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Delanish
Acolyte
Canada
27 Posts |
 Posted - 18 Jan 2011 : 13:23:23
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Hey i'm running the first time DND game i'm more or less trying to stick to the DMG and MM1 for most of my encounters and rewards, maybe you could offer some advise
Right now my heros are trying to search down a necromancer which they ran into the starting town stealing a staff from a normal grave before she blinked away.
The group is walking to the main capital city where the closet mage guild is. The problem with the city it has a good aligned lineage
It secretly and run by a underhanded fellow a master assassin who poses as a noble and has 2/3 through different guilds organization working for him in of people in the city
He one of the nobles, He Owns the assassin guild, Rogue guild, Merc guild, He paying off some of the guards, Controls the Docks and most Imports and Exports that travel through the city again this guy not a guy you want to cross.
The Nercomancer at this time is more or less playing around with more serious learning and practices on rituals dealing with the internals and the dead. for to learn control for something big she attempting to do in the future (if she not killed first)
any suggestions?
My Players are the following
CG Elven Ranger (Tracker and wants to get alot of Animals because they found a big cash find my solution's idea since it's spring if he buys more then one male of the same type of animals with a female they will fight each other (since it spring) over the female and thus suffer moderate handle animal penalties.)
NG Dwarf Cleric
CG Elven Bard
CG Half-Elf/Half Orc Monk/fighter (Of the forgotten Fist)
CG Half-Elf/Half Human Cleric/Psi(Wilder)
(Note last 2 are brother and sisters there elf dad had wild tastes)
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Fizilbert
Learned Scribe
USA
123 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 01:58:01
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| I think you may need to get a little more specific on what type of advise you are looking for. |
Fiz
Level 10 Vice-president
World of Elethril |
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Delanish
Acolyte
Canada
27 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 02:36:43
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| Just general first time actually dm i tend to look through the book for rewards, Monsters, and references in the DGM and MM alot |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4685 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 05:00:54
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Well, advice, try something less complicated. You did not provide levels, however it appears you are sending a basically good aligned group into a basically evil aligned city.
You indicate, that the city has a good aligned appearance, however 2/3 is controlled by Evil assassin. For a first game or campaign it appears you are reaching too far, you should stay with towns or villages in the search. In a city you will need to have over 100 NPCs with own personalities, you will likely need at least 500 NPCs like guards, merchants or other encounters that no DM can fully plan for.
"Elven Ranger takes a fancy to a serving girl in part because of her charms, but perhaps also a source of information." Now I do not know if this will occur, however it clearly is possible one of the PCs might develop an interest for any reason in an NPC. A city has too many people for a starting DM, unless the PCs are high enough level to kill the entire city in their quest (even that hack and slash requires much preparation work).
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"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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Tyranthraxus
Senior Scribe
Netherlands
423 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 11:30:26
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| I agree with Kentinal. Keep it small and simple for now. Somewhere hidden on the WotC website you can download a whole bunch of free adventures (don't have the link... anyone?), try using them to start with. You could re-use some of the NPC's and locales of these adventures in your own adventures later on. |
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Delanish
Acolyte
Canada
27 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 18:43:37
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Unless they interfere with this place the evil will not interfere, they just there to hunt to do two things
-Check on at a mage guild to find this nercomancer that they are after
-Ask about increasing the tax budget to the village of Cormac so they that little village can build actual stone walls around the village.
The characters are all level 3
I don't plan on sending evil after them i just set this place up when they reach the 2 digits numbers besides maybe a couple of minor thugs, if they travel into the more slum versions of the city. |
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Delanish
Acolyte
Canada
27 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 18:55:09
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In honesty i was hoping they would go to the dwarvern keep i kept hinting at with almost every dwarf in the region, for some goblin and orc slaying and help them for a few sessions but they choose to go to the captial so i can't stop them :)
At this point the Nercomancer is their only enemy and the Assassin won't even bother with them, unless they like topple of the minor theives guilds in the city then a brow may be raised, but i very much doubt it. i just setting up the contiant and let the players go where they wish...I do not want to kill the PCS unless they are like really really asking for it (like the bard pickpocketing a king in the middle of a speech), I don't want to put my players againsts odds i don't think they could handle which is why i'm never planting them against anything over 1CR3 (and some minor CR1 or lower) at there current level |
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LordArcana
Seeker
USA
53 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 21:35:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Delanish
In honesty i was hoping they would go to the dwarvern keep i kept hinting at with almost every dwarf in the region, for some goblin and orc slaying and help them for a few sessions but they choose to go to the captial so i can't stop them :)
At this point the Nercomancer is their only enemy and the Assassin won't even bother with them, unless they like topple of the minor theives guilds in the city then a brow may be raised, but i very much doubt it. i just setting up the constant and let the players go where they wish...I do not want to kill the PCS unless they are like really really asking for it (like the bard pickpocketing a king in the middle of a speech), I don't want to put my players against odds i don't think they could handle which is why i'm never planting them against anything over 1CR3 (and some minor CR1 or lower) at there current level
I think what a lot of people are trying to say is the idea of a "city" 10,000+ people there is a lot possibilities for the pc's to get the DM to say something he may regret later. The names of people, the attitude of a certain merchant.
If you happen to be good at working on the fly then just make a side list of names the pc's interact with and a quick note about who they are. Just remember when you open up the world to the pc's they tend to want to go in varied directions... not always together. Its a subtle art of the DM to be able to steer the pc's in a direction without railroading them there.
As a new DM its not out of the question to tell your players out of character before the game starts what your general idea is if they have been missing hints. Perhaps tell them you would like to run an adventure in an old dwarven ruins. Then start the session out with something like... "On your way to the nations capital you took a detour and came across this fascinating set of dwarven ruins. Being adventurers your curiosity has piqued your interest at the potential wealth to be found in a place like this."
Personally when starting a campaign i used to use the whole "You meet in a tavern and a guy comes up and offers you a job" style of starting. Over the last decade or so i was turned to en-media-res starts... my players at least like to have a hard get right into the guts of it start... roll dice...hack things apart... and then get into the plot.
Just my 2.5 cents |
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 23:12:23
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| A small but useful tip is to prepare a sheet of potential names for improvised NPCs -- whether made up, culled from sources, produced by a name generator like Sami Pyörre's EBoN (which seems to be offline), or some combination. |
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Halidan
Senior Scribe
USA
470 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2011 : 23:48:38
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I'd go a step or two futher than Faraer. Y should have a pre-made list of 50 male and 50 female NPC mames (based on the naming conventions of your world) so you're not making up silly or wrong-style names on the fly. You should also have a dozen tavern names, and several names and or descriptions of signs for other businesses you expect them to visit during thier stay.
Once you have these lists, take excellent notes about who the PC's meet, what information they get from various NPC's, and what personalities you give to various NPC's. These don't have to be paragraphs, or even full sentances. A typical ad hoc city encounter of mine might read:
Throvald Dwarven Bootmaker: Tactun until someone buys something from him, then willing to answer questions about the city. Also very knowledgable about the Desertmouth Mountains and the ruins of Tethyamar.
That way it's easy to review your notes when the players return to the city in a future adventure and prompt them with a name they've forgotten or the jeweler that gave them such a great deal on those stones they sold last month. |
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Delanish
Acolyte
Canada
27 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jan 2011 : 00:32:21
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Fair enough
Pronouncing the names will be harder when i say a name i normally write it down in my notebook! |
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New Dm advise
