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View Full Version : DM Help How to get a Campaign Moving Again



Thaumic
2018-01-28, 02:43 PM
I am currently DMing a 5e campaign with some friends and the last session has left me with some issues.

Without going into overmuch detail, the BBEG is doing BBEG stuff on the Prime Material Plane, and the players have just killed one of his most loyal minions. They've opted to escape to the Outlands so they can't be Scryed on (they don't like the idea of casting Nondetection or similar for some reason), and are now hiding out in the gate city to Arcadia.

So my problem is this: where do I go from here? I fully believe in letting the players do whatever they want, and thus allowed them to travel to the Outlands (after a good session of portal-finding), but now that they're there, I don't know how to get them back to the Prime Material Plane to continue the story. Due to the nature of the BBEG's plot, if he were to ever directly affect the Outlands, he would already be way too powerful for the PCs to defeat.

Can anyone think of a good way to get players to go somewhere they really want to avoid without railroading? Or, at least, to get them to care about a BBEG they can easily ignore? Should I just completely scrap the current plotline and shift focus to a new BBEG?

hymer
2018-01-28, 02:56 PM
I'd start by giving the PCs the chance to strike at the BBEG's forces from the Outlands. They find out about an opportune target, or an important piece of information for the fight against the BBEG comes their way. Do they want to take advantage of it, or are they just going to sit there and let it pass?

Don't the PCs have anything they would like to save from the BBEG? Friends, families, countries, beautiful vistas or priceless art?

But in the end, if the players don't want to fight the BBEG, I'd probably just end the campaign, no hard feelings. Someone else can be DM, and next time I'll be more careful to have the players interested in playing what I'm making. The way to find out about this is to talk to your players and ask them what they are interested in.

The Fury
2018-01-28, 03:23 PM
Sometimes a campaign isn't about what the GM planned it to be.

In one campaign I ran years ago the party opted to abandon the main plot in order to do random side quests. Fair, since most of the party members that were actually connect to the initial plot had been killed by that point. One player mentioned that they liked the idea of characters that were cursed, so I decided to give their character a curse. They were actually into it. Following that, the campaign dealt a lot with learning about the curse, how to remove it, the nature of the magical tchotchke that bestowed it, and why folks want said tchotchke. Maybe listening to what the players are interested in could be a way to go. Also, don't be afraid to ask outright what the players would be interested in seeing.



Don't the PCs have anything they would like to save from the BBEG? Friends, families, countries, beautiful vistas or priceless art?


hymer, you got some good points in general but this one's the stand out for me. If the player characters have a personal stake in stopping the campaign villain, it can really make a huge difference. I've played in campaigns where no one in the party actually knew what the villain's scheme was, just that he wrecked our lives and will continue to make life crappy for us unless he's stopped.

Honest Tiefling
2018-01-28, 03:28 PM
Sometimes a campaign isn't about what the GM planned it to be.

I'd say this is good advice. Let them do some stuff in Arcadia for a bit, since they went through all of that effort to get there. I'd have some demons invade Arcadia and with them, bring the influence of the Abyss. They can either help people run from the demon kidnappers, fight the demon kidnappers, or try to investigate where they will strike next and HOW they are doing it. Maybe even earn the favor of a few outsiders, earn a place on the plane and even get blessings/boons.

If they don't attend to the main plot, the Prime Material burns. The BBEG won, their families and neighbors are dead, enslaved or even outright converted as a middle finger to the PCs. The PCs get start to get asked if they are from THAT world...You know, the one the BBEG is running. And maybe the BBEG just has a really good PR campaign. Okay, he's had to crush a few villages, decimate a few areas, but he's really trying to stop racial tensions, has improved the literacy rate and has increased healing available to common folk. I mean, that's bad and all, but compared to some of the planes? That's downright nice of him. Hey, do you know the guy?

Anteros
2018-01-28, 03:54 PM
Maybe just have them get kicked off the plane by some other entity and be done with it? I'd be careful about railroading them too hard though. The important things is that everyone has fun.

Personally I'd just give them a subplot on that plane if they wanted to stay there for a while, and it would eventually lead them back to the prime.