Please help a newbie DM with one campaign idea!

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OK I am the newbie DM of a small group of players, we use Second Edition AD&D Player's Option Skills&Powers rules, and I need some ideas about the next campaign I am planning to DM.

Players are:Level 6 cleric, level 5 conjurer, level 5/5 fighter thief. Not much, but I like to add friendly NPCs to the fray to keep it crowded and fun.

Anyway, my next campaign idea is inspired by computer games (BG2, arcanum etc) and some net resources. It begins with PCs seeing a crowd of commoner people in the town, they gather together to listen to a man who shouts that he is a prophet of some sort(haven't decided yet) and he tells he will read a holy rite aloud for the crowd to be blessed by eternal lcuk and happiness. Curious, people will listen to them. Among the crowd there is one adventurer NPC, a female human thief (lvl5) and she may try to pickpocket a PC if they come close. Anyway, the man reads a chant aloud and a massive magical energy is released, and everybody who hears it (hopefully including the PC) will be uncouncious, only to open their eyes in a cell underground somewhere, ripped of their possesions, and being held captive. (like the very beginning of BG2 it is a curious plot though)

Problem 1: I hope PCs will be interested in hearing the man, what if they don't, what if they just go wander and never hear the magic? I guess than they will hear that lots of peasants and commoners who listened to the man were vanished and presumably kidnapped, so they may go to rescure them, however this really changes the entire adventure. What should I do?

Anyway, captives found themselves helpless and all of the commoners are scared. The man who read the magical incantation is also along them, he is captive too, so commoners may be angry to him and may want to 'punish'. The truth is the man is completely innocent, he was dominated by another force to do its bidding and 'kidnap' the people, so it is up to PCs to trust the man and save him or leave him to the mercy of an angred crowd.

Soon a man with heavy robes comes and inspect them, he is very serious and powerful looking, he orders two orcs to stay as guardians while he goes to do the final preperations for the 'ritual', everybody hears this and gasps, who knows what sort of atrocities that horrible man has for helpless captives? The prison area also has anti-magic, so cleric and conjurer are helpless too. Two stupid orcs stay in guard, and it is upto PCs to find a way to be free.

Solutions:
*That thief NPC has a small lockpick aparat hidden in her shoes, and she may attempt to do it if only PCs can keep the stupid orcs busy.

*PC thief can also help or try to do the same thing if he has something for lockpicking.

*PCs can fool stupid orcs to be close to the jail and may somehow get the key from them?

What do you suggest?

Anyway, after they get free, they will have to find their equipment which is located in a nearby room, they can be-friend the thief NPC and she can be useful.

They will then make a heavy dungeon crawling with occasional traps, monsters, guardrooms, patrols, puzzles, etc. and they can even find the wizard's room to read the remains of his burned diary, to learn the secrets of his work. The diary is vague at best, mystery is the key here.

Main plot is, the wizard was initialy a good character, but one of his studies resulted in a misfire which hit his beloved wife and she is now in a deep trance, a come like status which no magic can cure. So he decides to make an attempt to summon a devil lord and want him to cure his lady. In return he will give the devil the innocent captives he has, sacrfycing them, and anything else he wants. You see the wizard is slightly insane, but he was initialy good.

PCs will find him and the devil prince eventually in the middle of the summoning ritual, devil still bound by the spell's ward. Devil prince wants to be free so he suggests adventurers to kill the 'evil' wizard. While wizard threatens that devil will surely break free if he is disrupted and slay thousands of innocents!

*PCs can kill the wizard if devil promises not to hurt them, but doing so frees the devil, who being lawful, will run away, leaving an army of mephits and quasits to slay the adventurers if he promised 'not to hurt adventurers himself'. If he didn't, well too pity for the foolish adventurers.

In the former case, free devil may be in some later campaigns, and PCs may be held responsible for his evil acts.

*PCs can side with wizard,but he wants to sacrifice the innocents, and PCs may not want this. They can talk and understand the nature of the wizard and wov to help him somehow, if they are understanding and insightful to the cluse in the dungeon, or just fight with him which will release the devil.

