So I am building a campaign with a lot of homebrew where the party goes to save their world, gets trapped in different dimension, and has to save entire dimensions. And since I love open world they can basically get a army and attack the BBEG which is a god of death with the help of many eldritch beings. And as you can tell. . . I need help. Any help would be appreciated.
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Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Create a North, South, East and West location with various dungeons. Collect four artifacts and bring them to the Sacred Whatever.
At the Sacred Whatever something unexpected happens. They are transported to a Weird Place where everything is a mirror copy of the world they know. East is West, North is South, etc. Good guys are villains, bad guys are kings. Familiar enough to navigate, but unsettling.
Except for the Dark Spire on the Evil Mountain next to the frozen lake full of undead armies stuck in the ice. That’s new.
And it turns out it was always there but concealed by Illusion Magic and now you can see it clearly.
The evil dark lord does not know you can see him, for when he gazes upon you he sees you still in the other world.
Then you go back. You tell the Great Wise Guy about the BBEG and he calls up his old crew and they come out of retirement.
And you figure out what is going on and how to stop it.
Add in side quests and end it all with thawing the ice and leading the horde to storm the Dark Spire as a distraction so you can pull Off the Big Gamble.
Something like that. Throw in a unicorn, a centaur, a dragon, and giant Snail names Phil.
This sounds annoying but knowing your audience is important here. If you've got a group of Chaos Goblins who'll do whatever manic thing pops into their heads, and open world isn't going to work. Do your players like deep lore and intricate storytelling? Well, an open world makes that really difficult to do well without prior planning. To be clear, I'm not saying don't do it, or that you can't, just that you'll be making a lot of work for yourself. It's not going to take a week of prep. What you're adding with dimensions is an extra couple of worlds to build out too. That takes time. Think about your players though, just because you love an open world, it doesn't always follow that your players will even have the first clue what to do with one. Beyond that even in an Open World there is a clear overall quest or objective. In Skyrim, it's the dragons. In Zelda there's destroying Gannondorf (again). Even in Minecraft the players who click most with the game often play with their own goal in mind. You'll need something that the party are trying to achieve to keep focus for the adventure ahead. Open Worlds really are a bit of a misnamed thing when you think too hard about them - they're often anything but.
So my best advice if you really want help, is to start working on it. Start building it now. In the meantime run other adventures, and build this one in the background. Or better still, just use the forgotten realms and build your adventure within that. You could also utilise Kobold Press' Labyrinth setting which does dimensions very, very well. Using these pre-built settings really is the easiest way to build the adventure you want.
From there you kind of need to decide two big things:
- Why are the party on this adventure? (i.e. What's their goal & motivation) - At what point does the adventure end? (i.e. What does it look like when the complete the adventure or fail?)
To give an example, in the recent campaign I had that ended the party were saving the world from an Extra-Planar Threat. For them the motivation was saving their city from various dangers. At first it was weird shadow monsters and trickster fey, then it moved on and the main antagonist appeared. Success looked like ending the extra-planar threat, failure looked like the Extra-Planar Creature arriving on the Material Plane where they would consume all.
The set dressing really doesn't matter too much unless there's something really specific at a world level that you're trying to achieve (sci-fi, cowboy, low magic or other such theming). Beyond that it's just so much easier to run the adventure within Forgotten realms, because if the party want to travel to Waterdeep the lore is already built out and available on the FR wiki. Do they want to travel to Thay? Great, they can do that. And then there's hundreds of adventure modules for you to draw quests and dungeons and suchlike from. For the extra planar stuff just look at the Planescape setting info. That's the point of these worlds. To give you a big headstart.
The hardest part is that I'm not sure what the party will do mainly because of the amount of sessions and time difference. I would probably not let them know what they could do.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Like they would have the chance to bring an army but I would send my own so they would only get like 2 npcs to help them. I would not tell them what they could do but hint around it.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
The Plot: A group of adventurers has delved into the dungeon that plagues the heart of their world in order to eliminate Scias Darkmoore, a human that after losing his wife in an accident swore to do anything to bring her back. His plan was to summon an Eldritch being to grant him a wish to ascend to become a God of Death. As the party confronts him and his group a problem happens with the device to summon the Being and instead sends everyone to another dimension where all dimensions are trying to collide into another. The party must go to each continent and gather the rift weapons to destroy Scias Darkmoore before he destroys all the dimensions.
