"Like the title says, welcome to the pub.  This is where you, as the DM, can tell everyone all about the super plot twist you have, or share some funny stuff from last session.  Go crazy!

(Disclaimer:  This is totally not an excuse to do exactly what I'm telling you all to do.  Totally.)

I'll go first.

So, my players(level 2) are in a big forest(imagine Mirkwood size).  It's full of undead and the town that sent them suspect a necromancer.  Anyways, they're on a quest to find a shard of an ancient evil amulet that some sentient undead are hunting.  Along the way, they'll(hopefully) find a druidic tribe of Kenku, battle an enhanced owlbear, and try to outwit a green hag and her mimic house.  When they get back to the town, they'll probably be level 4/5, and be hailed as heroes.

When they get back though, the night of their return, being hailed with celebrations...A murder takes place.  You see, as the hag is being defeated, she'll say, "My husband is going to be angry with you younglings!".  The Hag's husband is an Oni.  While the celebrations are going on, the Oni grabs a random citizen, takes them to an unoccupied part of town, and use the cone of cold on them.

In the morning, the guard will find a beheaded statue of ice, with frost covering a huge area behind the statue.  Written in the frost are the words, "You will feel my vengeance."

The town mayor will call them to his house(Long story short, the town hall collapsed in session one due to a cosmic activity), and tell them he is sending them on an investigation to find out the cause of the murder.  Alongside them is a human detective known as Montie Wildom.  He's extremely flamboyant, and will probably have an over-dramatic voice.  Anyways, as they're investigating, they see a shadow creep along the walls.  Montie runs ahead around the corner into an alley, and is frozen by the Oni.  But here's the catch: the Oni will have turned to look exactly like Montie before doing so.  The party will find what looks like Montie, looking 'shocked', at the beheaded statue of the real Montie.  The Oni will then be beside them throughout the entire investigation, and find out all of their secrets.

Is this cruel?  Yes.  But I think they'll like it.

What's your plan that the party will inevitably mess up?  What funny things have happened?  Join us in the pub!"

P.S. The Swarm's Stat Block

have been toying with the idea of a few vendor NPCs living in a huge goblinoid city, here's a few

Grace Grimsteel, a duergar mind master who can forge magical weapons and armor with the help of her two stone golems.

Selkos and Shamash (Draconic for "Malice" and "Menace", respectively), two identical ¿¿¿twin??? kobold inventors who sell alchemical solutions and the occasional centipedes-in-a-pot.

Ol' Johnson "Crazy Eyes" McGee, a bugbear tavern owner and barman who peddles alcoholic beverages along with insane conspiracy theories.

I'd love to spill the beans on my campaign but never know who is reading them. It really does suck when everyone is involved in the game and have no one to really chat with things about sometimes. Especially when a certain event could happen to destroy a very large area. Lol

Quote from Avohei >>

I'd love to spill the beans on my campaign but never know who is reading them. It really does suck when everyone is involved in the game and have no one to really chat with things about sometimes. Especially when a certain event could happen to destroy a very large area. Lol

 "Understandable.  I hope you can find someone who will listen to you rant about a tabletop game for a few minutes, or can keep it in until you get to that point!"

*Goes back to serving drinks*

I created an upscale Inn/Tavern/Nightclub called "Inn'dulgence"  that is owned by a very sophisticated Vampire.  The only way to get inside is for him to invite you in by giving you a token of the establishment, he likes the fact that entry to his establishment is based upon his whim alone after all the years of being unable to enter homes unless he was invited in.  It serves as the unofficial seat of the city, it is not uncommon to find high ranking city officials, nobles and underworld bosses all enjoying themselves, another rule of his is no business is to be conducted on the premises.  He also has "dirt" on all his "guests" and continues to actively seek out information that could be a detriment to very powerful individuals and families. 

The players don't know any of this though, all they know is the guy they were sent to find and return to his family is spending all his time there and doesn't want leave.  They have a tendency to kick in doors and plan in the heat of the moment and I wanted to give them a challenge that was something more and could possibly have campaign spanning consequences.

I have a vendor NPC named, Johnny Proudfoot, he's a Halfling with an Irish accent. I took a cue from The Adventure Zone and created a list of magic items and things that they may find useful. I gave the party the list so they could study ahead of time and decide what they may want to get. Then they ran into Johnny. He also had a bunch of rumors and information related to the campaign so it works out pretty well. 

