When the story doesn't come...

[Piratecat]

As the party have been trapped in Farika for a month or more, I'm thinking that the City of Greyhawk should now be under siege by undead animals or something similar.

A suggestion: if you really want to jump-start the campaign, forget that "under siege" stuff. Do something irrevocable that will shock the players... and nothing says "I'm not screwing around" like wiping out the most visible icon of the entire campaign world.

Do something awesome to it. Turn every buildings' walls into necrotic flesh that eats the living and vomits forth undead. Blast it with a plague that rips spells out of arcane casters and prevents them from ever handling magic again. Have the rock 30' beneath the city turn to soft mud for perhaps a minute... before turning back into rock, forever entombing most building and people.

Then think about the aftermath, and make sure the PCs know that the Mask was used in whatever happened.

Boy, will that get their attention.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Blow it up" is never a bad idea. The druid artifact + cleric of death kind of makes me think "Giant trees of rotting bone and howling skulls sprouting spontaneously all over the city, all at once, killing people and destroying buildings."

Archibald and that cleric of Nerull may have started to work together -- Archibald wanted to stall the party long enough for the Mask to do it's horrible necromantic explody-business on the Free City.

It also turns out that the Hextorian kingdom had been asking about the Mask. They may be willing to make a deal with the cleric of Nerull that now has it. They may have been the ones that killed the mages that were guarding it.

After the city is blown up, the PC's get a chance to rescue Gramps Corthan and/or Theresa Corthan. I'd actually make them choose between one or the other -- they can't save 'em both! -- but I'm a horrible man.

The Mask becomes the BBEG, here. Perhaps it trades hands as various evil nations and people learn of its power and seek to use it for their own horrible ends.

The PC's are personally invested in the Mask -- their failure lead to the cleric of Nerull possessing it. Turning that around and making it the thing that causes havoc in the hands of all of their enemies really takes that failure and makes it campaign-altering.

"Hey, guys, remember that artifact you let fall into the wrong hands? It killed Grampa Corthan."

Then most of the arching plot is just putting road blocks in front of the PC's as they try to get the mask. Or you can let them get a hold of it, only to become perused as they try to destroy it. Or whatever. That mask has some emotional power for your party, though. Let it wreak havoc.

 

[ExploderWizard]

May you forever burble in the salty darkness, PC - nice job!

I like how the PCs can get involved at nearly any stage of the process - that means the villain can start to do their thing in the background, and the PCs have multiple points to naturally intersect with the villain.

Its also one of the most important factors for making the world more of a living place rather than a static setting. Starting a campaign with multiple NPC's, thier goals and plans really helps campaign events write themselves.

I usually like to sketch out a rough timeline involving which NPC and his/her followers does what to further thier goals. These events create natural hooks that the PC's can follow up on or ignore. The course of "natural" events gets altered depending on which things the PC's get involved with.

In the event that the PC's are not biting at any of the hooks as they appear there are a number of generic "happen anywhere" action hooks that can force action to be taken in the name of self preservation.

 

[Barastrondo]

"Blow it up" is never a bad idea.

While I certainly agree with the idea of introducing dynamism, I'm gonna be the wet blanket and say that anything can be a bad idea, depending on implementation and context. There are parts of my world that I love, and although perhaps murdering my darlings might be dynamic — my wife loves them too. And she's not as fond of post-apocalyptic gaming as of protecting a beloved realm and becoming a hero to its people — she likes dynamic action, but it's secondary to social interaction and extensive supporting cast. So "blow it up," for me, would translate in some instances to "and chuckle about the looks on their faces as I fall asleep on the couch each night."

If it were me, I'd want to blow up a careful mix of good stuff and bad stuff. Blow up enough good stuff for the PCs to care, but blowing up some of the bad stuff can be helpful, too. Corrupt institutions are good here, or grasping merchant houses or the like. At that point you give the PCs a chance to get involved in rebuilding something that they can be fairly certain will be an improvement over its previous incarnation. Replacing Mordenkainen is daunting (unless your PCs are the very ambitious sort). Setting up a new and more humane city council when the previous corrupt council was grazed to death by zombie cows is actually kind of encouraging. Once the band-aid work of reacting to Horrible Things is set right, rebuilding what were disliked institutions gives them a very positive impact on the world. They get to actively improve things beyond what the status quo was, something I find my players really love even more than restoring the previous one (or, worse, falling slightly short).

Play it right, and you can even invoke some sympathy for the old negative institutions you blow up. "They were a conniving bunch of bastards, but to become zombie cow cud... I almost feel sorry for them."

 

[Piratecat]

Perhaps "blow it up" is the wrong phrase; I prefer "institute major change." Frankly, this change can also be for the better; suddenly opening up a new country that was previously uninhabitable, or having the Forbidden City now accepting trade envoys, works just as well for generating plot ideas and shaking you out of a rut.

 

[Peskara]

In with a bang!

To be fair, Barastrondo does blow things up*, but he usually starts on a smaller scale, because we usually only play heroic tier stuff. Often PCs find out about the planned explosions and are scrambling to prevent them. And sometimes the PCs are the ones blowing things up.

