I am creating a campaign for my first run at being a DM. I created a setting for my world and then a hook that I was offering for players to use to come together to start the adventure. I'm looking for advice on it to see if it seems like a decent hook, or if I should not expect people to be able to role-play through the fact that at face value only one person of the party would end up with one of the "rewards" for the hook. My original expectation was that the party would have different reasons for coming to save the girl, some for power, some for land, some for fame, and then someone possibly for a mix of all of them and the girl. Anyway, here it is.
The game takes place in the northern realms of Ysmaral, a place of the old gods, Odin and his pantheon. For the last few thousand years the power of the old gods have waned in favor of a new, younger pantheon; that of the soft southerners with their sprawling cities and rolling farmlands. But the North is still a place of ancient secrets, Wildlands, mountain peaks, and deep earth. Places where someone can carve themselves a small kingdom with the might of their sword or the strength of their art. A place where you can earn a Name, and become a hero. The North is no place for the southerners and their political intrigues, and the vast and Fey wilds and inhospitable climes keep them cowering in their homes. Powerful and primeval magics lie in wait for the taking, treasures untouched of failed kingdoms past, and the vast unknown that is the Fey realm, always lurking at the edges of myth and legend, offers a lure that some adventurers cannot resist.
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The Northern Wilds of Ysmaral are a harsh and unforgiving place. Jarls and would-be high kings sit upon their thrones of bone or gold and rule to the ends of their reach, however far that may be. Adventurers from all across the 5 realms find their way to the Northern Wilds in search of fortune, power, or fame; which often comes in the form of a Name; a title that the people of the north bestow upon those who earn great renown in deed or battle. You are such an adventurer, and have come to heed the call of Jarl Grundmir “Spearshatter”, a man who has carved for himself a large holding at the edges of the Fey Wilds. His only child, a daughter of 16 years, has been lost, and he offers his entire holdings, along with the hand of his daughter, to whomever may bring her home safely. Arriving at Karlsfell, a village of middling prosperity, you begin your quest outside the Ram's Horn Tavern, at the town notice board. Here is posted the contract that has brought you here. “To all adventurers, heroes, and prospective kings, a call to action has been placed to find Reyna, the lost daughter of Jarl Grundmir “Spearshatter”. She has been missing for 13 days (and here you can see the number scratched out and re-written several times as the days passed), and was last seen at the edges of the forests known as the Fey Wilds, to the north. Any person, persons, or party that should bring her back safely shall be awarded with ownership of the Holding of Karlsfell, along with all territories that go therewith. Additionally the person, or leader of persons shall be granted the right of marriage to Reyna. Should additional information be required, seek out Magister Fyrnbørd at Karlsfell Keep.” -Magister Fyrnbørd
Look, it's good, but for two issues that I can see. 1: You've already addressed this, but there's only one "winner". Only one can get the girl and the kingdom. This leads to the second. 2: Once someone's king, that's pretty much the end of their adventuring days, unless they don't want the throne. But then what was the point of the whole thing.
So that puts you in a quandary. You have your players, and one of them needs to be willing to play this campaign knowing that once it's over, he/she will be ruler and that's the end of their character. If the game continues, they'll need to have a new one, or think of something to enable a king to be off adventuring instead of ruling. Not that this is a bad thing!!! A few of my players LOVE making new characters, and knowing they get to do it would be a plus for them. So assuming you have someone like that, happy days. That means that the other members of your party know this is the players ambition, and are happy to support him/her in that. Maybe with the understanding that once he/she is the ruler, they'll be put in positions of power/wealth and keep adventuring. Maybe become the kings elite force, expanding the kingdom ever onwards in a series of political and violent campaigns. Sounds cool. So if all of that comes together, you need the players to write backstories about how they came to know this one "winner" and why they're supporting them in their quest. And your "winner" needs to come up with a cool backstory of why they want to be ruler. Apart from just being ruler, right? Cause that's a bit blurgh. Maybe they have royal lineage. Maybe their great great grandpa was overthrown by the great great granpa of the CURRENT ruller and they see this as the way back in. Cunning, right? A lot of fun can be had with this, but you have a ways to go.
Well for the first part, only one winner if the player's goal is to settle down and get married. I assumed that not everyone would role play a character that wanted to randomly marry a 16 year old girl they never met. After all, the land wasn't contingent on marrying the girl. That was pretty much my question though. When I wrote it I had about 100 different reasons in my head why people would come together regardless of the marriage part, but it seems like all anyone can focus on heh.
