I'm a first time DM running Dragon of Icespire peak with 5 brand new players and one semi-new player. They are mostly enjoying the game, but I'm not loving the pre-written adventure and how it flows. I want to add more drama, story, and background to the adventure, and I've added a small bit of homebrew into the campaign to give it depth. I'm also a big Critical Role fan, and have Explorers Guide to Wildemount pre-ordered. So, what I want to do is after they finish this leg of the adventure, I want to move the campaign over to the new setting, but I need advice on how to do it. Some of my ideas include:
1. Getting magically transported because they played with a toy they find in the dragon's lair, and now they have to find their way home (or not). (I have some VERY nosy players, and they always want to press the red button.)
2. Giving them a task that requires them to find and pay for passage to the "new" world. (Cue pirate adventures).
3. Tell them "good job!" on completing their first campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. Roll new characters. (Most of the backstories they worked on won't be resolved.)
4. A combination of 2 and 3 for the ones who are particularly attached to their current characters.
I would appreciate any advice, whether you just expand on my ideas or give me something completely new. I'm all ears!
This is something you should talk about with your players, since you are basically starting a new campaign and you should make sure they are ok with the setting change.
If they are, the magic item is probably the easiest and cleanest way for them to keep their characters and backstories, or maybe you could relocate the current adventure location (Phandalin, I think?) to Wildemount? If the adventure didn't feature anything specific to the Forgotten Realms that might work. I don't know DoIP, so I don't know if this is possible.
I've switched out of campaign settings with my Players before, about a year ago in one of my games - but it's something we did only after having discussed it. We all agreed that the current experimental setting wasn't working for us ( some experiments fail ), so we were all happy to just finish the Adventure arc and create new Characters ( that's a nice things about DnD Beyond - creating new Characters is mechanically simple and fast; backstory might take longer ).
Get group consensus before you change, or some might feel you're jerking the rug out from under them.
If you have Players who really want to hold onto their existing Characters, any fictional mechanism for travelling between worlds via a gateway of some kind would work. Throw in some transformation magic along the way where the Characters are given a choice as to their new forms and you can swap out the Characters that want to change, and you're set
An advanced idea - which might kick off an Adventure as well - might be to have some magic transport the souls of the current Characters transported to another plane, where they inhabit the bodies of a group of low level adventurers who have just been falsely executed for a crime they didn't commit ( or did they ... ? ). This avoids 'overwriting' and killing some innocent ( a la Travellers ) - which many would view as an evil act, even though the Characters didn't choose that - give the Characters instant backstory connections ( which they don't know about and will need to discover through play and adventure ), and gives the Characters an adventure: prove you were innocent so that you don't get executed ( again! ), and perhaps prove to the local forces of good that you're not demonic possessors of those bodies ( If you're going Wildmount in the Empire then the temple of the Platinum Dragon comes to mind - if you're in Xhoras, they're probably more tolerant of soul migration, for obvious reasons ).
Players who want to keep their Characters still get to keep their minds, and perhaps - purely by coincidence - they get similar bodies. You might allow them to tweak their Physical stats a bit, but overall they get to keep most of their Character. This could be interesting/amusing if the person who used to inhabit the body was a radically different game class; e.g. the Monk inhabits the body of a despicable infamous Rouge: same general physique; radically different background and history - and many people may have previous relationships ( or old scores to settle! ) with that Rouge.
Sounds like you could have a lot of fun with it - so long as everyone is onboard.
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.
If you go with a dimension hop(assuming players are on board) it also gives you the opportunity to have some players keep their PCs and have any players that want a new character be the source of any necessary background knowledge of the new world for the party. ( Telling a player; you would know that dragons in this world horde crystals instead of gold, rather than needing an NPC to direct them to a source of plot point crystals for instance)
Adventure Zone did something like this with Lost Mine. I recall the GM straight up saying at one point "yeah, I don't really want to stick to the adventure in this book any longer than we have to" and they just took a big left turn really fast.
Once when there was an edition change, but we really wanted to finish the campaign before starting a whole new edition/campaign I just hit fast forward (and the players were all on board). I want to say we had like three more sessions before the new stuff, so I skipped ahead in the campaign arc and basically had them add 3-4 levels between sessions, so they were at the right power level for the final fight. It wasn’t ideal, but gave us some way to close things out, and let people see their builds at endgame levels.
You could do something like that. Just say well guys it was a heck of a ride but here you are at the final battle. Then just move on.
