Campaign arc story needs some help

[Inysy]

In about a week, my group will be starting a fresh campaign. Its our second full campaign so I want to get it right and make sure the players have a good and memorable time. So far, I really liked this one campaign arc idea out of the open grave book. I took it and modified it a bit and I wanted to know an experienced DM or players perspective on what could be better or more fun or more cohesive.

Heroic Tier: A few minor villains are around stealing various tomes and magical items. Every villain the PCs take out has a tattoo of a skull above their left eye. The villains are actually amassing these items for a powerful adept of Vecna who plans to resurrect the slumbering god. End of the tier shows him succeeding in the ritual as the PCs kill him.

Paragon Tier: Vecna, now the soul of a powerful deity but disembodied, is exacting his plans to assemble his body. The pieces of which were cut apart and scattered throughout the multiverse. The PCs must follow his trail to find the parts before him, giving the players a chance to collect the hand and the eye. He assembles the rest of his body, but each part is a magical element that is holding a creature at bay. Once released, the creatures cause havoc around the multiverse. End of Paragon sees Vecna fully restored (minus hand and eye) and exacting his plans to take over the Natural World.
I do still need some ideas for a big boss battle here. Vecna related.

Epic Tier: With Vecna reunited with his body, we can put his story slightly more on the back-burner while the PCs continue to collect artifacts like the Sword and Mask of Kas, and possibly assemble some powerful allies such as Asmodeus or Mephistopheles for the darker PCs or some various Good aligned deities for the more proper PCs. I dont have much of an Epic story...

Any ideas/tweaks/whatever would be greatly appreciated by me and my players!

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

To be honest, what you have already is about as detailed as I would go.

I ran a 224 session campaign in 4e that had a mega-giga-ultra-supra plot. I wrote it down as one word: Primordials.

I didn't touch it again until about level 6. Now, this is somewhat personal taste, but every ounce of energy that you put into making finite details or guidelines for a megaplot such as this could be wasted with one easy twist of a PC, one death, or one "hey let's go over there."

I always give advice to GMs, new and experienced, that crafting a living and believable setting, developing some interesting people and cultures, and working out a backdrop for the characters to be placed in, are far better uses of the DM's creative energy than lettering every detail of a hundred-step plot.

This is hard to hear. A lot of DMs don't believe me. A lot of DMs simply enjoy making the "story" as long and as epic as they can. But I think what you have right now is pretty much the upper limit of preparation that I would go regarding a "campaign arc" as you put it. I would spend that extra effort and creative juice in making the world feel alive, and making the players feel that their characters are living in something immersive and real.

If you have the time and enjoy doing it, there is no harm in preparing things. But the more steps down the line you plan out, the less likely the PCs will arrive at the place you think they will. And if you force them down a particular path, that could leave a very bad taste in many players' mouths.

Start small. I would really flesh out your heroic tier arc, get the villains sorted out, the locations, some cool NPCs (both helpful and antagonistic) and work your way from there. Who knows, maybe your PCs won't even care about Vecna or learn anything about him.

It just so happened in my long campaign that the party stumbled on to it much sooner than I thought they would. I left what I thought were subtle and interesting clues, but it just so happened that a particularly chaotic and strong-willed character opened up a whole can of campaign worms. It ended up being a beautiful, formative part of my professional and personal life; and I never expected it to happen the way it did.

Allow the players to manipulate the world. Don't over prepare plots, prepare context for the characters to create plot. You will make something more beautiful and "real" that way, in my opinion.

Whatever the case, good luck, I'm sure your campaign will be great.

 

[Loonook]

All I keep thinking is that I never knew the band TLC was a front for a Vecna-raising sect...

Honestly it would be better to have some other symbol. I personally think that having the PCs fight a group who represent the symbolic items of Vecna may work best. Perhaps the original Hand and other items were destroyed... And these villains are the symbolic "parts" of Vecna whose sacrifice brings about the ritual. The players must seek out the secrets of the cult to find that a single unknowing individual is the catalyst and have the chance to save the world from Vecna's return.. Or deal with the Vecnan version of Damien Thorne.

