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GIMLI84
2016-09-23, 04:31 PM
I'm dming a low level campaign, and need ideas. I've tried all that monsters attacking a small town ****, I've done that to death. If anyone has ideas plz post.

MintyNinja
2016-09-23, 05:48 PM
People are going missing. Players hear a rumor here and there but wherever they're staying the night is where the next victim is taken from. Now they've got a hot crime scene, clues, and maybe even a personal connection to the victim. While some evidence points to a person of authority, it's actually planted there. It turns out, Jackalweres are stealing people for a Lamia out in the nearby mountain range. Those people are going to be sacrificed to Grazzt, the Demon Prince of Pleasure.

With this you have a clear path of an adventure that can be modified to fit your setting or style as you see fit. It connects unique monsters to memorable NPCs and a much higher entity in the Demon Prince.

the_david
2016-09-23, 06:19 PM
Ask your players. There are many reasons for this
- You can give your players exactly what they want.
- The story will be centered around the heroes, and the heroes will fit into the story.
- Your players will be able to play that character with that weird/complicated background that they couldn't fit into any campaign.
- Your players will set you up with the key elements for your campaign. All you have to do is connect the dots.

Aetis
2016-09-23, 09:46 PM
Check out the One Hundred Adventure Ideas from DMG

1. Thieves steal the crown jewels.
2. A dragon flies into a town and demands tribute.
3. The tomb of an old wizard has been discovered.
4. Wealthy merchants are being killed in their homes.
5. The statue in the town square is found to be a petrified paladin.
6. A caravan of important goods is about to leave for a trip through a dangerous area.
7. Cultists are kidnapping potential sacrifices.
8. Goblins riding spider eaters have been attacking the outskirts of a town.
9. Local bandits have joined forces with a tribe of bugbears.
10. A blackguard is organizing monsters in an area.
11. A gate to the lower planes threaten to bring more demons to the world.
12. Miners have accidentally released something awful that once was buried deep.
13. A wizards' guild challenges the ruling council.
etc

Noje
2016-09-24, 11:21 PM
My favorite thing to do is to throw my players into a very unstable setting (political turmoil, racial tensions, criminal activity; the whole nine yards. sometimes I'll even add some famine to spice it up) and respond to how they react to it. This opens a whole world of conflicts with many sides to choose. The players feel a sense of agency and significance in their world when meddling with these matters just to see things spiral completely out of their control, creating investment. Since the conflict doesn't have to be alignment based, it works with pretty much any party.

oudeis
2016-09-24, 11:57 PM
I'm dming a low level campaign, and need ideas. I've tried all that monsters attacking a small town ****, I've done that to death. If anyone has ideas plz post.

An army of monsters is attacking a BIG town. :smallcool:


Seriously. The players are visiting the capital city of the kingdom and they are pressed into the defense when an actual horde puts the town under siege. Give the party a series of small missions- reinforce one of the arrow towers, join a squad of royal guards to help escort the impetuous heir to the throne back to the castle/palace, patrol a portion of the sewers rumored to adjoin a long-lost underground passage that might be used to infiltrate the city, etc- and their success or failure will determine whether the city falls or not. You can break each mission into several tasks to make failure less binary or even establish a points system to rate how well they did the task (they rescued the heir but they left the captain of the guard to hold off a group of raiders who had reached the top and his death means they only get three out of five points); if they score above a certain number the city holds, if they are unsuccessful it is overrun and they have to help the heir escape through the sewers or somesuch. Success and failure will each have their rewards and penalties that the players will have to roleplay through. This will get them straight into the action, establish them as significant agents in the world and story line, and give them a real sense of involvement in their own destiny.

Mongobear
2016-09-25, 12:41 AM
Try out something similar to the KingMaker Adventure Path from Pathfinder. It's very sandboxy, but the main idea is the PCs are given a huge patch of unsettled land to turn into a functional city, but first they need to deal with bandits, goblins, and a whole mess of other crazy **** thats in the surrounding areas. Throughout the course of the AP, there is quite a bit of "WorldBuilding" to be decided upon by the PCs, with resources, workers, and townsfolk with stuff needing done and different buildings needing to be built for different effects.

If any of your group likes stuff like Civilization, SimCity, or other similar genre games, this may be a good change of pace for them. (Also, there is plenty of dungeon crawl and other hack and slash moments, so your more blood-thirsty players wont be nearly as bored)

radthemad4
2016-09-25, 05:39 AM
Not sure if your players would like this sort of thing but something I'm considering running at some point is the Hangover: D&D edition.

PCs wake up feeling extremely groggy somewhere they don't recognize at all and don't remember how they got there. Perhaps they're somewhere in a megadungeon. Perhaps it's a large city and the first thing they find is wanted posters with their descriptions on them. Could be any number of other things.

