D&D (2024) Non-Human Party - Campaign help!

[EzekielRaiden]

Defend swamp from ancient evil or encroachment via civilization seems obvious.

Really, you could even do a both/and situation.

There is an ancient evil here. AND there's an up-and-coming, albeit far more banal, evil exploitative outside civilization as well.

The tempting thing is to turn to one side or the other to try to protect yourself, only for that to really be a choice of which evil overlord you deal with: an ancient corrupting force or the callous cruelty of far-away colonizing powers. But heroes with gumption and guile may find, or create, a third option that doesn't place dark powers or imperial jerks in control--perhaps even playing one evil against another, then exploiting the winner's weakened position to kick them out for good.

I think this has some pretty good motivating value, and it kinda turns the usual adventure concept on its head. You ARE the "barbarians", but you're also the ones fighting back against the darkness. You can have simple-evil villains (the ancient evil and its cultists), and also complex-evil villains (the actual people of that far-away empire, who can be much more sympathetic than their imperial overlords). There can still be dungeons and the typical wilderness trekking, but the scary things are imperial camps (effectively war camps!) where few to no civilians would be expected to appear.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

It's not actually a bad group mix, class-wise, but story-wise, the parade of non-humans doesn't readily mesh with how I usually motivate characters. I'm kinda leaning "Save the Swamp" for the initial adventure, but I'm sorta stuck at "from what?"

Thread already has a bunch of helpful plot ideas, I have nothing better to add but I am super curious how motivating human characters somehow differs from motivating a party of non-human characters.

Every DnD party I've ever seen was mostly non-human PCs and I've never seen any adjustments to adventures because the PCs weren't human

 

[Clint_L]

Okay, so...

I have a friend who's desperately interested in getting into RPGs after watching "Dungeons & Drag Queens," and for various reasons, I figured 5e (2024) would be the best fit for her, although my own preferences lean more towards Shadowdark/OSE minimalist game these days. But she's a "more is more" person who likes digging into things - so yeah, D&D 5.24e it is.

I've always been a "roll with it" DM, and after rounding up a group to have her play with, I've got 3 (moderately-to-very) experienced players and one other newbie (her bestie). No problems so far.

But then they started coming up with character concepts, and now I've got a group of swamp-dwelling non-humans: An ancient eladrin warlock (my excited newbie), an orc bard (her bestie), a tabaxi ranger, a firbolg druid, and a harpy rogue (my wife is feeling salty and got it into her head to play a harpy, so I'm slightly modifying an Aarakocra).

It's not actually a bad group mix, class-wise, but story-wise, the parade of non-humans doesn't readily mesh with how I usually motivate characters. I'm kinda leaning "Save the Swamp" for the initial adventure, but I'm sorta stuck at "from what?"

Anyone able to help a brother out? Suggestions welcome.

I ran a "save the swamp" storyline where the party was hired by the locals to track down a monster that had been harassing them. Except it turned out that the monster was working for a hag who was trying to stop the villagers from over harvesting frogs and wrecking the ecosystem. So then the party had some interesting choices to make, and things got complicated, which made for great fun and an interesting story.

Given that your party leans towards the more monstrous side of traditional fantasy, I would tend to go for plots that similarly invert expectations. You know, the Shrek principle.

 

[aco175]

Thread already has a bunch of helpful plot ideas, I have nothing better to add but I am super curious how motivating human characters somehow differs from motivating a party of non-human characters.

Every DnD party I've ever seen was mostly non-human PCs and I've never seen any adjustments to adventures because the PCs weren't human

I see it more non-PHB characters which are mostly just funny looking humans. "Traditional" D&D campaigns used to take place in a world with an Earth flavor with Lord of the Rings (LotR) elements. Over the last edition or two there has been more of an opening to other races that are non-traditional such as playing orcs, lizardmen, and yuan-ti.

My games are more traditional in that sense and if the players wanted to play a goblin or ogre as a PC there would be in world problems with things like entering towns and guards viewing them as monsters. We could play a game like the OP wants and thus all the ideas of other posters to help that out.

I'm sure many tables are ok with all these characters just meeting in a tavern in any old town and everyone being cool with them walking around. Planescape was a world/campaign like that or playing Adventure League (AL) is more like this where a lot of things are just skimmed over.

 

[Piperken]

Thread already has a bunch of helpful plot ideas, I have nothing better to add but I am super curious how motivating human characters somehow differs from motivating a party of non-human characters.

Every DnD party I've ever seen was mostly non-human PCs and I've never seen any adjustments to adventures because the PCs weren't human

Human and nonhuman characters certainly can share like motivations, but they don't have too! I don't know the party in any way, but based on OP's comment of:

I have a friend who's desperately interested in getting into RPGs after watching "Dungeons & Drag Queens," and for various reasons, I figured 5e (2024) would be the best fit for her,...

I'd hazard based on the inspo, this could be one reason why the suggestions are leaning this way? As the D20 wiki mentions about the live play: Classic D&D but Campy, Extravagant and Over the Top.

 

[JohnSnow]

Human and nonhuman characters certainly can share like motivations, but they don't have too! I don't know the party in any way, but based on OP's comment of:



I'd hazard based on the inspo, this could be one reason why the suggestions are leaning this way? As the D20 wiki mentions about the live play: Classic D&D but Campy, Extravagant and Over the Top.

That's more or less it. Nonhuman PCs are not necessarily going to be as readily motivated by "save the (human) village" scenarios. Effectively it comes down to: "motivating a group of outsiders is different from motivating a group with stronger ties to a particular community."

"Save the swamp" definitely works; so now it's just a matter of ironing out "from what/whom?"

But I can work that out! Thanks folks!

 

[prabe]

That's more or less it. Nonhuman PCs are not necessarily going to be as readily motivated by "save the (human) village" scenarios. Effectively it comes down to: "motivating a group of outsiders is different from motivating a group with stronger ties to a particular community."

"Save the swamp" definitely works; so now it's just a matter of ironing out "from what/whom?"

But I can work that out! Thanks folks!

Depending on the mood you're aiming for, you might find inspiration for "save the swamp" scenarios in the works of Carl Hiaasen and/or Tim Dorsey: both in terms of the threats and the responses.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

That's more or less it. Nonhuman PCs are not necessarily going to be as readily motivated by "save the (human) village" scenarios. Effectively it comes down to: "motivating a group of outsiders is different from motivating a group with stronger ties to a particular community."

Why would a village be only humans though? Surely Tabaxis, Orcs, Elves, Firlbogs, and Fairies would live in villages too and have the same tie to saving a village as Human PCs would

Anyways that's unrelated to the point of the thread and I only ask since it looks like you got some good feedback already so there's no real risk of derailing the topic