I'm trying to dm for the first time and need help with information side quest ideas. The character levels will start at 5 and the main story is about an evil organization secretly ruling 4 kingdoms that are trying to summon the raven queen to wipe out all life forms for that is there desire but the players won't know the last part, and the players jobs is to take out each base in the 4 kingdoms (one base per kingdom) and the information is not really important to the story but it should help them figure out the mastermind behind the organization. I already made one for mid game (a casino where they have to win a bet against someone which I will make easy for them to do so they can get the information)which they should be level 12 or 13 by that point I just need early and late game ideas thank you.
I am possibly going to appear mean here, but please know it's not my intent to insult you.
There's a lot of 'supposed to' in your post. You've written here about what the players' 'jobs' are. That simply isn't the way most games will work. Players won't always do 'what they are supposed to'. They won't always be interested in the lore or information you want to throw their way. You've got a great premise here (note the word premise, not story) - a shadowy organisation trying to summon an big bad. That's great. What happens though if one of your players wants to be a worshipper or follower of the Raven Queen. What if one of your players wants to play as Shadar-Kai? This is what I mean about 'supposed to'.
Often one of the best ways to sustain a longer campaign is to try and find things that will appeal to the player character's motivations. For example, in my current campaign, I have a player who is very, very invested in making their own homebrewed ale. I know that if I were to throw down high quality hops or a magically enchanted keg - his character would be all over that. However, if I throw down a very clearly dangerous and deadly cave, the party are going to walk away VERY quickly unless there is something substantially valuable in it for them. Their characters will risk their lives, but only if you make it worth their while.
This then becomes the problem. You really don't know how a party will respond until you've met them. You could spend ages writing up the motivations of villains, making up NPCs and other such stuff, only for them not to care if the Raven Queen rises. So, my point here is for you to consider who your players are. What characters they're going to have. And limit the amount of things that they are 'supposed to' do. Be open to the things they might do instead. Players are great at steamrolling or circumventing well planned out adventures.
As a side note, I always advise new DMs to not run their own adventure as their first outing. For 5e it can be a lot to do. Running a starter adventure like Lost Mine of Phandelver, or Dragon of Icespire peak can be good. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle is also a good one because it is a complete story. Likewise at least reading through a published adventure like Curse of Strahd can be great so that you can see how adventures get designed and made. With every one I read I get new ideas and inspirations. Writers are taught to read more than they write. Actors are told to watch films and TV as often as they can. The reason that great teachers encourage this is to help the students to gain as much knowledge and experience of what works well and what doesn't work well. And the great writers and actors do this. I advise the same for GMs. Go and read as many adventures as you can. They'll give you endless inspirations.
No worries, and please don't just blindly give up on running your idea first. My advise is just the advise of a rando on the internet. Not all advise works for all people. Different DMs have different styles and I'm sure there are other GMs who will offer different advise :D
As a complementary opinion: I agree, never plan out what the party "should" do. Players are players, they will do what they want to do and it is rarely what you expected them to do. Also never plan out the final boss before the campaign even starts. If the early game quests aren't fun then the campaign is never going to reach the final BBEG anyway. It's much better to "lay the track in front of the train" - i.e. build from where the players are now to the next major event but that's it because they might suddenly decide to detour or turn around and you want to be able to build from that.
Lastly, my suggestion for planning a long campaign is to plan out a few different "global events" and then let the players decide what they want to do in response to those. For instance in one of my campaigns I had: the goddess of winter is starting an ice age, a corrupted court mage releases a curse that causes a famine, the Sealie & UnSealie courts go to war, an Aboleth captures sailors & tries to take over a capital city on the coast, and arcane experiment goes wrong and destroys a major city. What ended up happening is:
At the start of the campaign they found out about the famine and found some insane carvings about the goddess of winter, they decided to ignore the famine and investigate the goddess of winter. They did help out a few refugees from the famine and helped a criminal organization profiteer from the famine. But refused to go investigate the famine at all or try to solve it.
They travelled to the coast and heard rumours of sea monsters and decided to just avoid sailing anywhere at all and instead cross mountains on foot.
They found some documents hinting at the dangerous arcane experiment but didn't bother to try to decode them, so were completely surprised when a major city suddenly exploded.
They went to the Fey to protect the family of one of the player characters from the war, by making an alliance with some myconids.
Eventually collected enough allies & items to confront the goddess of winter and that was the BBEG & finale of the campaign.
Like Agile and Martin I recommend starting with some premade adventures to get the hang of DMing. Also have multiple operations going. The current campaign I’m DMing is a mashup of of the new Phandelver campaign, the dragons of Icespire and its successors and the secrets of Saltmarsh so the players/party always have hints about at least 3 BBEGs and have choices about what to do next. Do I Guide the. Some? Of course but mostly by making the payouts for different goals do the leading.
