[Axel]

Ok, several weeks back I spontaneously volunteered to run a campaign for a group of begining players. With absolutely nothing planned and my own world still in the early planning stages. We have had a few games, which have been based largely on a Civ4 game and my random whims. I have no plot in mind and nowhere for the characters to go. I can't even export the map in a form useable by any program other than Civ (except through screenshots).
All I have so far is that the characters woke up in a completely unfamiliar world, no one there has heard of theirs. I need plot! So far they've been kept busy by sidequests I make up on the spot to keep delaying the nonexistant plot. For some reason I can't fathom my players like the game, but I gotta come up with somewhere for all this to head, fast.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

What sort of gods are you playign with? Perhaps the LG really nice god everyone believes in has a gambling adiction and bet another god that they couldn't break these PCs mentally. That god could be fliping them from world to world at random, but always inconvenient times. The PCs may not even need to know this. Just keep going with the random flips and side quests until they start to break down. Hopefully, they'll have gotten some levels and just before they finally cave in, have the LG gambler end the world so he doesn't technically lose the bet. You could then have the players whisked off unfairly to different parts of the cosmology depending on what their faiths were and have them adventure to restore order to the world the gambling LG god upset.

Yeah, totally out of a book, but come on. You need something fast right? And it beats the usual lame lich-king crap. If you'r enot the Heinlein fan I am, then how about our old forum joke? The king's pet is an awakened animal who is the power behind the throne. Give it soem fun class levels like beguiler or just straight up enchanter. How about some common coldier building a mercenary army around him in order to eventually become king of country, and there is a prophecy that he will do this. Unfortunately, while seeming extremely just and honest, he is actually willing to do absolutely anything to further his goal, including sacrifice the lives of every one of his companions--including his closest friends.

Here's another classic: The PCs are currently in a country that was recently lost a major war adn was conquered. While wandering through teh country they come to realize that they will likely be mistaken for warriros of that country and will need to make their way to safety. Along the way, they stumble on a secret stash of gold, the last remaining princess of the realm, and one of the country's warriors. The PCs must decide whether or not to help the princess make it to safety in a nearby country where htey can start to regroup and begin rebuilding the leadership that will eventually overthrow the invading country and free their people.

[RedSlayer]

Well, heres a plot for a BBEG. Stolen from no particular place. As a benift, elf genocide!!!

Quote

Elves.

I hate elves. HATE Elves

Okay, let's be fair here. Drow are cool, assuming they aren't stupid, tragic, loner cookie-cutter copies of Drizzt. And one main race of "high" elves is fine, as long as they have some depth and culture beyond "we're cool because we live forever and have pointy ears, and we pity the other races who don't, but we're still Chaotic Good even though we can openly racist."

But if I see another sourcebook with another new elven subrace, tailor made to be mysterious, cool, and better at X than any non-elf PC race, I'm going to begin my long promised genocidal campaign against elves.

I will start by raising a small army of Orcs, traditional enemies of elves. Then, I will have them attack a small village, far from civilization. This will inevitably attract a party of low-level adventurers, who will barge in, kill a few orcs, and (thinking the threat is over) will precede to loot the obvious and unguarded chest in the middle of the encampment filled with wearable, obviously magical items smeared with slow acting contact poison. As the adventurers writhe in agony hours after putting on the Magic Auraed items, I will claim their belongings for the clan and send their souls to Gruumsh, dark god of orcs and elf-hating, who will grant me the power to raise the adventurers poison-impregnated bodies as horrible, blasphemous zombies.

