I still think presenting these items as the keys to unlock gameplay avenues to inscentivize the players to quest after them without any intention of the players succeeding and actually unlocking those gameplay avenues seems like you're tricking them needlessly into playing the game.
Like, yes, they'll encounter a door that could only be opened if they still had the gauntlets of super strength. But the gauntlets no longer exist. Magic has been warped so the gauntlets cannot ever exist again. This door can never be opened. Why include the door? To make the player want the gauntlets. Why do the players want the gauntlets? To open the door. It's an endless loop,
The game is supposed to be about SHARED story telling, this is basically a railroad with little or no player input. Getting a high level magic item at level one is fairly ridiculous- no one is going to give the family heirloom to a young kid just starting. At best they might equip the family heir with some basic magic armor/weapons to help them survive long enough to reach levels where they have earned the right to the family heirloom. If you want the bbeg to have stolen the items at the start and the characters are being sent out by their families to recover the items that makes a very different story. However, destroying the items so they can never be recovered kills the entire story line.
The game is supposed to be about SHARED story telling, this is basically a railroad with little or no player input. Getting a high level magic item at level one is fairly ridiculous- no one is going to give the family heirloom to a young kid just starting. At best they might equip the family heir with some basic magic armor/weapons to help them survive long enough to reach levels where they have earned the right to the family heirloom. If you want the bbeg to have stolen the items at the start and the characters are being sent out by their families to recover the items that makes a very different story. However, destroying the items so they can never be recovered kills the entire story line.
Players are pretty creative and can come up with good reasons. For example, they might be a young adventurer that just happened upon the item. Sometimes, lowly people cross paths with greatness. They might find their father has passed away, leaving the object to his only remaining heir. Maybe they bought it at a general store that didn't even recognize the magic! Many possibilities. The lack of the objects IS the storyline, so there's no worries about killing the storyline by the loss of the objects.
That being said, there will be more subtle ways of reminding you what you lost even after accepting it: say one player had a belt of fire giant strength. They'll run across an iron door that can't be moved, but will realize if they still had the belt, they could have moved it.
As others said, this seems unnecessarily adversarial. The players had no choice or agency here. So, as it stands, this is essentially a "You know that belt I gave you and then took away from you that you can never get back through no fault of your own? Well neener neener neener. Now there's a challenge you can't solve without it."
But there is a way to salvage this idea of having a door they can't get past without the belt: adding player agency.
Instead of taking away the belt through DM powers, what if the loss of the belt was the choice of a player? Perhaps at the last town an inn was burning and they had to make a choice: Do I save the belt from the burning building or save the child still inside the burning building? And while the lack of a belt means they can't brute-force open the door, perhaps a grateful villager that was relived to have their child safe and sound told them a clue that offers a different way of getting the door open that doesn't rely on brute force. Or, to give another idea, perhaps the last person they helped was really thankful and gave them a reward. And for the reward they had a choice of taking the belt or Goggles of Night. And the player's choice was to take the goggles. So now, because of their choice, they can't brute-force the door open. But maybe the goggles give them the utility they need to go through a hidden underground passage.
As others have noted, the issue is that you're setting up a paradigm of "Hey, guys, try to do this." And when they try to do it, "Sike! You can't do that." But if you add in player agency, giving the a choice, then you can make it a more enjoyable experience.
As an anecdote, was playing Lost Mines of Phandelver once. And the DM solidified our hatred of Glasstaff by having him and some redbrands attack Qelline Alderleaf's farm in the night. We went to bed thinking it was safe only to wake up finding she was missing and her son, Carp, was dead. And while we may not have had any choices to make during the night, we had made the choice to not set up a watch while we were sleeping. So perhaps if we had made different choices we could've caught Glasstaff and his redbrands and been able to save Carp's life. So while we hated Glasstaff for killing the kid, we didn't harbor any resentment towards the DM because it was a logical extension of our choices.
