D&D: help, what is plot
Nov. 13th, 2018 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkSoo I was stupid and underestimated plotting a D&D campaign. The players keep moving parts around, you constantly have to adapt, and you're under pressure from session to session, which in my case means I only have a week to prepare and that's NOT a lot of time. I have no idea how our previous DM did this, and for such a long campaign. (At least I wrote weekly summaries. This time one player promised to write summaries but hasn't yet, which makes keeping track of things even harder.)
Because I underestimated it, I wasn't sufficiently prepared when the campaign started and only figured out later that the plot in its current form has huge holes. Now I have to adapt. I managed to buy some time with side quests, like an extra dungeon, at least that was a lot of fun. But now my players are in the middle of a detective plot (whyyyy did I think this was a good idea) and I really need to figure out who's behind it. Ahem. (My players: "it would be nice to get to some actual plot." Also my players: "nah, neither of these quests on the board looks cool, are you sure there aren't any others?" No there are not.)
Soo I would be grateful for feedback and brainstorming help :) Just writing it down will probably help.
What my party knows: Powerful magical items are being stolen all around the city and surrounding areas. Several months ago was the first appearance of a colorful light show in the sky that has since reappeared irregularly, most think they're magical and some mages think it has something to do with different planes or dimensions. A professor of interdimensional studies was kidnapped from the magic university a few weeks ago. Someone accidentally ended up in this dimension from another, rather distant one a few months ago (Valkyrie.) A cleric from a minor cult has been sent on a quest by his goddess to save the world and his visions led him to this general area.
What the plan was: There was an accident with the Bifrost (the light show) and several people (including Valkyrie and the Hulk) have been stranded in this dimension. Some of them (Jane Foster) studied at the university and they (Natasha and Peter, mostly) are stealing magical items as batteries to power the portal one of them (Tony) is building to get them back to their home dimension, which takes more energy than usual because it's *handwaves* more distant than planes usually are.
The kidnapping was, uh, something I tossed in without properly thinking it through, someone wanted him for information, properly the dimension travelers. And the cleric's quest was supposed to be just backstory taken from where I borrowed the character from but my party fixated on it and I figured I can use it.
The issue: There aren't really bad guys. Which is okay for a story but not so much for the D&D campaign we're playing: my party would like bad guys to fight, and to be honest I enjoy it when there are bad guys too.
The adaption: Someone figured out what the light show means and what the dimension travelers are doing and wants to use the portal they're building for their own goals. At first I thought something like demon summoning, but the usual demon summoning in D&D takes way less work. Then I thought maybe something like an end-times cult, religious fanatics who want to use the portals to make dimensions crash into each other and start the apocalypse. Evil cultists sound like fun! Or maybe simply a really really powerful demon lord?
If the world is threatened I'd have to involve the cleric's quest, which could be a problem because the cleric's party members are really powerful. Maybe the cult's headquarters are actually somewhere else, and the cleric and his party are going after the headquarter while my party has to deal with whoever's left in the city? Then if they keep in contact with the cleric's group that would give them extra info. I'd have to start leaving some hints about the cult, ideally soon, and decide what they look like and what they do. They probably kidnapped the professor, to get more info on how the portal works. I also thought that maybe they have a shapeshifter and infiltrated the dimension travelers so that they can knock them out when the moment is right.
It seems a bit sudden to go from random quests in the wilderness to saving the world quickly, there definitely has to be stuff in between. There's the kidnapping of the professor to solve (which means I have to figure out clues and stuff, ugh), and then I think either the cult of the travelers themselves will hire them to retrieve another magical item (from a haunted island, that will be fun.) And then… not sure. On the one hand that'll be weeks from now and I'll have time to think of something else, on the other hand it sure would be nice to have a clearer idea of what will happen. Maybe there's a temple of the evil cultists in the city that they'll investigate but some of them will escape, and then they'll look for them and eventually stumble upon the dimension travelers' portal? Hm.
My players are having fun and so am I, but I would really like to give them a satisfying plot and conclusion at some point, I'll just have to see how it goes.
