My friends and I have been really off and on with playing D&D, usually only doing 2 or 3 sessions of a campaign before eventually losing interest. This will be my first time DM'ing and I really wanted to hit it off and make a story and world that will keep them hooked. I was looking for advice on my ideas and for understanding some of the mechanics of D&D.
World/Story: I wanted to make a story that had a lot of free player agency during it to include a lot of choices that would mean a lot. My plan was for the adventures to start off by sailing into the country, not knowing each other and knowing the bear minimum of the situation in the country. As they're mingling around the ship a small group of the countries "terrorist" problem will attack the ship and take their objective (a government ambassador) hostage. The adventurers will have to fight off the pirates and do something about the hostage. When the encounter is over, the king will recruit them to take down the terrorist organization. However, the adventurers will also run into the leaders of the terrorists and also be recruited by them to help take down the monarchy.
I wanted to pose a moral choice for the party in the terms of morals vs. methods. Will they side with the monarchy, a government that has almost too much control and has segregated the entire country by race, but is very generous to the people, helping out a lot in terms of aid and services. Or will they side with the terrorists (name pending), a group that wishes to dethrone the monarchy from power and bring together the races of the land, however, they are very violent in what they do and have next to no moral boundaries to achieve their goals.
I wanted to set up the game objective sort of as a Breath of the Wild style, where they're not supposed to immediately go to the final quest, instead learning more about the world and gaining strength to prepare and think about their choices in factions.
How can I encourage them to explore the world more to gather strength for the final fight(s)? How should I present each faction to the party in order to make them feel as if there is no right or wrong answer in who to side with? Any advice to enhance the story or craft the world more?
Combat encounters: The majority of my encounters will be against other people but I will also have fights with monsters and other creatures in side quests and other things like that.
How should I build enemies against my party to make combat interesting and how can I make monster battles feel natural and fun?
Misc.: This is my first time being a DM with knowledge on the basics of the game. I am a little nervous with using religion and magic in the campaign as religion seems suuuuper complicated and I don't really know the rules for either of them.
Any tips on understanding religion and magic? What should I study up on before I start the campaign?
Also, I do have the dungeon masters guide and the player's handbook if there is anything I should focus in those. I am looking for the monster book.
Here's how I would run something like this, may work for you, may not. Either way I hope you find something useful and informative.
I would have the adventure take place in a single location, a large capital city. I would use the city generator by watabou (free easy to find and use) and generate the largest city possible. I would really take a deep dive on designing the city. Know the wards, local moods, architecture, notable locations, shops, guilds, criminal organizations.
Page 112 of the DMG, Settlements has tons of random tables to help with this
I would have a list of random city encounters (you can find these in the settlements section too) and I would make some to reflect the points of the campaign, so randomly encountering the terrorists and the royals doing good or bad things.
Time limit. I would have a definite end condition for the campaign. Something like: The king is most vulnerable to assassination attempts during this particular royal event. The day of the event comes and the King is either assassinated or he isn't, and the PCs either help them or try to stop them. Either way the story of this campaign or at least this adventure arc of the campaign is over. Make sure the time limit, several months so the PCs have time to mess around.
Know the resources of the royals and the terrorists. The royals may have some kind of secret police organization for hunting the terrorists (maybe the PCs work for this organization at the start) in the city, what resources do they have, who's in command of them, what's their relationship with the people of the city, pay very close attention to the magic casters and spells this organization has access to, that will determine their tactics a great deal. Same with the terrorists, where are their hide outs, what is their plan to assassinate the kind specifically, what spells and casters do they have access to.
Try to think what terrorism and counter terrorism looks like in a fantasy city with magic and stuff. Pay attention to spells like locate object, scry , zone of truth, divination spells in general.
Now that you know the city, whats in it, what resources the people who live there have and what their goals are it's time to release the PCs onto the stage and see what happens.
Hope that's helpful please ask away if you want clarification or have more questions.
Set it in world you know the most about it will make those unexpected players choices alot easier to roll with. Don't pick a setting in which you need to look anything up. Mind you its ok to make things up on the fly but it should be seemless to the players. My first campaign was essentially a riff off final fantasy 4 it was my favorite rpg and had played through it at least a dozen times before. Having a solid foundation takes a lot off of you and allows you to add/change things as you see fit.
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My friends and I have been really off and on with playing D&D, usually only doing 2 or 3 sessions of a campaign before eventually losing interest. This will be my first time DM'ing and I really wanted to hit it off and make a story and world that will keep them hooked. I was looking for advice on my ideas and for understanding some of the mechanics of D&D.