I've switched out of campaign settings with my Players before, about a year ago in one of my games - but it's something we did only after having discussed it. We all agreed that the current experimental setting wasn't working for us ( some experiments fail ), so we were all happy to just finish the Adventure arc and create new Characters ( that's a nice things about DnD Beyond - creating new Characters is mechanically simple and fast; backstory might take longer ).
Get group consensus before you change, or some might feel you're jerking the rug out from under them.
If you have Players who really want to hold onto their existing Characters, any fictional mechanism for travelling between worlds via a gateway of some kind would work. Throw in some transformation magic along the way where the Characters are given a choice as to their new forms and you can swap out the Characters that want to change, and you're set
An advanced idea - which might kick off an Adventure as well - might be to have some magic transport the souls of the current Characters transported to another plane, where they inhabit the bodies of a group of low level adventurers who have just been falsely executed for a crime they didn't commit ( or did they ... ? ). This avoids 'overwriting' and killing some innocent ( a la Travellers ) - which many would view as an evil act, even though the Characters didn't choose that - give the Characters instant backstory connections ( which they don't know about and will need to discover through play and adventure ), and gives the Characters an adventure: prove you were innocent so that you don't get executed ( again! ), and perhaps prove to the local forces of good that you're not demonic possessors of those bodies ( If you're going Wildmount in the Empire then the temple of the Platinum Dragon comes to mind - if you're in Xhoras, they're probably more tolerant of soul migration, for obvious reasons ).
Players who want to keep their Characters still get to keep their minds, and perhaps - purely by coincidence - they get similar bodies. You might allow them to tweak their Physical stats a bit, but overall they get to keep most of their Character. This could be interesting/amusing if the person who used to inhabit the body was a radically different game class; e.g. the Monk inhabits the body of a despicable infamous Rouge: same general physique; radically different background and history - and many people may have previous relationships ( or old scores to settle! ) with that Rouge.
Sounds like you could have a lot of fun with it - so long as everyone is onboard.
Best of luck!
I'll for sure be discussing any and all changes with my players. This is their game as much as mine! And I still have plenty of time to take it any direction, whether they choose to change setting or stay where they're at.
If they choose the setting change, I LOVE the soul transfer idea. It fits so well the the dunamancy theme, and I think many of my players would get a kick out of a twist like that!
Once when there was an edition change, but we really wanted to finish the campaign before starting a whole new edition/campaign I just hit fast forward (and the players were all on board). I want to say we had like three more sessions before the new stuff, so I skipped ahead in the campaign arc and basically had them add 3-4 levels between sessions, so they were at the right power level for the final fight. It wasn’t ideal, but gave us some way to close things out, and let people see their builds at endgame levels.
You could do something like that. Just say well guys it was a heck of a ride but here you are at the final battle. Then just move on.
I think I'm going to offer them this as an option if they choose to switch. They're about to hit level 4 next session, and I would only need to fast-forward them to level 6 or 7 (or nerf the boss) to get to the boss fight. Then they'd have plenty of room to grow in the new setting without derailing the campaign or feeling like they've been cheated out of the current story arc.
Another option if some want to keep characters and others don’t could involve the relative unreliability of planar travel and teleportation. The premise would be that these people got plane shifted in, but the players who wanted new characters, their PCs got separated and lost in transit. We’re pretty sure they’re in Exandria somewhere, but unsure where. Fortunately, these natives of Wildemount (the players’ new PCs) are willing to team up with these extraplanars. Maybe they’ll find evidence of their lost party mates in the next city they visit.
Hello,
I'm a first time DM running Dragon of Icespire peak with 5 brand new players and one semi-new player. They are mostly enjoying the game, but I'm not loving the pre-written adventure and how it flows. I want to add more drama, story, and background to the adventure, and I've added a small bit of homebrew into the campaign to give it depth. I'm also a big Critical Role fan, and have Explorers Guide to Wildemount pre-ordered. So, what I want to do is after they finish this leg of the adventure, I want to move the campaign over to the new setting, but I need advice on how to do it. Some of my ideas include:
1. Getting magically transported because they played with a toy they find in the dragon's lair, and now they have to find their way home (or not). (I have some VERY nosy players, and they always want to press the red button.)
2. Giving them a task that requires them to find and pay for passage to the "new" world. (Cue pirate adventures).
3. Tell them "good job!" on completing their first campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. Roll new characters. (Most of the backstories they worked on won't be resolved.)
4. A combination of 2 and 3 for the ones who are particularly attached to their current characters.
I would appreciate any advice, whether you just expand on my ideas or give me something completely new. I'm all ears!
You are asking the wrong people. :D
This is something you should talk about with your players, since you are basically starting a new campaign and you should make sure they are ok with the setting change.
