Can someone tell me if I have a bad DM .... or if it’s the campaign itself we have been playing through so far and everything has been good ... we headed to candlekeep with the shield and met Sylvira and she told us how to get to Avernus but none of us (the players) understand ANY motivation to actually go there? a group of players went to candlekeep before us with the shield (it was a few players who were absent for a couple sessions)... most of us just feel railroaded to go there ... but have no idea what for?? HELP!
Adventures/modules are generally written with the assumption that the players are "adventuring heroes". They meet up at a tavern, team up, and almost immediately go on to do heroic things. DMs can add in backstory to make it more grounded, include character stories, why they are together, etc, but just about all of them are pretty "railroady" in the beginning. Players can pick such a variety of races and classes that it's not possible to include that kind of thing in a module. (Kind of like the running joke of why a paladin would ever be in a party with a rogue/necromancer/etc)
Without giving too much away, your group should know that in order to save the city, and in turn, the Forgotten Realms as a whole, you need to follow the Grand Duke into the Nine Hells. Daunting, but a "no-brainer" for the "heroic" type that the module assumes the players are.
If your group doesn't want to go, it will end the module. I had the same thing when I tried to run the Tiamat modules. The group wasn't evil or anything, it just hit a point where they all said "Someone else should deal with this besides us". They just wanted to dungeon crawl and make money like in a video game. Basically....Why fight a demon goddess when we can just farm xp every session. Sure, as a DM you can add in whatever you want, but if you have a DM that is using a module because they don't have a lot of free time to prep other stuff, once things get off track the sessions usually end or a new DM has to take over.
But you should have at least the basic "save the world" motivation for going into the Nine Hells by this point. If not, your DM might have missed a section or not fully landed it.
Yeah .... I have no idea about any ‘grand duke’ so I’m thinking he’s just not presenting the story clearly ... we WANT RP and story and less murder hoboing ... so I’m going to chalk it up to him not running it properly
Just ask, either in game or out of game. I've never had any problems answering "Why are we doing this again?" questions. Especially if it's a one a month session, or even weekly. If you've been playing for months things get forgotten, from both the DM and players. Could be that he fully thought it was covered. It's easy to miss things as a DM sometimes, especially if you have a session where you are trying to cover a lot, plus combat, etc.
I've just started DM'ing Descent into Avernus. It is the first prewritten campaign I've run for a long time. I can say that it isn't necessarily your DM's fault. I found the campaign quite weak on how to get the players engaged (unless as noted by someone else - you just goes with the "the players are good doers and just "follows" the trail").
There's a lot I like about the campaign, but I have more or less ended up just using it as a source book rather than an adventure, and I've spent a lot of time giving the players motivation to act. It might be me (and my players) who's not used to a prewritten campaign, put you pinpoint a problem I've had to work around. It probably doesn't help that you didn't play the first part of the adventure.
Talk to your DM and try to work out some solution to motivate the characters?
The beginning chapter has a bit of railroading and bad writing, but this does sound like a combination of the DM presenting it incorrectly, or in his own unique way, and the bad writing.
It is a good adventure, I like it, but it is hard to think why you're doing what you're doing.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I concur: as presented, in-character motivation to go to Avernus might be sparse. It's not your DM's fault, but she can help you come up with better in-character motivation if desired. Like:
Explaining that a whole city of Light and Goodness needs saving.
NPC's pleading with your party to be big damn heroes.
Reya the Paladin feels compelled to go.
The Shield of the Hidden Lord hero-shaming your party into going.
Offering you pretty much *any* reward when you return from your quest (i.e. at the end of the campaign).
If your DM is playing the module pretty straight then it really is not his fault. As fun as running around in Baldur's Gate is the party's incentives for going to Avernus are really weak. Yes, the Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate was in Elturel when it disappeared; why do you care about that? Every thing is cut throat in BD so that is not necessarily a good motivation to go.
The best way to incentivize the party to go is to make sure they have some sort of connection to Elturel. The DM could pre-generate the characters so that at least some of them are from Elturel originally, or someone the party knows was visiting Elturel when the city vanished. Maybe they got a postcard from a family member or NPC they are attached to writing about their visit to Elturel and how they have to come see it for themselves. That's the last they have heard from them. Baldur's Gate is where all of the refugees are fleeing from whatever happened so that's the place to start asking questions.
That actually could be really fun, make a physical post card to give your players and then have them start in the crater where Elturel used to be. Some one holding out just beyond the city limits could tell them that the refugees are headed for Baldur's Gate and then after you pester the guards with your questions they task you to find some answers to a few of their own problems. Campaign goes as planned from there.