So if the loss of magical items is essential to your idea, try reworking it so that instead of "You lose the items and have no say in the matter" you make it a choice. Maybe they realize the BBEG is too powerful for them to fight at first, but that if they sacrifice the magic items that'll reduce his power. And later, instead of blocking every attempt to get the items back, you let them succeed or get new ones. Perhaps the first mage they come across isn't powerful enough to restore magic, but he knows of a mage who is. And that mage only accepts requests from powerful adventurers, meaning they have to prove themselves. And maybe his attempt to restore the magic isn't fully successful (perhaps the +3 scimitar is only restored to a +1) but from the issues he had he knows what could fix the problem and after that side quest the player finally has that +3 scimitar they started with at lv 1 back at lv 11. Now instead of a "Neener neener you can't get the magic item back" situation you have a "It was a long journey with some complications, but you pushed on and have been rewarded for your hard work" situation.
The game is supposed to be about SHARED story telling, this is basically a railroad with little or no player input. Getting a high level magic item at level one is fairly ridiculous- no one is going to give the family heirloom to a young kid just starting. At best they might equip the family heir with some basic magic armor/weapons to help them survive long enough to reach levels where they have earned the right to the family heirloom. If you want the bbeg to have stolen the items at the start and the characters are being sent out by their families to recover the items that makes a very different story. However, destroying the items so they can never be recovered kills the entire story line.
Players are pretty creative and can come up with good reasons. For example, they might be a young adventurer that just happened upon the item. Sometimes, lowly people cross paths with greatness. They might find their father has passed away, leaving the object to his only remaining heir. Maybe they bought it at a general store that didn't even recognize the magic! Many possibilities. The lack of the objects IS the storyline, so there's no worries about killing the storyline by the loss of the objects.
The issue that you're missing is that players will on react to this by becoming emotionally invested in the story and wanting to continue.
They're going to react to it by packing their stuff up and going home to play Smash Bros instead of participating in your game.
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The game is supposed to be about SHARED story telling, this is basically a railroad with little or no player input. Getting a high level magic item at level one is fairly ridiculous- no one is going to give the family heirloom to a young kid just starting. At best they might equip the family heir with some basic magic armor/weapons to help them survive long enough to reach levels where they have earned the right to the family heirloom. If you want the bbeg to have stolen the items at the start and the characters are being sent out by their families to recover the items that makes a very different story. However, destroying the items so they can never be recovered kills the entire story line.
Players are pretty creative and can come up with good reasons. For example, they might be a young adventurer that just happened upon the item. Sometimes, lowly people cross paths with greatness. They might find their father has passed away, leaving the object to his only remaining heir. Maybe they bought it at a general store that didn't even recognize the magic! Many possibilities. The lack of the objects IS the storyline, so there's no worries about killing the storyline by the loss of the objects.
The issue that you're missing is that players will on react to this by becoming emotionally invested in the story and wanting to continue.
They're going to react to it by packing their stuff up and going home to play Smash Bros instead of participating in your game.
The emotional investment is an important aspect. Losses don't seem to matter unless at first there is a connection to the object. If they leave to play Smash Bros of course that's fine. The campaign world has other PCs and scores of NPCs so there won't be a problem with life continuing there.
1.) The storytelling is discordant in that you have someone who basically is performing magic above level 9 spells who is also easily killable deciding to pick on level one characters for the lolz and this person who gained all this power decided that after using it to troll some newbs that he will just die happily because he destroyed what might be just a basic magic weapon and altered reality?
2.) Some magic items at that level are connected with gods...it would be really weird if this BBEG can outperform gods and alter reality to stop gods from making the magic items of their faith.
3.) It is already odd that level 1 characters have such items, were apparently known to have them (as it is required for your perverse tactic of wanting to constantly pick at the loss), and yet no one ever just stole it or murdered them for these items before the BBEG....they are level 1 most things can deal with them even if they have a very rare magic item.
4.) The campaign idea just seems lazy as you are giving one hook only for any random adventure...a hook that is likely to fail after the first couple uses...and then when the hook fails you just plan to annoy and troll the players for daring to not follow your hook
5.) You are basically being Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown...except you are doing this against your players and that is the goal for the ENTIRE campaign. It just feels like you want to sit back and laugh at your players for "stupidly" following another dead end...a dead end that you will keep trying to force them to take and will punish them if they do not
6.) Given that the magic items and their duplicates are wiped out forever there are also likely to be high level NPCs fairly pissed at losing their magic item I doubt the world will keep this stupid teasing tactic of baiting adventurers if sometimes it leads to a powerful person grabbing their bait and likely curbstomping them in anger if they are not a good aligned high powered entity
7.) The whole gimmick of you are diminished without your item only lasts as long as it takes them to level to a decent level to be able to fight the things they could fight at level 1 with the items. Eventually it just seems dumb if anyone tries to tease them about the item loss when they are level 5 and up. Also many magic items can eventually be simulated or exceeded by spells later on.
