Ideas for a DnD campaign

[darthotaku]

my friends and I are starting a new campaign of DnD, and I'm the only dungeon master in the group. My friends know me as the kind of DM that has rather creative dungeons and campaigns.
I've made Dungeons bassed off of stories by Edgar Allen Poe, one bassed on the seven deadly sins, and several others. the only problem is I can't think of what to put in my latest campaign.
I therefor request ideas for dungeons and campaign story archs that you might have. even something as simple as a concept like "flying pirate ship battle through the abyss" or "do something like that scene from league of extraordinary gentleman where Venice was blowing up". both of those I've used before but you get the idea. I need impressive things to make into a DnD campaign. I'm sort of like a DM version of Michael Bay with more subtlety and writing ability.

 

[Najal]

Players take the role of inmates, who may or may not be guilty, who escape on the way to their execution.

Iiiiinnnnn ssppppppaaacccceee!

 

[mionic]

do a "and then there where none" type thing

 

[darthotaku]

do a "and then there where none" type thing

sounds like something i'd do... but I have no idea what an "and then there were none" type thing would be. could you elaborate a bit

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Have you thought about using planar/abyssal creatures and maybe trying to recreate/adapt 'At the Mountains of Madness'?

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Okay, how about this?

The PCs are guests at a party, when the host is possessed by a ghost and starts killing everyone. Thus the PCs must band together as a party and fight the "insane" host - but killing the host (or knocking him/her out) doesn't harm or stop the ghost, which simply moves on to another body.

So the PCs must figure out why the ghost is doing this and stop it before it strikes again.

 

[mionic]

do a "and then there where none" type thing

sounds like something i'd do... but I have no idea what an "and then there were none" type thing would be. could you elaborate a bit

have them trapped on an island and have all the events be parts of an little nursery rhyme or something like that, it was just a little idea i had.
ps: i´m not familiar with how DnD works...

 

[Wuggy]

I once did a campaign where the PCs were abducted to a different plane that was actually in the mind of an Old God. Maybe you could do something similar. For me, all the NPCs were either an illusion made by the God or other people trapped in the plane.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

visit CornWood, i hear its nice there.

seriously though, maybe a MineCraft related one? with Creeper's and Zombie's and Spider's and Skeleton's and Ghast's and Zombie Pigmen.

start in the Nether and guide them through this nether world in search of the portal, to be teleported into the dark underground caverns, and they must battle their way to the surface, before taking siege of the giant sky castle.

all the while throwing Mobs at them...

 

[Deathfyre]

Well, I made a campaign in a space setting. The players all had races with full backstories. Each race had another race that they had as a long held enemy, so they had to roleplay a type of racism and mistrust, while at the same time banding together against a race of aliens trying to reclaim territory they lost in a war that happened long before any of the current races ever evolved. (I didn't reveal the part of it being their territory until the climax.) and after it's all said and done, the races go to war with each other (attempting to take advantage of the weakened states of each race after a multi-fleet battle against the ancient race), so the PCs have to decide whether to support their people, go against them, or try to stop the war... and unless they all agree to help try to stop the war, it carries on until their peoples are all extinct. The "I wanna see war" guy didn't expect the whole mass genocide to extinction thing coming.

 

[darthotaku]

Have you thought about using planar/abyssal creatures and maybe trying to recreate/adapt 'At the Mountains of Madness'?

That is a very good idea. I hadn't even thought of that. and it'd give me an excuse to finish reading the story in the first place.

 

[CommanderKirov]

A rift in time and reality opens onto Earth of 1941. Allies and Germans pour out of the portal onto this strange new world with their technology. Hitler and Churchill make a pact against apparent threat from the world of Player Characters filled with dragons zombies and other notquitedead. Deciding to annex it. And of course the kingdoms do not answer to it quite positively

You must face your magic against their bullets and superior technology and hopefully close off the portal before even more evil can pour over from the fields of battle.

 

[Schadrach]

Not too familiar with 4e, but assuming it has NPC classes:

Do a self-insertion game. Use D20 Modern for character creation, having people roll themselves up and requiring group consensus on statting.

Game concept -- the world "rejects" these people for whatever reason and they are dropped in a more or less standard fantasy setting, with whatever personal effects they would happen to have on hand at the time. Preferably into a dangerous situation, one in which "normal" heroes would tear apart as a standard encounter, but these are unarmored, barely armed, untrained persons. Bonus points if you make them make a Will sae versus being feared by being dropped in the midst of real, actual monsters and not silly movie stuff. Double bonus points if someone suspects they've been kidnapped for some kind of perverse reality show and plays it that way until something causes him serious injury and he realizes that there's no offscreen first aid tent.

