A really interesting idea I am considering running, either as a standalone campaign, or as part of a longer campaign a type of Groundhog day, or edge of tomorrow. I will admit to lifting this concept from a homebrew game a friend of mine has run.
The idea is that you start the campaign early in the morning and get the players involved in a simple adventure quickly. Think the opening goblin cave in lost mines of Phandelvin. As the day approaches midnight something happens and the players are killed, TPK in the first or second game session of the campaign. The players look at you stunned, and then, you reset the day. You have the players roll for wisdom and the one who rolls highest starts in the same location they began the day, looking around the images return, and they realise they remember the events of the past day. The campaign becomes about learning what has happened and hopefully stopping it.
This opens up a world of roleplaying and adventuring opportunities that a linear adventure does not have. You can design an entire breathing living town, knowing how every inhabitant spends this day. Are there other NPC's that know what the players know, but the world needs to have some set rules that the GM has thought through to deal with aspects of this cyclical motion.
The world resets every day - this is a true reset, the majority if not all the NPC's have no idea they are living out the same day over and over again, so conversations to them are always new. They will react accordingly if the players express knowledge they should not have having gained it in a previous cycle of the day. The players start with the same equipment every day. If the players start every day with the same equipment then how to handle Magic Components? my thinking is that, for this campaign, components are ignored. You can handwave it away by saying the event has suffused the land with so much magic that physical components are no longer required.
Experience - Players gain experience, they remember the actions they take every day, if you are running milestone then yes they level up as you determine it is relevant. In addition, if a player tries to do something they have previously failed at they get advantage, or the DC is reduced, trying to question the barman, last time they failed the roll so got nothing, this time they can remember how the conversation went and so can approach it differently. I think there should still always be a chance of failure but, if they achieved something before then the DC becomes really low.
Grinding is not a thing - If running an XP campaign only give full XP if an encounter is defeated the first time, or with a different outcome. The players can't tell you they will keep going back to that goblin cave and just run it every day until they get to level 20. They dont get XP every time they seduce the queen for info.
Wizard Spell Learning - either dictate that wizard is not an available class for the campaign, or become more flexible about how you make a wizard learn new spells.
Escaping - The effect prevents any kind of teleportation magic, or plane shifting spell from working. Potentially with the exception of mordenkainen's magnificent mansion or similar, this would allow players to have a safe space to go to and keep there equipment day to day. But the campaign can't be ended simply by high level characters escaping. In addition the effect reaches as far as the players can travel in a day. Note there will be a way, possibly several, to bring the groundhog day to and end and continue as normal. However simply leaving the area, plane etc is not possible until this is achieved.
Safe spots - I am considering, as part of the story line, providing some locations around the town where time continues, allowing either a drop box so players can store magic items there to pick up tomorrow, or even a larger pocket they can take a long rest in and actually wake up still suffering any effects or buffs and with the equipment they had. If they then die/reset the normal way they keep this equipment and, whoever they got it from. Possibly death becomes a risk in these spots, but, if that is the case I think as a DM I will need to foreshadow that and not just spring it on the players. You die, no really you die.
Not every thing is linked to the story - There is a great chance here to have the players save someone from certain death, only to realise that does not stop the reset. Eventually there will come a moment the players realise they can end the groundhog day, but, can they also save that NPC from dying today? There is a rich sandbox here and lots of threads should not contribute to ending the campaign but give life to the world.
Alignment - Probably the hardest thing, how will a lawful good character change and evolve, will the events lead them to become more chaotic, but also, if the NPC's come back anyway, what does it matter if you kill someone. How does that change a character?
So I wondered what where peoples thoughts and is there anything you think should be added to the rules for running a campaign like this. It feels like it would be a unique experience for player requiring them to think in a different way. Suddenly Death is no longer a thing to fear, in fact it might be a viable tactic to get out of a situation. Of course you will need to know for your own world how and why the events are happening, and how to fix it. You may also want to dangle some of those thought provoking decisions, you can end it but, those 3 un connected NPC's will die. Do you try to work out a way to save everyone, do you sacrifice the 3 to save the whole area, or do you pick the one you want to save?
I have considered this myself. One option I am currently toying with is a high-lethality dungeon with concentric rings of rooms. The players get an amulet which gives them 9 chances to get through the dungeon. It's a bit of memory but I will also allow them to gloss over the rooms they completed before, so the dice gods don't steal their lives.
The idea of a groundhog day style adventure is a cool one, and certainly one I intend to try to run. The basis of this is:
1: There is a cataclysmic event which happens at the end of the day. This needs to be something almost inevitable - there should be multiple people who are capable of causing it, and for multiple reasons. For example, a magical maelstrom engulfs the town - this was caused by the wizard, who botched a spell. But if they stop the wizard, there is also a cult who happens to be summoning the maelstrom at the same time. There could be as many causes as there are players, meaning they have to coordinate their efforts around town to prevent it. There could be some demons, summoned at the start of the day, which all work to open a portal. They must all be stopped, in various places and at various times. It will be important for players to have inklings that their efforts are having an effect - perhaps a ring of portals opens in the sky, telling them how many demons they need to stop. Meanwhile, the Wizard has cast a spell to let the day loop for him over and over, so he can fix it, but he botched that too and it instead affected the players.
