Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
So, I'm currently planning a campaign. My main villain is gonna be an incredibly annoying seer who treats the party like his own personal reality TV show. He messes with their adventures just to make things more interesting for himself as he watches them try to deal with the chaos he causes in their lives.
At one point, the party is trying to retrieve an artifact that would allow them to find the location of this diviner, to finally put an end to his meddling.
Except, when they finally reach the last room of the temple where the artifact is said to be kept, what they instead find is a message left by the diviner. It tells them he figured this challenge was too easy, so he placed the artifact somewhere more worthy of their skill to provide a much more suitable challenge.
Now, this is meant to be frustrating. They are supposed to find the diviner's constant meddling incredibly infuriating, after all. But a friend pointed out that the party going through all that trouble only to leave empty-handed (at least narratively; they are still standing in the middle of a treasure room, so there's bound to be a bunch of gold and some cool loot hidden in there) might be too frustrating and unsatisfying IRL.
What do you guys think? Do you agree? And how would you avoid making a moment like this feel unsatisfying?
Maybe they come in just before or as the diviner is making off with the item. Have a short combat encounter where they can attempt to get the item, and the diviner can use magic to escape if the fight goes on too long. Have him drop some sort of extra clue if he when he gets away, with or without the item, that gives the party an advantage later if they can figure it out (the key to a secret lair entrance, a pendant that controls one of his servants). That way, they have a sliver of a chance to stop it from happening, and doesn't make them feel like it was totally out of their control, whilst still being frustrating that they lost him.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"
Having some decent loot for them is a good start. But the real question is: How do they prevent this happening every single time? Why would the diviner ever allow the party to catch them?
Having it just be "this time the diviner let you have it" would be extremely unsatisfying. There needs to be some way for the party to out-wit, or otherwise cleverly or through their own growing powers beat the diviner.
Edited to add: Thinking more about this set up, i'd strongly urge you to reconsider this diviner as the BBEG. Because there is one clear way to "win" against this diviner: refuse to do anything interesting. If the players just stop going on adventures, strop reacting to the diviners meddling, they just settle down in a house in a city minding their own business, doing nothing, that will frustrate the diviner the most. It is never a good idea to make the solution to your BBEG to stop playing D&D.
I’d say this is a case where you really need to know your players. Frustrating for the characters may not translate into frustrating for the players.
Also, note that nondetection is a 3rd level spell. I’d anticipate them using it often, and if they do, make sure to let them make plans without the baddie knowing.
Also, assuming the bad guy is scrying, make sure you give them the requisite saving throws. It shouldn’t work every time. Unless the bad guy plants an NPC servant with the party who willingly fails the save. Though even that should be something the party can eventually figure out.
“I am sorry, Mario, your princess is in another castle” might work in a game that’s barely about the plot; it very quickly crosses the line into feeling condescending in D&D. After all, in D&D, the Dungeon Master has unlimited power - they can always decree “it did not matter what you did as party members, I say this is what happened and thus this is what happened.” Any time you aim to pull the rug out from the players, you should do so fairly - you want your players surprised, but also want them to think “oh, darn it. If we had just done that insight check; just moved a little faster; done things a little differently, we might have figured things out.”
That is where I think your idea fails - they get to the end and are told that their efforts were for not and there was not really something they could have done differently. The DM was always going to decree the item was gone, so wasted the party’s time sending them down a rabbit hole knowing full well disappointment was the end game for the dungeon.
If you are going to do something like this, you need to have a possibility the players can win. Maybe they know someone else is going for the item and have to race. Perhaps they are given some kind of clue the person your boss hired to take the item just left (like a still warm torch), and now they have a chance to get the item before it leaves. Whatever it is, you can make it difficult - but not impossible. “We almost had it” is satisfying “our DM only gave us the illusion of victory, we never stood a chance” is not.
Hm.. the same idea works pretty well in Skyrim which is quite a bit more narrative focused. But in that case you still have a clear way forwards, which might be the key for the OP as well. As long as the players have a new direction to go in after the rug-pull it still feels like they are progressing the story. It's mostly when a twist is just a straight set back, or is a dead end that it is frustrating in a non-fun way.