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Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
The hardest part is that I'm not sure what the party will do mainly because of the amount of sessions and time difference. I would probably not let them know what they could do.
In which case, work on your new campaign in the background. Meanwhile, run an adventure that will be relatively low prep. I'd suggest Dragon of Icespire Peak. I suggest DoIP because of it's quest board style. The party get the chance to choose their path and guide their own way through the setting. This'll give you some ideas about what the party's play style. As you get to know the party you can get more and more ideas of how best to construct your campaign idea to their play style.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Why not give the intro a twist. Ask the group to create two characters; a high level character and a first level character. Perhaps the low level characters are apprentices, squires, acolytes etc of the high level characters. Begin the campaign with the high level group, preparing to face off against the God of Death, to save a distant world, only to all fall before the horrific foe and watch the world become utterly destroyed. Flash forward to the first level characters who all share the same horrific dream of their mentors demise and a fading image of the ancient standing stones (or mushroom ring/strange tree/peculiar gate in a broken tower et etc) overlooking their town/village. They all explore the stones, where they meet, and somehow trigger the gate to another world/dimension and become trapped there.
This way, it impresses upon the players the imminent threat of the God of Death, draws the characters together in a more binding way (that's not the clique - you all meet in a tavern) and explains shifting to another dimension.
Anyway, good luck and reach out for ideas if you need them ie maybe the players discover that their mentors were the reason the God of Death is destroying dimensions (or devouring all life) and they need to learn more about their backstories to find the way to stop the threat. Maybe the party IS the reason - plagued by dreams of the dead, including the memory of location of the one thing the God is after...) OR a character holds an aspect of death the god needs from each dimension to ascend/be complete OR one of the characters is the Gold of Life's vessel, able to ultimately bring all those taken by undeath back to life.
World hoping sounds great but can feel confusing and disjointed if you do it too much too early in the campaign. Leave it until when the characters are 10+ level at the earliest imho. Have them warm to their base world and the NPCs in it first so they become determined to save it.
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So I am building a campaign with a lot of homebrew where the party goes to save their world, gets trapped in different dimension, and has to save entire dimensions. And since I love open world they can basically get a army and attack the BBEG which is a god of death with the help of many eldritch beings. And as you can tell. . . I need help. Any help would be appreciated.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Okay, here is my advice.
Create a small village and start there.
Create a North, South, East and West location with various dungeons. Collect four artifacts and bring them to the Sacred Whatever.
At the Sacred Whatever something unexpected happens. They are transported to a Weird Place where everything is a mirror copy of the world they know. East is West, North is South, etc. Good guys are villains, bad guys are kings. Familiar enough to navigate, but unsettling.
Except for the Dark Spire on the Evil Mountain next to the frozen lake full of undead armies stuck in the ice. That’s new.
And it turns out it was always there but concealed by Illusion Magic and now you can see it clearly.
The evil dark lord does not know you can see him, for when he gazes upon you he sees you still in the other world.
Then you go back. You tell the Great Wise Guy about the BBEG and he calls up his old crew and they come out of retirement.
And you figure out what is going on and how to stop it.
Add in side quests and end it all with thawing the ice and leading the horde to storm the Dark Spire as a distraction so you can pull Off the Big Gamble.
Something like that. Throw in a unicorn, a centaur, a dragon, and giant Snail names Phil.
☕️
What do your players enjoy?
This sounds annoying but knowing your audience is important here. If you've got a group of Chaos Goblins who'll do whatever manic thing pops into their heads, and open world isn't going to work. Do your players like deep lore and intricate storytelling? Well, an open world makes that really difficult to do well without prior planning. To be clear, I'm not saying don't do it, or that you can't, just that you'll be making a lot of work for yourself. It's not going to take a week of prep. What you're adding with dimensions is an extra couple of worlds to build out too. That takes time. Think about your players though, just because you love an open world, it doesn't always follow that your players will even have the first clue what to do with one. Beyond that even in an Open World there is a clear overall quest or objective. In Skyrim, it's the dragons. In Zelda there's destroying Gannondorf (again). Even in Minecraft the players who click most with the game often play with their own goal in mind. You'll need something that the party are trying to achieve to keep focus for the adventure ahead. Open Worlds really are a bit of a misnamed thing when you think too hard about them - they're often anything but.
