I just started a small "summer-campaign" with a group of friends who are all fairly new to DnD. The first session was a lot of fun and the players were both happy and excited! However... I had planted a plothook that would set off the entire main conflict which the players didn't take.
So a brief summary: Some woodcutters had disappeared, the party shows up and wants to help and they end up in a cave that leads to a long forgotten tomb. This is this lair of the goblins that kidnapped the townspeople, there is combat, there's treasures etc etc.
Here's the caveat: the entire session starts with the Wizard having a premonition about a lot of things, foreshadowing meeting the party and most importantly grabbing a thing from the hands of a skeleton and meeting a scary looking dude (the villain). I used the memories of the vision to give him clues when they were on the right track.
The party ends up in the tomb, kills the goblins, frees the prisoners and takes a look around, reads the inscriptions on the tomb BUT DOESN'T OPEN IT.
Inside there's this macguffin the BBBEG needs to become a lich or whatever and my initial idea was that the party would stumble upon this relic by accident and set of this chase/cat-n-mouse dynamic with this evil wizard for the rest of the campaign.
I even made the reward for the quest small and placed all the loot in the coffin so that the greedy players who's looking for -shiny- would think "hey, where's all the loot? we need to be properly compensated for this thing we did that almost killed one of our friends"
Now there's is nothing stopping the BBEG from getting the thing he needs and I don't know if I should nudge my players into my plan or if I should let it go?
My fear is that my campaigns vibe will fundamentally change if this doesn't happen. I tried to be as obvious as possible but they just didn't bite or I was not planning correctly. I know "no campaign-prep survives contact with the PC's but I really didn't think they wouldn't be interested in treasure...
Help...
tldr: My players didn't take the most important plothook and now I'm losing the main story-theme.
Pretty easy. The BBEG gets its macguffin and becomes a lich. Now the party has the fight of hordes of undead and stop the lich taking over the region. If they try to run, point out how this is their home, and their families and loved ones are likely to die unless they do something.
Or you give them a second chance. The wizard has another vision of someone taking stuff from the very tomb they left untouched, and gets a sense something bad is going to happen. Now it’s the party chasing after the wizard and fighting through their minions, because the lich ritual will happen at the next full moon, and that’s only 3 weeks away. Then if they flub that one, go back to the first option.
I would give the players a second chance at the item. The wizard gas a vision of the BBEG's minion taking the item out of the tomb and directs the party to chase him down. Once they do, the BBEG gets wind of his minions death and begins his pursuit of the party.
I third the opinion of giving them a second chance. They exit the cave and the prisoners are all soaking up the sunlight and talking about everything they'd heard the goblins discuss about what lays in the tomb...
First rule of DM-ing is "players are butterflies" and no matter how well thought-out or how much many hints you give, players will ultimately do something completely out of the realms of anything you'd considered.
The Wizard could start getting headaches as they move away from the tomb and a feeling of dread. You could even start introducing exhaustion as the party moves further, as if something is pulling him back, making it harder to move forward.
The great thing about a tomb hiding something is it's not just something the party can loot, it's something anyone with access can loot, and so any loot in there can find it's way back to the party at any point if you need it to.
It is not the first nor the last time as a DM that the campaign will be derailed by what the party does or doesn't do, best advice is to just keep a few alternative methods for anything you deem as a 'key item', and don't be afraid to flex or improvise into those situations as needed. As Sunshine_Sprout above mentioned, players will get attached to random events or descriptions that may lack particular importance, just goes with the territory of DM'ing
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
First-time poster and DM here!
I just started a small "summer-campaign" with a group of friends who are all fairly new to DnD. The first session was a lot of fun and the players were both happy and excited! However... I had planted a plothook that would set off the entire main conflict which the players didn't take.
So a brief summary: Some woodcutters had disappeared, the party shows up and wants to help and they end up in a cave that leads to a long forgotten tomb. This is this lair of the goblins that kidnapped the townspeople, there is combat, there's treasures etc etc.
Here's the caveat: the entire session starts with the Wizard having a premonition about a lot of things, foreshadowing meeting the party and most importantly grabbing a thing from the hands of a skeleton and meeting a scary looking dude (the villain). I used the memories of the vision to give him clues when they were on the right track.
The party ends up in the tomb, kills the goblins, frees the prisoners and takes a look around, reads the inscriptions on the tomb BUT DOESN'T OPEN IT.
Inside there's this macguffin the BBBEG needs to become a lich or whatever and my initial idea was that the party would stumble upon this relic by accident and set of this chase/cat-n-mouse dynamic with this evil wizard for the rest of the campaign.
I even made the reward for the quest small and placed all the loot in the coffin so that the greedy players who's looking for -shiny- would think "hey, where's all the loot? we need to be properly compensated for this thing we did that almost killed one of our friends"
Now there's is nothing stopping the BBEG from getting the thing he needs and I don't know if I should nudge my players into my plan or if I should let it go?
My fear is that my campaigns vibe will fundamentally change if this doesn't happen. I tried to be as obvious as possible but they just didn't bite or I was not planning correctly. I know "no campaign-prep survives contact with the PC's but I really didn't think they wouldn't be interested in treasure...
Help...
tldr: My players didn't take the most important plothook and now I'm losing the main story-theme.
Pretty easy. The BBEG gets its macguffin and becomes a lich. Now the party has the fight of hordes of undead and stop the lich taking over the region. If they try to run, point out how this is their home, and their families and loved ones are likely to die unless they do something.
Or you give them a second chance. The wizard has another vision of someone taking stuff from the very tomb they left untouched, and gets a sense something bad is going to happen. Now it’s the party chasing after the wizard and fighting through their minions, because the lich ritual will happen at the next full moon, and that’s only 3 weeks away. Then if they flub that one, go back to the first option.
I would give the players a second chance at the item. The wizard gas a vision of the BBEG's minion taking the item out of the tomb and directs the party to chase him down. Once they do, the BBEG gets wind of his minions death and begins his pursuit of the party.
Keep your friends close, and enemies closer.
I third the opinion of giving them a second chance. They exit the cave and the prisoners are all soaking up the sunlight and talking about everything they'd heard the goblins discuss about what lays in the tomb...
First rule of DM-ing is "players are butterflies" and no matter how well thought-out or how much many hints you give, players will ultimately do something completely out of the realms of anything you'd considered.
The Wizard could start getting headaches as they move away from the tomb and a feeling of dread. You could even start introducing exhaustion as the party moves further, as if something is pulling him back, making it harder to move forward.
The great thing about a tomb hiding something is it's not just something the party can loot, it's something anyone with access can loot, and so any loot in there can find it's way back to the party at any point if you need it to.
It is not the first nor the last time as a DM that the campaign will be derailed by what the party does or doesn't do, best advice is to just keep a few alternative methods for anything you deem as a 'key item', and don't be afraid to flex or improvise into those situations as needed. As Sunshine_Sprout above mentioned, players will get attached to random events or descriptions that may lack particular importance, just goes with the territory of DM'ing