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View Full Version : Very green 4e DM, in need of creative & mechanics advice.



Monagan
2013-02-26, 03:19 AM
Oh boy, already regretting posting a mess like this in a place where people probably know what something well-written should look like. Well, no sense crying about it. That's why I'm here. I hope I got the right forum, I wasn't sure if homebrew or here, since I'm seeking advice on a little bit of both mechanics and creative advice. Sorry in advance if I got it wrong. And sorry about the wall of text.

So I've decided to incur my so far untested DMing skills onto a group of friends. I have played a few campaigns, but I haven't been DM yet, and I could probably use some pointers for my "planned" campaign.

First of all, I know that using a premade campaign would be a lot less work and probably be easier for a newbie, but I don't think I'd be nearly as enthusiastic about it. Fortunately there's quite a bit of time between the individual sessions so I should be fine with the workload. What concerns me more is that I fear I might end up trying to push my players to go down specific paths too much. I'll also probably have shortcomings in knowledge about game mechanics and the general d&d world. I'd love to try and make this work though, but if the feedback is overwhelmingly negative I can still go and do something less outlandish.

I'll try to structure this post in a way that people can skip parts if they only want to give input on mechanics or creative advice. I'll also try and number my questions. And of course I'll keep as brief as I can.

The setting first. 4th edition, homebrew world, I'll probably allow just about any race/class combination. The only limitations are 1) no evil characters and 2) no items that emit light, or light spells (the latter just won't work, but they can pick them if they want to) but more to that later. Let me start off with saying that i've already realized it's all going to be a little lot trashy and silly, though I'll go ahead regardless.

The starting point for each character is (in their backstory, even before session one) is finding a magical artifact, whether they happen upon it while dungeon crawling, or steal it from a museum, or buy it in an auction doesn't matter. The important part is, as soon as they touch it, they black out.
Cue first session.
Everyone comes to in the middle of road. It is lined with thick forest on either side, and a faint fog lies in the air. Everything seems slightly desaturated. The fog seems to become thicker in one direction of the road. No one knows how they got there or where "there" is, naturally.
If the players decide to go into the thickening fog, they will eventually end up where they went in. They're trapped.
If they follow the road, they come to a fork in the road. Now my intention is to let them choose the path, but changing that path to lead to the same place either way (unbeknownst to them of course).
1) Does giving my party a false choice to have the plot play out a certain way make me as terrible as I think it does?

After a while, with light slowly starting to fade, they will come to crossroads at the entrance to a large, open area. Straight ahead, a good distance away, they see a village. To the left and right the road seems to just go on straight, then take a corner and lead along the edges of the area.
The intention is naturally for players to go straight ahead into the village, though that isn't a necessity. If they do, they'll arrive in a small village, populated by a bunch of people from all kinds of races that seem friendly enough, but something's a little off (oh gosh!). If they look well enough, players will notice no lanterns or torches or lamps of any kind. Of course no one can tell the party anything about the area, the lights, or the fog, they're just living in their village, yessir.

Now if the party decides to stay in the village one way or another, as soon as the last bit of light has faded, the villagers will just stop...they'll stand around without doing anything. Meanwhile, our party encounters the main villain of the plot. Who will absolutely crush them.
If at this point the players decide to run, or if they left the village, as soon as they are in the dark outside of the village, shadowy creatures will come out and keep attacking until, you guessed it, the party dies.
2) Any ideas as to what kind of creatures I could use for the ones that come out of the darkness? I was thinking about using undead as the mechanic base and building my own descriptions of shade creatures onto them, but if anyone has better ideas, I'd appreciate them. Someone suggested reworked fire elementals as well.

Of course the party doesn't stay dead. They will come to exactly where they first did, middle of the road in the forest.
Naturally I'd like them to this time take the other fork in the road, which would lead them to a small cottage with a demented old man, but also a book that gives some explanations, a whole stack of maps of the area with a marked location, and a few torches.
3) If my party doesn't decide to take the other fork, they'd naturally relive their previous fate, which would probably get old really quick. Not sure how to handle that.

Now, the more elaborate setting and backstory, a lot of which will be revealed to my characters through the book (which is basically an old tale).
The area they are in right now is home to a "race" of shadowy creatures, led by their matriarch (the villain). They have a serious case of light-allergy, so they came up with a plan to overcome that: They would distribute artifacts all across the world. Whomever touched one of them would be transported to their realm, where they would be either immediately posessed by one of the creatures or if their willpower was strong enough killed until they are broken and unable to resist the possession any longer - that's the villagers. At night they don't need their hulls, so they just leave them behind idle, still under their control, and go out hunting. They try to avoid fighting in villager "form", as it feels alien and uncomfortable to them - they just wouldn't be any good in a fight. They plan on amassing enough host bodies to be able to expand (i.e. conquer) the material plane. They are of course pretty similar to vampires - in fact, killing the matriarch would effectively wipe out all his "children" as well.
Though to do this, our party will have gather, wait for it - five magic amulets with different themes: The Jester (laughter), the knight (loyalty), the scholar (honesty), the ? (generosity) and the healer (kindness). Also known as the elements of harmony (to me. Not my group. Though they'd never watch that show so they'll have no idea. It's my little joke. Probably inappropriate). Although...
4) Not sure about the scholar, and definitely not sure about the ? as representations for their character traits. Definitely needs some work.

The amulets are distributed in the 5 corners of the big area in the middle, each in their own dungeon/tower/whatnot. Of course I'd want to have somewhat of a theme going in each of those areas, such as illusions and traps in the jester one, or a bunch of riddles in the scholar one, but I'm still working on them, so
5) I'd be happy for any (however small) idea on how to add some of the amulets' themes to the different dungeons

There will also be a small camp of survivors (the marked place on the map) that have barricaded themselves in. That's the place for the party to trade, stock up on supplies, get some more backstory, and find some sidequest (such as securing food or rescuing a patrol, the usual).