In truth the storyline is supposed to discourage people from choosing that option. I'm not allowing any evil characters my first campaign so I don't expect people to FORCE themselves on the girl. The entire thing was meant as motivation for the NPCs, not the players. But as you have demonstrated I guess I'll just have to delete that line from the hook simply so people will stop thinking about it lol.
As far as the 2nd part, no one has to settle down to become a ruler. There will be opportunities to appoint stewards, etc. The point of the land is that its supposed to become the parties "base of operations" after chapter 1, so they come back and build the town up, make it prosper with things they get on their adventures. Open mines, routes of trade, and see the town prosper. In a practical sense this grows the shops, makes new items and exotic items available, and increases the means of learning new things for the players. Meanwhile the administration while the party is out adventuring would be handled by NPCs introduced very nearly right away in the campaign.
First - your intro is very imaginative, and evocative. I really do get a feeling for the world you're trying to build here. I like the overall atmosphere of your setting very much.
However - a "wall of text" is very hard to sell to Players. Are you giving this to them ahead of time, or are you planning on reading this at the table? Either way - it could be problematic if any of them don't read it, or don't pay attention, and it's not unlikely that one-or-more Players will "zone out" and miss important details.
It is generally better to have details come out through Character/NPC interaction than it is to have text-box exposition, and it's better to demonstrate aspects of the world to the Players than to have it come out as NPC exposition.
You have a ton of really cool flavorful details you want to communicate to your Players. Can you devise ways to reveal these to Players in scenes and encounters? Demonstrate the lawlessness of the place by watching two berserkers dual it out in the city street? Demonstrate the "powerful and primeval magic" of the region through an encounter with evil creatures of the deep woods?
Also - you need a reason for the Party to bind. Sure a group can all - coincidently - show up at the message board at the same time, but do they have any reason to work together, as opposed to competing with each other for the prize?
While it's only my opinion and style - and you might want to go a completely different way - I'd leverage the ignorance of the Players about the setting, reflecting that as ignorance of the Characters about the setting they're travelling towards. Say that each Character is travelling to the North for different reasons of their own, and doesn't know anything of the other Characters - but they're still travelling together. That could be because they're all travelling on the same merchant vessel, for example. Then shipwreck the vessel on the shores, some days travel from Karlsfell. The Characters now need to rely on each other to survive - which gives the Party a reason to bond as they travel to Karlsfell. It also gives you an opportunity to demonstrate aspects of the setting as Encounters during their journey. An encounter with the evil fey creatures en route to Karlsfell demonstrates the dark primal magic nature of the region ( especially if you play up the atmosphere ). Running into a raiding party which attempts to capture them as thralls demonstrates the lawless "might makes right and the strong prey on the weak" nature of the area. And so on. Eventually, the Party - now used to working together and relying on each other for survival - arrives in Karlsfell, where you can fill in other scenes to show up details of the setting you want to communicate. And it is then that they find the notice of Jarl “Spearshatter” Grundmir. They're an integrated Party now, but none of them have lost their personal ( and possibly secret ) motives to come to the region, so you haven't lost any of the potential Party complexity.
Think of it as the "tutorial level" of a video game, which demonstrates and walks you how things work, rather than just giving you a booklet to read before you load the game.
Whether you want to go that kind of "show, don't tell" routes, or not - the overall setting sounds very cool :)
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I appreciate your input. Most of the first part was really more of a setting box for my own benefit, or that of a future DM if I wanted to let other people use the module (I'm basically formatting it exactly like the official modules, so thats why it had such a wordy intro, because in the future it would be used for a DM to decide if they wanted to run the campaign themselves). The 2nd part, the one about the notice, was the intro for the players. Essentially telling them that they came to the town due to the general call for adventurer's to help find the girl Reyna. So the notice is not the first time the characters are hearing about it, its just a way to inform the players of it.
So I do plan on showing all of the aspects of the world throughout the campaign, and in normal circumstances the first paragraph wouldn't be read to players, only the 2nd, and I'd be providing it ahead of time so people can decide how they want to build their character backgrounds to fit in with it.
I do find that your "tutorial" idea has some merit, however, as far as solving the dilemma for bringing the party together instead of "competing", like you say. It seems that the problem lies in my bias as a writer in how I imagine character's motivations vs. what players imagine them, and I will need to make it far more vague. "Get a town, have a sack of gold each." So that there is no ambiguity or possible inconsistency between what each character thinks they can get out of the adventure from the start.
