danzibr
2012-05-13, 11:47 AM
For a tl;dr skip to the bottom.
In the past I've made a campaign or three but I've never much looked into pre-made campaigns. Then the other day I read about Tomb of Horrors and Red Hand of Doom. Tomb of Horrors didn't do much for me, but man, Red Hand of Doom seems amazing. I've been sitting on a campaign idea for a long time, and now I'd like to start really making said campaign, but I need some advice, basically because it seems like my old campaigns kind of sucked. They lacked depth, I think, on multiple levels. The plots were rather weak, simply going from quest to quest without any real purpose, and the towns weren't very thought out (all faults on my part).
So here's my idea. Have the characters go 1-5 leading into a Red Hand of Doom type situation, carry out the Red Hand of Doom type situation, getting them to about level 15, have them infiltrate Dispater's fortress, getting them to about level 20, then kill Dispater. Before a more detailed breakdown, here's the setting and whatnot:
Generic D&D. That is, not Faerun nor Eberron or anything, though players may use material from those books if desired. Speaking of players, I'll run this with all books available, 32-point buy, non-evil.
I'm going to need to come up with a region map, as well as a few detailed towns and cities, and a couple dungeons.
Perhaps most importantly, there's a huge fortress on the horizon, though its direction changes and no matter how far you walk it never gets any closer. It's been around for several years at the least, but it doesn't seem to be causing any problems, so people kind of forgot about it.
From the DM's point of view:
That fortress belongs to Dispater. He did something to make Asmodeus mad, but instead of kill Dispater, Asmodeus banished him to the material plane and stripped him of some of his powers. Now Dispater is attempting to do something (undecided, probably involves conquering and killing) to regain favor and get back to hell.
Levels 1-5
I'm not quite sure what to do here. Probably have the people run some errands and do minor quests in a few towns to introduce them to the world. At the end some weak devils are going to appear, letting the players know something's up.
Levels 5-15
Here we roughly do the RHoD scenario, with some major changes. They'll be fighting a lot of devils rather than dragons, and the main dude is a Half-Fiend rather than Half-Dragon (I'm thinking maybe even son of Dispater). For his build he'll be a crit-happy Disciple of Dispater. In fact, it'll be revealed that all was done for Dispater.
Levels 15-20
Knowing Dispater is ultimately the one to blame, the party needs to figure out how to get to his fortress, kill his dudes, then go after the man himself.
tl;dr
Any general pointers on how to make an engaging campaign designed to go from level 1 to level 20? In particular, with the 5-15 part being an adaption of Red Hand of Doom?
In the past I've made a campaign or three but I've never much looked into pre-made campaigns. Then the other day I read about Tomb of Horrors and Red Hand of Doom. Tomb of Horrors didn't do much for me, but man, Red Hand of Doom seems amazing. I've been sitting on a campaign idea for a long time, and now I'd like to start really making said campaign, but I need some advice, basically because it seems like my old campaigns kind of sucked. They lacked depth, I think, on multiple levels. The plots were rather weak, simply going from quest to quest without any real purpose, and the towns weren't very thought out (all faults on my part).
So here's my idea. Have the characters go 1-5 leading into a Red Hand of Doom type situation, carry out the Red Hand of Doom type situation, getting them to about level 15, have them infiltrate Dispater's fortress, getting them to about level 20, then kill Dispater. Before a more detailed breakdown, here's the setting and whatnot:
Generic D&D. That is, not Faerun nor Eberron or anything, though players may use material from those books if desired. Speaking of players, I'll run this with all books available, 32-point buy, non-evil.
I'm going to need to come up with a region map, as well as a few detailed towns and cities, and a couple dungeons.
Perhaps most importantly, there's a huge fortress on the horizon, though its direction changes and no matter how far you walk it never gets any closer. It's been around for several years at the least, but it doesn't seem to be causing any problems, so people kind of forgot about it.
From the DM's point of view:
That fortress belongs to Dispater. He did something to make Asmodeus mad, but instead of kill Dispater, Asmodeus banished him to the material plane and stripped him of some of his powers. Now Dispater is attempting to do something (undecided, probably involves conquering and killing) to regain favor and get back to hell.
Levels 1-5
I'm not quite sure what to do here. Probably have the people run some errands and do minor quests in a few towns to introduce them to the world. At the end some weak devils are going to appear, letting the players know something's up.
Levels 5-15
Here we roughly do the RHoD scenario, with some major changes. They'll be fighting a lot of devils rather than dragons, and the main dude is a Half-Fiend rather than Half-Dragon (I'm thinking maybe even son of Dispater). For his build he'll be a crit-happy Disciple of Dispater. In fact, it'll be revealed that all was done for Dispater.
Levels 15-20
Knowing Dispater is ultimately the one to blame, the party needs to figure out how to get to his fortress, kill his dudes, then go after the man himself.
tl;dr
Any general pointers on how to make an engaging campaign designed to go from level 1 to level 20? In particular, with the 5-15 part being an adaption of Red Hand of Doom?