My First campaign: Need Dming advice/tips

[Tox1C]

Hello everybody I am currently hosting a game (for the first time ever as a DM) for a few of my friends (2 of them are completely new to DnD) and I have a current game coming up this Sunday. I am having difficulties with trying to come up with some good story plot and I am suffering from writers blocks. This is going to be the second session of the game but the problem was the first game was played about a month ago and between college finals,thanksgiving and now Christmas, and work i haven't had much time to work on my campaign.

So here is a quick rundown of my campaign

My campaign is set in my own made up world in a Swamp known as the Swamps of Ahklaur. Long ago a long forgotten brotherhood of mages/paladins manage to take down a cult of lizardmen that worship a black dragon as a god.When the brotherhood killed the dragon it's corpse was buried underground (haven't flushed this part of the story yet) but in order to enter this ancient ruin the cult must find an artifact that was hidden in the cult's temple that is currently underwater near the port of Freeport.


So right now my group of Pcs are level 2 but next session I'm going to throw some trash at them so they can be level 3 before I have them enter my first dungeon. The players are a halfling rogue, halforc fighter and a human cleric. My idea so far is that before the black dragon was destroyed he had a half breed son that he hide away with his high priest and now this son is leading a new tribe of lizardmen and kobold as a cult seeking to resurrect their fallen deity(Or in the half breed's case his father). He now is leading his cult back to the old sights and locations in search for clues about the artifact and his father's corpse.

I need help right now with ideas for a dungeon that is some kind of cult shrine/worship gathering area. They will be around lvl 3 when they start so I'm probably gonna use some lizardmen with maybe a fighter level or caster level. Umm.. I'm not really sure what to do with the kobold besides them being cannon fodder. Do any other experience Gms have any suggestions they could throw my way that would fit into my theme of lizardmen/kobolds/dragons.. Idk anything reptilian basically. When I discussed this with my friend who Gms a game once a week he suggested about 10 rooms would be fairly decent for a level 3 dungeon with about 2-4 encounters and maybe 1 boss fight.

Sorry for the long post but I wasn't sure what to say really, this is my first post and I never register for forums but I'm really concern about running a good game. I want my pcs to have a blast not a snoozefest

Edit: WEBSITES ARE HELPFUL TOO ALL I have currently is a GM book, Players book and Monster Manuel 1. Lol

 

[Piratecat]

Sounds great! I have ideas, but I'm typing on my phone right now. I'll update this tomorrow.

 

[Tox1C]

Thanks, can't wait to see what you have in mind.

Right now here are some random ideas I have for the group.

A crocodile nest (which is a hidden liar for the cult shrine place I mentioned above).

The half orc fighter was introduced as a mercenary for a caravan so I had an idea where the Pcs have to rescue the merchant who is trapped in a den of monstrous
spiders.

An awesome temple near the end of the Swamp part of my story, I'm thinking lvl 7-8ish or maybe 9. IDK yet.

I want to include more locations and stuff but I don't wanna just rinse and repeats area after area. Ooh lets go to Ruins number 1 then followed by ruins 2 then 3.. I don't know I would love to have the players visit creative sites like a big hollowed out tree (maybe an entrance to the friendly/netural Lizardmen tribe that I want to introduce), maybe a stone hedge type area or lighthouse. I'm just not sure how to incorporate a lot of my themes into story plot. I have the IDEAS apparently but I just can't weave it together so well, I need a few more sessions under my belt before I can feel comfortable.

 

[thejc]

Well good luck on running the game. A couple observations. A your party is small(Im sure you know this) so you are lacking some skill sets that most adventures assume that you have. You have no arcane caster. You especially have to be careful if you use a published adventure. You can look here though for some help and inspiration. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b&page=1
And at lower levels if you go too combat heavy your cleric will spend his time running around and healing all the time. You may have to introduce an npc or some other device maybe the rogue can use to help.
Also you have newbies at the table so I would let the story come to them.

My campaign is set in my own made up world in a Swamp known as the Swamps of Ahklaur. Long ago a long forgotten brotherhood of mages/paladins manage to take down a cult of lizardmen that worship a black dragon as a god.When the brotherhood killed the dragon it's corpse was buried underground (haven't flushed this part of the story yet) but in order to enter this ancient ruin the cult must find an artifact that was hidden in the cult's temple that is currently underwater near the port of Freeport.


So right now my group of Pcs are level 2 but next session I'm going to throw some trash at them so they can be level 3 before I have them enter my first dungeon. The players are a halfling rogue, halforc fighter and a human cleric. My idea so far is that before the black dragon was destroyed he had a half breed son that he hide away with his high priest and now this son is leading a new tribe of lizardmen and kobold as a cult seeking to resurrect their fallen deity(Or in the half breed's case his father). He now is leading his cult back to the old sights and locations in search for clues about the artifact and his father's corpse.

I love the premise with the halfbreed heir and the high priest. Couple ideas you wanted a big hollow tree. How about some giant mosquito's carry one of the pc's(or an npc) and then fight in the big hollow tree mosquito lair. MAybe they need some info have to track down a member of the brotherhood or hit up somewhere one of the mages left a journal. Behold the Iron Library a storage house of knowledge and it's will do anything to keep it there!(I had a dream about this last night and I will introduce into my own campaign soon).
Crocodiles are always scary just throw a giant one and ala=instant cool chase part.

