D&D suggestions

[paigeoliver]

If you are familiar with dungeons & Dragons, (even the videogames are fine), then this is a thread for you, otherwise you'll probably find it boring and nerdier than arcade games even.

Posting this here rather than on my normal RPG board because none of my players read this board (although ALL of them play Robotron!!!).

My ongoing game has a time travel element, the players have been 1000 years in the past (relative to their own births for some time). One of my players recently guest dungeon mastered a session, and he seriously broke continuity of the game, and made radical changes to previously established areas, races and characters.

Rather than say it didn't happen, or ignore it, I decided to work it into my game. If things changed that is because something happened to make them change. I have pinned the blame on a (presumed dead) ex-PC who travelled to the far, far past and changed things.

So, the characters will be going way back, to the age of wonders. The current area is already before the middle ages hit humanity (humanity is all tribes and barbarians at this point), although most of the non-human races have middle age and rennaissance technology.

The age of wonders will be 10,000 years earlier, pre-human altogether, and before any of the dwarfs, halflings, and elves had gotten past the earliest tribal cultures. The EXACT change the actual character caused was to kill "Littleman" the archetypical halfling hero who was responsible for basically establishing halfling culture. (Littleman himself was actually a time traveller).

Anyway, I see the age of wonders as being really, really high fantasy, lots of giants, and dragons, and pixiefaeries, treants, and herds of Unicorns, that sort of thing. I have my plot firmly figured out, but I would love some suggestions on things to throw in along the way. Don't think normal D&D, think Labryinth, Neverending story, that sort of thing.

My basic plot is as follows. Characters find a message for them, from ONE of them, written in concrete, incredibly ancient. (Written with a finger in concrete/masonary) that was freshly poured at the time.

"I don't know if this will work, I know we walked past this spot before we went back. Everyone else is dead except for Megan and I, and Megan has been captured. I am leaving this message before I make one last chance at saving her. If this works then it will never happen. Don't open the red door. All the boxes after the portal are bad. He is only pretending to be friendly, but he is really a monster. Be sure and tell me I was right about waiting for the Unicorns, it was worth it. Julie (signed with a handprint and a footprint"

Obviously the warnings will be true, Julie is the least intelligent member of the group, and wasn't quite bright enough to think that the other characters would need to know who "he" is. The unicorns comment is something that ONLY Julie would understand (she has remained "pure" her whole life so that she can hopefully one day ride a unicorn.

The characters will then travel to the (one way) time portal and go back, navigate an area designed by the enemy to destroy them (with lots of EMPTY chests with nasty traps on them).

Once back there the following will need to happed, in one order or another.

Megan gets kidnapped/charmed (the enemy when he was a character was in love with her, and she constantly rebuked his advances).

Julie meets unicorns.

They meet the enemy in a non-combat situation.

They navigate the maze (Labrynth like scenario, with at least one area with a RED door, blue door, and green door). They should meet the enemy and his minions multiple times here. But he is playing with them.

Defeat the enemy, or give the appearance of a defeat (the appearance is better, always better, people like villians who come back).

They gain the ability to come BACK to where they were (magic scroll).

The male halfling in the group does what "Littleman" SHOULD have done to assure that his culture will be created the way it is supposed to.

Julie leaves the SAME EXACT MESSAGE to avoid any time glitches (she will have to be persuaded heavily, since she doesn't lie).

They come home.

Ok, I have the basic plot, I need filler, high fantasy filler, talking doors, talking trees, giants, I am ready to hear some ideas.

[jbox]

The male halfling in the group does what "Littleman" SHOULD have done to assure that his culture will be created the way it is supposed to.

"Uncle, does this hou-mon Gabriel Bell look like Sisko to you?"

And don't forget the little guy who lifts up the tile, shakes his fist, then turns it back the other way so the lipstick isn't showing. And of course, it's mandatory to have the two doors where one guard always tells the truth... 

