Odd question; anyone have a good plot l can borrow?

[Odessa333]

Hello there!


So I run a pathfinder game for 5 players. I give them a fairly open world, let them go where they want, and don't force them to do X or whatever. While resting up in an isolated desert town, they missed/skipped all of the potential plot hooks I had planned, and I'm trying to come up with some new ideas to toss at them. I'm having some DM self doubt, worrying
my plot hooks were just not interesting enough, you know? It may be a long shot, yet I figure it can't hurt to try here to get a fresh perspective. Thank you for reading, and for your time.

[DeTess]

can you provide a bit more information? Are the PC's just wandering bums heroes, or are they part of an organisation? Do any or all of them have ties to a particular place or kingdom? What are their in-character goals?

[Odessa333]

One PC is a cleric on a pilgrimage to a holy city, and she has hired the others PC's as her guards at present (it's a homebrew world where clerics are rare and highly respected). They all have a reason to go to said city; one is looking for a high level cleric to remove a curse; one PC has very little to work with and 'is a messenger' going to the city for....reasons, I guess?; one is a cook traveling the world for spices/recipes; one is an alchemist looking for knowledge at the holy city's library. Since they were all going that way anyway, they decided to work together, form a party, etc.

Since forming up, they've 'nope'd' right out of several potential plot hooks, from monster attacks to strange holes to political intrigue. As mentioned above, it's throwing me of my game, a bit too literally. I had assumed they would stop for SOMETHING, but they are heading right for the city without distractions. I could fast forward to that goal, yet it feels kind of cheap if they don't work for it. They will not have done much, and I worry how I'll keep them together at that point without 'hand of dm' saying so. On the other hand, if I force them to deal with too many roadblocks, I wander too much into JRPG territory and/or railroads. The last game I ran for this group, they investigated everything, so I'm at a loss of how to deal with the disinterest, worrying if it's the plot, the game, me, etc.


Hopefully that makes sense.

[DeTess]

All right, how about this. In the village they hear a rumor that an ancient library has been discovered in the sands after a sandstorm. This library belonged to [ancient civilization] that worshipped [cleric PC's god/pantheon], and might contain artifacts of his religion. This ancient civilization was also known for its advances in the chemical arts, and there's an old saga that the cook has heard about describing the fantastic banquets thrown by the last king of that civilization. Treasure hunters will soon converge on the library and rob it empty, but the players are the closest (semi)-competent group, so they could get the best stuff if they go now.

I'm sure you can plan out the library-dungeon yourself.

This directly hits the interests of the various players, and provides a reason why they can't just put it on the 'to-do' list for later. If they decide to ignore it than I don't think there's anything left that you could come up with that would divert them from their journey apart from some actual rail-roading.

Edit: Now, if they do go for this, there's an enormous stack of possible plot-hooks you could get in the library for the various players. Anything from clingy macguffins (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClingyMacGuffin), stories about the fabulous taste of rainbow-feathered cliff-roc eggs, vague directions to the legendary alchemist Bob's lost grimmoire, the book 'How to break the curse from my background 101: Part 1' (but not parts 2 to 5). or, if you want to suggest some more structures you could start setting stuff up for some kind of big bad or great treasure hunt they could undertake.

[alpine]

If not I would just let them go there, if they aren't interested in any hooks before they get their personal stuff done, I wouldn't force them to engage with the world yet. Let them get where they are going, and either give them some "I can help you but first you need to help me" stuff, or as they are doing their thing new hooks open up. I wouldn't necessarily worry about keeping them together, exciting plot hooks should do that just fine, plus each other's company. I think people underestimate this as a character motivation "I like these people and they are doing cool stuff, and I don't have any good prospects, I guess I'll keep hanging out with them"

On making it feel cheap... Traveling to a city is not like going through a dungeon hunting for treasure, it doesn't have to be difficult, people do it all the time. And it sounds like the rewards for going there are pretty minor.

They have goals already, thats great, let them pursue them and then offer new options.

[the_david]

I think your players have made it clear that they're not interested in sidequests. It might be wise to draw your conclusions and move on.