I will repeat this, gaining the wealth and unholy services of dozens of adventurers. After a group of adventurers is smart enough not to put on the poisoned clothes and strong enough to kill the orcs, or at least strong enough to seriously hurt the warband, they will come upon me - wounded (or so it seems), manacled to the wall, and a prisoner of the orcs for days. Never thinking that I could be lying, they will take me with them back to town - and when they at night, halfway to town, I will take the first watch and slit their throats while they sleep. With their undead husks as my new minions and the remains of the orc tribe, I will take and send them away to a safe spot. I will return to the town, boast that I will kill the entire orc tribe my myself, and come back with as many heads as I can carry. The townsfolk will inevitably reward me, and to repay them I will throw a feast with my newfound wealth, complete with spiced mead for all and a heavy dose of poison for seasoning. Then, my undead slaves and the remaining orcs will enter the town and kill anyone that didn't drink the poison while I raise the bodies of the townsfolk as my minions.

I will repeat this in as many towns as I need, working my way up to stronger and stronger adventurers with more expensive possessions. When a smart group finally realizes what's going on and confronts me, I will beg for mercy and reveal to them that I only did what I did to save my poor, dying mother and avenge the horrible, twisted wrongs elves committed on me. While they're debating the morality of killing me and before they realize what ******** just came out of my mouth, I will trigger the pit trap / antimagic field/ amazingly sharp spikes combination set up in my inner sanctum and kill them too. By that time it is no longer safe to continue with my present plan.

I will then take my current army, put it in cold storage (i.e. bury it - orcs too, no need to have minions that can betray you when zombies never eat, sleep, or have treasonous thought), and join the church of Saint Cuthbert. Beforehand, I will give each of the major clerics a false vision (paying for any services I must buy - from an evil yet lazy and uncreative mage - with former adventurers' gold) that a man much like myself is actually the manifestation of Saint Cuthbert's avatar, come to the material plane in mortal guise to test the faithful and reward them with a great crusade against hidden evil. Naturally, the fools will believe it, and in a few short months I will rise to power in the Church (of course always hiding my alignment with magic, mental exercises, and giving money to orphans). I will then reveal my "true" nature in a blinding flash of light and propose a holy crusade against the vile elves! Yes, elves! With their pointy ears so much like demons' horns and their mysterious ways and their alien culture. They never fight except to defend themselves and for all their claims of goodness they harbor lazy, idle beings in their midst - and idle elves are the tools of devils! I will warn the Cuthbertites to beware false prophets from the gods of the elves and to strike down elves within the Church before sabotage the campaign. My deed done, I will teleport away to "be with St. Cuthbert" as the genocide begins.

The Cuthbertites are thorough and will prepare before a holy war, possibly even gaining allies without thinking too much about their morality (Hextor might be interested). Meanwhile, I will take my treasure and send a magical projection to a dragon of moderate age - strong enough that she could kill me, but not so strong she could kill me and my undead horde. I will give this dragon, still young and ambitious, a gift of treasure and then propose a deal: help me raise an army and I will give you a chance to plunder an entire nation. She will inevitably betray me later, but by then I'll be ready. For now, she will agree (or I will find a dragon that will agree) and I will have my first dragon ally. That dragon will convince or bully several other, younger dragons into joining the cause and I will have about half a dozen dragons under my command, none of which will trust the others enough to gang up on me and kill me - and in the event they do I will have a teleportation spell ready at all times and never expose my wondrous, massive, and individually fragile horde of undead to the dragons and their breath weapons.

While the dragons murder a few scattered elf villages, I will infiltrate elf society and engineer a war between two major elven nations. If there is only one mother nation from which all elves spring, I will engineer a civil war between the elves. An old slight between two groups of elves, or (even better) a row between the royal families, will be the fodder for a senseless war between two major elven population centers. The elves, being flighty and easily offended, will be goaded easily to fight. Even if their lackadaisical personalities and good alignment prevents actual war, there will be brawls here and there, a few scattered killings and assaults, and general unrest and distrust between the nations. Hopefully, they will gird themselves to fight other elves and ready their armies.

