I've thought about writing my own campaign for a while now, but I've always fallen short as of a plot hook. I'm a new-ish DM and I don't really have any good ideas regarding plot hooks, but as soon as I have one, I can run with it. I'm not going to take it as my own, if you were worried about that, I just need a good plot hook to kickstart my adventure. Preferably for level 1 adventurers. Thanks if you posted anything below
The city of lark is being attacked by goblins,drow or the undead the players need to travel to the goblins lair, the underdark, or a necromancers castle to stop it.
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The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .
The players are sent on a wild goose chase by some stolen notes towards a lich. All they know is there's treasure, very great treasure, to be had, and they might have to fight a dragon to get to it. The lich is looking to get revenge on the world, since he has a sad backstory and all and he didn't do well with it. The players can join him, or they defeat him.
A demon is working with multiple races that they believe are also superior. Humanoids are being hunted much like monsters. This could take place on either side for perspective: hunted or hunter.
The players are hired by a notorious crime boss to murder a king. They are promised treasure and power beyond their dreams, and even convinced that it is the right thing to do. They don't know, however, that the person who hired them had a plot longstanding to destroy the kingdom in return for the rule of it and a neighboring one (promised by the queen of the other one). They probably wouldn't find that out until after the murder of the king.
I really like the king idea, thank you so much! I will implement a system where they need to take out his pillars of support before getting the chance to take him down. You have no idea how good these ideas are! Thank you a ton!
I really like the king idea, thank you so much! I will implement a system where they need to take out his pillars of support before getting the chance to take him down. You have no idea how good these ideas are! Thank you a ton!
I sometimes like to start characters off in media res. They're in a bar and someone comes through the door screaming "RUN!!!" The entire street is full of the skeleton troops of a death knight astride a nightmare and the level 1 characters have to run like hell out the back door and fight skeletons in the alleys to get away and figure out what's going on later.
Classic amnesia story. PCs wake up on a riverbed in the middle of a forest, getting poked at by a wood woad. After getting led back to the village, they realize they don't remember what happened. Or much of anything really.
What really happened: During an Outer Planar jaunt, an explosion/collapse of a bridge sent them plunging into the River Styx. In exchange for their valuables, the ferryman (Merrenoloth) brings them back to the material plane. But which material plane? Which area in that material plane? It becomes a journey to remember and finish the quest they forgot they had.
One of the greatest things about D&D, especially when homebrewing, is that you don't have to look too far for inspiration and ideas on plots and stories.
1) The party ends up in a foreign land, they are recognized by a local as potentially being those of prophecy. The party learns of the despot ruler of the land and they are asked to depose this ruler. In return the party will fulfill the prophecy and claim their rightful position as rulers of the land. (loosely based off of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
2) A villain is gathering all of the powerful creatures and people they can find into an organization to wipe out the "heroes" of the realm and claim ultimate authority. The party is from an adventurer's academy which trains adventurers as protectors of the people. (loosely based on My Hero Academia)
3) A villain is gathering artifacts and magical items to create a powerful item which will give them unfathomable power. The party must adventure out and find these artifacts before the villain does. (loosely based on Avengers)
As a DM, as a creator of games, it is almost required that we borrow, steal, and rework plots and story ideas from every source we have access to. Common tropes, like fight the big bad who's trying to destroy the world, to slightly altered tropes, like the big bad trying to destroy technology so the world can be closer to nature, it doesn't matter how you go about it. No matter what you do, where you get your inspiration from, as long as you make it your own, breath life into it, and just have fun with it, you'll do fine.
The players awake with no memory of their past and strange marking on their skin (ala Azure Bonds, but with total memory loss, new players can learn about the world at the same time as their characters, and you can stray from the source material and bastardize mechanics as befits your campaign, all without conflict).
The players arrive at a city and head to the docks to find a cheap inn. The one they locate is locked up with a note offering paid work to adventurers, wizards, paranormal investigators or whatever, and to go see Miss NPC for details. Long story short, everybody inside the Inn has stopped moving, as if time has ceased around them.
Shipwreck! Whilst travelling on a voyage from A to B, the ship is caught up in a storm and is sunk. Washing up on a strange island, complete strangers band together to find a way home, only to discover that the island isnt quite what it seems, and theyve been brought here for a reason...
I'm doing a one-shot campaign in a desert based on Arizona in 1790-1820 but it's in a mountain ridge called the Ridgeback Mountains in the town of RIdgeback. The story is that a tiefling who keeps getting chased from town and/or shunned comes back to tell the town that their sheriff has been replaced by a doppelganger, and you have to find him, but nobody believes her, so they either kill her or chase her away again.