2: It needs to feature interesting reveals and reversals. Drudging through the same day each time will get boring quickly, so they need to be kept interested by quickly moving stories and interesting revelations. Perhaps they go to fight the goblins and they return to find the village being destroyed, but later find that their efforts to correct this left the goblin menace at large because they never went to fight them, and that has bad repercussions. their actions must have consequences and those consequences need to matter.
3: They should be able to walk away. If they get frustrated or decide to bail on the town, they shouldn't be forced to stay. Give the rebirth spell a range of 10 miles or something, so they can just run if they want to and leave the town to its doom.
I'm going to be working on this now, it's stuck in my head!
For me the whole campaign will be based on the Groundhog Day events so this will be a long term thing possibly taking the players from levels 1 to 20.
Alternatively I have considered a smaller version that can be put in mid campaign. Imagine the players wandering into a town and experiencing the loop. Eventually they conclude the story and carry on there way, only to find they have been trapped for 100 years game time. A great way to present a whole new world that is familiar but so different.
Great idea! This makes me think about elements of Majora's Mask, and the idea of the game resetting after some time, but we retain the friends skills we made along the way.
I love what you've written here. Just want to offer some pushback in some areas, not to say that your ideas are bad, but to help give thinking points in how you want to run your game.
1: Time: I'd say that instead of a single day, you may want to make the adventure "reset" time to be a bit longer. Such as 3-7 days. You could map out how far someone would be able to travel within that timeframe to get a tangible idea of your land area that you need to fill, or even possibly add a final boss area outside of that travel time that the players need to unlock a teleporting device to get there. Time also gives them some time to explore certain dungeons and have 1-2 long rests in that time period.
2: Wizard Spells: Phil learns how to play piano in the movie after what could be years of learning how to play every day. With that time, Phil could also learn complex maths, sciences, etc. I think the same could go for Wizards. Maybe their spellbooks can still be written in, so the several-day spell writing can still happen in the world.
3: Escaping: While difficult to run, I'd say you could put only one limit on escaping: A specific instance that needs to be achieved or fixed. Phil, in the movie, is only able to escape the time loop after achieving happiness. That's a little lofty for a TTRPG, but maybe there's an instance that was started by a powerful wizard aspiring to be a lich, the Players, and possibly some other secret characters, who are aware that there's a time loop happening. The Lich may become aware that the only way to get out of the loop is to be killed, or maybe an artifact that is allowing them to research infinitely is to be destroyed.
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< Fighter Doc on the DumpStat Podcast!Click the Image to give us a listen.
I worry as to whether the area within a day's travel of one town would hold enough adventure for that many levels, but that's all down to how large a place it ends up being and how well you run it. On the plus side, you can guarantee a supply of health potions etc. is available at the start of each day. It also gives players the chance to change equipment and such - perhaps offer them an arsenal of magical weapons which they can pick & choose between each day. Perhaps start the day with them being supplied by the mayor of the town and then offered 1 item from the magical arsenal.
Hi thanks and my reason for posting was to get other peoples views on this, updated the escaping bit, I realised I hadn't distantly said the campaign end would be ending the loop lol.
Idk your opinion on DnD podcast things, but The Adventure Zone: Balance did a similar arc ("The 11th Hour") where there was a town that was stuck in a time loop.
Its a really good listen! Though keep in mind, the boys BARELY know how to play DnD and CONSTANTLY get rules wrong, but the story, tone, and flow of the adventure may be a good listen if you're planning something like this! (Or maybe at least read a synopsis cause DnD podcasts/shows can get quite lengthy)
Whether this is a success or not will come down to note keeping - both yours and the players'. Your NPCs and monsters must act in the precise same way until fed different input from the PCs, and the PCs must be able to act in the exact same way once they receive an output they want/need. This could be awesome or choresome, depending on the group. It's an interesting idea, but my group would be throwing dice at me by the end of session 2, and I'd be sick to death of keeping detailed transcripts by the end of session 3.
Regarding the limit of the one day time loop, you could make sure there are mechanisms within close reach that allow them to extend their travel ability - once they have leveled up enough and/or hacked the precise behavior to unlock them. Of course, they'll have to repeat these motions every time to unlock them and travel.
I'd also have them woken every morning by a bard singing outside their window -
Then putteth thy dram handeth in mineth Th're is nay hill 'r mountain we can not climb
Dear I got thee dear, i got thee dear
I got thee to holdeth mine hand I got thee to und'rstand I got thee to walketh with me I got thee to talketh with me
Bonus XP for first person to wake up and immediately kill the bard.
Regarding the repeatability I think that if a player attempts a social interaction they failed previously I will give them advantage. If they succeeded then they auto succeed assuming the take the same approach each time. If they try the same with a physical activity I may give advantage or reduce the DC if appropriate but they will still need to roll.
Regarding the time change there will be at least 1 location I have written where they will sleep and awake as if it is the next day keeping all equipment. They will need to find this and experience it, in fact a large part of the start of the adventure will be exploring the town, finding new and varied encounters each of which will either teach them something new about the rules or start opening up ideas as to what might be causing what’s happening. In terms of note taking I am mapping out the whole city in world anvil which means I can place detailed notes about every npc throughout.
