Campaign/Module with biggest emotional weight?

[bendking]

I want to feel things I've never felt before in D&D.
What is the best campaign/adventure/module to make the PC's connect and experience the game world and its inhabitants?
With an emphasis on sad events, connecting to NPC's, making hard choices, etc.

[NOhara24]

I want to feel things I've never felt before in D&D.
What is the best campaign/adventure/module to make the PC's connect and experience the game world and its inhabitants?
With an emphasis on sad events, connecting to NPC's, making hard choices, etc.

NOTE: My research into canned modules is almost zero to none, but in my experience DMing and playing and researching what you're asking for is not Wizard's strong suit, maybe I am wrong. That being said, I can speak on this somewhat so I'll try to keep things concise and talk on what is most commonly invoked to make PCs "feel something" - the death of an NPC.

I've had players cry and have to step away when they're in my campaigns, I notably can get into a character enough and cry when need be. So that's part of it, the DM becoming invested in his own world enough to care about the goings on but let things happen as they may. That's one tricky part.

The other part is understanding your player's emotions without resorting to emotional manipulation. An example is something that most DMs have gone through, and that is the death of an NPC. More than likely at some point in advance it will occur to you as the DM that this character is going to die. The trick is making them earn their own death - and not ALWAYS making it a sacrifice for the good of the party (this is why Aeris/th death was so devastating to people who played FFVII, it really was totally out of the blue and unexpected.) This is another tricky part. So, for example:

Scenario 1) you introduce an NPC to the party. Based on his interactions with, he's a pretty shallow NPC. Only exists to let the party react to his activities day to day. Perhaps he was the love interest of a PC, or became friends with another. DO NOT KILL THIS CHARACTER. This is an example of blatant emotional manipulation, simply because the only reason he existed was to form attachments that would be broken with this death. This is bush-league as there is no lasting effects to his passing.

Scenario 2) you introduce an NPC to the party. He's got his own agenda and motivations regardless of what the party wants. The point is, he exists for more than just the idea of forming meaningless connections with the party. The "bigger" this character is, the better. This is a character worthy of death, because his passing has the potential to teach the PCs multiple things - not the least of which is that no one is "safe", and this could allow for character development which is always good. They should feel the lasting effects of his passing for sessions to come as perhaps he filled some kind of role for the party. Be it a quartermaster, mentor or something else.

Ultimately, don't use death as a tool to get rid of loose ends or people that the party isn't connecting with. Use it to get them more involved.

The other point of your post - creating tough choices, is admittedly fairly easy. It's 90% of modern Bethesda games. You have multiple ways of going about it:

-Making everyone involved some kind of morally gray. *cough cough Skyrim/Fallout 4*
-Making everyone involved totally unlikable. This is an option that I don't recommend because it's all too-common IRL.
-Making everyone involved fairly likable, and make the cost of not choosing their side devastating. This will create genuine anguish and stress amongst players, I find and is much more desirable than having everyone be lukewarm on all parties (option 1) or outwardly disliking everyone (option 2)

I hope this helps, but if you do manage to find a canned module with feelings built in, be sure to let us know :smallsmile:

[the_david]

This isn't going to help much, but in Bastion of Broken Souls...

The dragon Ashardalon is gobbling up souls of unborn children somewhere on the positive energy plane. This module is not suitable for anyone who had a miscarriage or stillborn baby. Unfortunately, that makes it unplayable with most groups without asking your players first.

[Matrota]

In my experience, gray zones of morality are some of the best for messing with your players. Give them options, have people send them on quests, and then have people along the way place doubts in their minds. In one of my campaigns, I'm working with my party to gather artifacts that can open a seal placed long ago to keep a beast hidden away. The creature apparently has the power both to create and destroy, and tons of parties are after it. The one who sent us on the quest to find it is apparently Mask, god of thieves. Another one who's after it and supports us is the Monarch, a primordial whose scourged legions' souls are held by that monster. Then there's the brotherhood, four brother gods who seek it for their reasons, and the demon council, who wants the power as well. We've had contact with 3/4, and none of them are without some shadiness and mistrust.

Build up tension. Make sure the players know their decisions may not always be right, and constantly have them questioning their morality.

[bendking]

NOTE: My research into canned modules is almost zero to none, but in my experience DMing and playing and researching what you're asking for is not Wizard's strong suit, maybe I am wrong. That being said, I can speak on this somewhat so I'll try to keep things concise and talk on what is most commonly invoked to make PCs "feel something" - the death of an NPC.

