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Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 7988481" data-attributes="member: 6809274">Hey, it's me again. Last night I had my first session DMing a new campaign with three players. This campaign is a modified version of Dragon Heist. One player is a veteran who is also in one of my campaigns where the characters just hit level 14. The second player has played about 10 times total, and is in my campaign where the characters are at level 4. The third player is brand new to tabletop RPGs (but familiar with CRPGs). Respectively, they are playing a half-orc fighter, halfling rogue, and half-elf wizard.So, yes, I'm currently running three campaigns. It's a lot. It's fun. But...it's a lot. Probably too much for me in the long term, but during quarantine it's keeping me sane.[BEWARE OF SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST BELOW]Basically, I'm using Dragon Heist as the spine but changing just about everything else. Originally, my plan had been to run the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist, which I like a lot. If you've not heard of it, the Remix outlines how to run the adventure with all 4 factions in play simultaneously, rather than just selecting one. It's excellent. But...Manshoon and the Zhentarim are major players in my current high-level campaign. As for the Cassalanters, I'll likely use them in place of the Vanthampurs if I ever run Descent Into Avernus. And I'm lukewarm on Jarlaxle (even though I'm partial to drow). So...I decided to create new factions using 13th Age's Icons as inspiration. I wrote up 15 factions such as the Xanathar, the Blackstaff, a drow House, the Masked Lords, Waterdeep nobles, etc, etc. Each player chose one faction with which they have a positive relationship, a negative relationship, and a conflicted relationship. The factions the players chose determined who the opposition was. This turned out really, really well. I'll likely re-use it for most of my future campaigns. It gives the players some authorship and makes them give a damn what happens next.Finally, just to complicate my life some more, I decided to throw the Deck of Many Things into the mix. I've never seen it in play but have always wanted to. And as I become more experienced as a DM, I'm less concerned about "breaking" my game. In fact, these days I kind of want to break my game!With that out of the way...Our first session had the player characters getting a job from a mysterious patron to recover a playing card from an abandoned estate in Waterdeep. I used the Vanthampur Villa map from Descent Into Avernus. The estate belonged to a once-famous group of adventurers called Fortune's Fools, who are going to have a major role in the backstory of the Deck of Many Things. The characters soon discovered the estate was occupied by boggles and rigged with traps. They faced 4 flying swords, a suit of animated armor, a pit trap, and 3 boggles who kept stealing their gear and then teleporting away. Honestly, it was too tough for three 1st level characters. We ended with the halfling rogue stable but unconscious, with no immediately clear way to get back on his feet and continue the adventure. We'll cross that bridge when we play again in two weeks.Everyone had a good time. I really like how quickly the game plays with three 1st level characters (as opposed to five 14th level characters and their henchmen) but it's also very swingy.</blockquote>

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