Whether this is a success or not will come down to note keeping - both yours and the players'. Your NPCs and monsters must act in the precise same way until fed different input from the PCs, and the PCs must be able to act in the exact same way once they receive an output they want/need. This could be awesome or choresome, depending on the group. It's an interesting idea, but my group would be throwing dice at me by the end of session 2, and I'd be sick to death of keeping detailed transcripts by the end of session 3.
Regarding the limit of the one day time loop, you could make sure there are mechanisms within close reach that allow them to extend their travel ability - once they have leveled up enough and/or hacked the precise behavior to unlock them. Of course, they'll have to repeat these motions every time to unlock them and travel.
I'd also have them woken every morning by a bard singing outside their window -
Then putteth thy dram handeth in mineth Th're is nay hill 'r mountain we can not climb
Dear I got thee dear, i got thee dear
I got thee to holdeth mine hand I got thee to und'rstand I got thee to walketh with me I got thee to talketh with me
Bonus XP for first person to wake up and immediately kill the bard.
Reason like this I want DMs to get XP or Inspiration. That Bard idea singing an Olde English version of Sonny & Cher is too good to not pass up. That's some Critical Role RP storytelling right there! Well done.
Someone made a post a week or so back about a wizard with time powers. That would make a perfect BBEG for this campaign, and would allow the over-presence of time magic without just having crazy combat. When someone thinks to cast Detect Magic, or some other legitimate way to sense what's happening, let it lead them to the time wizard. TW kicks the party's ass, conspicuously manipulating time to do so (as you would expect). It becomes clear that TW is the one creating the time loop (for whatever dastardly purpose you may choose), and that defeating them will break the loop. Now the players use TW's own time loop against them, by using it to optimize the single day's events to achieve something they never could otherwise (i.e. gathering components by being in precisely the right place at the right time, finding a macguffin, learning exactly the right thing to offer a helpful ally, etc...)
In fact, maybe TW isn't doing it for dastardly reasons at all. Maybe they are protecting the town they love from something terrible that is happening outside - something that, when the party 'wins', crashes down upon the town. And cue the next adventure...
If the party are trying to infiltrate a complex, then each day they learn how to get through more of the initial parts of the complex since they know what they are facing and can plan accordingly.
Traps can be disabled very quickly. Known enemies can be catered for. Problems with terrain can be bypassed by changing their route on subsequent visits.
When they get far enough into the complex, either they could find a back door/secret tunnel/whatever so that they don't have to re-enact the initial parts too often.
When they get even further, maybe they find out that the complex isn't the real target and they need to go elsewhere.
Repeat for the new location, with suitable variations.
At higher levels they might discover that they need to visit other planes (plane shift, etc.)
What about the individuals in the enemy who are also repeating the time loop, or at least are aware of it?
The time loop could reset when the party take a LONG REST - so they always have to achieve whatever they can with their abilities that are available in a single day.
If they don't keep magic items, then they will have to decide each day which magic items to go and retrieve before continuing with their other plans.
This is an interesting idea, but I'd make sure your players are on board with it. I'm not sure I'd want to play in a campaign like this. A huge part of why many people like D&D is that world reacts to them not matter what sort of unexpected thing they do.
Someone mentioned Majora's mask, and I think a video game can do this very well because your options are always limited in a video game. But I think you run the risk of making an expereince that is not quite as good as playing a video game. This kind of idea plays into one of the weaknesses of video games and turns it into a strength.
I'm not saying there are no players that would enjoy this idea, I'm just saying if a DM sprung this on me, I probably wouldn't want to stay in the game because most of what makes D&D fun to me as a player would be lost. If I'm going to do the same thing over and over and just get better at it, I'd rather play Dark Souls than D&D.
This is an interesting idea, but I'd make sure your players are on board with it. I'm not sure I'd want to play in a campaign like this. A huge part of why many people like D&D is that world reacts to them not matter what sort of unexpected thing they do.
Done well (which is absolutely not a given), this kind of playing with cause and effect could be exactly what makes the game fun. You lose "how will things be different tomorrow based on what I've done today?" but gain "how will things be different today now I'm going into it with advance information that normally I couldn't possibly know?" Also, like Phil in GHD, there's no saying you must spend every day on self improvement and pushing the plot forward. The world still reacts, and unlike a regular campaign you can run as many 'what if' scenarios as you want, and watch how the day unfolds. It would allow a really deep understanding of that tiny corner of Faerûn and its denizens - an understanding that can be pulled into future adventures in that area with detailed dossiers on all the NPCs. And may God have mercy on the soul of the poor DM running the campaign for on-the-ball players with all that data.
There's also a lot you can fit into a few hours hike radius - over flat ground you can easily hike 10 miles before lunch or 20 miles before dark, not to mention transportation options the DM could unlock. Just hiking, you have as much as 1200 square miles at your disposal, depending how much time you need when you get there. An entire adventure easily fits into that space, and if you really wanted to, you could probably never have the same interaction twice.