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Can someone tell me if I have a bad DM .... or if it’s the campaign itself we have been playing through so far and everything has been good ... we headed to candlekeep with the shield and met Sylvira and she told us how to get to Avernus but none of us (the players) understand ANY motivation to actually go there? a group of players went to candlekeep before us with the shield (it was a few players who were absent for a couple sessions)... most of us just feel railroaded to go there ... but have no idea what for?? HELP!
Adventures/modules are generally written with the assumption that the players are "adventuring heroes". They meet up at a tavern, team up, and almost immediately go on to do heroic things. DMs can add in backstory to make it more grounded, include character stories, why they are together, etc, but just about all of them are pretty "railroady" in the beginning. Players can pick such a variety of races and classes that it's not possible to include that kind of thing in a module. (Kind of like the running joke of why a paladin would ever be in a party with a rogue/necromancer/etc)
My main problem is ... is the campaign wrote in a confusing way or is my DM just not presenting it in a clear way?
Without giving too much away, your group should know that in order to save the city, and in turn, the Forgotten Realms as a whole, you need to follow the Grand Duke into the Nine Hells. Daunting, but a "no-brainer" for the "heroic" type that the module assumes the players are.
If your group doesn't want to go, it will end the module. I had the same thing when I tried to run the Tiamat modules. The group wasn't evil or anything, it just hit a point where they all said "Someone else should deal with this besides us". They just wanted to dungeon crawl and make money like in a video game. Basically....Why fight a demon goddess when we can just farm xp every session. Sure, as a DM you can add in whatever you want, but if you have a DM that is using a module because they don't have a lot of free time to prep other stuff, once things get off track the sessions usually end or a new DM has to take over.
But you should have at least the basic "save the world" motivation for going into the Nine Hells by this point. If not, your DM might have missed a section or not fully landed it.
Yeah .... I have no idea about any ‘grand duke’ so I’m thinking he’s just not presenting the story clearly ... we WANT RP and story and less murder hoboing ... so I’m going to chalk it up to him not running it properly
Just ask, either in game or out of game. I've never had any problems answering "Why are we doing this again?" questions. Especially if it's a one a month session, or even weekly. If you've been playing for months things get forgotten, from both the DM and players. Could be that he fully thought it was covered. It's easy to miss things as a DM sometimes, especially if you have a session where you are trying to cover a lot, plus combat, etc.
I've just started DM'ing Descent into Avernus. It is the first prewritten campaign I've run for a long time. I can say that it isn't necessarily your DM's fault. I found the campaign quite weak on how to get the players engaged (unless as noted by someone else - you just goes with the "the players are good doers and just "follows" the trail").
There's a lot I like about the campaign, but I have more or less ended up just using it as a source book rather than an adventure, and I've spent a lot of time giving the players motivation to act. It might be me (and my players) who's not used to a prewritten campaign, put you pinpoint a problem I've had to work around. It probably doesn't help that you didn't play the first part of the adventure.
Talk to your DM and try to work out some solution to motivate the characters?
Ludo ergo sum!
The beginning chapter has a bit of railroading and bad writing, but this does sound like a combination of the DM presenting it incorrectly, or in his own unique way, and the bad writing.
It is a good adventure, I like it, but it is hard to think why you're doing what you're doing.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I concur: as presented, in-character motivation to go to Avernus might be sparse. It's not your DM's fault, but she can help you come up with better in-character motivation if desired. Like:
If your DM is playing the module pretty straight then it really is not his fault. As fun as running around in Baldur's Gate is the party's incentives for going to Avernus are really weak. Yes, the Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate was in Elturel when it disappeared; why do you care about that? Every thing is cut throat in BD so that is not necessarily a good motivation to go.
The best way to incentivize the party to go is to make sure they have some sort of connection to Elturel. The DM could pre-generate the characters so that at least some of them are from Elturel originally, or someone the party knows was visiting Elturel when the city vanished. Maybe they got a postcard from a family member or NPC they are attached to writing about their visit to Elturel and how they have to come see it for themselves. That's the last they have heard from them. Baldur's Gate is where all of the refugees are fleeing from whatever happened so that's the place to start asking questions.
That actually could be really fun, make a physical post card to give your players and then have them start in the crater where Elturel used to be. Some one holding out just beyond the city limits could tell them that the refugees are headed for Baldur's Gate and then after you pester the guards with your questions they task you to find some answers to a few of their own problems. Campaign goes as planned from there.