If they are, the magic item is probably the easiest and cleanest way for them to keep their characters and backstories, or maybe you could relocate the current adventure location (Phandalin, I think?) to Wildemount? If the adventure didn't feature anything specific to the Forgotten Realms that might work. I don't know DoIP, so I don't know if this is possible.
Are they playing their game or yours? Work it out together !
playing since 1986
I've switched out of campaign settings with my Players before, about a year ago in one of my games - but it's something we did only after having discussed it. We all agreed that the current experimental setting wasn't working for us ( some experiments fail ), so we were all happy to just finish the Adventure arc and create new Characters ( that's a nice things about DnD Beyond - creating new Characters is mechanically simple and fast; backstory might take longer ).
Get group consensus before you change, or some might feel you're jerking the rug out from under them.
If you have Players who really want to hold onto their existing Characters, any fictional mechanism for travelling between worlds via a gateway of some kind would work. Throw in some transformation magic along the way where the Characters are given a choice as to their new forms and you can swap out the Characters that want to change, and you're set
An advanced idea - which might kick off an Adventure as well - might be to have some magic transport the souls of the current Characters transported to another plane, where they inhabit the bodies of a group of low level adventurers who have just been falsely executed for a crime they didn't commit ( or did they ... ? ). This avoids 'overwriting' and killing some innocent ( a la Travellers ) - which many would view as an evil act, even though the Characters didn't choose that - give the Characters instant backstory connections ( which they don't know about and will need to discover through play and adventure ), and gives the Characters an adventure: prove you were innocent so that you don't get executed ( again! ), and perhaps prove to the local forces of good that you're not demonic possessors of those bodies ( If you're going Wildmount in the Empire then the temple of the Platinum Dragon comes to mind - if you're in Xhoras, they're probably more tolerant of soul migration, for obvious reasons ).
Players who want to keep their Characters still get to keep their minds, and perhaps - purely by coincidence - they get similar bodies. You might allow them to tweak their Physical stats a bit, but overall they get to keep most of their Character. This could be interesting/amusing if the person who used to inhabit the body was a radically different game class; e.g. the Monk inhabits the body of a despicable infamous Rouge: same general physique; radically different background and history - and many people may have previous relationships ( or old scores to settle! ) with that Rouge.
Sounds like you could have a lot of fun with it - so long as everyone is onboard.
Best of luck!
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.
If you go with a dimension hop(assuming players are on board) it also gives you the opportunity to have some players keep their PCs and have any players that want a new character be the source of any necessary background knowledge of the new world for the party. ( Telling a player; you would know that dragons in this world horde crystals instead of gold, rather than needing an NPC to direct them to a source of plot point crystals for instance)
Adventure Zone did something like this with Lost Mine. I recall the GM straight up saying at one point "yeah, I don't really want to stick to the adventure in this book any longer than we have to" and they just took a big left turn really fast.
Once when there was an edition change, but we really wanted to finish the campaign before starting a whole new edition/campaign I just hit fast forward (and the players were all on board). I want to say we had like three more sessions before the new stuff, so I skipped ahead in the campaign arc and basically had them add 3-4 levels between sessions, so they were at the right power level for the final fight. It wasn’t ideal, but gave us some way to close things out, and let people see their builds at endgame levels.
You could do something like that. Just say well guys it was a heck of a ride but here you are at the final battle. Then just move on.
I'll for sure be discussing any and all changes with my players. This is their game as much as mine! And I still have plenty of time to take it any direction, whether they choose to change setting or stay where they're at.
If they choose the setting change, I LOVE the soul transfer idea. It fits so well the the dunamancy theme, and I think many of my players would get a kick out of a twist like that!
Thank you for the advice!
I think I'm going to offer them this as an option if they choose to switch. They're about to hit level 4 next session, and I would only need to fast-forward them to level 6 or 7 (or nerf the boss) to get to the boss fight. Then they'd have plenty of room to grow in the new setting without derailing the campaign or feeling like they've been cheated out of the current story arc.
Another option if some want to keep characters and others don’t could involve the relative unreliability of planar travel and teleportation. The premise would be that these people got plane shifted in, but the players who wanted new characters, their PCs got separated and lost in transit. We’re pretty sure they’re in Exandria somewhere, but unsure where. Fortunately, these natives of Wildemount (the players’ new PCs) are willing to team up with these extraplanars. Maybe they’ll find evidence of their lost party mates in the next city they visit.
Just do it just go from pre made and transition into the new. Or start fresh with new characters in the new world