First Session - New Campaign [Story]

[Bjarkmundur]

Here's the story outline for the first session of my new campaign. This session is meant to get the players comfortable in my world, relieve some of the "suspicious of everything" tension, and for them to generally have a good time. I've planned some socials, some combat and plenty of room player agency.

Scene 1
We arrive at the town of Fairdale. It's a small town in the middle of nowhere. We are moving through it on our way back after a summer of adventuring, with the goal of making it back to Waterdeep in the fall.

We come to a tavern where a really nice and caring owner takes good care of us. In comes the adventure hook.

A teenage girl in a well kept dress and clean hair comes up to us and starts a conversation. When she realizes we are adventures she implores us to come visit her father, who is the Lord of the town.

The Lord is taking a stroll through his garden when we meet him, and he is happily surprised to see us. He is a chubby, jolly and a bit squeaky.

"Adventurers you say! Absolutely perfect! I must ask you a favor. In a tendays time I have some very important guests coming to visit, and it would mean a lot to me if you could come and tell us of your adventures. It is really important for me to impress these men, for they hold a lot of power in these parts. Would you do this for me, if a would take care to accommodate you in the meantime?"

Our group will say yes, because my players are nice and know a storyline when I put it in front of them. This is level 1, and railroading is acceptable for now.

Scene 2
The group spends a tenday doing whatever in the town. I need some more NPCs and some stuff to do to fill up some time. Hopefully I'll think of something.

Scene 3
It's the day of the feast, and a carriage is sent after our heroes. When we arrive we get to meet our guests. First is Stuckup McProudface, a man in his 40s or 50s with grey streaks in his hair. He stands straight a board and has a longsword in his belt. He's obviously a veteran, and has an aura of authority around him. The second guest Suslord McBackstabber. He has a slender build, long black hair and a unerringly narrow nose. He sports a thin mustache which he has waxed into points.
After a short greeting the feast begins, and I'm going to try to juggle three characters all talking over each other, which will be fun.

Lord: Tries to divert all questions asked of him to our heroes, and is absolutely doing his best to make himself look good. He's not doing very well and is perspirating a gallon a minute.

McProudface: Takes every chance he gets to look down on both our Lord and our Adventurers. If the players are doing well he gets unreasonably agitated and calls them out of being frauds, that real heroes command armies, not chase trinkets and witches. This kinda comes out of nowhere, but he William drop the subject quickly.

Suslord: Is smug but genuinely intrigued by the heroes. He is no means friendly, but he keeps the conversation going and mediates any tension.

After a 900 course meal, McProudface suggests we move to the Lords study on the top floor of the manor.

"I remember the view of the stars fondly from my last visit. Shouldn't we move this feast to your study, and enjoy the stars from under your dome-glass roof."

Lord is eager to please, and jumps on the opportunity to give McProudface what he wants.

"Then we shall retire and put on more appropriate eveningwear. Shall we all meet in the study in an hour's time? Our ~heroes~ can wait for is there"

Scene 4

Out heroes are lead to the second floor of the manor, where the "study" takes up most of the floor. It is actually a library/observatory. On either side of the entrance double-door, a stair up leads up to a walkway that goes all around the room.

As soon as the party reaches the middle of the room the doors locked and a man in Wizard's robes reveals himself and attacks the party. His CR is 1/2, so it shouldn't be too challenging. His AoE Spell Ã*s pretty scary though and does a number our party's hit points.

-------------------------

Now, I'm having a hard time transitioning to the reveal. It turns out that McProudface wanted to kill the party. He's projecting on our heroes. I'd really love for him to be able to monologue to the party

"It was adventurers like you! My son, he got brainwashed by your lies! He LEFT, he LEFT and never came back."

So he's mad that his son decided to become an adventurer and not a soldier and a general.

It also turns out that Suslord intercepted the rest of the assassins, leaving just the Wizard to finish the job.

I have no idea how write in the reveal! Can anyone help me?

[quindraco]

You don't need any reveal. Have the wizard ambush the party; they should suspect Lord, since the wizard is getting assistance from whomever locked and possibly also closed the doors behind the party. If any AOE spells go off the battle should be quite noisy; having the guards respond and be unable to open the doors themselves should alleviate suspicion of the Lord, since it'll mean the Lord's own guards couldn't unlock a door they were responsible for securing, implying they're incompetent, not complicit. The party can then investigate from there, and you can have them work out McProudFace was the real culprit all along.

[Bjarkmundur]

Oohhhhhh I think I got it!

As the wizard is getting defeated McProudface will pull a "do I have to everything myself?!"

He jumps down from the walkway, does his monologue, knocks one player down, and then Suslord joins in, draws a rapier and takes a duelling stance against McProudface. A minute later Lord comes with a couple of guards and the situation is resolved!

