D&D 5E in search of inspiration

[pukunui]

Thanks guys! Let me ask a slightly different question: What if you have a vague idea of something you want to include in a campaign, but you're having trouble coming up with specifics? And what if you don't have time to go hunting through movies, books, video games, etc for ideas? And what if nothing is coming to you even in the shower? And your fellow forumites haven't got many ideas either? What then?

Let's play Little Red Riding Hood.

I'm playing little red, you're the DM. You know my goal - I'm taking a picnic basket of goodies to my elderly grandma.

Now you've identified my goal. What obstacles might prevent me achieving it?

OK, so my start point is a noble fighter PC. My goal is giving her a cool magic weapon. It's the obstacle(s) that I put in between that I'm having trouble with. I know I want there to be an ancestor of the PC's involved. And I want there to be something she needs to do to prove that she's a) a member of the family and b) worthy of receiving the magic weapon (or have the weapon she's already got get transformed into a magic one). I just can't think of a specific enough idea.

 

[wedgeski]

Read the descriptive texts (the fluff) of any monster in the 5e Monster Manual. Almost every one of them has given me not just encounter ideas and adventure ideas, but also campaign ideas.

Yup, this is what I was going to post. Also, don't limit yourself to the 5E MM! If you have an archive of earlier books, you have a gold mine of ideas.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

OK, so my start point is a noble fighter PC. My goal is giving her a cool magic weapon.

Just reading that part gave me enough inspiration.

There is said to be a magic weapon stuck in a stone in some ruins to the east. It is said that only the hero of destiny can pull it out of the stone. The noble fighter ventures there and finds it. However, he doesn't manage to pull the weapon out of the stone, but while he tries, he notices an inscription on the weapon. The inscriptions hints that intelligence is the key rather than brute force. On closer investigation, he finds that there is some kind of mechanism that keeps the weapon stuck, but near the stone there doesn't seem to be anything to be done. So the fighter looks around the ruins and find a switch that opens a staircase to an underground section of the ruins. There he ventures around and fights monsters until he comes to the location right below the stone, where a puzzle awaits. After solving the puzzle the weapon gets unstuck and a shortcut opens up. But when he leaves through the shortcut he sees that someone else is taking the weapon. Oh that's why he felt like he was being watched! That someone wanted to get the weapon and just observed what the noble fighter did and waited for an opportunity to grab it. The fighter has no choice but to fight him. The battle is hard as the magic weapon has some special powers that the enemy of the fighter uses to full extend. In the end the fighter wins and received the weapon. But wait, something was odd, how was that guy able to use the powers of the weapon without attuning to it? That's for the next adventure...

 

[wedgeski]

Thanks guys! Let me ask a slightly different question: What if you have a vague idea of something you want to include in a campaign, but you're having trouble coming up with specifics? And what if you don't have time to go hunting through movies, books, video games, etc for ideas? And what if nothing is coming to you even in the shower? And your fellow forumites haven't got many ideas either? What then?

Lock the doors and start peeing into milk bottles.

 

[n0nym]

I just watch the news. Best source of inspiration for me.

You want conflict ? Tears ? Bad guys abusing good guys ? Injustice ? Terrible catastrophes ? Evil organizations that take over the world or evil governments / businesses that lie to the citizens and destroy the environment ? You got it !

For my Dark Sun game, I recently found the inspiration in the syrian migrants crisis. People started coming from all over the world to the free City of Tyr, fleeing slavery. Population grew so much that the government (evil) started to think of ways to get rid of migrants, like sending them back to slavery or using them to pay the Dragon's levy (an evil beast that comes every year to claim the lives of thousands). The PCs tried to stop this and to find a nice place for the migrants to live in.

I've also watched a report on the Freemasonry and deciced that the evil church that wanted to resurrect the previous King (super evil) was structured pretty much in the same way, with lodges and all.

Really, there's everything you want in our world. You just have to reskin it.

 

[pukunui]

Really, there's everything you want in our world. You just have to reskin it.

Oh sure. Broad strokes certainly. What about the nitty gritty? What if you're setting up a dungeon and you want a certain something but you're just not quite sure what? Seems unlikely you'd find that by watching the news. You might find it by playing Dragon Age or reading Archmage or something, though. You know what I mean?

 

[Artifact]

My best source of 'on the fly' inspiration is the other players.

For instance: I introduced a couple in one of our games, a deva and a tiefling . . . but I didn't have anything specific, other than the 'odd' fact that they were married. It was my buddy who came up with the story about how they met, what had kept them together (for years). I think he was drawing inspiration from his own married life . Anyway, they became recurring NPCs, made memorable just by his description.

= = =

So, if I'm at the bottom of the barrel on inspiration, I'll usually turn to the others and say something like "I wonder why this tavern is called the Whispering Wizard?" Almost always, somebody takes up the challenge.

The well of inspiration runs dry for everyone at some point. Everybody draws from different sources though; no one person comes up with every single detail. And even a small group can make a huge difference.

 

[Snoring Rock]

I like to read or watch movies. I can sit through any part of Lord of the Rings or Hobbit, Dragon Slayer, Krull, Conan... and I get ideas. Heck, episodes of Game of Thrones is good. Sitting down with a god fantasy novel works just as well for me.

 

[Bawylie]

Thanks guys! Let me ask a slightly different question: What if you have a vague idea of something you want to include in a campaign, but you're having trouble coming up with specifics? And what if you don't have time to go hunting through movies, books, video games, etc for ideas? And what if nothing is coming to you even in the shower? And your fellow forumites haven't got many ideas either? What then?

OK, so my start point is a noble fighter PC. My goal is giving her a cool magic weapon. It's the obstacle(s) that I put in between that I'm having trouble with. I know I want there to be an ancestor of the PC's involved. And I want there to be something she needs to do to prove that she's a) a member of the family and b) worthy of receiving the magic weapon (or have the weapon she's already got get transformed into a magic one). I just can't think of a specific enough idea.

Magic weapon (or blessing) is gated begin some kind of temple, perhaps resting place of ancestor. The high priests of that temple have access to the weapon, can navigate the temple, but are sworn to defend it from unworthy. The weapon itself can be a sword in the stone, and the act of pulling it out can be legitimizing proof.

However, the temple & it's priests do not permit any attempts at all, without some verifiable claim of proper lineage.

So we have two obstacles suggesting two approaches. 1 is a proof of lineage to go claim your weapon. Second is the temple and priests. PCs could go scour the world for proof of lineage, or could just try to assault the priests and temple.

Now let's mix it up. Red riding hood wants to get to grandma's house through the spooky woods before nightfall. Her obstacles are time, distance, big bad wolf, and hostile environment.

Our PCs want some magic weapon but they have a hostile environment (temple) and a big bad wolf (priests) to overcome, unless they have a password (proof of claim). Now let's say the temple itself is frozen in time or whatever, and only opens on certain phases of the moon, and closes immediately thereafter until it cycles back. So they have a 10 hr window to complete the temple or else are trapped within for 28 days (and will surely starve and die, if they don't have sufficient provision). If they can't get the whole thing done in 10 hrs, it's another 28 days before they can even try again.

Now stock your temple with 2 adventuring days' worth of adversity.

Now do up a 3 line legend, describing the situation and see if you can make it rhyme.

Your players' brains will fill in the rest for you.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

If in doubt... Random Tables!

(Sidebar: cool magic item idea: random table, artefact with a fluid number of seats - once a person or group of people sit down and leave at least one seat unfilled they are transported to another random table elsewhere in the world. And the unfilled seat(s) fill with an equivalent group from another area. Boom! Now you're in Thay!)