Small town girl living in a deadly world

[bloodystone2]

So my girlfriend (and her friends) have always wanted to get into dungeons and dragons but the groups they always get into rather have no idea how to play, or are just white basement nerds whom treat them as objects instead of players. I taught them how to play but when they tried on their own, they dun goofed. Now, I've never ran a 4 man noob team before, nor have I ever done a 'Neutral good' campaign (Chaotic Neutrals, Neutral evils, Lawful Goods) but never had a party motivation simply helping people.

So my plans are simple. There's a dungeon of the week, and an NPC to guide them to the dungeon. However, I don't know what the story is going to be. I do know that I want a small village/villa as the party's main HQ but I'm not sure what race to make it (though I know humans wouldn't work since they want something more exotic).

Any tips for the setting or the small town?

The party so far
NG Human ranger
LG Dwarf Cleric
NG Half Elf Sorcerer
CG Half Orc fighter

[Crake]

Perhaps play it simple. They're all aspiring champions from the same village. Maybe run a published module like sunless citadel, it takes place near a small village, and expands out into a whole adventure path if they're interested in persuing the leads.

[Karl Aegis]

Gathering items for a harvest festival is good for a more lighthearted adventure. If you want something darker have elf-things try to interfere with the adventure.

[Knaight]

This post got a bit long, so it's broken into sections.

What's Going On:
So the basic structure as I understand it is this:


There's some sort of centralized hub which will be frequently returned to.
The campaign is structured around a series of events primarily outside of that small hub, in which the PCs go out and do something then come back.
These adventures are largely about investigation of sites near the hub.
The adventures in question involve the heroes going out and helping those in the hub.

There are a few things that generally make this sort of structure work better, and a lot of them are pretty independent of the sites and hub in question. A small town near a bunch of dungeons and a space station near an unexplored but inhabited section of space have a lot of the same requirements - to the point where you could probably actually adapt Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes as adventured (not that I recommend this). So, a few general tips.


The sites should be of interest because they affect the town in some way. Just being nearby works occasionally, but having it be routine destroys cohesion. There are a lot of ways this can work, but implementing it is generally a good idea.
The campaign structure is in danger of getting repetitive, so mixing it up with things that happen entirely in the town occasionally is generally a good idea.
The hub itself absolutely has to be interesting, and the best way to do that is to have some degree of conflict within the hub. This can be in relation to what's going on outside the hub, but you want factions, you want distinctive NPCs, and you want them to have conflicting agendas.
Low stakes are generally best. If the campaign is operating out of the hub, the conflicts being primarily about the hub or the hub and surrounding area can make things work better. You can have it be something like a front in a much larger conflict, but that runs the risks of having the game essentially have to expand beyond it, of things getting overly complex, and of the hub ending up boring.


There are a lot of different ways that this could be implemented which would be fairly compelling. One of the easiest is just to have some degree of collaborative setting creation - running one game of Microscope then switching to D&D could work well. Another is to work out broad details first (including notable sources of conflicts), then come up with factions, notable NPCs, particular locations, and other such things within that framework. Then, tie those individual elements together.

Example Setting
Dried Creek was a major trading hub, right at the border of two great nations. Huge amounts of goods passed through it; merchants from all over the world incorporated it into their trade routes and eventually settled there; monumental architecture was built. The center of the town was a great river that served as the primary conduit for trade, while also providing the agricultural basis for rich lands around it.

One civil war later, and it was instead a town between one great nation and a bunch of tiny nations in a generally lawless territory lost by the other great nation. The best trade around was with more prosperous war chiefs, but it was a pale shadow of what it used to be. When the river was dammed by the nation that had lost territory to starve out the warlords, rebel groups, bandits, and other enemies Dried Creek lost the river as well, and picked up their new name. Eventually the other border cities were mostly lost, and other than Dried Creek the border consists of a handful of fortresses on one side and the occasional village or crude fortification on the other, punctuated by battlefields and ruins. To make matters worse, a lot of the contested territory between the warlords became territory abandoned by both sides and reclaimed by nature, populated by dangerous monsters and spreading outwards.

