New GM help / advice for plot hooks

[Eboweth]

Hello all, first time DM here and looking for some advice... (Sorry for an essay - just hoping people with more experience might be able to give their 2 cents)

I'm due to be running my first adventure soon (set in the sword coast) and I need some help on ideas for plot hooks for some of my players.

2 of them should be easy enough as they are runaways from a thieves guild, so can have guild members / bounty hunters after them (and with the Zhentarim being in the area that opens new recruitment possiblities) however I need a reason to keep them relatively local and not just skip town.

I'm thinking of having the lord's alliance, meeting in a major city nearby and saying that the roads are being carefully watched by many individuals (good and bad) but want to see if there's anything different I could do?

My other 2 players are slightly harder...

One is a half-elf druid (far traveller) who is searching for her father's tribe and was led to this part of the world by a spiritual vision. I was thinking of him being a warlock with a fey patron but haven't got much further than that..

Then there's the last player... A warforged Artificer (inheritor background). He wants to suffer from memory loss and believes he is an elf stuck in a suit of armour researching how to get out. While I can come up with reasons a warforged would exist in this part of the world (originally from Lantan, portal mishap from Eberron) I can't work out much more than this as the player has left the majority of the details to me (as they haven't played 5e before and think it'll be easier to RP - which I want to encourage).

I was thinking of having them linked to the spellforge but any other thoughts would be amazing.

[Steven K]

2 of them should be easy enough as they are runaways from a thieves guild, so can have guild members / bounty hunters after them (and with the Zhentarim being in the area that opens new recruitment possiblities) however I need a reason to keep them relatively local and not just skip town.

I'm thinking of having the lord's alliance, meeting in a major city nearby and saying that the roads are being carefully watched by many individuals (good and bad) but want to see if there's anything different I could do?

My other 2 players are slightly harder...

One is a half-elf druid (far traveller) who is searching for her father's tribe and was led to this part of the world by a spiritual vision. I was thinking of him being a warlock with a fey patron but haven't got much further than that..

Then there's the last player... A warforged Artificer (inheritor background). He wants to suffer from memory loss and believes he is an elf stuck in a suit of armour researching how to get out. While I can come up with reasons a warforged would exist in this part of the world (originally from Lantan, portal mishap from Eberron) I can't work out much more than this as the player has left the majority of the details to me (as they haven't played 5e before and think it'll be easier to RP - which I want to encourage).

I was thinking of having them linked to the spellforge but any other thoughts would be amazing.

Will say, first off, I don't know much about the Sword Coast setting, bar what's in the DMG. Can't help you there. I know who the Zhentarim are, that's about it.

That aside, here's what I would suggest:

If the two thieves guild runaways have a shared backstory (i.e., they worked for and ran away from the same thieves guild, in the same place, at more or less the same time and probably together), pull them into a group chat and have them work out why they ran, whether the pair of them were the only ones who ran and if not what happened to the others, what the pair of them are working towards or want, and why they need to hang around where the plot is in order to get that done.

Ideas for that discussion that immediately spring to mind are:

A secret. They saw or uncovered something they really should not have known about. Possibly something political, possibly something incriminating, possibly something magical or extraplanar or even divine in nature. Someone wants to know what they know, or stop them telling what they currently do know. This may go beyond simple backstory and become a plot hook.

Traitors. They don't want to be part of the organisation anymore, but you never stop being part of the organisation. Or, they actively screwed over the organisation and booked it. Whatever item or information they stole is something someone wants back.

Family troubles. One or both are from crime families, literal or figurative. Some sort of internal dispute or family breakdown has taken place, and is the root cause of the escape.

Betrayed. They were suddenly set upon by former allies or sent into a trap by superiors, but made it out alive, realised their days were numbered and left as quickly as they could.

Lost friends. They left people behind. Maybe they died in the attack or escape attempt, maybe those people become part of the retrieval/retribution and will be sent after them.

Spurned love interest. Especially if the characters are a couple, or could potentially become one, there could be a jealous ex-lover or rival hunting them, independant to the thieves guild.

As for why they're in town and content to stay there, you could tie that directly to the plot, or have it be a simple choice not to run any further and try to make a life where they are.


Okay, easy ones out of the way, now let's look at Elf-daddy.

Option one, link him to the thieves' guild chasing the other two, or their direct opposition (you already mentioned the zhentarim, he could also be a part of the official power structure such as a politician, a town guard, a merchant, or what have you).

