In need of Help: Advices for a DM

[Dulenheim]

Hello and good day/night to you all. This is going to be my first time posting here, at the Giant’s Forum, and hopefully it won’t be the last time. So, here is the thing:

I entered the realm of D&D as a DM, right off the bat, and I have been running my first campaign, and somehow managed to build up a group of good players.
This campaign is set to be divided into several chapters, making it long. Also I must note that I’m using my own custom setting, which includes its own pantheon, and some changes to the race’s back story and lore.

At the present time, I have reached a point in which I need some advices and/or ideas for what could happen next.

To give some context: as of now, the characters will begin the second chapter of the campaign, in which they will travel north of where they are located (A city they own, named Helmdar) towards the Goblin Ice lands, in order to stir a political battle between the northern Goblin clans in order to avoid an alliance of the goblins, which could begin to attack the settlements of the kingdom up north.

The party is to travel to the city of Trino, in which they can decide to travel in two ways: By foot (or horse, if they buy them), or by ship. If they go by ship, they are to have more trouble, as I plan to make the ship sink. The characters are all planned to survive. I wouldn’t want to kill any of them…yet.

However, I have plans for the PC’s to wake up in the beach of an island, far away from the mainland. Here is where I reached a writer’s block. What should I have them do in this island? I have a few ideas of my own, but hearing the opinions of the forum could do better for my block than just hearing my own ideas over and over.

So, any recommendations, questions, ideas or criticism? All is welcomed :smallsmile:

[Hawkings]

Have them reenact Gilligan's island.

Might help to know number of players, classes, alignment and levels. suggesting to send black guards of hextor to smite the goodie-toe-shoes when the group is made up of evil necromancers, assassins and other blackguards of hextor wouldn't really make much sense, unless hextor just decided to murder his own people for laughs.

I'd say if you're going to have a huge story with goblins, spice it up by having something non goblin related for a breather of content. Horror is a fun change of pace, my DM had a fun adventure on a island where dwarfs in their endless hubris opened a portal to the abyss to enslave demons only to have said demons destroy them. Hundreds of years later the demons are gone but the mithril and silver mirror portal the dwarves used to summon and enslave demons was still there, the dwarves souls still lingered and so crazy haunting happened everywhere, fog and strange happenings, visions of dead people my character killed started haunting him, so basically creepy time silent hill style.

Or you can do Jurassic park.

Or King Kong.

Or Godzilla...wait that's Jurassic park again.

If your BBEG is sufficiently powerful maybe he crashed the ship on purpose (that evil jerk) in order to trap them on a killer island with X or full of Y.

Edit: Oh quick thought, if you've got a bunch of melee characters and their pointy swords, the island is full of rust monsters, watch your players squirm, oh and TPW. By the gods that BBEG is evil!

Still you're betting on them taking the ship, if they choose to go by land your scheme's aren't going to work, I had a similar problem where my players were going to go by horse to the northern country instead of by ship, suddenly a war broke out and the roads weren't safe, I wasn't FORCING them to go, it was the logical choice.

Even when you DM railroad, let them think they still have free will. :3

Edit: Oh and welcome to the forum, glad to have you around.

[Dulenheim]

The party is as follows:
-Dhomil, the elven Wizard who everyone mocks (but somehow is the team leader). (LG)
-Lundal, the half elf wizard, The chuck norris wannabe. (NG)
-Hir Komesa Fiststorm, the unarmed swordsage human, and a big bastard (LE, dont ask).
-Alessa, a human sorcerer, and the self appointed "Queen" of the desert Goblins. (True Neutral)
-The upcoming character (a goblin) who comes from the north. Character is not defined yet.

Also, the party is accompanied by at least 3 NPCs, the players are yet to choose which ones.

why do the players get to choose among NPCs to go with them? because they have a pool of NPCs I created that work for them, but only so many can go at the time with them to each quest.

Average party level: 5

I like the idea of a horror setting... :smallsmile: and the skirmish XD

Glad to be here :3

[Hawkings]

I like the idea of having NPCs follow the PCs around, in my game almost every player had an NPC companion they wanted to follow them around, the samurai’s girlfriend, the swashbuckler had a talking cat, the sorcerer had two apprentice kids, hell there was even a Zodar who said and did nothing but follow them around. Keep in mind none of them actually fought for the PCs so there was no advantage other than RPing.

Okay here's what I suggest, but take it with salt as I've only DMed one game and I tend to trap, trick, and be a total jerk to PCs in humorously devious ways, but let them come out with a benefit for it.

