That’s a good place to be. Then you find out if your pcs are gentlemen, killers, or torturers.
I also can use a third-party threat to keep it where if they do get into combat and they’re wrecking the other party, the commotion causes the threat to come in and I could focus on the PC party if needed. Since it’s desert I keep thinking sand wurm of some sort. I’m thinking of Dune - I’m sure there is something in the monster manuals I could re-stat or outright use.
I think the other party won’t immediately identify themselves as Good Guys unless the party asks about it, they’ll also have heard the distress beacon and identify that they are here to rescue the people. Have it be a reveal unless they press it early.
Let’s get this straight-- you’re talking one PC party and one NPC party?
The PC party are soldiers who happen to be on the “wrong side” of a war. What exactly makes their country bad instead of good? Is their king more into conquering, enslaving, genociding, etc.?
The NPC party are soldiers who are the “good side” of a war?
Besides the near-miss meetings, I think having some escapes is a good idea.
You don’t need a teleport spell-- they could just have a magic item that let’s them teleport away once.
You could have the “good party” beat them up without killing them.
You could have the “good party” capture them.
You could, at some point in the campaign, let the bad party capture or kill some of the good party.
You could hint that the good party has something valuable (information or whatever) so they are less likely to be killed. And maybe have them make some sort of trade and/or trap.
I admit, I haven’t DMed much, but I personally like it best when DMs pose dilemmas and let characters come to their own conclusions, and make mistakes along the way.
So it’s okay if they kill the good guys, or if they screw up the rescue mission, or if they all get captured, or whatever.
Obviously that’s a problem if it ruins hours and hours of story that you have planned, but letting the party make big decisions or (big mistakes) is my favorite thing that can happen in D&D
In order:
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Yes, one PC, one NPC.
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The Bad Guys country as I call it (for simplicity here) is the aggressor in the war and has conscripted magic users as soldiers, they are increasingly cracking down on non-authorized magic, as they go through an early Industrial Era and corporations are starting to solidify control of the government. They want to end the concept of gods or kings. (Magic is typically derived from gods - sorcerers and warlocks are closely monitored and generally disapproved of, wizards are not typically a thing in Bad Guy country.) Not objectively evil but technocratic dystopia.
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The NPCs are, in my opinion, the “better” side but they are not accepting of refugees and have some racist tendencies.
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Skipping to your last point, I could work out some kind of trade or similar, thank you!
I agree wholeheartedly, I want my players to make big plays so long as they aren’t just murder-hobo. My current “retired” military character (100 years in the future) could feasibly have been in Good Guys party, but I decided against because if they murder him it ruins the canon. This will be fully new NPCs.
Are these players currently in the other campaign, the one set 100 years in the future? Do they already care about this world?
If not, be prepared for them to not care about this at all. If you hit them with this at the beginning they will most likely ignore all of it.
We’ve been in the world at current (+100 years) for about 30 sessions. 2 of us were involved in the Waste War and another had his father conscripted into it and killed. A large portion of our campaign has been fighting (to skip many paragraphs) a resurging faction of the Bad Guy Country.
Closing in on DMing my first game next week. The party is calling themselves The Animal House. I allowed a lot of Unearthed Arcana and homebrew if it seemed reasonable. We have:
Vedalken Wizard
Loxodon Druid
Kanku Ranger
Rabbitfolk Monk
Enfield (fox-bird) Bard
Harmster (Gnome-sized hamster) Barbarian
Session 1 of 2 went well for this one-shot.
I need to trust my players more. 2 of them are fully new and I was worried about killing them in the first half of the story so I fudged 2 dice rolls and straightly told a character they may not chain up a water elemental (it was briefly looking very bad for them). Regretting telling them they could not chain water, since they critted way more than average and destroyed the early fights I had playtested. I’ll have to upstat the upcoming fights because they are basically full on HP and spell slots. They are having fun though. I’d just love to down somebody for the tension, without killing them.
Currently they think they’re clever because under the trap door was a short rusty ladder with water below, which unbeknownst to them is full of Hunter Sharks. Our flying character tied a rope from ladder to the land that they discovered… it is unlikely (though I will be fair; it is possible) they will all make it without going bloop into the water as they climb down a rusted ladder, with one of them being a 350 pound Loxodon.
