So my players are adventuring in a Bag of Holding...

[Sheepat]

So recently in the DnD campaign I've been DMing, the players have gone into a Bag of Holding in pursuit of one of the villains of the campaign (a vampire who is thousands of years old, and has a personal grudge against one of the players)

The first part of this 'dungeon' was a trio of rooms filled with encounters (an ice dragon, a Tembo from Dark Sun, and a bunch of sand men in the last) The principal guardian of each room turned into a torch with a flame, and when the PCs put the torch into a brazier, one-third of a fire would light, until all three torches had been put in. This brazier opened up a stairway that led down into darkness. So the PCs went down, all of them apprehensive. Hours passed as they went, and eventually wound up...

In an inn filled with the vampire's minions.

Now all of these minions assume that the players are buddies with the vampire, but a guardian at the door tells them that they can only go further into the Bag if they 1. are with the vampire or 2. have his personal seal.

So I have two questions here: My first is what are some potential ways the players can pass through this inn? A fight would be very hard, as the inn is almost like a waiting room for the vampire to pull the minions up out of the bag.

My second question is what is beyond the inn? I'm out of ideas for what happens next in the dungeon, and could use some ideas.

Any suggestions would be great

 

[JamesonCourage]

So recently in the DnD campaign I've been DMing, the players have gone into a Bag of Holding in pursuit of one of the villains of the campaign (a vampire who is thousands of years old, and has a personal grudge against one of the players)

This is, like, the best idea ever. Awesome

So I have two questions here: My first is what are some potential ways the players can pass through this inn? A fight would be very hard, as the inn is almost like a waiting room for the vampire to pull the minions up out of the bag.

The social skills could help (convincing him to swap allegiances with Diplomacy, tricking him into thinking they're with the Vampire with Bluff, making him afraid of getting killed with Intimidate). They could sneak in (Stealth or Streetwise), disguise themselves (Bluff?), obtain a seal (Streetwise?), and potentially get clues with skills like Insight, Perception, History, or even Religion.

My second question is what is beyond the inn? I'm out of ideas for what happens next in the dungeon, and could use some ideas.

Any suggestions would be great

I like the five-room dungeon concept, personally. It goes like this:

Room 1: Entrance And Guardian
Room 2: Puzzle Or Roleplaying Challenge
Room 3: Red Herring
Room 4: Climax, Big Battle Or Conflict
Room 5: Plot Twist

If this is the second "room", then it'd be a puzzle or RP challenge. Have them talk it out, use skills, resolve via a skill challenge. Maybe a skill (Insight, Religion, History) lets the PCs realize that this guy is a sucker for bets, and he'll let them through if they beat him at a competition of some sort (Endurance for a drinking contest, or Athletics for wrestling, or maybe he likes strategic games, etc.).

As for future rooms, the third should be a "red herring" ("The purpose of this room is to build tension. The players think they've finally found the treasure, confronted the stage boss, and achieved their goal only to learn they've been tricked"). Maybe they think that they fight him, but it's an illusion, or a lesser vampire, or something. Maybe they think they can activate a magical effect that'll trap him here forever, neutralizing him (but it traps them unless they really defeat him). Who knows?

Then you've got room 4, the climax ("This room is The Big Show. It's the big combat or conflict encounter and is the final challenge before the Big Reward. Try to make the environment interesting, engage all the PCs, and provide opportunities for PC tactical advantage so thinking players will be rewarded"). This looks like the boss fight with the vampire. He doesn't need to necessarily die (depending on what you want out of him), but being thwarted or defeated if the PCs are successful is probably the best ending. This is most likely a combat, but if he's too powerful, maybe they engage in another activity that thwarts his plans in some way.

Finally, room 5, the plot twist ("Here's your opportunity to change the players' bragging to "we came, we saw, we slipped on a banana peel." Room 5 doesn't always represent a complication or point of failure for the PCs, but it can. Room 5 doesn't always need to be a physical location either--it can be a twist revealed in room 4. "). Putting connections to other plot points that the players will be interested in is a good tactic (that I use in my campaign), or tying it to other things they'll encounter down the road (also something I use). Sometimes it means a collapsing cave / dungeon / bag of holding, but a lot of the time it's just "he was working with X?!" or "he was also the sire of the king, who is secretly a vampire as well."

At any rate, I'm not sure what your goal is, but the 5 Room Dungeon is a good start (for me, at least), and you can always stretch each step into more than one "room" if you want to. It's more of a 5-step dungeon, in my estimation. Hope something helped

 

[TarionzCousin]

Have you ever read the Knights of the Dinner Table's "Bag Wars Saga"? In it, the KoDT fight against their own henchmen inside their own Bag of Holding. It's my favorite KoDT story of all time.

