to your players' backstories. Not their characters sheets, no. Look at their histories and look for things that can emerge in the world. It makes no difference what class they are playing, the only thing that is important is that the player feels connected to the storyline.
To incorporate it you just need to start ceding in clues that will lead to the following during the story:
Character first discovers some link to their storyline. This could be information, it could be an NPC, it could be an item. They should not understand it at this point, and may want to hide their knowledge from other characters (not players - have them RP it all in front of them and then the other PCs don't know it).
As they uncover more, they should throw themselves into the discovery. As they do this more clues unfold
Give the PC a homebrew magical item that directly links into the storyline. Make it more powerful than other items in the game, so that it feels special. Consider giving it a drawback as well
Escalate the stakes! Once the PC is getting comfortable with what they have learned, turn up the heat; throw a curve ball. They should suddenly find that all is not as they thought it was, maybe they've been deceived.
Due to the PC's own desire to resolve matters, they go to confront the enemy. This leads to an epic combat encounter in which the PC is the most important participant.
Worked example from my own campaign:
Level 1: Rogue discovers his master's fencing manual in his bag. It is a magic item that gives a weak bonus - once per day he can choose to give an attack roll +1 before rolling the attack. Level 2-3: Once he started using it, the book began to whisper to him in his dreams, showing him pages smeared with blood. Around level 3, the rogue figures out that the book wants to be fed blood. He decides to do so. Level 4: The book transforms into a powerful magical item, granting him battlemaster manoeuvres (I knew he intended to take fighter levels later on) earlier than he should have them. He exults in his newfound skills! Level 5: Things start to turn a bit sinister. The book, through dreams, insists on more and more power Level 6: Learns that the book is really a demon, and it is being fed souls. Some moral conflict, and the party don't want him to use it anymore. Our Fighter/Rogue is hungry for power though so he keeps using it. Level 7: Learn that the book trains warriors, then fights them in single combat. The demon summons him into the book, and they duel; the F/R is easily defeated, and spat back out to train harder. Level 8: A friendly NPC child accidentally opens the book and is consumed. F/R is consumed by grief for her and determined to save her soul. Chains the book up and sticks it in the Bag of Holding. He does research and discovers a ritual that will enable him to take the demon on directly. Level 9: The F/R gathers key things he needs for the ritual, such as powdered dragon bone, and finds where to conduct the ritual - a soul well, of which there are a choice of 2 in highly dangerous locations. Level 10: Fight his way to the soul well. The ritual is conducted, and he enters the book. During past conversations, the demon always kept saying "You alone cannot beat me." F/R brings his friends, but they are unable to fully enter. In the final battle, the other party members can each gift him their abilities - Reckless Attack, Divine Smite, Blood Curses, Stone's Endurance, Spiritual Weapon and so on, each turn, as well as channelling him life force. Our F/R has learned that his arrogant pursuit of power is no match for the power of friendship. He takes on the demon, who has 420 hit points and 3 different phases/forms, and the party overpower him so much by gifting him abilities he crits it for 108 damage on a single turn. The demon is defeated, the child and all the other souls in the book go free, and the F/R is rewarded with the demon's soul bound forever into a massively overpowered magic weapon.
This is a heavily abbreviated version and omits a lot of RP interactions, but you get the idea. That's a full ten level arc and the players went absolutely wild for it. It allows for the character to develop; to make decisions that matter; and leads to an awesome, unique encounter.
Do they already have plot hooks from their backstories, and your looking for a way to incorporate them? Or do they have nothing, and you’re looking to make some?
A few of them gave me plot hooks from the story and the rest gave me nothing. I have ideas for all of the characters but I don't want it to feel like I'm railroading them and I don't want it to feel forced. They're following a string of clues right now to find a weapon so I don't know if introducing some of these plot hooks (even though they do tie into the main plot) will disrupt the flow.
Thank you this is really helpful there's a lot of good tips. I appreciate it! I have a few ideas as to how to do these. A few of the players have a lot of backstory and the others have a little so the variety helps a lot!
Holy moly that is really cool thank you for breaking down a story-arc, this really helps me understand a lot better. Also that storyline sounds awesome good job tbh.
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I'm a kinda new DM (less than a year) of xp. I have this group for a homebrew campaign and everyone seems to be having fun. However, I really want to incorporate more character centered story lines and connect them to the main plot. Any suggestions on how to do this?
First, take a look at your players’ character sheets. Usually that’s the best place to start. Who or what is their bonds? How about their flaws? What gods do they follow? What drove them to become an adventurer? These things are made to guide roleplaying for the players, but it can be very helpful for you as well.
An advantage you have is that you know how they are playing the character too. Often times, the character sheets are a starting point, and once the game really gets going is when the character is developed. Use what you know from their roleplaying style and the NPCs that they’ve interacted with to add to the information from their character sheet. If you need to, you can observe them during your next session and take notes on their characters.
