Need campaign ideas

[Drayven]

I'm a new DM that has been running a D&D 4e game for a few months now. I'm thinking about mixing things up on my players and I'm looking for advice. The quick back story of the current campaign is that the players accidentally recovered a magic artifact for someone they thought was good but was actually bad. They are now on a task to gather components to build an item that can be used to fight the new evil super power, pretty cliche stuff I know Right now they are in a wintery section of the world and are making their way through an underground tower because a nearby village needs help and they've heard rumors that a wizard that used to live in the area built some sort of town defense system into his tower.

I think I've kinda reached a point with the world where I'm just not sure to go with it so I'm pondering really mixing it up either temporarily or permanately. What I'm considering is when the players activate what should be the defense mechanism instead they will be teleported away to another land. I'm considering dumping them somewhere completely opposite of where they are like in a desert or jungle setting. This will be a land where mages have been purged and magic is rare and considered evil. They may even end up in a pirate themed city at some point. Any time they ask about the place they came from no one will have heard of it, either because this is a different plane/world or a different time perhaps. What I'm thinking is this would be some sort of a trap the wizard created to capture anyone that tried to use his defense mechanism for evil. He assumed that whoever activated it would be a mage so he created or sends them to a world where magic is taboo and they will be hunted.

Right now I just have alot of ideas racing through my head so I'm hoping to get a feedback on a few things.

1. Is it ok to totally change up the world like that?
2. Any thoughts on where I should send the players if I go this route?
3. If I decide to make this whole sub campaign some sort of illusionary trap what is a good way for them to get back to the "real" world at some point?

I know there are really no right or wrong answers but any advice you can give on getting on track would be helpful

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

1. It's better to move the player characters than to revise the world. That way, if your players want to go back to the old world, it still exists for them to return to.
2. You can move them to another continent, but if it was me, I'd be thinking about moving them to another time. For example, the same place five thousand years ago, which lets you change around the culture and all the NPCs without redrawing the maps.
3. If you can move, then you can move back.

For example

That night, when the moon is gibbous, a high-sided chariot draws up. It is drawn by coal-black, fanged horses with flaming hooves, and fire licks up from the wheels of the chariot. Atop it sits an undead driver, lashing the strange horses mercilessly. He uses a human spine for a whip.

"Get inside," whispers the driver. He beckons to you, and thunder rolls in the background. You are about to refuse, but then you feel a tugging at your soul. A weird compulsion seizes you, and you climb inside.

The chariot passes into land of nightmares. From time to time, screams, screeches, howls and a sort of odd hooting are audible, and once, a human torso hits the window, and slides down the door leaving a smear of blood. You have no way to tell how long the ride lasts, for you grow neither hungry nor sleepy, but you feel that many days have passed before the chariot stops and the door opens.

You emerge, blinking, into the dawn.

"Where have you taken us?" asks one of your number.

"Nowhere," says the undead figure. "You are where you started. But not when."

As you look around, you see that the rural road in which you stood has become a battlefield. Literally. On your left, ten thousand orcs are drawn up in full battle array. To your right stand a few thousand elves, clad in gleaming mail and clutching spears tipped with living leaves. The chariot is nowhere to be seen...

----

This is part of an epic spell by an evil mastermind. The mastermind is from the deep past, when he was involved in a huge war between good and evil. Good is winning, and so in a last, desperate strategem, the mastermind calls characters from the future. The diseases they carry--and do not notice, thanks to five thousand years of built up resistance!--will produce widespread slaughter among the humans that oppose him. Or so he hopes.

 

[Drayven]

Interesting stuff. or maybe I could go the other way and move them into the future where the person they are currently questing to stop has seized control since no one was able to stop him... Then for a while I could move them into a very evil sort of place and run a whole undead campaign for a while...

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

The Fantasy Terminator...

 

[Storminator]

If you're a new DM, you should be very careful about blowing up your campaign. Your players might be enjoying your game. They could get upset if everything gets yanked out from under them. Worse, they could decide that the new direction is probably going to get tossed out in a couple months, so why should they care? This could destroy your game completely. The key here is that your players don't know you as a DM.

