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View Full Version : Story advice needed (again) (warning: wall of text :D)



Bücherdiebin
2019-08-14, 08:35 AM
Hi guys! It's me again... *Overall moaning and eyerolling* aaand I'm stuck on my story again!
I encountered some really good ideas here, unfortunately I've scrapped the story I've been working on for the last few months and am starting new.. and the next session is tomorrow. Whelp, saying it out loud makes it sound even more stupid.

Anyway, the new story is still a little foggy but what's certain is that an Aasimar the group thought was their friend, who sent them on their last missions (a series of mini adventures to acquire some artifacts and level their chars a little on the way) was betraying them all along. She told them she needed the artifacts to stop some big bad guy named Noramar - as it will turn out she herself is Noramar and wants to use the artifacts to be taken seriously by a bunch of wizards who ridiculed her when she asked them to be included into their elite circle. Using the adventurers to acquire them for her was just a way of keeping her dainty little villain hands clean. ;)
(I know it sounds like u have just thought this out in about 5 minutes, but like I said.. I had a whole story and now this is all I have left, so please don't be too harsh :) ).



Anyway, there is a new player joining the group mid-campaign, after playing a Oneshot with us (DMed by someone else). We all created new characters just for the oneshot because the other DM wanted to have a "fresh start". Now the new player would like to transfer his character into my campaign, and it turned out one of my players also liked his other characters better, so they will join us together.

The problem is, that they want to keep their story, so i can't just move them to my setting - the characters need a coherent reason why they join the adventuring party (I'm not a huge fan of just letting character appear and disappear without a reason, it kinda takes away from the logic in my opinion).

Of course it's fun > coherency, and if I don't find a good reasoning to inrtegrate them into the story, i will go back to the option of just letting them join without a hook, but first i'd like to try my best to keep it stringent first.

Sooo right now one of the characters (in the main campaign) managed to get himself into prison for using magic in a place where magic is strictly forbidden for unlicensed ppl, which is why I thought it might be a good hook to meet the new characters there (also being punished for unknowingly using magic in the restricted area), so they can break out together and already form a bond.

But before that can happen, I need to come up with a reason why the two newbies would come to the city in the first place.

The Oneshot of the other DM used a different setting than me (same universe, but in a completely different place). Our characters licked on a stone (yepp, you read right ^^) and where teleported some other place where we had to fulfill a quest to get back home. Since the DM of the oneshot didn't offer an explanation on how the stone (standing in the middle of a market place for centuries, btw) suddenly became magical, and where exactly (another place, another time, another plane...) we landed, i am pretty free on how to interpret the stone and maybe utilize it in my attempt to motivate the characters.

I think the biggest motivator for both of the PCs that now want to join the main group would be a threat to their village, as they are 18 and 19 years old and still live there with their parents.
I would like to use their bonds to motivate them to go to Phlan - but how? They are not best friends (or no friends at all, coming to think about it) and are happy and content in their village, so they wouldn't just go adventuring together without a reason.

Maybe a threat to their family would do the deed, but since not-Noramar operates alone, he doesn't have minions who could do that for her, and also no motivation to force any more adventurers to join the group..

Just teleporting the characters to Phlan without their permission would have the major drawback that their aim realistically speking wouldn't be to slay some demon, but to find out what the hell has happened and then get abck home as sioon as possible, so I think finding a reason for them to leave the village by choice would make keeping the group together a lot easier later on.

So in my opinion (and maybe i'm wrong, if you think differently i would love to hear your opinion), a personal bond and motivation in a similar direction as the party's motivation would be nice, opposed to just saying "i want to play, so my character needs to come along.. okay i will just randomly follow the group and pretend that's normal." I have had some bad experience with that, characters who just don't have any personal reason for being there, except the standard generic "saving the world" motivator, tend to give up mid-campaign because they just can't justify risking their lifes for something they don't even care about..

Maybe someone here has a good idea, I would also be open to make some changes to the story if necessary, because as described above, it's not set in stone yet.

I would appreciate any advice and am grateful for anyone who can give me a little push, because right now I feel a little like drowning in a reaaaally big pool and ARRRRGHHHH...