It's been two generations since Dried Creek was a great mercantile town. The oldest in town still remember it, and most of them are settled merchants or displaced farmers from nearby, the few who didn't abandon it and kept it from becoming just another ghost town. Most of the outer town has crumbled, and what was formerly the riverbed is a line of farms supported by decaying wonders of the past, surrounded by a thin strip of inhabited city, protected by the recent inner walls that keep that which settled the outer ring at bay.

Still, the population left is stubborn. None want to leave, and most dream of the return of Dried Creek's golden age. With the third generation coming into their own amidst the crumbling ruins, the mercantile spirit has faded, and a more martial culture is taking it's place. There are those from the city who might just be able to take back the parts lost, go out and seek the wonders that have been lost in and around it, and maybe restore it to its former glory. They'll have to contend with the dangers of the outside world, the potential corrupting elements of a culture becoming too warlike, and maybe even the predatory eyes of one of the warring kingdoms nearby that is consolidating a little too much power, but now is the time to act.

Enter the PCs.

[Lerondiel]

I'm in agreement with Knaight regarding adding detail to the HQ town itself.

If your experience with new female players is like mine and you'd like to create a great custom game, you'd better set up a great social platform. Ladies tend to interact with NPCs like you're handing out Wishes for it.

Us guys are focussed on getting the right gear, spells and wages to go and stop XYZ threat to the region and we tick the box for heroic NG. - Don't play it like a computer game.

Female players want to hear that the barkeep's daughter, Giselle, dreams of the day he doesn't need her to keep the place running and she can move to the city to become XYZ. Of course after they've returned back to the inn chatting to her after every adventure ...and find one day she's been kidnapped by some infatuated traveller and his retinue etc - NOW you've got a very motivated and excited bunch of players off to rescue her.
(Your players will probably want to hand them some gold to see her realise her dream but if you really want to dazzle them with depth, have the gruff barkeep refuse it and another NPC whisper them the truth that he couldnt bear to be without her since her mother died etc)

Have NPCs approach them as often as they approach the NPCs. (Merchants ought to come bearing items 'on special' when they hear the PCs have returned from a quest). Have bad guys turn out to be good guys etc.

Make a chart for yourself with NPCs names, goals, relationships with other NPCs etc. If they dont remember an NPC's name after multiple encounters, have their fave NPC use a nickname for them etc.

Your players will connect with your 'simply helping people' campaign a lot more if the Who & Why are more personal and real.

[Kol Korran]

I don't think that it is about having female players. I met male players who cared deeply about the NPCs in their world (I am one of those), and female players who just wanted to dish out murder and collect cool stuff. It's about the type of players you got.

That said, you did say that your players want to help people, which means they do care for people, so I'd wager that socializing and an interesting social backup is important.

I'll port something from a setup I'm preparing, hopefully this will be appealing.

The base community/ settlement, may be small, but not too small. The idea is that it's somewhat of a small town- small enough to be comfy and know all of the main places, but not big enough so you know everything and everyone- you can still quite convincingly be surprised by a new face, a new group and so on. I'd say a small town, of about 1,500-2,000 people or so should do it?

The setup I'd suggest is somewhat of a frontier boom town: Some special interesting resource is located in a fairly wild area (Special crystals, or something even more exotic), which draws people to this place. It draws various kind of people- the hardy, the adventurous, the scheming, the opportunists, and with quite big amounts- those desperate for a new start.

While you may have 1-3 ruling/ authoritative/ responsible bodies or organizations, (Ruling wealthy body with the resources and supplies for running the place, maybe a military/ watch/ guard body, and maybe 1-2 churches?) I'd suggest to in fact make the town multi cultural (If you have seen the Sci-Fi show Babylon, think of something like this, only without the diplomatic stuff). Feel free to have small communities of more exotic creatures, such as Raptorans, Blue goblins, maybe some minor intelligent undead, or whatever. (It highly depends on what "exotic" means to your group.)

But there are also natives. (My initial thought is half giants, or shifters, maybe cat people? Wemic?) Some of which are weary of the newcomers, but are willing to trade and deal with them, while others may be more dangerous, disliking the "foreigners", and may call for more open hostilities.

This way, you have both an interesting social structure, and a bucket load of opportunities for adventures! With tensions between different groups of locals, local and foreigners, the new resources and possibly other stuff you have a small but highly productive bubbling cauldron of adventure!