I'll also put in some more sidequest locations, like a camp of goblins that ended up in the area through an artifact but were deemed unworthy as hosts by the shadow creatures and so just kind of set up along the edges.

Now, in order to defeat the "boss", ideally the party would have to:
a) Find the amulets
b) "activate" the amulets by doing a deed associated with the character trait while wearing it (like telling a joke, or helping someone for no reward)
c) optional: Organize some sources of light that'll work in the village (like ghoul candles?)
d) optional: rally some of the resistance to assist them in their final fight
e) kick some butt and go home with the artifact the matriarch carries.
While doing this they would of course have to organize a steady supply of torches or other sources of light (light-magic won't work in this plane) to prevent them being overrun at night

Now, some more mechanical questions, oh boy.
6) Not sure what i'd do if the party decided to just start cutting down the villagers during the day. That's a big concern.
Or, to circumvent that, how to explain how the creatures survive the day without their hosts. Hiding inside cellars? Mines? Caves? Hollowed out rocks? I'm not sure.
7) Unsure how to implement the whole amulet-boss relationship in actual mechanics. I was thinking of giving the amulets just a whole bunch of necrotic resistance (seems lazy to me and I'd have to destroy them after the campaign, or at least alter them). Trying to figure out a better way that prevents the players from engaging the boss successfully until they have all amulets combined without sounding stupid(er).

Some additional info that came together after initially writing this whole thing:
The matriarch herself will not leave the town and roam the map even at night. However, to make things more challenging I'll have to give him the ability to extinguish lights that could cause him harm - namely light that he can see - which is what optional goal c) is intended for. That means that if our party goes to face him without securing help of the other survivors, the fight will be made significantly more challenging by forcing them to deal with his minions simultaneously - if they tag along, they will focus on holding off the cannon fodder. That begs the question
8) How to explain that light sources inside the central village would be extinguished. Magic light won't work in the plane regardless, but other sources of light would have to be suppressed inside the village somehow.

Additionally, if a player should die, I will roll a dice and determine their fate based on the outcome: After their first death (which should happen in any case) they will just come to back at the beginning. After their second death, they have a 1 in 3 chance to just "respawn", and a 2 in 3 chance to be possessed. If they *are* possessed, they will end up as one of the villagers, and the party can try to free them through a sidequest (difficult enough to make dying not trivial). Third death, those odds go down to 1 in 6 and 5 in 6, and so on. Is there a major flaw in that idea? Naturally I don't want players to encounter that mechanic. I'm not trying to kill my party. But it'd be pretty difficult to resurrect someone believably in the setting. It's also been suggested I try and give players a more active role in warding off the possession.

Generally, this campaign will be pretty challenging (the party prefers it that way) with a focus on combat, riddles, dungeons and survival. There will be NPC interaction as well of course, but the world in general is pretty apocalyptic and bleak, so finding a friendly face will be rare.

I've also been asked why players wouldn't just burn the forest. My initial thought was, since death doesn't really happen in this world, and it is more or less encapsulated, maybe everything in this plane is static - trees and plants don't grow, and they don't burn. Anything that comes from the outside world would still work fine - torches, food (which would be pretty scarce with that idea). However, if I went for this, I'd have to explain either how all those dang torches got past the portal artifacts, or why the players don't have the oodles of torches they'd presumably carry with them initially.

Finally, if I've forgotten anything, you find some major flaws, gaping plotholes or just generally think I'm a crazy fool (or 12. Man, I'd feel a lot better about this if I *were* 12) and this won't turn out well, let me know as well. I'm grateful for any reply, even if you just want to let me know you didn't like it (though a reason would be nice).

ArcturusV
2013-02-26, 04:01 AM
Well, first off, congrats on choosing to DM. To paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, "You've just taken your first step into a much larger world."

It's very fulfilling and fun. Though has it's downsides too and it's headaches. Anyway, I shall give you my opinions and experiences best as I can to help you out with this:

1) To be honest, yes. Yes it does. At it's core DnD is all about making choices that matter. Making choices that don't matter is frustrating as a player to handle. And as a DM you might as well avoid it. If the goal is to get them to the village for their first life, have them appear next to/inside the village to start with. People don't enjoy playing a guessing game until they hit the one answer the DM wants them to take. Though you do have the right idea of "No matter what they choose, take them to the village".

2) You might want to look at the Themes and Templates for creatures. If you have it, DMG2 has several "Monster Themes", something like the Feywild Theme (Twisted a bit to reflect a shadow realm) would probably be exactly what you are looking for. That also allows you to run a wider array of monsters... just about ANY monster, and apply the Theme to it so that it fits. Instead of being locked into just a few types of Undead suddenly you got Shadow Wolves, Shadow Spiders, Shadow Kobold Slingers, etc, etc, etc.

I would also highly suggest NOT killing them to start off with. It's frustrating to have any sort of result happen regardless of what you do. Death regardless of what you do is the worst, even if there is an auto resurrect going on. Not only that, it means that the players assume there is a false safety net. They will think that if they die, it's okay, they'll just come back fine at the start point (After they get over the fact they died to start with). And as this ISN'T the case... it's not nice to make them think that's a cool idea.