DM Session 2 begins tonight. I’m excited - a fully new player in my session is very interested to join The Main Campaign that my partner DMs, and he’s a lot of fun to roleplay with and is very responsive over texts and whatnot, seems super enthusiastic. I’m ready to be on the other side of the screen though. Might briefly run things again after a while however.
Well, my players are now pirates. They fully absconded with the loot they were hired to retrieve and bought a ship to sail the high seas. At least they’re not monsters, they did safely return the child that was in danger.
Time to learn how to naval combat in D&D.
If our Barbarian hamster is not fired from a cannon at some point, I’ll eat my shorts.
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To be fair I probably led them into piracy. They completely incinerated a ship at port with a Fireball and I was intending for them to either be jailed, or with adequate Persuasion give up some of their earnings. I had them all roll insight as we wrapped up and one got a Nat 20 which reminded them that, yeah, burning boats isn’t super popular. So, they just dropped the kid off in the dead of night and scooted away. Interesting choices… given that the next module should be starting in the same town, which is close to the lighthouse most of it will be around. I’ll have to ideate how that will work.
Our players (in the game I’m playing, not the completed one-shot I DM’d) have caused a specific NPC to lose his job and home, and he’s become kind of a laughingstock “yeah let’s have some minor not very nice fun with this Kobold”. Good fun in character, it started when he grifted us and it’s not like we’re torturing the thing. We actually sort of adopted him once he was homeless, it’s just sort of… built up.
Well, I noted that he really deserves reparations and my ~65 y/o lawyer aunt who’s never played has agreed to sit in as a judge. And she does not allow any shenanigans.
lol, that is hilarious. You’ll need to report back how that goes!
I had a campaign where we found a goblin slave and used him to explore the dungeon for us. Tied a rope around him and would send him around corners, down chutes, etc. He was super willing because we had killed his master. Ended up blinding him, and then getting him killed. I tried to name him Dobby, but I think we ended up with a different name.
It’s probably going to be a few months out since we are about to enter the Feywild and left Scraps the Kobold behind in… maybe good hands? Safer than Feywild anyway. I suspect we’ll be there for 3 sessions at minimum. But I have suggested an arraignment when we get back to town, DM might decide it doesn’t sound like as much fun as we originally thought but I planted the seed, I’d like to see it.
Can I get help planning a couple sessions?
Tl;dr how do I put combat or action into a political setting?
My players are drow characters trying to disrupt a sacrifice that will bring Lolth to this plane.
One point is that most drow don’t know that Lolth will be summoned, they think it’s just a normal religious ceremony.
I’d like to establish that the queen has pissed people off and overreached, so right on her verge of triumph the jenga pile will collapse. For example:
- The Priestesses are mad that the queen is doing the sacrifice instead of them
- The army is mad that all their battles have led to nothing and now all the focus is on this dumb ritual
- Noble Women are mad because their husbands have been imprisoned to be backup sacrifices
- Everybody (except a few) would freak out if they knew Lolth was actually going to come to this plane and rule
I think this has good roleplaying potential, but my players will want to fight things. How do I put fights in here?
Some ideas:
- The newspaper is going to print the truth about summoning Lolth. Players have to stop the guards from burning the newspapers so that there will be dissent in the city
- Get the soldiers on your side by running through their deathtrap setup to impress them
- Sneak in [somewhere] and have to fight [some monsters] guarding it
- ???
I’m totally happy to lift from WOTC books or anything on the DMSguild if you have ones that you think would help.
Quick clarifications on world-building:
- The Queen is the one that wants Lolth summoned? To what end?
- Why do noblemen need to be the sacrifices, do they need to be “worthy” enough?
- What makes them “worthy”? Why not sacrifice some beggar?
- Why is Lolth bad (I know this is an existing god but don’t really know WotC lore, are they in danger then?)
- Is there any kind of organized/disorganized resistance they can band with? Could be related to the newspapers, maybe it’s more printing and distributing pamphlets than a formal newspaper.
- Maybe there’s a defector in the military / spy organization that contacts them asking for help.