Alternative: Get a second DM, run two smaller groups, use some kind of IM or IRC or somesuch to coordinate the DMs. Put the two groups on opposite sides of a conflict. If you use any kind of electronic device, possibly have both groups have a "guest DM" control the monsters for an encounter via teh internets, while both groups are actually in an encounter with each other. Make both groups swear to secrecy, of course, and see how long the fact that it's a PvP campaign can actually be kept under wraps. =)

Another one: Start the party literally in the middle of planning a large scale battle, one where the odds are against them. Have them die in combat, and awaken in an alternate setting -- which is in reality their world's "real" afterlife, or at least the one for adventurers. Go all Ultima-Underworld styled with it.

Another one: Have the NPCs dealing with an only vaguely defined cosmically scaled evil, except they don't really know it (they dig themselves into a hole due to their ignorance of the cosmic significance of some seemingly simple task). Then give one of them a secret McGuffin that makes them both more knowledgeable about the truth, but also makes it in their best interests not to tell anyone. We had a game like that a couple of times, in one of them one character was made into the vessel for the return of Bane. In another, the one given the secret knowledge was also encouraged that he might not be the only one given some kind of secret information, and that the others might be the "wrong hands" into which this knowledge should be kept from, whilst still trying to manipulate them into pursuing the "right" solution.

 

[Nocta-Aeterna]

Have you thought about using planar/abyssal creatures and maybe trying to recreate/adapt 'At the Mountains of Madness'?

No matter how awesome this sound, it begs the question: how does one make up stats and rules for Shoggoths, which can spawn any limb and/or organ at will and squeeze themselves through every imaginable opening?

 

[SoldieroFortune]

do a "and then there where none" type thing

sounds like something i'd do... but I have no idea what an "and then there were none" type thing would be. could you elaborate a bit

"And Then There Were None" was the title of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, in which a set of characters were taken out to an island by a mysterious host. Upon their arrival, the guests started dying off one by one. When the investigators finally arrived, they found everyone dead.

Spoiler

It turns out that the murderer faked his own death with the help of another of the guests in order to "find the real killer." At the end he committed suicide.

 

[Phil Priem]

One of the biggest things I've realized as a DM, is that players respond much better to a game if their actions mean something. Not just if a certain NPC lives or dies, or what their reputation is, but that their actions will impact the world if big enough. A simple example of this, is during a game with an old DM of mine, we unknowingly killed off a high general of arguably the most powerful king in the land. After he discovered that it was us that did it, he ceased his attempts to unite the world under one banner, to come and attack our kingdom, which had gained a pretty substantial following. Nothing near what he had, but enough to give him trouble during a all-out war. Near the end the fight, the king we had pissed off's main enemy showed up with most of his main force, and crushed both of our army's, which caused the king to loose nearly all of his support from his ally's, and cause a massive power vacuum, that destabilized the world for generations. Keep in mind that non of this was scripted, and mostly made up on the fly, which is very fun for the players, because it makes them feel like they can actually do something to the world that they want to do, not just something that a manual or book says they have to do. Easily the best DnD games I've played had no script, and we're cobbled together based on our actions and desires.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Have you thought about using planar/abyssal creatures and maybe trying to recreate/adapt 'At the Mountains of Madness'?

That is a very good idea. I hadn't even thought of that. and it'd give me an excuse to finish reading the story in the first place.

Ta very much. And it's definitely worth finishing that read, it's one of his better works (IMO).

No matter how awesome this sound, it begs the question: how does one make up stats and rules for Shoggoths, which can spawn any limb and/or organ at will and squeeze themselves through every imaginable opening?

I wouldn't even try to adapt rules for Elder Beings and Shoggoths, I would simply use the plot as a template and use existing abyssal creatures. Although my first thought was upscaling a Gibbering Mouther from medium to colossal as seeing how that went. Overall I think taking the idea behind AtMoM and constructing a D&D version would be easier and work better than trying to make an exact copy.

 

[mcnally86]

Poe Story? Easy "Pit and the Pendulum" They all die if they fail roles to untie themselves, then if they do get free rats eat them. Or go with Tom Sawyer, he was one of the first trolls. A TS themed world would have bad actions reap good consequences and good actions make you die alone and shamed. Bonus points for makeing them play a game of "The Cannibalism in The Cars" where they have to vote to eat each other to survive. And in the end they were eating each other passed the point that they could have escaped. Whichever of your friends win that game you know never to go on any road trip with.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

SNIP

Players take the role of inmates, who may or may not be guilty, who escape on the way to their execution.

Iiiiinnnnn ssppppppaaacccceee!

Do this. Have a recurring bounty hunter boss that is always very very powerful and attacks suddenly. Have the inmates escape through the sewers and slowly regain their abilities as they remove their enchanted shackles for mages, or regain good items for warriors. Sewers means easy kills to level up, then take them on the run through a wood. Make the goal to escape to a different nation/citystate to escape "justice".

 

[Voodoomancer]

Have a central character who gives them quests. Have said character secretly be a Gold dragon in disguise.

One day one of the party looks at him with True Vision (or whatever it was called).

Hilarity ensues. (also plot twist)