PDA

View Full Version : DM Help sub Campaign help- Bards College



Fuzzy Alliance
2017-01-30, 12:44 PM
First post so sorry if i don't follow all the random style preferences on here. I'm trying to come up with a new sub campaign and I need help. I have a few ideas but there are aspects of the game that could greatly benefit from having some outside help. I tend to ramble so TDLR will be supplied and labeled followed by the help I need.

1: Background
My friend and I have been running a naval horror game for awhile now. It's starting to get tedious and people are losing interest. I've tried to simplify the game but the party actually wants to manage food, water, and ammunition. Combat is starting to devolve into "tell our men to do this". Then the captains do a group roll for their men to preform an action. We have been trying to spice things up for awhile now with varying success. In my previous game we had a spontaneous adventure that was supposed to happen off screen. One of the players character was supposed to report back to his king and then would return. Every single person in the party decided to teleport with them to the area I had put hardly any thought into... typical really. So I quickly tossed together a quick assassination plot in the Halfling kingdom they were heading to and boom, an awesome sub campaign was born. They still tell stories about it much to my delight. Essentially I want to do this again.

2: The player characters
There are two bards in their fleet that are "brothers". They aren't biological brothers, just good friends for some reason. The only time they act brotherly to each other is when they make preform checks. The two bards are named forsooth and hearsay. Alignments are true Neutral and chaotic Neutral. Their characters don't have a lot of depth and their backstories are non existent. They grew up in some backwater village, went to bards college, graduated and went to the city where the campaign started. The rest of the members of our d&d group will roll up characters too. Since this is before they graduated I was thinking that they all draw up commoners, and they will be granted parts of the bard class as they progress though college.

3: the plot
In the normal campaign i'm thinking of having them get captured by some flamboyant hipster villain with pink hair and a mow hawk that turns out to be their rival from college. It's essentially a liberal arts college, hence the flamboyant hipster persona. I'll probably name him "Yu" or something. The problem is I can't come up with anything good for the plot. If they already know who the villain is they will try and meta. Therefore i need a way around this without putting him in a trench coat so they can't see his face. I've already done this with a "dead" PC. Or maybe it would be a good thing as it will enforce the rivalry as the players are going after him without justification. One thing i want to do is have the big bad secretly have a class level in sorcerer since the PCs are commoners. That should make him fairly dangerous. This could be hinted at in the sub campaign by him doing very well in his spell courses but suffering in others. The only plot idea I really have that has potential is that he's trying to summon a demon or something. Why he's at the college trying to impersonate a bard is unknown to me.

4: the jokes
This is the most important section. I want this campaign to be chalked full of references and joke. The bard college (stone high? (pot joke)) is essentially a liberal arts college. One of my players actually attended a liberal arts college so i think he'll find this hilarious. Issue is i'm a software guy so I'm not exactly qualified in that area. So post your jokes and references below! Jabs at modern stereotypes and pop culture references need to be a thing in this game. There is a great wall being built to stop the encroaching desert from destroying the farm lands. You can be damn sure I'm making a trump joke. Clicks and groups of hippies will definitely make an appearance but I don't have an idea of what the groups will consist of. There will be plenty of parties going on and I do intend to give the players a grade at the end. If they do a lot of partying, miss classes, and piss teachers off, they could flunk out of bards college. I totally expect them to fail. These are the people that wanted the skill "Preform: sex". That would make it rather difficult to use their bard abilities in combat. There totally will be a west side story reference in there somewhere too. Last thing over the years we have joked about doing a musical campaign. I would love for this to have elements of that sort of thing. Dance offs, rap battles, choreography bonuses for combat if everyone does their perform checks.

TDLR:
1: Current game is getting stale.
2: Two bards have backstory I want to expand on. Other players will roll up new characters for this.
3: the sub campaign will revolve around their college years
4: needs to be full of jokes and references

What I need:
Basic plot using the character described preferably.
Lots and lots of college jokes and references.
Other ways to make this an enjoyable and memorable game.

Fuzzy Alliance
2017-01-30, 12:45 PM
Place holder to edit and post ideas and notes that the community came up with.