Advice/Ideas Needed! Help Me Improve My Campaign!

[the Jester]

Well, I like your backstory, but you have some serious trouble spots already, and all of them are fundamentally about a lack of player choice.

All these pc guys are relatives? Are you limiting races? If not, how are a dragonborn, human, dwarf, gnome and goliath related?

What if they don't want to quest for the soul pieces? What if they ignore the family peril? What if they simply don't care about the backstory and the death of their father? What if they don't want to lead the army?

Also, you say, "if they succeed (which they will)". I have to tell you straight up, the dm having that attitude makes a game much less fun (at least for my playstyle). If there's no threat of failure, there's no feeling of accomplishment. If the pcs win but couldn't lose, it's depressing and a waste of time. If the pcs win and have seen through the course of the campaign that it wasn't automatic- that there is a real chance of a tpk in this game, that pcs can die and suffer losses- THEN it is satisfying and rewarding.

In short, take it off the rails and make the players work for it. Don't softball anything, and certainly don't ensure they succeed- work to ensure that they FAIL (as the vampire tyrants). And leave the "ensuring they succeed" stuff to the players.

YMMV of course, that's all about personal preference.

 

[NewJeffCT]

What I was suggesting is forgetting most of your background for a second and just taking the basic premise of the game and pitching it to the players.

"Guys, so I got this idea for a world which used to be ruled by seven kings under the benevolent guidance of an ancient dragon. But then, a few years ago, the dragon disappeared and now the kings have gone crazy and brutal, and don't seem to age and take blood sacrifices from all the villages. Any idea who you'd want to be in that game, what you'd want to do, where you want to start out?"

great points - I must spread some XP around before giving it to you again.

I might even go further than that - just have the propaganda say that the benevolent gold dragon has become more harsh over time and given more power to the kings of each of the seven kingdoms, who have each ruled now for an unnaturally long two centuries. Rumors say the dragon has not been seen in years, or longer.

I might not even call it a blood sacrifice - just say that every 10 years, villages are required to send X number of their youth to the capitol city of the kingdom to serve the king. None of these youths ever return. However, given that many speak in awe of the wealth and beauty of the capitol city and the palace, why would anybody want to return to the squalor of the PC's village? Some parents may think that about their children, holding on to the false hope that they're alive. Little do they know that serving the king means offering their blood to the king.

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

Stormonu

Very good ideas thank you! Just took a very quick look at your post and you filled my mind with new ideas and "scenes" to work on! Definitely I will use the Black Riders idea! The holy symbols from the dragon's scale are also a good idea too! Thanks again!

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

Thank you guys for your opinion and ideas so far! Keep them coming!

 

[Vanifae]

Really great points in this thread, I too agree that you can plan too much “plot”. I would say that you should probably have a ton of different hooks that can bring the players into your “plot” without actually forcing them down the path.

A few ideas:

The blood sacrifice, as someone suggested make it an honor to go and serve the King in the capitol, in fact you could even make it a contest that the villagers compete for, could even make for a great first adventure. The players all coming together to win glory and honor and a chance to journey to the Capitol to see the king and of course get eaten, although they don’t know that. You could make sure they “lose” or even better if they do win, give them a chance to see first hand what actually happens to the winners and allow them a chance to escape. That would give them a direct reason to oppose these kings and maybe track down a way to defeat them.

Background hooks to the setting; maybe prepare some hooks that you can offer to the players as they make their characters that tie them to setting and to each other. Maybe give one of them a hook that they had a sibling/friend that was taken and maybe sent back a cryptic letter before they never heard from them again or maybe prophetic dreams or strange dreams about some Dragon that calls to them in their sleep, alluding to this Gold Dragon.

Finally throw out tons of hooks if you have a goal in mind, there is nothing wrong with constructing plenty of plot hooks that can allow you to weave a story that brings the players to Point X by following different plots that they enjoy. Watch what they like and don’t like and use what entices them to bring them into the story you want to tell. One nice side effect of this is that you can shift your goal based on player input with and without their knowledge and make the story richer for it.

 

[NewJeffCT]

However, "holy" symbols fashioned from the gold dragon's scales can keep them at bay. Unfortunately, only a handful of rebels have access to such scales, and the vampire kings are keen to slay any individual who would openly brandish such a tool of the "dragon tyrant". Propaganda is such that most individuals would believe a wielder of the golden scales is in league with the evil dragon that demands sacrifice of treasure and the populace, and willingly turn such a traitor over to the king's men.

Perhaps a good number of the kings men themselves are on the path of wickedness. Those in the know of the true tyranny of the kings could have ghoulish appetites (being ghouls with class levels), wights or other corporeal undead in service to the vampire kings. Perhaps the most feared are the Black Riders - dressed in black scale mail with their faces hidden behing cloth-wrapped helms. These blackguards ride from town to town, serving out the draconic justice of the dragon kings, and are on an (un)holy crusade to root out rebels and traitors. They use their black magics openly to reveal, capture and publicly execute foes of the crown. The fact their "detection" is use of detect good goes unnoticed by the populace, and their combat magic is seen as justified punishment instead of the torture it is meant to be.

Love this idea - XP awarded. Every person the PCs speak with could be somebody that could betray them. And, even people that want to help them could end up betraying them in order to save a family member ("I had no choice (sob), they said they'd kill my son and my wife if I didn't turn you in...")

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

All these pc guys are relatives? Are you limiting races? If not, how are a dragonborn, human, dwarf, gnome and goliath related?

I might limit races. Maybe I will have the realm be populated only by humans. There might be other races around the world. If a player wants so badly to be a non human race then there could be some "immigrants" of races that player could be one of them and somehow at some point will meet the rest.
But I'm not sure about this maybe I'll do it maybe not. If all my friends are thinking about having human characters (they usually do) then I might limit the rest.

In any case thanks for the advice

 

[Lestat De Lioncourt]

Again a big thank you to every person that has posted their ideas and advices! I do not have the time to answer to each individual or to all of your questions but rest assured that I have read all your posts and have taken them to account! Thanks a million and keep them coming!

 

[chaochou]

Maybe give one of them a hook that they had a sibling/friend that was taken and maybe sent back a cryptic letter before they never heard from them again...

And then you idly ask the player what their sibling/friend was wearing the day they left for the capital. What sticks in their mind?

And later in the game, a really nasty ghoul / skeleton warrior / vampire / undead badass pops up wearing exactly that clothing. Does your player take down his best friend or is there a way to save them?

 

[Vanifae]

And then you idly ask the player what their sibling/friend was wearing the day they left for the capital. What sticks in their mind?

And later in the game, a really nasty ghoul / skeleton warrior / vampire / undead badass pops up wearing exactly that clothing. Does your player take down his best friend or is there a way to save them?

I always enjoy doing that