As to the dungeon: This can be simple or complex. A sample idea is that some enterprise sent a small expedition into the wilderness, in search of more of the resource, but having skimmed on the guards. But the expedition has gone missing. The party is sent to locate the people of the expedition (You can link one or tow of them to likeable NPCs in the town), and find out what threat begets them.

The party searches, comes upon a fight scene, do a little investigation, and then heads up after trails or such (Give the Ranger some ability to shine), up to the encampment of some humanoids who captured the people of the expedition (Either some of the natives mentioned above, or you could come resort to goblins/ hobgoblins and the like, with a few beasties (Worgs? Krenshars?) and maybe a raid band chief (Bugbear? Ogre? Harpy? Hag?) Enable the party some other options other than straight combat to resolve this, such as subterfuge and stealth, or even talks (Maybe the expedition went on holy ground, or the band's territory? Some sort of a cultural misunderstanding?) I suggest to have some significant choice to make here- maybe the expedition DID find a new site, but using it will impinge on the natives' territory, and can cause potential hostilities. DO they reveal the information and gain great reward from their employer? Or do they keep it secret, for the natives' sake? What does "Keeping it secret" entails exactly?

Does this work, or would you like to work more on building further details? Either for the adventure, or the town? Or would you prefer something else alltogether?

[bloodystone2]

First of all, thank you everyone for your help :smallsmile:

Second of all, I run campaigns for both genders (more women then men, actually) so their gender isn't the problem. The problem I had was simply the motivation and setting. With the hardcore characters, being promised a flaming greatsword + 1 is enough for them to attempt to fight a lich. They don't care about loot.

Third of all, roleplay is easy. In fact it's too easy. In fact it's gotten to the point that I have a problem. If you go back a few days in the forums, I had to ask people for monsters who couldn't be reasoned with because my players would always interact with the monsters I made and even befriended several people they were supposed to fight and kill (The gentlemen iron scorpion, spoopy the skeleton, Rock'tar the orc destroyer).

Now lets go through each person's individual response and let me talk about it.

Crake: I had thought of making everyone a native but I hadn't thought of the sunless citadel. Good idea!

Karl: Gathering for a festival was my first adventure ever so that might bring back nostalgic feels. :smallredface:

Knaight: You got a lot of things correct except for being in the danger of getting repetitive. I've run hub campaigns before and I refuse to make it disinteresting. 6 factions, 7 guilds, a death arena, holidays, seiges, ect. kept my players busy. I really like your Dried Creek story. I mean I really like it. I might take it for another game or use it here but I really like it.

Lerondiel: As I said a bit up, roleplay and girls are something I handle very well (and makes me the best DM in my group). I do like your npc barkeeper and daughter combo. I have the bad feeling that I'm going to make her a medusa by the end of the campaign though. Odd.

Kol: The initial question wasn't on chicks, everyone of my players get deeply invested with their characters (to the point that they refuse to make more and will only roleplay them). I think 2k is way too big. I was thinking between 50 - 200. Enough that I can keep track of what's going on but enough that I can make someone up on the spot. The frontier boom town interests me. I'm not sure about the multicultural thing in the village. I was thinking of having smaller villages around the main village hub and, with enough questing, they can fuse with the village but only when they've had enough time spent in the foreign village. And I like your ideas so if you want to continue, that's fine, but you've given a lot of things for me to think about.

Thanks everyone :smallbiggrin:

[M Placeholder]

As for the natives of the town, some ideas for exotic races.

Githzerai outpost, set up due to rumors that there are Githyanki planning to gain a foothold in the area, and by the Will of Zerth, Know this will not come to pass. There have been reports of animals leaving the area, and the PC's investigate.

A Colony of Pech or Shad, arriving from the Elemental plane of Earth. They need help in defending their town, and the PC's come to help out.

As for the frontier idea, I would suggest having Thri-Kreen as the native race. If you could convince one of your players to play as a full elf rather than a half elf, it would work even better and add an edge to the dealings with the kreen.

Using psionics for the kreen (and the Gith) will make them seem even more strange and otherworldly.

[endur]

Third of all, roleplay is easy. In fact it's too easy. In fact it's gotten to the point that I have a problem. If you go back a few days in the forums, I had to ask people for monsters who couldn't be reasoned with because my players would always interact with the monsters I made and even befriended several people they were supposed to fight and kill (The gentlemen iron scorpion, spoopy the skeleton, Rock'tar the orc destroyer).

