Planning a campaign, help needed...

[Fedurian]

Hi guys!
I'm working on a campaign set in the North of the Forgotten Realms. I already set these things clear:
- The campaign will be story and character oriented
- The characters will be "normal people" (no weird races, classcombos etc.), I wanna focus on their personality

Now I have a vague plot idea, and I would really like to hear your opinions and suggestions on this. Maybe some of you could even help me to detail the plotline deeper.

Another idea of mine was to initially split the party into to parties who join later. Now here comes the plot:

Party 1 is composed of 2-3 do-no-goods living in a town in the North (still have to dicide where), one day they and other occasional outlaws get hired by a misterious man who doesn't reveal his identity, to robb a caravan that will come into town. No blood he promises, just get the stuff and bring it to me...
Well, it turns out that this "caravan" is not a regular merchant's caravan, but a travelling bard and his companions (bards are highly respected in the North).
The robbery turns soon out to be not so simple as the bandits thought, for a mysterious protector appears out of nowhere.
The bandits have to flee and decide to hide in the nearest forest.
The city-watch has already too much to do in the city, so they hire a group of bounty hunters (2-3 of them are PC's) to search for the criminals.

So both parties are in this forest, but what they did not know is that this forest is infested by the people of the black blood (see Lords of Darkness, they are a group of evil lycanthropes). Well, the People of the black blood don't care if they kill outlaws or bounty hunters, they just love to hunt.
After some hit and run attacks, both groups are smaller, and many people are wounded.....
The bounty hunter group finally finds the outlaws at a campfire they built to protect themselves against the immense cold. The bounty hunters still being the bigger group, could probably defeat the outlaws, but suddenly the people of the black hand surround the scene....
Both groups have to fight together, and manage to flee to a safe place, that one of the outlaws knew.

There the two groups start to talk: The bounty hunters have more people, but the outlaws provided the secure shelter... and, some of the outlaws (hopefully the PC's too) have a bad conscience about what they did, because they didn't know they were gonna attack a bard...

After more talking it turns out that one of the outlaws knows mor than the others: the mysterious man gave him instructions to get a wooden scrollcase from the bard. He is the leader of the group, the worst bandit and ruthless outlaw.

Finally, if the groups join forces they manage to get out of the forest alive and I will try to make them care about the bard, who obviously is in great danger, for he has this scrollcase the mysterious man wants so bad.....

The backgroundstory is this: the Daemonfeys (Lords of Darkness, Cloak and Dagger) have found a new way to expand and get new minions: They found a secret spell (how they found it could be interesting too, I don't know) that makes elves mutate into halfdemonic creatures, bound under their command (a very powerful spell).
So they start capturing elves from the High Forest and curse them with that spell.
But with one elf the process went slightly wrong.....This one elf is aware of the changes his body and his mind are undergoing, and while the other elves lost the memory of their old life, he has vague visions, daydreams etc, short: he knows something is wrong! He escapes and goes on a quest to find the truth about himself. A quest against the time, for his mutation is still in progress and he is loosing more and more conscience, becomes more and more evil and corrupted.

Now, will the PC's in the course of the campaign be able to help him? How could they? What is the conclusion? Finding something to reverse the mutation, or something that makes him able to live with his new self? You see, this is gonna be a good storytelling campaign, if I plan it well....

The mysterious man who hired the outlaws was him, because he thinks that scrollcase contains information for his quest.
And the mysterious protector of the bard is a Fyrre (Manual of the Planes, Celestial), who devoted himself to protect this bard and his valuable information...
___________

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this all.... I know it was long...
I would really appreciate comments and suggestions, cause I'm a relatively new DM and not so experienced in campaign designing...

Thanks again
Greetings,
Fedurian

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

I know little detail of FR, so I can't help there, but your story ideas sound good.

My only suggestion is it sounds like you may be over-planning things. You are expecting the players to work with the bandits, to not out right defeat the black blood during the initial raids, and too generally follow a plot you are scripting.

Now, this may not be a big deal- you may have players who like being led down a path by a dm.

However, there are many players who like to do things regardless if it makes sense to the dm's story. It is just the nature of roleplaying- they will play their characters, and you can never be certain about their behavior.

If you make a long well written out story that depends on the players make the right decisions at situation a, situation b, situation c, and so on- then your who plans are going to be out the window when they do the total opposite of what you expected in situation B.

For example- they may suspect any remorse from the bandits is bs and take them down once they are safe from the black blood.

My suggestion is to be flexible in your plotting- have back up ways for the characters to get involved with the story-arc.

FD

 

[Fedurian]

Does anybody have suggestions on how the adventure could continue?
I'm having a total writer's block.....

Greetings
Fedurian

 

[wolfpunk]

If any of your party is elven I think you have a pretty good oppurtunity to continue the campaign. Certainly once it comes out that this spell affects elves. Any elf in your party should be concerned about becoming a victim of it. This would be even better emphasized if it were to actually almost happen. I would set up a kidnapping of an elven character, and have them almost be transformed perhaps saved that the near last moment by the remaining party members.

Anyway, back on topic, the characters could find some reference to a spell or magic item that would reverse the mutation, or perhaps destroy the spell in a sense that it would no longer work.

Then again you could simply have a mission where they travel to the plane where the demons with the spell reside and they could wipe them out and destroy the spell in all its forms.

Hope that gives you some ideas as to what you could do.

 

[Fedurian]

Thanks for you suggestions so far!
I'm still thinking about what are the next events to happen.....
The PC's travel to the next town, because this is the only place the bard could go to, since there is no other town within days of journey.....
Maybe some encounter during the journey.... maybe the bard got captured or something like this.....

I was thinking about something like this: the thing that the cursed elf wants and the bard has is a map to some forgotten Eraelani structure in the High Forest, maybe the ancestors of the elf....

what do you think?

 

[DoctorB]

I agree that you have to be careful not to over-plan the PC's reactions. If you really want the two groups to work together, you need to give them a good reason to. For example, one of the bandits could be a sibling to one of the bounty hunters. Perhaps the two groups have met before and worked together. Both groups might be suspicious of the person who hires them as well.

If you want the PC's to be remorseful about doing evil things, make sure the players understand that at the beginning. Tell the players that the campaign is about redemption and people of ill-repute becoming heroes if that is what you want. Then they will be more prepared for your ideas.

Have them run into either the mutated elf himself or evidence of his handiwork. Something needs to not fit with this creature being all evil. Maybe it almost kills someone in a group, then seems to come to itself and heal them. It might be a further step of the continuation of the mutation that he/she finally kills.

Another thought is to have another of the elven mutants escape and go on a rampage. If this second one kills indescriminately that would show a difference with the one the PC's have seen or heard about before.

As a general philosophy, I suggest having the big plots worked out and be aware enough of the bad guys' motivations that they can react. Then set up the situation and see what the PC's do. I promise you, they will often do something you didn't consider. The last thing you want to do is force them into a reaction you want. Change your plot as you go if you need to. (just my 2 cp worth on this)