D&D 5E I need help with a new campaign D&D 5e

[BeaniBum]

Hi I'm a little new to running a D&D campaign and I need help with a session I'm making.

I asked my friend what kind of campaign he would like to run and he said "Something that makes you question everything you thought you knew"

Going off of that I thought I would make a campaign based on planer travel and go from there.

The main character is a wizard who had just graduated from Sigil's Wizarding academy and decided to go into the planer research division. His long time professor calls him in to help test a new planar travel technology/magic and something goes wrong and the main character ends up not being chained to a specific plane. So he will randomly teleport to a different plane. I think the planar organization would be either a stacked type or a myriad type.

I like the idea and i think it could really confuse my friend who is new to D&D but don't really see an end goal or antagonist for the campaign.

I mean it could be where he get trapped in carceri and monsters try to use him to escape or its one long fetch quest to all the planes to try and get the components to get rid of his condition. Maybe he learns to control it I don't know.

I need help and any ideas would be happily accepted and greatly appreciated.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Wel what id instead of oher planes he shifts do alternative versions of his prime, mecoming something more like the sliders tv series.

 

[BeaniBum]

So he would go to different versions of Sigil

 

[Herobizkit]

Or like Stargate - go to different Prime Materials. Dropping him into, say, Dark Sun (campaign setting) would be very jarring.

 

[MerricB]

In a lot of ways, you've described the premise of Quantum Leap. "Each time hoping that the next leap will be the one home!" So, the end state is getting home.

This is an episodic type of campaign, with each story being self-contained. I would slowly bring in the idea of the travel actually being controlled by a higher power... And possibly have other recurring travellers seeking to put wrong whatever the pc tries to do each story.

Cheers!

 

[Jester David]

He wants to question things. He wants twists and defied expectations.

Send him to the Nine Hells.

But... the devils become his allies. They're lawful evil, and willing to strike deals. He initially meets a devil that needs assistance and is willing to bargain for it. Maybe setup a small settlement of lost souls, planar traders, tieflings, and cambions in Hell. A home base.
For an initial threat, introduce some demons. Chaotic evil feral monsters taking part in the Blood War against the devils. Law vs chaos. But he's still fighting evil, and working for the greater good, so that's okay. And he has to defend himself since he can't leave Hell, he has to help. It's home.

Then introduce Chaotic Good angels as antagonists. Play up the Chaotic aspect. These are anarch angels. Intolerant of anything they see as evil or touched by the Hells. Trying to eliminate evil from the Outer Planes, and break the balance of the cosmos in favour of good.

 

[aco175]

I would think the whole turning things on its end depends on how new you are to running a game and how much time you have to plan and develop each session. I like the idea of jumping around to planets or timelines, but each requires a lot of time to develop. Maybe if you keep the player in a place for several adventures at a time, or even come back to a few at a time it could work out well.

 

[Eltab]

Don't make your Multiverse so 'big' that you cannot fill in enough details to make it feel 'real'.

Perhaps the PC drops in to 4 major planes - Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun if you want to use other folks' backgrounds - plus has access to the Elemental Planes (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) from them. He can 'walk' back home, via a very long circuitous route, if he gets lost. (There was a 4e Epic Destiny that did that, more or less)

Oops, I forgot: Dark Sun doesn't connect to the other planes very well. So, being dumped in there could be a form of 'exile' that he must find a way out of. Who dumped him in there, and why? (Besides "They think it's a death trap" or "They think there is no escape".) Build up the possibility as 'the ultimate punishment'. So when it finally happens - he's motivated to get out, no matter how tough the task turns out to be.

The other three planes can have important plane-specific gewgaws that he has to collect, like "A snip of hair from each of the Seven Sisters" (FR). Some of them will be easy - contact the Open Lady of Waterdeep's hairdresser. Some will be much harder (at least one is dead).
The PC will have to learn enough in-world lore to make sense of his task. (What is 'dust from the Mournland'?")

His End Goal could be 'Understand what has happened and how to manipulate it on purpose.'
Mechanically, the PC could earn a point (in a new skill: Planeswalker) every time he finishes a related Quest. Eventually he will have a skill level high enough that he has to roll a '1' to mess up. At that point, he figures out how to control the situation, and can defeat his enemy / rival.

Besides Quantum Leap, this could also become rather Doctor Who -like.

 

[koga305]

You might want to have a look at the Well of Many Worlds in the DMG. That item seems perfect for a Quantum Leap style campaign.

 

[DoubleDanGaming]

Well, in the campaign I'm rolling, I have the gameworld run by two effective governments, one secular, and one religious. The religious one is at the top, and in the in-universe history, they've essentially sidelined and marginalized all the Old Gods, stripping them of their power. While the religion is viewed positively by most, late into the campaign it is revealed to be a long-term deception propagated by one of the Hell Plane Lords, and that most of the uppermost hierarchy are knowledgeable about this, but go along for purely selfish motives.

One of my players is an LG Paladin in the church, and is in-character devout. I haven't sprung this revelation on them yet (we're only at lv7, and that's something I'm keeping for lv13 or so), but I'm quite looking forward to the confrontation with the player's character and his in-game mentor, who has been providing in-game guidance and support (but who is 'in the know').