Suggestions:
1. Julie could fall over at one point, and one of the *other* characters could write the message instead. Including the bad guy (ie. luring them here is part of the Master Plan because otherwise they would always be a loose end for him).
2. Otherwise, the characters are seperated, and the dark lord in his "Big Dark Armour"(tm) could tell her he had killed the others, then accidentily let her escape. Julie would *believe* they were all dead, write the message, only to discover later the other PCs had stolen the armour and set her up (to preserve time). This could also add tension to the group to role-play.
3. Could they find a dis-used simple portal (ie. local travel only), which leads to a supply cache containing boxes of food that have been left for so long they have "gone bad"? They would of course only discover this fact *after* they eat the food which gives them the runs, and when they look for herbs to help they get captured. Or it could be enchanted to make them fall asleep, pixies rob them and kidnap half their party (how they get seperated).
4. Otherwise some of the boxes could be living creatures (think Rincewind's luggage), who work for the dark lord, run around, change position (freaking them out), that sort of thing. Alternatively, you could create a kind of animal all cute and fluffy that shows up every now and then and follows the party around (right before they get into trouble/attacked each time). Then about 3/4s the way through the story while in the halfling village someone else spots one and kills it because "everyone knows that Buxes are bad". This twist now allows them to avoid the bad guy's spies and make some real progress.
5. Someone has to go through a red door. If the party splits up one group could consist of all day-mammals, who at one point are wandering around in the dark and *accidentily* open the red door.
6. Otherwise, a door could be covered in runes, and one of the party 'red' them incorrectly so something bad happens. This works if the (paladin?) isn't the best speller in the group, and again it still actually happens so that she will still be telling the truth.
7. Other puns are good ways to get the party to do something so that she can truthfully write the message without them being tipped off when it actually happens.
8. As part of the Master Plan the bad guy may require some standard piece of future equipment (like an axe/rope/whatever of certain quality) to get to the scroll. His plan was to trick them into coming back, kill them and take their equipment. Obviously the good guys should not learn this twist until later.
9. If you think it's funny, one of the halflings who worked with Littleman is running away frightened at the moment the characters incorporate. When he sees 'Littleman' alive (ie. your guy is a dead ringer, probably because Littleman's widow shanks him later on), he turns back to the village and this stops him from accidentily stepping on the butterfly he was about to squish (thus restoring the correct history).
10. Could the characters also trigger the end of the Age? Perhaps they use the scroll, then later on find some book that reveals it was the triggering of the scroll that allowed the extra mana to bleed away.

"Oh Lessa, Lessa, Lessa; where have all the great weyrs gone?"

[jbox]

Just another quick one - the "monster" could be his character. Maybe they find this local forest guy who is just nice as pie, helps them out, doesn't even work for the bad guy. Then right before they leave they find out his real job is as a unicorn hunter!

[HaRuMaN]

 

[maraxle]

Make the riding of the unicorn an essential part of their survival.

[paigeoliver]

More on the littleman deal.

The big bad (previous evil PC wizard, who went back quite a ways further than the characters, and has had plenty of time to become really powerful), DID set the whole thing up to kill the characters, except for the girl he wanted. So he spent years setting up a tricky area full of golems, none of which will EVER attack the girl.

But, a local Halfling sheriff discovered the portal and went through before the players. This was SUPPOSED to happen in the original timeline, he went back and was aghast at how the halfling were cowering in rabbit holes and wearing animal skins and not even making any proper cheese. He taught them the basics, and was later immortalized as "Littleman" who is sort of like the Halfling version of Jesus.

But, the big bad went back earlier, and built a deathtrap on the opposite side of the portal, slaying "littleman" soundly and keeping him from ever teaching the basics of civilization to the halflings. Their development is thus changed, and instead of Tolkien/D&D hobbits we ended up with what I could best describe as "Welfare hobbits" laying around in the road, too lazy to even bother to build proper homes, and scrounging for food, and not even concerned about the fact that an entire town of them was just slaughtered, and the goblin hoard was advancing on the next town. The big bad was really setting the trap for the PLAYERS, he had no idea that anyone else would be stumbling into it.

