Bad themes for campaigns

[Xervous]

Overall, what themes or plot points have you seen fail for or sink campaigns? A lot of the ones I've come across seem to be gross violations of verisimilitude and the general attitude of the campaign. Like a former sketchy PC who is gathering parts to an artifact that could create a massive army of automatons, and then using it to create trains out of dragons. Yes, that was the DM's big plan for the main story, trains out of dragons, almost entirely harmless.

Another one that really punches me in the gut is "The world/universe/reality is dying rather immediately". Given how many times this theme has shown up in, well, everything (comics, Dr Who, etc), and given how often the solutions are non-hokey, I have a hard time taking it seriously.

So what plot points really irk you?


NOTE: this was posted around midnight, am I halfway sane?

[A_S]

Deck of Many Things.

[ddude987]

Wow it is midnight... anyways
umm I forget what I was going to contribute -_-

I hate poorly constructed characters or game concepts where no matter the decision, or direction, you head in the result is the same.

[Neo Tin Robo]

1. Being put in a situation where none of the party's abilities are allowed to work for inadequately explained reasons.

2. Having to rely on an npc with impossible powers to resolve the above situation.

3. Slogging through a dungeon wherein each room has zero connection to the previous room and presents no compelling reason to care about what happened there once you cross the threshold.

4. Going through hell and back to defeat the final enemy, only to find out his secret evil plan totally wasn't evil at all and the party are now the bad guys for having stopped him. Bonus points for complete lack of foreshadowing and/or the guy not just asking the party for their help instead.

[ArcturusV]

Anything involving the "Lost Heir". It's almost always just one of hte PCs, upon who the entire plot revolves around. I've yet to be in a game where the Lost Heir was even an interesting character. Or even portrayed anything like their player actually though they were playing as.

The Story: "I'm a humble, determined, honorable hero trying to reclaim my throne!"

The Reality: "I am a petty bully with entitlement issues that demands everyone worships my character, and will not hesitate to stoop to any level if it means giving me immediate power."

Oh. Escort Missions. Hate escort missions. It's more of a video game thing where the hatred really started up. But DnD has had it's share of really terrible escort missions as well. Even worse since in DnD offense is pretty much always king and it's magnitudes harder to stop someone from causing harm than it is to dish out harm yourself.

Doesn't help that almost universally in any Escort Mission part of a campaign the DMs tend to have the Escortee lack even the basic survival instincts that would have lead to the person surviving to reach the age of 5.

[Rhynn]

- Having a "plot" (as in a movie or novel) you need the PCs to follow. Having too clear of a picture of how the campaign should go in general.

- Having too little of an idea what the campaign should be about.

These aren't in conflict. If you have no idea what there is to do in the campaign, it will fail. If you, as GM, have expectations of the campaign that are too detailed or specific, it will inevitably fail to live up to them, and you'll get fed up with it. Both have ruined games for me in the past. For me, the ideal (whether it's a sandbox or not) is to have an environment with various locations detailed to various degrees, with various NPCs and factions who have their own plans and goals. The PCs then come in and mess everything up (whether that involves thwarting evil plots or not), and you get a story.

- Making it too work-intensive. I've repeatedly ended up dropping games because I was preparing too much in too much detail - inevitably, a lot of it went to waste, and I couldn't keep up with the pace of the game, and I just got burnt out on coming up with so much detail.

The ideal, for me, is "just in time" prep - start out with a lot of shallow but broad material (maps, one-paragraph descriptions of places and NPCs), and then pick out what you'll need next time (or know you'll need soon, a few sessions ahead), and prep that in depth.


Also, prophecies, anything involving how awesome an NPC is.

[jokeaccount]

Sometimes plots can be ruined if you take even the smallest amount of inspiration from TV series or movies. I've played 2 serious campaigns, both times some big reveal got ruined because of TV exp:

1. Shady guy asks us to "retrieve" a very rare plant from the city's temple. After a simple knowledge check the plant turns out to be a cure for Lycanthropy. BOOM! The guy is the leader of a lycan guild and wants to destroy the plant so that he can infect the whole city and leave it without a cure.