In other words. I suppose I'm the problem here =P.
The problem still is that some ( most?) Players simply won't remember blocks of expository text. Period. You could ask them about the details 10 minutes into the game, and I'd be willing to lay down cash that they'll have aspects of the text wrong. They won't remember the first paragraph, and If the notice is important, make it a prop and give them a physical copy ( or a digital copy, if you're playing online ).
They won't remember what you write - but they'll remember what they do. It's very unlikely that you can close the gap between Player ignorance and Character ignorance by giving the Player a block of text to remember.
I think a stumbling block here may be you thinking of yourself as an author of a story. You won't be. You won't have nearly that much control over the narrative.
You get to control the "bad guys" ( whoever actually took Reyna ), and make sure that they react to the actions of the Party in a plausible manner, and take proactive steps to reach their own nefarious goals ( whatever those might be - you never said ).
But you don't actually get any say in the motives of the Players/Characters - and you can't rely on their motives being any particular thing in a group that you don't know ( maybe if you had a gaming history with them you could make some pretty good guesses as to what a particular Player wants - but even then you'd be wrong sometimes). You get to control the rest of the world, but the Characters are completely in the hands of the Players, not you. Let the Players find their own motives - they will anyway, you might as well plan for it. If you give them multiple possible motives/rewards, then each Player will latch onto the one(s) that appeal to them - but, again, you can't predict perfectly what they'll grab at.
Trying to lock down "story" options to the point where you have perfect control of what's going on won't work either - or at least has a low chance of working. Unless you have a perfectly docile group of Players, someone will rebel and try to go off the beaten path, if they feel you're trying to control their options overly.
Also - absolutely use backstory if a Player is actively using one, but not everyone will build a backstory, or care about it, even if they do. Front loading with future motives will serve you better than trying to build crucial story elements around backstory. After the campaign has unfolded a bit, and you get a feel for what Players are using their backstories - then you can start leveraging those in your Adventure design.
I also think trying to write for posterity - writing so that "in the future it would be used for a DM to decide if they wanted to run the campaign themselves" - is a mistake. I can almost guarantee ( 99.999... % chance ) that will not happen - unless you're already a well practiced game designer, or a Mozart level natural genius. Write for your Players, and in a way that will help you run your adventure, not for some fictional future marketing opportunity.
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OK, so scrap the "get the girl" part. Sweet. Then I would suggest to the group that they could rule as a council of sorts, each having a 1/4 (or whatever) stake in the kingdom, and just to have some fun, each would get to select their own proxy from the bevy of NPC's that you put before them. They could have some fun with that trying to pick the most suitable etc.
As far as the hook, I still think it's solid. I would have them being an already united group, one had heard about this job, lets do it and we can rule a kingdom. It doesn't need to be too complex, it's just a vehicle to get them moving. They can each come up with their own backstory, it just needs to finish with how they originally joined this adventuring group.
Well I only meant that I was formatting it like a module for my benefit in case I wanted to re-run it sometime or something, instead of it just being a jumble of notes. I certainly have no aspirations for marketing anything, it would just be pasted for people to use if they wanted at best =P. I am not writing for posterity, I'm merely formatting it in the way my examples are written, because those examples are all I have to go by, and the templates I have access to.
Other than that I do hear what you are saying. I'm modifying it in the following way.
The Northern Wilds of Ysmaral are purportedly a harsh and unforgiving place. Jarls and would-be high kings sit upon their thrones of bone or gold and rule to the ends of their reach, however far that may be. Adventurers from all across the 5 realms find their way to the Northern Wilds in search of fortune, power, or fame; which often comes in the form of a Name; a title that the people of the north bestow upon those who earn great renown in deed or battle.
You are such an adventurer, and are traveling to the holding of Karlsfell along the borders of the Fey Wilds, a vast expanse of forest with ill reputation. A call has gone out to help find the missing daughter of Jarl Grudmir "Spearshatter", and many are answering that call. You have been on the wagon for seven days now, sharing tales and expectations with would be heroes, fortune hunters, or Name Seekers. Late on the seventh day your caravan is attacked by a group of brigands, and suddenly you find yourself fighting for your life side by side with those same fireside fellows.
Then there starts a small battle. After which their caravan continues on to town, and at that point they can look at the notice or ask around town or whatever they want to do to find out more about the girl if they choose. The rewards and such will be on the notice, or they can find out from the Magister at the Keep should they go there and ask. That gives them a chance to "get to know" the people they arrived with at least a little, and skips the wall of text aspect of the notice on the board, unless they choose to read it, in which case I can just literally give them the notice on a parchment and they can read it themselves if they want and keep it for reference.
