Help fix my too linear game please--My players stay out

[Sepulchrave II]

I'm with Hypersmurf.

Give the priest a set of revelations that are contrary to church dogma. Give him a hard time. They should be irrefutable, just to confuse him more.

Have an ongoing summoning battle develop between the sorcerer and another one - for whatever reason. Cat-and-mouse scryings and demonic (or whatever) assaults at a distance can be fun.

Unlock the para-elemental plane of electricity for the wizard. Give him free reign, and the plot hooks will just roll in.

You need a big pool of powerful NPCs with all kinds of agendas. I find that making up a character that I pull from the top of my head, going through the process of fleshing out the raw stats, actually builds a personality. Once your pool is big enough, and you have a vague idea of how or if these characters interact with each other, involve the PCs in their orbit. Introduce new characters all the time - bombard the PCs with information.

 

[Jeremy]

*bows down to Sepulchrave and takes notes*

"Yes Master! I will obey!"



Seriously! I'm definately going to run with you guy's ideas. Of course, the game is Saturday so a set of revelations is hard to come up with in that time.

He serves Equitas. Equitas was a mortal human king on par with King Arthur for the fond (and possibly fictional) memories of it. But he was nearing the end of his life and still felt there was much he could do. Encouraged by a sword imbued with the soul of a saint of a very goodly god, he had ruled for some 50+ years. The sword revealed to him the existance of an artifact so powerful, the gods themselves intervened and shattered it.

They shattered it because it had the power to raise a mortal to godhood.

But it was not destroyed because the more chaotic of the gods who felt change was necessary for growth, felt that if a mortal could undo the work of the old gods, then perhaps, he should be one of the new gods. And thus it's fragments were always watched carefully by the gods, but each was pledged not to interfere as each was secure in his station.

Equitas, rather than assemble the pieces himself, called a great hunt from kingdoms across the world. He cooked up a story of what the artifact really was and offered a kingdom to the one who could assemble it for him (later to be found out, it was his kindgom he was offering). The quest took up the latter years of King Equitas's life but Divine Right was assembled and gifted to Equitas who through divine counsel knew of it's true purpose and used it.

He was sponsored by the goodly god who's saint had councilled him for years, and became a lesser god of Optimen, his champion of Justice.

As for the cat and mouse summoning competition, I like it too. And they've got a foe with just such a disposition ironically enough that they put into power (indirectly by eliminating his superior and his competition in the same gambit). But I don't know if he will work because it's hard to switch back and forth between cat and mouse if you fear the entity that is summoning the creatures. It's got more tension if the party knows if they could locate their foe they could destroy him. So maybe I'll invent someone different and leave Gnaag in his tower mired in contests to keep control over his minions.

Damn! Lots of wonderful broad strokes and so little time to make them into details! 31 hours and counting and I still haven't got a game to run... *ponders ponders ponders*

 

[Jeremy]

I put together a quick run down of what various power centers are doing or preparing to do to help brainstorm ideas.

Galearon: Continue restoration, finish resettling unoccupied homes, establish a council to give voice to powerful to keep them from needing to take control themselves

New Galdomond: Influx of dwarven trade and 'tourism' from the building of Collin's Academy across the bay, touting themselves as the home of the Daystorm **Plot hook**, celebrity worship

Crescent Lake: Armed forces protect the jungle clearing operations continuing try to re-establish a workable road to the overgrown port they lost

Zerin's Owner: Ambush raid of black dragons lair while PC's are still in it **plothook**, using horde of dragonkin, half-dragon minotaurs, and a half dragon chimera

Hammerlands: steam tanks, tropie (megamorph giants) ballista crews (steel cables, sharpened tapers with dipped in molten steel and then allowed to cool), defending against Drakkarim invasion


Draconic Council: disturbed at the buildup of forces within the Darklands and aggressive expansion into the Hammerlands and possibly Afelice, interested not in saving human lives, but maintaining balance so no human kingdom ever threatens the dragon isles again


