Normally a DnD game is about saving the world, city, or people however I am at a lack of ideas for the group to do story wise other then a band of treasure hunters / glory seekers which seems pretty boring and could easily result in ok tonight were killing this dragon or raiding this tomb. I don't think anyone wants some epic story or a huge roleplay game however I would like for them to be invested and interested in what they are doing for a little bit more then just power and gold.
Another problem is due to their lack of morals some of them have stolen small amounts of gold in our last session, I would like to put in a reason for a band of people not to steal from each other or otherwise harm one another. So far the story has them being thrown together by force mostly however I would like for them to unite a little.
Any ideas are welcome.
Let me explain what I mean: how about a long lost prophecy that says that "evil shall save the world" in which the characters are the ones mentioned in the prophecy. Maybe they are destined to save the world... It doesn´t matter what they think or do, it IS their destiny, and sometimes they will be doing the right thing EXACTLY when they are doing it wrong...
(Think of many characters from Lost...)
What about the carrot? Well, the prophecy also states that those who are destined to save the world will also obtain glory and power beyond belief. That should get their attention. ;)
Another strategy is to put them against a nemesis that is even more evil than they are - and he/she hates the PCs. It´s not that they will become good because of their enemy´s evil, but they will try to stop him simply because they are angry at him/her. It´s the old "the lesser of two evils" strategy.
(Think of Mark Millar´s WANTED comic book series...)
I hope that helps a bit!
Cheers,
Marcio
Do several of the PC's have an interest in politics? Throw them into the middle of an intrigue-laced royal court that's arguing over which of 3 teenage sons will inherit the throne (while jockeying to get some form of control over them).
Are any of them interested in dark magic? Spread rumors of a foul necromancer or blood sorcerer who has unique rituals hidden within sanity-rending tomes. Invite them to find ways of how to divest said tomes from the necromancer safely-especially considering that she is the only one alive who knows how to bypass the horrible curses that protect them.
While personal motivations are great for PCs of any alignment, they work especially well for PC's who have motivations beyond "I want to save the world". Just ask your players for some back story and for some goals that their characters have and work to build interesting adventures from there.
Play dirty and raise the stakes. I starting pushing the envelope of evil. If the party killed a helpless prisoner, I confront them with someone who doesn't mind killing helpless women and children. In the Dark Ages, barbarians came to town, defeated the men, killed every child over a knee's height, and road off with the women. If you hve a girl in your party, I would be surpised if she overlooked a noble claiming the rights to the wedding night. Even guys have a hard time leaving children to their fate.
It works even better if their original intentions are evil. Perhaps the PCs hear of a wealthy caravan, and they decideto help themselves to that wealth. When they find the caravan, it is run by ahandful of cut-throats who terrorize the merchants and their families. The bandits offer to allow the party into their group. Take a scene from a Western, where one of these cut-throats attempts to help himself to a young girl, and see if that doesn't motivate them to take action.
To prevent robbery I was thinking of cursed gold and the likes.
Lastly, one of the prisoners was giving lip to one of the adventurers and he knocked him unconcious(sp?) only to have the cleric heal him. This person was a young teenager so im thinking later on of having some sort of revenge situation but how to make this really sting without killing people is my problem right now.
I also like the idea of showing the party how horrible they are sometimes by showing what other npcs can do however I do not want to introduce or hint at acts of ****, yes it happens but I dont want it in the game.
Another good one is the entire "its easy to kill npcs that arnt really attatched". I wonder if I could use this to my advantage, for instance next adventure im thinking of introducing a Kobold name Deekin (yes he's from a book someplace). Deekin will be planned to follow the adventurers, well more correctly keep bumping into them. However, if this NPC is killed off the prices of items will become much higher becuase Deekin being a kobold has to sell his items cheaply.
Thanks for all the great ideas! keep em coming!
Darth Vader´s story is great, specially because he lost everything he wanted in the end. Until he redeemed himself.
