Help me build a Deus Ex Machine

[Ry]

Hi everybody;

Due to scheduling issues (i.e. the total collapse of my ever-eager players' ability to co-ordinate schedules), my next campaign will be built around a roster that can change...

at any time.

This being the case, I intend to introduce a completely unapologetic deus ex machina solution. This will be an artifact, which I have (temporarily) called the Hero Stone.

The idea is that the Hero Stone will "randomly" attune to PCs, who will occasionally be sucked into and out of a tiny demiplane inside the stone. So whenever a player doesn't show up, all I say is "hmm... in a flash of light, Zorgnok the Orc disappears. You think the Hero Stone might be acting up again."

But I need some help: What should the demiplane be like? Are there more than one hero stone? What should it be called? And how do I present this to my players in a way that doesn't make it seem like a curse?

 

[Stormborn]

But I need some help: What should the demiplane be like? Are there more than one hero stone? What should it be called? And how do I present this to my players in a way that doesn't make it seem like a curse?

I think it would be easier to try and do a campaign made of related oneshots, things that could be wrapped up in a single session and all with a centrally located base so that PCs could come and go on more realistic pretexts. Say a city that, due to an ancient curse, was allowed to go fallow. A Thousand years has past and it is opened up for colonization. The PCs come as colonists and adventurers. Sometimes they adventure, but sometimes they have to go take care of the kids or help someone out with a problem etc.

However, if that path seems less than desirable due to whatever you have in mind, and to answer your Qs in reverse order:

- Just be upfront with the PCs about what it is in metagame terms and ask them to deal with it.
- The stone could just be the Hero Stone or: The Repository of Valhalla(or other plane), The Champion Codex, The Heart of Song, etc
- There could be another, depends on what you want to do with it in your campaign. Maybe these stone bond to groups and were intended for some great war as a means of transporting combatants and have now been lost and are malfunctioning. Or they could be teid to alignments, with the PCs one tied to Good or Neutral and other out there for Evil, Law, and Chaos. Maybe there are two Neutral stones, one for each axis.
-Just have the demiplane be one of suspended animation - a vast gray landscape where no time passes and no thoughts happen. To the heroes taken they simply blink and the world around them has changed from their entry to their exit.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Or make it a curse. Perhaps that is why the players are working together; they are all afflicted by some kind of quantum leap kind of effect. Or perhaps their names have become known to powerful outsiders who summon them to fight battles or perform special missions. These are epic spells that can last quite awhile. The characters don't truly die, and they usually have only the vaguest of memories of these battles, but they disappear when summoned.

This would be a nice premise for a series of unrelated one-shots; they are adventures taken while they are summoned (summon adventuring party X), and are due to a variant of the spell that allows them to retain memories (i.e. xp) from their service. Or just have them called (call adventuring party X); then they are really there, and can truly die, etc.. But they can also gain loot and xp.

 

[hafrogman]

Please select the H.E.R.O. agents best suited for this mission . . .

wait


Why can't it seem like a curse? Perhaps the characters are all laboring under some debt or geas that controls them. They all died, at one point or other, but were granted a second chance. A fragment of the hero stone hangs on a chain around their necks, but at inoportune times it calls them away to work away a portion of their debt.

 

[howandwhy99]

Normally you can get others to play the characters, or come up with an in-game justification, or blend them "in to the background", or just run them your self.

One campaign option might be for the group to play "Heroes from the Past" called on to conquer whatever Evil currently threatens the land. When a player can't show up, they are back in Valhalla or wherever and return when fate calls again. Next session essentially.

Another option, a good bit stranger, would be to play MMORPGH Players running characters in a fantasy land. When the player (real player) can't make it, he or she is simply "logged off". This could bring an odd overlay of computer geek humor to the game.

 

[Ry]

Well.. the Players won't see it as a curse. I'm always upfront about my meta, and they're cool with it. But I'd like it if the characters themselves didn't see it as a curse. That's why I'm thinking the demiplane will have stuff in it, not just suspended animation.

 

[Nareau]

Why not have them be summoned by a powerful wizard from another plane? They're gone for minutes or days, depending on the task he puts them to. When the player comes back, just give them a quick write-up of what they were forced to do.

That way, you can work this into the game as a kind of metaplot. Perhaps one day they'll meet the wizard. Or maybe they'll encounter one of his enemies on both planes. I think it would be much cooler to have this worked into the campaign.

If you don't like that idea, just have it be a trailer with a PS2 and a case of Zima.

Nareau

 

[Nightfall]

Well you could always have it be like a small piece of Ravenloft's "Demi-plane of Dread" only just be like a complete misty/hazy place. Also have the plane connect to say the Realm of Dreams.

 

[Scribble]

Just make the characters dissapear without any explanation and no one remembers the character except one random character every now and then...

Thief "Hey where'd the wizard go?"

Fighter "What are you talking about? What wizard?"

Thief "Uhhh the one who'd been with us for like a year now..."

Fighter "You feeling alright?"

 

[Stormborn]

Well.. the Players won't see it as a curse. I'm always upfront about my meta, and they're cool with it. But I'd like it if the characters themselves didn't see it as a curse. That's why I'm thinking the demiplane will have stuff in it, not just suspended animation.

See, to me being in storage with no memory of the passage of time is less of a curse than being randomly exiled into another plane where I have to brood on the fact that I am not where I want to be. Plus, having the abscent PCs in suspend animation means that you as the DM dont have to explain what happened to their PCs while they were in the stone. No need to waste time, the PC will know what the player knows, which is only things that the player was present for. Helps with the metagame explination to me.

If you dont want the PCs to see it as a curse then maybe its something they volunteered for? Perhaps they were all given a chance to adventure and see new place and planes and get some reward if they agreed to allow themselves to be stored in this stone for X number of years.