I hope this is the proper place to make this post. Im still fairly new to DnD and am still learning. Ive been catching onto and picking up the rules fairly quickly. One big reason I wanted to learn to play DnD was for the opportunity to create my own adventure. That's what Im asking advise for. I have the beginnings of an idea. Here is what I have:
An adventure for 2 PCs based in/near the Sword Coast. It will start as two separate duet adventures (level 1 to 2). Each PC will be young, fresh *blank race* looking to begin the life of an adventurer. They have spent their life savings on their kit of gear, armor, and weapons. Each duet will focus on character development (they will start with a basic background, family history, deity, and preferably a true neutral alignment that is subject to change as they develop). Each of these duets will culminate in their stories meeting up with each other to tackle a dire emergency (possibly rescuing an NPC to join their party, or taking on a band of raiders in a nearby town).
My issues: is this a possibility (can it be done)? Would it be enjoyable? Im also still a little lost on actual objectives to be completed by the PCs.
I'd say it definitely sounds possible, but asking your players to start off as "blank slates" might be robbing your players of one of the more fun aspects of character creation, and also hobble yourself in giving yourself less to work with when trying to tailor a good story to them.
Your question as to the objective of DnD kind of illustrates this point. There's no objective aside from what the players decide, given what they know about their own character and the information the DM presents to them. One character's objective might be to deliver a secret letter to someone across the continent that was entrusted to them by their dead grandmother, while another character's personal objective is to become a great explorer and overcome their crippling anxiety, or whatever else the player decides. Then, in the course of trying to accomplish their personal objectives, they might get swept up in something greater than themselves and end up saving the world together in whatever story you've cooked up for them (and maybe even accomplishing their personal objective in the process, or realizing what they thought they wanted wasn't really what they needed, or you could just save that story for another day, etc.). The objective of the game is to have fun and tell an enjoyable, interactive story.
You can still have the players start off young and inexperienced and have them grow as the game progresses, but just remember that even young people don't grow up in a vacuum, so ask your players to think about who their characters are, why they're like that, what their influences were growing up.
Sure it can be done. The question is, how do you want to go about doing it. For most single-player adventures, you want to keep the stakes relatively low. If there are monsters at all, maybe keep it to one or two CR 0 monsters like an Awakened Shrub, a Giant Fire Beetle, or Crawling Claw. Figure out a small task that someone is having an issue with that a single person could look into and model your adventure after that. As an example:
For player one:
Nana Harllow, a local village housewife is up in arms because something is ruining her garden and causing her normally prize-winning tomatoes to shrivel. She suspects a rival farmer, Dunley Marthane, of causing the trouble, but she can't prove anything. She hires Player One to investigate and maybe stake-out her garden for a night. Turns out the culprit is an Awakened Shrub that has been siphoning off her garden's nutrients at night. The shrub may or may not be incidentally linked to Dunley Marthane, but it definitely is the result of maybe a group or person who introduced the monster to the area in hopes of sowing chaos for some reason. (So there is likely a few social encounters with locals and a combat encounter with the shrub.)
For player two:
Local of a nearby village are complaining about a strange light in the forest at night. It is said to wander the woods on misty nights and lure those curious few who go in after it to their doom. Many now believe the woods to be haunted and a wood-cutter named Barnibus Tarc seeks to hire Player Two to investigate the woods and solve the problem so that he and his family can go back to working in peace. Turns out the mysterious light is one or more Giant Fire Beetle. After killing the monster(s), Player Two discovers that some group or person was using the beetles as messenger bugs and recovers a clue to why some evil force wants to do something bad to the town.
Now just have both players meet up and also introduce an NPC-helper character and you have something of a starter adventure.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
It is possible to have to little story arcs for each PC, but the issue that you manly have is that you are ignoring a player as you run the story for the other and that can get boring for the one waiting. There a number of ways to have the PCs meet. I think it would be best to have what is called a session 0 to talk to your players and see what they want out of the adventure. They might want to be childhood friends that decided long ago that they were going to become adventurers, or they meet by being hired to do the same job (ex: caravan guard, hunting a nuisance creature, investigating some ruins, etc.). If they don't mind waiting for each one to complete their little quest then by all means go with what Metamongoose suggested. I would just suggest that you tailor the quests to fit what you have in mind for your adventure.
