New DM

[TheFateless]

I have been playing with friends for about 4 years now, but I just decided to do a session. I have 5 players. some have played before, others have never played. Any suggestion for a short mission that would be challenging enough for old players but not too hard for newbies. I'm thinking necromancer destroyed a small town. I've also considered possibly a Druid set off by the recent industrialization.

[Venger]

are you looking for a module or do you want to create something on your own?

[TorsteinTheRed]

Both sound like fun concepts to play. How long do you plan on running this? Will it be a one-shot, or would you like to go multiple sessions? Will the players start at 1st level?

[NOhara24]

Strangely enough, the monster manuals are a great place to look for short little one-off session ideas. In particular, there's a monster called a "Vivisector" (Monster Manual V, I believe). In addition to its stats and lore, they include 4 or 5 scenarios/session ideas that would make for a great one-off.

[TheFateless]

I plan on running this up to level 20 or +

I've started all of my players at level 3 and am using 3.5e with homebrew elements so i have alittle more leyway with ther rules.

i have 2 players with 0 experience with tabletop rpg's. and i have 2 players with 5+ years experience, and one with a little over a years worth.

ive been writing the lore, politics, back history of my campaign for roughly a year now and have finally deemed it ready. but i dont want to through my characters into the main story quite yet. i want to give them all feels for there characters and make them love the world so they have something tpo fight for. but i'm struggling with the build up.

i guess im worried that if i make it too hard the newbies will die, and if i make it easier the veterans will get bored. thats why i started them at 3 instead of 1

[TheFateless]

Both sound like fun concepts to play. How long do you plan on running this? Will it be a one-shot, or would you like to go multiple sessions? Will the players start at 1st level?

I plan on running this up to level 20 or +

I've started all of my players at level 3 and am using 3.5e with homebrew elements so i have alittle more leyway with ther rules.

i have 2 players with 0 experience with tabletop rpg's. and i have 2 players with 5+ years experience, and one with a little over a years worth.

ive been writing the lore, politics, back history of my campaign for roughly a year now and have finally deemed it ready. but i dont want to through my characters into the main story quite yet. i want to give them all feels for there characters and make them love the world so they have something tpo fight for. but i'm struggling with the build up.

i guess im worried that if i make it too hard the newbies will die, and if i make it easier the veterans will get bored. thats why i started them at 3 instead of 1

[TheFateless]

are you looking for a module or do you want to create something on your own?

I could do either but a few modulus would lessen the load on me when i dont have time to write my one people have told me to buy a monster manual for that purpose but I dont know if i wanna spend the money on it if i'll only use it once or twice.

[Venger]

if you're starting at level 3, eyes of the lich queen is a pretty fun module.

[Yahzi]

ive been writing the lore, politics, back history of my campaign for roughly a year now and have finally deemed it ready. but i dont want to through my characters into the main story quite yet. i want to give them all feels for there characters and make them love the world so they have something tpo fight for. but i'm struggling with the build up.
Just so you know: your players will never love your world like you do.

They will never be that interested in the lore of your world. In RL most people barely read the news or study history; they're only concerned with events as they affect them personally. Your players (and their characters) will be the same. Unless the lore affects them directly, they won't care. The way to make players care about a world is to give their characters an anchor to it, something to personally care about. Some classic examples:

1. A family or NPC that they want to protect.

2. A kingdom they want to grow.

3. A enemy they want to kill. (The easiest of all hooks: a snotty, super-powerful NPC shows up in the first session, insults the PCs, laughs at their feeble attempts to harm him, and rides off into the sunset. Your PCs will spend the rest of the campaign eagerly trying to kill him.)

But it has to be a personal connection, not just a historical event. Hot blood, not dry, dusty history. If you have lore about how the Orcs mistreated the elves 1,000 years ago, no one will care. If you have a 5th level Orc spit on your player's 1st level eElf character and laugh at him, your player will hate Orcs with the heat of a thousand suns.

They will never see the world as you do. They will never understand or imagine the detail, care about the NPCs, or marvel at the intricacies of politics and magic as you do. I am frankly worried that you spent a year writing up all of this backstory and only now are looking at their characters; it should have been the other way around. Get them to spend a year on their characters and then you whip together a world that fits them.

Let me put it this way: the last time I spent a year writing about a world and a story I wanted to tell, I published it. Because that's what novelists do, not DMs. :smallsmile:

You can still use your world, of course. But just remember that all that backstory is there for you, to help you craft a realistic and predictable world. Your players will uncover your lore through experience; if every time they see Orc NPCs, those Orcs are in the process of murdering Elves, your players will eventually - after the dozenth example or so - deduce that Orcs hate Elves in your world. The backstory is there so that you can make the NPCs behave consistently. There is, quite honestly, no point in even mentioning it to your players.