I also worry about you showing your Main Villain so early on. It's not bad necessarily... It allows the players to get a personal vendetta against the main villain going on. "We're going to kill that woman who killed us!"... but there's potential for problems with that. It can be potentially derailing. So never try to script in a fight the players "Must Lose". What tends to happen, just to piss you off, is somehow they DO win. Unless your villain has about 15+ levels on the party... there is a rare, but possible, chance they could in fact win the encounter. Sounds crazy... but I've been there. It does happen. And it will really wreck your day. So at the very least make sure that if they do "Win" against the villain she has some sort of plausible escape mechanism, like a Ring of Emergency Teleport that takes her back to her safehouse if she's bloodied, etc.

3) Let them repeat if they want. Just don't make it a foregone conclusion. Allow them to "Win" the day somehow if they can. The first time they'd have no real knowledge what was going on, or the capabilities of the enemies. They may wipe out even if you heed my advice and make it a winnable encounter. But players are stubborn and knowing they came back to the same situation may try to "rewrite history" and win the encounter. With the advantage of knowing how the enemy will appear and what they will do. Also if you don't frame up what happened right, players may not be sure what happened. They don't know if it was a resurrection... or some sort of Time Magic and the timeline was reset, divine intervention, etc.

4) The issue with the Scholar/Book thing is that it's very passive. So it's not as satisfying an option. It's not "Wrong" in the same way that having auto-kills is wrong as mentioned above. But it feels like you could have done better with it, if you understand what I mean. The last thing you really want players to do is sit through an "info dump". It's not fun to have one source that tells you the entire plot and everything you need to know in one go. A more dynamic solution is to have the scholar mention that he's hiding from the village. The villagers tried to fight off the Darkness, etc. They might have had some success or ideas, etc. And he can stress the dangers of death and the potential to fall to possession and madness, etc, the importance of having a place to hide at night, and core rules like that only.

Then, instead of just having a book Info Dump on them... the players can have a mission where they conduct a daylight raid on the village, trying to ransack through the town to find any villagers who might still be themselves (And thus know what the villagers were trying to do to avoid their fate), or find lost notes/journals, etc. It's a more active style is what I'm getting at. It's better to have players Go Out and Do, and Earn, then to sit back and be given.

I'd also list "The Judge" as Honesty, and "The Saint" as Charity.

5) ... so much of that depends on your players. Here's the thing I'll warn you about. The "Riddle Session" or "Puzzle Dungeon", etc, always SOUNDS like a neat idea. But no matter how "Simple" the riddles and puzzles seem to you... it's almost guaranteed to screw up players. Particularly since there will always be people who can't agree on how to correctly answer the puzzle. You end up with players either just "trying everything" and slowing the game down that way, or "Trying nothing" and slowing the game down that way. Puzzle Sessions have HORRIBLE pacing like that. It basically tends to boil down to 5 minutes of actual playing... then stop for an hour to deal with a riddle... then 5 minutes of actual playing... then spot for an hour to deal with a puzzle... etc. Avoid it at all costs. Having ONE puzzle/riddle in the dungeon is okay. Just don't theme the entire thing on it.

And of course make sure your encounters are varied, but on theme. The Jester's dungeon shouldn't be nothing BUT traps and Illusions. That means the guys who specialized in Thievery and Perception can deal with what's going on... and everyone else just sits back and says "I follow their lead..." all session long.

6) Well, the way to handle it, is if they start just cutting down villagers... they become a Primary Target. The idea is, and the Scholar they run into might relay this to them... as long as they aren't actually a THREAT to the Villain and her schemes... they are left more or less alone. It's a dangerous world out there. They aren't pressed for time or concerned about the heroes. Eventually they'll die to a goblin blade, or a shadow creature, and then they'll be One Of Us, One Of Us! But if they start killing off the villagers these creatures NEED... then suddenly they are a direct threat to the villain. The villain is going to launch her full resources and might at eradicating the players. The villagers will flee, some Non-Shadow/Light Alergic minions will be called in to slow them down. At night they will have Shadow Bloodhounds tracking them and Shadow Hit Squads looking to run them through, etc.

7) Well, duality is probably the best idea. When the amulets are in Boss Hands they are "Corrupted" versions. Subverted by shadow creatures/minions. And when "Purified" by the players they have their intended effect. An example would be something like...

Amulet of the Judge (Corrupted):
The wearer of the Corrupted Amulet of the Judge has an Aura 3 centered around him/her (And includes the wearer), anyone not of (Chaotic Evil/Evil Alignment or Shadow Theme/Template) in the aura takes 5/10/15 damage at the start of their turn. Creatures inside the Amulet of the Judge (Corrupted) aura cannot get critical hits (Critical hits are treated like normal die rolls) unless they are (Chaotic Evil/Evil Alignment or Shadow Theme/Template as per the above qualifier).

Versus:

Amulet of the Judge (Purified):
The wearer of the Purified Amulet of the Judge has an Aura 5 centered around him/her (And includes the wearer), anyone of the same alignment as the wearer gains a +2/4/6 sacred bonus to their defenses and deal and extra 1d6/2d6/3d6 damage on a critical hit.

NecroRebel
2013-02-26, 04:10 AM
You're starting a bunch of complete strangers in a mysterious place without giving them any particular reason to work together. If your players metagame, this might work out, but if they roleplay well, it won't.

1. False choices are fine, so long as it never becomes obvious that the choice was false. Unfortunately, you've edged past "false choice" and into "no choice" with the road and the fog. Plan for them to try to find a way through the more thickly-shrouded direction in the road, plan for them to go into the forest, plan for them to go off the road, and plan for them to do all of these things repeatedly. Actually, avoiding that bit entirely may be wiser; why do these artifacts that they found initially deposit their victims outside of the shadows' stronghold?