OK, so scrap the "get the girl" part. Sweet. Then I would suggest to the group that they could rule as a council of sorts, each having a 1/4 (or whatever) stake in the kingdom, and just to have some fun, each would get to select their own proxy from the bevy of NPC's that you put before them. They could have some fun with that trying to pick the most suitable etc.
As far as the hook, I still think it's solid. I would have them being an already united group, one had heard about this job, lets do it and we can rule a kingdom. It doesn't need to be too complex, it's just a vehicle to get them moving. They can each come up with their own backstory, it just needs to finish with how they originally joined this adventuring group.
Yeah, obviously even the new format is just a suggestion. Players can come up with their own cohesive background if they want to have started the journey together in the first place. Either way would work now since they either came together on purpose, or by happenstance. Beyond that I will likely tweak the reward to be that any party that returns her is made a Thane of Karlsfell, and given gold on top of that. After that I can have events play out that allows them to be essentially in control of the keep and the town for the purposes of using it as a base if they play into it, or with the possibility that maybe they are just allowed to stay there and use the amenities. Or maybe worst case scenario they have to end up taking the keep by force or subterfuge =P. I'll just have to work that out and try to account for the "what-ifs" best I can.
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I am creating a campaign for my first run at being a DM. I created a setting for my world and then a hook that I was offering for players to use to come together to start the adventure. I'm looking for advice on it to see if it seems like a decent hook, or if I should not expect people to be able to role-play through the fact that at face value only one person of the party would end up with one of the "rewards" for the hook. My original expectation was that the party would have different reasons for coming to save the girl, some for power, some for land, some for fame, and then someone possibly for a mix of all of them and the girl. Anyway, here it is.
Look, it's good, but for two issues that I can see.
1: You've already addressed this, but there's only one "winner". Only one can get the girl and the kingdom. This leads to the second.
2: Once someone's king, that's pretty much the end of their adventuring days, unless they don't want the throne. But then what was the point of the whole thing.
So that puts you in a quandary. You have your players, and one of them needs to be willing to play this campaign knowing that once it's over, he/she will be ruler and that's the end of their character. If the game continues, they'll need to have a new one, or think of something to enable a king to be off adventuring instead of ruling. Not that this is a bad thing!!! A few of my players LOVE making new characters, and knowing they get to do it would be a plus for them. So assuming you have someone like that, happy days.
That means that the other members of your party know this is the players ambition, and are happy to support him/her in that. Maybe with the understanding that once he/she is the ruler, they'll be put in positions of power/wealth and keep adventuring. Maybe become the kings elite force, expanding the kingdom ever onwards in a series of political and violent campaigns. Sounds cool. So if all of that comes together, you need the players to write backstories about how they came to know this one "winner" and why they're supporting them in their quest. And your "winner" needs to come up with a cool backstory of why they want to be ruler. Apart from just being ruler, right? Cause that's a bit blurgh. Maybe they have royal lineage. Maybe their great great grandpa was overthrown by the great great granpa of the CURRENT ruller and they see this as the way back in. Cunning, right? A lot of fun can be had with this, but you have a ways to go.
Well for the first part, only one winner if the player's goal is to settle down and get married. I assumed that not everyone would role play a character that wanted to randomly marry a 16 year old girl they never met. After all, the land wasn't contingent on marrying the girl. That was pretty much my question though. When I wrote it I had about 100 different reasons in my head why people would come together regardless of the marriage part, but it seems like all anyone can focus on heh.
In truth the storyline is supposed to discourage people from choosing that option. I'm not allowing any evil characters my first campaign so I don't expect people to FORCE themselves on the girl. The entire thing was meant as motivation for the NPCs, not the players. But as you have demonstrated I guess I'll just have to delete that line from the hook simply so people will stop thinking about it lol.
As far as the 2nd part, no one has to settle down to become a ruler. There will be opportunities to appoint stewards, etc. The point of the land is that its supposed to become the parties "base of operations" after chapter 1, so they come back and build the town up, make it prosper with things they get on their adventures. Open mines, routes of trade, and see the town prosper. In a practical sense this grows the shops, makes new items and exotic items available, and increases the means of learning new things for the players. Meanwhile the administration while the party is out adventuring would be handled by NPCs introduced very nearly right away in the campaign.