One of the players from the campaign I´m starting is Unaligned (which means EVIL in his case... I know him well). He is a Infernal Pact Warlock who claims to be a Wizard. He craves power... I will give him power, but I will make sure he pays for it in the long run (but I also know that he´s the kind of player who will LOVE when his characters pays the piper).
"Evil" stories may be great stories. Just make sure that you players don´t go berserk on the world with reckless abbandon.
Cheers!
I also like the idea of showing the party how horrible they are sometimes by showing what other npcs can do however I do not want to introduce or hint at acts of ****, yes it happens but I dont want it in the game.
Totally understandable, I meant to put a disclaimer of "depending on how comfortable you are with your gaming crew." Physical abuse works. For example, the tyrant king strikes the queen to the ground after seeing her displeasure at the orders to behead his own son. Not as gruesome but it may hamper relation between the party and the king. It is definatly about finding the right blend for your party.
In the oldest fairy tales, the children involved were in mortal danger. No one saved Little Red Riding Hood, for example. As such, an adventure where gnomes kidnap children with planes to baked them into pies is a suitable adventure against evil that is going to be tough to pass up. Yet once the children are saved, there is no real damage done. This is probably a little to light on the grit, but I'm sure you get the idea.
The bit about cursed gold is cool, for variety you could also have somone else need the money. For example, villagers offer gold for protection, but without it they will starve.
I wanted an episode of a Batman carton where he was remorseful for turning a criminal into Platic Man by accident, which motivated him thelp him rehabilitate himself. Perhaps just by knowing they turned the teenager evil, their reputations could be at risk, which motivates the a little on both sides of the fence.
However, this is problematic becuase technically if they are raiding a crypt they stole it from the crypt not their allies. So any other ideas of what the exact effect would be or how to make this logical would be awsome.
If they want power and glory give it to them, and then take it away. Do one of those tomb raids, and have someone help them find the tomb (maybe your kobold?) Have it full with stuff, tons of gold, weapons items, make them feel like they hit pay dirt (but dont push the treasure envelope for a party of there level)
However, the NPC who helped them sold them out to a band of raiders who come in the night and take there gold, or you could even force a confrontation and the raiders demand the money. Make sure the raiders way outnumber them and/or are more powerful.
This pisses off the party who tracks down the raiders, gets back some or all of there loot (raiders might have sold/given some away by the time they get to it) but they find out there vendetta is not with this small band but someone else who the raiders worked for...
and this gives you a hook to a greater villanious enemy they have to face.
One thing I do with my campaigns is always have repercussions for actions taken. The party can loot and destroy there way through whole swaths of my adventures but alot of those encounters they forced could have been allies or people with useful information and I make sure down the line they see the errors of there ways when they meet a hurdle that is difficult for them to pass since they killed the guy who could have helped them.
You want the game to be A.
The Players want the game to be B.
If the players really want B, forcing them into A will make them unhappy.
If you really want A, forcing yourself into B will make you unhappy.
You and your players may just want different things out of the game. Rather than trying to be sneaky and railroad them into how you want them to play, talk to them and ask them how they want to play. If they want to be evil, then don't force them to be good.
For party cohesion, a simple trick is to require that the players explain why their characters are in the party together. Ask for each character to have a unique connection to each and every other character. Rather than you trying to force them to be together, you put that burden on them.
Of course, they might not care. They might want to be old school and just grind some dungeon crawls. If that's the case, forcing them into a compelling story wont work either.
Though, it is a misconception that Evil has to be at odds with other evil characters. That's not evil, that's just being a jerk (and "Jerk" is not a valid alignment option).
So I have recently started a campaign where the story isn't set in stone. My problem is that all of the characters are not good but unaligned or if anything shifting to evil. They do not want to save the world or even other people unless the chance is right infront of them. Most of them are motivated by personal glory, power, and wealth. So I am presented with a few problems.
Normally a DnD game is about saving the world, city, or people however I am at a lack of ideas for the group to do story wise other then a band of treasure hunters / glory seekers which seems pretty boring and could easily result in ok tonight were killing this dragon or raiding this tomb. I don't think anyone wants some epic story or a huge roleplay game however I would like for them to be invested and interested in what they are doing for a little bit more then just power and gold.