Now, a fork in the road, where neither fork is visible for a long distance, is a less railroady trick, but again, you should plan contingencies for if your players take neither fork. What happens if they try going straight down the middle? Also, what if, after a time taking one fork, they decide to leave the road and try to find the other fork? What's more, with the respawning effect active, you're edging dangerously close to making it obvious that there really isn't a choice, which is a good way to ruin the fun of a tabletop RPG.

Making an event that is certain death for the party is never fun. You should avoid this.



2. 4e makes it fairly easy to create your own monsters. You might want to do that. Refluffing is also easy and encouraged. Wraiths may be an appropriate monster to refluff; most of them have a power that weakens or drains healing surges, so they're thematically appropriate. It may be better to use several different monster types, however, particularly since fights with only one role represented among the monster group are boring, tedious, or both, and even more because you need to vary up the fights to keep them interesting anyway.

If you're forbidding your players from taking radiant-damage powers at all, though, practically any of the vanilla undead will be a lot tougher than normal. It does suggest an easy solution for an effect your special amulets could have, though: letting the wearer swap their damage types to radiant or add radiant to the damage types on all their powers, similar to a flaming weapon except with radiant instead of fire.



3. Make sure they can retreat if they go back to the village during the next "day." Also, plan for them to attempt to slaughter the villagers. What will the shadows do if adventurers start wiping out their host bodies that they can't fight effectively in during the time when they can't exist outside them easily? What happens to a shadow who is inhabiting a host when the host dies?



4. Might I suggest a Merchant for generosity? "Laughter" also seems out of place among the traits, probably because it isn't really a "trait." "Humor" might work, but not really. You might want to change that. Honesty also isn't a trait that's exactly associated with scholars... Witness, perhaps?

5. Loyalty might be represented by having some entity at the entrance give them a task to retrieve something of apparent value from deeper in the dungeon, and then asking them to give it up for no reward. If they are loyal enough to to so, the amulet is theirs. Perhaps an unpowered version of the amulet is what the target item is, and if they offer to freely relinquish it, the entity instead enters and empowers the amulet.

Generosity could be represented similarly - the party is given something of apparent value (though it is likely worthless in truth) and has to give it to some spirits. Maybe some magic lights (that function only in the dungeon) are at the entrance, shadows infest the dungeon, and at several points some spirits claim that they can only survive the shadows' attacks if they are given the lights?

If you're going to use a healer to represent kindness, you should have the dungeon's goal involve healing something.



7. You might find that your players have a tremendous amount of difficulty figuring out what they need to do to activate the amulets. It is likely to be better to simply not have their full powers unlocked until all of them are gathered.

As I suggested earlier, I'd say make the amulets allow the wearer to replace their attacks' damage types with radiant damage. This will let them be far more effective against the shadow creatures. However, I'd also suggest making it so that if all 5 are close to one another, they negate the main shadow's ability to extinguish light sources. Let's say that it can only be harmed by radiant damage, but radiant damage doesn't work near it until the 5 amulets are all gathered. That way, the party won't be able to win in a fight with it until they've gotten all of them.



The trouble with possessing your PCs is that that will take the PC's player out of the game for a possibly very lengthy amount of time. This will cause them to be bored, which is exactly the opposite of what should happen. Drop this idea.

Monagan
2013-02-26, 06:32 AM
First of all, thanks a whole bunch for your suggestions, and the kind words. I'll try and address them best I can, should you be interested in my reply.

ArcturusV
1) Point taken. Was trying to keep the party unaware of the false choice, though they might suspect it regardless. Will rethink it.
2) a) Thanks b) considering the feedback I've gotten on this I should probably give them an option once the enemies start showing up. Maybe one of the survivors noticed the group arriving and decided to get them out just in time. If the party decides to stay and fight, they might still end up dead, or maybe they'll survive the night.If they still died then, I'd have to address their possible misconceptions somehow though, you are right.
3) Sounds good, thanks.
4) Sorry about that, should've made myself clearer: While the book gives some general exposition on what the enemy is and how to defeat them, details on their motivations and the trinkets won't be in there, and the "scholar" won't be of too much help. They'd get some more information through the survivor camp, should they go there, and some from the trinket's dungeons themselves. Basically, what would be in the book is: Creatures bad, creatures don't like light, find some amulets to kill big creature. Maybe the old guy should hint them at the death mechanics, if I keep them in.
5) Thanks for the advice, I'll try to restrict myself to one simple puzzle. Maybe I'll prepare a second one that I can sneak in somewhere if they are fast on the first. I completely agree with you on the theme part, I'd only be sprinkling it in, not making a dungeon that is one long trapped hallway.
6) That's very good, thanks.
7) See 6).

NecroRebel
Hardcore roleplayers they are not, so I should be fine.
1. Good points, will rethink it an/or add more contingency plans. Bad guys probably wouldn't have the artifact teleport directly into their village for care, could be anything come through there and they're not keen on losing their bodies to an angry, confused dire bear. Will avoid death though as suggested.
2. Thanks. Sounds good. Will keep in mind to mix it up.
3. Will probably allow escape the first night as well. ArcturusV made a good suggestion to solve the slaughter problem. Still need to find a solution for their surviving without bodies, though I'll think of something.
4. Fair enough on the humor. Will consider that. Merchant, maybe, they aren't particularly generous, but it's in the right direction so it's better than my nothing. Honesty, also a tough one I admit. Scholar is more rationality than honesty. Maybe judge?
5. Wasn't planning on putting the "activation" in the same dungeon, though I might now, having read your great suggestions.
7. Figured laughter would help there, possibly. Players tend to crack a lot of jokes, also in character, which would suffice for activation of this amulet. They would have an easier time figuring out from there. Not quite sure what you mean with the all together part. Really like the suggestion with the removal of the ability to extinguish light sources though. Maybe they could also become the lightsources themselves when close together.