Yogdush: starting construction on smaller port city, Vontaru being built near docks, named for beloved priest and councilman Vontar Grit, secondary trade fueled by PC opened canal that opened inland sea to the oceans of the world


Ardonia: widening streets, Imver's adventuring group engaged in dealing with some kind of floating brain with tentacles problem, difficult to get to the root of the problem, but once found, they die like anything else, seem to be using the new sewer systems


Jigond: slaving operation for the draconic council, humans sell each other to them for dragon gold, organized crime headed up secretly by the lord of jigond who on the surface appears to be the best chance of battling the crime, secondary Daystorm team located here


Vassagonia: meeting of the clans and sharing of water at new year's birth


Archlord Gnaag: inconvenienced by the unusually potent toxic fumes of Helgedad (unknown to him, but due to corrupting of Air Anchor above him), unable to keep drakkar alive in the city, takes 30 random ardonians, begins flaying them, sends demon attack after PCs, sends demon follow up with message about wanting Helgedad fixed and revealing what he will continue to torture his captives until the PC's fix his problem, the PC's have fixed similar elemental catastrophes regarding earth, fire, and water, Gnaag knows this and figures they can fix Air too, PC's already intend to do this but hate Gnaag intensely, massing giaks, vordak, and zlaanbeasts


Darklord Ghurch of Mozgoar: war with the Hammerlanders, eases the unrest of the Drakkarim, seeking profit, no interest in the land, destructive campaign


Darklord Unc of Aarnak: lay low, save face after recent perceived embarassments (PC's destroyed his supply lines, captured a PC, apparently lost her), let his sleeper do it's work, puppeteer, also working on developing a draconic plague, corruption and disease specialist


Darklord Slutar of Kaag, requisitioning more giaks and gourgaz for war and continued raids on Afelice, kraan riders, and drakkarim, 1 death knight, 2 vordaks

Afelice: Experimenting with charm monster on purple worms to possibly take the resistance straight to Castle Kaag


Marrilith: Disturbing the dreams of Frederick's acolyte, Joseph Millerstone, attempting to show him that Equitas is the only true god as his servant Frederick is the one accomplishing everything, but Frederick needs more support and other religions should be converted to the worship of Equitas or made to convert, worshipping false gods is a crime and if it can't be changed, needs justice brought to it, those who don't agree are blasphemers as Joseph believes he is getting the visions direct from Equitas

 

[Sepulchrave II]

A few more random thoughts.

The party are 13th-14th level now - this is the land of all-day buffs, instantaneous travel, scry-buff-teleport-attack, interplanar hops and other favorite high-level goodness. I have to come back to the idea of character - both of the PCs and significant NPCs - because I think it becomes increasingly central at higher levels.

Site-based adventures no longer cut the mustard, and even event-based ones can smack of railroading if they are rigidly based in some specific place. When the party becomes capable of going anywhere they want, the paradigm needs to shift and become focused on individuals. NPC agendas are often most interesting when they neither support nor counter those of the PCs, but are morally ambiguous, unknown or vague.

What is the evoker/savant's prohibited school/schools? This vulnerability can provide all kinds of twists. Rivalry with elementals and their flunkies can ensue if the Plane of Lightning becomes accessible, opening a whole new arena of political possibility - one that you can craft from the ground up, so to speak. Other mages. Jealous electrical quasi-deities with nasty cleric-elemental savant followers?

I also think that you'll probably need to develop more lassitude in dealing with player's whims, and adopt a more flexible, reflexive attitude to DMing - I could be completely wrong, as I have no idea what your individual style is. I guess I'm saying that you'll need to wing it more.

As far as the apathetic players go - dwarf and psion - you need to work out some goals with the players regarding their characters. Perhaps they're just bored, and want a change. If this is so, why not simply replace their characters with new ones who can provide new hooks? The period of integrating a new character (13th level, all kinds of personal history, enemies, friends etc.) is rife with possibilities. This might seem a bit radical, but sometimes serves well to revive a flagging campaign. Granted, I could be well off the mark here.