Can someone critique this campaign hook for the game I'm going to be running soon?

[SangoProduction]

Before you, in a stone seat of immense size sits a towering golem of metal. As the view of the rest of the chamber that stretches to infinity fades in to view, the golem seems to awaken. Its eyes alight with a blue energy, it moves, as though to be more comfortable on its seat. Its iron-clad fingers shamble to the rests of the throne.

Its gaze now falls upon you. You sense there are others in this chamber with you, but you can't place their name, nor can you see them well. A thundering, but soft, voice rings from above, "Fallen Warrior. Your fight is not over, assuming that you can impress me. What is your name?"

The golem pauses, waiting for you to answer. As soon as you do, it almost seems as though doubt had fallen across its unmoving face. "If you believe that to be so, then so it shall be. What do you fight for, and why do you need my strength?"

You feel invigorated. The energy flows through you, then it flown past. You get the impressions of the changing seasons upon the featureless, expanding chamber of stone. Birth. Growth. Death. Decay.
The stones suddenly bleed red. Fires plume of hate. Screams. Fear. Pain. Intense. But not yours'. A ruler? A master?
Water rushes in and calms the flaming stones. It's like a beach. Friends and family, but no faces. Rivals so vital now only idle.
The endless chamber changes again, to a solemn place of learning. Locked away, but knowing. Hidden away, but seeing. Never talking, but always hearing.

They feel like you, but not you at the same time. Why are they so different? Perhaps an image someone else had? Perhaps an image that you had? Everything starts fading. You are falling. "Answer me. What do you fight for? What *will* you fight for? Why do you call for my strength?" You hear, anchoring you to the shaky floor for seemingly mere moments. You must answer. You know it. You aren't sure of anything, but you know that for sure.

"Give your answer!" The golem is brimming with energy. It stands. The floors fall.

[johnbragg]

It's a very cool campaign invite. It would not work well in a group where people show up for a new campaign with "Maybe I'll do a thief-type this time." You want your players to be ready with answers for "what do you fight for and why do you need my strength."

Also, are all of the PCs golem-avatar-things, or what?

[SangoProduction]

It's a very cool campaign invite. It would not work well in a group where people show up for a new campaign with "Maybe I'll do a thief-type this time." You want your players to be ready with answers for "what do you fight for and why do you need my strength."

Also, are all of the PCs golem-avatar-things, or what?

thanks.

I was going to add a paragraph in about friends and family as well. I felt it was getting long already though. Should I put it in to prevent people thinking that they need to choose classes based on what was said?
The impression that I was going for was along the lines of "you were kind of a big shot, but what are you? You must decide."

And yeah, the PCs are planned to be reincarnated avatars...ish things.

EDIT: OK. I think I've got a better set of paragraphs for that vision section. Thanks for pointing it out to me. I need to catch my ride right now though.

EDIT2: Awesome. Finished, and didn't even take that much extra space.

[Kol Korran]

Though it does sound impressive as a campaign Invite, I can foresee some problems:
1. People will decide to fight for vastly different things, which might cause problem with the party composition, or the planning of the story itself.
2. Do the players have knowledge of the setting they are in? "I fight for the glory of dwarves!" One might say, when dwarves have been extinct for some time... A player might have an idea for a revenge story, a love story, a penance story or more ,but for that they need to know the setting. You need to provide a great deal of context outside just the intro.
3. Some players (Including me), Like to start the game not understanding their characters well enough- have a base, but grow organically through play- get to know their character, beliefs, choices and personality through play, through interaction. Yet you demand a very central and core choice from the outset, which might off put quite a lot of players.
4. The intro seems to demand a major choice of the players, without nearly no info to base their decision and answer upon, which seems (At least from the dram and insistence involved) to be extremely important, and carry a LOT of weight for the future to come. Many might make a choice they will greatly regret later on, due to the lack of knowledge and context to base their answer upon, and may carry a great deal of resentment later on.

I suggest playing a bit before this, give the players a feel of what this whole thing is about, even if not complete, but as it is, it sounds cool, but has no "meat" to play with... :smallsigh:

[Zancloufer]

Other than changing the wording a little to allow for a group?

This is a bit, heavy, for something to throw at the PCs at the very beginning. It does give me a little bit of a Dark Souls vibe though.

Now if this was a quest hook for the party partly into the adventure it would work quite well. After the PCs have a few victories under their belt and some degree of fame and direction. Maybe even hint at the existence of either this golem, or what will come after they encounter it to encourage the party to seek it out.

[SangoProduction]

Though it does sound impressive as a campaign Invite, I can foresee some problems:
1. People will decide to fight for vastly different things, which might cause problem with the party composition, or the planning of the story itself.
2. Do the players have knowledge of the setting they are in? "I fight for the glory of dwarves!" One might say, when dwarves have been extinct for some time... A player might have an idea for a revenge story, a love story, a penance story or more ,but for that they need to know the setting. You need to provide a great deal of context outside just the intro.
3. Some players (Including me), Like to start the game not understanding their characters well enough- have a base, but grow organically through play- get to know their character, beliefs, choices and personality through play, through interaction. Yet you demand a very central and core choice from the outset, which might off put quite a lot of players.
4. The intro seems to demand a major choice of the players, without nearly no info to base their decision and answer upon, which seems (At least from the dram and insistence involved) to be extremely important, and carry a LOT of weight for the future to come. Many might make a choice they will greatly regret later on, due to the lack of knowledge and context to base their answer upon, and may carry a great deal of resentment later on.

I suggest playing a bit before this, give the players a feel of what this whole thing is about, even if not complete, but as it is, it sounds cool, but has no "meat" to play with... :smallsigh:

1. That is indeed a problem if your pool of potential players is small relative to your desired party size. However, there aren't too many truly exclusive motivations, save for if they want to jump in to the "overtly evil" territory.
2. Yeah. Important notes for the setting and character restrictions are in the character creation section. This was just the introduction. Of course, imagine someone who fights for the dwarves...and then gets dropped in to a world where the dwarves have died, been slaughtered, or some other horrible thing, and they are the last. That could be interesting. Given that the setting is also somewhat mutable, I don't think this is much of a problem.
3. This is a legitimate concern. And, if you prefer it that way, this campaign, or at least this introduction, is very much not for you. No game is better than a bad game.
4. An interesting problem. I'll see what I can't do to remedy that. The point was supposed to be to grab on to something in a time of confusion, to think when there's no time, but I can see why that can have bad consequences later.


Other than changing the wording a little to allow for a group?

This is a bit, heavy, for something to throw at the PCs at the very beginning. It does give me a little bit of a Dark Souls vibe though.

Now if this was a quest hook for the party partly into the adventure it would work quite well. After the PCs have a few victories under their belt and some degree of fame and direction. Maybe even hint at the existence of either this golem, or what will come after they encounter it to encourage the party to seek it out.

Oddly enough, now that I look at Dark Souls, it does have a pretty similar theme that I was going with.

hmm. Yeah. This does sound like a good bit of a quest. That's a nice way to use this, definitely.