Lastly, possession...it's basically a character's death. The whole mechanic will probably need some major rework anyways, or I'll forgo it entirely, but initially my intention was to make it about as easy and quick to get the character back as it would be to resurrect him. Coming in during the day, abducting him (possibly angering the matriarch), bringing him to one of the survivor priests and have him perform a ritual on him would probably be the most straightforward. They'd still have to pay, or maybe complete a task as payment afterwards.

Kesnit
2013-02-26, 07:28 AM
1) Does giving my party a false choice to have the plot play out a certain way make me as terrible as I think it does?

IMO, no. You know that there is no actual choice, but the players do not. Especially if going left always leads to the town, and going right leads to the cabin (even if going right the first time would lead to the town, should they choose that).


The intention is naturally for players to go straight ahead into the village, though that isn't a necessity.

What will you do if the players don't?


Now if the party decides to stay in the village one way or another, as soon as the last bit of light has faded, the villagers will just stop...they'll stand around without doing anything. Meanwhile, our party encounters the main villain of the plot. Who will absolutely crush them.
If at this point the players decide to run, or if they left the village, as soon as they are in the dark outside of the village, shadowy creatures will come out and keep attacking until, you guessed it, the party dies.

This seems a little discouraging to the players. Again, you know it is scripted, but the players don't. To them, it can easy seem like you have no idea how to build an encounter, since you obviously built one that was too hard.

Also, what will you do if one of the PCs tries to run away? (I had a gnome Artificer who did that a lot...)

If you do want to go with them being smacked down by the BBEG, make it impossible for them to win. Give the BBEG HP=Yes, so that no matter what they do, they cannot defeat her. Or give her DR/radiant and give the amulets the power to convert damage to radiant.


3) If my party doesn't decide to take the other fork, they'd naturally relive their previous fate, which would probably get old really quick. Not sure how to handle that.

Let them try again. If they keep going back, emphasis the other path.


b) "activate" the amulets by doing a deed associated with the character trait while wearing it (like telling a joke, or helping someone for no reward)

If you want that route, make it something they have to do to get the amulet, not something they have to figure out afterwards (and maybe not do at all because they don't know they have to).


8) How to explain that light sources inside the central village would be extinguished. Magic light won't work in the plane regardless, but other sources of light would have to be suppressed inside the village somehow.

The matriarch has a ritual which suppresses magical and normal light within X radius.


Additionally, if a player should die, I will roll a dice and determine their fate based on the outcome: After their first death (which should happen in any case) they will just come to back at the beginning. After their second death, they have a 1 in 3 chance to just "respawn", and a 2 in 3 chance to be possessed. If they *are* possessed, they will end up as one of the villagers, and the party can try to free them through a sidequest (difficult enough to make dying not trivial). Third death, those odds go down to 1 in 6 and 5 in 6, and so on. Is there a major flaw in that idea?

As others have pointed out, it takes one player out of the game while possessed. Also, unless the players know about it, it will come as a kick in the pants when one is possessed (especially if another PC died earlier and did not get possessed).

If you want to use that mechanic, make the odds of getting possessed very low. Increase the odds gradually with subsequent deaths if you want, but start low. And make sure the players know. And roll for possession in front of them, in the open.

Monagan
2013-02-26, 08:04 AM
Thanks for the reply, Kesnit!
Would address your points as I did before, but most of them I already did address in one form or another, so I just posted to let you know I read and appreciate the response.

neonchameleon
2013-02-26, 08:22 AM
1) Does giving my party a false choice to have the plot play out a certain way make me as terrible as I think it does?

It can do. And in this case it probably does. Cut to the action.


Meanwhile, our party encounters the main villain of the plot. Who will absolutely crush them.

Always risky. Working on that railroad.


If at this point the players decide to run, or if they left the village, as soon as they are in the dark outside of the village, shadowy creatures will come out and keep attacking until, you guessed it, the party dies.

Oh FFS. The party is, at this point doing exactly what you want them to or you use heavy handed techniques to kill them. Stoppit.


Of course the party doesn't stay dead. They will come to exactly where they first did, middle of the road in the forest.


Naturally I'd like them to this time take the other fork in the road, which would lead them to a small cottage with a demented old man, but also a book that gives some explanations, a whole stack of maps of the area with a marked location, and a few torches.

Your adventure starts here. The first point where the PCs are meaningfully described as protagonists. The PCs return to life in the care of the demented man who gives them an infodump.


7) Unsure how to implement the whole amulet-boss relationship in actual mechanics. I was thinking of giving the amulets just a whole bunch of necrotic resistance (seems lazy to me and I'd have to destroy them after the campaign, or at least alter them). Trying to figure out a better way that prevents the players from engaging the boss successfully until they have all amulets combined without sounding stupid(er).

If you must run a fetch-quest (rather than a framing story), the amulets are effectively keys that allow them to bring down the wards protecting the Boss's phylactery. If the boss-Lich is killed without his phylactery being destroyed then he just returns to life. The hermit tells them this.


8) How to explain that light sources inside the central village would be extinguished. Magic light won't work in the plane regardless, but other sources of light would have to be suppressed inside the village somehow.

"It is what it is. As you approach the villiage your lights darken". Or possibly where one of the amulets is hidden is protected by dark magic that feeds off the amulet and when you recover the amulet, lights in the villiage start working again.

Monagan
2013-02-26, 08:02 PM
Thanks for the reply, neonchamelon.
You're right that, in the original draft, the real adventure would've started after the first death. All round good points, too.

Alejandro
2013-02-26, 08:16 PM
Short advice: Never plan too much. Your players will not cooperate. Be prepared to improvise at least 50% of what happens.