First - your intro is very imaginative, and evocative. I really do get a feeling for the world you're trying to build here. I like the overall atmosphere of your setting very much.
However - a "wall of text" is very hard to sell to Players. Are you giving this to them ahead of time, or are you planning on reading this at the table? Either way - it could be problematic if any of them don't read it, or don't pay attention, and it's not unlikely that one-or-more Players will "zone out" and miss important details.
It is generally better to have details come out through Character/NPC interaction than it is to have text-box exposition, and it's better to demonstrate aspects of the world to the Players than to have it come out as NPC exposition.
You have a ton of really cool flavorful details you want to communicate to your Players. Can you devise ways to reveal these to Players in scenes and encounters? Demonstrate the lawlessness of the place by watching two berserkers dual it out in the city street? Demonstrate the "powerful and primeval magic" of the region through an encounter with evil creatures of the deep woods?
Also - you need a reason for the Party to bind. Sure a group can all - coincidently - show up at the message board at the same time, but do they have any reason to work together, as opposed to competing with each other for the prize?
While it's only my opinion and style - and you might want to go a completely different way - I'd leverage the ignorance of the Players about the setting, reflecting that as ignorance of the Characters about the setting they're travelling towards. Say that each Character is travelling to the North for different reasons of their own, and doesn't know anything of the other Characters - but they're still travelling together. That could be because they're all travelling on the same merchant vessel, for example. Then shipwreck the vessel on the shores, some days travel from Karlsfell. The Characters now need to rely on each other to survive - which gives the Party a reason to bond as they travel to Karlsfell. It also gives you an opportunity to demonstrate aspects of the setting as Encounters during their journey. An encounter with the evil fey creatures en route to Karlsfell demonstrates the dark primal magic nature of the region ( especially if you play up the atmosphere ). Running into a raiding party which attempts to capture them as thralls demonstrates the lawless "might makes right and the strong prey on the weak" nature of the area. And so on. Eventually, the Party - now used to working together and relying on each other for survival - arrives in Karlsfell, where you can fill in other scenes to show up details of the setting you want to communicate. And it is then that they find the notice of Jarl “Spearshatter” Grundmir. They're an integrated Party now, but none of them have lost their personal ( and possibly secret ) motives to come to the region, so you haven't lost any of the potential Party complexity.
Think of it as the "tutorial level" of a video game, which demonstrates and walks you how things work, rather than just giving you a booklet to read before you load the game.
Whether you want to go that kind of "show, don't tell" routes, or not - the overall setting sounds very cool :)
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.
I appreciate your input. Most of the first part was really more of a setting box for my own benefit, or that of a future DM if I wanted to let other people use the module (I'm basically formatting it exactly like the official modules, so thats why it had such a wordy intro, because in the future it would be used for a DM to decide if they wanted to run the campaign themselves). The 2nd part, the one about the notice, was the intro for the players. Essentially telling them that they came to the town due to the general call for adventurer's to help find the girl Reyna. So the notice is not the first time the characters are hearing about it, its just a way to inform the players of it.
So I do plan on showing all of the aspects of the world throughout the campaign, and in normal circumstances the first paragraph wouldn't be read to players, only the 2nd, and I'd be providing it ahead of time so people can decide how they want to build their character backgrounds to fit in with it.
I do find that your "tutorial" idea has some merit, however, as far as solving the dilemma for bringing the party together instead of "competing", like you say. It seems that the problem lies in my bias as a writer in how I imagine character's motivations vs. what players imagine them, and I will need to make it far more vague. "Get a town, have a sack of gold each." So that there is no ambiguity or possible inconsistency between what each character thinks they can get out of the adventure from the start.
In other words. I suppose I'm the problem here =P.
The problem still is that some ( most?) Players simply won't remember blocks of expository text. Period. You could ask them about the details 10 minutes into the game, and I'd be willing to lay down cash that they'll have aspects of the text wrong. They won't remember the first paragraph, and If the notice is important, make it a prop and give them a physical copy ( or a digital copy, if you're playing online ).
They won't remember what you write - but they'll remember what they do. It's very unlikely that you can close the gap between Player ignorance and Character ignorance by giving the Player a block of text to remember.
I think a stumbling block here may be you thinking of yourself as an author of a story. You won't be. You won't have nearly that much control over the narrative.
You get to control the "bad guys" ( whoever actually took Reyna ), and make sure that they react to the actions of the Party in a plausible manner, and take proactive steps to reach their own nefarious goals ( whatever those might be - you never said ).
