New DM needs help

[Squadfather42]

This is a shout out to anyone that is willing to help. All suggestions and advise will be greatly appreciated.

I'm getting ready to start a 5th edition campaign, in real life, for about 5-7 players. I've got an idea for an overall story arc, but I need help with other elements.

Basically, the party will have gained a patron. Who in turn will outfit, pay for training..etc..etc. While the group will in turn be sent out on various adventures.

Now once the group gains enough levels, they will realize that their patron was in fact a middle man for a more shadowy figure. Say a beholder, vampire lord..etc. so obviously the main fight will be between the villain and its minions.

The first main problem I have is how to start the campaign. Do I choose one on the published campaigns, let the characters finish it (which puts them around lvl 10), and then let them score the patron. Or take them on a couple low level adventures?

I thought about having their first adventure end with them scoring a sort of base of operations. I'm trying to find an adventure that, let's them get hired by a low-level agent of the middle-man. They are sent to a village for what ever reason and after solving the problem....they are rewarded with a title to a bussiness/manor...anything really.

This sets them up to be the area protectors..so to speak. Which then they could be "sent" on adventures in the area, thinking that they are helping, while they are actually fulfilling the main villains goals.

Again any ideas/advice/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[DaveOfTheDead]

A good starting published adventure is Lost Mines of Phandelver from the Starter Box. I ran it with my current group and it spits them out around level 5 and gives them a good idea of what to experience from D&D 5e (fights, social encounters, ability checks, traps, etc). It also ends with a good set-up to continue on with another published adventure or homebrew.

Something I'm doing for a back-up game (only 2 sessions in atm) is tell them they're new recruits at the local Adventurers Guild. This gives them assignments and quests while also having a reason to do them. It's working out so far. At level 5 I'm going to give them the option of leaving the guild and going out on their own.

[Demonslayer666]

I would say to introduce the evil quest giver early on. Give the players a way to discover that what they are doing isn't the best course of action either by local knowledge or through rumors, or even be sought out by the other side.

[Beaureguard]

I'd introduce your middle man right away. I'd start it like any other generic campaign in town. The characters would encounter your middle man and he'd offer them some kind of quest. Maybe he owns a local copper mine and it's infested with goblins. It's a minor task and he's willing to pay your party a little gold if they go and secure the mine for him. They succeed with ease, and return for the reward. He's happy to pay and asks if they'd be willing to help him with a property issue. He owns a building of some sort in whatever town you want to use as your hub. Unfortunately it's haunted/infested/tied up in probate/whatever. The party goes off to fix the problem, and as a reward he offers them the building if they'd be willing to give any work he has for them priority. He'll still pay, but they have to put other work aside for him. Now they have a base, they have contact with him, and you can dance him in and out whenever you want him. You can weave in smaller plots with the bigger one so that it's easy to keep variety and not have anyone get too bored.

[Keravath]

Hi!

It sounds like a neat plot twist for a campaign. However, I have a couple of suggestions of items to keep in mind.

1) The adventures given to the players by the middle man should have a clear reason of why they are also advantageous to the villain. WHY is the villain essentially training a party of adventurers that may eventually be a threat? Perhaps the villain has a “situation” that requires an adventuring party to be the bait/sacrifice/distraction and there is no way a mercenary company would take the mission without demanding enough information to determine they likely won’t survive. As a result, the villain grooms a set of dupes by building trust until he can sacrifice them to achieve his goal .. assassination, loot an artifact from a well protected ruin, loot a dragon hoard etc.

2) Whatever cool story idea you come up with .. the plan never survives contact with the players. As a DM, you want to avoid forcing choices on the players, they decide what they will do next. You set the scene. If you’d prefer they make certain decisions then try to set up circumstances where the decisions you want them to make are motivated by in game actions and events. Basically :), the “cool” story arc may not work out exactly as you envisage and that is fine as long as folks are having fun.

One of the big challenges being a new DM is finding the right balance between following a pre-planned adventure and incorporating the spontaneity that makes the adventure feel immersive. My advice is to avoid forcing the story to happen just one way but let it grow out of putting hooks into the story as it develops that you can later use to support and drive the storyline that you and the players are building based on your basic plan.

[MrStabby]

It's a good start. I would suggest the vampire is a pretty good antagonist. Pretty evil and the whole daylight Things is a good reason why despite being badass they can't do all jobs themselves. Why does he need adventurers? Maybe final prize is an artifact needed to be recovered from a tomb? Something they can do?

Certainly you could play up the mechanics of the players betrayed - look to give the players flaming weapons, scrolls of fireball and so on as the bad guy has a ring of fire resistance. The advantage of knowing your enemies well before he faces them in combat.