Option two, he works for the fey courts Whatever he's in town to do, it's at the behest of his patron, and it may not be in the best interest of other groups in the local area. This is particularly viable if there is a portal to the feywild nearby, or if there is something shady going on with the already mentioned Lord's Alliance meetings (or the Zhentarim, or the Thieves' Guild, or the city leadership) that the fey lords might have a vested interest in. In which case Elf-daddy might be a spy, an assassin, a sabotuer, a terrorist, or an envoy proposing a deal to one or more members of one or more groups on behalf of his patron, any or all of which the PCs may decide to oppose or aid as they see fit. The important thing is to work out which fey, exactly, elf-daddy works for, and which court they belong to, and how high up in the ranks of that court they are, and most of all what they want.

You mentioned a tribe, so it makes sense to ask whether his tribe is there with him or whether he's acting alone.

Leaving that aside, one vision begets another. Take the time to gradually introduce aspects of the father's role in the story by occaisional visions that slowly narrow things down until finally the elf druid has enough information to properly track him down, at which point use him as a villain or group patron or plot device as you see fit.

Now you have the broad outline of a plot starting to develop, and you just have to find ways to link it all together based on the actions of your players.

That just leaves the Warforged. He has no memory, so it's easy. Ask the player whether he wants to actively seek out his past as a primary motivation, or if he's happy to just get bits and pieces here and there. If the former, you need to do a bit more work, but if the latter you can literally just add things at random - a memory of a friend whose face/race is forgotten, a memory of a moment when past Warforged character was lost and confused in its own mind questioning its purpose or identity but without the actual conclusions that said Warforged came to, a memory of an animal exhibiting some behaviour, a memory of a colourful object, or a work of art or performance, or a dish of food, or whatever that the warforged saw, a memory of a single phrase that somehow serves as useful advice for whatever situation the party is currently facing, a memory of a culture or setting piece or environment. That sort of stuff is easy, you're actually just doing worldbuilding in disguise, and you don't need any clear goal in mind to start with. Just reinforce whatever tone you want to build, and wait until the player starts to pull on interesting threads or a clear theme or plotline emerges, then start to work out the backstory based on whatever you've already said.

Assuming your player wants to actively seek out their past, let them. Pick, say, five unrelated words that together describe the purpose, history, and context of that particular warforged, and sort of expand on them all, until you arrive at a reasonable description of events and a motivation for any NPCs who might have been associated with that warforged, or warforged in general. Like, say one of your words was 'hero', or 'translator', or 'spy', or 'companion', or 'killer'. Each word raises questions, and provides scope for further extrapolation, and so would any combination of such words. And once you have answers, just start seeding them as suggested above.

I wouldn't bother about explaining where the warforged came from, in the cosmic sense you described of being a traveller from another universe, just have a comparatively mundane creator(s) somewhere in the world who may or may not be alive anymore, and who may or may not want their warforged back.

More important, to my mind, is working out how this particular warforged functions - is it, for example, a literal ghost in a shell, elven or otherwise? Is it some sort of elemental, or even another outsider like a fiend, fey, or celestial, bound to the body? Is it simply a particularly well-crafted animated object, and if so, was it created by an Artificer, a Wizard, or a Druid? Or is the Warforged right, and it really is an elf stuck inside armor?

And then, once you have an idea of what it is, tackle what it thinks it is. Why does it believe it's an elf? Was its first memory of an elf? Is there a piece of Elvish song or poetry that it feels a particular kinship for/plays in its head from time to time? Did it have an Elvish name, or think that it did? Is there literally Elvish writing on some of its body parts? Is it just wishful thinking?

And there you go, a simple enough approach to fleshing out those characters, and tieing them to your setting. Good luck.

[Yora]

For starting a new campaign, especially with new players, keep it simple. The most important thing is to explore some places, interact with some people, and fight a few monsters. It doesn't have to be anything big and fancy with amazing story.

Creating invisible walls by having powerful authorities forbidding the PCs to leave is generally a poor method. More likely than not, players will see it as a challenge to get past them. When it's a first adventure, just tell the players that this adventure is limited only to the given area, and that you currently don't have any content for it. If the players have something they really want to do somewhere else, they can tell you what it is and you can make an adventure around that for the future.

For now, just send them to a dungeon to explore and face its challenges and dangers. There doesn't need to be anything fancy for why each PC is personally invested. The players come to play D&D and made adventurers to play. If they want to add anything to their characters to make them deeper invested in the events, that is up to them. You don't need to create reasons why the PCs want to go on an adventure.