So my best advice if you really want help, is to start working on it. Start building it now. In the meantime run other adventures, and build this one in the background. Or better still, just use the forgotten realms and build your adventure within that. You could also utilise Kobold Press' Labyrinth setting which does dimensions very, very well. Using these pre-built settings really is the easiest way to build the adventure you want.
From there you kind of need to decide two big things:
- Why are the party on this adventure? (i.e. What's their goal & motivation)
- At what point does the adventure end? (i.e. What does it look like when the complete the adventure or fail?)
To give an example, in the recent campaign I had that ended the party were saving the world from an Extra-Planar Threat. For them the motivation was saving their city from various dangers. At first it was weird shadow monsters and trickster fey, then it moved on and the main antagonist appeared. Success looked like ending the extra-planar threat, failure looked like the Extra-Planar Creature arriving on the Material Plane where they would consume all.
The set dressing really doesn't matter too much unless there's something really specific at a world level that you're trying to achieve (sci-fi, cowboy, low magic or other such theming). Beyond that it's just so much easier to run the adventure within Forgotten realms, because if the party want to travel to Waterdeep the lore is already built out and available on the FR wiki. Do they want to travel to Thay? Great, they can do that. And then there's hundreds of adventure modules for you to draw quests and dungeons and suchlike from. For the extra planar stuff just look at the Planescape setting info. That's the point of these worlds. To give you a big headstart.
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.
The hardest part is that I'm not sure what the party will do mainly because of the amount of sessions and time difference. I would probably not let them know what they could do.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Like they would have the chance to bring an army but I would send my own so they would only get like 2 npcs to help them. I would not tell them what they could do but hint around it.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Here is the plot that may be changed over time,
The Plot: A group of adventurers has delved into the dungeon that plagues the heart of their world in order to eliminate Scias Darkmoore, a human that after losing his wife in an accident swore to do anything to bring her back. His plan was to summon an Eldritch being to grant him a wish to ascend to become a God of Death. As the party confronts him and his group a problem happens with the device to summon the Being and instead sends everyone to another dimension where all dimensions are trying to collide into another. The party must go to each continent and gather the rift weapons to destroy Scias Darkmoore before he destroys all the dimensions.
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
In which case, work on your new campaign in the background. Meanwhile, run an adventure that will be relatively low prep. I'd suggest Dragon of Icespire Peak. I suggest DoIP because of it's quest board style. The party get the chance to choose their path and guide their own way through the setting. This'll give you some ideas about what the party's play style. As you get to know the party you can get more and more ideas of how best to construct your campaign idea to their play style.
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.
thanks
Go to work. Send your kids to school. Follow fashion. Act normal. Walk on the pavement. Watch TV. Save for old age. Obey the law. Now repeat after me. "YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS"
Why not give the intro a twist. Ask the group to create two characters; a high level character and a first level character. Perhaps the low level characters are apprentices, squires, acolytes etc of the high level characters. Begin the campaign with the high level group, preparing to face off against the God of Death, to save a distant world, only to all fall before the horrific foe and watch the world become utterly destroyed. Flash forward to the first level characters who all share the same horrific dream of their mentors demise and a fading image of the ancient standing stones (or mushroom ring/strange tree/peculiar gate in a broken tower et etc) overlooking their town/village. They all explore the stones, where they meet, and somehow trigger the gate to another world/dimension and become trapped there.
This way, it impresses upon the players the imminent threat of the God of Death, draws the characters together in a more binding way (that's not the clique - you all meet in a tavern) and explains shifting to another dimension.
Anyway, good luck and reach out for ideas if you need them ie maybe the players discover that their mentors were the reason the God of Death is destroying dimensions (or devouring all life) and they need to learn more about their backstories to find the way to stop the threat. Maybe the party IS the reason - plagued by dreams of the dead, including the memory of location of the one thing the God is after...) OR a character holds an aspect of death the god needs from each dimension to ascend/be complete OR one of the characters is the Gold of Life's vessel, able to ultimately bring all those taken by undeath back to life.
World hoping sounds great but can feel confusing and disjointed if you do it too much too early in the campaign. Leave it until when the characters are 10+ level at the earliest imho. Have them warm to their base world and the NPCs in it first so they become determined to save it.