I am really liking some of those ideas, especially trying to rig it where Julie truthfully writes the message (she isn't too bright, easily tricked, can't even read common, can only barely read and write the Hobbit language). "He" is the big bad, whom the characters know as a slightly off ex-companion who went missing one day mid-mission.

[Hoagie_one]

Filler side quests \ encounters

1) Lights in the night
   In the oldest days of the world, the fairy population was much greater and they ruled kingdoms within the large woodland areas of the un-traveled world.  The PC

[Sephroth57]

if you play D&D you have to see this, old but good

http://flashshows.web1000.com/geeks.html

[Hoagie_one]

Am I drunk yet?

[clanggedin]

I think you should add NPC to the party, that is secretly a God of some sort , like one of the Halfling Gods (Yondolla). Since the evolution of the Halfings races has seriously been broken she/he has joined the quest to make sure that it is corrected. They never reveal their true identity though, but after the quest is over somehow a small token is left that gives the party a clue to who that god was.

Yondolla herself could give the party a special item of power (sword of Arvoreen) that is to aid them on the quest, but has to be returned at the end.

Since your party is going back to restore the halfing race, they should either be aided by a member of the halfling pantheon, or given an artifact to aid them in competing the quest.

[Shape D.]

Step one. Kill off the charecter of the guy who screwed up your game.

step two. as soon as he makes a new charecter kill that one too.

create some new creatures, especially draconic like ones.
because the world is less "civilised" in the past make magic users uber important in any cities or villages you go to. If there aren't any humans yet make any in your pary outcast, untrusted, and considered dangerous.

and make sure you kill off the guys charecter again at the end of the adventure.

<edited to add winky's, I'm not serious about killing the dudes charecter>

[Hoagie_one]

vengfull DM's make gaming not-fun

[Hoagie_one]

i still have that D&D stuff if your interested in it again BTW?

[paigeoliver]

i still have that D&D stuff if your interested in it again BTW?

At this point I have totally forgotten what it even was, but I do have like $30 in my paypal account from a refund someone sent me. I could do something with that. I am already overwhelmed with various things that require me to do things, but I can manage some paypal action.

[Hoagie_one]

Here's the list of 2nd edition stuff that I have left to trade

9507 -- Shaman Option game accessory (Like New)
DMGR3 -- Arms and Equipment Guide (Good condition)
9465 -- Book of Lairs Official game accessory (Great condition)
9521 -- Monstrous Arcana -- I, Tyrant (Like New)
2149 -- Player's Option : Combat & Tactics (Soft Cover, Good Condition)
2163 -- Player's Options : Spells & Magic (Hard Cover, Great Condition)
2121 -- Tome of Magic (Scuffed up cover, insides are good condition.  No binding issues)
9392 -- FRS1 -- The Dalelands (Good Condition)

Adventures
TSR11662 -- Die Vecna Die (Great Condition)
9052 -- (I3) -- Pharaoh (Great Condition)
9107 -- (C4) -- To Find a King (Good Condition)
9109 -- (C5) -- The Bane of Llywelyn (Good Condition)

1st Edition Adventure
C2 -- The Ghost Tower Of Iverness (Good condition, except back cover is stained...looks like 20 year old coffee)

[paigeoliver]

Ok, don't need or care about these

2149 -- Player's Option : Combat & Tactics (Soft Cover, Good Condition)
2163 -- Player's Options : Spells & Magic (Hard Cover, Great Condition)
2121 -- Tome of Magic (Scuffed up cover, insides are good condition.  No binding issues)

The rest seem interesting (I think I have a low grade Ghost Tower already, but maybe not).

Is $40 shipped for the rest acceptable?

[Hoagie_one]

I think I'm just gonna hold onto them for now.