Might be a good idea to work with players to periodically come up with flashbacks that seem characteristic of each of them.

2D8HP
2016-09-25, 02:55 PM
I'd have to say that I would like to start the campaign In medias res, by the DM telling us something like:

“In the Year of the Behemoth, the Month of the Hedgehog, The Day of the Toad."

"Satisfied that they your near the goal of your quest, you think of how you had slit the interesting-looking vellum page from the ancient book on architecture that reposed in the library of the rapacious and overbearing Lord Rannarsh."

“It was a page of thick vellum, ancient and curiously greenish. Three edges were frayed and worn; the fourth showed a clean and recent cut. It was inscribed with the intricate hieroglyphs of Lankhmarian writing, done in the black ink of the squid. Reading":
"Let kings stack their treasure houses ceiling-high, and merchants burst their vaults with hoarded coin, and fools envy them. I have a treasure that outvalues theirs. A diamond as big as a man's skull. Twelve rubies each as big as the skull of a cat. Seventeen emeralds each as big as the skull of a mole. And certain rods of crystal and bars of orichalcum. Let Overlords swagger jewel-bedecked and queens load themselves with gems, and fools adore them. I have a treasure that will outlast theirs. A treasure house have I builded for it in the far southern forest, where the two hills hump double, like sleeping camels, a day's ride beyond the village of Soreev.

"A great treasure house with a high tower, fit for a king's dwelling—yet no king may dwell there. Immediately below the keystone of the chief dome my treasure lies hid, eternal as the glittering stars. It will outlast me and my name,"Please let me know if you want a player for PbP game of that!
Thanks!
:smile:

Hopeless
2016-09-25, 03:19 PM
You're new arrivals in the village you learn an evil sorceress has been plaguing the locals so agree to go investigate.
You ascend to near the top of the hill overlooking the village and the lake it depends on for fish and ships travelling up the river from the port town you hailed from.
First thing she does upon seeing you is run out of sight away from a still smoking ruin of a small farmhouse.
It doesn't take much to realise the young woman is the only survivor of another group who travelled here the same as you did but she chose to settle down buying a land grant whilst the others first investigated the catacombs beneath her home before travelling together to the island in the centre of the lake that everybody else avoids like the plague.
Because she won't convert to the local church and she's alone the locals have tried to drive her out of town as she's the closest thing the village has to a Healer outside of the village church.
Will they drive her out, kill her or befriend her as she might be the only trustworthy ally they have in the village?
And what of the Necromancers living on the island in the lake who are the true rulers of the village?
Guess whose the only person willing to warn them about them?

GIMLI84
2016-09-25, 04:09 PM
One problem is that it turns out all my player are chaotic neutral. Save one who is neutral good. Which be a problem getting them motivated

Noje
2016-09-25, 05:02 PM
One problem is that it turns out all my player are chaotic neutral. Save one who is neutral good. Which be a problem getting them motivated

Money has no alignment, my friend. Gaining wealth and/or power is a pretty good motivation. The good can use it to do good, the evil can use it to do evil, and the neutral... well, they can buy a flashy new hat. With the exception to monks, of course, but no one liked them in the first place. All they bring to potlucks is stale bread and watered down wine. And don't even get me started about their personal hygiene.

Jay R
2016-09-26, 09:37 AM
There's been a population explosion, and the civilized world needs more farmland. The PCs need to explore the wilderness, kill the monsters, and defend farmers who move in.

The 200-year-old goblin/dwarf war has finally spilled out into the surface world. Save your people from collateral damage. [Note that soldiers who live entirely underground have no interest in surface farmland, except that, being flat and clear, it's an obvious place for a large battle.]

The most bloodthirsty, conquering, enslaving race in the world was finally pushed off your continent a century ago. But watch out - the humans are coming back!

Segev
2016-09-26, 10:59 AM
One thing I might try one day in a game that you're welcome to use if it works for you:

Ask them each what they did the night before the game is to start. Make note of this; you'll use it later.

Describe to them how they wake up, resting in sleeping bags, in somebody's camp site. With these strangers they've never met before. The door is barricaded from this side, and the lantern of continual flame is shrouded to illuminate only it (making it easier for people to have slept through whatever brought them here). They now have a dungeon - disturbingly empty on this floor - to explore.

They're actually 2-3 levels higher than they think they are, and what happened is that they've been adventuring together for some time now, and made - if not friends - at least workable companions. But something in this dungeon wiped their memories of the last few months last night, so they don't remember any of that.

Build plausible scenarios from what they said they were doing the last night they remember and how they develop their interactions in the game, and present them as flashbacks. Let them play through them. To pull this off, you'll have to just give set-ups and have some definite potential-resolutions. Use the results to define things in the present as they "discover" them.