2. In another campaign, 3rd session we meet a Paladin leader. We ask him about a weird fallen deity/angel and we show him its emblem. He says he knows nothing. An unfortunate sense motive check of 20 forces the DM to tell us "you sense he's not telling you everything". After some sessions, we learn some more about this deity and the key phrase: "he appears to everyone everyone in one form or another" BOOM! The deity appeared in front of us in the form of that paladin leader. Reveal ruined again

[Talya]

2. In another campaign, 3rd session we meet a Paladin leader. We ask him about a weird fallen deity/angel and we show him its emblem. He says he knows nothing. An unfortunate sense motive check of 20 forces the DM to tell us "you sense he's not telling you everything". After some sessions, we learn some more about this deity and the key phrase: "he appears to everyone everyone in one form or another" BOOM! The deity appeared in front of us in the form of that paladin leader. Reveal ruined again

Skill checks don't auto-succeed on a 20. There's no reason a deity-level opponent shouldn't have had a bluff score that was unassailable even by a natural 20. You should have learned nothing out of your roll.

[jokeaccount]

I'm pretty sure the DM knows that. We are still in the middle of this campaign and technically we have not even met the dude yet so I cannot tell if he truly is a deity level opponent or just a very high level normal "fallen angel"/whatever. Maybe he has ruled that after he was cast away he lost a bunch of his exp? Can't be sure yet and cannot ask either since he has not admitted that this is true.

EDIT: Just checked monster manual and Angel type monsters (even Solars) do not have bluff as a skill. Could be something like that

[DeltaEmil]

jokeaccount referred to the getting a hunch part of the Sense Motive skill, which has a fixed DC of 20.

[Xervous]

There is a feat in exemplars of evil to raise that DC to 30 and cause them to register as TN for all alignment detection spells.

That plot point seems very familiar, what with my roommate having cruised through Buffy the vampire slayer last quarter. Season 5 was it? And his name was Glory?

[Talya]

There is a feat in exemplars of evil to raise that DC to 30 and cause them to register as TN for all alignment detection spells.

That plot point seems very familiar, what with my roommate having cruised through Buffy the vampire slayer last quarter. Season 5 was it? And his name was Glory?

Are you trying to say that there is some connection between Ben and Glory?

[CIDE]

Are you trying to say that there is some connection between Ben and Glory?

Mind blown...

[Craft (Cheese)]

So what plot points really irk you?

"So what have we learned today, players?"

*sigh* "Male Enhancement pills never work."

[nedz]

Railroads, especially when you know you are being setup for a fail and there is nothing you can do to derail the plot.


NOTE: this was posted around midnight, am I halfway sane?

If you are halfway sane then you are also halfway insane.

[Xervous]

However, if you think you are halfway sane, then there is a 50% chance you are insane, which may throw off all this reasoning... (looks at sig)

Also, I dislike it when the DM tries to make tragic characters and overdoes it. "Oh no, my story is awful, but the world doesn't like me because of prejudices or blah... PCs you are my only hope..."

[Mithril Leaf]

Blatently obvious railroading. When DMs know what you're going to have to do before you do it. Any time this comes up.

Another generally bad idea is an undead based campaign that isn't E6. Zombie apocolypse can be fun, but when you've got a radiant servant of the burning hate with a turn modifier 8 above his level, undead just aren't good opponents. In E6 you can do a lot more with a largely undead world.

[Slipperychicken]

"My former PCs are the biggest most awesome Mary Sues in the universe. They will routinely teleport in, taunt you, and leave. This will happen in a cutscene so you can't even fight them or respond."

"You're in a travel low-fantasy adventure where the only planes are the material and ethereal and you're fighting a war... but wait! have to stop homebrew eldritch horrors who are immune to everything you do, no-save teleport you to their lair, and Dominate you through your mindblank. Isn't this fun?! Wait, why are you all leaving?"