I think getting advance buy-in would somewhat spoil the slow dawning realization of what's going on. I wouldn't go further than saying in session 0 "Look, I want to try something new. It could be amazing, it could crash and burn. But I need you to trust me and give me five sessions, no matter what. If it's not working out by then, we'll ditch it." Run it with a group you know, to whom you've given a lot of fun in the past.
None of this is intended to deny your opinion and experience of course, just a counter point.
This is an interesting idea, but I'd make sure your players are on board with it. I'm not sure I'd want to play in a campaign like this. A huge part of why many people like D&D is that world reacts to them not matter what sort of unexpected thing they do.
Someone mentioned Majora's mask, and I think a video game can do this very well because your options are always limited in a video game. But I think you run the risk of making an expereince that is not quite as good as playing a video game. This kind of idea plays into one of the weaknesses of video games and turns it into a strength.
I'm not saying there are no players that would enjoy this idea, I'm just saying if a DM sprung this on me, I probably wouldn't want to stay in the game because most of what makes D&D fun to me as a player would be lost. If I'm going to do the same thing over and over and just get better at it, I'd rather play Dark Souls than D&D.
I think to clarify this will not be a Dungeon crawl type deal where action A must always be done then action B, the players will be in a town or city and will have a number of small encounters to roleplay or fight through, each of which are independant from the other at least initially. So session 1 they may go and try to save the Dwarf from the Goblins. Session 2 they wake up, ok lets spend a day trying to get information about the town, this might lead to a run in with some cut purses trying to rob them, Session 3, in session 2 they found out the castle holds the oldest library in town, maybe there is some information there, ok lets go have a look in the castle and investigate that. This might lead to a run in with the guards, or a social interaction with the prince or king, finally by session 5 they get the chance to realise the mad crone is behaving strangely, the go to talk to her and she hints that she might have information, she seems to be out of the loop, but first, she needs the players to collect some items. This leads to 4-5 encounters as the players collect what she needs and wants, slowly learning more about her and the effects of the time loop. Maybe walking through the town they find someone freshly killed with a letter on her, the adventurers then have to get to this person before they die to try and see if they have some sort of information, or if this will cancel the loop.
So this will not be a dark souls situation where you will just play out the same dungeon over and over again, there will be areas of the town specifically created for higher level characters, that banshee that is trapped out in a farmers hut just outside town, or maybe the catacombs under the town hold a mummy or liche, but given the nature of the adventure I can throw a CR15 monster at my level 3 characters if they go there, they can either escape or die and the next day either decide to go do something else, or try again. Over time many of these encounters will provide clues, or information that the players can start piecing together to work out what happened, who is behind it and how they cancel the effects.
Each time the players can do something entirely different, or if they want to go and repeat something they have done before to see if they can improve they can do that.
When the players I regularly play with find out it was a time loop in a town, their most likely strategy would be to simply enter each house and thoroughly search it for any evidence of what is going on. Repeat this over many days until they'd search every single building in the town and its environs.
Once they found a dodgy NPC (or maybe just any awkward NPC), they would kill them and search the body - looking for appropriate evidence.
So we are now 10 sessions in and the players are loving it.
The way it works, Party wake every morning at 6am, in the same place they where at the start of the campaign. At 1am strange ghoul figures attack, far to powerful for the characters to fight and win against yet at 2 AM there is a magical explosion that engulfs the town and surrounding area and then the day resets. If the players have died, gained any condition or illness, or any injury it is reset as well, any equipment they used, bought, stole, is reset. The only thing that is not reset is experience (although I am doing this as milestone to prevent grinding the same low level areas lol).
The party started out taking the plot hook I dangled them of a missing merchant, went and found he had been ambushed and then went to the goblin cave he was taken to (yes LMOP). First attempt NPC died, when the reset happened, after getting over the shock of a TPK in session 2 and then the reawakening, the party went and redid the same quest, saved the dwarf, got him back, found some information out, then, dat reset again. So they realised it wasn't just because of that.
Sessions 3-8 where spent investigating the town, there was an effort to get into the castle to look through the library (ended up with the players in prison the first time, then the next time they managed to get further in). There they found very vague references. They have also identified there may be 2 other characters who know about the reset and like them are not affected, and discovered a man who kills himself at the same time every day, twice they have tried to stop him, the first time they where too late to get to him, the second time they prevented him killing himself but then he died after being attacked by the person he owed money to.
There are 2 areas in the town where the reset does not take effect, anything or anyone left there will continue as normal and not wake up in the same place, so once they find that they can start hoarding equipment, staying there one night effectively resets them, so they then keep there stuff every time they reset until the next time they go there, so if they don't make it there one night thats ok they wont have to go around re collecting stuff, the down side with these locations however is that death is permanent here, so they will need to fortify and protect them.
In terms of rolls, all social interactions that take place in the same way as a previous day get advantage on the roll if it previously failed, or auto pass if they do it again, so if they are trying to intimidate someone for information they can go back and try the same person the next "day" that person has no recollection but they do so they can use different tactics, if they ask new questions of someone they have already intimidated then I will work out if that needs a new roll or not.
In terms of physical things, if a trap has been found and disarmed then they always know its there and the player rolls to disarm it, but the DC reduces by 5 each time. until only a 1 means the player did something wrong.