8.) A smart player would pick something like a manual and use it before adventuring and therefore the loss of it could never effect them as it is a one time use item and they get to permanently keep the effect of it
9.) What about magic tattoos, will you have a character literally cut their flesh out at the beginning?
Personally I think you need at least the following modifications:
A true and decent motivation for the BBEG targeting the players and/or their magic items. I also think defeating the BBEG should be the end game and not some stupid nothing like you seem to want. Maybe the BBEG can absorb the magic from the items and so long as he lives the magic is trapped within him (make some rules and limitations that explain why their items were taken and also make a list of magic items for players to choose from to make it make sense)
Perhaps the players were not on an adventure but were tasked with the care of some of the touchstone magic items of a kingdom that is enemies with the BBEG and that if they cannot restore the items their families may suffer for their dereliction of duty. Thus they must expend all efforts to accomplish this or prove the task impossible and maybe even have to turn on their kingdom to save their families as they realize they cannot accomplish this, or find a way to convince the crown to forgive the crime.
There needs to be some story beyond "hur hur I broke your toy, now go try to fix it" because if that is it the players are likely going to just abandon the magic items and will try and move past your railroads that are forcing them to go down a very boring route.
That is ultimately the problem with what you set up...it is dull and boring and will get old VERY quickly and you have no idea on what to do next except try your best to keep your players trapped in a dull and boring loop that is designed to leave them always feeling like failures but will fail at that as they will ultimately just find YOU to be the failure.
I still think presenting these items as the keys to unlock gameplay avenues to inscentivize the players to quest after them without any intention of the players succeeding and actually unlocking those gameplay avenues seems like you're tricking them needlessly into playing the game.
Like, yes, they'll encounter a door that could only be opened if they still had the gauntlets of super strength. But the gauntlets no longer exist. Magic has been warped so the gauntlets cannot ever exist again. This door can never be opened. Why include the door? To make the player want the gauntlets. Why do the players want the gauntlets? To open the door. It's an endless loop,
Exactly, this is a succinct rundown
I guess I'm not understanding why you'd want to run a campaign with no meaning to anything the players do.
1.) The storytelling is discordant in that you have someone who basically is performing magic above level 9 spells who is also easily killable deciding to pick on level one characters for the lolz and this person who gained all this power decided that after using it to troll some newbs that he will just die happily because he destroyed what might be just a basic magic weapon and altered reality?
2.) Some magic items at that level are connected with gods...it would be really weird if this BBEG can outperform gods and alter reality to stop gods from making the magic items of their faith.
3.) It is already odd that level 1 characters have such items, were apparently known to have them (as it is required for your perverse tactic of wanting to constantly pick at the loss), and yet no one ever just stole it or murdered them for these items before the BBEG....they are level 1 most things can deal with them even if they have a very rare magic item.
4.) The campaign idea just seems lazy as you are giving one hook only for any random adventure...a hook that is likely to fail after the first couple uses...and then when the hook fails you just plan to annoy and troll the players for daring to not follow your hook
5.) You are basically being Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown...except you are doing this against your players and that is the goal for the ENTIRE campaign. It just feels like you want to sit back and laugh at your players for "stupidly" following another dead end...a dead end that you will keep trying to force them to take and will punish them if they do not
6.) Given that the magic items and their duplicates are wiped out forever there are also likely to be high level NPCs fairly pissed at losing their magic item I doubt the world will keep this stupid teasing tactic of baiting adventurers if sometimes it leads to a powerful person grabbing their bait and likely curbstomping them in anger if they are not a good aligned high powered entity
7.) The whole gimmick of you are diminished without your item only lasts as long as it takes them to level to a decent level to be able to fight the things they could fight at level 1 with the items. Eventually it just seems dumb if anyone tries to tease them about the item loss when they are level 5 and up. Also many magic items can eventually be simulated or exceeded by spells later on.