But you don't actually get any say in the motives of the Players/Characters - and you can't rely on their motives being any particular thing in a group that you don't know ( maybe if you had a gaming history with them you could make some pretty good guesses as to what a particular Player wants - but even then you'd be wrong sometimes). You get to control the rest of the world, but the Characters are completely in the hands of the Players, not you. Let the Players find their own motives - they will anyway, you might as well plan for it. If you give them multiple possible motives/rewards, then each Player will latch onto the one(s) that appeal to them - but, again, you can't predict perfectly what they'll grab at.
Trying to lock down "story" options to the point where you have perfect control of what's going on won't work either - or at least has a low chance of working. Unless you have a perfectly docile group of Players, someone will rebel and try to go off the beaten path, if they feel you're trying to control their options overly.
Also - absolutely use backstory if a Player is actively using one, but not everyone will build a backstory, or care about it, even if they do. Front loading with future motives will serve you better than trying to build crucial story elements around backstory. After the campaign has unfolded a bit, and you get a feel for what Players are using their backstories - then you can start leveraging those in your Adventure design.
I also think trying to write for posterity - writing so that "in the future it would be used for a DM to decide if they wanted to run the campaign themselves" - is a mistake. I can almost guarantee ( 99.999... % chance ) that will not happen - unless you're already a well practiced game designer, or a Mozart level natural genius. Write for your Players, and in a way that will help you run your adventure, not for some fictional future marketing opportunity.
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.
OK, so scrap the "get the girl" part. Sweet.
Then I would suggest to the group that they could rule as a council of sorts, each having a 1/4 (or whatever) stake in the kingdom, and just to have some fun, each would get to select their own proxy from the bevy of NPC's that you put before them. They could have some fun with that trying to pick the most suitable etc.
As far as the hook, I still think it's solid. I would have them being an already united group, one had heard about this job, lets do it and we can rule a kingdom. It doesn't need to be too complex, it's just a vehicle to get them moving. They can each come up with their own backstory, it just needs to finish with how they originally joined this adventuring group.
Well I only meant that I was formatting it like a module for my benefit in case I wanted to re-run it sometime or something, instead of it just being a jumble of notes. I certainly have no aspirations for marketing anything, it would just be pasted for people to use if they wanted at best =P. I am not writing for posterity, I'm merely formatting it in the way my examples are written, because those examples are all I have to go by, and the templates I have access to.
Other than that I do hear what you are saying. I'm modifying it in the following way.
The Northern Wilds of Ysmaral are purportedly a harsh and unforgiving place. Jarls and would-be high kings sit upon their thrones of bone or gold and rule to the ends of their reach, however far that may be. Adventurers from all across the 5 realms find their way to the Northern Wilds in search of fortune, power, or fame; which often comes in the form of a Name; a title that the people of the north bestow upon those who earn great renown in deed or battle.
You are such an adventurer, and are traveling to the holding of Karlsfell along the borders of the Fey Wilds, a vast expanse of forest with ill reputation. A call has gone out to help find the missing daughter of Jarl Grudmir "Spearshatter", and many are answering that call. You have been on the wagon for seven days now, sharing tales and expectations with would be heroes, fortune hunters, or Name Seekers. Late on the seventh day your caravan is attacked by a group of brigands, and suddenly you find yourself fighting for your life side by side with those same fireside fellows.
Then there starts a small battle. After which their caravan continues on to town, and at that point they can look at the notice or ask around town or whatever they want to do to find out more about the girl if they choose. The rewards and such will be on the notice, or they can find out from the Magister at the Keep should they go there and ask. That gives them a chance to "get to know" the people they arrived with at least a little, and skips the wall of text aspect of the notice on the board, unless they choose to read it, in which case I can just literally give them the notice on a parchment and they can read it themselves if they want and keep it for reference.
Yeah, obviously even the new format is just a suggestion. Players can come up with their own cohesive background if they want to have started the journey together in the first place. Either way would work now since they either came together on purpose, or by happenstance. Beyond that I will likely tweak the reward to be that any party that returns her is made a Thane of Karlsfell, and given gold on top of that. After that I can have events play out that allows them to be essentially in control of the keep and the town for the purposes of using it as a base if they play into it, or with the possibility that maybe they are just allowed to stay there and use the amenities. Or maybe worst case scenario they have to end up taking the keep by force or subterfuge =P. I'll just have to work that out and try to account for the "what-ifs" best I can.