Combat is combat, there is no advantage on that because the enemy will always react and do something slightly different.
I did not allow the wizard class to be picked, just a little bit to hard to manage spells etc, attempts to leave the plane will be unsuccessful when the players get that kind of magic. Although anything placed in a bag of holding will not be lost (there is one available when they find one of the "save" points).
So yes going really well, players are really intrigued and it is really making them think differently about how they play the game and manage resources. One of the players has even mentioned to me that as his characters drive is the pursuit of Knowledge and learning it is possible he will actually want to prevent the party from ending this effect at some point. He has also stated that his characters lawful good alignment will be slowly descending as he understand that he can do anything and as long as the party don't find out there is no long lasting consequences. I am really interested to see where that character goes and how they develop and maybe into them becoming a second BBEG :).
A really interesting idea I am considering running, either as a standalone campaign, or as part of a longer campaign a type of Groundhog day, or edge of tomorrow. I will admit to lifting this concept from a homebrew game a friend of mine has run.
The idea is that you start the campaign early in the morning and get the players involved in a simple adventure quickly. Think the opening goblin cave in lost mines of Phandelvin. As the day approaches midnight something happens and the players are killed, TPK in the first or second game session of the campaign. The players look at you stunned, and then, you reset the day. You have the players roll for wisdom and the one who rolls highest starts in the same location they began the day, looking around the images return, and they realise they remember the events of the past day. The campaign becomes about learning what has happened and hopefully stopping it.
This opens up a world of roleplaying and adventuring opportunities that a linear adventure does not have. You can design an entire breathing living town, knowing how every inhabitant spends this day. Are there other NPC's that know what the players know, but the world needs to have some set rules that the GM has thought through to deal with aspects of this cyclical motion.
The world resets every day - this is a true reset, the majority if not all the NPC's have no idea they are living out the same day over and over again, so conversations to them are always new. They will react accordingly if the players express knowledge they should not have having gained it in a previous cycle of the day. The players start with the same equipment every day. If the players start every day with the same equipment then how to handle Magic Components? my thinking is that, for this campaign, components are ignored. You can handwave it away by saying the event has suffused the land with so much magic that physical components are no longer required.
Experience - Players gain experience, they remember the actions they take every day, if you are running milestone then yes they level up as you determine it is relevant. In addition, if a player tries to do something they have previously failed at they get advantage, or the DC is reduced, trying to question the barman, last time they failed the roll so got nothing, this time they can remember how the conversation went and so can approach it differently. I think there should still always be a chance of failure but, if they achieved something before then the DC becomes really low.
Grinding is not a thing - If running an XP campaign only give full XP if an encounter is defeated the first time, or with a different outcome. The players can't tell you they will keep going back to that goblin cave and just run it every day until they get to level 20. They dont get XP every time they seduce the queen for info.
Wizard Spell Learning - either dictate that wizard is not an available class for the campaign, or become more flexible about how you make a wizard learn new spells.
Escaping - The effect prevents any kind of teleportation magic, or plane shifting spell from working. Potentially with the exception of mordenkainen's magnificent mansion or similar, this would allow players to have a safe space to go to and keep there equipment day to day. But the campaign can't be ended simply by high level characters escaping. In addition the effect reaches as far as the players can travel in a day. Note there will be a way, possibly several, to bring the groundhog day to and end and continue as normal. However simply leaving the area, plane etc is not possible until this is achieved.
Safe spots - I am considering, as part of the story line, providing some locations around the town where time continues, allowing either a drop box so players can store magic items there to pick up tomorrow, or even a larger pocket they can take a long rest in and actually wake up still suffering any effects or buffs and with the equipment they had. If they then die/reset the normal way they keep this equipment and, whoever they got it from. Possibly death becomes a risk in these spots, but, if that is the case I think as a DM I will need to foreshadow that and not just spring it on the players. You die, no really you die.
Not every thing is linked to the story - There is a great chance here to have the players save someone from certain death, only to realise that does not stop the reset. Eventually there will come a moment the players realise they can end the groundhog day, but, can they also save that NPC from dying today? There is a rich sandbox here and lots of threads should not contribute to ending the campaign but give life to the world.
Alignment - Probably the hardest thing, how will a lawful good character change and evolve, will the events lead them to become more chaotic, but also, if the NPC's come back anyway, what does it matter if you kill someone. How does that change a character?
So I wondered what where peoples thoughts and is there anything you think should be added to the rules for running a campaign like this. It feels like it would be a unique experience for player requiring them to think in a different way. Suddenly Death is no longer a thing to fear, in fact it might be a viable tactic to get out of a situation. Of course you will need to know for your own world how and why the events are happening, and how to fix it. You may also want to dangle some of those thought provoking decisions, you can end it but, those 3 un connected NPC's will die. Do you try to work out a way to save everyone, do you sacrifice the 3 to save the whole area, or do you pick the one you want to save?
Anyway interested in peoples thoughts :).
I have considered this myself. One option I am currently toying with is a high-lethality dungeon with concentric rings of rooms. The players get an amulet which gives them 9 chances to get through the dungeon. It's a bit of memory but I will also allow them to gloss over the rooms they completed before, so the dice gods don't steal their lives.