8.) A smart player would pick something like a manual and use it before adventuring and therefore the loss of it could never effect them as it is a one time use item and they get to permanently keep the effect of it
9.) What about magic tattoos, will you have a character literally cut their flesh out at the beginning?
Personally I think you need at least the following modifications:
A true and decent motivation for the BBEG targeting the players and/or their magic items. I also think defeating the BBEG should be the end game and not some stupid nothing like you seem to want. Maybe the BBEG can absorb the magic from the items and so long as he lives the magic is trapped within him (make some rules and limitations that explain why their items were taken and also make a list of magic items for players to choose from to make it make sense)
Perhaps the players were not on an adventure but were tasked with the care of some of the touchstone magic items of a kingdom that is enemies with the BBEG and that if they cannot restore the items their families may suffer for their dereliction of duty. Thus they must expend all efforts to accomplish this or prove the task impossible and maybe even have to turn on their kingdom to save their families as they realize they cannot accomplish this, or find a way to convince the crown to forgive the crime.
There needs to be some story beyond "hur hur I broke your toy, now go try to fix it" because if that is it the players are likely going to just abandon the magic items and will try and move past your railroads that are forcing them to go down a very boring route.
That is ultimately the problem with what you set up...it is dull and boring and will get old VERY quickly and you have no idea on what to do next except try your best to keep your players trapped in a dull and boring loop that is designed to leave them always feeling like failures but will fail at that as they will ultimately just find YOU to be the failure.
1) Easily resolved. The first dungeon he has some single use magic items that allow for his defense and the disintegration, later he doesn't and doesn't bother replacing since his goals are complete.
2) He actually is going to make a sacrifice to a dread god that overrules the others. That god allows for permanent disruption of the items. It might not even come up, but if it does, it might even make a PCs religious allies upset, which gives an additional NPC motivation. Most "snags" are actually helpful
3) Already went over this, there are a bunch of easy, creative ways to resolve that (just found it, was at a general store didn't know it was magic, inherited, etc.) Any reason you can come up with why that would be impossible is actually more arbitrary than the idea a lowly person could own something great
4) it's actually very detailed and meticulous
5) I'm not doing that, I'm moving the football just once, destroying the football, and making it clear there will never be a football again. There's no need to get Charlie back on the field, those times are gone forever.
6) High powered NPCs won't really be moved by one story of something happening to level 1 guys and when no other items are destroyed, no one will care about that. They'll just look at their own high powered items they own, see them every morning, and smile wistfully. "At least it wasn't me"
7) It won't be dumb when this happens, it'll be cool. The players will grow used to the idea that others are invested in their tragic beginnings.
8) A "Smart player" will not know the plot twists ahead of time, most smart players understand that
9) Looks like you answered your own question, big guy
I suggest that you prepare for the ever-present possibility that the players are very motivated, and they make their toons go a completely different way at level 1.
"We don't care about BBEG. He's level 4. We have magic items. We will go to the Plane of Somewhere Else." <deuces />
Thanks for everyone's input! I think I now have what I need to get this campaign realllly popping.
You're clearly very much in love with your idea. Nobody else is, but maybe your players are different. (Don't bet on it.)
What you're likely to find is that you don't actually have a plot. Everything hinges on the players caring about these items, and players don't usually care that much about magic items, especially ones they have no history with. If they're invested in an item from their backstory, it doesn't matter if "The sword of my father, Domingo Montoya" is a +5 holy avenger or a normal rapier with a shiny hilt, and it's that item, not all rapiers with shiny hilts.
I’ve had people tell me players deeply care about their stuff and that they don’t care. I explained already that it’s fine if they choose not to pursue them. It just doesn’t matter because there isn’t anything in the pursuit anyway
The emotional investment is an important aspect. Losses don't seem to matter unless at first there is a connection to the object. If they leave to play Smash Bros of course that's fine. The campaign world has other PCs and scores of NPCs so there won't be a problem with life continuing there.
Characters may be disposable, players are not. Your cavalier attitude toward players leaving betrays either an unacceptably antagonistic view of the Player-DM relationship or a naïveté of how DMing works.