"Political intrigue" games
I played in a campaign hyped as PvP ("Cloak and dagger, but more dagger than cloak. You're all going to kill each other and it'll be so fun!"), where our goals were to fight each other for the specific royal we supported. I, expecting a battle royale, built a combat monster with -10 to most social skills. My PC was a bodyguard, and there was only one fight against a monstrously-overleveled NPC who cut my character down in 2 rounds but left when the princess defeated him instantly with fiat-magic. Our PCs delivered mail for royalty. Roughly 10 sessions of UPS service. There weren't even combats or skill checks involved in doing it, nor was there any real plot hook. I asked the royals 1-3 times a session if they needed help with anything (translation: OH MY GOD I'M SO BORED JUST GIVE ME A QUEST YOU ENTITLED ****!!), and they didn't. At some point, we were fiated into fighting a sorcerer, who we defeated together. After I took his stuff for my "team" (everyone was in different, allegedly-opposing teams), everyone looked at me like I was That Guy before suddenly telling me I couldn't and declaring the game wasn't PvP anymore. A few sessions later, we spent an entire 4 hours watching the DM roll dice to himself, having the NPCs fight each other with OP mary-sue abilities with a magic field forbidding us from interfering :smallsigh:. I never played with that group again.

[Xervous]

DM masturbation horror stories

Yes, that's definitely another thing I dislike...

[malkuth]

I don't think there is a bad theme, there are ways to make the pcs play it in a way that they don't enjoy the most. The aim is to make them enjoy the game so the best thing is to write the scenes to their likings. If one likes to investigate, give him that, if a characters like to fight give him that. I usually write a main theme but even it changes as my characters do things that I don't expect them to do resulting in a way that makes me imagine something cooler.

For my characters, the only bad themes are the ones that lead to long dungeons with monsters only, more social and character to character interacted games work better for us. Even if it is about fight, they enjoy to fight with an npc that has a real character as the crowd cheers, people begin to bet in the tavern more than slaying same creatures one by one. When the dungeon is short and with puzzles it is great but when it gets longer, even I get bored as a DM and want to go play diablo or sth in computer instead.

[Talya]

"My former PCs are the biggest most awesome Mary Sues in the universe. They will routinely teleport in, taunt you, and leave. This will happen in a cutscene so you can't even fight them or respond."



There are right ways and wrong ways to do this.

We have a group of several people who have played together in the same setting, for several different campaigns for almost a decade. We have decided to keep the continuity the same. The first of the campaigns in this continuity did get to level 20, with the characters being big damn heroes to the entire setting.

The second campaign we played in, new characters, entirely different focus, and yet the main characters from the first campaign did make cameos to greater or lesser degrees, as quest givers, information sources, reward providers.

The third campaign in the same setting, again new characters, has featured very brief appearances, or rumors of appearances, from both the prior ones.

In general, the players, old and new alike, like it. It makes the setting feel more alive, and your previous character decisions can still matter.


Of course, in none of those situations is the DM giving favored position to his or her own characters.

[ArcturusV]

I often prefer the indirect cameo sort of stuff. So rather than the old PC showing up to dispatch an enemy or hand out a boon or ask someone to do something for them that they are more than capable of doing themselves (What, my level 20 Cleric can't take care of a young black dragon? PSSH!), you get the indirect references.

"Oh, this town is named Godrick after the hero who slayed the Draco-Lich a couple of decades ago..."

"Oh, that's the old adventuring mace of the Grand Abbot Cedric, back when he used to go around smiting evil in these parts. He sold it off to me after his adventure to the Ancient Temple of DOOM and I've kept it hanging over the mantle as a bit of a collector's item ever since..."

[Man on Fire]

Sometimes plots can be ruined if you take even the smallest amount of inspiration from TV series or movies. I've played 2 serious campaigns, both times some big reveal got ruined because of TV exp:

1. Shady guy asks us to "retrieve" a very rare plant from the city's temple. After a simple knowledge check the plant turns out to be a cure for Lycanthropy. BOOM! The guy is the leader of a lycan guild and wants to destroy the plant so that he can infect the whole city and leave it without a cure.

2. In another campaign, 3rd session we meet a Paladin leader. We ask him about a weird fallen deity/angel and we show him its emblem. He says he knows nothing. An unfortunate sense motive check of 20 forces the DM to tell us "you sense he's not telling you everything". After some sessions, we learn some more about this deity and the key phrase: "he appears to everyone everyone in one form or another" BOOM! The deity appeared in front of us in the form of that paladin leader. Reveal ruined again

1) And what shows are these again?
2) That's why you cannot just copypaste the intrigue, you can mess with things a bit. You have to go Shakespeare, who had probably stolen every plot he used, but then mixed them and twisted beyond recognition.