Xeratos
2013-02-27, 11:27 AM
Sounds like to me what you've got is a very limited sized setting that your players can't physically leave (incidentally, plans for getting them home once BBEG is dead?), which is perfect for a sandbox.

What I would do is map out everything you want to be there. At this point, that seems to be Possessed Village, Hermit's Hut, Resistance Camp, Thematic Dungeon x5. Stock your areas with NPCs of various types, determine which ones know things that are important for your players to learn, and what triggers them sharing that knowledge (i.e. does a player walk up and just say, "hey, what can you tell me?" or do they have to be walking by wearing an amulet and the NPC volunteers info, etc.).

I'm going to assume, based on your structure of collecting the amulets, that you're not planning on your players gaining more than a few levels, since you stated you wanted a guaranteed TPK against BBEG in the first encounter, but presumably she'll be killable at the end. Generate your staff of monsters based around that level field beforehand. Presumably, there will be roving bands of killer shadow wolves and other monsters to harry your players and the resistance camp at night.

Will your dungeons be protected by shadow monsters? Why do these amulets even exist in the first place, and more to the point: why are they here? In such a small setting, wouldn't the BBEG know about them? I don't know about you, but if -I- knew that there was a set of magical artifacts close by that could strip away the lion's share of my power, and especially if they could be corrupted to work for me instead of the other way around, I'd be wearing them on my person.

I'm not trying to browbeat you here, I'm just asking the questions that your players, if they're smart, will be asking themselves and each other as they try to figure out what's going on. And it's always easier to have answers worked out ahead of time than to try to figure them out on the spot. Plus it cuts down on problems later on when one of your smartass players tells you that you said X last session, but you're saying Y now.

As far as players killing villagers during the daylight, why can't the villagers just fight back? I thought the whole point of their plan was to obtain hosts to act during the day so they could conquer an entire plane of existence. If they're not able to defend themselves half the time, then it seems like our world doesn't have a lot to worry about. Maybe they're not AS powerful as they'd be at night, but I see no reason why the villagers can't defend themselves.

Incidentally, are they dead? Are their bodies husks that the shadows are possessing? If so, when one of your players gets possessed, what stops them from being dead too? If they're not dead, then why do the villagers stand there like robots that have been unplugged all night long?

Now, in regards to burning the forest down, maybe with magical fire it could be done, but fog is kind of made of water, which makes things in it wet. Wet trees don't really burn all that well. I'm not saying you can't light one up, just that, well... it might be less work to just kill the things rather than try to light up their woods.

I think that's about all I got. My group tried 4E when it came out, didn't really like it, went back to 3.5, so I can't offer much in the way of mechanical advice on the rules of the game.

1337 b4k4
2013-02-27, 01:21 PM
First things first, you're story sounds very interesting, but does appear like it will require some railroading from time to time. Make sure you're clear about this fact to your players up front and make sure they're ok with following the tracks when you tell them they need to follow the tracks. Railroading isn't inherently evil, but it is something that can frustrate players to no end, so use it sparingly, use it openly and move on from it as quickly as possible (that is to say, if you're going to railroad the players through a series of false choices, it's better just to tell them they made those choices and start playing at the point where the consequences of those choices begin).

Now on to your questions:



1) Does giving my party a false choice to have the plot play out a certain way make me as terrible as I think it does?

Not inherently, but see above. When giving your players a false choice, you should always ask yourself what the purpose of the false choice is. If the purpose is to get them from point A to point B without letting them get lost, but to show them that there will be choices in the future, just narrate the journey without letting them choose.

In your specific case, why does it matter that your players encounter the village first? If they encounter the crazy old man in his hut with the book that explains everything that's going on, they likely won't believe it or understand it until they arrive at the village anyway. On the other hand, if the purpose is to show off the BBEG and how strong s/he is, it won't make a difference if they already know the basics of what's going on before they meet the BBEG, they still won't be able to defeat him/her.



2) Any ideas as to what kind of creatures I could use for the ones that come out of the darkness? I was thinking about using undead as the mechanic base and building my own descriptions of shade creatures onto them, but if anyone has better ideas, I'd appreciate them. Someone suggested reworked fire elementals as well.

Might consider reworking and scaling this thing way way down: http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Colossus,_Shadow_%284e_Monster%29

Or maybe some of these, again scaled down from solo monsters:
http://tools.dungeonmastering.com/monstercards/shared/880

As for killing your players outright I wouldn't do it without letting them have a chance. Sure the boss is tough and so are his minions, but don't let them be invincible, if the players have a pure streak of luck and kick some butt or do something unexpected, let them have their victory. Sure it means things end sooner than you wanted them to, but it also means they earned an awesome tale for years to come. That said, be sure your players get a chance to understand just how powerful the creature is before they get into combat. Maybe have him kill another person that came into the setup with the players (maybe a DM PC of the party's level that's along for the ride until he dies and becomes a shaddow creature).

Additionally, if the players flee, I would let them. Oh, harry them with shadow creatures for sure, but if they're smart enough to run, they should be rewarded for that even if it's escaping by the barest whisker.



3) If my party doesn't decide to take the other fork, they'd naturally relive their previous fate, which would probably get old really quick. Not sure how to handle that.


Honestly, this should resolve itself on its own. If your players keep going back to die after the 2nd attempt, this is where it's appropriate to step in as a DM and say "look guys, the boss is way over your current level now, there are other paths to explore, try them out."



4) Not sure about the scholar, and definitely not sure about the ? as representations for their character traits. Definitely needs some work.


My thought for generosity, if you want to stick with human figures is "The Maiden". Traditionally, the maiden is the generous character in stories, tending to the injured, and friend to all. That said, you might consider mixing it up with some traditional non-human symbols. "The Dog" as a symbol for loyalty etc.