Thank you everyone, for the advice its very much appreciated. I'm probably going to run icespire peak first because its the only one I have, and again thank you.
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I'm trying to dm for the first time and need help with information side quest ideas. The character levels will start at 5 and the main story is about an evil organization secretly ruling 4 kingdoms that are trying to summon the raven queen to wipe out all life forms for that is there desire but the players won't know the last part, and the players jobs is to take out each base in the 4 kingdoms (one base per kingdom) and the information is not really important to the story but it should help them figure out the mastermind behind the organization. I already made one for mid game (a casino where they have to win a bet against someone which I will make easy for them to do so they can get the information)which they should be level 12 or 13 by that point I just need early and late game ideas thank you.
I am possibly going to appear mean here, but please know it's not my intent to insult you.
There's a lot of 'supposed to' in your post. You've written here about what the players' 'jobs' are. That simply isn't the way most games will work. Players won't always do 'what they are supposed to'. They won't always be interested in the lore or information you want to throw their way. You've got a great premise here (note the word premise, not story) - a shadowy organisation trying to summon an big bad. That's great. What happens though if one of your players wants to be a worshipper or follower of the Raven Queen. What if one of your players wants to play as Shadar-Kai? This is what I mean about 'supposed to'.
Often one of the best ways to sustain a longer campaign is to try and find things that will appeal to the player character's motivations. For example, in my current campaign, I have a player who is very, very invested in making their own homebrewed ale. I know that if I were to throw down high quality hops or a magically enchanted keg - his character would be all over that. However, if I throw down a very clearly dangerous and deadly cave, the party are going to walk away VERY quickly unless there is something substantially valuable in it for them. Their characters will risk their lives, but only if you make it worth their while.
This then becomes the problem. You really don't know how a party will respond until you've met them. You could spend ages writing up the motivations of villains, making up NPCs and other such stuff, only for them not to care if the Raven Queen rises. So, my point here is for you to consider who your players are. What characters they're going to have. And limit the amount of things that they are 'supposed to' do. Be open to the things they might do instead. Players are great at steamrolling or circumventing well planned out adventures.
As a side note, I always advise new DMs to not run their own adventure as their first outing. For 5e it can be a lot to do. Running a starter adventure like Lost Mine of Phandelver, or Dragon of Icespire peak can be good. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle is also a good one because it is a complete story. Likewise at least reading through a published adventure like Curse of Strahd can be great so that you can see how adventures get designed and made. With every one I read I get new ideas and inspirations. Writers are taught to read more than they write. Actors are told to watch films and TV as often as they can. The reason that great teachers encourage this is to help the students to gain as much knowledge and experience of what works well and what doesn't work well. And the great writers and actors do this. I advise the same for GMs. Go and read as many adventures as you can. They'll give you endless inspirations.
There's some great starting inspirational one-shots over here: https://www.kassoon.com/dnd/one-shots/
They could really help to flesh out some ideas you might already have.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
Thank you for being honest, I will hold off on this until I gain some experience and thank you for giving me a source for inspirational one shots.
No worries, and please don't just blindly give up on running your idea first. My advise is just the advise of a rando on the internet. Not all advise works for all people. Different DMs have different styles and I'm sure there are other GMs who will offer different advise :D
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
As a complementary opinion: I agree, never plan out what the party "should" do. Players are players, they will do what they want to do and it is rarely what you expected them to do. Also never plan out the final boss before the campaign even starts. If the early game quests aren't fun then the campaign is never going to reach the final BBEG anyway. It's much better to "lay the track in front of the train" - i.e. build from where the players are now to the next major event but that's it because they might suddenly decide to detour or turn around and you want to be able to build from that.
Lastly, my suggestion for planning a long campaign is to plan out a few different "global events" and then let the players decide what they want to do in response to those. For instance in one of my campaigns I had: the goddess of winter is starting an ice age, a corrupted court mage releases a curse that causes a famine, the Sealie & UnSealie courts go to war, an Aboleth captures sailors & tries to take over a capital city on the coast, and arcane experiment goes wrong and destroys a major city. What ended up happening is:
Like Agile and Martin I recommend starting with some premade adventures to get the hang of DMing. Also have multiple operations going. The current campaign I’m DMing is a mashup of of the new Phandelver campaign, the dragons of Icespire and its successors and the secrets of Saltmarsh so the players/party always have hints about at least 3 BBEGs and have choices about what to do next. Do I Guide the. Some? Of course but mostly by making the payouts for different goals do the leading.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Thank you everyone, for the advice its very much appreciated. I'm probably going to run icespire peak first because its the only one I have, and again thank you.