Then, I will arrange to have the ruler of one nation assassinated and blame it squarely on the other nation. Not just the monarch will die, though - his immediate family and anything that stands in the way of the best magical yet elf-shaped killer the powers of a dragon and a dark god of elf-hating can create will die in creative, bloody, and horribly painful ways. The king's body will be destroyed by magic and his soul will be captured in a gem and teleported to me when the magical assassin returns, where I will sell it to a demon in exchange for a bit of demonic help in the coming slaughter. If a war hasn't started yet, it will, and if a blatant assassination isn't enough to start a war elves are so lazy I could just stab every elf in the face in broad daylight and no one would stop me.

I have the elves fighting among themselves, a horde of undead (which I will fortify with the bodies of the elves in the settlements the dragons raze and enhance with dark magic), a few demons, a wing of dragons (if they are ever wiped out, perhaps by a wing of good dragons or a very well prepared group of adventurers, I can simply recruit more using the same tactics as before), and a crusade against the heathen tree-lovers brewing. Most people would begin the bloodbath now, but that wouldn't be enough. I want to be thorough. So I will invite the drow along to join the war. All I need to do is approach the leading matron (by magical projection - I have gone too far to spend the rest of my live enslaved by drow) and tell her that I'm going to attack the elves while the civil war rages. We will bond over our hatred of elves and love of evil and she will rally the drow that follow her to join in the greatest war against the hated, light-loving faeries - because nothing unites drow and squelches their petty squabbling like a chance to kill elves.

I will then call out to Gruumsh, my patron, for help from his children. The orcs will flow to me in record numbers, brutal, stupid, and ready to kill. I will fortify them with magic and stolen adventurer goods and drill them until they are a lethal, ordered army nearly unable to disobey orders, even if it means their death.

After I dispatch the adventurers that inevitably discover my plot (hint: by this time, my bodyguards are polymorphed dragons and I have enough magical items to outfit a small army, which I do) and raise them as zombies, it is almost time to begin. I will sacrifice the souls an entire village of elves to my dark god of hatred and prepare the ritual that will empower me with every filthy elven soul that is ripped from its body in glorious battle. I will delay the army of St. Cuthbert with a few well-placed detours (they worship a god of law and blind obedience, they'll follow road signs) so they arrive at dusk. Upon the setting of the sun, my dark glory will begin.

The Cuthbertites will join the civil war on neither side, slaying men, women, and children without mercy. With the horrible sun gone the Drow will rise from the Underdark as the Orcs maraud into Elvish towns. My dark army of poisonous undead will only feed their ranks with elven, human, and Orcish dead as the war continues. The green of old forests will be red with fire and blood. Demons will pour forth to lead the charge, dragons will light the night sky with fire, and I will survey the battle from the top of the first dragon that followed me, his reward come at last. As the battle rages on, some of my undead horde - those with rudimentary intelligence yet physically incapable of disobeying - will gather all the elves' enchanted crafts in the middle of a massive ritual circle made from the stinking corpses of dead elves, painted with runes of blood. With each elven death a soul will flow unto me and give me power to control ever more minions and cast even more horrible spells on the battlefield. The trees will fall to ash and the ground will be torn asunder as the slaughter continues.

Then the sun will rise, and the horrible true nature of my plan will become obvious.

The drow and orcs, exhausted from battle, will recoil from the horrible, burning dawn - but they will be so far into elven lands they cannot escape from the light into the Underdark or their warrens. They will be crushed beneath the hammers of the Cuthbertites and the claws my undead - then the stupid worshippers of a stupider god with die in dragonflame. Each death will empower me due to the boon Gruumsh granted me - and speaking of Gruumsh, even he will realize my betrayal when the worshippers die in their moment of triumph over the elves. It matter not. Each death makes me stronger, and each orc that dies makes Gruumsh weaker. He won't have the power to stop me, nor will anyone once my plan is finished.

The dragons will finish off the few survivors. The demons will return to the abyss when the spells that bind them here expire. The elves, Cuthbertites, drow, and orcs are dead, and my army of undead, under my control only by virtue of the souls I have absorbed, is bloated with new recruits.

