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Post by Sceadugenga on Dec 22, 2017 0:24:01 GMT
So, I came up with this campaign hook idea a while back and thought I would share. I have yet to find a place to use it.
Your PC's are guests at a wedding. After some hobnobbing and roleplaying with each other and colorful guest NPCs, they settle into their seats for the ceremony. Suddenly, partway through the ceremony, the groom (or bride) disappears from apparent magic. From here, the PC's go on a quest to discover where the groom has disappeared to. Has he been abducted by a rival kingdom? Did he stage the disappearance to wed a secret lover?
As I see it, this hook has a couple of advantages:
1. Weddings are places where a bunch of people from diverse backgrounds are thrown together in the real world. Aside from who invited them, there is no need to explain away how your PC's know each other.
2. Wedding traditions are an integral part of understanding the mores and expectations of any culture. Throwing your PC's into a wedding is prime fodder for worldbuilding.
3. If you make the couple royal or noble, it gives you the opportunity to play with political intrigue. What happens to a potential alliance when the wedding designed to ally two kingdoms is interrupted?
I hope this is helpful! Let me know what suggestions and tips you have for improving it! If you use it, please let me know how it goes!
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minerfinn1
Commoner
Posts: 12 
Favorite D&D Class: Ranger
Favorite D&D Race: Drow
Gender: Male
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Post by minerfinn1 on Dec 22, 2017 0:36:48 GMT
I love this idea! i have this NPC (Minerva) that i have been developing in my last few sessions, and i have decided that i want to get the PCs really invested and friendly with this NPC, and then kill her off as a start for a quest, and i think this idea would work perfectly with that!! like maybe ill have Minerva be walking up to the groom, and the PCs are sitting in the front row, and they see minerva fall to the ground with an arrow in her back, and catch a brief glimpse of her killer as he darts away.
second idea: maybe ill have minerva's would-be-husband grieve for minerva, but never really get over his anger. maybe he becomes like Dracula in the Castlevania anime and blames everyone at the wedding for the death of his wife, so he falls into a paranoid rage and goes on a quest to kill everyone who signed the guestbook.
thanks for the awesome ideas!!!
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Post by Sceadugenga on Dec 22, 2017 0:57:49 GMT
minerfinn1, that sounds like a wonderfully emotional hook for an adventure! The whiplash of wedding bliss to horror is a powerful motivation. I also like the idea of Minerva's finance becoming an antagonist. I love villains who have relatable motivations and that certainly fit the bill! It would be interesting to use him as a foil for the PC's. Both are seeking justice, he's just doing it in a drastically destructive fashion. How will they react when they encounter a warped version of themselves?
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minerfinn1
Commoner
Posts: 12
Favorite D&D Class: Ranger
Favorite D&D Race: Drow
Gender: Male
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Post by minerfinn1 on Dec 22, 2017 2:46:57 GMT
minerfinn1 , that sounds like a wonderfully emotional hook for an adventure! The whiplash of wedding bliss to horror is a powerful motivation. I also like the idea of Minerva's finance becoming an antagonist. I love villains who have relatable motivations and that certainly fit the bill! It would be interesting to use him as a foil for the PC's. Both are seeking justice, he's just doing it in a drastically destructive fashion. How will they react when they encounter a warped version of themselves? maybe when the players finally track down the killer, Minerva's fiance has gotten their first, and is about to do something unspeakably inhumane, like banishing them into another plane forever, and the players have to decide weather they are going to let him do it or not. if they let him, then after he does, the fiance will accuse the players of also being accomplices and fight them. but if the players dont let him kill the killer then the killer helps the players kill the fiance, but escapes afterwards. |
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Post by blakeryan on Dec 25, 2017 11:12:42 GMT
characters need to be tied into the wedding
so you can have the wedding party either related to the pcs, or people in note in their guild/church etc
if your players get into it you could always have one of them catch the bouquette, and an older family member try to set them up with people at the wedding
this would in fact be a good way to start the campaign
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Post by Sceadugenga on Dec 25, 2017 22:57:58 GMT
characters need to be tied into the wedding so you can have the wedding party either related to the pcs, or people in note in their guild/church etc if your players get into it you could always have one of them catch the bouquette, and an older family member try to set them up with people at the wedding this would in fact be a good way to start the campaign Yes! Thank you for the suggestion! It could be very fun to have all the single PC's do a dexterity roll to see who catches the bouquet. |
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Post by babblebox92 on Jan 21, 2018 17:41:13 GMT
I also agree with Blakeryan about the characters needing I be tied in with the wedding. Maybe they are there as travelers that saw a public noble wedding in the square. Thought it would be a fun simple time to celebrate before they hit the road. I like the idea of the bride disappearing to signal a ready battalion from a feuding house to crash the wedding in revenge for past wrong doings. The party finds her and she has this speech of "I don't care if I die bringing about the ruin of house ___, "and goes into her justification. The party can react to that as they wish but they're about to be ground zero for an unsuspecting massacre. help her take the wedding down, defend the grooms party or flee and become suspects for accomplices to the attack. Kind of brings about more questions I guess but fun to play with.
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