I've had players cry and have to step away when they're in my campaigns, I notably can get into a character enough and cry when need be. So that's part of it, the DM becoming invested in his own world enough to care about the goings on but let things happen as they may. That's one tricky part.

The other part is understanding your player's emotions without resorting to emotional manipulation. An example is something that most DMs have gone through, and that is the death of an NPC. More than likely at some point in advance it will occur to you as the DM that this character is going to die. The trick is making them earn their own death - and not ALWAYS making it a sacrifice for the good of the party (this is why Aeris/th death was so devastating to people who played FFVII, it really was totally out of the blue and unexpected.) This is another tricky part. So, for example:

Scenario 1) you introduce an NPC to the party. Based on his interactions with, he's a pretty shallow NPC. Only exists to let the party react to his activities day to day. Perhaps he was the love interest of a PC, or became friends with another. DO NOT KILL THIS CHARACTER. This is an example of blatant emotional manipulation, simply because the only reason he existed was to form attachments that would be broken with this death. This is bush-league as there is no lasting effects to his passing.

Scenario 2) you introduce an NPC to the party. He's got his own agenda and motivations regardless of what the party wants. The point is, he exists for more than just the idea of forming meaningless connections with the party. The "bigger" this character is, the better. This is a character worthy of death, because his passing has the potential to teach the PCs multiple things - not the least of which is that no one is "safe", and this could allow for character development which is always good. They should feel the lasting effects of his passing for sessions to come as perhaps he filled some kind of role for the party. Be it a quartermaster, mentor or something else.

Ultimately, don't use death as a tool to get rid of loose ends or people that the party isn't connecting with. Use it to get them more involved.

The other point of your post - creating tough choices, is admittedly fairly easy. It's 90% of modern Bethesda games. You have multiple ways of going about it:

-Making everyone involved some kind of morally gray. *cough cough Skyrim/Fallout 4*
-Making everyone involved totally unlikable. This is an option that I don't recommend because it's all too-common IRL.
-Making everyone involved fairly likable, and make the cost of not choosing their side devastating. This will create genuine anguish and stress amongst players, I find and is much more desirable than having everyone be lukewarm on all parties (option 1) or outwardly disliking everyone (option 2)

I hope this helps, but if you do manage to find a canned module with feelings built in, be sure to let us know :smallsmile:

Wow, this is a great comment.
Thank you so much for the effort put into this one, I'll be sure to use the tips you wrote.

[etrpgb]

Are you a PG or the DM? In my experience it depends a lot of the players and in general D&D rules set are not good for emotional adventures.

Just consider that outside combat as skill you pretty much have: Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense Motive and indirectly Perform. There are also few spells (Charm for example), but most of them are for combat.

In any case it's a very thin line to walk on, if the adventure is too easy nobody will fell threatened (we stomp them...), if it is too bleak after a while players won't care (oh, no problem. I have already the next character ready).
Similar to the problem already mentioned; if the side are gray and grey the player might not simply care about who will win. Or they might even take the third option of killing everyone*. If both sides are nice, then why they are fighting anyway? Cannot we find a peaceful solution? This last question might honestly open to interesting roleplay, but it's very difficult to pull off.

About NPCs and factions, it's nice and all the DM thinks about a credible world and it does increase immersion, but it is still a device that it exists only in the DM mind and it appears to the players only through what he says; being too detailed might bore the players and being too quick might make everyone look the same.

Besides, after years of good books and tv series players are pretty much really genre savvy and it really difficult to surprise or make them care. Once again it depends on the players. A LOT. Do they take the game seriously? They mostly want to make fighting encounters to play the powers of their characters? If it is the case, story emotions will probably simply bore them.

On the other hand, if they like to roleplay you can think to the classic problematic scenarios like: collateral damage (destroy the village to avoid the spread of evil?), greater good (old die, young survive?), long term against short term, ...



* about this scenario comes to my mind Baldur's Gate II. To play though the game you had to ally with or some Vampires or some Thieves. In the first part you had to join one part to strongly weaken the other, later you have to attack the Vampires anyways. Both of party were obviously very dislikeable, so I remember playing with Vampires in the first round to destroy the Thieves and later destroy the Vampires. Just because... what the hell, who I was supposed to support: life suckers undeads or people who live stealing?