5) I'd be happy for any (however small) idea on how to add some of the amulets' themes to the different dungeons

I'd go with tests for most of the traits. In the loyalty dungeon, create scenarios that put a PC under suspicion of something. For honestly, test their greed, perhaps allow them to discover early in the dungeon a priceless artifact to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, and later encounter a creature/person further in who is the owner and seeking the item back. Make sure they know it's worth a lot of money (or in some other way very valuable to the PCs) so that they have to choose between saying they haven't seen it and surrendering it. In all cases, allow the players to obtain the amulet in question when they reach the end, but how they obtain it changes based on what they did. Going back to the honesty example, if they surrender the priceless artifact, the owner rewards them with this "worthless" amulet he found. If they lie, the owner discovers/knows this and instead attacks them, and they obtain the amulet from his corpse. In each case, passing the "test" around each amulet should be sufficient to "activate" it, and it's only the amulet tests that they failed that they should have to activate in side quests later. That said, some of these sorts of tests can be railroady, so see the stuff at the top. Make sure your players are OK with trusting you to be fair on these sorts of things.



6) Not sure what i'd do if the party decided to just start cutting down the villagers during the day. That's a big concern.
Or, to circumvent that, how to explain how the creatures survive the day without their hosts. Hiding inside cellars? Mines? Caves? Hollowed out rocks? I'm not sure.


In either case, I'd say the answer is that in this world of fog, the light is weak enough that the creatures can survive outside the host body, but in a weakened form. Killing a villager releases a weak shadow creature which either flees or attacks. Regardless, there is always a supply of incoming hosts. Make it clear at night the entire village and forest is full of the sounds of people running for their lives and being torn apart by these shadow creatures. Killing all the villagers will not stop this.



7) Unsure how to implement the whole amulet-boss relationship in actual mechanics. I was thinking of giving the amulets just a whole bunch of necrotic resistance (seems lazy to me and I'd have to destroy them after the campaign, or at least alter them). Trying to figure out a better way that prevents the players from engaging the boss successfully until they have all amulets combined without sounding stupid(er).

Were it me, I'd simply make the boss high level enough and perhaps allow the amulets to provide protection from 5 ongoing necrotic damage, +5 for each other amulet in 10 squares or so, and give the boss an at will/rechargeable that applies ongoing 20 or 25 necrotic damage when it hits (or whatever is appropriate for your player level). Allow the players to risk fighting without the amulets, nothing should prevent them from trying and even succeeding as long as the rules are the same for every fight.

Alternatively, the amulets are the only light sources that stay lit in the realm, holding the shadow minions at pay (as a fear effect) in a close burst 2.



8) How to explain that light sources inside the central village would be extinguished. Magic light won't work in the plane regardless, but other sources of light would have to be suppressed inside the village somehow.

Villagers compulsively and unthinkingly attempt to extinguish all lights



Additionally, if a player should die, I will roll a dice and determine their fate based on the outcome: After their first death (which should happen in any case) they will just come to back at the beginning. After their second death, they have a 1 in 3 chance to just "respawn", and a 2 in 3 chance to be possessed. If they *are* possessed, they will end up as one of the villagers, and the party can try to free them through a sidequest (difficult enough to make dying not trivial). Third death, those odds go down to 1 in 6 and 5 in 6, and so on. Is there a major flaw in that idea? Naturally I don't want players to encounter that mechanic. I'm not trying to kill my party. But it'd be pretty difficult to resurrect someone believably in the setting. It's also been suggested I try and give players a more active role in warding off the possession.


I would suggest that the save / die roll determines whether they will be attempted to be possessed and that failure means the PC has to fight off a shadow creature in combat to avoid possession. Again, see the stuff at the top about railroading, make sure your open with your players about the option of possession. Spell it out clearly somewhere.


I've also been asked why players wouldn't just burn the forest. My initial thought was, since death doesn't really happen in this world, and it is more or less encapsulated, maybe everything in this plane is static - trees and plants don't grow, and they don't burn. Anything that comes from the outside world would still work fine - torches, food (which would be pretty scarce with that idea). However, if I went for this, I'd have to explain either how all those dang torches got past the portal artifacts, or why the players don't have the oodles of torches they'd presumably carry with them initially.

Like said, I would go with literally, the villagers are constantly extinguishing light sources. As for burning the forest, any environment with a lot of heavy fog is going to be very damp. Damp forests don't burn easy, certainly not with some mere torches.

Monagan
2013-02-28, 08:23 AM
Alright, I'm sorry it took me a bit to reply this time! Just to let you know first, I've decided to postpone this campaign until after my first (for which I'm using a premade) so I can get a feel for the group and DMing before sending the players into something homegrown. Which will require me to adjust some elements, but most importantly give me a lot more time to work on it. So no, I'll not be mothballing or abandoning it, just take time to be extra thorough. No such thing as being over-prepared in my eyes. Thanks again for all the replies so far. More are of course always welcome, and I'll try to respond to each as detailed as possible.

Xeratos, thanks a lot for the reply! A lot of great and simple ideas in there, and some more good pointers. I'll go ahead and address what I can.

- Mapping out: Thanks for the tip, already in the process of doing that. Map grows thicker by the day. I've included several secondary locations as well, should the players decide to stray off the beaten path.

- I actually don't know how lengthy the campaign would be. If the players are completionists and try to explore everything, they might end up quite a bit higher than if they just rush through. I'm also not sure how big the 5 main dungeons would be. I'll have to see and adjust as I go along, but I'll try to heed your advice.

- Very good questions. I've been giving this some thought since shortly after writing this thread, and to be honest I still don't have an answer why the amulets are where they are, and why they are staying there. Definitely needs work. I'll try and think some more.

