DM'ing my first adventure by myself!

[dragonis111]

Thanks guys, the edition is 3.5 and to quartz I am making their characters and they are giving me their ideas not the other way around.

After some thought, I decided the adventure will revolve around a evil tribe of lizardfolk lead by a lizard king(demonic lizardfolk I found in the book serpent kingdoms).

The adventure will start off as the characters being woken up in their rooms at an inn from the noise of a fight going on downstairs. The players came to the inn independently but are brought together by the the initial fight and also by receiving a quest from the town mayor to go and slay the leader of the tribe(with a reward of course).

The lizard king in the book had pretty good stats except for health which was like 13 and I think that the leader/final boss for the adventure should have around 40 for a 5th level adventure, so Ill just boost his hp.

EDIT: Since the lizard king is now the final encounter I was thinking of making the half giant psychic warrior a possible encounter depending on where the characters go exploring and will result in either fighting him or gaining him as a temporary ally for the adventure.

 

[dragonis111]

So what does everyone think of that?

 

[Gilladian]

It sounds like a very fun and do-able adventure. Don't be afraid of making mistakes (you will - your players will - so stop, discuss, back up, try again).

Add a twist to your adventure. Have one of the townsfolk working for the lizard men, possibly. Or have one/some of the lizzies betray their leader for some reward (being let escape, taking over the tribe, etc...)

Your starting scene sounds very fun. After the first fight, then go back and have them introduce themselves, and bring in any past relationships and such. Then go on with the mayor's offer of a job...

 

[Mark]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/154448-free-adventure-path.html

 

[N0Man]

Do you have a campaign setting in mind, or is it going to be totally homebrew?

Try to avoid cliche character introductions. Of course it can be effective and work, but there are some really good ways to tie characters together out there.

I personally liked the way the 4E Eberron level 1 starting adventure they gave as an example did it. They tied the characters together through a flashback that occurred 4 years before the actual main story's time, by prophecy, and by being fellow survivors in a great and tragic event.

 

[Mark]

Try to avoid cliche character introductions.

We should start a thread on how to avoid cliche character introductions.

 

[Thondor]

If you can't use a cliché starting for a group of brand new players who can you possibly use them on?
I love having new players because you can fall back on the old reliable clichés and its brand new to them!

 

[darjr]

There are times when the clichés need reinforcing. With new players for example. Or old players that have not seen them in a very long time.

 

[Engilbrand]

I recommend making sure that they talk out and plan their characters together before the game. Having a disparate group thrown together can gradually lead to "Why are we together?" Syndome. If it's a pair of brothers and their childhood friends, it makes a lot more sense. It also gives the ability to throw out "Remember when....?" moments from the characters during the game.
I'm currently DMing 2 people, and this was the tack they took. It's working out really well.

 

[dragonis111]

All great ideas guys, I think I will go with they were all childhood friends who went their separate ways but are brought back together with this adventure.

To NOMan it is totally homebrew in a forested area I thought up my self.

To Engilbrand they are talking out their characters together it is just that I will make the characters my self. I already have some of the initial dialog set up for right after the first fight.

Right now I am generating stats/back stories for all the NPCs and monsters.