Because I underestimated it, I wasn't sufficiently prepared when the campaign started and only figured out later that the plot in its current form has huge holes. Now I have to adapt. I managed to buy some time with side quests, like an extra dungeon, at least that was a lot of fun. But now my players are in the middle of a detective plot (whyyyy did I think this was a good idea) and I really need to figure out who's behind it. Ahem. (My players: "it would be nice to get to some actual plot." Also my players: "nah, neither of these quests on the board looks cool, are you sure there aren't any others?" No there are not.)
Soo I would be grateful for feedback and brainstorming help :) Just writing it down will probably help.
What my party knows: Powerful magical items are being stolen all around the city and surrounding areas. Several months ago was the first appearance of a colorful light show in the sky that has since reappeared irregularly, most think they're magical and some mages think it has something to do with different planes or dimensions. A professor of interdimensional studies was kidnapped from the magic university a few weeks ago. Someone accidentally ended up in this dimension from another, rather distant one a few months ago (Valkyrie.) A cleric from a minor cult has been sent on a quest by his goddess to save the world and his visions led him to this general area.
What the plan was: There was an accident with the Bifrost (the light show) and several people (including Valkyrie and the Hulk) have been stranded in this dimension. Some of them (Jane Foster) studied at the university and they (Natasha and Peter, mostly) are stealing magical items as batteries to power the portal one of them (Tony) is building to get them back to their home dimension, which takes more energy than usual because it's *handwaves* more distant than planes usually are.
The kidnapping was, uh, something I tossed in without properly thinking it through, someone wanted him for information, properly the dimension travelers. And the cleric's quest was supposed to be just backstory taken from where I borrowed the character from but my party fixated on it and I figured I can use it.
The issue: There aren't really bad guys. Which is okay for a story but not so much for the D&D campaign we're playing: my party would like bad guys to fight, and to be honest I enjoy it when there are bad guys too.
The adaption: Someone figured out what the light show means and what the dimension travelers are doing and wants to use the portal they're building for their own goals. At first I thought something like demon summoning, but the usual demon summoning in D&D takes way less work. Then I thought maybe something like an end-times cult, religious fanatics who want to use the portals to make dimensions crash into each other and start the apocalypse. Evil cultists sound like fun! Or maybe simply a really really powerful demon lord?
If the world is threatened I'd have to involve the cleric's quest, which could be a problem because the cleric's party members are really powerful. Maybe the cult's headquarters are actually somewhere else, and the cleric and his party are going after the headquarter while my party has to deal with whoever's left in the city? Then if they keep in contact with the cleric's group that would give them extra info. I'd have to start leaving some hints about the cult, ideally soon, and decide what they look like and what they do. They probably kidnapped the professor, to get more info on how the portal works. I also thought that maybe they have a shapeshifter and infiltrated the dimension travelers so that they can knock them out when the moment is right.
It seems a bit sudden to go from random quests in the wilderness to saving the world quickly, there definitely has to be stuff in between. There's the kidnapping of the professor to solve (which means I have to figure out clues and stuff, ugh), and then I think either the cult of the travelers themselves will hire them to retrieve another magical item (from a haunted island, that will be fun.) And then… not sure. On the one hand that'll be weeks from now and I'll have time to think of something else, on the other hand it sure would be nice to have a clearer idea of what will happen. Maybe there's a temple of the evil cultists in the city that they'll investigate but some of them will escape, and then they'll look for them and eventually stumble upon the dimension travelers' portal? Hm.
My players are having fun and so am I, but I would really like to give them a satisfying plot and conclusion at some point, I'll just have to see how it goes.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-14 03:39 am (UTC)I've been dabbling in a little bit of (much simpler!) DMing, and I have to laugh at the way the demands of improvising something for your players has led you step by step to planning the potential end of the world. That's just how D&D goes, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2018-11-14 11:08 am (UTC)What kind of campaign/party are you DMing?
no subject
Date: 2018-11-14 10:45 pm (UTC)I'm DMing a tiny little party of one, which I think must simplify things immensely! We were originally going to do a quick run of the Lost Mine of Phandelver just to get a feel for the rules, but my player keeps doing things like hiring goblins as mercenaries or deciding to transport a prisoner from the middle of nowhere all the way to the big city for trial, so I'm getting to do lots of improvising. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2018-11-15 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-14 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-14 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-14 10:00 pm (UTC)Destroy the fabric of reality and bring forth Chtulhu and the rest!
no subject
Date: 2018-11-15 10:58 pm (UTC)