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DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 03:12 PM
Hey guys,

I'm pretty new to D&D having only played Keep on the Shadowfell with my brothers, but when that campaign ended I was totally pumped to be the DM of a new campaign of my design. I'm pretty familiar with most of the rules, and I have alot of ideas for encounters and some story lines, but I need some input from seasoned players and DMs. I looked at different websites to post on, but I love OOTS n never realized it had this much activity, so I'm going to hunker down here.

Anyways so I've already played 1 encounter with the group and will hopefully playing another one in a week. I have a general direction for the start, but I want to make it even better. The players start at lvl 2, but I'm hoping, since they are siblings and close friends, that we can make it to at least lvl 15 - 20 if not further.

My campaign takes place in the jungle, called the Jungle of Fears (I'm totally new to this) because of the dangerous animals and monsters that inhabit it. The players have arrived in the trade city of Crucible which lies on the river Mistfall and will be using it as their base for the foreseeable future.

Their first task was to retrieve several lumberjacks and the magical wood they were harvesting from the edge of the forest, but when they arrived the lumberjacks were dead. After looking around, they were attacked by a group of drakes set to tear them apart. They defeated them and took their skins and claws back to the city to sell them to the merchants in town.

I have the next 5 encounter set up, well I think I have them set up right, and it should be a lot of fun and I expect it to be a learning experience. The logging company owner, Kliff, a shifter ex-adventurer, will pay them to root out the drake nest and they travel for the first time into the jungle. They'll find another group of drakes near nightfall, and then get attacked at night by scavenger monsters smelling the blood. The next day they'll need to pass a skill check vs. the harsh jungle weather, find the drake's cave and enter, fighting a couple more encounters before killing the head drake.

So thats the beginning, but I want more ideas because I want this to be an awesome campaign. Does anyone have any ideas for overall theme or super-villain, or something like that? I have lots of little ideas, but I need something holding it all together...something bigger than level by level encounters. If you guys could help that would be awesome, THANX!!!

Yora
2011-02-19, 03:28 PM
For beginning DMs, I always recommend starting small. A huge campaign spanning several years is awesome, but hard to do and it's best to get into the whole thing first without worrying about the bigger things so much.

My suggestion would be to set one semi-major source of problems in the Jungle and make a couple of adventures that all have their own beginning and end, but are somehow related to the bigger problem, which is yet unknown.
In time, the PCs will realize that the recent events have not been unrelated to each other, but have all been caused by the same source.
In your case, maybe there's an evil 8th level druid in the jungle who wants to destroy the town, but plans to do so without anyone knowing he's even there. So the drakes did not attack the camp by coincidence, but where send there by him. For future adventures, the PCs might investigate the poisoning of the only river that brings fesh water to the town. And then traveling merchants disappear from the main road through the jungle. And with each adventure, it becomes more apparent that something seems to be trying to cause trouble for the town and the PCs set out to find the source, which is a starting point for several more adventures.
Later on, you can expand on this. Maybe the druid did not just attack the town because he didn't like people in the jungle, but his work is only a smaller piece of a much larger thing. Maybe a grup of evil dragons plans to resurrect a super-powerful demon-dragon whose body is burried under the jungle and one of the dragons send one of his druid minions to get rid of that town, so nobody will notice what's going on deeper in the jungle.

It's always nice to know the bigger picture right from the beginning so you can put little hints into the adventures right from the beginning. But usually it's best to keep the big picture very lose and open to changes. One common rule for DMs is "No matter what you plan, the players will do something entirely else." Learn to use that to make the campaign more interesting. Plan ahead only for the next 3 or 4 sessions and always adjust your plans for the rest of the campaign based on what the players did so far.

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 03:41 PM
Thanks Yora, I like your idea for the druid, very similar to and idea I had too, which is awesome. i have 3 players right now and each of them was controlling two PCs because we thought a party of 3 would be to small. It turns out to be to much for them to handle, so they're each gonna lose a player, one of them being a druid. I was thinking of killing the druid by jungle fever or something like it, only to bring him back as a ghost to destroy the town for expanding into the jungle.