Now I just hg have to figure out the aftermath

[Kurt Kurageous]

A word of caution.

Your job as a DM is to create problems and conflicts, not figure out how to solve them. Focus more on NPC goals (one, two words each) and motivations (fear, greed, ego, etc). Spend zero time figuring out how they can come through your clever and compelling situations.

It's improv, not scripted. Set the scene, and turn the actors loose upon the stage!

[Ionathus]

You're having a hard time transitioning to the reveal because this sounds like visual novel, not a D&D campaign plan. You know your players better than I do: maybe they're this predictable and like being guided. But this sounds almost exactly like my first campaign opening, including how tight of a grip I tried to keep on the narrative reins.

Best storytelling advice I ever got as a DM is to create believable, strongly-motivated NPCs, and figure out what those NPCs will do if the players do nothing to stop them. And no more. Don't write scenes. Write settings, and characters, and mystical forces, and then wait to see what your players do with/against them. That's your framework, and it needs to be constantly in flux.

Don't try to finesse any reveals or ambushes or introductions too carefully. Create the NPCs, have them react believably to the world and the PCs' actions, and the rest will follow.

[Bjarkmundur]

You're having a hard time transitioning to the reveal because this sounds like visual novel.
Create believable, strongly-motivated NPCs, and figure out what those NPCs will do if the players do nothing to stop them.
Don't try to finesse any reveals or ambushes or introductions too carefully. Create the NPCs, have them react believably to the world and the PCs' actions, and the rest will follow.


These are all really good (yet ultimately, non-helpful) points! I am absolutely in favor if this. But what this forum tends to forget is that not everyone's process is the same, and the reader never knows the full story.

This is exactly my process that you describe, when creating a large over-arching storyline.

For my personal needs, I have found it really helpful to create some sort of direct path through the story, mostly just to give me a timeline and make sure my goals are set. Then, when that direct path has been established, I expand the world from that centerpoint. It really does help me to visualize the story, and then create the characters. Oftentimes the story is completely changed from what I had in the beginning, as I develop the NPCs.

This is a 1st session, and we probably won't stay in this town for the next session. Like the introduction said, we are just making our way to Waterdeep, and have little reason to stop. There isn't even direct conflict here. The "villain" has nothing against our heroes directly. He has no goal really. He's just a man with emotional scars, poor coping mechanisms and used to be able to make problems go away.

As I see it the flow of the session should go something along the lines of

The Town
The players get a chance to explore the town and the people that live there freely. This is my chance to create some solid NPCs and allow my party to interact with them. If they derail the story from here and end um creating a quest out of thin air with one of those NPCs, I am all for it.

Problem I need actual help with: Some ideas for activities and NPCs I could throw in here. I got a few, but I'd love to hear what you've come up with in the past that could set an example of believable and strongly-motivated NPCs.

The Feast
The players are in a tense roleplaying scenario. They have been given the goal of impressing our guests. As our Lord fumbles over his words the players get a chance of exploring the character and motivations of McProudface and Suslord (not the final names of these characters, lol). While the town introduced some roleplay to warm them up, this is a Social Encounter. There is much they can uncover here, I just need to figure out enough about this character for them to be able to hold up a conversation.

Problem I need actual help with: I need some talking points for these characters, and obviously to flesh them out. I'm imagining that our Lord got this land as a gift from his stereotypically taller, more handsome and more successful brother. Both of these gentlemen covet the land, but don't have a politically discreet way to do it. The Lord knows this and brought our heroes in to impress and distract our guests as much as possible. You are absolutely right that I have no idea what would happen if the heroes didn't interfere, but neither guest would try anything drastic until after they leave town.
Ooooo maybe they were going to coerce our Lord to sign some papers??? I don't know? Maybe?

The Combat
Here I get to draw the players into the story. Not only is this the first combat encounter (a good warm up), but I'm introducing so many themes I want them to get familiar with. On top of all that, there's a strong NPCs with really white/black view of the world that hates our heroes just for being heroes. He might get philosophical. I might even expect the players to try to talk him out of it. There's so much room for tension and drama!

Then after a round of this, Suslord comes and stops McProudface from completely demolishing the party, if they haven't found a way to do it themselves. I'm guessing Suslord has either a sweet spot for helpful adventurers, or a soar spot for pointless murder at a feast in a town he wants his hands on.

The End
The player's are tired at this point, it's been a couple of hours, and wrapping a session up is important. McProudface is a bad guy who lost his cool. His ego is pretty hurt, but he won't leave town as a criminal. He probably wont bother the Lord about his lands for a while. Suslord is more difficult here. I wouldn't mind us learning that he was once an adventurer himself. I might even have him declare to the Lord that he won't come after his lands, that this town is in good hands and he'd rather have something else from him instead.