Sorry

[paigeoliver]

Ok, no problem, none of them are really on my most wanted list anyway. 

[paigeoliver]

Ok, I have most of it written. Here is how it goes down.

At the end of the last play session, MOST of the characters were on a Goblin airship with a punctured balloon that was heading AWAY from the Battle of Otterville. A few characters were on the ground fighting.

Airship gets tangled in a giant tree, and begins sliding out (airship is also packed with explosives and greek fire), so players will obviously get the heck out of there, and will likely head back towards the site of the battle.

Where they will meet up with the other characters who will report that the whole battle just sort of started dissapearing all around them. Nothing vanished while they were looking at it, but after about an hour of fighting nothing was left at all except for their own bloodstains on the ground, and broken arrows that they had fired. No soldiers, no wounded, no trampled grass, nothing. (The time change in the past caught up to the future).

The (psuedo-npc) characters who had noticed the original anomoly village suggest that as something to check out. The player's travel there across a changed world, none of the towns or villages that should be there are there, and they will actually encounter a party of human merchants travelling to trade with the elves (these are non-human lands, and human merchants don't generally go to the elves, they will usually just trade with the first halfling village of the area, and then THEY will trade with the elves.

Back to the "village". The one remaining village has regressed even further (time change caught up completely with it). The haflings there know nothing of normal halfling culture, Littleman, or the halfling pantheon at all. "We don't have any gods, those are for the big people."

Back to the cave near the village, go through it to the spot where the halflings gave up before, move past it (insert general dungeon adventure here, notice evil orcs in a land that previously had good/neutral orcs). They find the message from Julie. They also find (amongst other treasure), an amulet that radiates magic. This amulet actually contains the big bad's essence.

Through a time portal. That ends in a nasty golem infested gauntlet. Find evidence of someone else having gone before. Find the invisible remains of "Sheriff Alex" towards the end, in a room that has a type of Golem that can see invisible creatures. Note, none of the Golems in the entire place will attack Megan (girl the big-bad was obsessed with) for any reason.

Out of the time portal into the primeval age.

Valley with Dinosaurs, large oversized mammals, unicorns, and wells, lots of wells. Creatures in the wells similar to Morlocks, but a lot stronger (they regenerate, the leaders have all the powers of Ogre Magi, and few others to boot).

Morlock thingies attack each and every night (after the first) until their numbers are exhausted.


Big bad sneaks in silently and invisible the first night and takes a small hair clipping from everyone. Disabling any guards with magic if needed. Big bad begins making clones with his limited clone spell. Big bad ALREADY cloned Megan 5 years previously from a hair clipping he took while he was still with the group, that one is a full clone (which is much harder to do and much more expensive).

Things of note scattered around the map.

Unicorn meeting encounter is scripted.

Various ancient/prehistoric encounters with little relevance to plot.

Characters discover and investigate the OTHER side of the portal, the one they came through in there own time, it is still under construction. No message from Julie there yet.

A Cyclops cave with a cyclops willing to talk for a while before trying to cook the characters "now get in the stew pot like good girl fairy tree hugs". No humans in this world, besides the big bad and the players, so most intelligent monsters will assume the characters are fairies of some sort.

Halfling village. Not really a village so much as a series of holes with naked pre-historic halflings hiding in them, who the Morlock things like to eat on a regular basis. 2 of the 3 halfling characters are scripted to leave the group (NPCS), to teach them how to be real halflings, thus becoming Littleman and Yondalla.

Characters meet the big bad, who is quite friendly. He shows them back to his place, tells them all about the world and his assorted adventures since they last parted (and explains what happened when they parted). Towards the end of the meeting (in his home) he asks that the female characters step outside for a few minutes (here, go give the Kobolds some treats, they will like that), so they can discuss some "male issues". He then presents a 25 year old Megan to all the male players. Both of them explain that the younger Megan cannot know, that forknowledge for her could have disasterous results. Players will assume that this really is the REAL Megan, just older, and not a clone.