Here's some ideas for Level 1 characters, with possible plot twists to extend into a longer campaign:
--A goblin (or orc, or kobold) warlord has been raiding local farms from his base in a nearby cave. The mayor has offered a reward for anyone who can kill him. (Perhaps letters found in the warlord's lair show he's actually been working for another villain, perhaps an evil wizard.)
--An evil druid has poisoned the river flowing through the heroes' town. According to local alchemists, the only plant that can cure the corruption is found deep underground, in a dungeon guarded by monsters. (Maybe the evil druid continues to come up with new schemes.)
--An ambitious logger has been growing his business using undead raised from the local churchyard. The priest knows but is too afraid to confront him, and asks the party to infiltrate the logger's camp. (Perhaps the logger made a deal with a demon to gain his powers, and the heroes have to seek and destroy the demon's portal into the world before it hunts them down.)
--The blacksmith's daughter is a sorcerer, born with divine healing powers. Unfortunately, she's been kidnapped by a band of cultists, who plan to sacrifice her in a ritual on the full moon, only one day away. Her father begs the adventurers to head into the cultists' catacombs and rescue her. (Perhaps the cultists are only part of a larger network, and the heroes must now root out all their leaders.)
You could even combine all these together, if the same villain is behind them!
Before I go, here are two things I would recommend NOT doing. Please don't use an "amnesia" campaign beginning without telling the players first--lots of players, myself included, who really love their character will be upset by that. Similarly, don't create any really unusual world (sci-fi or western elements, underwater, everyone is magical, etc) without telling them first.
And don't try to plan out everything beforehand! You can go one adventure at a time, like a TV show instead of a movie. The heroes at Level 1 don't need to be destined to save the world: they might rescue the mayor one week and infiltrate outlaws the next...and maybe discover, at the end, that the same villain was behind it all, tying your story together!
A lot of good advices already. I will add something:
- If you dont know the story yet you can start by thinking where campaign is happening? Examples: Large city, desert, mountains or swamp?
- What monsters you want to use? For example if you like Polar bear you need arctic environment.
- No matter what is your campaign location you can always add some common elements such as orc tribes, bandits and merchants that can help you to build quests.
- When you detail your campaign location your head is soon full of ideas.
I just finished a one-shot thing that was as surprising as it was fun. It started with my character hearing about a powerful illusion-school wizard who is wanted in the region. He's capable of creating hyper-realistic illusion people and even environments. However, they aren't perfect and he has a limited amount of power. He can make a single, high quality illusion or multiple, lower quality ones and only a careful analysis will reveal what's fake. For example, illusions don't have shadows, feel cold to the touch, and avoid interacting with other objects. On top of that, he has an army of constructs that he conceals in illusions. The hunt for him was a lot of fact checking, deception, and trying not to tip off the wizard and his spies. In the end, I discovered him disguised in an old man illusion, disguised in a guard illusion. He summoned a demon and griffon, but killing him revealed the demon to be his strongest illusion and the griffon to just have been passing by.
For low level campaigns, I've become a fan of keeping the hook very simple, and seeing what the players do with it. It's quite refreshing not to have some world-ending cataclysm on the horizon from day 1.
For example, my most recent campaign, a couple of weeks before, I told the players 'you'll be starting in a small village, a few days hike away from the capital of the province. You're travelling there - why is up to you.' And for a plot, that's really all I had at that stage.
Then proceeded to let the players write their own back stories. I had a young man from a noble family, returning from a decade of education in another country. A sister trying to find her brother after they were seperated. A would-be-wizard, wanting to delve into the city's famous archives, and the son of a diplomat, who went to the city, but all letters ceased afterwards.
That gave me plenty of scope to write some interesting hooks... and focus more on world building... but what was interesting, is while the party was formed under the common goal of 'get to the capital' they never actually made it there. One player felt duty bound to assist the small village with bandit woes - the others agreed, more for coin and glory - and so the first quest was born. But it was only born because they went looking for it. He went and asked the mayor if there was anything he could help with - and I made an issue with bandits raiding their trade caravan up on the fly.
That quest investigating bandits, led to a deeper plot in the forest to the west... which led to another mystery that diverted them further. They continually had 'get to the capital city' as an objective... but the story organically grew around them as they made their way there. I had the most fun I've ever had DMing that group, because I got to write the story as it went, and see how it evolved - it was almost as much of a surprise to me as to them.
Sure I developed bigger end-game ideas in tandem, and I knew the world, its secrets, and its locations, and did develop an over-aching plot to escalte the tension, but the story itself was almost procedurely generated. I learned a lot about allowing the players to drive the story, rather than shunting them to the next plot-point, and I think we all had more fun as a result.