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Remember this is a game and it's suppose to be fun for everybody. Let's all have fun and kill monsters.
For newbies I'd actually recommend starting off with something prewritten. You can split away from it later, but early on as a DM it's immensely helpful to get your bearings from someone who has a clear setting and idea laid out. It also helps you to see how your players warm to these fresh new characters they've made and takes the load off a little so you can work on developing those fledgling characters rather than struggling to create the adventure from scratch. Maybe try a short level 1-4/5 adventure and after that arc is finished you can build on it with your own arc and hooks?
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Grotesquely disfigured and underappreciated assistant of the Overlord at:
Lots of useful info here. I like the idea of the 0 session. My main idea for the individual duets was to integrate the character arc creation into a mini session. I already have 2 players I am building around. I pitched the idea to each of them and they both think it sounds interesting. One is my brother in law, who has been having issues with RP in the prewrittens Ive DMed for him (he is the main inspiration for this approach). The other is my dad, who played during 2e and did some DMing. He he hasnt played since then and is a bit rusty on the RP aspect, but that is whats most enjoyable for him. I was thinking of having a simple duet for each of them to really make choices and focus on RP and get them in the mindset of their characters and naturally discover what it is those characters are. After i made this post, I read further into my DM guide and have developed, what i think, is an interesting solo quest for my brother in law. It involves following a rumor to find a hermit in the forest nearby. The hermit has information about a treasure cave to the north. The cave is a trap set by evil gnomish thieves (who are working for the hermit). It ends with him being surrounded by gnomes and a mysterious figure approaching (which will continue in the main final part, and discovered to be PC2). Obviously, I have much more fluff and options to help encourage choices and RP, as well as learning how to perform those actions, such as the chance to persuade the hermit for the information about the cave, an insight check to learn he may have ulterior motives, or perform a task to earn the information (the task will have the opportunity to gain an NPC ally to assist him)
edit: for my dads solo quest, he has already told me a bit of a family backstory that he would like to explore. basically, his parents have been killed because he is a half-elf and he is setting out to rid this world of the evil that killed them. Im still working on this one, but where the two overlap is that the hermit is the fanatic that had his parents killed.
In the finale, the will end up getting to fight the hermit as a final boss, or make a moral choice when presented with the option to join him.
I have an end goal in mind, now im just working and fleshing out how to get there. Having options and choices, making it enjoyable without having them feel railroaded
I hope this is the proper place to make this post. Im still fairly new to DnD and am still learning. Ive been catching onto and picking up the rules fairly quickly. One big reason I wanted to learn to play DnD was for the opportunity to create my own adventure. That's what Im asking advise for. I have the beginnings of an idea. Here is what I have:
An adventure for 2 PCs based in/near the Sword Coast. It will start as two separate duet adventures (level 1 to 2). Each PC will be young, fresh *blank race* looking to begin the life of an adventurer. They have spent their life savings on their kit of gear, armor, and weapons. Each duet will focus on character development (they will start with a basic background, family history, deity, and preferably a true neutral alignment that is subject to change as they develop). Each of these duets will culminate in their stories meeting up with each other to tackle a dire emergency (possibly rescuing an NPC to join their party, or taking on a band of raiders in a nearby town).
My issues: is this a possibility (can it be done)? Would it be enjoyable? Im also still a little lost on actual objectives to be completed by the PCs.
I'd say it definitely sounds possible, but asking your players to start off as "blank slates" might be robbing your players of one of the more fun aspects of character creation, and also hobble yourself in giving yourself less to work with when trying to tailor a good story to them.