Another problem is due to their lack of morals some of them have stolen small amounts of gold in our last session, I would like to put in a reason for a band of people not to steal from each other or otherwise harm one another. So far the story has them being thrown together by force mostly however I would like for them to unite a little.
Any ideas are welcome.
I haven't read any of the other suggestions, but my suggestion would be: They want power and gold? Then force it on them! After their deeds in slaying monsters and dragons come to light, the king offers them a barony to rule, with castle, town, farms, and a retinue of men-at-arms. Then they have to deal with things that threaten their little fiefdom. Basically: give them power, but also responsibility.
Personally, I'm really having issues with one of my PC's as well, a shifter rogue. He had been tracking some guy through a city, got him drunk and "walked him home", which of course means "knocked him out and looted him."
The guy was inconsequential and not really important to anything, he just singled him out and ditched the rest of the party for two days while my other PC's had to go into an abandoned mansion in town and kill undead for money.
Yes, it is perfectly alright RP-wise, but it pisces off my other players and now the shifter is doing more evil/annoying things while my party is doing story-based missions.
I've been wondering how to rein him in for awhile now, but for now I'm just going with the flow. Perhaps I'll have him unwittingly steal something that my other PCs needed for a quest, thus helping out their common cause. Maybe that will spark some interest in him again, I dunno.
. For one of the above posters I started with a pretty thrown together situation. The shadai-kai have recently come about in mass (previously they were heard of but not really seen much or talked to) and an army has destroyed one of the cities. The characters were found after the war and taken by a group of slavers and they were placed in a cage with many other NPCs. They all kind of grouped together at first to escape the situation blah blah blah fast forward. During a conversation with one of the commoner class captives a teenage boy said something with provoked one player to nearly kill the boy while the warlord healed him afterwards. Further down 2 players stole but one got caught the one who was caught was then attackers, the attacker was beaten to neg hp then healed.
For the one who is a little trigger happy (Swordmage Genesai) he will be getting an encounter with a very ****** off elite doppleganger who will turn out to be the boys father, this will be done when he is alone. For the thieves im thinking of discouraging this action by some sort of cursed coins.
The party is
Swordmage Genesai (Killer)
Drow Wizard (Passive guy)
Half Elf Rogue (Successfully stole a small some of gold)
Dwarf Fighter (Knocked out the swordmage after the attempted theft)
Human Warlord (tried to steal a large sum of gold and failed)
Several of them opposed the killing of an innocent and stopped it. However, what exactly do you do when you catch someone stealing from your adventuring party?
A rogue who steals gold is doing what being a thief is all about, though
If you want to bring people together, present them with an outer enemy - it's the timehonored method of many politicians, should work on players, too.
Personally, I'm really having issues with one of my PC's as well, a shifter rogue. He had been tracking some guy through a city, got him drunk and "walked him home", which of course means "knocked him out and looted him."
The guy was inconsequential and not really important to anything, he just singled him out and ditched the rest of the party for two days while my other PC's had to go into an abandoned mansion in town and kill undead for money.
Yes, it is perfectly alright RP-wise, but it pisces off my other players and now the shifter is doing more evil/annoying things while my party is doing story-based missions.
I've been wondering how to rein him in for awhile now, but for now I'm just going with the flow. Perhaps I'll have him unwittingly steal something that my other PCs needed for a quest, thus helping out their common cause. Maybe that will spark some interest in him again, I dunno.
If he abandoned the party for a whole adventure, and is now more interested in his own evil or annoying thing than what the party is doing, then why does he still want to be part of that party of adventurers, and why do they want him along? What is his connection to them at this point?
The reason I'm asking is because if he's no longer connected to that party, you might suggest a series of one-on-one adventures to give the player the fun of being evil and selfish (some people like that), with the proviso that he roll up another character that will be part of the rest of the party.