Why is this a problem? Are there some players that want to kill and others that want to talk that is causing a player versus player conflict?

If the players are happy with peaceful resolution, I wouldn't worry about it. There are lots of ways to resolve encounters, combat should be a last resort. Talking, avoiding (sneaking around), trickery, etc.

[Knaight]

I'm in agreement with Knaight regarding adding detail to the HQ town itself.

If your experience with new female players is like mine and you'd like to create a great custom game, you'd better set up a great social platform. Ladies tend to interact with NPCs like you're handing out Wishes for it.

Us guys are focussed on getting the right gear, spells and wages to go and stop XYZ threat to the region and we tick the box for heroic NG. - Don't play it like a computer game.
I'm in agreement with the rest of your post, but this hasn't been my experience at all. Some players are more about problem solving, some players are more about the social interactions of the game, and I've seen basically no correlation with gender here. Heck, I'm pretty far on the "interact with NPCs" side of this (though I generally GM), and I'm not exactly female.


Second of all, I run campaigns for both genders (more women then men, actually) so their gender isn't the problem. The problem I had was simply the motivation and setting. With the hardcore characters, being promised a flaming greatsword + 1 is enough for them to attempt to fight a lich. They don't care about loot.

Third of all, roleplay is easy. In fact it's too easy. In fact it's gotten to the point that I have a problem. If you go back a few days in the forums, I had to ask people for monsters who couldn't be reasoned with because my players would always interact with the monsters I made and even befriended several people they were supposed to fight and kill (The gentlemen iron scorpion, spoopy the skeleton, Rock'tar the orc destroyer).
From a theorycrafting perspective here, roleplaying is used to describe two things. One of them is the improvisational acting side of RPGs, generally expressed through dialog. It sounds like the players are good at that, and the way the game is set up allows them to use it as an extremely reliable problem solving tool. The other aspect is in the making of meaningful decisions based on the character, considering the characters wants and needs, morals, foibles, so on and so forth. That second one is often the real meat of it, and the best way to have that happen is to create the setting such that decisions will emerge which have an impact, and which involve choosing between things that all have compelling reasons to be the better choice, and all have costs to them which make them somewhat undesirable.

This is actually something I've talked about on these forums before in another context (video game storytelling), if you google "Final fantasy drug wars" you'll find the second page of a thread, the first page of which has a string of posts on local settings, small scale concerns, an example I whipped up, and some talk using that example to draw from with decision making. Sadly, the thread is archived and the archive doesn't show when someone is quoting something as opposed to when they are just writing something. The crux of it was setting up a town with a number of different sympathetic factions with sympathetic goals which the PCs could end up navigating, ending up working alongside different factions at different times - though it also involved a few less sympathetic extremist factions for color.


Knaight: You got a lot of things correct except for being in the danger of getting repetitive. I've run hub campaigns before and I refuse to make it disinteresting. 6 factions, 7 guilds, a death arena, holidays, seiges, ect. kept my players busy. I really like your Dried Creek story. I mean I really like it. I might take it for another game or use it here but I really like it.
It's a danger with the model in general - it sounds like you've got it well under control. As for Dried Creek, go ahead and take it. I whipped it up for this thread precisely because you said you were looking for a setting.

[Kol Korran]

Kol: The initial question wasn't on chicks, everyone of my players get deeply invested with their characters (to the point that they refuse to make more and will only roleplay them). I think 2k is way too big. I was thinking between 50 - 200. Enough that I can keep track of what's going on but enough that I can make someone up on the spot. The frontier boom town interests me. I'm not sure about the multicultural thing in the village. I was thinking of having smaller villages around the main village hub and, with enough questing, they can fuse with the village but only when they've had enough time spent in the foreign village. And I like your ideas so if you want to continue, that's fine, but you've given a lot of things for me to think about.

(My gender reference was to a previous poster, not to you, but it doesn't matter).

Ok, so a small boom town, with an exotic race. I think we need to start with an exotic resource first- the very reason for the existence of the place.

