Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Amondaun Feb 05, 2015 14:02:32	I will be running a campaign soon with a couple of friends that I've known for about 13 or so years. They want to be an all dwarf party (inspired by The Hobbit:TFA) which us awesome however one thing...This is my first campaign I've made ever in any RPG scenario. I know they won't be upset if I don't have a kickass campaign but I want to go all out so I was gonna see if anybody could take a look at my current overall story/villain and see if they need revisions or anything.   Roughly 500 years ago Tiamat made a loose alliance with Gruumsh and both created a massive army that brought the known world to its knees. One by one kingdom after kingdom fell to their onslaught. However, an Elven general named Venar was able to build an alliance of virtually every known race (giants, metallic dragons, gnomes, elves, dwarves, humans, half-races, etc, forming the largest army to ever walk the earth. Through a grueling 5 years of fighting Venar was able to crush the 2 armies and put an end to the war.   However, towards the end of the war Ben at found rumors of the Nine Hells using the chaos on the surface to launch an invasion of their own. He tried to convince the unified kingdoms to help him once more but they quickly went to their old ways and started reforming their own kingdoms vying for power believing the Devil Army to be too outlandish to be true. Venar then led his closest and most trusted followers (one being a silver Dragon that he grew very close to during the war) an descended to the Nine Hells to try to do anything they could to stop or delay the army. Catching the Devil Army still in development Venars army was able to do some serious damage but in the end they were slaughtered. All except for Varen and his Dragon (no name currently).   They were tortured and interrogated in an effort to find out how they defeated the Tiamat/Gruumsh armies and if the surface world still had the means to do so to their army. They were interrogated for 300 years and were slowly put under the influence of corruption. After 300 years they were tasked to invade the surface world and cause enough chaos that the growing devil army could conquer it unopposed. Venar began building up an army for 100 years before challenging the surface world. His army completely annihilated any retaliation and in the next hundred years began a ruthless war machine that accomplished much the same that Tiamat/Gruumsh did hundreds of years ago.   However, the devils underestimated Venar and his Dragon. While they were beginning to be corrupted they underestimated their will power. Venar was able to resist the corruption for the most part but followed his orders to prevent from being killed. In his conquest he realized that only on the brink of extinction would the world's races band together in unity. So a few years ago he sent his top agent (a sorcerer with the ability to shapeshift) to begin leading up a unified rebellion army knowing their would be another "Venar" to lead the rebellion like he did so many years ago. Enter our heroes.They would be quickly be found by Venars agent and realizing their potential make them figurehead of the rebellion (ideally at least. Of course they are allowed to make their own course of action but this is so far the path I'm anticipating). The heroes would then lead the rebellion to defeat Venar and his army and (Venar hopes unify the world enough to beat back and maybe even destroy the Devil army) bringing the realm peace at last.   Sorry for the length. So any thoughts on how I can spice it up and overall just make better?
#2 AaronOfBarbaria Feb 05, 2015 14:19:11	Please find your way to a device that can insert some line breaks into your wall of text, I'd love to be able to read it and offer you advice that applies to the content, rather than the form, of your post.
(Reply to #2) Amondaun	Sorry about that. Hopefully this is better.
#4 AaronOfBarbaria Feb 05, 2015 15:01:31	All these backdrop events sound great.   My advice is to make sure that the idea of the campaign is interesting to your players. Make a much briefer version of the details above to tell them before they make their characters, basically covering the idea... along the lines of "The world has been near completely conquered by the armies of the Nine Hells, but there is still a chance for a rebellious force to beat them back and retake the world." They don't need to know about Venar trying to sabotage himself by supporting the rebellion, since that is something they could learn while playing and it would likely have more meaning to the players if done that way.   If the players are into the idea, have them build characters with each having personal reasons to be invested in the idea of rebellion so that if the players are running out of ideas what to do next, they will always have a reason to keep trying to push forward in the campaign - which helps with not losing interest and stalling out mid-campaign.   You villains, I suggest not putting them into any kind of finished form until you are actually at the point in the campaign where they are going to be directly interacting with the player characters. That way the idea of the villain can stay fluid and adaptable right up until it absolutely has to become something concrete - which can help prevent you from feeling like you have to force the characters to some particular level before events relating to the villains can happen, as that tends to lead to stuffing sessions full of encounters that you aren't really invested in but feel necessary for the XP alone, and that is bad because encounters being fun for you and your players is all about everyone feeling invested in their outcomes.   Above all else, I offer this: The point is to have fun, so don't let yourself stress out about it or take it too seriously. Just go with the flow.