* Not usually literally, although I believe some explosions may have been involved in the major story arc that started with the city prison break.

 

[Barastrondo]

Perhaps "blow it up" is the wrong phrase; I prefer "institute major change." Frankly, this change can also be for the better; suddenly opening up a new country that was previously uninhabitable, or having the Forbidden City now accepting trade envoys, works just as well for generating plot ideas and shaking you out of a rut.

Oh yeah, absolutely agreed. The enemy here is not anything in the actual game world, it's the trap of saying "that would never happen." As a GM, you always gotta be careful of setting absolutes in your campaign setting, and be aware of your motivations when you do so.

For example, maybe "there will never be laser pistols appearing in the game world" is a fairly justifiable rule (though it does draw lines among the pro-Barrier Peaks and con-Barrier Peaks game groups). But "Oh no, Wizardique the Wise would never allow this sort of bad thing to happen to the city" — that's worth looking at twice. Do you really need an NPC to be omnipotent? The answer is "no," of course... it's always "no." It never, ever hurts to ask yourself "So why exactly do I feel this way about game element X, and do the players feel the same way? And if so/not, would it be cool to mess with it?"

To return to the plot hooks, if it were me? I'd definitely pursue the Mask as a plotline. The amount to which I'd want to twist the players for failure would depend on the players, of course — some of my friends are Rat Bastard Players who love nigh-apocalyptic scenarios, and others will throw themselves into danger to protect one wee bairn who's wandered too far out of town.

Also, how well is the demiplane of Farika working out for you inspiration-wise? If it's not really humming along, I'd expedite the players' escape tout suite, even if you haven't made them work for it as hard as you'd planned to. Maybe someone other power comes tearing through (a marut or genie?) and the PCs can follow it along, only to emerge in the Most Interesting Place To Be in the material world. Maybe they come out in the middle of some pitched battle related to one of your favorite plotlines, and the typical looting of corpses is what tips them off to how things have advanced.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Here's an idea.

Rather than blowing up/destroying/making a big change on something good, why not blow up something evil?

What if the PC's return to Greyhawk, find it a smoking ruin with Archibald hanging from a tree with a note round his neck stating "Beware the Blue Light." A few other survivors stagger into view, claiming that Archibald was on the verge of conquering the city when a magical explosion detonated - leaving people blinded for several minutes.

When their eyesight came back, Archibald was dead, the Mask had gone and there was just this note...

...then watch the PC's wonder who the heck was powerful enough to pull THAT off and then wonder what they're going to do next?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Perhaps "blow it up" is the wrong phrase; I prefer "institute major change." Frankly, this change can also be for the better; suddenly opening up a new country that was previously uninhabitable, or having the Forbidden City now accepting trade envoys, works just as well for generating plot ideas and shaking you out of a rut.

Yeah, it's kind of a semantic difference, but the core of the idea is the same: force a sudden, dramatic change on the status quo.

The old writer's advice of "If you love it, abuse it" comes into play in my mind, and it's similar to the FFZ design advice for villains and bad guys. Force something to accept a feature that would normally be its opposite.

Drama -- and interest -- comes mostly from tension. Bad things need to happen (or at least stand to happen if the PC's don't prevent them) to good or basically innocent people. Alderaan blows up, and it suddenly Gets Real. The Free City gets turned into a necromancer's garden, it also Gets Real.

 

[coyote6]

But "Oh no, Wizardique the Wise would never allow this sort of bad thing to happen to the city" — that's worth looking at twice. Do you really need an NPC to be omnipotent? The answer is "no," of course... it's always "no."

Well, never say never, right? Maybe you need Wizardique the Wise to be omnipotent *now* so that later he can go off to bat country and come back as your epic tier/high Essence/end-game big bad, and the PCs and/or players might be suitably affected by his descent into apocalyptic madness.

Also, how well is the demiplane of Farika working out for you inspiration-wise? If it's not really humming along, I'd expedite the players' escape tout suite, even if you haven't made them work for it as hard as you'd planned to. Maybe someone other power comes tearing through (a marut or genie?) and the PCs can follow it along, only to emerge in the Most Interesting Place To Be in the material world. Maybe they come out in the middle of some pitched battle related to one of your favorite plotlines, and the typical looting of corpses is what tips them off to how things have advanced.

Riffing on that, maybe it's a efreeti warband they follow out, leading back to Greyhawk, which, while damaged and infested by the undead remnants of the former besieger, has been saved. By a Hextorian army out of Medegia, who are now the unlikely heroes of the city. Oh, and the priest of Nerull is dead -- yay! Slain by Archibald, who now has the Mask.

Oh, and Teresa has somehow ended up engaged to some knight of Hextor. And *he* wants to hire the PCs to go retrieve the Mask some relic that can be used to counter the Mask's powers. So, the PCs can go to work for the forces of tyranny -- who just saved the day, and are thus really popular -- in order to save the day, and get revenge on Archibald. Or they can work against the Hextorians, and have to race their minions to the relic.

Bonus points if the Hextorians try to woo one or more PCs into joining Team Tyranny Strength & Stability.