MhoramDM
2019-09-27, 10:48 AM
First time poster but long time reader here. I would greatly appreciate feedback and suggestions on some encounter ideas I am trying to develop for the current campaign I am running.
The party is currently in the process of trying to purify three shrines. My idea is for the first to force them to face their past, the second - their present, and the final one, their future.
Thus far, my thought for the first shrine is to have them encounter incarnations of all the various NPCs they have wronged in the past and even a couple PCs who left the party. (This group is kind of murder hobo-ey and has at times caused more problems that it has solved, and has left a fairly significant trail of corpses of the innocent) My hope is that they will try to engage some of these characters in dialogue and maybe even try to reconcile. I'm viewing this as something of a ring event where there are waves of foes. Some I am sure they will fight. But if they actually try to RP and reconcile, they will pick up some of those they have wronged as allies for the remaining fights. Any thoughts on how to improve on this? Or is this a fatally flawed design that is going to be wasted on a group that tends to kill everything it sees?
The second shrine will force them to face their present and what their true natures are. My idea is to somewhat break the fourth wall and make them choose between being murder hobos who want nothing but combat and loot, or characters who want to develop and advance the story. The challenge is how to convey this. My first thought was to have them standing outside two rooms with doors ajar. One will be filled with weapons and obviously magical treasures. The other would have maybe a library or an old man sitting alone reading from a book. I am unsure of how to convey this option in a visual format. Any ideas on how to do that? Or any ideas on how to improve this idea in its entirety? I was thinking that if they choose the room with magical items, that will throw them into a standard dungeon crawl that will be very challenging. If they choose the story element, we will have a substantive RP session that will reveal some important elements in the story that will benefit them immensely.
Finally, the last shrine will have them face a dark vision of their future. The party has a wizard who has gone down a somewhat evil path that has caused some of the other players to be concerned. He had a demon arm grafted to his body and he trapped the soul of an evil hag in a doll and he frequently brings it out to have disturbing conversations. My idea is to show them a dark future that involves this wizard an evil demi-god of sorts. There would be some dialogue involved, but it essentially would be a tough fight against a powerful foe.
Any suggestions for improving or fleshing out these encounters further would be greatly appreciated. I have a week or two before we get to any of this stuff. These are rough draft ideas at this point, but I'm hoping with a little help from folks here to have them solidified and ready for action when we play again. Thanks in advance for any help you give!
The party is currently in the process of trying to purify three shrines. My idea is for the first to force them to face their past, the second - their present, and the final one, their future.
Thus far, my thought for the first shrine is to have them encounter incarnations of all the various NPCs they have wronged in the past and even a couple PCs who left the party. (This group is kind of murder hobo-ey and has at times caused more problems that it has solved, and has left a fairly significant trail of corpses of the innocent) My hope is that they will try to engage some of these characters in dialogue and maybe even try to reconcile. I'm viewing this as something of a ring event where there are waves of foes. Some I am sure they will fight. But if they actually try to RP and reconcile, they will pick up some of those they have wronged as allies for the remaining fights. Any thoughts on how to improve on this? Or is this a fatally flawed design that is going to be wasted on a group that tends to kill everything it sees?
The second shrine will force them to face their present and what their true natures are. My idea is to somewhat break the fourth wall and make them choose between being murder hobos who want nothing but combat and loot, or characters who want to develop and advance the story. The challenge is how to convey this. My first thought was to have them standing outside two rooms with doors ajar. One will be filled with weapons and obviously magical treasures. The other would have maybe a library or an old man sitting alone reading from a book. I am unsure of how to convey this option in a visual format. Any ideas on how to do that? Or any ideas on how to improve this idea in its entirety? I was thinking that if they choose the room with magical items, that will throw them into a standard dungeon crawl that will be very challenging. If they choose the story element, we will have a substantive RP session that will reveal some important elements in the story that will benefit them immensely.
Finally, the last shrine will have them face a dark vision of their future. The party has a wizard who has gone down a somewhat evil path that has caused some of the other players to be concerned. He had a demon arm grafted to his body and he trapped the soul of an evil hag in a doll and he frequently brings it out to have disturbing conversations. My idea is to show them a dark future that involves this wizard an evil demi-god of sorts. There would be some dialogue involved, but it essentially would be a tough fight against a powerful foe.
Any suggestions for improving or fleshing out these encounters further would be greatly appreciated. I have a week or two before we get to any of this stuff. These are rough draft ideas at this point, but I'm hoping with a little help from folks here to have them solidified and ready for action when we play again. Thanks in advance for any help you give!