Groundhogs Day / Edge of Tomorrow style campaign opener
Feb 22, 2019 14:28:58 GMT
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Post by kaizahpinguin on Feb 22, 2019 14:28:58 GMT
Hello everyone,
I will start a new D&D 5E campaign for my current players next week and would love any and all feedback on the opening I have in mind. The style of which is Groundhog's Day / Edge of Tomorrow / Russian Doll (Yes, I dare to place those three on the same level).
So, the players will begin with new characters in a city which they got to know in the previous campaign. They will be level 1 and by fate (aka coincidence) have stayed in the tavern I have also already established.
In the morning I will have to force them to be at the same table for breakfast at the same time, which is historically problematic but I think it is OK in the first session. They will sit there with a few interesting NPCs at other tables (this is important) doing something weird (I am thinking a Seagull Aaracokra mother feeding her child in, you know, the slightly disgusting way birds do, while blocking the sight between the child and the dwarf eating scrambled eggs next to my PCs - get it, eggs?)
That dwarf NPC next to my PCs has some money problems: his daughter was cursed by a demon with an illness only curable with a wish spell or equivalent magic and that stuff is expensive. Luckily he is kind of an underworld hotshot and got his hands on an artifact, a metal globe of around 1 ft. in diameter, with a lot of movable pieces all around. Identify says that when the riddle is solved, it will enable the user to trap all creatures within 10 ft. in a time loop of 10 hours, starting back where and when the artifact was activated. These creatures remember the previous iterations, but others in the area (around 30 miles) don't. The loop stops after about 100 iterations. Of course this artifact is extremely valuable, but that dwarf is also extremely greedy. So he wants to increase the value by solving the puzzle before selling it. Sitting there with my PCs, he suddenly finishes the puzzle and accidentally immediately activates it, causing the globe to disappear and a slight shockwave to rock through the people at the table. He will quickly move through the stages of grief with a big focus on anger, swearing about himself and about the stupid design of that ************** piece of ********. Then he walks out.
PCs will then probably split up and describe how their normal day-to-day life looks like. In the afternoon, the city is attacked. The nature of the attack depends on the end of the current campaign. In any case there will be goblins decked out in uncommon items by a BBEG: one is flying around like Firefly with a flamethrower causing mayhem, two others have stealthy equipment, climb on houses and assassinate people, one has a wand of magic missiles and uses its charges to kill 1-2 people per round and so on. The PCs will likely die quickly, to the goblins or other attackers.
Then they all find themselves sitting at the breakfast table again, with the Aarakocra mother regurgitating in plain sight, but without the dwarf next to them. They can find out it is the same day, but they have no way of knowing if they are in a loop or if they were only revived once. So what now? Warn people and not be taken seriously? Flee? Prepare for the coming fight to protect people?
The rules of this situation that the PCs can find out by experimenting are:
Pros of this opening:
Absolute freedom to establish the characters without consequence. Have a lawful/good PC see that a chaotic/evil PC stole a lot of stuff yesterday and confront them. Have a heroic PC try to minimize the harm to the town. Have all of the PCs deal with the fact that one or two PCs have races/ancestries/species that have no "human" rights here, being murdered on the street in plain sight with people clapping applause next to them.
Force the PCs to work together no matter who they are. Everyone who is alone when the attack starts will be punished by me by having way more goblins on their butts than the grouped-up PCs. Similar things will happen in Sigil, you don't just walk around alone there.
Cons of this opening:
It depends on the players experimenting with the situation to learn the rules.
It depends on the players noticing that every day, there is one more merchant who was robbed than the day before.
It depends on the players not wasting too much time on trivialities during each day, until the next attack happens, while still not skipping from breakfast straight to the attack, because then they will lose opportunities to exploit the situation.
Thank you for reading this mess of a post. Any and all feedback is welcome. Regards, Kaizahpinguin.
I will start a new D&D 5E campaign for my current players next week and would love any and all feedback on the opening I have in mind. The style of which is Groundhog's Day / Edge of Tomorrow / Russian Doll (Yes, I dare to place those three on the same level).
So, the players will begin with new characters in a city which they got to know in the previous campaign. They will be level 1 and by fate (aka coincidence) have stayed in the tavern I have also already established.
In the morning I will have to force them to be at the same table for breakfast at the same time, which is historically problematic but I think it is OK in the first session. They will sit there with a few interesting NPCs at other tables (this is important) doing something weird (I am thinking a Seagull Aaracokra mother feeding her child in, you know, the slightly disgusting way birds do, while blocking the sight between the child and the dwarf eating scrambled eggs next to my PCs - get it, eggs?)
