PDA

View Full Version : New campaign in my group! DM advice please



mucco
2013-05-31, 09:19 PM
(tl;dr need robust plot building for my new campaign)

Hi guys, I'm starting a new campaign tomorrow. I am not new to DMing as I have run another campaign for almost four years. This was a mid-op, high power (Swiftblade, blaster Psion, Dread Necro) 3.5 campaign that spanned 17 levels, and has now concluded just a few sessions from the plot end - with the likely outcome of one PC establishing an undead city-state.

We now lost one player and I'm about to start a sequel of sorts. We are playing Pathfinder this time, and my two PCs are attracted to the paladin and barbarian classes, mechanics-wise. Since they love having good fights - especially the guy who's leaning on paladin is known for playing mostly CE-leaning characters - I'm going to set the campaign in a dystopian time where the undead PC of the previous campaign conquered most of the setting. So if they ever want to charge a NPC and kill him, there shouldn't be issues.

Story-wise, it is clear that the end goal I have in mind is the murder of the previous campaign PC (the one player we lost) and the destruction of his reign. The fact we have a paladin might help me railroad things somewhat, but I'm not counting on it. I think I have a pretty cool idea for the first few sessions too (starting L2): a Hunger Games team arena thingy, with them on the same side but separated at first. It would be some kind of entertainment set up by the undead rulers to appease the masses, of course; I'm also fiddling with the idea of the contestants having been made to forget their identity partly, so that I can keep a hold on the PCs after they get out - and possibly give them a plot thread to do something about restoring their memory. It's a bit fuzzy for now.

If there is one thing I'm bad at, though, it's weaving a story. How do I make it compelling for players to pursue the world events? What could be the middle steps they would take to unravel the plot? I guess they might go for trying to regain their memory, but knowing them, it's equally likely that they'll think "yay I have no background so I can do random damage!" One of the players likes his plot but is very very picky about it so he'll get bored with even a hint of cliché, while the other needs some robust tropes to get into it I fear. In any case, they should need more than a gentle nudge toward it.

I've been thinking about giving them something to lose, so they can give a purpose to their actions; but it's probably hard for me to shape this in a way that is not railroad-ish. I know they have very rarely played characters that were not amoral, so I'm counting on them not developing sufficient emotions on their characters that they start to drive the plot anytime soon.

In my previous campaign I think I did NPCs quite right. Or at least, it's the only campaign we ever played where the players actually remembered their names, so I'm quite proud of that. They did think about them strictly in terms of "how can we kill him/her" but it was an evil party in a very hostile environment so I have some faint hope for this one... :D I might want to try having a NPC or two be the story drive somehow.

Suggestions?

Sylthia
2013-05-31, 10:02 PM
I'm going to steal from Spoony for this one. If you want to steer the party towards something, steal their stuff.

QuintonBeck
2013-05-31, 11:22 PM
Get someone to hire them to do something. Have the guy appear A-OK and then actually have him be A-OK (a trope but with the twist of being truthful that may entertain your picky player) then have that guy put you in contact with a colleague/friend/business associate who seems very similar in actions but is actually using the party and betrays them (possibly taking their stuff at some point) or simply not paying them but he has some way to escape/guards that stomp the PCs down while he runs off without paying. Give them a reason to hate a guy you want them to hate. Make them feel used by him. No adventurer likes being used without being properly rewarded for their being used.