Other suggestions:
A falling star appears in the sky and crashes not to far from the party. A fire elemental cleric (Template from Monster Codex) survived the crash and heads for the temple of Pyrax. (Mythic Elder Fire Elemental, Evil god of Fire and Destruction.) When the party finds the crater they find pieces of strange ice that doesn't melt (That can be used to create magic weapons and armor.) and tracks leading to the temple of Pyrax. The fire elemental cleric will try to perform a ritual that frees Pyrax from his icy comet prison. (Which should be a dungeon with an ice level and a fire level.)

Every month under a full moon a person goes missing. That is, very little is found of their remains. Investigating uncovers a clue about a wolf. What is actually happening is that a Barghest is hunting down townspeople every month to become stronger.

A Vigilante with an Owlbear companion (Restrained with an enchanted leash.) is claiming he did something heroic while it was the party that did that heroic thing. A Bard (The alter ego of the Vigilante.) is the one who spread the rumors.

Edit: Actually, Randuir's suggestion is pretty good. Do that one. I'd suggest adding a rival party that comes in after the party.

[Doctor Awkward]

One PC is a cleric on a pilgrimage to a holy city, and she has hired the others PC's as her guards at present (it's a homebrew world where clerics are rare and highly respected). They all have a reason to go to said city; one is looking for a high level cleric to remove a curse; one PC has very little to work with and 'is a messenger' going to the city for....reasons, I guess?; one is a cook traveling the world for spices/recipes; one is an alchemist looking for knowledge at the holy city's library. Since they were all going that way anyway, they decided to work together, form a party, etc.

Since forming up, they've 'nope'd' right out of several potential plot hooks, from monster attacks to strange holes to political intrigue. As mentioned above, it's throwing me of my game, a bit too literally. I had assumed they would stop for SOMETHING, but they are heading right for the city without distractions. I could fast forward to that goal, yet it feels kind of cheap if they don't work for it. They will not have done much, and I worry how I'll keep them together at that point without 'hand of dm' saying so. On the other hand, if I force them to deal with too many roadblocks, I wander too much into JRPG territory and/or railroads. The last game I ran for this group, they investigated everything, so I'm at a loss of how to deal with the disinterest, worrying if it's the plot, the game, me, etc.


Hopefully that makes sense.

It sounds to me like the players are doing absolutely everything they can to get to the plot as fast as possible.

They have characters who each have a personal reason to want to be at this city, have decided that travelling together is safer than travelling alone and are trying to get there with all haste.

Why fight that? They seem to be invested in the world already.

If you absolutely must do something before they get to the city... throw a couple of random encounter tables together and roll on them for overland travel. Wandering monsters, wild animals, bandit ambushes or the like. Fighting for survival alongside each other can build camaraderie among the player's characters as well as any plot.

Unless you have some event that is critical to whatever overarching conflict you have set about to do and you have to get them through before you get to the city, I would roll a few random encounters and leave it at that. I used to really turn my nose up at them until I the first time I ran a module for my group that had some prepared. It was a great way to inject some action into a session that would have otherwise been entirely dice-less.

[zlefin]

Just let them get to the city and to their business there; then see what they want to do next.
it sounds like the plot hooks are all side quests. some people just aren't fond of sidequests.

Also consider talking ot the players OOC about your concerns.

[Wraith]

One day the ground gives way beneath their feet, and without warning the whole party and their carriage tumble into all-encompassing depths.....

...When they awaken, their carriage is smashed and their oxen either dead or fled. They can salvage whatever they can find from the wreckage, but looking up they can see only darkness; they're so deep that they can't even see daylight any more. Before them, set into the primordial basalt of the cavern wall, is a 20 foot tall door of green-rimed copper, on the other side of which....

...Is whatever you want there to be. Maybe it's a series of tunnels infested with monsters that eventually connects to a sewer system and, ultimately, daylight? Maybe it's the nest of some horrible species of spider-goat-dwarfs or something, and the party must flee for it's life while being pursued by nocturnal horrors. Maybe it's the tea party from Alice In Wonderland (classically a CR25 encounter, but that's just a minor detail...)

I'm not suggesting railroading the party into their specific little questlines; I'm suggesting putting a big obstacle in the way and forcing the party to deal with it whether they want to or not, in whatever way they deem necessary. :smalltongue:

[Bohandas]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?482528-DM-s-Aid-Share-Your-Campaign-Plothook-and-Encounter-Ideas
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?535405-Campaign-Ideas-You-Have-Had

[Doctor Awkward]

I'm not suggesting railroading the party into their specific little questlines; I'm suggesting putting a big obstacle in the way and forcing the party to deal with it whether they want to or not, in whatever way they deem necessary. :smalltongue:

This is literally the dictionary definition of railroading. Specifically it's putting the party in a Closed Circle from which they cannot leave until they resolve the adventure at hand.