Until they ask. Eventually, when they get around to wanting to hire an Orc mercenary squad, but keep their Elven Ranger cohort, and one of the two groups winds up dead in the middle of the night, they may actually turn to you and say, "So... what's up with these Orcs and Elves?"

And then... you don't tell them. You shrug. "I dunno. I guess you should ask one of them." The Orcs just try to kill the players whenever they ask; the elves sneer at the players and say, "Your ears are too small to hear the truth." Eventually they do a huge favor for a powerful Orc bard, or find an ancient Elven library, and then you will be rewarded with the ultimate DM experience: players exclaiming in genuine joy, "Hey! I bet there's a book in here that explains this Orc/Elf stuff!"

It's hard work. Writing a novel is actually easier. :smallbiggrin:

[TheFateless]

Just so you know: your players will never love your world like you do.

They will never be that interested in the lore of your world. In RL most people barely read the news or study history; they're only concerned with events as they affect them personally. Your players (and their characters) will be the same. Unless the lore affects them directly, they won't care. The way to make players care about a world is to give their characters an anchor to it, something to personally care about. Some classic examples:

1. A family or NPC that they want to protect.

2. A kingdom they want to grow.

3. A enemy they want to kill. (The easiest of all hooks: a snotty, super-powerful NPC shows up in the first session, insults the PCs, laughs at their feeble attempts to harm him, and rides off into the sunset. Your PCs will spend the rest of the campaign eagerly trying to kill him.)

But it has to be a personal connection, not just a historical event. Hot blood, not dry, dusty history. If you have lore about how the Orcs mistreated the elves 1,000 years ago, no one will care. If you have a 5th level Orc spit on your player's 1st level eElf character and laugh at him, your player will hate Orcs with the heat of a thousand suns.

They will never see the world as you do. They will never understand or imagine the detail, care about the NPCs, or marvel at the intricacies of politics and magic as you do. I am frankly worried that you spent a year writing up all of this backstory and only now are looking at their characters; it should have been the other way around. Get them to spend a year on their characters and then you whip together a world that fits them.

Let me put it this way: the last time I spent a year writing about a world and a story I wanted to tell, I published it. Because that's what novelists do, not DMs. :smallsmile:

You can still use your world, of course. But just remember that all that backstory is there for you, to help you craft a realistic and predictable world. Your players will uncover your lore through experience; if every time they see Orc NPCs, those Orcs are in the process of murdering Elves, your players will eventually - after the dozenth example or so - deduce that Orcs hate Elves in your world. The backstory is there so that you can make the NPCs behave consistently. There is, quite honestly, no point in even mentioning it to your players.

Until they ask. Eventually, when they get around to wanting to hire an Orc mercenary squad, but keep their Elven Ranger cohort, and one of the two groups winds up dead in the middle of the night, they may actually turn to you and say, "So... what's up with these Orcs and Elves?"

And then... you don't tell them. You shrug. "I dunno. I guess you should ask one of them." The Orcs just try to kill the players whenever they ask; the elves sneer at the players and say, "Your ears are too small to hear the truth." Eventually they do a huge favor for a powerful Orc bard, or find an ancient Elven library, and then you will be rewarded with the ultimate DM experience: players exclaiming in genuine joy, "Hey! I bet there's a book in here that explains this Orc/Elf stuff!"

It's hard work. Writing a novel is actually easier. :smallbiggrin:



Thank you. This actually helped a lot. :) I basically have to lead them and hope they take the bate. And honestly I've been wanting to write a novel but if i do that none of my players could read it cause it would give away a slew of spoilers for the events to come.

the session we just ran on Sunday (mostly teaching the new players how role play, combat, skills, feats... work) went smoothly enough. of course they almost burned everything in site accidentally. I'm gonna have to punish them for that one. but this small quest hints at the lore of the world. so does one i have set for them once they hit level 6. and another at level 10. but mostly I'm trying to get them leveled up in a way that doesnt rob them from the story.

I have a player who loves the lore, the history, and has personally tied her character directly to it.
But then I have one who just wants to kill and max stats. I had to give his character a reason to want to even be in the group. but he deviates quite often. so that's gonna make things a little hard. (I'm worried the long Roleplay/no combat quests are gonna bore him.)

but all the characters have given me separate agendas and once this quest is done i have to come up with something to keep them together. But that's my burden to carry as a DM (I have come to understand)

[TheFateless]

if you're starting at level 3, eyes of the lich queen is a pretty fun module.

Thank you, I will look into it