I would just like some ideas r.e. my campaign... Anything goes!
I have created a fairly sandbox-ey campaign based across several towns and environments (forest, grasslands, mines) in the hopes that my players can really pick-and-choose what order they explore things. I am happy scaling the challenges to match their experience and there is certainly plenty to do unrelated to the core plot.
However, I am struggling to put together an overarching plot to bring the story together for a nice tidy close. So some ideas and suggestions would be appreciated. :)
In the largest town, the adventurers meet the Baron who is in control of this town and the surrounding villages and is in charge of the management, distribution and sales of the local mines and its produce. The Baron and his militia are not well liked within the communities, and it is suggested that the Baron has been making dodgy deals with sinister figures late at night... The adventurers have opportunities to spy on the Baron and explore this further.
The Baron has formed a contract with a powerful drow leader allowing the drow access to the towns and surrounding area for raids of his lands on the one condition that the greedy Baron is allowed unrestricted access to a particular mine tunnel (close to the underdark - hence the drow involvement) where it is rumoured there is rare and powerful treasure. The Baron has also taken over control of the mines for the direct purpose of locating this treasure - putting the miners at terrible risk due to the monsters and undead that lurk in these deep caverns.
Ultimately, the Baron becomes concerned the adventurers are onto him so he sends them on a selection of perilous missions in the hopes that they fail. Of course, all going well, my adventurers will survive!
What I need is a nice conclusion where the adventurers are able to confront the Baron and overthrow him. However the Baron being a boring dwarf of no particular skills insofar as combat I don't know how to turn this into the EPIC FINAL CONFRONTATION/BATTLE that I would like. Any ideas?
A few ideas that are purely my own opinions, and then a possible solution to your end-game.
I like how you've sketched out the villains - Baron & the Drow - in terms of motivations. That gives you lots of flexibility when it comes to plot, and how to react when the Players take the plot in a direction you hadn't planned.
I think the treasure needs a little more definition: what is it really? why does the Baron want this particular treasure? It has to be for reasons other than purely wealth, or why not just raise taxes, or take bribes, or ... There are easier means of merely acquiring wealth. If the treasure in near the Drow territory, why don't they want it, or even have it? Or will they try and take it for themselves if they find out about it?
The Baron's tactic of "hire adventures for suicide missions hoping they get killed" doesn't seem particularly realistic. It would be a lot easier to employ the "trump up a false charge and have the adventurers arrested and executed" tactic.
Perhaps you could invert the introduction. The adventurers are hired ( or volunteer ) to help the local towns against raids from Drow, or the miners from the mine creatures ( btw - why undead? what is causing them? ). This is a little more adventure-classic, and allows you to slowly introduce the Baron and the Drow. You can make that as layered and nuanced as you want: the Baron's local mine overseer, the Baron's treasurer, his Advisors, and finally the Baron himself. You can do something similar with the Drow military raiding parties. The adventurers can "work their up" the chain of command, trying to unravel what's really going on here.
Now - as for conclusions: Don't write one yet!
You've got enough material to get the story started. Let the Players roll with it, see what parts of the adventure are important to them. They may seize on an aspect of the story you don't expect. If you wrote an epic showdown with the Baron, and then the Players decide to chase down the Underdark, fight off the Drow, and collapse the mine - all your designing is in vain.
When you've got a pretty good idea what the story is actually shaping up to be, you can sketch out the end at that point.
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You've got enough material to get the story started. Let the Players roll with it, see what parts of the adventure are important to them. They may seize on an aspect of the story you don't expect. If you wrote an epic showdown with the Baron, and then the Players decide to chase down the Underdark, fight off the Drow, and collapse the mine - all your designing is in vain.
When you've got a pretty good idea what the story is actually shaping up to be, you can sketch out the end at that point.
+1 to this idea. When I started out my homebrew campaign I had a loose idea of a 'theme' and where I might like the ending to go, but I've now learned that a much better way of working is to chop the campaign into 'chapters' and not create the ending until they've finished the previous chapter (so to speak). What that has meant is I now have several options for the BBEG and the final showdown than I previously did. And I can incorporate the players' actions and decisions into their path to get there.
My advice is to keep it small at first, watch what your players like and are interested in, and unravel it from there. If you know your ending before you begin and the players uncover it in your second or third session, then the ending you had in mind is anticlimactic for them.
Incidentally, my players have already guessed what they think is the ending for our campaign. I'm debating whether to give them what they want or play with it a little. ;)
If you want to up the ante of the final battle, there are lots of ways. If the baron is rich, he could have bought a Shield Guardian or two, or hired mercenaries. Or maybe the treasure you mentioned has some horrible side effect, turning him into a hideous abomination-depending-on-level. Or, if you don't want to go that route, maybe the treasure is guarded by something horrible, like a dracolich or mind flayer colony, that the baron releases by accident
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"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
Thanks for all the suggestions! I am trying to keep things vague while I flesh things out - and I also want to avoid any of my players from finding out too much ahead of time as they use this site occasionally.