My thought, is that since this is a world with magic, maybe have a resource that can affect magic somehow? Do you know the dragon marks from Eberron? And dragon shards? I have an idea that kind of combines both.
Basically in Eberron, there are sort of mega corporations, with some of their members manifesting magical runes- the dragonmarks, that enable them to use some SLA even without being casters. The marks formed the basis of various civil cervices (Transportation, scribing, crafting, protection, art and more) of a higher grade than mundane means. In time however, the dragonmarrked houses also established various tool, items and ways to amplify their marks capabilities, making them more powerful, versatyle, and... profitable. :smallbiggrin:

Many of their tools draw power from special crystals- the dragon shards. There re three types. The most common (and weakest) are found in the soil (Eberron dragonshards). Others fall from the sky (Syberis), and some are deep, deep in the underdark version of the setting (Khyber). Each type of shards can come in various purities, and they can be used for different things, be they aa sort of metamagic for dragon shards, creating special items and more. Needless to say, the dragonmarked houses are on constant look for them, and they are a serious economic, civil and magical factor.

Ok, so what is my idea? Sy that in a certain land, special stones/ crystal appear- rune stones. These appear in various plces, and hold strange runes of various powers (For visuals, you can google "Dragon marks" for images, or the net for sample powers, though you can easily change those to fit your campaign). These stones are a fairly new discovery, and though they re obviously magical, deciphering their secrets, how to use them , is still fairly new. At first you can have them do simpel things, such as give simple X/day spell like abilities, power up specific thematic spells or enhance items, but as the campaign progress, more and more uses could be found. some innocent, some less so, some downright disturbing.

Your selected exotic race/ group. was the first who established a "civilized" settlement in the dangerous area, and the first who discovered how to use the stones. They may have a certain way of how to protect this knowledge, to keep it so far as their monopoly. However, they do try to encourage new people to come and explore the place for them, find more resources, face the dangers for them, and bring in new rune stones, new discoveries.

The rune stones mke for an immedite mystery. The players might try to figure out how they work on their own (There are 12 dragonmmrks, each with 4 versions for increasing power, not to mention "Aberrant dragon marks"- distorted dragonmaks of highly destructive power", so you can weave as complicated a mystery with them as you wish). As their uses become more and more varied, more and more profitable, some new mysteries may appear- the runes appear not only on stones... but on plants, on beasts of power, maybe even on people... or huge dragonmarks as landmarks, or in ripples in the water, or the fabric of magic itself... Also- where do these runes come from? Is there someone behind their creation?

The rulers of your little village may become a mystery themselves, and you can have the search for the rune stones change them slowly, as they work in the greatest proximity with them. How would the party react when facing those whom they have developed connections with, transform by this new, unknown, potentially dangerous for m of magic?

If you don't like the complexity of dealing with ll the marks and the runes, you could easily choose something a bit simpler, say... "Shadow stones" or such- things more limited in power and with less mystery, but still a highly valuable resource for the magical world.

As to race, I am trying to think of something more exotic, but in my mind I keep thinking of dwarves. They are reclusive, form small communities, and have the determination and "go to attitude" to try to achieve such a feat as figuring out an entirely new magical resources. I have an image of them forming a special high magic foundry that manages to use the magic of the rune stones, and they keep it guarded, secret, and well stocked, as the center of this little settlement. Dwarves hve the added benefit that you have plenty of material to draw upon to form an interesting cultural experience, be it from D&D, Tolkein, or even Terry Pratchett's books. I may have another idea, but I think that if you work nicely on dwarves, you can make them as interesting as any of the "more exotic races".

Another idea for rces is the Janni (MM3, along with the other d'jinn). with some simple modification, you can make them a semi nomadic/ semi desert folk people. Their settlement could be a sort of a trading oasis as well as a boom town, with some people coming and going, so you convincingly put in minor outside influences, as people coming from traveling caravans and so on. They are a bit high powered for a player race, but they can either be non playable (Though players may resent), or you might power them down to something more manageable (I remember there are various half-elemental races? Forgot their names). The runes can even be linked to the elements or such? Maybe there is a small dwarven foundry within the Janni settlement, in exchange for some of the runes magic?

Those are just initial ideas. Hope they work for you!

[Lerondiel]

lol, my apologies to all who shifted very uncomfortably in their chairs to my gender stereotype....It's why I started the post with "If your new female players are like mine..."

I play with guys keen to level up their optimised characters to take on the gates of hell itself, while our ladies snooze through that but wake up when boots of speed are on sale...but they better not be elven green...it doesnt go with anything :)