It sounds a lot like this is your first campaign as a DM and you are really excited about the idea. It is great to be excited, but you also need to be realistic - if you are receiving universal condemnation for a suggestion, it is likely that you will not be able to “get [the] campaign realllly popping” without fundamental changes. Changes you are clearly refusing to consider, since you keep doubling down on the same arguments.
I’ve had people tell me players deeply care about their stuff and that they don’t care. I explained already that it’s fine if they choose not to pursue them. It just doesn’t matter because there isn’t anything in the pursuit anyway
It honestly doesn't matter if they care about the items or not. How much they do or don't care just controls how cheated they'll feel at the end when they realize the campaign was never going anywhere.
The fact that you want to influence them to care through flashbacks to the Ten Minutes I Held A Sword and obstacles that can only be solved with the magic items, just seems like you're setting everyone up for disappointment, which feels like a sour note to end a campaign on.
You keep saying you're fine with it if the players move on, that you'll just keep reminding them how awesome the magic items were, that's not actually "fine with them moving on". The concern isn't that you'll lose the players so you need to have a contingency to pull them back into the plot, the concern is that there's not enough plot there so players given the choice will cast it aside. Those contingencies you keep bringing up whenever someone criticizes the plot, basically promising in subtext that the players will *definitely* get their magic items *next time* and then they'll be able to do all this cool stuff... honestly it just sounds kind of mean.
If they just wander around randomly, then the campaign is just as much never going anywhere. If goals that are never realized are somehow unfair, how would you handle a player who has a goal to unite the world (whether through conquest or diplomacy)? Or any unreasonable to achieve at low or even mid-level goal?
This is a false equivalency. In your example, the player is choosing to follow an impossible task, likely in spite of DM warnings of futility. OP is not only forcing the PCs into an impossible task, they are actively leading the player to believe the task is possible, then pulling the rug out from under the PCs. Huge, easily distinguishable difference.
Kotath - I think you might want to read the thread - OP is actively gloating about pulling the rug out from under their players. They even go so far as to say their idea of the endgame is the BBEG being killed, and taking any pleasure out of the victory by declaring “I wanted to die anyway, so I’d course you were going to win.”
As I have said from the beginning, it is possible for someone to make a something like this that could work—the problem, however, lies with OP’s clear disregard for player enjoyment (at one point basically saying “players are a dime a dozen, I do not care if I bore them out of my campaign”).
If they just wander around randomly, then the campaign is just as much never going anywhere. If goals that are never realized are somehow unfair, how would you handle a player who has a goal to unite the world (whether through conquest or diplomacy)? Or any unreasonable to achieve at low or even mid-level goal?
This is a false equivalency. In your example, the player is choosing to follow an impossible task, likely in spite of DM warnings of futility. OP is not only forcing the PCs into an impossible task, they are actively leading the player to believe the task is possible, then pulling the rug out from under the PCs. Huge, easily distinguishable difference.
Pulling the rug out from anyone assumes that the there is a reveal of impossibility at some point. Or that it is some sort of simple, all or nothing task.
Stop thinking so short term and consider the ramifications of the party simply succeeding. What does Robin Hood do for adventure after returning King Richard to the throne? What does the last Highlander do when there really is only one and it is them? What do the Fellowship do after the One Ring is destroyed and Sauron is defeated? Finishing the major goal overall goal of any full campaign typically means end of campaign. It is something that will happen eventually but there should be no hurry nor expectation that it would happen any time soon.
Meanwhile, just because there is an end goal does not mean there is no room for progress towards that goal, or room for growth along the way.
In my current campaign, there is a long term enemy, one the party cannot simply outright defeat. They barely know anything about said enemy. They could ignore said enemy, but doing so too long would mean the enemy gets progressively more successful at hitting them back. They have so far made great advances, but at one point they got completely cocky, ignoring all warnings and lost a major friendly NPC as a result. However, they have a lot of freedom in how they approach the situation.
But there's a very real difference between what technically doesn't impact the story in the grand scheme of things, and what is narritively satisfying for the players. Even if the campaign is ending anyways after the One Ring is destroyed, it matters whether the party gets to experience their victory, or whether Gandalf comes back to the fellowship after they destroy the ring and goes "Oh, you were still doing that? You thought I was serious?? Haha lol that ring was just a normal ring you totally bought it! Nerds!"