Love, Lia

PS: Little background to why I am changing my whole story, in case someone was wondering (if not.. just ignore the PS ^^) :
The original plot would have been to disable a fallen demon prince who lusted after regaining his power and would have sought revenge on all who have wronged him, starting on the material plane. I am still a fairly new DM and saving the whole material plane (or at least Faerun) sounded pretty cool to me at the time. But after reading material for DMs and the DMG Back-to-back, the question that became more and more crucial to me was: what next? If the adventurers (after a lot of restructuring the group, trying out characters and starting from level 1-3 again and again) already start by saving Faerun, what will be their next step? Going back to saving a small town, or a kingdom, will be underwhelming as they already think of themselves as heroes - on Level 4 :D
The DMG suggests to up the scale over the course of the character progression - starting by helping out single individuums, then towns, then saving a single city or kingdom before setting out to actually save the world (around level 15-17), and not until then would they actually fight something the size of a demon prince who threatens to destroy the whole world.
I have thought about it a lot, all while working on the original campaign, and only yesterday, when I was finishing up the book I wrote which would teach the adventurerers all they needed to know about demons (about 40 pages about their lore and descriptions of every single demon lord), I thought "okay now, this is too much. I'm here writing about a huge demon, a freakin DEMON LORD, the most powerful of demons...". So, here I am now. Yayyy!

Quertus
2019-08-14, 02:30 PM
So, simple fetch quest, with a twist? Make the fetch quest - I'm guessing that's not a problem. But the twist? That could go wrong.

So, why would Quertus hire the party to retrieve things to "help against Quertus"? What would he say (in his alter ego) about himself? How would the party ever find out what he really did with the items? How you answer these questions can make the difference between "lame" and "cool".

EDIT: personally, I love the idea of the party learning that Quertus used the McGuffin, and incorrectly concluding that Quertus robbed the quest-giver. Alternately, of the quest-giver talking up Quertus to the point that the party brings the McGuffin to Quertus instead of to the quest-giver. (In other words, expect that the party could do the unexpected)

Composer99
2019-08-14, 07:32 PM
Person the PCs thought was a patron turns out to be a villain is a classic, and I think you'll do fine with that.

I should like some clarification on what makes 'wants to be taken seriously by elite clique of wizards' villainous. Are they evil wizards?

Tawmis
2019-08-14, 07:45 PM
But before that can happen, I need to come up with a reason why the two newbies would come to the city in the first place.
The Oneshot of the other DM used a different setting than me (same universe, but in a completely different place). Our characters licked on a stone (yepp, you read right ^^) and where teleported some other place where we had to fulfill a quest to get back home. Since the DM of the oneshot didn't offer an explanation on how the stone (standing in the middle of a market place for centuries, btw) suddenly became magical, and where exactly (another place, another time, another plane...) we landed, i am pretty free on how to interpret the stone and maybe utilize it in my attempt to motivate the characters.
I think the biggest motivator for both of the PCs that now want to join the main group would be a threat to their village, as they are 18 and 19 years old and still live there with their parents.
I would like to use their bonds to motivate them to go to Phlan - but how? They are not best friends (or no friends at all, coming to think about it) and are happy and content in their village, so they wouldn't just go adventuring together without a reason.


I am trying to piece together what you said...
So for the Oneshot - characters were transported by licking a stone? (I will not even go into asking why they're licking rocks...)
And the licking of the stone transported them?
So said two characters who are in your campaign are potentially in a foreign land, right?
Couldn't they be going to the main city (where said person who is imprisoned for magic use) to find out more about the Magical Stone?
In doing so, while asking around about "the magic stone" - capture the attention of the local authorities who then arrest them for attempting (in their eyes) to invoke magic?
Now said people are in prison with the other - so when the break out happens - they all leave together, with the party agreeing to help send them home?




PS: Little background to why I am changing my whole story, in case someone was wondering (if not.. just ignore the PS ^^) :
The original plot would have been to disable a fallen demon prince who lusted after regaining his power and would have sought revenge on all who have wronged him, starting on the material plane. I am still a fairly new DM and saving the whole material plane (or at least Faerun) sounded pretty cool to me at the time. But after reading material for DMs and the DMG Back-to-back, the question that became more and more crucial to me was: what next? If the adventurers (after a lot of restructuring the group, trying out characters and starting from level 1-3 again and again) already start by saving Faerun, what will be their next step? Going back to saving a small town, or a kingdom, will be underwhelming as they already think of themselves as heroes - on Level 4 :D
The DMG suggests to up the scale over the course of the character progression - starting by helping out single individuums, then towns, then saving a single city or kingdom before setting out to actually save the world (around level 15-17), and not until then would they actually fight something the size of a demon prince who threatens to destroy the whole world.
I have thought about it a lot, all while working on the original campaign, and only yesterday, when I was finishing up the book I wrote which would teach the adventurerers all they needed to know about demons (about 40 pages about their lore and descriptions of every single demon lord), I thought "okay now, this is too much. I'm here writing about a huge demon, a freakin DEMON LORD, the most powerful of demons...". So, here I am now. Yayyy!

So real quick - yes, the big fight with the big demon should come way later.
But if you wanted to keep this campaign - you could have minor demons appear - there's quite a few lower end demons (CR of 1 or less) available to use, to allude to something demonic is going on. The party continues to quest, but keeps running into more and more demons between their other adventures that should alert them that something is amiss; and keep building UP to the big encounter.