Oct 18 2008
Looking for ideas/help with a 4.0 DnD Campaign
Looking for ideas/help with a 4.0 DnD Campaign
It looks like we may finally have people to start a new campaign! I’ll be DMing and I’m pretty excited. I’ve had a couple chances to play 4.0 and I like the new system. However, it occurred to me that none of the people playing read my blog… which means I can exploit the expertise of the internet at large! Stuff I’d like input on:
- What’s a good premade setting? I don’t want to use a premade campaign, but I did have an opportunity to play recently with a premade setting and I liked the way that went. I don’t want to make too many purchases though, so something where I could get the layout for a couple of countries and a major town and a couple of smallish cities would be ideal.
- I’m probably going to have two players who are less reliable and experienced than the rest. Is nudging them both towards the striker role characters a good idea?
- Anyone have a particularly good beginning for a campaign? I want the overall campaign to be good but I particularly want the first few sessions to be engaging and enjoyable because I have two new players that I want to “hook.”
Any other advice or ideas you have would be great also… I’ve DMmed some 3.5 but only one session worth of 4.0 so far, for a playgroup whose schedules never aligned again after the first meeting.
Some information about my players, to help you out with ideas:
- Player 1 is my husband. He’s a pretty good role-player and likes looking for Option C when anyone asks him to pick between A and B. To keep him happy I need to provide opportunities for creative solutions… but hopefully ones that allow me to still keep the overall story moving forward. Is very disdainful of DnD sessions that focus on combat at the expense of story.
- Player 2 is a friend of my husband’s and a fellow graduate student whom I have met only once. I know very little about him except that he has played DnD before.
- Player 3 is a mutual friend who’s a good guy but, like my husband, often very frustrated when he doesn’t feel he has the ability to make meaningful choices. A *bit* of a powergamer. He’s an experienced DnD player and I’ve played with him before.
- Player 4 is Player 3’s girlfriend. She’s willing to give DnD a shot but has never played before and is very skeptical of the whole thing. She also, according to her significant other, “doesn’t have much of an attention span.” It sounds like she may enjoy combat more (where things keep happening more frequently and dramatically) so I may have to try to balance between her and those in my party who like roleplay more, particularly my husband.
- Player 5 is a friend of my husband’s and mine who has grudgingly agreed to play DnD. We’re pretty sure he’ll love it, but he’s very wary of the “nerdiness” of it. This from a guy who plays DotA every day, used to have a High Warlord in World of Warcraft, and is a rated epee fencer. Anyway, he’s very skeptical and only gave in after we bothered him for a while, but he’s the other that I worry might not stick with the campaign the full time.
Thanks for any help you can give me! I really want to make a great job of this. I’ll make sure to post regular updates to let you guys know how it turns out!
7 Responses to “Looking for ideas/help with a 4.0 DnD Campaign”
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I started running my first 4th edition campaign a couple of months ago. I’ve been DMing for a few years now, with a lot of different types of players. I’m by no means an expert DM, but I’ve a few ideas that you might find useful.
First, for the hook, one idea that I’ve found works well is to start out in a pub. Describe the pub as you would in a very typical D&D “you find yourself in the suchandsuch tavern”. Then, instead of asking the players what they do to start the session, have them roll initiative. Start with an encounter, and have one of them notice a mysterious character hanging around watching the battle, and if they get into trouble possibly helping them out. After the encounter, the players find out that this was a test to find worthy adventurers.
As for working with players with a short attention span or not much experience with tabletop gaming, what I found to be the biggest help for them is to create a cheat sheet for the players.
For my new players, I create a spreadsheet for them that lists out everything their characters can do, and what dice they should roll.
I wouldn’t necessarily push the new players toward a striker roll, I think any of the classes can work, although I’ve found that wizards are good because the variety of spells tends to keep players interested.
When my friends and I started playing 4.0, my buddy had a pretty good way of getting us all together. He setup a gladiator type tournament where all the characters were enticed with gold and glory. The arena was enchanted so there was no ‘final death’, so being defeated wasn’t the end of the game. It was a good chance for players to unleash their new characters on monsters and each other. Of course, the whole tournament was just a ploy by the dude running it to find some powerful warriors, but I thought it was a good way to introduce everyone to the game and each other.
Also, in my personal option, the ranger is by far the best striker class. They can make multiple attacks per round with at-will powers, and unlike warlocks, are evenly powered throughout their powers as opposed to overpowered with encounters and daily spells. Kinda sucks being a lock, using your daily and encounter spells and then only having to rely on your at-wills, not nearly as powerful as your other spells.
In my, limited, experience with 4.0 and new players … Rogues tend to be complicated with the player needing to think about the positioning of everything around his character in addition to their abilities and the learning curve of the game. This could appeal to a DOTA player but probably not to Player 4.
That being said, I think the rest of the strikers and defenders would probably work for Player 4. As always though, it’s more important that she be interested by the character/race/class than anything else. Something I’ve found that also works well with newer players or players learning a new system is allowing them to swap out skills and abilities they don’t like for others between sessions for the first 2-3 sessions. That way they won’t feel punished if a skill or ability doesn’t work out the way they think it will. It also takes away the pressure of making them feel like they have to pick ‘the right ability’ mixture on their first try. But keeping switches to between sessions and limiting the amount of time they have to do it minimizes how exploitable it is and also helps them get familiar with the ability before they get rid of it because of 1 bad experience with an otherwise good ability.
In terms of settings, I think they main 2 are Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. Greyhawk being the default from the core rulebooks. Forgotten Realms shouldn’t require you to get more than the general source book, but there are already quite a few books beyond that if you feel like getting them.
Hey there, a tip I’ve found helpful in any role playing setting:
Take notes!
I gm with a laptop and try to jot down as many details as I can.
You are going to be making a lot of stuff up off the top of your head. But if you can bring back even minor characters, items, places or whatever then it feels like the plot and world have more depth.
Your players will pay more attention to each detail because they will start to realize everything could be important.
I also try to bring in a lot of major characters early on. It’s way more satisfying to kill a demon that you have a long, in-depth relationship with then one you just threw out there.
I try to keep each character as deeply invested in the characters and plot, and it takes time to do that, so make each detail count.
Miyako,
The reason for pushing them both toward a striker role wasn’t as much because they were new as because I wasn’t sure if they’d stick with it or not… and having more or fewer strikers seemed like the thing that would affect the rest of the party’s gameplay least.
I like your spreadsheet idea, but I don’t know if I have time to create something like that from scratch… could you direct me to a resource for that?
Tommy-
The gladiator tournament idea is an interesting one. Not sure I’ll go with that but it’s a cool idea either way.
Ross-
Any particular recommendation between Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms? Or no real difference between them?
The Forgotten Realms campaign setting came out already and, as far as I can tell, the Greyhawk campaign setting has not.
Based on your comment about setting, I get the impression you’ll be happier with Forgotten Realms.
Forgotten Realms for the win. Played it in 3.5. so much depth and story. It is already completely established as a world. and the plethora of books that came out from this setting can give you some great ideas.