I'm afraid the plot of my campaign is too complicated

[ThiagoMartell]

So, I've been running a Pathfinder game with heavy 3.5 elements (it used to be the other way around) in my homebrew setting. This is a follow up campaign after our last campaign ended. Everyone loved the last campaign (2 groups of 6 players, started at level 6 ended around level 15, 3 years long), so this one happens about a 100 years later and is heavily influenced by the character's actions. One of the old characters, for example, became a saint (and as such has followers and grants spells). Another became a vestige (I have yet to come up with specific rules for the vestige itself - it was a blastificer iaijutsu master).

Well, long story short, there were a lot of elements I wanted to combine in this campaign and I think I might have overdone it a little. Most are in the background, having not surfaced already. Let me list them all and how they connect to each other:

The drow used to be sealed in the underdark by the dwarves, their ancient enemies. They escaped and now they are trying to allow Lolth to manifest fully in the material plane. To do this, they need the Rod of Seven Parts (I'm basically using Lolth in place of the Queen of Chaos from the original Rod of Seven Parts adventure)
There are no spells above 6th level. They were banned by the gods and the mortal races agreed to never use them again. The knowedge is kept hidden in a few places. A 7th level scroll is as rare as an artifact. Thanks to the players' acitons in the last campaing, a janni wizard collected many of these lost spells and built his own magitech dystopia.
The one technology this janni wizard lacks is elemental binding, used by a small nation that lives in a floating island. Between campaigns, the janni attacked this island and during the battle it was damaged enough that it couldn't float - it had to become stationary, positioned on pillars.
One of the players defeated the BBEG of the last campaign (a dragon-devil called Balmung) by using a wish and his artificer abilities to syphon energy from a Deck of Many Things and create a Sphere of Annihilation. Now a group of artificers from the floating island want to try this at a large scale and their target is the only sets of artifacts with known locations - the Orbs of Dragonkind, under possession of the elves. What they don't know is that the orbs might possess them (quite similar to the Zodiac Stones in Final Fantasy Tactics).
An order of knights, founded by one of the PCs from the first campaign (the Order of the Chameleon - yes, the Chameleon prc) is trying to stop the drow from infiltrating the many kingdoms in the world. They don't know why the drow are making this, they just know the drow are plotting something.


So basically, there are three major antagonists, each wanting something different.
- The drow want the Rod of Seven Parts to release Lolth. The rods can't be detected by magic or touched by drow, so they need subterfuge to do so.
- The janni wizard wants the elemental binding for himself. His empire is built on Planar Ally abuse.
- The artificers (I need a name for them) want to collect the Orbs to restore their country to full power. Between the dragons in the Orbs wanting to free themselves and take revenge on the other races, this group will be the most unpredictable.

The party is the crew of an airship. Does this sound too complicated?

[Ingus]

It is, indeed, too complicated.

But if you think to run something in background and let it surface only afterwards, you can keep it together.
Also, I suggest you to consider speed adjustment to the plot if needed

[Yora]

Sounds pretty simple as a setting to me when you break it down to the basics.

But what will actually happen during the campaign and what are the PCs expected to do.

[limejuicepowder]

Shouldn't this really be a question for your PC's? If they're having fun, then no, I don't think it's too complicated. Personally I think it sounds pretty awesome - the complexity more closely mimics real life in that more then one thing happens at a time. Applause for the plot juggling you must be doing.

If you're looking for some kind of metric though, I would use this: are your play sessions being taken up with a lot of NPC (or OoC) dialogue, explaining all of the different things that are going on? If yes, then you might want to tone it back a bit. If not, or if the players are having fun anyways, then go for it.

[zorenathres]

A lot of detail does not always mean too complicated, I like your setting & the orbs/ stones & all of that is the backdrop for the world. Sadly, your players likely will not be able to explore every avenue provided (& they will often choose the avenue you didn't provide).

Is this a sandbox type game? if so & the players are "free to wander" about then they can discover details of your story as they travel, spreading out the details of the campaign over a longer timeline.

To me it does look like the drow plot & the artificer plot are going to overshadow each other however, with there being too many artifacts to gather (7 pieces on one side, & how many dragon orbs?). I never read the Queen of Chaos, so maybe they complete this before they even face the artificers, but it feels like you could run one or the other as the main story arc (though i like the artificers plot much better, Lolth... meh IMO).

Another thought, the artificer plot was inspired by their previous campaign & the drow one does not seem so. You have a great thing going there. If the drow plot seems too complicated for them, i would drop it for the other.

[Togo]

What is too complicated or not depends on your group.

What you're relying on is the players being able to remember the details, or keeping a record of them. How much you're relying on them for that depends on how you're running the game - running it all in a single weekend blow-out allows for more complexity than running 2hr sessions once a week for 6 years.

If you're worried about complexity, you may want to consider putting in some encounters that essentially display key plot elements that you believe the players should already be familiar with. If they know about chameleonic order, know about the drow, and know that one is stalking the other, then put in a scene where they discover some details about one stalking the other and see if they get confused. Recaps can afford to be less subtle than the original clues, and reinforce the idea that the players were thinking along the right lines, which then makes that easier to remember. Major network TV shows use this technique fairly often, so feel free to plagarise the variations that work well for you.

