Ok, so i eventually got around to dming, i made a mistake and the first game was set in faerun but i was so unhappy with the game i run (regardless of how happy the players were) that i never want to run in that setting again.
Anyway, i've been into greyhawk for longer than FR but i'm surprised about how little i know about it, i have the greyhawk gazetteer so i have the info i need to run it but i have no idea what places are good to start a campaign i mean honestly there must be some places that work better than others for a newb right?.
Anyway, i've been looking at hardby lately and ive got some info on it from dungeong magazine about the place along with a map etc but i'm not too good at writing city based adventures so i was wondering how the place would work for a hub fur a campaign so to speak where the pc's adventure into areas that surround the general area of hardby.
Also any suggestions on some basic ideas on adventures would be great.
The trouble with FR is your players often may know as much if not more about the setting than the DM. Anyhoo, Hardby, in a lesser way that Greyhawk City is, serves for a good 'homebase'. If you are not ready for city action, I'd send your players on local dungeon crawls. The Abbor Alz hills are rife with dungeons and lairs: Star Cairns, Ogremeet, and more. Beyond the hills is Maure Castle which you can find in Dungeon 112. Northward toward the city is the Mistmarsh where you can do swampish encounters. To the west is the Gnarley and not much further on the Temple of Elemental Evil. Hit the dungeons, collect the loot, send em back to Hardby where they can spend the treasure and accumulate some NPCs contacts and gradually learn the city and branch out.
Thanks, maybe trying to do simple story/plot adventures, with lots of killing and looting maybe good for me starting out.
I dont buy every dungeon magazine that comes out. I mean i did for a while and found that some issues were so boring that i couldnt be bothered. I"m not entirely sure if 112 is still on sale here if its the latest one then it probably hasnt been out here yet. I live in australia and our newsagent that sells them is a month behind at least most of the time. I'll try to pick it up :)
Ok, so how do i go about making Dungeons interesting, besides just teh promise of loot, i mean there must be a way to make dungeons interesting or the plots and rumours in town make it seem like a intruiging place to visit or explore besdies just the general idea of what is lurking or what can be found there.
One idea I used to make a dungeon more interesting, though I really didn't take advantage of it in my own game, was to give it a history within the greater Greyhawk history.
To make it a little more interesting, I had to use a fairly well known part of Greyhawk history so I chose Vecna.
Basically, there was an elven city who opposed Vecna during his reign over the Ur-Flan. Due to their magic, they could easily thwart anything Vecna could throw at them. That was until he became a demi-god, at which point he buried the city under an avalanche from the mountain that overshadowed the city.
Two thousand years later, and there's a small hamlet existing over the city. The mayor of the town knows of it and he and his ancestors have plundered parts of it. But he's managed to keep it secret from the locals, excepting one dwarf who found out from another source and moved to the hamlet to set up a tavern there, and secretly mine an entrance to the 'dungeon'.
However, being too weak to venture in there himself, and finding he really likes running a tavern and is a great chef and ale brewer, not to mention becoming the town ale conner, he needs someone else to go in to make him rich. Enter the PC's.
There are lots of ways you can make a dungeon interesting. The best, is to start with, "Why is it there? Who built it?" and then just go with the flow. And remember that not all dungeons have to be dungeons, they could be cave systems, buried cities, ancient underground lairs of a lost civilization, abandoned mines, etc. _________________ In more modern times, only Delglath of Rinloru is known to have crafted any items from the stone of this atrocious place. Even masters of the dark arts such as Xaene and Karoolck would hesitate to follow.
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