Next, pick one aspect from each character to focus on. Clerics, Paladins, Warlocks, and religious characters are the easiest to start with. Their deity or patron is often central to their character. The next place the characters are sent to for whatever reason makes sense to your storyline can tie into their religion. A defaced temple dedicated to their deity, a shrine to a rival, another cleric of the same domain who wants to be, or is, better at, serving their god than the character… Even contact or a request from their deity, potentially through an intermediate who may or may not be telling the truth.
It can be harder for other characters, but definitely doable. The character’s bond shows up, in danger from an unknown threat. A member of the organization they left has come to track them down. An NPC they bonded with in the previous town has gone missing. The one treasure they were searching for is nearby, but heavily guarded. Something they’ve never been able to resist presents itself, but with strings attached. A rival comes to town. Let the players and their stories be inspirations.
Now for incorporating into your main plot. If your campaign has a central villain or group of villains, it’s easier. A clue to defeating them is possessed by the relevant NPC or hidden within a dungeon/ location that is involved in the storyline. They are very interested either hunting down or striking a deal with a backstory-centric organization. They’ve been researching the characters, and have learned about their bonds and flaws and want to entrap them. The deity wants to stop the bad guy, or in the case of the warlock, help them. The character’s bond, former organization, or rival has secretly joined the villain’s side.
The key is having completing the backstory quest give them a clue about your main storyline, or a new ally/enemy in the fight.
Final tips:
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
The best time to do this is when your players create their characters. Have them create one unresolved mystery in their backstory. Some of my current players had:
These storylines have then been running in my campaign for 15 months and have gone all manner of crazy directions.
As you're already mid-campaign, you need to go back to your players' backstories. Not their characters sheets, no. Look at their histories and look for things that can emerge in the world. It makes no difference what class they are playing, the only thing that is important is that the player feels connected to the storyline.
To incorporate it you just need to start ceding in clues that will lead to the following during the story:
Worked example from my own campaign:
Level 1: Rogue discovers his master's fencing manual in his bag. It is a magic item that gives a weak bonus - once per day he can choose to give an attack roll +1 before rolling the attack.
Level 2-3: Once he started using it, the book began to whisper to him in his dreams, showing him pages smeared with blood. Around level 3, the rogue figures out that the book wants to be fed blood. He decides to do so.
Level 4: The book transforms into a powerful magical item, granting him battlemaster manoeuvres (I knew he intended to take fighter levels later on) earlier than he should have them. He exults in his newfound skills!
Level 5: Things start to turn a bit sinister. The book, through dreams, insists on more and more power
Level 6: Learns that the book is really a demon, and it is being fed souls. Some moral conflict, and the party don't want him to use it anymore. Our Fighter/Rogue is hungry for power though so he keeps using it.
Level 7: Learn that the book trains warriors, then fights them in single combat. The demon summons him into the book, and they duel; the F/R is easily defeated, and spat back out to train harder.
Level 8: A friendly NPC child accidentally opens the book and is consumed. F/R is consumed by grief for her and determined to save her soul. Chains the book up and sticks it in the Bag of Holding. He does research and discovers a ritual that will enable him to take the demon on directly.
Level 9: The F/R gathers key things he needs for the ritual, such as powdered dragon bone, and finds where to conduct the ritual - a soul well, of which there are a choice of 2 in highly dangerous locations.
Level 10: Fight his way to the soul well. The ritual is conducted, and he enters the book. During past conversations, the demon always kept saying "You alone cannot beat me." F/R brings his friends, but they are unable to fully enter. In the final battle, the other party members can each gift him their abilities - Reckless Attack, Divine Smite, Blood Curses, Stone's Endurance, Spiritual Weapon and so on, each turn, as well as channelling him life force. Our F/R has learned that his arrogant pursuit of power is no match for the power of friendship. He takes on the demon, who has 420 hit points and 3 different phases/forms, and the party overpower him so much by gifting him abilities he crits it for 108 damage on a single turn.
The demon is defeated, the child and all the other souls in the book go free, and the F/R is rewarded with the demon's soul bound forever into a massively overpowered magic weapon.
This is a heavily abbreviated version and omits a lot of RP interactions, but you get the idea. That's a full ten level arc and the players went absolutely wild for it. It allows for the character to develop; to make decisions that matter; and leads to an awesome, unique encounter.
Do they already have plot hooks from their backstories, and your looking for a way to incorporate them? Or do they have nothing, and you’re looking to make some?
A few of them gave me plot hooks from the story and the rest gave me nothing. I have ideas for all of the characters but I don't want it to feel like I'm railroading them and I don't want it to feel forced. They're following a string of clues right now to find a weapon so I don't know if introducing some of these plot hooks (even though they do tie into the main plot) will disrupt the flow.
Thank you this is really helpful there's a lot of good tips. I appreciate it! I have a few ideas as to how to do these. A few of the players have a lot of backstory and the others have a little so the variety helps a lot!
Holy moly that is really cool thank you for breaking down a story-arc, this really helps me understand a lot better. Also that storyline sounds awesome good job tbh.