Then I will release control of the undead.

The entire army will be berserk. Many will crumble to dust when I let go of my magic, but some will rampage throughout the countryside. Not my problem. I have kept my true power hidden, especially from my patron Gruumsh, by keeping such a huge horde of minions. No longer. I expect to have the power of at least a demigod- more, once I absorb the magic from the enchanted weapons and crafts of an entire species in a ritual fueled with elven flesh and bones. I will take that power and travel to Avrandor and visit Corellon Larethian, who by this time is as weak as a pointy-eared infant from the loss of all his worshippers. I will kill him with my bare hands and absorb his remaining power and the non-elf parts of his portfolio. I will do the same for the rest of the Seldarine, and then raise them as horrible, undead abominations fully under my control.

By this point, Gruumsh is worried - as he should be. On my way to the Abyss I will swing by his home, kill the weakened fool, and absorb his portfolio as well. The battle will be hard, but I will be far more powerful than he and it will be trivial to destroy his Orcish minions and resurrect them into twisted mockeries of life. Afterwards, I will visit the weakened Lolth and explain my entire plan in great detail. After she bows before the true master of treachery, thus surrendering that part of her portfolio to a more worthy deity, I will kill her and any other elven gods, which are by now so weak they cannot stop me. I will ascend to greater godhood, a god of death, betrayal, and triumph. With the powers of a god I will use my undead servants to hunt down every last remaining being of more than half elven blood and kill them. Then, I will gather the undead elven gods before me. One by one, I will release them from their bondage and condemn them to the oblivion. I will release Corellon Larethian last, but not before basking in the beautiful irony of it all. As he was the first elf and that hated race's creator, so is he last to truly die, broken, beaten, and enslaved.

[Axel]

And how would my party consisting of two Good humans, an impulsive halfling, and a half-elf fit into that unholy mess?

There is something to the gods playing a game with their lives. That could lead to some real insanity, especially if the worlds get more removed from their own the longer it goes on. I can just see the group suddenly running into Wedge Antilles....
On the other hand, that could also just get really weird after a while. And even if I went for it, it'd be a good idea to keep them on the world they're on for now, let them get a little experience.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Well, perhaps they hear of some magical armor that grants invincibility that is kept in the Cave of No Return somewhere beyond the Giant's Forest?

[BigTim]

Axel, on Nov 28 2006, 07:39 PM, said:

.....which have been based largely on a Civ4 game...

This is an idea I've had for world building since civ 1st came out. In fact back in they day I spent the effort with a big sheet of graph paper to "map out" my civ map.

[Shandari Halfblood]

Perhaps you should read a book and take somehing from that. But choose one written by some obscure author so your players don't realize it's from a book. I've had that happen before and it's not fun.

[Dthclaw]

Shandari Halfblood, on May 11 2007, 05:51 PM, said:

Perhaps you should read a book and take somehing from that. But choose one written by some obscure author so your players don't realize it's from a book. I've had that happen before and it's not fun.

You don't necessarily need to choose an obscure author or obscure book. As they say, the devil is in the details. If you modify the key details and add a few changes to the layout, key figures, etc there is no reason why you can't base it on a popular author's book(s).

[Axel]

Okay, I'm just going to put this out there: The campaign I started this thread for last November has basically ended. I went with the d-hopping suggestion, although having a plot in my head didn't really translate to any of my players knowing what it was. The game went for several months as a series of side quests that all sort of led to each other without me actually directing them.
I do have one suggestion for all DM's though: Examine your players' spell lists before coming up with your adventures. One of my good ones went completely haywire because of a level zero spell.

[Dthclaw]

Good advice, Axel.

Though I'm curious what in the world a zero-level spell could do to derail an adventure... you should post a thread about it or something.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I secondDthclaw's motion, there fore it is decided. Thou shalt start a thread entitled, "How a Cantrip Can Ruin a Campaign"