[Celestia]

They stop at an abandoned castle to rest. All the exterior doors are locked except for one leading to a cellar. Heading down, it's a small room with only a large canopy bed and a single painting on the wall. If they decide to sleep on the bed, it sucks them under the covers and into a pocket dimension filled with stomach acid. The bed will continue to eat anyone who sleeps on it but is otherwise an inanimate object. There is a prior victim imprisoned in the painting, but it doesn't actually affect the plot.

[Wraith]

This is literally the dictionary definition of railroading. Specifically it's putting the party in a Closed Circle from which they cannot leave until they resolve the adventure at hand.

https://i.imgur.com/BIT4TTM.gif

:smalltongue:

[Doctor Awkward]

https://i.imgur.com/BIT4TTM.gif

:smalltongue:

A general prerequisite of a joke is that it be funny.

[Vhaidara]

One plot I've wanted to use for a while is that all the gnomes in the kingdom have been vanishing over the past few months.

Eventually the party tracks the disappearances to an isolated tower surrounded by petrified gnomes, where an insane lich has been collecting lawn ornaments.

[Talverin]

Here's one:

Desert travel is dangerous and often steeped in tradition.

I ran a game once where they travelled alongside a group of CG Sun-God Worshippers to reach their capital city. Two major things happened on this path.

First, they discovered that these 'Malakim' have a particular ritual celebrating the Sun God at a certain point in their travels... Namely, there is a 'semi-druidic' Divine spell which creates water. Tons of it. Enough to refill and sustain an entire caravan.

The price is one person's life.

So, the party got to watch the 'Holy Men' of the Caravan gather together... and cut a man's throat, spilling his blood into the sand, to create water to sustain them.

If real Clerics are so rare, then a ritual like this would make even more sense. It's not them channeling Divine magic, it's just triggering the spell. For long desert travels, this would be perfectly thematic. In my game, the man sacrificed had been a Water Thief, so it added some ambiguity about whether or not it was a bad thing to do.


Second, on another leg of the journey, they discovered that there are warded stone-piles that act as markerposts for the 'safe' paths through the desert. Avoiding quicksand, major beasts' territories, and the like. Well, one of the party was a Blue Dragon Sorceror, and the desert-dwelling Behir do hate blue dragons... Stalking the party outside of its' own territory, the Behir destroyed two of the marker posts, making the Malakim Guide wander off track... And into the territory of dangerous beasts and other hazards. Eventually, the party was confronted by the Behir itself (Which they promptly destroyed. Awkward, after all that buildup!)

Just a couple of ideas for you. Enjoy~!

[TalonOfAnathrax]

What about this: a Binder cult is trying to kill all spellcasting in the area and teach binding to as many civilians as possible. Binders look crazily suspicious, especially as low-level ones can't hide the weird signs that accompanies binding. Mobs and assassins may come after the PCs to kill them, places of worship may be attacked...

Twist: the leaders of this Binder group are all CG or NG. They want to kill spellcasters because they consider them to be elitist and dangerous, and an obstacle in their quest to spread binding to all (divine casters and Gods are opposed to Binding for esoteric lore reasons that seem really stupid to commoners who don't care about divine prerogatives and irrelevant stuff like that). Binding carries basically no risks and would be a huge benefit to pretty much every commoner who decided to take Bind Vestige as their feat, after all... This insurgency and assassination campaign started for humanitarian reasons! The Binder leaders tend to have good CHA, and are getting allies in the local nobility.

However, local groups maybe be Evil or may go way too far and kill innocents. The leaders do what they can to reign them in, and might even asks noncaster PCs for help!

[Calthropstu]

Come on guys, you're all doing this wrong. We need to come at this mad libs style.

[TalonOfAnathrax]

Okay, let's start!
Copy my sentence and add to it. And then it can go on from there I suppose?

"The PCs meet a chicken, that...

[Calthropstu]

Okay, let's start!
Copy my sentence and add to it. And then it can go on from there I suppose?

"The PCs meet a chicken, that...

Is pecking at a fallen wood golem. On closer inspection...