I agree that you can use a loose plot as a framing device to connect disperate adventures, but if that's what this is (and OP has not indicated that it is), then I wouldn't really see a need to try and convince the players to keep going back to the main plot when they pull back, if that's what you're expecting them to do anyways.
Exactly, this is a succinct rundown
The game is supposed to be about SHARED story telling, this is basically a railroad with little or no player input. Getting a high level magic item at level one is fairly ridiculous- no one is going to give the family heirloom to a young kid just starting. At best they might equip the family heir with some basic magic armor/weapons to help them survive long enough to reach levels where they have earned the right to the family heirloom. If you want the bbeg to have stolen the items at the start and the characters are being sent out by their families to recover the items that makes a very different story. However, destroying the items so they can never be recovered kills the entire story line.
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Players are pretty creative and can come up with good reasons. For example, they might be a young adventurer that just happened upon the item. Sometimes, lowly people cross paths with greatness. They might find their father has passed away, leaving the object to his only remaining heir. Maybe they bought it at a general store that didn't even recognize the magic! Many possibilities. The lack of the objects IS the storyline, so there's no worries about killing the storyline by the loss of the objects.
As others said, this seems unnecessarily adversarial. The players had no choice or agency here. So, as it stands, this is essentially a "You know that belt I gave you and then took away from you that you can never get back through no fault of your own? Well neener neener neener. Now there's a challenge you can't solve without it."
But there is a way to salvage this idea of having a door they can't get past without the belt: adding player agency.
Instead of taking away the belt through DM powers, what if the loss of the belt was the choice of a player?
Perhaps at the last town an inn was burning and they had to make a choice: Do I save the belt from the burning building or save the child still inside the burning building? And while the lack of a belt means they can't brute-force open the door, perhaps a grateful villager that was relived to have their child safe and sound told them a clue that offers a different way of getting the door open that doesn't rely on brute force.
Or, to give another idea, perhaps the last person they helped was really thankful and gave them a reward. And for the reward they had a choice of taking the belt or Goggles of Night. And the player's choice was to take the goggles. So now, because of their choice, they can't brute-force the door open. But maybe the goggles give them the utility they need to go through a hidden underground passage.
As others have noted, the issue is that you're setting up a paradigm of "Hey, guys, try to do this." And when they try to do it, "Sike! You can't do that." But if you add in player agency, giving the a choice, then you can make it a more enjoyable experience.
As an anecdote, was playing Lost Mines of Phandelver once. And the DM solidified our hatred of Glasstaff by having him and some redbrands attack Qelline Alderleaf's farm in the night. We went to bed thinking it was safe only to wake up finding she was missing and her son, Carp, was dead. And while we may not have had any choices to make during the night, we had made the choice to not set up a watch while we were sleeping. So perhaps if we had made different choices we could've caught Glasstaff and his redbrands and been able to save Carp's life. So while we hated Glasstaff for killing the kid, we didn't harbor any resentment towards the DM because it was a logical extension of our choices.
So if the loss of magical items is essential to your idea, try reworking it so that instead of "You lose the items and have no say in the matter" you make it a choice. Maybe they realize the BBEG is too powerful for them to fight at first, but that if they sacrifice the magic items that'll reduce his power. And later, instead of blocking every attempt to get the items back, you let them succeed or get new ones. Perhaps the first mage they come across isn't powerful enough to restore magic, but he knows of a mage who is. And that mage only accepts requests from powerful adventurers, meaning they have to prove themselves. And maybe his attempt to restore the magic isn't fully successful (perhaps the +3 scimitar is only restored to a +1) but from the issues he had he knows what could fix the problem and after that side quest the player finally has that +3 scimitar they started with at lv 1 back at lv 11. Now instead of a "Neener neener you can't get the magic item back" situation you have a "It was a long journey with some complications, but you pushed on and have been rewarded for your hard work" situation.
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The issue that you're missing is that players will on react to this by becoming emotionally invested in the story and wanting to continue.
They're going to react to it by packing their stuff up and going home to play Smash Bros instead of participating in your game.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The emotional investment is an important aspect. Losses don't seem to matter unless at first there is a connection to the object. If they leave to play Smash Bros of course that's fine. The campaign world has other PCs and scores of NPCs so there won't be a problem with life continuing there.