[Corsair14]

Not a huge fan of published material but Keep on the Borderlands is a good one to use. Gets around the whole cliché meeting in the tavern thing and provides the opportunity of random powerful NPC to hear about the group and their adventure. Plus it puts them in a place where they cant go too far amok before you are ready for them to do so.

[napoleon_in_rag]

One question - Are your players experienced or are they new to RPGs?

[Squadfather42]

Not a huge fan of published material but Keep on the Borderlands is a good one to use. Gets around the whole cliché meeting in the tavern thing and provides the opportunity of random powerful NPC to hear about the group and their adventure. Plus it puts them in a place where they cant go too far amok before you are ready for them to do so.

I love that adventure...I've heard that it is getting converted to 5th edition. Has it come out yet?

[Squadfather42]

One question - Are your players experienced or are they new to RPGs?

A mixture of both...one has a lot of experience, but not much in 5th edition. The rest are beginners with a little experience.

[SirGraystone]

I would have them living in the village or having relative there, they would give them reason to be the village "protectors" right away, if goblins attack a farm and someone is needed to hunts them down, you don't have to hire the players if the farm belong to the paladin's grandma. He should volunteers and bring his friends with him.

If the goblins were infesting the local silver mine, then the mayor/baron NPC can be introduce at the end of the adventure with a reward to the players for their action. After that you already have a connection with the NPC who can call on to players for more help later.

And you can start dropping hint too, maybe a letter the goblin chief had giving him order to take over the silver mine and kills the gnome owner so the NPC can recover it for himself later.

Vampire can be good villain but I have always been fond of dragon. Maybe the baron is not evil, maybe he just collect heavy taxes to pay tribute to the dragon in secret, and the group stopping what they come to believe is an evil baron, will only bring the wrath of the dragon to the village once the tribute stop.

[Corsair14]

I love that adventure...I've heard that it is getting converted to 5th edition. Has it come out yet?

Oh really? I hadn't heard that. That would be cool to see how they update it. I am just using the old 30 year old version I updated to 5e. I also am using it in a far corner of Sithicus in Ravenloft not that the players know this yet.

[Mjolnirbear]

I'm still a new DM so not much advice. But I can toss out ideas!

To really make the betrayal set in, I'd send the PCs around doing things that later, they find out were ohcrapevil.

Like, middleman calls them urgently. His nice has been kidnapped for ransom by some ex-bodyguards! Oh noes! The party rushes in to save her, and kill the evil bodyguards! Except they were town guards in a village so small it doesn't have a proper jail, so she was locked in the basement for (insert crime here).

Middleman calls them to clear out a nest of kobolds in the sewers. Standard fare, right? But the kobolds were nested at the entrance to a secret tunnel that would give him access to treasury/nobleman for loot/assassins.

Make the adventurers complicit in the crimes of the middleman and his boss and their outrage will skyrocket.

[pdegan2814]

Your basic framework is a good one, about the patron who turns out to be an agent for a villain they'll have to confront at some point. I played in a one-shot game someone had set up that had a similar twist, and we all loved it. There are a couple of things you'll want to take into account in your planning. First is the Big Bad's motivation. Why had he hired your players, what are the jobs he's sending them on meant to accomplish? Taking care of potential rivals? Acquiring components of a ritual to restore the villain back to full strength? Finding documents/items/etc that will lead the villain to some ancient and powerful weapon? Whatever it is, there should be a point to what they're doing other than "I want to screw with the party". :smallsmile: Also, don't assume the story will progress at the pace you envision. Your party might figure out what's going on sooner than you expect. Also, if you don't have a moment where the middleman betrays them and says "Ha ha, you've been working for a vampire lord the whole time, you fools!", they might not figure it out at all. It might be good to seed some clues throughout the adventures that will give the party a chance to figure out on their own that they're being used, and then if they get to a certain point and haven't yet figured it out, THEN you can reveal the twist yourself. Either way, you don't have to go straight from there to the Final Battle. You could always let the villain(or the party, depending on circumstances) escape, and then the villain might send others after the party while the party searches for a way to defeat him. Maybe they learn about a mystical object/weapon that is key to defeating him, and they have to reach it before the villain's agents. Maybe have the villain appear once in a while, get a few licks in, and bamf out. There are lots of ways you can make your campaign dynamic enough so that you don't have to strictly control the pace of events.

Good luck, it sounds like the sort of campaign I would enjoy playing in!

[napoleon_in_rag]

A mixture of both...one has a lot of experience, but not much in 5th edition. The rest are beginners with a little experience.

I just ask because many people recommend "Lost Mine of Phandelver". But I find most people with experience in 5e have already played that adventure.

I also recommend "Keep on the Borderlands". It is ready to adapt to any campaign.