I'd leave the PCs the option of getting back to the original world if they want to, and if that's what they chose, make the whole diversion be part of the evil mastermind's plan. That means the side trip was a deeper part of the plan/world.

PS

 

[ffy]

i LOVE the idea of a sudden change of scenery by use of teleportation or illusion. though in agreement with others, i wouldnt recommend completely throwing out your ongoing story or campaign. as a three-act structure, you could arrive at a natural ending point for the first act in the world they are in now, then start act two with them being whisked away to some place, and return to the original world for the finale. by the time the party has had a couple of adventures in the new setting, you will probably have found that fondness grows with distance and actually want to go back

incidentally, i have planned an illusory side-trek to my campaign. while it doesnt tie in with the teleporting to a different time or place theme, i guess you could get some ideas on adventuring in an illusion trap from the bullet points on what my illusory trek is all about.

1) the main idea is, that when they step on a teleportation circle they arent actually teleported but are put into an illusory world created by a powerful mage/psion, who uses it to search their thoughts for information about their mission
2) it starts off as really easy, as a ploy by the psion to keep them engaged by making them feel baller
3) whenever someone says something like 'wow, this sure is easy' everything suddenly gets harder. whenever someone says something like 'heh, i bet that suit of armor is going to come to life' it instantly does. the illusion is trying to adapt itself to their wishes, to make them not want to leave.
4) insight checks come out weird: 'its seems completely logical to you that the cow chained to the house IS the key to the locked door'
5) plot developments and PC background mentions will not exactly make sense to the players (contradictions and the like, which they normally know i would avoid)
6) they are allowed to try to snap out of it at any time if they figure out they are being fed an illusion.
7) they can also try to hurt the powerful psion from inside the illusion (as they can find out that their minds have been connected), perhaps by using the changing nature of the illusion itself if they are smart enough

as i havent even completely finished writing the adventure yet, i cant say how fun it will be to play, but i have high hopes. there is also the fact that you have to be prepared to improvise a lot (looking forward to that) and have no idea how long the illusory side-trek will take, if the players are allowed to snap out of it.

 

[aco175]

One bit to consider is how long you have been playing the first world. If the party is still low level and have not dedicated feats and spells to your world than a shift like this is fine. If the party is mid level and have taken feats and spells that let them deal with the winter and monsters you have in that land, than it makes it harder on the players to have such a perminate shift. It is fine for a few weeks gaming, but make sure they know they will get back after this quest. You could just allow them to retrain as well.

It would be great if there was a legend that they heard of of an item or group of heroes that done some great deed in the past only to confront them in this alter time. They could take their place, or even be them unbeknownst until the last minute. This reminds me of the book/movie Timeline where they find the starue on the crypt of the figure with one ear only to find later that it is one of them.

 

[Haltherrion]

In general, it's better not to send them off into a completely new region simply because the ref has run out of ideas. It can be frustrating for the players and undercut your standing with the group.

That's not to say it can't be done, especially if out of game you and the rest of the group have already talked about "doing something different." And for your first ref'ing experience, it's fine to focus on getting the basic mechanics in place and not worry too much about continuity.

But long term, contintuity does matter. Players develop a PC in a particularly setting and usually expect some persistence in the world so they can leverage what they have experienced.

Turning to fiction as an analog, you can find pro and con ways of looking at it.

Would you like it if in the middle of a book, the author suddenly has the protagonist go off to a completely new country and forget about the first half of the book? Probably not.

On the other hand, every new James Bond adventure takes place in a new place with new villains.

So as long as you try to make the transition look more like the latter ("we've finished one story and are ready for another") and not like a change mid-plot, it can be okay. Again, though, it may make your players wonder about your ability to see a concept through.

 

[Lady89]

Fools Grove is something I stumbled on by accident but I liked, mostly because it has the 4e Gnome and his badger Francis. (if you don’t know who that is I am sad for you ) The actual Fools Grove is not what you are looking for but the base idea of a place that completely go’s opposite of logic and that you can’t get out of until you beat the boss, this is set up on might be just what you need. Another way to REALY mess with you’re players is to pull out the heroes of horror book

 

[Lady89]

Oops might help if I gave you the URL D&D 4th Fools Grove Delve