Seeing DMs that do not care about their players makes me sad.
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1.) The storytelling is discordant in that you have someone who basically is performing magic above level 9 spells who is also easily killable deciding to pick on level one characters for the lolz and this person who gained all this power decided that after using it to troll some newbs that he will just die happily because he destroyed what might be just a basic magic weapon and altered reality?
2.) Some magic items at that level are connected with gods...it would be really weird if this BBEG can outperform gods and alter reality to stop gods from making the magic items of their faith.
3.) It is already odd that level 1 characters have such items, were apparently known to have them (as it is required for your perverse tactic of wanting to constantly pick at the loss), and yet no one ever just stole it or murdered them for these items before the BBEG....they are level 1 most things can deal with them even if they have a very rare magic item.
4.) The campaign idea just seems lazy as you are giving one hook only for any random adventure...a hook that is likely to fail after the first couple uses...and then when the hook fails you just plan to annoy and troll the players for daring to not follow your hook
5.) You are basically being Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown...except you are doing this against your players and that is the goal for the ENTIRE campaign. It just feels like you want to sit back and laugh at your players for "stupidly" following another dead end...a dead end that you will keep trying to force them to take and will punish them if they do not
6.) Given that the magic items and their duplicates are wiped out forever there are also likely to be high level NPCs fairly pissed at losing their magic item I doubt the world will keep this stupid teasing tactic of baiting adventurers if sometimes it leads to a powerful person grabbing their bait and likely curbstomping them in anger if they are not a good aligned high powered entity
7.) The whole gimmick of you are diminished without your item only lasts as long as it takes them to level to a decent level to be able to fight the things they could fight at level 1 with the items. Eventually it just seems dumb if anyone tries to tease them about the item loss when they are level 5 and up. Also many magic items can eventually be simulated or exceeded by spells later on.
8.) A smart player would pick something like a manual and use it before adventuring and therefore the loss of it could never effect them as it is a one time use item and they get to permanently keep the effect of it
9.) What about magic tattoos, will you have a character literally cut their flesh out at the beginning?
Personally I think you need at least the following modifications:
A true and decent motivation for the BBEG targeting the players and/or their magic items. I also think defeating the BBEG should be the end game and not some stupid nothing like you seem to want. Maybe the BBEG can absorb the magic from the items and so long as he lives the magic is trapped within him (make some rules and limitations that explain why their items were taken and also make a list of magic items for players to choose from to make it make sense)
Perhaps the players were not on an adventure but were tasked with the care of some of the touchstone magic items of a kingdom that is enemies with the BBEG and that if they cannot restore the items their families may suffer for their dereliction of duty. Thus they must expend all efforts to accomplish this or prove the task impossible and maybe even have to turn on their kingdom to save their families as they realize they cannot accomplish this, or find a way to convince the crown to forgive the crime.
There needs to be some story beyond "hur hur I broke your toy, now go try to fix it" because if that is it the players are likely going to just abandon the magic items and will try and move past your railroads that are forcing them to go down a very boring route.
That is ultimately the problem with what you set up...it is dull and boring and will get old VERY quickly and you have no idea on what to do next except try your best to keep your players trapped in a dull and boring loop that is designed to leave them always feeling like failures but will fail at that as they will ultimately just find YOU to be the failure.
I guess I'm not understanding why you'd want to run a campaign with no meaning to anything the players do.
1) Easily resolved. The first dungeon he has some single use magic items that allow for his defense and the disintegration, later he doesn't and doesn't bother replacing since his goals are complete.
2) He actually is going to make a sacrifice to a dread god that overrules the others. That god allows for permanent disruption of the items. It might not even come up, but if it does, it might even make a PCs religious allies upset, which gives an additional NPC motivation. Most "snags" are actually helpful
3) Already went over this, there are a bunch of easy, creative ways to resolve that (just found it, was at a general store didn't know it was magic, inherited, etc.) Any reason you can come up with why that would be impossible is actually more arbitrary than the idea a lowly person could own something great
4) it's actually very detailed and meticulous
5) I'm not doing that, I'm moving the football just once, destroying the football, and making it clear there will never be a football again. There's no need to get Charlie back on the field, those times are gone forever.