The idea of a groundhog day style adventure is a cool one, and certainly one I intend to try to run. The basis of this is:
1: There is a cataclysmic event which happens at the end of the day. This needs to be something almost inevitable - there should be multiple people who are capable of causing it, and for multiple reasons. For example, a magical maelstrom engulfs the town - this was caused by the wizard, who botched a spell. But if they stop the wizard, there is also a cult who happens to be summoning the maelstrom at the same time. There could be as many causes as there are players, meaning they have to coordinate their efforts around town to prevent it. There could be some demons, summoned at the start of the day, which all work to open a portal. They must all be stopped, in various places and at various times. It will be important for players to have inklings that their efforts are having an effect - perhaps a ring of portals opens in the sky, telling them how many demons they need to stop. Meanwhile, the Wizard has cast a spell to let the day loop for him over and over, so he can fix it, but he botched that too and it instead affected the players.
2: It needs to feature interesting reveals and reversals. Drudging through the same day each time will get boring quickly, so they need to be kept interested by quickly moving stories and interesting revelations. Perhaps they go to fight the goblins and they return to find the village being destroyed, but later find that their efforts to correct this left the goblin menace at large because they never went to fight them, and that has bad repercussions. their actions must have consequences and those consequences need to matter.
3: They should be able to walk away. If they get frustrated or decide to bail on the town, they shouldn't be forced to stay. Give the rebirth spell a range of 10 miles or something, so they can just run if they want to and leave the town to its doom.
I'm going to be working on this now, it's stuck in my head!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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For me the whole campaign will be based on the Groundhog Day events so this will be a long term thing possibly taking the players from levels 1 to 20.
Alternatively I have considered a smaller version that can be put in mid campaign. Imagine the players wandering into a town and experiencing the loop. Eventually they conclude the story and carry on there way, only to find they have been trapped for 100 years game time. A great way to present a whole new world that is familiar but so different.
Great idea! This makes me think about elements of Majora's Mask, and the idea of the game resetting after some time, but we retain the
friendsskills we made along the way.I love what you've written here. Just want to offer some pushback in some areas, not to say that your ideas are bad, but to help give thinking points in how you want to run your game.
1: Time: I'd say that instead of a single day, you may want to make the adventure "reset" time to be a bit longer. Such as 3-7 days. You could map out how far someone would be able to travel within that timeframe to get a tangible idea of your land area that you need to fill, or even possibly add a final boss area outside of that travel time that the players need to unlock a teleporting device to get there. Time also gives them some time to explore certain dungeons and have 1-2 long rests in that time period.
2: Wizard Spells: Phil learns how to play piano in the movie after what could be years of learning how to play every day. With that time, Phil could also learn complex maths, sciences, etc. I think the same could go for Wizards. Maybe their spellbooks can still be written in, so the several-day spell writing can still happen in the world.
3: Escaping: While difficult to run, I'd say you could put only one limit on escaping: A specific instance that needs to be achieved or fixed. Phil, in the movie, is only able to escape the time loop after achieving happiness. That's a little lofty for a TTRPG, but maybe there's an instance that was started by a powerful wizard aspiring to be a lich, the Players, and possibly some other secret characters, who are aware that there's a time loop happening. The Lich may become aware that the only way to get out of the loop is to be killed, or maybe an artifact that is allowing them to research infinitely is to be destroyed.
I worry as to whether the area within a day's travel of one town would hold enough adventure for that many levels, but that's all down to how large a place it ends up being and how well you run it. On the plus side, you can guarantee a supply of health potions etc. is available at the start of each day. It also gives players the chance to change equipment and such - perhaps offer them an arsenal of magical weapons which they can pick & choose between each day. Perhaps start the day with them being supplied by the mayor of the town and then offered 1 item from the magical arsenal.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Hi thanks and my reason for posting was to get other peoples views on this, updated the escaping bit, I realised I hadn't distantly said the campaign end would be ending the loop lol.
Idk your opinion on DnD podcast things, but The Adventure Zone: Balance did a similar arc ("The 11th Hour") where there was a town that was stuck in a time loop.
Its a really good listen! Though keep in mind, the boys BARELY know how to play DnD and CONSTANTLY get rules wrong, but the story, tone, and flow of the adventure may be a good listen if you're planning something like this! (Or maybe at least read a synopsis cause DnD podcasts/shows can get quite lengthy)
Whether this is a success or not will come down to note keeping - both yours and the players'. Your NPCs and monsters must act in the precise same way until fed different input from the PCs, and the PCs must be able to act in the exact same way once they receive an output they want/need. This could be awesome or choresome, depending on the group. It's an interesting idea, but my group would be throwing dice at me by the end of session 2, and I'd be sick to death of keeping detailed transcripts by the end of session 3.
Regarding the limit of the one day time loop, you could make sure there are mechanisms within close reach that allow them to extend their travel ability - once they have leveled up enough and/or hacked the precise behavior to unlock them. Of course, they'll have to repeat these motions every time to unlock them and travel.
I'd also have them woken every morning by a bard singing outside their window -
Then putteth thy dram handeth in mineth
Th're is nay hill 'r mountain we can not climb
Dear
I got thee dear, i got thee dear
I got thee to holdeth mine hand
I got thee to und'rstand
I got thee to walketh with me
I got thee to talketh with me
Bonus XP for first person to wake up and immediately kill the bard.