So in parting I would just say have some fun and keep it simple. A lot of times a big awesome combat isn't whats fun, it's getting through the adventure feeling like you mattered in the game. Enjoying sitting at the table and taking in the mystery of the world you are portraying. Enjoying overcoming the challenges you have given them other than kill/loot/repeat.

Happy gaming

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Building Block Adventure Design

As a general piece of advice, I really like referring people to this Dungeoncraft article by James Wyatt: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Building-Block Adventure Design)

It boils down to this: design your adventures in groups of three encounters much like the delves we see in Dungeon Delve. Three encounters allows for some variety without becoming too complicated. It also seems consistent with your friend's advice. (And, if inspiration strikes, it's always easy to add encounters.)

Swamp Adventures

Here are some ideas for sites:

1. The Sunken Temple

This is shamelessly stolen from a 2E Dungeon adventure.

Basically, this sunken temple can only be accessed when three items are found and brought together in the vicinity of where the temple sunk. This could make for a nice higher level adventure and the items (rings? an unholy symbol broken into three parts?) add a nice problem-solving dimension to the campaign.

In the original, the reason for wanting to raise the temple was that it contained the remains of a powerful black dragon and its treasure. In the context of your campaign, perhaps this dead black dragon is the father of the black dragon that ruled the lizardfolk tribe before?

The other good thing about a site like this is that it provides a logical reason for other groups to want to be in the swamp: they're looking for the temple so that they can also recover the dragon's treasure.

2. The Witchlight Fens

OK, so the name is stolen from PoL-land.

Essentially, this is an area of the swamp that is more treacherous than usual. It takes a skill challenge to traverse.

In the event of a failure, you create an encounter with a sucking bog/area of quicksand (a lurker trap) and will-o'-wisps using the the skill challenge XP as the encounter budget (if the will-o'-wisps are too high in level for your PCs, try de-levelling them but keeping the XP award for a single one the same by changing it to an elite or solo creature of much lower level [rule of thumbs: standard level x = elite level x - 4 = solo level x - 8]).

3. Fey Barrow

Deep in the swamp there is some solid land, circular in shape, and marked by a ring of poisonous toadstools ranging in height from a halfling to a goliath.

In the centre of the ring is a raised mound: it's a barrow (tomb) for a variety of fey. The site is also a weak point between the Feywild and the world.

The barrow is guarded by a serpent with eyes of gold and opalescent skin (basically a feyborn constrictor, but I would make it a solo controller of an appropriate level for the party and with a dominating gaze attack). Before the party can reach the barrow, I would suggest having myconids or your own custom mushroom-/toadstool-folk attack and have the anyone slain transformed into a toadstool (this could also be the leader's attack: think of it as petrification [three failed saving throws required] but with a slightly different outcome). The leader should also be able to animate the toadstools as minions.

Inside the barrow are various fey remains. If you want to be nasty, you could include a banshee guardian. If you like the sunken temple idea I mentioned above, I would have one of the three keys located within the barrow. It may also be possible to negotiate with the guardian for the key in exchange for (insert good idea here- slaying the banshee?).



I'll edit in some other ideas later.

 

[Tox1C]

Well good luck on running the game. A couple observations. A your party is small(Im sure you know this) so you are lacking some skill sets that most adventures assume that you have. You have no arcane caster.

Yeah we had a 4th person who was going to roll a sorcerer but he decided to flake out and drop the game 2 days before our first session. So I was thinking of rolling an npc sorc to help the group out with arcane stuff. I remember reading somewhere that it was bad for a DM to make an npc like that though because the group will keep looking to the NPC for answers when hes suppose to just help them out. To even tie into my theme of dragons I'm gonna make him a Pseudodragon with sorcerer levels that can actually speak common and helps the group out in combat a little too.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Sounds great! I have ideas, but I'm typing on my phone right now. I'll update this tomorrow.

It's tomorrow, [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION].

I don't have any specific campaign ideas. My only advice is to realize and admit (to yourself and your players) that you are going to make mistakes. Don't worry about them and just concentrate on having fun. If you are all having fun then nothing else matters.

 

[Tox1C]

Well today the day for game 2 of my campaign. I hope everything goes well but above all I hope everybody has a blast. I'll post an update of the session later.

 

[Piratecat]

Whoops! Sorry, got distracted by shiny objects.

Some great ideas above. My general rule of thumb is "take what the other players expect, and then twist it somehow." So, for instance, you have a half-dragon bad guy. But turn it around; he's actually performing a daily ritual to not resurrect the dead dragon. Safeguards that the dragon had put into place before he died were designed to ensure his return. So now his son is running around, being an evil jerk and trying to gather all his father's power while making sure his father doesn't return. Kill the son, and you've got a much bigger problem on your hands...

 

[Piratecat]

Also, steal shamelessly. Take existing modules and yoink their maps, along with any cool encounters in there. Blend these with your own ideas to make something even better.