Incorporating your idea, I could have him causing a lot of minor problems as he gains enough power to siege the town. I especially like your poisoning the water idea, that would be a great hook to get them to explore up the river, deeper into danger and encounters.

Dreadn4ught
2011-02-19, 03:45 PM
I am also a beginner DM, although I am very familiar with the rules.

One always good suggestion for the enemies: A mysterious cult of demon worshipers set to bring some abomination into the world. Good thing is that you can go on whether the cult succeeds or not. If the PCs arrive in time to foil the plot, the demon never appears. If the demon IS summoned, they would have to fight it or perhaps it would escape for them to fight later.

Another good way to come up with enemies is to read fantasy books/play fantasy games. These will usually have very intense fighting in precarious situations. Sword duels on narrow rooftops never get old :smallbiggrin:

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 03:56 PM
no kidding, i was reading another post about a duel with a flying dragon on top of a speeding train, now that is sweet. i think the biggest issue i have facing me is not knowing exactly what is to easy or to hard for the PCs.

So if I have this druid come back to haunt and attack the city around lvl 8 or 9, could he fit into a bigger scheme, like he is someone else pawn? Did a cult bring him back in order to distract the city from the bigger picture?

BiblioRook
2011-02-19, 04:22 PM
You are running a campaign promoting the deforestation of a rainforest? For shame... :smallsigh:


More seriously though, I know you aren't actually running the Forgotten Realms but I remember that setting actually has more then a bit of very well established jungle kinds of adventure (specifically, Chult). You could probably get alot of ideas reading through some of those and I wouldn't imagine it would be that difficult to adapt them to whatever you are doing.

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 04:32 PM
as i am new to this, I'm not really familiar with forgotten realms. Where should I look for that kind of stuff?

Lord Loss
2011-02-19, 04:43 PM
I'm going to be running a Jungle segment in my Underdark campaign and here are two things that spice up any jungle campaign:

The Hijawel (http://www.rpg.net/columns/theculturecolumn/theculturecolumn5.phtml) are a tribe of cool jaguar-shapeshifters with a quirky society. Also, the site that the article is from, RPG net has lots of good threads for GMs.

This Column (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/bs) has good advice for GMs in general, and the last ten articles "Building a Campaign Story Arc" and above detail a society of evil, jungle-inhabiting frogs with a very quirky society.

I'll find more stuff to help you as soon as I can.

EDIT: This is some GMing advice. Not neccisarily what you asked for, but still. A very rewarding thing that is very difficult for new GMs (I've only got the hang of it very, very recently myself, and I've been GMing for more than five years) is to come up with a bunch of sample plots, a few villains, a few hooks, a setting, and letting the PCs adventure as they wish, ad-libbing 90% of what happens. It's a skill and it takes time, patience and practice to even get remotley good at it, but if you work your way towards it, you'll be rewarded with the most amusing roleplay you can devise, both for yourself and the others. I used to spend hours writing up long adventures, most of which wouldn't work out the way I had intended at all and led to a few OOC arguments. I guess what I'm trying to say is to craft an environment, not an adventure and to just go with the flow. Sometimes the player's won't want to play what you want to play and sometimes they'll come to the strangest of conclusions. As a GM, you need to learn to run with it.

EccentricCircle
2011-02-19, 04:54 PM
it sounds as though you've got a great idea already, you are definitely off to a good start. Jungle settings can be great fun and from your outline it sounds like the sort of game I enjoy playing.
there are a few important things to remember as DM, the first is probably "No plot survives contact with the Player Characters"
don't plan too far ahead and feel free to improvise. there will be occasions when your players come up with some crazy scheme you never could have predicted. ultimately the aim of the game isn't to kill some monsters or to complete a quest but for everyone to have a great time doing it. so if your players come up with something you didn't expect its always more fun for them if you roll with it and try to work their ideas into your plot. this can require some improvisation, which can be hard, but its worth it.