- I actually couldn't be happier when someone points out a gaping hole in my plot before it comes to fruition. So thanks, I really appreciate it.

- Fair point. I guess while they try to avoid fighting in their precious bodies for now, the PCs probably wouldn't manage getting swarmed by an entire village. Brilliantly simple. Thanks.
- They are not dead, just possessed. However, while their possessors are "out" on their hunts, they still suppress their minds with their residual presence - that's why they don't just keel over or start running. They're not controlled, but also not in control.

-Wet forest: I've actually been thinking about it. The forest doesn't go all the way up to the village anyways, there is quite a large free area around it, so if my players tried to burn down the forest that'd probably hurt the resisting survivors more than their enemies. So why stop them. The wet wood part though would still come in handy, since fashioning torches out of a simple piece of moist timber without any pitch or oil wouldn't be very effective. So thanks for the tip.

Now 1337 b4k4, thanks for your reply as well! I'll get right to it.

- Railroading: There probably will be some, you're right. I'll be trying to give my players as many options as possible so they can go ahead on their own pace, but I probably will have to nudge them towards the main goal occasionally. I've talked to them about it as you suggested and they are alright with it.

- 1: You've made good points. I'm actually reworking the first part a lot right now by removing the book (but keeping the map and the old man), giving the players only real choices, and a chance to meet one of the survivors to get them away from the village and into their camp (where the actual exposition will be) before they ever meet the BBEG. Though they can still stay and fight, I want to add more options.

- 2: I really like the idea of the pansy tagging along to die dramatically, I'm definitely going to use that. Also, as said before, I'm giving the players more choice in the village encounter so death should be very avoidable. I'll also probably be able to gauge their characters' strength better by then from the previous campaign.

- 3: Will do! Thanks!

- 4: Maiden doesn't sound bad at all! Mixing it up with animals could work, but I wonder if my players would argue about who has to wear the dog-tag.

- 5: Like your suggestions a lot, especially the one to make the test part of the dungeon, and to require a sidequest for a failure. That's great. Very likely going to do that.

- 6: Having that many people run around everywhere might be a bit crowded and chaotic. New people would come every few days, maybe. Was because of this and the previous campaign actually thinking about an agent of the creatures tricking the players into going through the portal instead of them conveniently appearing all at the same time. However I do like the part about the weakened creature, especially because of the "aura" lying over the village, so it fits well. Thanks!

- 7: Light source came up before, I think that's a sound idea already. The players can definitely try and engage the boss at any time they see fit, their odds to win should ideally just be very, very small.

- 8: Thanks, meant lights the players have though. The villagers could try and extinguish those of course, but it probably wouldn't be as effective as necessary. I suppose the torches just grow fainter and go out close to the village. Evil magic aura and such.

- 9: Definitely want to make the possession process more "fun". Maybe I'll decrease the possibility of getting out normally significantly and instead have the players fight off their assailants (through a skill challenge or combat, depends) repeatedly when they fall unconscious.

- 10: As said, villagers extinguishing might not work. Wet forest on the other hand is good, should've thought of that myself, really. Thanks!

Synovia
2013-03-01, 04:53 PM
My advice?

Stop trying to tell a story.

Set up a scenario, put the PCs in it, and see what happens. Design the major players in the scenario (the BBEG, the old man, etc), and the basic parameters of the scenario, and just let it go.

Monagan
2013-03-02, 10:32 AM
Thanks for the reply, Synovia!

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that approach would suit me. While I can absolutely see the merits of a sandbox-y DMing style, I think the players can use at least some guidance or they'll run from place to place without ever knowing what's going on. A wide range of choices is important, but so is a compelling story, and it's important that those choices are somewhat clear cut so players feel engaged in it. That doesn't mean that the party can't completely go off course if they feel like it, but I feel it should be clear more often than not which (ideally several) actions will progress the story. Whether they want to stick more to the script or ignore it is the players' choice, but since I prefer the former as a player, and it's part of what intrigues my about being a DM, I want them to have that choice.
However, that's just, like, my opinion.

1337 b4k4
2013-03-02, 12:56 PM
I think Synovia's point is that TTRPGs are unique in that the players (with the help of the GM) create their own compelling story. That is to say that every action advances "the story" because the story isn't about some BBEG and the plucky meddling kids that bring him down, it's a story about the characters and the things they do. Considering that very few plots survive first contact with the PCs, it's generally good advice to not have a plot so much as have ideas about what is where and how they will react in general to various prompts. That said, it tends to be much easier to run a story on rails, but only if you have buy in from your players to ride the rails. If you don't, you'll just butt heads with them all night long.

Synovia
2013-03-02, 01:50 PM
Thanks for the reply, Synovia!

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think that approach would suit me. While I can absolutely see the merits of a sandbox-y DMing style, I think the players can use at least some guidance or they'll run from place to place without ever knowing what's going on. A wide range of choices is important, but so is a compelling story, and it's important that those choices are somewhat clear cut so players feel engaged in it. That doesn't mean that the party can't completely go off course if they feel like it, but I feel it should be clear more often than not which (ideally several) actions will progress the story. Whether they want to stick more to the script or ignore it is the players' choice, but since I prefer the former as a player, and it's part of what intrigues my about being a DM, I want them to have that choice.
However, that's just, like, my opinion.

What I'm describing isn't "Sandboxing". What I'm describing is not railroading the players. The player's decisions NEED to be meaningful, and when you start applying railroading/storytelling techniques, that goes away. They're decision to Run isn't meaningful if running has the same result as staying and fighting.

If they don't have meaningful choices, the whole thing is just one big cutscene, and should be handled as such.