In answer to a few of your questions:
- The Baron is aware the *treasure* holds a powerful magic, and wants this for himself although he does not understand the nature of the magic.
- The drow view that area of the mines as cursed and are aware that the *treasure* is dangerous, therefore they don't want anything to do with it and are happy for the Baron to kill himself trying. They are purely interested in their own gains. I would consider having the drow raid the town after the treasure has been recovered to claim it too - seems like a very drow thing to do.
- I will consider this, but have already included a 'prison break' mission in a sidequest unrelated to the main plot, so would need to rejig a few things to make it interesting.
- I was leaving the adventurers initial purpose intentionally open as I would like to tie it to the players own backstories; it is unclear yet whether they will start in the main town at all or stumble upon it after exploring the outer regions first.
I totally back up what the others said about keeping things super loose, though I understand the feeling of wanting to have an overall plot end planned. I would suggest, as others are saying, keeping your plans pretty loose, but that doesn't mean you have to just skip planning(though that may work better for some people). For me, how I keep my plans loose and still feel comfortably prepared for an ending, I tend to use several things.
First, I come up with multiple routes and what ifs that could happen and that way, even if I don't use them, I have a vague idea which direction to go with for extremely different scenarios. For example, I recently had my players up against a vampire and I knew it could either go really well or really bad for them, so I planned several loose out ideas for myself if the fight was too easy, and then I planned a few out ideas for them if the fight was too hard. I ended up needing to use the out for them since half of them were charmed, which seriously psyched the rest of the party out, but I felt in full control of the situation.
So for this, you could have a few ideas that you could have as possibilities depending on choices made by players, but wait to choose one till it feels right. One you could try is maybe the Boss ends up getting a "blessing" from the Drow goddess Lolth, and you could give him all the abilities of a drow Priestess of Loth( CR 8) and extra hit points. Or maybe if you need a higher CR, he could turn into a vampire. He could even trigger it in a sacrifice event that kills someone close to the party, making this PERSONAL. Those are just a few ideas, but the best way I've found to brainstorm is to read into the history, religion, lore and such for any related things that may have cool or needed aspects, and then manipulate them to my advantage.
An example of that would be recently I had my players in a different campaign investigate an underwater pyramid in the underdark, and I looked at underwater monsters I could include and read about Kuo Toa, who worship a goddess whom they believe will one day subdue land dwellers and put Kuo Toa on top. Thus, I integrated that idea into the pyramid, which was originally built by a dwarf inventor, but when a dam holding the waters back broke, the whole thing was submerged. Because of this, the Kuo Toa there believe this to be a scene of great success where their goddess reclaimed their land from the air dwellers, and they set it up as a temple to her. I feel that lore for monsters and races aren't perfect as unbreakable rules, since there are always variations and changes in any culture, but they are great to use for a direction and creativity while building stories in the world.
Link the different elements to each other in a way that brings the story back to the Baron eventually.
For example: if they go down and claim this treasure, then have some aspect of the claiming empower or enable the Baron in some way. When the party defeats the guardian of the treasure, it breaks a curse on an item the Baron has already claimed--or a curse on the Baron himself! Not only did it break the curse on him, but it placed the curse on the party instead. That and they picked up the last piece of the puzzle that he needs to complete the super powerful item, so whether they go after him or not doesn't matter because he will go after them.
Epic showdown guaranteed!
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I would just like some ideas r.e. my campaign... Anything goes!
I have created a fairly sandbox-ey campaign based across several towns and environments (forest, grasslands, mines) in the hopes that my players can really pick-and-choose what order they explore things. I am happy scaling the challenges to match their experience and there is certainly plenty to do unrelated to the core plot.
However, I am struggling to put together an overarching plot to bring the story together for a nice tidy close. So some ideas and suggestions would be appreciated. :)
In the largest town, the adventurers meet the Baron who is in control of this town and the surrounding villages and is in charge of the management, distribution and sales of the local mines and its produce. The Baron and his militia are not well liked within the communities, and it is suggested that the Baron has been making dodgy deals with sinister figures late at night... The adventurers have opportunities to spy on the Baron and explore this further.
The Baron has formed a contract with a powerful drow leader allowing the drow access to the towns and surrounding area for raids of his lands on the one condition that the greedy Baron is allowed unrestricted access to a particular mine tunnel (close to the underdark - hence the drow involvement) where it is rumoured there is rare and powerful treasure. The Baron has also taken over control of the mines for the direct purpose of locating this treasure - putting the miners at terrible risk due to the monsters and undead that lurk in these deep caverns.
Ultimately, the Baron becomes concerned the adventurers are onto him so he sends them on a selection of perilous missions in the hopes that they fail. Of course, all going well, my adventurers will survive!
What I need is a nice conclusion where the adventurers are able to confront the Baron and overthrow him. However the Baron being a boring dwarf of no particular skills insofar as combat I don't know how to turn this into the EPIC FINAL CONFRONTATION/BATTLE that I would like. Any ideas?
A few ideas that are purely my own opinions, and then a possible solution to your end-game.
Now - as for conclusions: Don't write one yet!