Regarding the repeatability I think that if a player attempts a social interaction they failed previously I will give them advantage. If they succeeded then they auto succeed assuming the take the same approach each time. If they try the same with a physical activity I may give advantage or reduce the DC if appropriate but they will still need to roll.
Regarding the time change there will be at least 1 location I have written where they will sleep and awake as if it is the next day keeping all equipment. They will need to find this and experience it, in fact a large part of the start of the adventure will be exploring the town, finding new and varied encounters each of which will either teach them something new about the rules or start opening up ideas as to what might be causing what’s happening. In terms of note taking I am mapping out the whole city in world anvil which means I can place detailed notes about every npc throughout.
Reason like this I want DMs to get XP or Inspiration. That Bard idea singing an Olde English version of Sonny & Cher is too good to not pass up. That's some Critical Role RP storytelling right there! Well done.
No Obstacles, No Excuses!!!
I just thought of something.
Someone made a post a week or so back about a wizard with time powers. That would make a perfect BBEG for this campaign, and would allow the over-presence of time magic without just having crazy combat. When someone thinks to cast Detect Magic, or some other legitimate way to sense what's happening, let it lead them to the time wizard. TW kicks the party's ass, conspicuously manipulating time to do so (as you would expect). It becomes clear that TW is the one creating the time loop (for whatever dastardly purpose you may choose), and that defeating them will break the loop. Now the players use TW's own time loop against them, by using it to optimize the single day's events to achieve something they never could otherwise (i.e. gathering components by being in precisely the right place at the right time, finding a macguffin, learning exactly the right thing to offer a helpful ally, etc...)
In fact, maybe TW isn't doing it for dastardly reasons at all. Maybe they are protecting the town they love from something terrible that is happening outside - something that, when the party 'wins', crashes down upon the town. And cue the next adventure...
Wait, that was on Reddit -
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/l21mbx/6_seconds_ahead_dm_making_us_declare_our_actions/
someone wrote a lovely little adventure like this, published on dmsguild: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/249757/Pudding-Faire
If the party are trying to infiltrate a complex, then each day they learn how to get through more of the initial parts of the complex since they know what they are facing and can plan accordingly.
Traps can be disabled very quickly. Known enemies can be catered for. Problems with terrain can be bypassed by changing their route on subsequent visits.
When they get far enough into the complex, either they could find a back door/secret tunnel/whatever so that they don't have to re-enact the initial parts too often.
When they get even further, maybe they find out that the complex isn't the real target and they need to go elsewhere.
Repeat for the new location, with suitable variations.
At higher levels they might discover that they need to visit other planes (plane shift, etc.)
What about the individuals in the enemy who are also repeating the time loop, or at least are aware of it?
The time loop could reset when the party take a LONG REST - so they always have to achieve whatever they can with their abilities that are available in a single day.
If they don't keep magic items, then they will have to decide each day which magic items to go and retrieve before continuing with their other plans.
This is an interesting idea, but I'd make sure your players are on board with it. I'm not sure I'd want to play in a campaign like this. A huge part of why many people like D&D is that world reacts to them not matter what sort of unexpected thing they do.
Someone mentioned Majora's mask, and I think a video game can do this very well because your options are always limited in a video game. But I think you run the risk of making an expereince that is not quite as good as playing a video game. This kind of idea plays into one of the weaknesses of video games and turns it into a strength.
I'm not saying there are no players that would enjoy this idea, I'm just saying if a DM sprung this on me, I probably wouldn't want to stay in the game because most of what makes D&D fun to me as a player would be lost. If I'm going to do the same thing over and over and just get better at it, I'd rather play Dark Souls than D&D.
Done well (which is absolutely not a given), this kind of playing with cause and effect could be exactly what makes the game fun. You lose "how will things be different tomorrow based on what I've done today?" but gain "how will things be different today now I'm going into it with advance information that normally I couldn't possibly know?" Also, like Phil in GHD, there's no saying you must spend every day on self improvement and pushing the plot forward. The world still reacts, and unlike a regular campaign you can run as many 'what if' scenarios as you want, and watch how the day unfolds. It would allow a really deep understanding of that tiny corner of Faerûn and its denizens - an understanding that can be pulled into future adventures in that area with detailed dossiers on all the NPCs. And may God have mercy on the soul of the poor DM running the campaign for on-the-ball players with all that data.
There's also a lot you can fit into a few hours hike radius - over flat ground you can easily hike 10 miles before lunch or 20 miles before dark, not to mention transportation options the DM could unlock. Just hiking, you have as much as 1200 square miles at your disposal, depending how much time you need when you get there. An entire adventure easily fits into that space, and if you really wanted to, you could probably never have the same interaction twice.
I think getting advance buy-in would somewhat spoil the slow dawning realization of what's going on. I wouldn't go further than saying in session 0 "Look, I want to try something new. It could be amazing, it could crash and burn. But I need you to trust me and give me five sessions, no matter what. If it's not working out by then, we'll ditch it." Run it with a group you know, to whom you've given a lot of fun in the past.
