Mini Campaign for Technichally New Players

[NerdHut]

Playgrounders, I'm not sure what type of game to run.

My current campaign is in its epilogue. I'm wrapping up the PCs' personal stories. After this, I've agreed to run a minicampaign at home for my family. But I'm not sure what that campaign should look like, storywise.

I plan to run the game pretty close to default 3.5e rules, with most of the houserules implemented for the sake of streamlining. I'll probably have them start at level 1, 2, or 3, and have them level up once before a boss encounter.

Like I said, I'm not sure what to make the story about, and that's partly because I'm dealing with people familiar with high fantasy, but not D&D 3.5. I want something at least somewhat narratively fresh, but mechanically accessible. Goblins stealing babies is probably too humdrum, and decrypting the lich's magical puzzles (pun intended) might be too mechanically complex.

Anybody have ideas of what might work?



My dad has played a little bit of 2e, but mostly played other tabletop games back in the 80s/90s. Particularly Boot Hill from TSR. He's fairly familiar with fantasy tropes thanks to classic literature and the LotR and Harry Potter movies. My dad is very social, and does a lot of theater locally. Whatever class he picks, he's probably going to play a bit like a bard.
My mom is well versed in fantasy tropes, being a long-time computer gamer and Tolkein fan. She also played 2e in the 80s/90s, more than my dad. My mom seems to be a bit of wildcard here. I'm not sure what to expect out of her.
My older brother is at least as immersed in the tropes as I am. He reads fantasy books frequently, plays or streams videos of all the big fantasy-based video games. But he's never played tabletop. My brother has Aspergers, so he's a lot less socially inclined. He'll probably favor mechanical crunch to some extent, based on what he's showed my of his Skyrim and Oblivion mod choices.

[Bronk]

I plan to run the game pretty close to default 3.5e rules, with most of the houserules implemented for the sake of streamlining. I'll probably have them start at level 1, 2, or 3, and have them level up once before a boss encounter.


Your idea to streamline the rules for new players is a great one... Some people find it hard to wrap their heads around the sheer number of rules, or be confused by rules that don't match up to what they remember. Don't be afraid to help them out as you go.

Here's one idea that doesn't play too hard on fantasy tropes:



Have them start in a city, where they all know each other. They're hanging out together in a tavern when some bandits come in and try to rob the place. They can bond over the fight!

That first fight will lead to the discovery of a new gang infiltrating the town. They're selling drugs, but drugs spiked with 'striped toadstool', which does wisdom and intelligence damage, and influencing the recipients to commit evil acts, effectively indoctrinating them into a cult. The PCs can investigate this from several angles, including either aligning with or actually being watch members or members of a rival gang. They can fight their way up the food chain, with increasing challenge levels as they go.

-The tavern from the first fight was a target because the owners wouldn't play ball with the newcomers, so the PCs can lay a trap for next time, fighting a more prepared group of fighters and a low level mage and bard.

-The PCs can find and infiltrate one of their hideouts, in a basement of an abandoned warehouse, getting past traps and an assassin vine on their way.

-The PCs might have the right skills or a contact who can determine the makeup of the drug.

-The PCs can get word of a shipment of drugs coming in, finding it to be guarded by a hellhound or two in addition to the humanoid guards.

-The PCs can be targeted and ambushed by these rival gang members, backed up by summoned fiendish animals.

Eventually they'll find and be ready for the boss fight! The new gang is led by a wizard under the influence of his imp familiar... their plan is to sow discord as well as the drugs. The wizard makes money, while the imp gets credit in hell for all the souls he turns towards evil... not just the drug users, but their families as well, as the cult spreads. Their battle can involve summoned demons - lemures directed by the imp - more armed guards, and the powerful wizard. If the PCs start to win, the wizard and/or imp will flee through a portal to the Plane of Shadows, where they'll have more traps and a shadow mastiff or two for backup.

Edit: Waterdeep is a city with a lot of literature behind it, and has a lot of magical places, denizens, backdrops, and groups. For even more fantasy, you might place all this in Sigil.

[BowStreetRunner]

One of the things I've noticed that seems to get neglected in a lot of the higher level games I've played in, but which might serve well as the basis of a low level fantasy introductory adventure, is the racial hatred type abilities. Dwarves get bonuses versus orcs and goblinoids. Gnomes get bonuses versus kobolds and goblinoids. Once you get into all of the races and sub-races out there you start to find a bunch more of these as well.

Set up a small border conflict between several small kingdoms made up of members of these antagonistic races. Bring into play the natural allies of each of the races, especially those mentioned in the Monster Manual entries such as goblins and worgs. Put the PCs in one of the kingdoms and give them a minor quest for a MacGuffin that requires them to venture into the territory of one of the other kingdoms - for instance goblin raiders attacked a village in the hills and among other things stole an idol from a shrine a the center of the village. The idol was a magic item that provided a Plant Growth (enrichment) effect on the fields surrounding the village and without it the crop yields may not be sufficient to support the community.

Being a frontier setting there will be wild animals and wandering monsters between the starting point and their objective, so you can drop in a couple random encounters and maybe a tailored encounter along the way as well. So continuing with our example they maybe encounter some wolves, another encounter with a hippogriff, and then a run in with a squad of goblins patrolling the border area.

Once they cross the wilderness to their destination you can put the MacGuffin down in a typical dungeon to give them a taste of that sort of environment. They contend with their adversaries, traps and secret/hidden doors, dungeon hazards like a chasm with the bridge pulled up on the other side, and environmental conditions like lack of light.

On their way back they encounter a group of NPCs who are distrustful of their intentions and could turn against them if they don't handle the situation correctly. They have to negotiate their way through to get the MacGuffin back to where it belongs.

Basically you give them a sampler adventure covering some of the various elements of play typical in a 3.5 campaign. Monster races, wilderness and dungeon adventures, traps and hazards, combat and social encounters, and just a variety of the sorts of things they might find more of in a much more advanced campaign.