MM

Oh I like the idea of this thread very much, been itching to talk about my plans,

so I run 4 separate campaigns the important one to this mainly is one based on the Waterdeep books. I have an eventual plan to combine all 4 of them for fun stuff but I’m still working the details on that.  So, we have this half orc paladin named alazura, she has amnesia, basically the player had some details of the backstory but couldn’t figure out the rest, so she told me Alazura had amnesia and had me figure out the rest. There’s presently magical fissures splintered throughout reality that the party is soon going to be trying to fix. Alazura was in a battle in the shadowfell against the dark lord of the shadowfell with her friend Lea. Lea got hurt, Alazura grabbed her and plane shifted with her pendant as their enemy hit her with a blast of dark energy. They got split up upon teleportation and ended up in the feywild. Alazura spent 3 days in the feywild looking for her friend till she came across the first magical fissures, realizing it was created by her carelessness, she closed it and got hit with a blast of energy, got sent to the material plane, and lost her memory. What’s worse, she missed 3 whole years of the world equaling the 3 days she spent in the feywild. She also has an uncle who acts with all sincerity toward her but plans to screw her over and steal her stuff. One day she’ll find all this out and that she’s partially responsible for the fissures and has a friend that has been missing for 5 years.

I plan to slowly have them stumble into taverns in the towns they go to, but it's always the same tavern - The Broken Drum (you can't beat it. har har har.)

Eventually, they'll figure out the tavern is a weird sort of pocket dimension. 95% of the time you exit the door and wind up where you came from, but sometimes you exit and wind up somewhere else entirely. (At higher levels, maybe even on different planes.)

Back story? At some point, for some reason, Queen Mab decided she liked the tavern and the barkeep. So she made it so that she can enter the tavern from basically anywhere she might be, at any time, which leads to the funky multi-dimensional nature of the door.

if the party is lucky (or very unlucky) they might run into Mab at some point. And if they don't know how to act around a Fey, they might wind up owing a Fey a favor, or having a Fey owe them a favor, or having a Really Bad Time. :)

My party started out on a ship and along the way they stopped at an island and went to check out the lighthouse.  After some investigation, they discovered that the wizard had been making some experimental growth potion, and supersized some little dragon-birds which were now horse-sized feathered dragon critters.  The player who speaks Draconic discovered that they can talk, and tried to reason with them, but the party had to kill the pair off that were nesting on the lighthouse, because they are evil and carnivorous.

Now the players are are an island, where their quest is to find a way to get up to a flying city.  There are a few more of these dragon-birds around the island, which they hope to ride to the city, supposedly under the control of enchanted Animal Control bridles.

The players are kind of newbies, or may just not have questioned the fact that some speaking, sentient, evil creatures are controlled by 'animal control' bridles.  The creatures are faking it, and once they are mounted, will attempt to take their riders to the huge dragon-bird rookery that has been established on the sky city, as slaves or food for the new chicks.

My group have decided to run Descent Into Avernus next, and my players want to be an evil party. This post has some mild spoilers for that adventure.

My idea is to switch the positions of Baldur's Gate and Elturel at the start of the game. BG has been sucked into hell, and Elturel - where the PCs start - is shutting its gate to the refugees. I want to play up the annoying and hypocritical aspects of a highly lawful good city to create a challenging environment for evil characters, but also one where they'll feel somewhat justified in ******* things up. The main hook will relate to their dark secret. I'll change the dark secret tables to be relevant to the changed setting - you murdered a high ranking church official, or tried to overthrow a noble paladin order, etc. A Zariel cult will replace the cult of the dead three, and the hook is that they have been killing npcs who were part of the Dark Secret - the PCs co-conspirators. The party need to track down the killers before they are either murdered or exposed. 

The adventure largely runs the same for the first few levels, switching Thavius Kreeg and Thalamra Vanthampur, some other light cosmetic changes, maybe some painfully benevolent city guards harrassing the party. Rather than Candlekeep, they take the infernal puzzle box to the Holy Library of Elturel - a cosmetic change.

Before opening it, they learn that the infernal puzzle box is completely shielded from all kinds of divination magic - not even Asmodeus could see inside. When they open it, they find a note they have written themselves which sets out the campaign twist. Elturel is already in hell, and has been for a hundred years, and is so annoying because it's designed to torment its inhabitants for the amusement of fiends. The party has repeatedly discovered this, but whenever they do, the devils flood the city with a Styx-derived concoction to 'reset' their memories and keep the game going. Last time, before their memories were erased, they managed to leave themselves this letter saying they have an hour (or whatever) to escape the city or they'll be caught in the same loop.

For the time limit, the fiends drop all illusions and kind of openly torment and attack the city. The PCs can escape just like leaving Elturel in the campaign, or maybe they need to find some artifacts first, to add in more of the Elturel hardcover content. From there, they can either follow the campaign path in Avernus as written or choose some more evil path, like becoming warlords or whatever. 

In my campaign world, magic came into existence around 150 years ago as a result of an ancient relic "bomb" used by a rebellion leader during a huge civil war (at least to my players' knowledge). Think kinda like radiation. 
The whole campaign they've been SLOWLY learning of an ancient god race called primals and have even seen the influence of a few of them. The warlock's patron is one, and the Barbarian started the campaign with an old necklace pendant that is attached somehow to another. The Barb's primal has been a cryptic but helpful force the whole campaign, leading them to these ancient shrines that "charge" the necklace somehow. 