That dwarf NPC next to my PCs has some money problems: his daughter was cursed by a demon with an illness only curable with a wish spell or equivalent magic and that stuff is expensive. Luckily he is kind of an underworld hotshot and got his hands on an artifact, a metal globe of around 1 ft. in diameter, with a lot of movable pieces all around. Identify says that when the riddle is solved, it will enable the user to trap all creatures within 10 ft. in a time loop of 10 hours, starting back where and when the artifact was activated. These creatures remember the previous iterations, but others in the area (around 30 miles) don't. The loop stops after about 100 iterations. Of course this artifact is extremely valuable, but that dwarf is also extremely greedy. So he wants to increase the value by solving the puzzle before selling it. Sitting there with my PCs, he suddenly finishes the puzzle and accidentally immediately activates it, causing the globe to disappear and a slight shockwave to rock through the people at the table. He will quickly move through the stages of grief with a big focus on anger, swearing about himself and about the stupid design of that ************** piece of ********. Then he walks out.
PCs will then probably split up and describe how their normal day-to-day life looks like. In the afternoon, the city is attacked. The nature of the attack depends on the end of the current campaign. In any case there will be goblins decked out in uncommon items by a BBEG: one is flying around like Firefly with a flamethrower causing mayhem, two others have stealthy equipment, climb on houses and assassinate people, one has a wand of magic missiles and uses its charges to kill 1-2 people per round and so on. The PCs will likely die quickly, to the goblins or other attackers.
Then they all find themselves sitting at the breakfast table again, with the Aarakocra mother regurgitating in plain sight, but without the dwarf next to them. They can find out it is the same day, but they have no way of knowing if they are in a loop or if they were only revived once. So what now? Warn people and not be taken seriously? Flee? Prepare for the coming fight to protect people?
The rules of this situation that the PCs can find out by experimenting are:
- The loop back takes place at sundown, around 6pm, no matter where the PCs are, but only if they are on the same plane (which is relevant).
- Items a PC has on them when looping back stay on them. They can take equipment from the goblins and on the next day (the same day, but the next iteration I mean), the goblins will suddenly find that stuff disappearing from them in the morning and the PCs will still have it to use against them. Finding out this rule is crucial and I will find ways to show it if the players have not taken anything in the first 5 days or so or if they get frustrated and don't know what to do. After learning the rule, they can make plans to take down only one specific goblin per day, ramping up in power with the new loot they have each iteration. They can also steal from local merchants or guards because there will only be consequences on the day of the crime, except if they take something that is obviously stolen when a guard looks at them on following iterations.
- Looping back gains the benefits of a long rest, and after the first session (which should be 2 or 3 iterations) the PCs will reach level 2, but not higher if they want to grind this out (which I will let them know).
- The dwarf uses the unlucky situation as best he can: to steal everything from everyone, starting with the wealthiest magic item dealer in town. The dwarf will pay for items with gems fabricated by the spell "Fabricate" and disappear through a portal before the 10 minutes are up and the gems become worthless plant matter. Next day he comes back, the merchant already noticed his best goods have disappeared and calls the guard. But the dwarf just scams the next largest merchant. Eventually, there will be cries of dozens of people at the same time in the morning, which the PCs can and will notice and which leads them to the trail of the dwarf and his portal. Stepping through that portal themselves lands them in the city of Sigil - suprise, this is a Planescape campaign!!! (My players know that already, don't worry I won't just spring that on them). Being on a different plane, the PCs can finally make it past 6pm and have an actual rest - but first they need to find out how to find a safe resting place in this city.
Pros of this opening:
Absolute freedom to establish the characters without consequence. Have a lawful/good PC see that a chaotic/evil PC stole a lot of stuff yesterday and confront them. Have a heroic PC try to minimize the harm to the town. Have all of the PCs deal with the fact that one or two PCs have races/ancestries/species that have no "human" rights here, being murdered on the street in plain sight with people clapping applause next to them.
Force the PCs to work together no matter who they are. Everyone who is alone when the attack starts will be punished by me by having way more goblins on their butts than the grouped-up PCs. Similar things will happen in Sigil, you don't just walk around alone there.
Cons of this opening:
It depends on the players experimenting with the situation to learn the rules.
It depends on the players noticing that every day, there is one more merchant who was robbed than the day before.
It depends on the players not wasting too much time on trivialities during each day, until the next attack happens, while still not skipping from breakfast straight to the attack, because then they will lose opportunities to exploit the situation.
Thank you for reading this mess of a post. Any and all feedback is welcome. Regards, Kaizahpinguin.