So if you're ever stuck... give the players a simple motive to draw them together... and let them find trouble. I can guarantee they'll go looking for it. And then you can begin writing about the terrible world-ending cataclysm as they slowly discover it.
I've thought about writing my own campaign for a while now, but I've always fallen short as of a plot hook. I'm a new-ish DM and I don't really have any good ideas regarding plot hooks, but as soon as I have one, I can run with it. I'm not going to take it as my own, if you were worried about that, I just need a good plot hook to kickstart my adventure. Preferably for level 1 adventurers. Thanks if you posted anything below
The city of lark is being attacked by goblins,drow or the undead the players need to travel to the goblins lair, the underdark, or a necromancers castle to stop it.
The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .
I just made a thread about this
I really like the king idea, thank you so much! I will implement a system where they need to take out his pillars of support before getting the chance to take him down. You have no idea how good these ideas are! Thank you a ton!
Awesome, I'm glad you like it! You're welcome. :)
I sometimes like to start characters off in media res. They're in a bar and someone comes through the door screaming "RUN!!!" The entire street is full of the skeleton troops of a death knight astride a nightmare and the level 1 characters have to run like hell out the back door and fight skeletons in the alleys to get away and figure out what's going on later.
Classic amnesia story. PCs wake up on a riverbed in the middle of a forest, getting poked at by a wood woad. After getting led back to the village, they realize they don't remember what happened. Or much of anything really.
What really happened: During an Outer Planar jaunt, an explosion/collapse of a bridge sent them plunging into the River Styx. In exchange for their valuables, the ferryman (Merrenoloth) brings them back to the material plane. But which material plane? Which area in that material plane? It becomes a journey to remember and finish the quest they forgot they had.
One of the greatest things about D&D, especially when homebrewing, is that you don't have to look too far for inspiration and ideas on plots and stories.
1) The party ends up in a foreign land, they are recognized by a local as potentially being those of prophecy. The party learns of the despot ruler of the land and they are asked to depose this ruler. In return the party will fulfill the prophecy and claim their rightful position as rulers of the land. (loosely based off of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
2) A villain is gathering all of the powerful creatures and people they can find into an organization to wipe out the "heroes" of the realm and claim ultimate authority. The party is from an adventurer's academy which trains adventurers as protectors of the people. (loosely based on My Hero Academia)
3) A villain is gathering artifacts and magical items to create a powerful item which will give them unfathomable power. The party must adventure out and find these artifacts before the villain does. (loosely based on Avengers)
As a DM, as a creator of games, it is almost required that we borrow, steal, and rework plots and story ideas from every source we have access to. Common tropes, like fight the big bad who's trying to destroy the world, to slightly altered tropes, like the big bad trying to destroy technology so the world can be closer to nature, it doesn't matter how you go about it. No matter what you do, where you get your inspiration from, as long as you make it your own, breath life into it, and just have fun with it, you'll do fine.
The players awake with no memory of their past and strange marking on their skin (ala Azure Bonds, but with total memory loss, new players can learn about the world at the same time as their characters, and you can stray from the source material and bastardize mechanics as befits your campaign, all without conflict).
The players arrive at a city and head to the docks to find a cheap inn. The one they locate is locked up with a note offering paid work to adventurers, wizards, paranormal investigators or whatever, and to go see Miss NPC for details. Long story short, everybody inside the Inn has stopped moving, as if time has ceased around them.
Shipwreck! Whilst travelling on a voyage from A to B, the ship is caught up in a storm and is sunk. Washing up on a strange island, complete strangers band together to find a way home, only to discover that the island isnt quite what it seems, and theyve been brought here for a reason...
More? loads but those are the high points.
im currently hosting a campaign that takes place in a victorian era swamp land that is cursed by a vampire Lord and was looking for side quest ideas
If possible I love throwing horror movie references and Easter eggs
For setting ideas and NPC's I would recommend reading the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Can probably modify some of those mysteries into side quests too.
I'm doing a one-shot campaign in a desert based on Arizona in 1790-1820 but it's in a mountain ridge called the Ridgeback Mountains in the town of RIdgeback. The story is that a tiefling who keeps getting chased from town and/or shunned comes back to tell the town that their sheriff has been replaced by a doppelganger, and you have to find him, but nobody believes her, so they either kill her or chase her away again.
Sounds like a classic "Cassandra" story (Trojan war: no one believed her prophecies. The more accurate, the more they didn't believe.)
Here's some ideas for Level 1 characters, with possible plot twists to extend into a longer campaign:
--A goblin (or orc, or kobold) warlord has been raiding local farms from his base in a nearby cave. The mayor has offered a reward for anyone who can kill him. (Perhaps letters found in the warlord's lair show he's actually been working for another villain, perhaps an evil wizard.)