I always plot out whats going to happen in general terms but work around that, even changing the plan for the story as I go along as the drama dictates. Nothing is set in stone until your players know about it.
supose you go with the druid idea, but later realise that it doesn't quite work out. suppose that instead of picking up on the leads about the druid your players instead get really interested in a wizard who they bought some gear from early in the game.
so long as you haven't actually told them that the Druid is involved you could easily switch the plot to the wizard instead, or to any other character in whom they have shown an interest.

improvising seems difficult and complicated, but at any point it comes down to a simple question.

almost all situations in games can be defined by tropes (see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage) there will be a cliche or perception that your players will have in their mind through pop cultural osmosis.

the grand vizier might be plotting to over throw the king!
the mummy is going to wake up if we go into that tomb!
and so on.

you can either play these situations straight or subvert them by doing something different. the vizier turns out to be loyal to the king, or the mummies were never undead.

when improvising ask yourself the question, what works better for the drama of the current situation, which outcome will my players prefer, that they were right, or that they have been suprised.

the TV tropes site is a great source of ideas, i'd read through some of the pages related to the jungle and those for stories set in the jungle. its quicker than actually reading/watching/playing the books/games/movies in question (although thats also highly recomended where you can).

i'm waffeling now so will stop.
thats my DMing a game 101, I hope that it helps.

BiblioRook
2011-02-19, 05:11 PM
as i am new to this, I'm not really familiar with forgotten realms. Where should I look for that kind of stuff?

Hmm, so I actually went to look into where to find more detailed information and sad to say I didn't find as much as I was hoping for. THere's a big 2nd ed writeup for Chult (called 'The Jungles of Chult'), but I don't know how willing you are to look into something like that (2nd ed is usually great for fluff stuff (story ideas), it just gets weird if you have to convert any of the crunch). If nothing else I would also imagine that the actual Forgotten Reams Campaign Setting would have a fair amount to say on it as well as the other jungle-isk area that I know about in that setting with is Maztica (Which has a heavy Meso-American slant).

There's also the book Serpent Kingdoms which may or may not talk about Chult (or maybe just another jungle setting all together), but as you could probably tell from the name the book is entirely focused on the likes of Yuan-Ti, Nagas, and other snake themed creatures.

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 05:12 PM
I've noticed this in my reading of online forums, that PC's will destroy your gem of a plot. But I am in this for the fun, and I'm very excited to create a game that everyone can enjoy and will be exciting, so I don't mind them warping it to their ways.

I have planned out a couple of encounters if you guys want to provide some input. As the PC's kill the head drake, one of the characters will succumb to a jungle disease. The head of the logging company, a native ex-adventurer will show up to save the day because he couldn't resist the idea of adventure. When they all return to town they will find that the logger's son has been killed by something, although no one is sure what. During the night the one of the players, the soon to be ghost-druid, will be killed by the same monsters, phase spiders, who have infiltrated the city. They will kill him, take his magical items and flee the city. They PC's can then follow them to their lair somewhere in the jungle or surrounding terrain.

I think a cult will control them and may be using them to collect artifacts, but maybe not, not quite sure yet. Do you guys have some ideas that may link up to later events with druid or worse?

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 05:16 PM
Well Biblio, I am mainly looking for story-line and fluff, I feel that I can put the baddies together myself and would actually prefer to. So those sources are great, I'll look into them. Ive been stealing from the 83 free adventures posted online, but not many of them are jungle based, so I'm looking for the wilderness flavor other sources may provide. My setting does have natives as well as lost temples, a magical ziggurat, indian tribes (maybe lizardfolk?), caves filled with wild animals, and whatever else i can find. Maybe a volcano, lol.

EccentricCircle
2011-02-19, 05:41 PM
D&D is somewhat lacking in a nice book of jungles
serpent Kingdoms for 3.5 forgotton realms has some stuff but is mostly snakey
Secrets of Xen'drik for 3.5 Eberron has a fair amount of information on jungles but being a setting specific book is very much about Eberron.
Pathfinder have a thin book called Heart of the Jungle which again has some good stuff but is more a guide to a bit of the pathfider world (Golarion) than it is a jungle sourcebook.
as far as I know there isn't anything yet written for 4e
the 3.5 Dungeon masters guide has basic stuff on wilderness which is useful. i'm not sure about the 4e DMG though.

I really wish that they had made a "junglescape" book like they did with Sandstorm for deserts and Frostburn for the arctic. its a setting I use a lot but isn't as well supported.

