First Campaign as a DM

[thedearhunter]

I am a first time DM and i need a bit of advice. i know the game well, been playing since 2005 and i love 4th edition. That said, i have only been a player, though ive wanted to DM.

So now, ive created my own homebrew world, with extensive world info and detail, and i'm real excited to play in it and use the organizations ive created. The campaign so far is an intrigue setup with the characters (starting at level 6) working for a powerful criminal syndicate, through which they are introduced to other powerful groups and people. Im trying to make it so that each character really has an interest in a specific group that relates to their characters. So in a word, im trying to run a sanbox campaign where the PC's can get missions from any of their contacts, all of whom are working for their own ends.

I was wondering if anyone has run anything like this before, and how it went. Any advice is much appreciated.

Also, pretty much all of their foes are humanoid, and higher level than the PC's, with a great deal of elites, like assassins and bounty hunters. Pretty much all the encounters are 2 or 3 levels above the characters, but i figured it was ok because most of they are able to take an extended rest before fighting again. Namely, i havent included any real large dungeon areas yet. Will this be an issue? I know some power gamers love big dungeons and very little story, which is something im fond of.

Any thoughts you guys have would be great.

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

A couple questions:

A: how do you want the game to feel. If you want it to feel like the PCs can trust everyone they meet, then the contacts shouldn't try to take advantage of the PCs, but if you want them to question the motives of the contacts, maybe have them get burned once or twice so they think before taking a job.

B: how capable are the PCs? if they are relatively new players (probably not) then an encounter equal to them could kill the whole party, but if they are experienced, good players, then an encounter 2-3 levels above theirs shouldn't be too much of a problem. especially in 4e where everything is more balanced. but what you really don't want in a game is for a PC to die. there needs to be the feeling of danger, but once a PC dies it becomes less fun for the player, unless it was a really epic death or something like that.

 

[thedearhunter]

in terms of NPC's, i dont exactly want them to trust everyone. In fact, the first man to give them a job withholds critical info from them. I kinda like the feeling of tension and apprehension.

the group is made of up pretty much experienced and good players so im not too worried about survival. but i fear that the abundance of humanoids and lack of true monstrous monsters will bother them. I'm trying to figure out ways to work in solo monsters and such without it seeming arbitrary and forced. and ideas?

 

[Amaroq]

If you're running an urban campaign, and you make the abundance of humanoids and lack of true monstrous monsters "normal" for a few levels, they're going to feel all too unnatural when you do introduce them .. and all the more monstrous if they're preying on humanoids in an urban setting.

You've got all sorts of opportunities for that: necromancers working on undead, summoners bringing demons into the city, dragons menacing the countryside, portal travel forcing them extraplanar where everything is massively different ...

.. but if they're good players, they'll be okay with urban intrigue, I'd suspect.

..

Running a good sandbox is very challenging: be prepared for your players to run right off of anything you have mapped, prepp'ed, etc, and force you to come up with things on the fly. I'd actually recommend having a number of "un-typed" level-appropriate encounters to throw at them for the unexpected fights they'll get to. For example, you might have a group of Level 6-8 bugbears prepared ... they might encounter these as bugbears if they go into the wilds ... but if they wind up in a graveyard, you can always convert those bugbears to "undead", and describe them as strong ghouls ... and if they go after a human thug ring, well, maybe these are the biggest, strongest thugs they've ever seen, and the Strangler is a 250-pounder who is using a garrotte to try to strangle them, etc.

I'd say five to seven "skinnable" humanoid encounters will be a good mix for you, per session; cross them off and create new ones when they've gone through them if they have memorable mechanics, or re-skin them if needed.

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

On making monsters "wierd":

If you think about it, for the average person, they would quite possibly never see a monster. this is not true for players though, so there becomes an issue there, but a normal NPC in a game will never see a monster and will normally encounter humanoids, so from that standpoint it's OK to make actual monsters wierd.

From the other point of view, in a sword and sorcery game, the players will expect to be fighting monsters, dragons razing the countryside etc. so there comes an issue there, but otherwise it's your call.

 

[Amaroq]

Also, pretty much all of their foes are humanoid, and higher level than the PC's, with a great deal of elites, like assassins and bounty hunters. Pretty much all the encounters are 2 or 3 levels above the characters, but i figured it was ok because most of they are able to take an extended rest before fighting again. Namely, i havent included any real large dungeon areas yet. Will this be an issue?

There is an issue there, a couple minor ones:

1. If your characters have only one encounter per day, they learn to "go nova", blamming out, in order, their dailies, action points, and then their encounters. They'll be able to consistently fight at +2/+3 from first level, and +4 to +6 once you're five to ten levels into the campaign.

2. However, a lot of the "daily" limits (Healing surges, especially) won't come into play full stop, they simply won't help. This is going to reward strikers over a lot of other classes. The balance will be "subtly off", rewarding vigorous attacks more than stalwart defenses.

3. Certain feats and powers will be much less useful: a feat for extra healing surges will be fairly useless. "Meliorating armor", for example, will never be better than +1 .. and a monster power that burns a Healing Surge will be much less scary.

4. Wardens with multiple daily Forms will only be using one; similarly, there's no point in a Fighter having two different Stances to choose from, etc.

