Campaign help

[Alysar]

I've been gaming with an IRC group for a couple years now. It's a fairly large organization with different people managing different cities and several campaigns being run simultaneously by different DMs in the same game world. Late last year the call went out for more people to volunteer to DM. I had never DMed before, but they said that there would be training, and there would be people who I could ask for help (when I volunteered, two people I was playing with became the managers of the city my players are in. A married couple that has been playing for 30 years now) so I thought I'd give it a try.

So the group I'm DMing for (mostly lvl 3 with one lvl 4 by now) is nearing the end of their second quest. The first was a simple dungeon crawl, sending the players through the city sewers looking for sewer workers that had gone missing. The second is a store-bought module based around a series of grisly murders that the players have to investigate.

Right about now I'm feeling the need to get them into a major campaign sometime soon, and never having had done anything like this before I have no idea what to do. One thing I'm eventually supposed to do is develop a previously unknown dwarf city somewhere nearby and introduce the players to it, but that can wait for now.

In the sewer quest, I did lay down one plot hook that I figured I can do something with later. They found evidence of a dragon cult with plans for taking over the city (a cult member had hidden himself in a secret room in the sewers, doing magical experiments which got him killed. The explosion combined with the alchemical components leaking into the sewer water mutated the vermin that live there, hence the missing sewer workers) and mention of a 'dragonstone' (an artifact that the city managers had been toying with and gave me when I told them I needed something for the cult to use) which gives the user limited powers of a dragon.

Anyway, can anyone who has more experience with this kind of thing than I do point me in a direction? I honestly don't know where I'm going with all this.

[CASTLEMIKE]

I hate to reinvent the wheel so I tweak stuff I like:


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads

[Alysar]

I hate to reinvent the wheel so I tweak stuff I like:


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads

Cool. I'll take a look at those too.

[NecroRebel]

You're supposed to develop a dwarven city, you have a dragon worshipping cult established already, and you have the concept of these dragonstones. Combine them. Obviously, the dwarven city wasn't "lost" as in ruined, abandoned, or the like, but was "lost" in the spiritual and religious sense. Dwarven miners from this city chanced upon a source of dragonstone - let's say a petrified dragon, and the city used its power to become strong. Revering the source as divine, they began worshipping it rather than (insert traditional dwarf god(s) here).

Clearly, this is a great opportunity for adventure, because the dragon worshipping dwarves collapsed all the tunnels to their city and so its location isn't entirely known. If your party is greedy, they might wish to seek out the source of the dragonstone for their own profit and power. If your party is of a religious bent, you may seek to disprove the dragons' divinity and save the souls of the dwarves by returning them to the old ways. If your party is neither of these things, perhaps the dragon-dwarves have begun raiding more.

In any case, first your characters have to actually find the dwarven city. This can involve visiting ancient libraries to seek forgotten lore. Perhaps you need specialized tools to dig your way into this city that are found only in a faraway land. And of course eventually you'll have to get into the city itself to accomplish your goals there.

This is the sort of thing you can build countless related adventures off of. One basic long-term goal is the core of all the best campaigns, so get that and you're mostly set

[Alysar]

You're supposed to develop a dwarven city, you have a dragon worshipping cult established already, and you have the concept of these dragonstones. Combine them. Obviously, the dwarven city wasn't "lost" as in ruined, abandoned, or the like, but was "lost" in the spiritual and religious sense. Dwarven miners from this city chanced upon a source of dragonstone - let's say a petrified dragon, and the city used its power to become strong. Revering the source as divine, they began worshipping it rather than (insert traditional dwarf god(s) here).

Clearly, this is a great opportunity for adventure, because the dragon worshipping dwarves collapsed all the tunnels to their city and so its location isn't entirely known. If your party is greedy, they might wish to seek out the source of the dragonstone for their own profit and power. If your party is of a religious bent, you may seek to disprove the dragons' divinity and save the souls of the dwarves by returning them to the old ways. If your party is neither of these things, perhaps the dragon-dwarves have begun raiding more.

In any case, first your characters have to actually find the dwarven city. This can involve visiting ancient libraries to seek forgotten lore. Perhaps you need specialized tools to dig your way into this city that are found only in a faraway land. And of course eventually you'll have to get into the city itself to accomplish your goals there.

This is the sort of thing you can build countless related adventures off of. One basic long-term goal is the core of all the best campaigns, so get that and you're mostly set

A lot of what you are saying is interesting. Although by 'lost' I meant that its existence was forgotten by the people in my main city. It is still populated and operational and everything. Basically, there was a cataclysm 400 years ago, and all the surviving cities were separated from each other. Here's a description of what happened.

[CASTLEMIKE]

This one was down yesterday when I posted:

http://www.rpgarchive.com/index.php?...adv&sort=Alpha

[quillbreaker]

At low, low levels, your foes are often going to be kobolds, goblins, or undead. There's a danger there. Kobolds and goblins have a balanced assortment of monsters to choose from - just squeeze in some artillery or skirmishers for damage - but undead are very slanted towards controllers and brutes. If you're not wary regarding this you can assemble some spectacularly boring encounters.

I don't have my MM handy to get into ratios, but I do know that both myself and and another DM have accidentally built encounters with no serious damage dealers and almost put a group of players to sleep.

I think the intent is that you toss in something like a Human Wizard to roll out some damage, but stylistically, undead are often encountered with just other undead. Maybe we should design a low level undead skirmisher and a low level undead artillery monster to toss in with the MM monsters.

[Dr Bwaa]

*details*

One basic long-term goal is the core of all the best campaigns, so get that and you're mostly set

Quoted for truth. It's taken me a long time to figure out how to do this well, though. Essentially I, as a DM, want to figure out a very basic, overarching plotline for the characters to follow. Example:

The party must travel across the land and slay a dragon for (fun/profit/revenge)

Within this scope, you all of a sudden have countless things you can do. They could be abducted by goblins while crossing the mountains, and have to find a way to escape, all the while exploring the dark, forgotten regions of the tunnels that the goblins don't even use anymore. They could have to figure out how to cross a broad, poisonous stream, or get lost in an enchanted forest. Maybe some of the party gets captured, and they must all coordinate to form an elaborate escape. They get to a town nearish to the dragon's lair finally, where they can stock up on provisions and gain valuable advice. Then they journey to the dragon itself, and have to figure out how to gain entrance to its lair, how to take its gold or slay it or whatever the objective is without it simply eating all of them. Once they've accomplished this, what do the players do with the gold? How do the nearby townspeople react? Are they happy that the dragon's gone, or simply eager for their share of the loot?

This is just a very, very basic (plagiarized (kudos for guessing from whom! )) example, and could be expanded in all directions. That's how I run campaigns, anyway: there's a reason anything non-epic is called a "side-quest."