I had an idea of having my PCs come to a town that was over looked by a creepy castle in the distance, when the PCs come in they are welcomed with open arms, the villagers are having a type of festival with tons of food and drinks, but little decoration. All of the town’s folk invite PCs to participate in their feast as special guests, as they get few outsiders. At this point a shrewd PC might notice there are no women, when asked why the townsfolk explain their horribly tragic tale that a vampire has recently taken up in castle over throwing their benevolent lord, they're helpless to stop the supernatural monster and his horde of undead minions, which now consist even of several towns folk. The reason why they had to send all of their women to the mountains or another town is because the vampire only enjoys feeding upon women so none of them were safe; also the party is because they’re also leaving town and the excess food is going to go to waste anyway. They plead for the adventurers to help them but insist that they enjoy the feast eating and drinking as much as possible, as night is falling soon and it's too dangerous to fight a vampire at night. This is of course a trap (because I'm a sneaky jerk) the towns folk are poisoning the food with some form of powerful but slow affecting gender changing potion turning them into women for sacrifice, they do this so they don't have to sacrifice one of their own towns folk and the PCs are a convenient alternative. An already female PC is not drugged and one that doesn’t participate in eating or drinking is spared the poison, though the NPCs will nag him to eat or drink something as it’d be rude otherwise. They also have to make fort saves to not pass out as it also consists of sleeping poison, when asked the townsfolk will simply say it's drowsiness from the day’s activities and eating so much. the duration of the gender changing poison might last a few hours or a few days, not sure, increase it for a PC who makes note of over indulging like a glutton, it would be funny to have to deal with the next story as a girl for a few days (yeah I'm a jerk). Anyway that night the vampire comes, kidnaps the character with the highest charisma obviously, or the most exotic race, or roll a die if you want to be random.

Here’s where the story gets interesting, the PCs are now struck with the dilemma of punishing the townsfolk who aren't bad just trying to survive an impossible situation for them. Saving their friend, fighting a vampire and his minions, and figuring out just what's going on.

several ways to handle this, let the PC who gets captured have a brief meeting with the vampire who remarks on "her" beauty and such, during the meeting she’s still paralyzed but conscious now so she cannot act and is helpless in terror (allow dialog of course, and he won't believe someone so "beautiful" was a man), but after this short visit he leaves and after a while she can move again , but leaves her imprisoned in a finely decorated room unattended, let the PC somehow aid her friends or preferably escape, perhaps the minions were told not to harm the captured damsel unless attacked and what not so she can roam the castle until dinner time.

The PCs have to attack, sneak in or otherwise get into the castle where upon they can rescue their PC.

Okay now how to handle the BBEG Vampire.
The MM has several sample vampires with different CR, 5 is the lowest I think but use whatever works for your group or make your own. Vampire spawns CR 4, other undead or theme appropriate minions vary.

If this works great, if not and you need a way out, say it's a sorcerer using disguise self/alter self to impersonate a vampire, he then uses charm person, suggestion and other means to convince the towns folk he's a vampire in order to play on their superstitious foolishness to gain wealth, power and build an awesome harem.

Much laughs are had (mostly at the poison victims) and victory is achieved.
perhaps the main BBEG caused the ship wreck hoping the vampire or what not would take care of or at least slow down the PCs until his evil scheme comes about, not sure how or when you'd reveal this since it's your game and I don't know the details.

The town’s folk are extremely grateful and apologetic to the PCs after saving them, unless the PCs murder the whole town, in which case they were poor anyways.

Now off to another town to get a new ship, the adventure continues.

Hope this was helpful, not sure if it’d fit with your parties maturity level or general interest, feel free to put in lots of creepy horror affects like fog, wolf howls and shadows creeping around roof tops and corners, and the sound of things moving on roofs when the PCs are inside, nothing ever reveals anything more than quickly escaping shadows of course.

Oh also if you think it’s overkill to poison the entire group, just have the one victim get changed and the rest are only sleep poisoned, maybe the towns folk overlook the already female character for some reason like the vampire prefers elves, or humans, just have fun with it, but don’t completely tie their hands or they’ll hate this story.

Edit: Oh and expect lots of boobie jokes, among other immature banter.

[Malachei]

If writer's block persists:

o Acquire a copy of the Isle of Dread, the classic old-school D&D island adventure every old player remembers fondly, or not-so-fondly. Old D&D monsters are easily adapted / replaced by 3.5 D&D monsters. It is a bit hack-and-slash though, and you'd need to somehow enrich the storyline. But for overcoming writer's block, it may give you the ideas you need.

o Acquire the Serpent's Skull Pathfinder Adventure Path. Converting adventures from PF to 3.5 is so quick.

o Read Robinson Crusoe.

It is your campaign, and you might want to come up with your own adventures. But reading theme-related material can sometimes help you develop your own ideas.

[Hawkings]

Totally agree with Malachei.

Definitely true, D&D has a lot of canned adventures you can use as guidelines whenever you're having a hard time, going to the forum for ideas each time would mean we're writing your story for you, which isn't practical.

Aside from that do something different or watch/read something you might not normally to try and spark interest in a new idea and explore that through the game, and if it’s a long standing goblin story it’d have been easy to put yourself in a corner, break up the story monotony by having side quests once in a while.