Your question as to the objective of DnD kind of illustrates this point. There's no objective aside from what the players decide, given what they know about their own character and the information the DM presents to them. One character's objective might be to deliver a secret letter to someone across the continent that was entrusted to them by their dead grandmother, while another character's personal objective is to become a great explorer and overcome their crippling anxiety, or whatever else the player decides. Then, in the course of trying to accomplish their personal objectives, they might get swept up in something greater than themselves and end up saving the world together in whatever story you've cooked up for them (and maybe even accomplishing their personal objective in the process, or realizing what they thought they wanted wasn't really what they needed, or you could just save that story for another day, etc.). The objective of the game is to have fun and tell an enjoyable, interactive story.
You can still have the players start off young and inexperienced and have them grow as the game progresses, but just remember that even young people don't grow up in a vacuum, so ask your players to think about who their characters are, why they're like that, what their influences were growing up.
Sure it can be done. The question is, how do you want to go about doing it. For most single-player adventures, you want to keep the stakes relatively low. If there are monsters at all, maybe keep it to one or two CR 0 monsters like an Awakened Shrub, a Giant Fire Beetle, or Crawling Claw. Figure out a small task that someone is having an issue with that a single person could look into and model your adventure after that. As an example:
For player one:
For player two:
Now just have both players meet up and also introduce an NPC-helper character and you have something of a starter adventure.
It is possible to have to little story arcs for each PC, but the issue that you manly have is that you are ignoring a player as you run the story for the other and that can get boring for the one waiting. There a number of ways to have the PCs meet. I think it would be best to have what is called a session 0 to talk to your players and see what they want out of the adventure. They might want to be childhood friends that decided long ago that they were going to become adventurers, or they meet by being hired to do the same job (ex: caravan guard, hunting a nuisance creature, investigating some ruins, etc.). If they don't mind waiting for each one to complete their little quest then by all means go with what Metamongoose suggested. I would just suggest that you tailor the quests to fit what you have in mind for your adventure.
Remember this is a game and it's suppose to be fun for everybody. Let's all have fun and kill monsters.
For newbies I'd actually recommend starting off with something prewritten. You can split away from it later, but early on as a DM it's immensely helpful to get your bearings from someone who has a clear setting and idea laid out. It also helps you to see how your players warm to these fresh new characters they've made and takes the load off a little so you can work on developing those fledgling characters rather than struggling to create the adventure from scratch. Maybe try a short level 1-4/5 adventure and after that arc is finished you can build on it with your own arc and hooks?
Grotesquely disfigured and underappreciated assistant of the Overlord at:

Lots of useful info here. I like the idea of the 0 session. My main idea for the individual duets was to integrate the character arc creation into a mini session. I already have 2 players I am building around. I pitched the idea to each of them and they both think it sounds interesting. One is my brother in law, who has been having issues with RP in the prewrittens Ive DMed for him (he is the main inspiration for this approach). The other is my dad, who played during 2e and did some DMing. He he hasnt played since then and is a bit rusty on the RP aspect, but that is whats most enjoyable for him. I was thinking of having a simple duet for each of them to really make choices and focus on RP and get them in the mindset of their characters and naturally discover what it is those characters are. After i made this post, I read further into my DM guide and have developed, what i think, is an interesting solo quest for my brother in law. It involves following a rumor to find a hermit in the forest nearby. The hermit has information about a treasure cave to the north. The cave is a trap set by evil gnomish thieves (who are working for the hermit). It ends with him being surrounded by gnomes and a mysterious figure approaching (which will continue in the main final part, and discovered to be PC2). Obviously, I have much more fluff and options to help encourage choices and RP, as well as learning how to perform those actions, such as the chance to persuade the hermit for the information about the cave, an insight check to learn he may have ulterior motives, or perform a task to earn the information (the task will have the opportunity to gain an NPC ally to assist him)
edit: for my dads solo quest, he has already told me a bit of a family backstory that he would like to explore. basically, his parents have been killed because he is a half-elf and he is setting out to rid this world of the evil that killed them. Im still working on this one, but where the two overlap is that the hermit is the fanatic that had his parents killed.
In the finale, the will end up getting to fight the hermit as a final boss, or make a moral choice when presented with the option to join him.
I have an end goal in mind, now im just working and fleshing out how to get there. Having options and choices, making it enjoyable without having them feel railroaded