World/Story: I wanted to make a story that had a lot of free player agency during it to include a lot of choices that would mean a lot. My plan was for the adventures to start off by sailing into the country, not knowing each other and knowing the bear minimum of the situation in the country. As they're mingling around the ship a small group of the countries "terrorist" problem will attack the ship and take their objective (a government ambassador) hostage. The adventurers will have to fight off the pirates and do something about the hostage. When the encounter is over, the king will recruit them to take down the terrorist organization. However, the adventurers will also run into the leaders of the terrorists and also be recruited by them to help take down the monarchy.
I wanted to pose a moral choice for the party in the terms of morals vs. methods. Will they side with the monarchy, a government that has almost too much control and has segregated the entire country by race, but is very generous to the people, helping out a lot in terms of aid and services. Or will they side with the terrorists (name pending), a group that wishes to dethrone the monarchy from power and bring together the races of the land, however, they are very violent in what they do and have next to no moral boundaries to achieve their goals.
I wanted to set up the game objective sort of as a Breath of the Wild style, where they're not supposed to immediately go to the final quest, instead learning more about the world and gaining strength to prepare and think about their choices in factions.
How can I encourage them to explore the world more to gather strength for the final fight(s)? How should I present each faction to the party in order to make them feel as if there is no right or wrong answer in who to side with? Any advice to enhance the story or craft the world more?
Combat encounters: The majority of my encounters will be against other people but I will also have fights with monsters and other creatures in side quests and other things like that.
How should I build enemies against my party to make combat interesting and how can I make monster battles feel natural and fun?
Misc.: This is my first time being a DM with knowledge on the basics of the game. I am a little nervous with using religion and magic in the campaign as religion seems suuuuper complicated and I don't really know the rules for either of them.
Any tips on understanding religion and magic? What should I study up on before I start the campaign?
Also, I do have the dungeon masters guide and the player's handbook if there is anything I should focus in those. I am looking for the monster book.
The PHB DMG and MM should be good enough. Remember to have action or suspense early on to hook your players in.
There is no dawn after eternal night.
Homebrew: Magic items, Subclasses
Best thing you can do is watch Matt Colville's "running the game series." It starts here:
https://youtu.be/e-YZvLUXcR8
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Here's how I would run something like this, may work for you, may not. Either way I hope you find something useful and informative.
I would have the adventure take place in a single location, a large capital city. I would use the city generator by watabou (free easy to find and use) and generate the largest city possible.
I would really take a deep dive on designing the city. Know the wards, local moods, architecture, notable locations, shops, guilds, criminal organizations.
Page 112 of the DMG, Settlements has tons of random tables to help with this
I would have a list of random city encounters (you can find these in the settlements section too) and I would make some to reflect the points of the campaign, so randomly encountering the terrorists and the royals doing good or bad things.
Time limit. I would have a definite end condition for the campaign. Something like: The king is most vulnerable to assassination attempts during this particular royal event. The day of the event comes and the King is either assassinated or he isn't, and the PCs either help them or try to stop them. Either way the story of this campaign or at least this adventure arc of the campaign is over. Make sure the time limit, several months so the PCs have time to mess around.
Know the resources of the royals and the terrorists. The royals may have some kind of secret police organization for hunting the terrorists (maybe the PCs work for this organization at the start) in the city, what resources do they have, who's in command of them, what's their relationship with the people of the city, pay very close attention to the magic casters and spells this organization has access to, that will determine their tactics a great deal. Same with the terrorists, where are their hide outs, what is their plan to assassinate the kind specifically, what spells and casters do they have access to.
Try to think what terrorism and counter terrorism looks like in a fantasy city with magic and stuff. Pay attention to spells like locate object, scry , zone of truth, divination spells in general.
Now that you know the city, whats in it, what resources the people who live there have and what their goals are it's time to release the PCs onto the stage and see what happens.
Hope that's helpful please ask away if you want clarification or have more questions.
This^^ Fantastic advice.
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Set it in world you know the most about it will make those unexpected players choices alot easier to roll with. Don't pick a setting in which you need to look anything up. Mind you its ok to make things up on the fly but it should be seemless to the players. My first campaign was essentially a riff off final fantasy 4 it was my favorite rpg and had played through it at least a dozen times before. Having a solid foundation takes a lot off of you and allows you to add/change things as you see fit.