None of this is intended to deny your opinion and experience of course, just a counter point.
I think to clarify this will not be a Dungeon crawl type deal where action A must always be done then action B, the players will be in a town or city and will have a number of small encounters to roleplay or fight through, each of which are independant from the other at least initially. So session 1 they may go and try to save the Dwarf from the Goblins. Session 2 they wake up, ok lets spend a day trying to get information about the town, this might lead to a run in with some cut purses trying to rob them, Session 3, in session 2 they found out the castle holds the oldest library in town, maybe there is some information there, ok lets go have a look in the castle and investigate that. This might lead to a run in with the guards, or a social interaction with the prince or king, finally by session 5 they get the chance to realise the mad crone is behaving strangely, the go to talk to her and she hints that she might have information, she seems to be out of the loop, but first, she needs the players to collect some items. This leads to 4-5 encounters as the players collect what she needs and wants, slowly learning more about her and the effects of the time loop. Maybe walking through the town they find someone freshly killed with a letter on her, the adventurers then have to get to this person before they die to try and see if they have some sort of information, or if this will cancel the loop.
So this will not be a dark souls situation where you will just play out the same dungeon over and over again, there will be areas of the town specifically created for higher level characters, that banshee that is trapped out in a farmers hut just outside town, or maybe the catacombs under the town hold a mummy or liche, but given the nature of the adventure I can throw a CR15 monster at my level 3 characters if they go there, they can either escape or die and the next day either decide to go do something else, or try again. Over time many of these encounters will provide clues, or information that the players can start piecing together to work out what happened, who is behind it and how they cancel the effects.
Each time the players can do something entirely different, or if they want to go and repeat something they have done before to see if they can improve they can do that.
When the players I regularly play with find out it was a time loop in a town, their most likely strategy would be to simply enter each house and thoroughly search it for any evidence of what is going on. Repeat this over many days until they'd search every single building in the town and its environs.
Once they found a dodgy NPC (or maybe just any awkward NPC), they would kill them and search the body - looking for appropriate evidence.
I put my experience in a similar thread here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/94682-edge-of-tomorrow-dungeon
It's fun, but it's a bit gimmicky for an entire campaign IMO. Much better as a shorter adventure.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
So we are now 10 sessions in and the players are loving it.
The way it works, Party wake every morning at 6am, in the same place they where at the start of the campaign.
At 1am strange ghoul figures attack, far to powerful for the characters to fight and win against yet at 2 AM there is a magical explosion that engulfs the town and surrounding area and then the day resets. If the players have died, gained any condition or illness, or any injury it is reset as well, any equipment they used, bought, stole, is reset. The only thing that is not reset is experience (although I am doing this as milestone to prevent grinding the same low level areas lol).
The party started out taking the plot hook I dangled them of a missing merchant, went and found he had been ambushed and then went to the goblin cave he was taken to (yes LMOP). First attempt NPC died, when the reset happened, after getting over the shock of a TPK in session 2 and then the reawakening, the party went and redid the same quest, saved the dwarf, got him back, found some information out, then, dat reset again. So they realised it wasn't just because of that.
Sessions 3-8 where spent investigating the town, there was an effort to get into the castle to look through the library (ended up with the players in prison the first time, then the next time they managed to get further in). There they found very vague references. They have also identified there may be 2 other characters who know about the reset and like them are not affected, and discovered a man who kills himself at the same time every day, twice they have tried to stop him, the first time they where too late to get to him, the second time they prevented him killing himself but then he died after being attacked by the person he owed money to.
There are 2 areas in the town where the reset does not take effect, anything or anyone left there will continue as normal and not wake up in the same place, so once they find that they can start hoarding equipment, staying there one night effectively resets them, so they then keep there stuff every time they reset until the next time they go there, so if they don't make it there one night thats ok they wont have to go around re collecting stuff, the down side with these locations however is that death is permanent here, so they will need to fortify and protect them.
In terms of rolls, all social interactions that take place in the same way as a previous day get advantage on the roll if it previously failed, or auto pass if they do it again, so if they are trying to intimidate someone for information they can go back and try the same person the next "day" that person has no recollection but they do so they can use different tactics, if they ask new questions of someone they have already intimidated then I will work out if that needs a new roll or not.
In terms of physical things, if a trap has been found and disarmed then they always know its there and the player rolls to disarm it, but the DC reduces by 5 each time. until only a 1 means the player did something wrong.
Combat is combat, there is no advantage on that because the enemy will always react and do something slightly different.
I did not allow the wizard class to be picked, just a little bit to hard to manage spells etc, attempts to leave the plane will be unsuccessful when the players get that kind of magic. Although anything placed in a bag of holding will not be lost (there is one available when they find one of the "save" points).
So yes going really well, players are really intrigued and it is really making them think differently about how they play the game and manage resources. One of the players has even mentioned to me that as his characters drive is the pursuit of Knowledge and learning it is possible he will actually want to prevent the party from ending this effect at some point. He has also stated that his characters lawful good alignment will be slowly descending as he understand that he can do anything and as long as the party don't find out there is no long lasting consequences. I am really interested to see where that character goes and how they develop and maybe into them becoming a second BBEG :).