What they don't know, is that the pendant is ANOTHER bomb and the barb's primal is taking him through the same steps she took the rebel king years ago. I plan on having the final act of the campaign start whenever they complete the charging, unknowingly kicking off the end of the world themselves lol

Good venting thread, A+ lol

*Swigs Pint* My players have started a bloody war, The Underdark, Trinate Empire (think Tiefling), and Holy Kingdom of Celestnia (paladin and stuff).  They started a war, the war factories are working overtime I’ve dropped hints but they are too oblivious to notice!!!

I’ll vent more later.  This is a really good idea.

*Returns exhausted and starts chugging a pint of motor oil(Killer robot here).  Serves drinks to other DMs.*

"Never give Fireball to a new player.  I Did Wild Sheep Chase for two of my friends and my cousin, and they blew past it in less than an hour an a half.  Admittedly, they were complete murderhobos, but it was pretty fun.  Like, the whole part at the Tavern was dealt with effectively by two fireballs, INSIDE THE TAVERN!  Then my cousin, who was basically a horseless headless horseman, commanded his pumpkin head to distract the apes, they went immediately to villain, and proceeded to literally slap him unconscious.  Wild Sheep Chase is such a classic, but I didn't think it could be over that quickly.  I even added an Oni at the end as a kind of afterward, and they killed it in three rounds.  Remember, DMs, do not give Fireball to the new player.  They won't hold back, and that's half the weakness of the spell.

Great stories all around.  Hope you're all having fun with your games!"

My campaign's main bad guy is secretly from a now alternate future where the world ended despite the heroes best efforts. The bad guy was one of the heroes who went back through a rip in space-time (due to the world ending because of demon cults wounding the dragon incarnation of time) now full of resolve to survive at any cost before it can happen again. He's been changing things by extending a war and messing with the player character's lives (as alternate future versions of the PC's also failed to save the world alongside him), and generally using foreknowledge to amass as much power as he can, while every change he makes generates more and more paradox energy that he plans to absorb and become a god.

Im really looking forward to the reveal, because I came up with alternate futures for all the PC's, some good and some bad (one player's future timeline, her fiance wasn't murdered by his younger brother and they became adventurers together, while another player's future timeline seems her becoming a half-feral thrall to her fiend ancestor), and I feel like finding out about it will generate a lot of cool character emotions. 

Homebrew campaign being played by my players now, world where warlocks are rare due to bans on magic being used for warfare. (made it a twist to keep it interested and stop fiendish warlock becoming too OP). what my little fiend doesnt know is that the final villain is his patron, and when the party get to the final boss fight he will be dealt a terrible hand. Join the evil boss and keep his power, or fight the boss and if the boss dies he loses all of his power given by the patron.

This can go 1 of 3 ways.

1.He either submits and fights the rest of the party he has been with all this time

2. He fights but makes sure the patron is not killed, which will allow him to escape later for a new campaign to link

3. He fights and kills his own patron, causing all his powers to vanish and leave him feeling powerless and terrible but will be hailed as a hero for making the ultimate sacrifice.

I cant wait to see what my little fiendish friend decides, considering he's already trying to sell his warforged companion i think i know which one he'd prefer

What specific type of fiend is this patron? There is maybe a possibility for the party to construct some talisman or amulet they can connect to the patron, bending the fiend to their will. Of course, that's your decision to make, really, and it can be as hard or as easy as you desire.

In my last dungeon, one of my players magic missiled a raven statue, and now he is cursed. Ravens in the area fly over him and poop on him. That is probably my most nefarious plan besides having a magical sword that they need to kill the end boss be a lich's phlactery. I think my PCs will strangle me for that one.

So one of my party has become a Lord of a local town, he’s building up troops balancing income etc.  One of the others wanted to role a new character I let him, he chose a stealth sorcerer thief.  He proceeded in broad daylight try to rob a crystal decanter because he could turn invisible, he got arrested by the rest of the party.  Got caught out using change appearance as another member of the party was secretly a changeling too (big reveal) trial was held and he was sentenced to prison.... quite the session.  DON’T STEAL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT IN A PACKED PUB.

Its a bit of a home brew so the patron is actually the grim reaper. basically rebelling against all the usual gods and raising the dead to show them they need him, but he got out of control and now wants to be a god himself instead and replace the others.

My little halfling fiendish warlock is loving being a trouble maker and setting things on fire but im hoping it will give him a jolt in the final fight that he was a puppet of chaos.

The more he kills in the campaign the more the reaper has in his army etc.

*Calls bartender for a drink*
So, my party are (some willingly, some unknown to them) are working for a powerful Incubus who is furthering his agenda to gain more power in both his circle of hell and in the mortal plane.

It has led to some really funny and great role play situations but I don’t think anyone knows how it’s going to end...

It’s brilliant.