5. If you ever do run a "fake bad guy first, real bad guy second" pair of encounters, you risk a TPK because you'll be used to balancing against the "nova" party - they'll blow their wad in the first encounter, and be much much weaker than any of you are used to in the second.

None of this is bad, just, things to be aware of.

You can do fairly well with a few about-level-equal encounters to chew up Healing Surges, the occasional Daily power, Action Point, etc ... then spring the "final" encounter of both mission and session on the players; its a nice pacing.

We've got two games going: one DM likes to run a campaign much as you described: one, two, or three encounters per session, some of them with an extended rest between them, and the PC's as the aggressors/instigators.

The other DM likes to run a "keep the PC's on the run" campaign, where minor monsters keep haranguing and hectoring the PC's, who need to "take the initiative" to get on top of the situation and start taking the fight to the bad guys.

Both work very enjoyably, but the level of pressure and length of combats in both games is very different.

 

[airwalkrr]

but what you really don't want in a game is for a PC to die. there needs to be the feeling of danger, but once a PC dies it becomes less fun for the player, unless it was a really epic death or something like that.

I absolutely detest this mode of thinking and it has no place in my games. Death is a part of the game. If PCs weren't supposed to die then there wouldn't be rules for dying, or ways to bring them back, or a section in the DMG explaining how to deal with a situation for when PCs die. Mature players should be able to recognize that character death happens and that it doesn't have to detract from the game. Does that mean you should die from stepping on a nail? No. But when you are playing in a fantasy world where wizards throw fireballs, rogues stab you in the back, and fighters swing massive swords, you have to expect that sooner or later it might get the better of you.

Should every character die in every game? It's not necessary, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. The best campaign I ever ran had a TPK at level 3. The players laughed and said "Oh we'll get those evil cultists next time." They rolled up some new characters and got their comeuppance. We continued playing that campaign into epic levels. Along the way one character got his soul trapped and several others died once or twice, but that's what exciting quests to rescue a comrade's soul and the raise dead spell are for.

Seriously why do some people think that just because your character dies the game can never be fun again? Character death is always inconvenient, but it is not the end of the game. Roll up a new character or get your dead one raised and get over it.

Edit: deerhunter, make sure you kill at least one character in your campaign for me. Don't do it out of spite towards a player, but do it because it is part of the game.

 

[GandalfMithrandir]

I agree to a certain extent that character death is and option, and is ok sometimes, just not when the weak goblin assassin manages to assassinate a strong PC. If the encounter is meant to be difficult, kill the PC if it comes up. Also, if the cleric flunks his Fortitude save against the poison, kill him because of it, rather than making the poison a weaker strain.

Also, if your PCs love to die, throw a red dragon at them and watch it maul them. I just know that some players (Including mine) hate it when their characters die. so maybe when you kill your character for airwalkerr, have a strong cleric "Happen by" and resurrect him.

I'm probably giving you mixed signals here, do what you want, foremost, then consider my thoughts, If you like them, feel free to use them, if you don't, then ignore them.

 

[Antithetist]

Also, if your PCs love to die, throw a red dragon at them and watch it maul them.

Nobody's saying that players 'love to die', or that gratuitous TPKs (like throwing an unreasonable challenge at your players, or dropping anvils on their heads) are fun for anybody. But if death isn't a real and tangible threat, a lot of the game's tension and excitement is gone. Speaking for my own experience, there's nothing like that moment in a tough combat when you really don't know whether you can make it, and the DM doesn't know either, and everyone's just watching the dice and praying - and then your guys pull it out at the last minute, the day is won, and everyone's happy.

That whole experience is undermined completely if it's an unwritten rule that PCs don't die - if you know that your DM will fudge the dice or pull a rabbit out of a hat to ensure that the players always win. When mistakes (or plain old terrible luck) have no consequences, then success is pretty empty.

 

[Amaroq]

Honestly, this issue is one whose answer varies widely from gaming group to gaming group.

I've played in thoroughly enjoyable campaigns where no PC ever died, and even ones in which a PC did die but was brought back with no real consequences to either player or character.

I've played in thoroughly enjoyable campaigns in which PC death was a valid potential outcome of any combat, and even enjoyed ones where most of the PCs died by the end of the game.

It really depends on the group, and the expectations of the players.

In my personal experience, it really seems to tip with "how attached" players get to their characters.

In those fatality-free campaigns, its been the case that the game was much more focused on the story and the characters than on the villains and the combats. We had one session where the players argued - in character! - for three hours over a particularly thorny issue while the DM sipped a beer and enjoyed it as theatre. Death, if it was allowed to happen at all, had to fit the story and the character, and be pleasing to the player.

In the lethal campaigns, its been more the case that the game was focused on the villains and the combats, and a bit less on character development and story. Death happened if the dice and encounters allowed it to happen, and resurrection, if it was allowed to happen at all, had to fit the story and the game mechanics, and be pleasing to the player.

So, this is something you'll probably want to discuss with your players before session #2.

Among other things, the answer defines "what does a TPK mean"?

In the lethal campaigns, usually, that's it, roll up new characters.

In the fatality-free campaigns, usually the PC's are taken prisoner, and the villain(s) go Bond-esque on them. "Before I kill you, Mister Bond, I'm going to reveal my entire master plan to you, and then I'm going to dump you in a pit with my favorite monster, giving you a 'sporting chance' to escape with your life, blow up my base, and thwart my evil plans...."