BiblioRook
2011-02-19, 05:51 PM
I really wish that they had made a "junglescape" book like they did with Sandstorm for deserts and Frostburn for the arctic. its a setting I use a lot but isn't as well supported.

@#$%^&
I was just thinking that myself the other day. Awww, that would have been so great. I mean, why didn't they?
I would imagine that Jungle adventures would be more common then desert adventures or adventures on the open sea. :smallannoyed:
Jungles are basically the closest thing you can get to an actual dungeon above ground.

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 05:52 PM
I've looked for a little bit of stuff, but you're right, its hard to find. I've ended up looking to real world scenarios and trying to turn it into D&D or taking other adventures and applying a jungle theme, but its hard sometimes. If my main city has to have a magical shield to protect itself from the dangers of the jungle, then how is a small tribe of indians supposed to survive, how about merchants or raiders? Its difficult, but at the same time rewarding, because my players have never played in this kind of area.

I'm gonna delve into some fantasy books for ideas, cause i haven't read up on much so far. I like epic background elements that provide depictive backdrops for the campaign, even if they never come into use, it makes the world feel real. I remember reading Lord of the Rings, and thinking it all felt so real because the world felt like an actual place, there was so much history and everything was big, no minor detail. Now I can't do that with a campaign, I'm no Tolkien, but I want my players to feel immersed, like they are the PC. Thats what roleplaying is all about, which is why I'm on here. :smallsmile:

So for my next encounter I need some kind of Jungle Fever or something that will slow at least one party member down slightly. Anyone have some ideas for names or result of the ailment?

BiblioRook
2011-02-19, 05:56 PM
Oh, if you are looking for book books, there's actually a highly recommended novel set entirely in Churl called 'The Ring of Winter' (which also might be a published adventure too, I'm not sure).
It's out of print though and might be hard to find, but try an used books store and maybe you might get lucky.

Lord Loss
2011-02-19, 05:56 PM
The head of the logging company, a native ex-adventurer will show up to save the day ?

This right here. This is generally a big problem. Players generally - hate it when you pull a "Gandalf" on them (send in an NPC to save them). I'll post more later, I have to go right now.

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 06:03 PM
alright two things here:

1. i don't mind if its source books or fiction, both are actually what im looking for. Scenarios, baddies, themes already in place as well as beautiful landscapes characters, anything else fiction can provide. Whatever i gain from it, I'm really just trying to find an overall bad-guy or disaster / scenario to tie everything into. I've got some ideas for encounters, but if I could start off tying them all in together it would make everything fit wonderfully.

2. I guess I didn't really mean to save the day or have a gandalf type character. i needed the logger to be gone so that his son can be unprotected and die, therefore providing emotion and an important NPC that the PCs will really care about. The best way to do that, I think, is for him to come after the PCs, but if you have suggestions of how I can use him with them, without him rescuing them, I'd love the input!

Lord Loss
2011-02-19, 06:34 PM
Having the logger help out is fine, as long as he doesn't steal the spotlight. Also, I finished reading the post and I find it's generally a bad idea to script a player death, without at least discussing it with them first (either taking him aside and asking him if he'd mind becoming a ghost, or having a weird old mystic-lady (or an equivalent NPC) tell him he's "near death" and flee from him, terrified, should both do the trick, but the player may still get annoyed, especially if they don't get a fighting chance "You were killed during the night" is just as annoying as the "rocks fall, you all die" cliché, even if it fullfills a plot purpose.

I intend on getting the Serpent book myself, if I can find it because there's an island populated by Yuan-ti near the jungle in my campaign.

For GMing advice, consider searching the forums for old GMing advice threads, I'll see if I can dig some up later.

DMDauntless
2011-02-19, 06:39 PM
I see your point in not killing him off. I think i said before that everyone was playing two characters and we all agreed that we would get rid of one apiece. I think we are going to get another person, so they'll take over a barbarian, the ranger will become an NPC in town, and we hadn't decided the fate of the Druid yet, but it would fit so well, agghh! I'll throw it around with the player and see if he is ok with it. I want the game to be maxed out on fun, so no stepping on players toes, at least at the beginning :smallsmile: