Hey y'all, I am running a campaign finale in a few days, and I was looking for any advice that I can get on how to do it well. Here is a little background:
Hundreds of years ago, a powerful necromancer known as the king in ruins resides in a tower called the Blackspire. This tower is able to magically move from place to place, allowing for a mobile means of attack. In the last session, the players stole a powerful weapon from the king in ruins on behalf of the capitol city, Breton, and its militia. When it comes time for the next game, I plan on sending out a warning on behalf of the king in ruins. The message is simple: return the blade by nightfall or he releases an all out attack on the city. Knowing my players, they will probably refuse, meaning that I will be running an invasion of undead on the city.
My question is this: How do I run a city invasion that feels narratively satisfying and wont make me lose steam halfway through?
I suggest using the mob rules in order to roll for the common enemies, like skeletons or zombies. Combat gets stale fast if you don’t shake things up, so I suggest not having it only be combat.
Maybe they have to assist the milita by creating barricades against breaches in the city, or defending people who are lowering the gate in order to stop the influx. Also, if you have the undead army clash with the human one, don’t roll for it, just describe the carnage around the party, no need to roll for something that doesn’t affect the party. Another important thing is to ramp up tension, don’t just slam them with the invasion immediately, have the environment react to the movement of the undead, maybe the animals are driven into a panic or the water fouls, that sort of thing.
Rather than trying to simulate the whole invasion all at once, instead focus on individual scenes where the players can make a difference. Also have different stages / waves of the invasion. You can see both of these things in play in famous battles from movies - e.g. Helm's Deep in two towers, there's individual scenes where each main character shines, but also it is broken up into distinct phases with short moments of RP in between them as the enemy over runs different portions of the fortress and the defenders are forced to pull back. You can also see it in the Battle of Whitestone in Critical Role, Distinct stages are: the party being chased by the horde of undead, finally finding a narrow passage they can barricade & fight back, Pike arriving & turning the battle, then cleaning up the undead giants at the end.
Pull up the Alamo attack to read about an invasion. The Mexicans overran the fort by attacking on all sides, but they did a few probing attacks before hand. Use that or a similar type attack history.
The 1st invasion (in spite of the announcement) is more of a probe, not very big (so easier to run). Show that the city is surrounded. Also, attacks not involving the Party can be "news and/or gossip". Not sure how big/level your party/players are, but the Town leaders can attempt to persuade the players. They can be the ones bringing the news/gossip.
Have a small citizen riot occur by/near the players and drag them in. The players will hear all of these rumors. They will be with all of these panicking city folk. They will be seeing people rushing with supplies to man the walls. Maybe have a super small squad of undead happen to have broke into the town head toward the party. Let them hear how big that initial force was (AKA 1000 zombies/skeletons) but only see e.g. 8).
Get the players emotionally involved with what is happening in the defense. That allows less actual combat running/rolls, and more description/roleplay from you.
I've just run a game similar to this. I can't say I got it all right, but it wasn't wrong. As the previous guys have said, focus on smaller elements that players can have an impact on, and only narrate or let the players see the larger scale stuff.
I started with an assassination of the High Lord whilst they were in a private meeting with him, this led to 3 assassins diving in through the window and a small combat encounter, players can now see who/what is behind this. Outside, screams and shouts are heard, so if they go outside then they see a small pocket of undead attacking anyone in the streets. But whilst this is happening, give the sense of the scale, smoke is rising all around them from buildings, undead dragons flying around above them. I did a chase scene where they encountered a small group of demons being led by an Erinyes (they are petrified of even one of them), so they fled through alleyways to get away from them.
Prior to any attack, you could build tension, and allow a hook to move onto the barricade building by having an army start to build up outside the walls. They don't attack, they are just amassing forces. Use teleportation circles or something to explain how they are getting an entire army their so fast. The city is now cut off and the threat has turned from just words where they don't see how bad it can be, to making a choice where even if they survive, it will be devastating.
I ran a siege from this, the guard of the city were making a stand sending out some foot soldiers to fight, and having hails of arrows flying from the battlements. The players didn't take part in the fight as such, I setup a map with a "mini game" where they had to move around a not-to-scale map, their aim to take out trubuches and battering rams. A dragon was flying overhead and randomly blasted down it's breath weapon into the fight, arrows launching into the chaos, each thing thrown into the fight needs saves, ducking for cover. I used (playing on Roll20) icons on the map to represent pockets of good guys and bad guys, but being not to scale, each icon could represent 20 or 30 creatures, and it was all theatre of the mind rather than moving to scale and individual attacks. If a big demon turns up, regular human guard won't face it, so it's down to the heroes to deal with it amongst the chaos.
Chatgpt, or similar AI's, is a great help to give you the ideas of "mini games" rather than straight up combat, but as previously said by others, definitely focus on the smaller sections the players can affect, and only narrate the larger items, unless you have a way to scale the big battles to individual player control. They wont want to sit and watch you war game with yourself!
I've ran a session eerily similar to what you describe. My players say it was the best session of our campaign so far. The other posts pretty much cover all that I was going to say, but I'll add what I can.
For a bulk of our invasion I wanted to focus on the enormity of the undead army, so naturally I guided the party to the city gate. I described 3 areas that they could help defend: The gate/trench, atop the ramparts, or the towers. This gave the players agency. I then ran about 3 waves of checks, all 3 areas had to make a check during each wave. I would explain what the characters see, then had the them describe how they are helping each area, and then roll a check.
For example: Our wizard went atop the ramparts to help the guards fend off the skeletons climbing over the wall. The first wave he casted a flaming sphere and swung it back and forth, hitting anyone climbing the outside of the wall. For this I let him roll an arcana check (or something like that, I don't remember what) with advantage, I then made a similar check without advantage for the guards and added their rolls together. The DC for the first round was set at the median of 20 which they succeeded, so I described the flaming sphere and the success atop the rampart. I did something similar with our paladin for the trench/gate and they failed the check first round, this made the DC for the second round higher. The gate was eventually busted down due to failed checks.
I think this approach to the "gate" scene went beyond swimmingly. There was a lot of opportunity for my players to get creative, the whole scene was intense, had a sense of urgency, and accomplished my goal of showing off the enormity of the undead army. There was a cool moment where a skeleton minotaur bust down the gate and charged toward our paladin, and our bard shot it with a ballista from one of the towers, shattering it into boney pieces.
You can probably apply this approach to any scene throughout your city. It has a good way of playing out the give-and-take of a battle, allowing the players to give up certain areas, and aid others.
I don't want to self promote but we did stream it. If you would like I can send a link to the video on YT.
Hey y'all, I am running a campaign finale in a few days, and I was looking for any advice that I can get on how to do it well. Here is a little background:
Hundreds of years ago, a powerful necromancer known as the king in ruins resides in a tower called the Blackspire. This tower is able to magically move from place to place, allowing for a mobile means of attack. In the last session, the players stole a powerful weapon from the king in ruins on behalf of the capitol city, Breton, and its militia. When it comes time for the next game, I plan on sending out a warning on behalf of the king in ruins. The message is simple: return the blade by nightfall or he releases an all out attack on the city. Knowing my players, they will probably refuse, meaning that I will be running an invasion of undead on the city.
My question is this: How do I run a city invasion that feels narratively satisfying and wont make me lose steam halfway through?
I suggest using the mob rules in order to roll for the common enemies, like skeletons or zombies. Combat gets stale fast if you don’t shake things up, so I suggest not having it only be combat.
Maybe they have to assist the milita by creating barricades against breaches in the city, or defending people who are lowering the gate in order to stop the influx. Also, if you have the undead army clash with the human one, don’t roll for it, just describe the carnage around the party, no need to roll for something that doesn’t affect the party. Another important thing is to ramp up tension, don’t just slam them with the invasion immediately, have the environment react to the movement of the undead, maybe the animals are driven into a panic or the water fouls, that sort of thing.
Rather than trying to simulate the whole invasion all at once, instead focus on individual scenes where the players can make a difference. Also have different stages / waves of the invasion. You can see both of these things in play in famous battles from movies - e.g. Helm's Deep in two towers, there's individual scenes where each main character shines, but also it is broken up into distinct phases with short moments of RP in between them as the enemy over runs different portions of the fortress and the defenders are forced to pull back. You can also see it in the Battle of Whitestone in Critical Role, Distinct stages are: the party being chased by the horde of undead, finally finding a narrow passage they can barricade & fight back, Pike arriving & turning the battle, then cleaning up the undead giants at the end.
Pull up the Alamo attack to read about an invasion. The Mexicans overran the fort by attacking on all sides, but they did a few probing attacks before hand. Use that or a similar type attack history.
The 1st invasion (in spite of the announcement) is more of a probe, not very big (so easier to run). Show that the city is surrounded. Also, attacks not involving the Party can be "news and/or gossip". Not sure how big/level your party/players are, but the Town leaders can attempt to persuade the players. They can be the ones bringing the news/gossip.
Have a small citizen riot occur by/near the players and drag them in. The players will hear all of these rumors. They will be with all of these panicking city folk. They will be seeing people rushing with supplies to man the walls. Maybe have a super small squad of undead happen to have broke into the town head toward the party. Let them hear how big that initial force was (AKA 1000 zombies/skeletons) but only see e.g. 8).
Get the players emotionally involved with what is happening in the defense. That allows less actual combat running/rolls, and more description/roleplay from you.
I've just run a game similar to this. I can't say I got it all right, but it wasn't wrong. As the previous guys have said, focus on smaller elements that players can have an impact on, and only narrate or let the players see the larger scale stuff.
I started with an assassination of the High Lord whilst they were in a private meeting with him, this led to 3 assassins diving in through the window and a small combat encounter, players can now see who/what is behind this. Outside, screams and shouts are heard, so if they go outside then they see a small pocket of undead attacking anyone in the streets. But whilst this is happening, give the sense of the scale, smoke is rising all around them from buildings, undead dragons flying around above them. I did a chase scene where they encountered a small group of demons being led by an Erinyes (they are petrified of even one of them), so they fled through alleyways to get away from them.
Prior to any attack, you could build tension, and allow a hook to move onto the barricade building by having an army start to build up outside the walls. They don't attack, they are just amassing forces. Use teleportation circles or something to explain how they are getting an entire army their so fast. The city is now cut off and the threat has turned from just words where they don't see how bad it can be, to making a choice where even if they survive, it will be devastating.
I ran a siege from this, the guard of the city were making a stand sending out some foot soldiers to fight, and having hails of arrows flying from the battlements. The players didn't take part in the fight as such, I setup a map with a "mini game" where they had to move around a not-to-scale map, their aim to take out trubuches and battering rams. A dragon was flying overhead and randomly blasted down it's breath weapon into the fight, arrows launching into the chaos, each thing thrown into the fight needs saves, ducking for cover. I used (playing on Roll20) icons on the map to represent pockets of good guys and bad guys, but being not to scale, each icon could represent 20 or 30 creatures, and it was all theatre of the mind rather than moving to scale and individual attacks. If a big demon turns up, regular human guard won't face it, so it's down to the heroes to deal with it amongst the chaos.
Chatgpt, or similar AI's, is a great help to give you the ideas of "mini games" rather than straight up combat, but as previously said by others, definitely focus on the smaller sections the players can affect, and only narrate the larger items, unless you have a way to scale the big battles to individual player control. They wont want to sit and watch you war game with yourself!
I've ran a session eerily similar to what you describe. My players say it was the best session of our campaign so far. The other posts pretty much cover all that I was going to say, but I'll add what I can.
For a bulk of our invasion I wanted to focus on the enormity of the undead army, so naturally I guided the party to the city gate. I described 3 areas that they could help defend: The gate/trench, atop the ramparts, or the towers. This gave the players agency. I then ran about 3 waves of checks, all 3 areas had to make a check during each wave. I would explain what the characters see, then had the them describe how they are helping each area, and then roll a check.
For example: Our wizard went atop the ramparts to help the guards fend off the skeletons climbing over the wall. The first wave he casted a flaming sphere and swung it back and forth, hitting anyone climbing the outside of the wall. For this I let him roll an arcana check (or something like that, I don't remember what) with advantage, I then made a similar check without advantage for the guards and added their rolls together. The DC for the first round was set at the median of 20 which they succeeded, so I described the flaming sphere and the success atop the rampart. I did something similar with our paladin for the trench/gate and they failed the check first round, this made the DC for the second round higher. The gate was eventually busted down due to failed checks.
I think this approach to the "gate" scene went beyond swimmingly. There was a lot of opportunity for my players to get creative, the whole scene was intense, had a sense of urgency, and accomplished my goal of showing off the enormity of the undead army. There was a cool moment where a skeleton minotaur bust down the gate and charged toward our paladin, and our bard shot it with a ballista from one of the towers, shattering it into boney pieces.
You can probably apply this approach to any scene throughout your city. It has a good way of playing out the give-and-take of a battle, allowing the players to give up certain areas, and aid others.
I don't want to self promote but we did stream it. If you would like I can send a link to the video on YT.
DM for Nat1Knights. https://www.youtube.com/@nat1knights