6) High powered NPCs won't really be moved by one story of something happening to level 1 guys and when no other items are destroyed, no one will care about that. They'll just look at their own high powered items they own, see them every morning, and smile wistfully. "At least it wasn't me"
7) It won't be dumb when this happens, it'll be cool. The players will grow used to the idea that others are invested in their tragic beginnings.
8) A "Smart player" will not know the plot twists ahead of time, most smart players understand that
9) Looks like you answered your own question, big guy
Thanks for everyone's input! I think I now have what I need to get this campaign realllly popping.
I suggest that you prepare for the ever-present possibility that the players are very motivated, and they make their toons go a completely different way at level 1.
"We don't care about BBEG. He's level 4. We have magic items. We will go to the Plane of Somewhere Else." <deuces />
You're clearly very much in love with your idea. Nobody else is, but maybe your players are different. (Don't bet on it.)
What you're likely to find is that you don't actually have a plot. Everything hinges on the players caring about these items, and players don't usually care that much about magic items, especially ones they have no history with. If they're invested in an item from their backstory, it doesn't matter if "The sword of my father, Domingo Montoya" is a +5 holy avenger or a normal rapier with a shiny hilt, and it's that item, not all rapiers with shiny hilts.
I’ve had people tell me players deeply care about their stuff and that they don’t care. I explained already that it’s fine if they choose not to pursue them. It just doesn’t matter because there isn’t anything in the pursuit anyway
Characters may be disposable, players are not. Your cavalier attitude toward players leaving betrays either an unacceptably antagonistic view of the Player-DM relationship or a naïveté of how DMing works.
It sounds a lot like this is your first campaign as a DM and you are really excited about the idea. It is great to be excited, but you also need to be realistic - if you are receiving universal condemnation for a suggestion, it is likely that you will not be able to “get [the] campaign realllly popping” without fundamental changes. Changes you are clearly refusing to consider, since you keep doubling down on the same arguments.
I’ve actually begun to get the campaign popping
It honestly doesn't matter if they care about the items or not. How much they do or don't care just controls how cheated they'll feel at the end when they realize the campaign was never going anywhere.
The fact that you want to influence them to care through flashbacks to the Ten Minutes I Held A Sword and obstacles that can only be solved with the magic items, just seems like you're setting everyone up for disappointment, which feels like a sour note to end a campaign on.
You keep saying you're fine with it if the players move on, that you'll just keep reminding them how awesome the magic items were, that's not actually "fine with them moving on". The concern isn't that you'll lose the players so you need to have a contingency to pull them back into the plot, the concern is that there's not enough plot there so players given the choice will cast it aside. Those contingencies you keep bringing up whenever someone criticizes the plot, basically promising in subtext that the players will *definitely* get their magic items *next time* and then they'll be able to do all this cool stuff... honestly it just sounds kind of mean.
This is a false equivalency. In your example, the player is choosing to follow an impossible task, likely in spite of DM warnings of futility. OP is not only forcing the PCs into an impossible task, they are actively leading the player to believe the task is possible, then pulling the rug out from under the PCs. Huge, easily distinguishable difference.
Kotath - I think you might want to read the thread - OP is actively gloating about pulling the rug out from under their players. They even go so far as to say their idea of the endgame is the BBEG being killed, and taking any pleasure out of the victory by declaring “I wanted to die anyway, so I’d course you were going to win.”
As I have said from the beginning, it is possible for someone to make a something like this that could work—the problem, however, lies with OP’s clear disregard for player enjoyment (at one point basically saying “players are a dime a dozen, I do not care if I bore them out of my campaign”).
But there's a very real difference between what technically doesn't impact the story in the grand scheme of things, and what is narritively satisfying for the players. Even if the campaign is ending anyways after the One Ring is destroyed, it matters whether the party gets to experience their victory, or whether Gandalf comes back to the fellowship after they destroy the ring and goes "Oh, you were still doing that? You thought I was serious?? Haha lol that ring was just a normal ring you totally bought it! Nerds!"
I agree that you can use a loose plot as a framing device to connect disperate adventures, but if that's what this is (and OP has not indicated that it is), then I wouldn't really see a need to try and convince the players to keep going back to the main plot when they pull back, if that's what you're expecting them to do anyways.