If its a session or two to get the mcguffin only to find the npc got it first, fine. If its many levels of a campaign to get that point, only to find its gone, yeah, that would suck.
Have you ever watched a series on tv, where they had, say, 12 episodes to complete the story, but the charavters keep getting thwarted, and at some point youre not sure how they can pull it off by season end, only to realize, ha ha! The writers decide the show is doing so well they decided to drag out the plot resolution for another season?
Yeah, those shows suck.
Challenge/reward. Challenge/reward.
If you constantly challenge the party and keep delaying the reward, then they will start getting frustrated. You would be better off giving them.their reward and coming up with a new challenge that comes with its own, different reward.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
Ultimately, the idea is that to the diviner, it's all a game. And games are not fun if they don't offer a challenge, or if they can never be beaten. As such, he's basically playing cat-and-mouse with the party. So yes, the plot ultimately relies on the diviner's arrogance and his desire to let them challenge him. Allowing the players to get closer to him is the reward he's giving them for succeeding in overcoming his obstacles.
So, I suppose that if you insist on it having to be a case of the players out-witting the villain, then it's a case of them needing to play into his arrogance and keeping his interest alive just long enough to get close enough to put an end to him.
Also, I have to disagree with you on your point about the players just quitting.
If the players refuse to play along, the diviner will just force them to become active instead. He might send monsters to burn down their hometowns, kidnap their loved ones to put them on a clock, or frame them for crimes to turn the local guards against them.
The party can try to ignore his game, but the diviner will never stop to continuously engineer new catastrophes for them to overcome. If they ever want their normal lives back, they will quickly realize that ignoring him isn't an option. The only way to achieve peace is to hunt the diviner down and put an end to him once and for all.
Edit: Edited for better grammar and phrasing
To be fair, it's not constantly delaying the reward. It's one singular instance out of several locations they'll have to visit on their journey. Let's say they visit ten places. In the first four, they always succeed and get the reward. Then in the fifth town, they don't get their reward and it turns out the villain already left, leaving only a note: "Heading to XY next. Come and try to get me!" After which, in the next five towns, they again always succeed and get the reward. It's not quite the same constant denial of success scenario that you're describing.
Also, yeah, I know it sucks. That's kinda the feeling I want the players to experience. They are supposed to be annoyed at the villain for yanking them along and delaying their success. So technically, you're just confirming that I succeeded in getting the reaction I want the players to have.
Still, solid point.
I mean, they do have a pretty clear way forward in my game as well. As I said, once they enter the room where they think the item is being kept, they see a simulacrum of the diviner waiting for them, telling them: "Good showing, but I don't think that was quite enough to prove yourselves worthy of meeting me yet. Tell you what, I took the liberty of placing the artifact at [lXY] instead. That one will prove to be much more of a worthy challenge for you."
I realize it was somewhat vague in my original post, but the diviner literally tells them: "I placed the item in location XY. Go there and get it so we can advance to the next step of the game." The players couldn't really get a much clearer direction on where to go next.
Sorry, as I said, I might not have made that clear enough by just stating that "he tells them he placed the artifact somewhere more worthy of their skill to provide a much more suitable challenge".
(Also, in case the question comes up of how he beat them there: he teleported. The Teleport spell only requires you to have seen the destination your planning to travel to. And as a diviner, who can basically peer anywhere in the world whenever he wants, he simply scried on the room, got a visual layout, and teleported right inside once he'd seen it.)
Sorry but that doesn't sound very fun as a player. The players have no agency what so ever, they are expected to just go around doing what they are told until the BBEG decides to let the party kill him? Why would the BBEG do that? Why would the players do that?
If I was a player in this game, I would quickly decide to simply not play the diviner's game and ignore everything him tells me to do and instead go off to a library to research a way to prevent him scrying/spying on us. Alternatively, the players might decide to not hate the diviner at all and instead try to convince the diviner to join them and go on adventures with them if he's so excited by them.