--An evil druid has poisoned the river flowing through the heroes' town. According to local alchemists, the only plant that can cure the corruption is found deep underground, in a dungeon guarded by monsters. (Maybe the evil druid continues to come up with new schemes.)
--An ambitious logger has been growing his business using undead raised from the local churchyard. The priest knows but is too afraid to confront him, and asks the party to infiltrate the logger's camp. (Perhaps the logger made a deal with a demon to gain his powers, and the heroes have to seek and destroy the demon's portal into the world before it hunts them down.)
--The blacksmith's daughter is a sorcerer, born with divine healing powers. Unfortunately, she's been kidnapped by a band of cultists, who plan to sacrifice her in a ritual on the full moon, only one day away. Her father begs the adventurers to head into the cultists' catacombs and rescue her. (Perhaps the cultists are only part of a larger network, and the heroes must now root out all their leaders.)
You could even combine all these together, if the same villain is behind them!
Before I go, here are two things I would recommend NOT doing. Please don't use an "amnesia" campaign beginning without telling the players first--lots of players, myself included, who really love their character will be upset by that. Similarly, don't create any really unusual world (sci-fi or western elements, underwater, everyone is magical, etc) without telling them first.
And don't try to plan out everything beforehand! You can go one adventure at a time, like a TV show instead of a movie. The heroes at Level 1 don't need to be destined to save the world: they might rescue the mayor one week and infiltrate outlaws the next...and maybe discover, at the end, that the same villain was behind it all, tying your story together!
Good luck! I'm sure you'll do great!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
A lot of good advices already. I will add something:
- If you dont know the story yet you can start by thinking where campaign is happening? Examples: Large city, desert, mountains or swamp?
- What monsters you want to use? For example if you like Polar bear you need arctic environment.
- No matter what is your campaign location you can always add some common elements such as orc tribes, bandits and merchants that can help you to build quests.
- When you detail your campaign location your head is soon full of ideas.
I just finished a one-shot thing that was as surprising as it was fun. It started with my character hearing about a powerful illusion-school wizard who is wanted in the region. He's capable of creating hyper-realistic illusion people and even environments. However, they aren't perfect and he has a limited amount of power. He can make a single, high quality illusion or multiple, lower quality ones and only a careful analysis will reveal what's fake. For example, illusions don't have shadows, feel cold to the touch, and avoid interacting with other objects. On top of that, he has an army of constructs that he conceals in illusions. The hunt for him was a lot of fact checking, deception, and trying not to tip off the wizard and his spies. In the end, I discovered him disguised in an old man illusion, disguised in a guard illusion. He summoned a demon and griffon, but killing him revealed the demon to be his strongest illusion and the griffon to just have been passing by.
For low level campaigns, I've become a fan of keeping the hook very simple, and seeing what the players do with it. It's quite refreshing not to have some world-ending cataclysm on the horizon from day 1.
For example, my most recent campaign, a couple of weeks before, I told the players 'you'll be starting in a small village, a few days hike away from the capital of the province. You're travelling there - why is up to you.' And for a plot, that's really all I had at that stage.
Then proceeded to let the players write their own back stories. I had a young man from a noble family, returning from a decade of education in another country. A sister trying to find her brother after they were seperated. A would-be-wizard, wanting to delve into the city's famous archives, and the son of a diplomat, who went to the city, but all letters ceased afterwards.
That gave me plenty of scope to write some interesting hooks... and focus more on world building... but what was interesting, is while the party was formed under the common goal of 'get to the capital' they never actually made it there. One player felt duty bound to assist the small village with bandit woes - the others agreed, more for coin and glory - and so the first quest was born. But it was only born because they went looking for it. He went and asked the mayor if there was anything he could help with - and I made an issue with bandits raiding their trade caravan up on the fly.
That quest investigating bandits, led to a deeper plot in the forest to the west... which led to another mystery that diverted them further. They continually had 'get to the capital city' as an objective... but the story organically grew around them as they made their way there. I had the most fun I've ever had DMing that group, because I got to write the story as it went, and see how it evolved - it was almost as much of a surprise to me as to them.
Sure I developed bigger end-game ideas in tandem, and I knew the world, its secrets, and its locations, and did develop an over-aching plot to escalte the tension, but the story itself was almost procedurely generated. I learned a lot about allowing the players to drive the story, rather than shunting them to the next plot-point, and I think we all had more fun as a result.
So if you're ever stuck... give the players a simple motive to draw them together... and let them find trouble. I can guarantee they'll go looking for it. And then you can begin writing about the terrible world-ending cataclysm as they slowly discover it.