I'm a newbie player in D&D, and I just started writing some scenarios/quests for fun.
I notice everywhere that typical parties are formed by a real ragtag of characters (because everybody just chooses whatever they want), ranging from chaotic to lawful and from good to evil. What could be some good examples of ultimate goals for a quest that would unite a random selection of players? I cannot come up with a single goal...
Currently, I am thinking of an evil character who is also really rich and in possession of some powerful items. That should attract the good guys to kill him for reasons of justice/honor/etc., and the neutral/evil ones to get the loot and the powerful items. How do the more experienced DMs solve this obvious problem? the two solutions that I can think of have obvious disadvantages:
1. Limit the alignments that are allowed in a quest, so that everyone has the same or comparable motivation: not nice for the role-players.
2. Work with multiple parallel goals for all players so that completely different characters will at least go the same direction, and fight the same monsters: not nice for the DM, it's complicated enough as it is.
3. (is there a 3rd way?)
I searched online, but I probably did not figure out the currect keywords because I didn't find an answer.
I notice everywhere that typical parties are formed by a real ragtag of characters (because everybody just chooses whatever they want), ranging from chaotic to lawful and from good to evil. What could be some good examples of ultimate goals for a quest that would unite a random selection of players? I cannot come up with a single goal...
Currently, I am thinking of an evil character who is also really rich and in possession of some powerful items. That should attract the good guys to kill him for reasons of justice/honor/etc., and the neutral/evil ones to get the loot and the powerful items. How do the more experienced DMs solve this obvious problem? the two solutions that I can think of have obvious disadvantages:
1. Limit the alignments that are allowed in a quest, so that everyone has the same or comparable motivation: not nice for the role-players.
2. Work with multiple parallel goals for all players so that completely different characters will at least go the same direction, and fight the same monsters: not nice for the DM, it's complicated enough as it is.
3. (is there a 3rd way?)
I searched online, but I probably did not figure out the currect keywords because I didn't find an answer.