I actually used this kind of idea as a twist in one of my games where the party were fighting a nest of Illithids who were working to try and make a portal to send a beholder home. When the party finally got to the beholder's lair they discovered the beholder was basically a fan of theirs and had made little puppets and mutated monster pets to represent them like action figures he could play with. Needless to say the party decided not to kill the beholder and instead chose to carry around objects to make it easier for the beholder to scry on them in exchange for him promising not to hurt any humanoids.
Soooo... the Diviner is the DM. It is an NPC with infinite power to manipulate the world, who knows everything the players do and every plan the players make, who's only goal is to create a game for the player to play, and who will deliberately lose so the players can feel victorious at the end?
Again I'm trying to be helpful here, but that doesn't sound like a story. That sounds like the plot is "you'll play D&D until I decide the campaign is going to end now". For some groups that might be just fine. Lots of players don't actually care about story, and just want to hack-and-slash so if your group is like that all power to you and go for it. I mean there was even a time when I homebrewed an "monster" that is explicitly the DM for this kind of game. But in such a case I wouldn't worry about the narrative being satisfying or not, as that's not really what the game is about. Just give the party some cool loot for completing the dungeon and they'll be happy.
Maybe the wizard could leave behind half of the item? Making it kind of more satisfying yet more infuriating than the item just being gone at the same time? Not sure if that would work, just throwing the idea out there.
I think the answer is that they need some sort of meaningful victory, just not what they'd intended.
This seems fine to me broad strokes. It's a pretty common story structure after all! Like, if you're thinking of this like a Five Act narrative, in Act II the villain is ascendent and always seems one step ahead of the heroes. But the key is that, even though the heroes struggle and seem like they're constantly losing, each loss comes with a small but important victory. So, here, I'd make sure that your party does get something out of the temple that is important to defeating the seer. It's just not the artifact that they'd hoped for. It could be a new ally, new knowledge or insights, a different weapon, something like that. But I'd make it narratively important (in addition to just some general good loot).
Personally, I really like someone else's suggestion up top. They don't find the artifact, but they do find a way to hide themselves from the seer or otherwise defeat his divination abilities. That gives them real progress, even in the face of a larger defeat.
The one thing I'd be careful of is this: "Also, yeah, I know it sucks. That's kinda the feeling I want the players to experience. They are supposed to be annoyed at the villain for yanking them along and delaying their success. So technically, you're just confirming that I succeeded in getting the reaction I want the players to have." It's REALLY hard to write something that's annoying and frustrating but also fun. Frustration is kind of the opposite of fun. Failures and setbacks? 100%. You can't have real victories without defeat along the way. But I'd be really, really careful about having the game feel annoying and frustrating.
I'm just going to address all of this here in one post to keep things simple.
It feels like you are making a lot of assumptions based on a very limited summary, rather than looking at how these mechanics actually function at the table, which is just... whatever.
But to address most of your points:
Objection: "The players have no agency."
Answer: That statement is utter bs. Because you only have the brief summary of the Diviners motivations, you're completely ignoring the actual game experience: the story is entirely driven by the players desire to get rid of the entity responsible for disrupting their lives. They are the driving force of the narrative, actively hunting the BBEG. The diviner is simply a reactive antagonist. He responds to the party's movements and introduces complications based on the choices they make.
Objection: "If I was a player, I'd just get bored and try to leave."
Answer: Ignoring the threat doesn't make it disappear. If a party decides to walk away from a villain who is actively targeting their homes, friends, and families, the narrative consequences will follow them. It’s like dealing with a stalker. You can decide not to engage with them, sure, but that doesn't make them stop; it just gives them free rein. The players can't just close their eyes to the threat if they ever want to live in peace again.
Objection: "So the diviner is just a self-insert DM?"
Answer: No. He is an in-universe, near-omniscient seer who has amassed vast wealth, treasures, and political influence over years by abusing his powers. He isn't omnipotent, he just has enough money and leverage to be a massive, calculated pain in the ass.