It might give you some good ideas, but it will definitely make you laugh.

At Kenzerco, $15.

Edit: I should note that besides the comic strips, the collected saga also has an interesting article on the different types of Bags of Holding and their relationships to Extra-Dimensional Space.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I like the 5 room dungeon (aka the 5 act play) too, especially for 4e where you REALLY don't want to do what WotC did with their modules and put 10 set piece encounters in a row. OTOH you don't have to make each act of the play be a ROOM, it can even be a more substantive portion of the adventure (though I think dragging out a drama over something like 5 weeks might be a bit excessive). If you did do something like 5 short adventures then each one can itself be a true 5 room dungeon (3 rooms works too if you want a shorter format and for variety).

So for instance the Inn could be the entree to a small town, maybe outside the walls of a dark castle. It could contain 3-5 locations, navigation through which constitutes the "RP Challenge" section of the whole adventure. This would indicate that the Inn itself is an 'entrance' section of the town, so perhaps they defeat a guardian, maybe defeating the 'bouncer' and getting access to his 'pass', thus getting into the rest of the town where they meet someone useful to them. Then there could be a small diversion, a 'red herring' type of situation (this can also just be a setback). Perhaps they try to use their pass to get into the castle and discover that they don't have the proper seal. Next they escape the guards who hunt them, and finally they're trapped in the sewers, only to find that the wererats below will show them the way into the castle! That would lead to the next adventure, penetrating the castle (which adventure would itself be one giant red herring, the castle it turns out is a giant trap for the bbeg's enemies). etc etc etc.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Have you ever read the Knights of the Dinner Table's "Bag Wars Saga"? In it, the KoDT fight against their own henchmen inside their own Bag of Holding. It's my favorite KoDT story of all time.

It might give you some good ideas, but it will definitely make you laugh.

At Kenzerco, $15.

Edit: I should note that besides the comic strips, the collected saga also has an interesting article on the different types of Bags of Holding and their relationships to Extra-Dimensional Space.

Seconding this- the Bag Wars is a riot!

 

[Mishihari Lord]

An idea for what comes next: the inn is on the inside surface of a huge, hollow sphere. When the PCs exit the inn anywhere other than the tunnel they come in through, it almost looks like they're outside. A huge moon hangs in the center of the sphere, basking everything in a silvery glow. The inside surface of the sphere is rough wilderness, with forests , lakes, mountains, and thick forests. There are other buildings, perhaps even village or towns on the inside of the sphere. Some of the buildings are the vampires fortresses housing his treasures, armory, and library, There also need to be a food source in there somewhere. Think Ravenloft on a smaller scale. The sphere is the inside of the bag of holding, but it doesn't deform with the bag. There are a few "airlocks" around that let you go outside but don't shift your scale, so you're microbe sized. Teleport has similar results.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I ran an adventure inside a (3.5) robe of useful items - it was a heirloom item left to a PC after the mysterious disappearance of his uncle. They had to fight a rope (giant, constricting), a lantern (containing hostile lantern archerons) and of course found the uncle's body. Later it was used as a plot device when the player could'nt make a game (not uncommonly), he was assumed to be stuck in his own pockets.
The funny thing was it gave one of the other players/characters the willies and she was freaked out about the robe for the rest of the campaign.

anyway...
What other things did the vamp put in his bag of holding?

I second a human village - extra snacks are always handy.
some of them may even be adventures. can the party organize a mob with torches? its traditional.

If you want to run the the 5 room format you definitely need a lesser vampire pretending to be the big bad.
emphasize the fear and posturing - let the fight be anticlimaxic, it is just to set set the stage. See if you can get them to blow some dailies.
I would keep it shorter than some have recommend - IME this type of weird dimensional quest gets boring after 3 sessions.

 

[Sheepat]

Wow! A lot of good suggestions so far!

This adventure is a bit of a side trek to help tie up loose ends. I do plan for the adventure itself to be a bit shorter, as after this little escapade the players should be in the final act of the campaign (if they don't somehow screw up the story!)

I'm really liking the town idea. It would probably be a basic town that the vampire in question (his name is Nelkival, but the players call him Claus for simplicity's sake) keeps under sort of a veil; they don't know they're in a bag of holding, and are used as cattle (perhaps 'guards' come over and 'arrest' them to take to Nelkival?)

We had the session a few hours ago; they considered quite a few ideas (the main roleplayer couldn't make it, so I kind of let them do some crazier stuff) such as burning down the inn, turning invisible using a bard power and trying to sneak through, etc. Ultimately, they managed to dispatch someone with a seal to get through the guard.

 

[eternalsandwyrm]

maybe it not a bag of holding at all but a gate into the shadowfell