You've got enough material to get the story started. Let the Players roll with it, see what parts of the adventure are important to them. They may seize on an aspect of the story you don't expect. If you wrote an epic showdown with the Baron, and then the Players decide to chase down the Underdark, fight off the Drow, and collapse the mine - all your designing is in vain.
When you've got a pretty good idea what the story is actually shaping up to be, you can sketch out the end at that point.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
+1 to this idea. When I started out my homebrew campaign I had a loose idea of a 'theme' and where I might like the ending to go, but I've now learned that a much better way of working is to chop the campaign into 'chapters' and not create the ending until they've finished the previous chapter (so to speak). What that has meant is I now have several options for the BBEG and the final showdown than I previously did. And I can incorporate the players' actions and decisions into their path to get there.
My advice is to keep it small at first, watch what your players like and are interested in, and unravel it from there. If you know your ending before you begin and the players uncover it in your second or third session, then the ending you had in mind is anticlimactic for them.
Incidentally, my players have already guessed what they think is the ending for our campaign. I'm debating whether to give them what they want or play with it a little. ;)
If you want to up the ante of the final battle, there are lots of ways. If the baron is rich, he could have bought a Shield Guardian or two, or hired mercenaries. Or maybe the treasure you mentioned has some horrible side effect, turning him into a hideous abomination-depending-on-level. Or, if you don't want to go that route, maybe the treasure is guarded by something horrible, like a dracolich or mind flayer colony, that the baron releases by accident
"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
-Actual conversation in a game.
Oooh I like the idea of the treasure being cursed! Thank you!
Thanks for all the suggestions! I am trying to keep things vague while I flesh things out - and I also want to avoid any of my players from finding out too much ahead of time as they use this site occasionally.
In answer to a few of your questions:
- The Baron is aware the *treasure* holds a powerful magic, and wants this for himself although he does not understand the nature of the magic.
- The drow view that area of the mines as cursed and are aware that the *treasure* is dangerous, therefore they don't want anything to do with it and are happy for the Baron to kill himself trying. They are purely interested in their own gains. I would consider having the drow raid the town after the treasure has been recovered to claim it too - seems like a very drow thing to do.
- I will consider this, but have already included a 'prison break' mission in a sidequest unrelated to the main plot, so would need to rejig a few things to make it interesting.
- I was leaving the adventurers initial purpose intentionally open as I would like to tie it to the players own backstories; it is unclear yet whether they will start in the main town at all or stumble upon it after exploring the outer regions first.
Hey rbea5367,
I totally back up what the others said about keeping things super loose, though I understand the feeling of wanting to have an overall plot end planned. I would suggest, as others are saying, keeping your plans pretty loose, but that doesn't mean you have to just skip planning(though that may work better for some people). For me, how I keep my plans loose and still feel comfortably prepared for an ending, I tend to use several things.
First, I come up with multiple routes and what ifs that could happen and that way, even if I don't use them, I have a vague idea which direction to go with for extremely different scenarios. For example, I recently had my players up against a vampire and I knew it could either go really well or really bad for them, so I planned several loose out ideas for myself if the fight was too easy, and then I planned a few out ideas for them if the fight was too hard. I ended up needing to use the out for them since half of them were charmed, which seriously psyched the rest of the party out, but I felt in full control of the situation.
So for this, you could have a few ideas that you could have as possibilities depending on choices made by players, but wait to choose one till it feels right. One you could try is maybe the Boss ends up getting a "blessing" from the Drow goddess Lolth, and you could give him all the abilities of a drow Priestess of Loth( CR 8) and extra hit points. Or maybe if you need a higher CR, he could turn into a vampire. He could even trigger it in a sacrifice event that kills someone close to the party, making this PERSONAL. Those are just a few ideas, but the best way I've found to brainstorm is to read into the history, religion, lore and such for any related things that may have cool or needed aspects, and then manipulate them to my advantage.
An example of that would be recently I had my players in a different campaign investigate an underwater pyramid in the underdark, and I looked at underwater monsters I could include and read about Kuo Toa, who worship a goddess whom they believe will one day subdue land dwellers and put Kuo Toa on top. Thus, I integrated that idea into the pyramid, which was originally built by a dwarf inventor, but when a dam holding the waters back broke, the whole thing was submerged. Because of this, the Kuo Toa there believe this to be a scene of great success where their goddess reclaimed their land from the air dwellers, and they set it up as a temple to her. I feel that lore for monsters and races aren't perfect as unbreakable rules, since there are always variations and changes in any culture, but they are great to use for a direction and creativity while building stories in the world.
Hope this can help!
the chimerical cookie
Link the different elements to each other in a way that brings the story back to the Baron eventually.
For example: if they go down and claim this treasure, then have some aspect of the claiming empower or enable the Baron in some way. When the party defeats the guardian of the treasure, it breaks a curse on an item the Baron has already claimed--or a curse on the Baron himself! Not only did it break the curse on him, but it placed the curse on the party instead. That and they picked up the last piece of the puzzle that he needs to complete the super powerful item, so whether they go after him or not doesn't matter because he will go after them.
Epic showdown guaranteed!