Objection: "Why would the diviner even bother playing a game with the party?"
Answer: Because he is profoundly bored. In almost any fantasy setting, a near-omniscient being eventually hits a wall where knowing everything in advance drains all the excitement out of life. When he finally encounters a party capable of subverting his predictions, it's a massive novelty. He becomes fixated on keeping them around because they are the only source of genuine entertainment left in his world.
Objection: "Why would the diviner just let himself get killed so the players can feel victorious at the end?"
Answer: He doesn't. He is actively studying the party throughout the campaign to lure them into a trap. In his own mind, he is never in any real danger. That is right up until the moment the players prove they are capable of far more than he ever predicted.
That's exactly what the item they're trying to acquire is actually about. It has exactly those properties you're suggesting. Except the Diviner is interfering with them getting this item just yet, as that would make things too boring according to him.
Fair enough... I'd try to come up with something else then. I think your first instinct is absolutely right. Without more, getting to the end of that temple will just feel like a rug pull, which is definitely unsatisfying. You really want to avoid leaving your players feeling like they can't and won't make progress. That does lead to frustration and annoyance, which aren't fun emotions.
My suggestion is to come up with something else they can take from the temple that will let them feel meaningful narrative progress. Not just good loot, but something that gets them closer to their overall goal. It could even be as simple as an insight or information, like "this is how he works!" But something they can use. Otherwise they'll end the whole dungeon feeling like they're right back where they started, which isn't a fun feeling (especially if they've spent weeks or months of real-life time in that temple). This part of their story absolutely can feel like one step forward, two steps back. Just, make sure they get that one step forward.
But why? and how? If the BBEG knows everything the character do then why would the characters believe they could ever beat the BBEG? Again with this Macguffin, if the BBEG can move it from one dungeon, why would the characters believe it will be in the next one? Why wouldn't the BBEG just keep moving it? Even if the characters do get the Macguffin, why would they believe it is actually effective in blocking the BBEG's vision? Why wouldn't the BBEG have cursed it? Or used their time with it to figure out how to overcome it? If the BBEG really has nothing better to do than to spend all their money & energy to mess with the PC then how can the PCs ever win? The BBEG can teleport in and steal any item the characters collect at any time. What can the PCs do to actually beat the BBEG? What strategy can they implement that the BBEG can't subvert while it is still in the planning phase? What allies can they acrew that the BBEG can't kidnap/kill/buy off? How can the BBEG underestimate the players - he knows everything about them, he knows exactly what they can do, he knows what magic items they have, he know every person they have talked to, every adventure they have been on, watched them fight over and over again. The Truman Show, Squid Game, etc... all teach that in a surveillance state the only way to win is to break the system, you do what they don't expect, you refuse to do what they tell you. But it depends on your players.
However, if your players don't want to think about the game, don't want to come up with strategies, don't want to think outside the box this BBEG and plot is great. If they just want to follow the signs from start to finish then go for it, it will be a great time, they'll follow along waiting for the BBEG to decide to give them the answers, to decide it's time for them to fight. And some tables do like that, in fact one of the tables I play at want games like that - they hate having to come up with their own plans, they just want to go from point A to point B doing dungeon B after dungeon A until the campaign ends. They are perfectly happy going where the NPCs tell them to go, fighting the monsters the NPCs tell them to fight, and choosing between the multiple choice solutions the NPCs present to them. My creative solutions or attempts to venture off on side quests annoyed that table, and that's totally fine, everyone can play D&D in the way they enjoy. If your players aren't like me, if they aren't going to ask these questions, then don't worry about my comments / questions. Lots of people are like that, indeed after playing D&D for many years I've only met 3-4 people who do notice these things and get frustrated by the rails and plot holes and want to develop their own complex stratagems to win the game rather than following the pre-planned route. But as I said, if that's not your players then don't worry about narrative satisfaction, as long as the characters get some reward - cool magic items, or a big pile of gold - and a new way forwards they will be happy.