[DeTess]

The PCs meet a chicken, that is pecking at a fallen wood golem. On closer inspection...

It appears that the chicken has made his nest in the golem's chest. The egg in the nest...

[Jack_Simth]

Something I've used myself:

If you have trouble coming up with adventuring ideas, here's a modest method intended to help inspire based on a lecture I heard while in high school:
1) Come up with a listing of thematically-approrpiate nouns, and number them.
[spoiler=example nouns]1:Princess, 2:Queen, 3:Prince, 4:King, 5:Dragon, 6:Demon, 7:Devil, 8:Golem, 9:Wizard, 10:Priest, 11:Angel, 12:Archon, 13:Ghost, 14:Statue, 15:Castle, 16:Baby, 17:Ogre, 18:Unicorn, 19:Fairy, 20:Vampire
2) Come up with a listing of thematically-appropriate verbs that could go between two nouns, and number those.
1:Marries, 2:Divorces, 3:Murders, 4:Eats, 5:Creates, 6:Destroys, 7:Fathers, 8:Captures, 9:Befriends, 10:Becomes, 11:Bears, 12:Kidnaps, 13:Rescues, 14:Controls, 15:Transforms, 16:Disgraces, 17:Promotes, 18:Enslaves, 19:Frees, 20:Instructs
3) Roll [Noun] [Verb] [Noun]. This is your 'seed' of an idea. [roll0]: Golem Rescues Princess
4) Build a situation such that the roll might work as a three-word summary of what someone involved wants to happen. Then figure out how the guild might help or hinder those plans, who involved might approach the guild, and so on.
The princess Samantha was in-route to be delivered to a wedding to cement a treaty between two warring countries, when a red dragon swooped down on the caravan. Samantha's guards were quickly slain, but one her handmaidens escaped with an odd story: A giant stone cat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/constructs/taotieh/) got between the princess and the dragon's breath, snatched the princess up in it's teeth, and vanished with her. It is unclear what became of her, and the guild has been asked to retrieve her so that the wedding - and the peace - can commence.
5) Add some fluffy bits, and done.

Just replace "guild" with "the party", and make your own lists.

[SpamCreateWater]

A general prerequisite of a joke is that it be funny.

I found it amusing. Perhaps your funny bone is broken? Have you tried turning it off and on again?



You could always use some of these ideas AT the city in question. Because, of course, the high level cleric isn't going to just remove the curse for free. Use Randuir's idea and create a quest that weaves a couple of the PCs goals together.

[Vaern]

I've always wanted to run a game in which a high level NPC wipes the party early on, only for them to wake up in the afterlife where they're given the opportunity to be resurrected by a resident deity after proving their worth via a few quests in the plane in question. They'd gain a few levels during their adventure through the afterlife, and come back to find that the one who killed them had basically taken over the whole region.
It seems an interesting idea to me, though I can see how throwing unavoidable death at the party as a mandatory plot device may be frowned upon, particularly for a campaign that's primarily meant to be open world.

[Arutema]

I've always wanted to run a campaign that starts as a fairly boring escort mission in your typical fantasy world. Right up until the robot scouting party from 121st century Earth tries to kidnap their charge as a research specimen.

[noob]

Watch out.
If you introduce robots four minutes later the players have an army of robots with plot killing rifles.
Idem for the following:
Magic,gods,vampires,hats and bears.(with the hats it is a more complex story)

[Yahzi]

You can download Nobles of Prime (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222338/Nobles-of-Prime)for free; it has a very simple quest generator.

If you're running a sandbox world, you might find the Sandbox World Generator helpful too.

[Crake]

If they really want to make it to the city, make the city itself the center of whatever plot you're doing. Perhaps the high level cleric has better things to do than remove some curse from some level 1 pleb without money to pay, perhaps the person the message to be delivered to has mysteriously disappeared, perhaps the spices in the city have all strangely become very bland and stale, and the city's private libraries are of course not going to be open to the public, at least not the sections with all the juicy alchemical books.

The players need to work to gain reputation, discover the reasons behind the strange occurances, which would all be interconnected in some way, and it all culminates in the players saving the city from some disaster of epic proportions, which gives them the repute and fame that will let them live out their hearts desires. The campaign doesn't need to go all the way from 1-20 for the players to achieve their goals, and trying to force the game beyond that point will sour the memories more often than not.