Players leave, thinking plot is going one direction, when in reality the big bad is finishing up making his clones of the group, so that he can trick Julie into leaving the message, thus drawing the party back in time so that he can snatch the REAL Megan, because he knows the clone one isn't real, and she (being a clone) is sterile.

When clones are complete he teleports Julie away in the night, she awakens with her (false) companions in a mockup campsite. There is a wagon with a red door on it, they open the door (before Julie can say anything), and the big bad comes out and "captures Megan" (who is a clone), and "kills" everyone else (the other clones, who were teleported and not disentegrated like he claims they were), he then tells Julie, I have another disentegration spell for you as well, and he begins a spell, of course she runs. His spell is really suggestion, he "suggests" that she leaves a warning message, which she does.

Meanwhile at this time evil clone Julie is in the group, and evil clone Megan may or may not be as well (depends on how things are going).

Eventually they will figure the clone thing out, fight the clones (who are easy to beat for the most part, being imperfect clones, with fewer hit points and lower scores). Find their way to the big bad's real fortress (and get sidetracked on the way with a modified version of module G3 "Hall of the Fire Giant King").

That is as far as I have written. I haven't written the endgame yet, but eventually real Megan and evil Megan will get switched (evil Megan having drank a youth potion to turn back a few years so she can pass for real Megan). Evil Megan is not aware of the REAL plan, she thinks they want the real Megan so he can do a mindswap with them and put her mind in the REAL body, so that she can have children.

I already incorporated the Labrynth ideas into the game on the other side of the portal, they come out of the portal into the Labrynth-esque area.

In the endgame the player's should have to save Megan, face the Big Bad and the Evil Megan (who is a lot more powerful than the real Megan, being 5 years older and having spent that whole 5 years adventuring with the Big Bad in the high powered primeval era). Big bads research shows that the pre-human mind-flayeresque old ones who used to live in the jungle possible had the time stop magic he needed to get back to the present.

What the characters don't find is the clone of the big bad. He started a FULL clone growing the minute the characters came back. Figuring he will need it if he fails, or if he succeeds he can kill it before it wakes up (never let a full clone wake up in a world that includes the real one, they will mind link and head straight for each other with murder on their minds, Megan and Megan clone are safe from that effect because Megan clone woke up and lived 5 years in a time that did not include the real Megan). Clone wakes up, continues building his portal to bring the characters back in the first place, once it is complete he transfers his essence into the amulet that the characters will find. They will carry that to the past, and eventually back to the future as well, where he will have a chance at coming back again. Players won't find any of this out for ages, I don't plan on having the big bad come back for probably a REAL year. But I scripted it now to make it easy later.

Players look for old ones, ruins, yada yada, find a long term timestop scroll, and use it to come back to where they were before. They will overshoot by 3 years, coming back 3 years later. The world will mostly be back to normal, except for the (garbled) references to them in the halfling pantheon, and the fact that Kobolds are no longer a savage race at all, but have late Rennaissance technology, and worship "Blocky" the all encompassing cube (Megan's Diety, who was a personal Diety, but keeps getting spread around due to her time travelling prothesilyzing). Tech was caused by the Big Bad's Kolbold servants gaining middle ages level building and forging tech way too early from the big bad, religion is the fault of clone Megan, who told them all about Blocky.

Then from there they have to deal with the fact that in their 3 year absence the Big Bad from THIS time (a good leader, destined to go bad), has gone from good to neutral, wiped the Goblin race from the continent, built castles near every town in the realm, and has declared war on the spacefaring goblins as well.

Complicated and nerdy, eh?

[Hoagie_one]

i have had some experience with teh dopleganger approach.  When a character is fighting himself and the other PC's are watching, trying to figure out who's who.  I like to secretly roll whether the PC is himself or playing the doppleganger, and Then Id be playing the charcter.  that way, the other characters can just say, I wanna hit the one that didnt just do what he said.