Slainte,

-Loonook

 

[Quickleaf]

In about a week, my group will be starting a fresh campaign. Its our second full campaign so I want to get it right and make sure the players have a good and memorable time. So far, I really liked this one campaign arc idea out of the open grave book. I took it and modified it a bit and I wanted to know an experienced DM or players perspective on what could be better or more fun or more cohesive.

I'm assuming you've already talked with your players about what kind of campaign they'd like and they said "Anything!" or "We want to kill Vecna!"

As best as I can tell the campaign is about fighting Vecna who is trying to get a body and do mischief.

The railroads you outline at the tier transitions (Vecna awakens, Vecna gets a body) seem like you're not accounting for player choice. Is your campaign intended to be more of an "adventure path" and the players are on board with having limited choice? That's the kind of thing players should know going into a campaign and should be discussed beforehand.

Heroic Tier: A few minor villains are around stealing various tomes and magical items. Every villain the PCs take out has a tattoo of a skull above their left eye. The villains are actually amassing these items for a powerful adept of Vecna who plans to resurrect the slumbering god. End of the tier shows him succeeding in the ritual as the PCs kill him.

So it's essentially a treasure race against the cult of Vecna? I'd give the PCs choices about which objects to pursue in which order, make the campaign's them all about the magic items. Say you write up 8-10 unique items with flowery names and interesting histories, then place them in one-level "dungeons" which have been influenced by the magic items.

For example, a beleaguered temple of light houses one of the magic items. The Vecnites are coming for it but the PCs get there first. Meanwhile the clergy are dealing with some other threat which the magic item helps fend off. If the PCs wait for the Vecnites to make their move...they might be risking the lives of clergy and they might be deceived by the Vecnites. However should the PCs try to take the magic item they'd be condemning the temple to a losing battle against the threat. Matters could be complicated if one of the PCs has a personal investment in obtaining the magic item (eg. A family heirloom, it "speaks" to them, super awesome irresistible magic item perfect for their build). You could even further complicate the scenario if the magic item is cursed somehow (see MME for ideas).

Those are the sorts of scenarios I would design the heroic part of the campaign around. Then have their nemesis working on his own track, and occasionally they'll bump heads (though being a worshipped of Vecna their nemesis is all about subtlety). Write up the followers, apprentices, and resources of the cult, paying special attention to ways to use the heroic-tier nemesis as a recurring villain (or have a #2 written up as a handy replacement).

 

[the Jester]

I agree about keeping it vague and would add that not every villain or adventure should be a part of the main plot. I favor about a 50% ratio, starting lower at heroic and ending up higher at epic levels.

 

[Hand of Evil]

okay...

It is not Vecna but another demon or devil...they are just actting that it is Vecna to throw off the party. This can come into effect by minons later in the game.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Some interesting ideas, but how do you account for player success along the way? You mention that each villain the PCs "take out" has a certain mark, and that they're amassing items to awaken Vecna. I assume that "take out" means kill/capture and that the PCs get the stolen items.

However, if the PCs stop these bad guys at the heroic tier, do they delay Vecna coming back? Do they stop him altogether? Do the bad guys then attack the PCs trying to get the items back? (i.e., If the players stop Bad Guys 1, 2 and 3, and Bad Ladies 1 and 2 and get their five items need to awaken Vecna, does somebody then attack the PCs trying to get the five items back?) What if the PCs destroy the items, or cast them into an active volcano or move them to another plane?

 

[Piratecat]

An important suggestion: don't have the ritual successfully completed at the end of Heroic tier. It'll make the players feel hosed and cheated. Instead, have the success condition be "Vecna is back" and the failure condition (once the ritual is started) be "Vecna returns but is disembodied." That way you achieve your goal and the players still feel like Big Damn Heroes.

 

[S'mon]

An important suggestion: don't have the ritual successfully completed at the end of Heroic tier. It'll make the players feel hosed and cheated. Instead, have the success condition be "Vecna is back" and the failure condition (once the ritual is started) be "Vecna returns but is disembodied." That way you achieve your goal and the players still feel like Big Damn Heroes.

Excellent advice. As written, the campaign arc is way too "You guys are losers, you fail-fail-fail, huhr huhr."

Personally I don't think 3-tier prewritten campaign arcs like this are a good idea at all. What if the PCs fail completely? What if they completely wipe out the Vecnites in Heroic tier? Both should be possible, as well as many other possibilities.