Master plot advice

[zanpip]

Hello everyone,

I'm starting my first adventure as a GM, and was trying to come up with a master plot for it. I am woried that my players may find it dull when they come across it, so I'm seeking advices here xD


We are going to play in Tal'Dorei (Critical Role cenario). The plot is an old and powerfull mage manages to conjure an angel as familiar, and is using this angel to impose his will in the world, trying to remove freewill from the inhabitants, to avoid wars and what nots.

The ideia is to let this plot subtly running in the background until lvl 10~15, when the players should be able to fence of with the familiar angel and then, after the confrontation, find out about the mage.... Or this is the plan that will sure go bananas as soon as the adventure begins, because players :D

[Laserlight]

Frankly, for a new DM, I wouldn't worry about L10-15. Most campaigns don't get that far. Focus on L1-5 and foreshadow a big villain they'll face around L8 or so.

[Lyracian]

I am just starting a new campaign having not run one for a few years and am focused on making sure the party functions well as a group and we have fun Goblin bashing in the first adventure. Then add some rounded NPC’s for the local villagers and build up from there. Name a couple of cities; give them some wilderness and dungeons to explore and see where it goes

[Zhorn]

Advice that was given to me was to use the tiers of play as a breakdown of how many levels should be contained within a particular plot.
Add flavour-text clues and mysterious hooks into those lower level adventures, sure, but otherwise treat each 'chapter' as its own self-contained adventure. The higher tiers shouldn't rely on anything before hand to make sense, and the lower tiers shouldn't rely of the higher tiers to add motivation to the given plot.

Chapter 0 (optional):
Level 1 - A small scenario that can be cleared in a single session. Bare bones plot, basic goal, minimal threat. Exists solely to get the players up to 2nd level before moving onto a multi session story and teach them their group dynamic while getting a grasp of their character.

Chapter 1:
Levels 1 to 4 - Local Heroes. Can be one town, or a few, but the general idea is the scope/scale of the adventure is isolated in importance to just the town they interact with. This is your Lost Mine of Phandelver scale. You can roam about a bit, but the threat doesn't extend much beyond the central town.

Chapter 2:
Levels 5 to 10 - Heroes of the Realm. The threats the party faces are big enough to effect multiple towns, potentially entire kingdoms. Storm King's Thunder is your scale here. Serious threat to multiple areas of the realm, but it's at the 'trouble is brewing' stage when the players get involved.

Chapter 3:
Levels 11 to 16 - Masters of the Realm. Things are already bad, and the players are called on because the threat is serious and in need of the big-guns asap. While the level of the module is a bit low, the threat it poses is the right scale, so this is the Soulmonger threat from Tomb of Annihilation.

Chapter 4:
Levels 17 to 20 - Masters of the World. If the players lose here, the whole world is at threat. Like above, the module example is set up for a lower tier of play, but the threat more aligns with the higher stakes of this level bracket; here's your Rise of Tiamat, with a literal god as the endgame.

[Unoriginal]

Hello everyone,

I'm starting my first adventure as a GM, and was trying to come up with a master plot for it. I am woried that my players may find it dull when they come across it, so I'm seeking advices here xD


We are going to play in Tal'Dorei (Critical Role cenario). The plot is an old and powerfull mage manages to conjure an angel as familiar, and is using this angel to impose his will in the world, trying to remove freewill from the inhabitants, to avoid wars and what nots.

The ideia is to let this plot subtly running in the background until lvl 10~15, when the players should be able to fence of with the familiar angel and then, after the confrontation, find out about the mage.... Or this is the plan that will sure go bananas as soon as the adventure begins, because players :D

Angels are actualy good entities in D&D, and letting the mortals have free will is kind of a big deal for that. Why is this angel going along with your Wizard's plan?

[zanpip]

Angels are actualy good entities in D&D, and letting the mortals have free will is kind of a big deal for that. Why is this angel going along with your Wizard's plan?

I'm thinking some kind of mind control from the wiz. But let the players have some battles until they figure this out if I can manage

[zanpip]

Thanks for the replies, will start it slowly, and try to toss a clue here and there about this plot