*OR, PCs may learn how to banish the devil through their adventure in wizard's fortress, from his notesi diary etc. and use it, so they can slay the wizard and banish demon both? This may require some sort of ritual or action. Any ideas on how?

So what are your ideas? What should happen to wizard's lady? What can be a convenient way to save her? I hope you get the idea, maybe you can help with more sub-plots and ideas, please! I need help!

Thanks!

[ December 12, 2005, 14:01: Message edited by: Silverstar ]

 

Whatever you do - don't railroad/give them only an illusion of freedom. So your choices here are:
a) let them wander off and improvise.
b) ask them if they wouldn't mind listening to him - if they're really not interested in the hook, come up with something better Likely they'll be co-operative, unless they're the sort who like screwing up your game.


The second thing is trickier - how about describing some things in the room which you have no idea how they could use - and see whether they can come up with something interesting. Things like brooms, hooks in the walls, old rusty chains - it might help to come up with what the room is when it's not holding people (hint, make it something other than a totally empty dungeon cell )

 

Thanks, I can improvise quite good and lure them to listen to the man, while still ensuring that PCs have an illusion of freedom. Maybe that thief of mine steals something precious and blends into the crowd and PCs will MOST SURELY want to enter ther crowd to find the thief and hear the spell accidentally! Yes this is a very neat trick huh? Later they can befriend the tief when they are comrades in peril! Or at the very most, if they still do not listen, then they will be given the noble quest of finding lost people, and just how can they locate the wizard's dungeon entrance? Maybe it mysteriously pops from the ground when people are kidnapped, or they may find some other clues, maybe the 'dominated' man who read the magic can still be found and PCs can save him from city guards who think that he is the guilty one...and then poor man can remember blurry details of his 'domination' by a strange man and his whereabouts? Improvision has no bounds! In this case, adventurers will start from a different corner of the dungeon and will have to fight heavier troops of enemies, which makes sense as the dungeon must be heavily guarded against an attack from outside, hence their punishment for making poor DM's job harder! They will meet the thief NPC somewhere in the dungeon as she escapes from her cell, and she can still be an ally, perhaps PCs can save her from a trap or horde of enemies! Hmm...

Yes I will make the 'jail' rich with any sort of dungeon equipment, like rusty chains, brooms, hooks, occasional skulls, big bones etc. and I will get great pleasure to watch how they try to fool two armed orcs and get out of their cell! At the very worst scenario I can improvise a hidden switch on the wall if PCs are too dumb or unlucky.

But the main plot is still rather blurry, what should happen to wizard's lady? Granted, PCs can never know about her if they are dumb and kill the wizard. If they learn though, what should the proper course of action be? Should them go on a new quest for curing the lady, thus sparing the innocents? OR PCs can trick the devil to say that lady is indeed impossible to revive, her soul totally destroyed and lost by the magic for much more dramatic effect? In this case the wizard may go berserk and try to kill everybody, a self-destruct system in the dungeon maybe? Ohh these are the things I came up with now, I wanna hear your ideas!

Plus, what should the wizard be like? Any good wizard descriptions or types? He is a once good wizard, but now obsessed, a little insane, cruel, and shameful of his spell cursing his wife. What alignment should you think be appropriate? And most importantly, what level should he be and use which spells&tatcics if foolish PCs decide to fight him? I think a level 9 specialist mage(conjurer as he summons a devil OR necromancer as his misfired spell put her wife into a coma?) is appropriate, but maybe too tough for lvl5-6 PCs? (I don't think so, they had much fun tearing every spellcaster enemy in previous campaigns, always disturbing their spells and giving me headaches to boot, a slightly tougher and smart mage enemy will be a difference!)

Please share your ideas. I hope I don't give you much trouble!

 

For the alignment of the wizard I would say that at this point he is chaotic evil. You have a good scenario going with lots of choices. Good luck.