[eggs]

Opening and closing sessions with recaps is a good way to keep the players pretty on top of things. And eventually, having conflicts intersect.

But it doesn't sound too bad, especially if someone in your group takes notes (or could be bribed into it :smalltongue:).

[TrueDiviner]

As many before me have posted, whether or not the setting is too complicated depends on the group. I also think that it depends on just how much plot you throw at the players in one session. I doubt that your campaign grew into such epic detail overnight, so as long as you gradually develop plot points at a rate that your players appreciate, you shouldn't have a problem.

If you ever feel that there is too much going on at one time, you can always slow things down as the DM. Have the players deal with one villain at a time, or simply encourage your players to focus on one of the 3 villains/evil groups as the BBEG while the other two groups are influencing things in the background and providing the occasional interesting encounter. The fact that your players are on an airship also gives them more freedom to decide who the biggest threat is out of the Order of the Chameleon, the Drow, and the Janni.

In my experience, players often seek out side-quests - sometimes, they stumble upon them unintentionally, and sometimes they actively search for them (they want more XP and goodies, you know?). You could also have them deal with one of the enemy groups as a side-quest.

[zlefin]

that depends, how much of what you presented is the PLOT for the campaign, and how much of it is background on the state of the world?
From a world-building perspective, you'd expect alot to be happening in a world, various factions doing their various things, always a bunch of schemes all over the place.
The question is how much do the PCs have to deal with personally? and relaly HAVE to deal wtih, as in there aren't other groups from various places/nations which might do some of the work in stopping the baddies.
i'd say see how your playesr take it; and if they think it's too much; create an NPC party that's handling most of the work of countering one of the threats, so the PCs will only deal with it tangentially or occasionally; or join in for a climactic final battle (where you call in everyone).

[ThiagoMartell]

Wow, so many replies! Thanks everyone ^^

@Ingus: That's more or less what I'm doing. I have a timesheet of when character X will try to do Y and then the PCs' actions might change that. Kind like the Countdown to Destruction in Red Hand of Doom.

@Yora: I usually just have an outline of what the bad guys are trying to do and let the PCs do their thing. Currently, they got the first piece of the Rod but don't know anything about it yet.

@limejuicepowder: Well, I can't tell them much about the plot, or it gets spoiled. I've told them this plot is a lot more complicated thna the last one but they don't seem to mind. I rarely do the whole 'NPCs monologue' thing, my players get info by themselves. It might be a scroll, it might be a rumor in the streets, but I try to limit my use of Mr. Exposition to the least possible.

@zorenathres: That's what makes me more interested about roleplaying as a media, the possibility that my players won't take the road I laid out for them. The main plot is supposed to be the drow one - the players already know about the war and how the dwarves are struggling (one of the players is a dwarf, another is a half-drow). There are a few hooks everywhere... one of my players is a dragonwrought kobold, but there are no kobolds in my world, so what he really is becomes a mistery. I'm currently contemplating having him be the ancient red dragon that was in the red Orb of Dragonkind, freed and cursed by an archmage to avoid anyone from collecting all orbs.

@Togo: Yes, that's pretty much it. I need them to remember details. We always do recaps at the beginning at each session, but I like the idea of every once in a while adding an encounter to remember that kind of stuff. "Oh, that's right, drow are the bad guys! And they can't touch the Rod."

@eggs: Hm, I'll have to ask about someone taking notes. One of the players is supposed to be a fallen hero recovering his memories, a journal fits the character. I'll ask him. Thx for the suggestion, looks like it will help considerably.

@TrueDiviner: It helps that the players are already familiar with the setting, since it was mostly crafted together since the last campaign (the floating island is the brainchild of one of the PCs and most of the culture of the major kingdom came from the background of another PC, a prince in the former campaign). But yeah, I find the structure fitting for an airship game. Since they are basically the only free airship in the world (the others all have political ties), on many situations they will be only ones able to get to place X and do thing Y.

@zlefin: The Order of the Chameleon is basically that, the "other good guys" who are fixing stuff the PCs can't fix and our eventual Deus Ex Machina.

There is another plot thread I forgot to mention, a gathering of monsters under a single banner. It's the work of a half-fiend troll being manipulated by the drow, but the troll is a lot harder to manipulate than the drow predicted, so he is a problem on hiw own.

[DracoDei]

It MAY help if they have to WORK to discover stuff... have them trick the information out of someone who to even get to speak to they have to convince they already know everything he would mention.

Then again that may just confuse stuff.


Really though, I have to agree with everyone else that you don't actually have a problem.

[Agent 451]

- The artificers (I need a name for them)

Can't go wrong with working cabal in there somewhere. Or plinth/pedestal since their island is up on blocks. Combine, then make it French*!

Voilà! Cabale de l'piédestal!

*Or any other foreign language that seems to fit artificer-y types.