Steamsaint
2010-11-11, 11:41 AM
As the title says, this is my first time DMing a serious game (this is 4th edition D&D) and I'm looking for help with plot ideas and, well any other advice you guys can suggest (yes I have seen the stickied thread on DM advice etc.)
The characters:
The few that are actually named I can't remember at the moment, but eh they don't matter at the moment.
Ardent ex-milita captain who is unknowingly turning those around him slowly into his psychic slaves, although it takes several months and the other PCs are assumed to have high enough will defenses compared to commoners to avoid it. He's also promised to not abuse it, and I trust him.
Fallen half-angel (using a reflavoured tiefling) cosmic sorcerer who's grown up alone, slightly crazy with serious father issues (his mother took care of him after he was rejected from heaven for not being perfect, although he was also not old enough to know or understand this). This guy is the only other player who has a deep understanding of the rules other than myself.
"Human" brawling fighter who is in actuality an ancient red dragon bound into one of his slayer's bodies, although he (both player and character) doesn't actually know this; he woke up with amnesia. He originally wanted to be a half-dragon who could shapechange into a human so as not to scare peasants etc. Basically, I'm going to homebrew a paragon path and epic destiny for him so that he gets draconic abilities and eventually the ability to switch between forms temporarily.
An entirely new player, he's played one session in our other campaign filling in for an absent player but was interested in coming back with his own character; he appears to be playing a wizard at this point in time.
Another character still up in the air at this point, his creator hasn't quite decided on what he's going to play so far as I know.
We're starting at level 5 because I feel like it's better - at level 5 you feel a lot more like someone above average, compared to level 1.
And here's my current plot ideas:
We're starting off in some sort of major town (I'm starting to envision it as Ankh-Morpork of Terry Pratchett's Discworld) in a monotheistic setting vaguely resembling Christian religion (although I'm not emphasising it and my players are ok with this kind of thing). I'm hoping to be able to play with each character separately for a session in order to get them together as a group - over MSN or something, with one or two encounters each.
So the plan is to get them all imprisoned somehow by slavers in league with the city guard, then freed by some sort of vigilante group which they will then basically join to avoid capture. Here they learn that the slavers are only after those who are abnormal - at this point the ardent, the half-angel and the dragon guy - and the others were only captured because they got involved in some way (e.g. tried to defend one of the others being captured, found themselves investigating the slavers etc.)
Very quickly they'll return to the vigilante group's base to find everyone slaughtered and these weird undead creatures with creepy white expressionless masks which will basically be reflavoured undead from various monster manuals.
This is where I'm starting to lose ideas: What I want is the slavers to be linked to the BBEG who is a Cleric attempting to summon the god (requiring a specific sacrifice, the specifics of which I have not yet determined) to the material plane, his reason being that by killing the god he can then absorb his divine spark and become god himself. My intention is that the players will interrupt this ritual mid-paragon, causing the god to manifest but stopping the cleric from successfully slaying him.
From there, the god having slain the cleric for his attempted actions, the god becomes the BBEG, slowly altering the material plane into his own divine realm. The players will watch as NPCs that they know and respect slowly become mindless angelic servants and yet by this level they'll be assumed to be resisting this affect far better than the average commoner.
The end will come when somehow the players defeat the god, themselves ascending and becoming gods themselves. That way, I can use this campaign setting later on and they can recognise themselves and feel awesome.
And that's basically it.
So what I'm looking for are suggestions on how I can improve this; I feel like I'm railroading the players a bit especially in the early levels, and while I like the way that the (as-yet-unnamed) god starts altering the material plane, I'm not sure what I can get the players to do while this is happening which gets them from level 15 or so to level 30 without them feeling like they're running away.
So, any help?
The characters:
The few that are actually named I can't remember at the moment, but eh they don't matter at the moment.
Ardent ex-milita captain who is unknowingly turning those around him slowly into his psychic slaves, although it takes several months and the other PCs are assumed to have high enough will defenses compared to commoners to avoid it. He's also promised to not abuse it, and I trust him.
Fallen half-angel (using a reflavoured tiefling) cosmic sorcerer who's grown up alone, slightly crazy with serious father issues (his mother took care of him after he was rejected from heaven for not being perfect, although he was also not old enough to know or understand this). This guy is the only other player who has a deep understanding of the rules other than myself.
"Human" brawling fighter who is in actuality an ancient red dragon bound into one of his slayer's bodies, although he (both player and character) doesn't actually know this; he woke up with amnesia. He originally wanted to be a half-dragon who could shapechange into a human so as not to scare peasants etc. Basically, I'm going to homebrew a paragon path and epic destiny for him so that he gets draconic abilities and eventually the ability to switch between forms temporarily.
An entirely new player, he's played one session in our other campaign filling in for an absent player but was interested in coming back with his own character; he appears to be playing a wizard at this point in time.
Another character still up in the air at this point, his creator hasn't quite decided on what he's going to play so far as I know.
We're starting at level 5 because I feel like it's better - at level 5 you feel a lot more like someone above average, compared to level 1.
And here's my current plot ideas:
We're starting off in some sort of major town (I'm starting to envision it as Ankh-Morpork of Terry Pratchett's Discworld) in a monotheistic setting vaguely resembling Christian religion (although I'm not emphasising it and my players are ok with this kind of thing). I'm hoping to be able to play with each character separately for a session in order to get them together as a group - over MSN or something, with one or two encounters each.
So the plan is to get them all imprisoned somehow by slavers in league with the city guard, then freed by some sort of vigilante group which they will then basically join to avoid capture. Here they learn that the slavers are only after those who are abnormal - at this point the ardent, the half-angel and the dragon guy - and the others were only captured because they got involved in some way (e.g. tried to defend one of the others being captured, found themselves investigating the slavers etc.)
Very quickly they'll return to the vigilante group's base to find everyone slaughtered and these weird undead creatures with creepy white expressionless masks which will basically be reflavoured undead from various monster manuals.
This is where I'm starting to lose ideas: What I want is the slavers to be linked to the BBEG who is a Cleric attempting to summon the god (requiring a specific sacrifice, the specifics of which I have not yet determined) to the material plane, his reason being that by killing the god he can then absorb his divine spark and become god himself. My intention is that the players will interrupt this ritual mid-paragon, causing the god to manifest but stopping the cleric from successfully slaying him.
From there, the god having slain the cleric for his attempted actions, the god becomes the BBEG, slowly altering the material plane into his own divine realm. The players will watch as NPCs that they know and respect slowly become mindless angelic servants and yet by this level they'll be assumed to be resisting this affect far better than the average commoner.
The end will come when somehow the players defeat the god, themselves ascending and becoming gods themselves. That way, I can use this campaign setting later on and they can recognise themselves and feel awesome.
And that's basically it.
So what I'm looking for are suggestions on how I can improve this; I feel like I'm railroading the players a bit especially in the early levels, and while I like the way that the (as-yet-unnamed) god starts altering the material plane, I'm not sure what I can get the players to do while this is happening which gets them from level 15 or so to level 30 without them feeling like they're running away.
So, any help?