Introductory Campaign Help

[Baron Zamedi]

So, what do you know? My girlfriend has recently expressed interest in playing some tabletop rpg and I’m happy to oblige. The only problem is that I only have a few days to come up with an adventure and I want to make something special and, of course, something ravenlofty.

My first thought was to make an adventure that is role play heavy and combat light, so lots of investigation, problem solving, puzzles and such. Then it occurred to me that since my girlfriend is a preschool teacher and she loves children it would be cool to make something involving a child, maybe even as the villain.

Starting from that base I came up with an idea involving a child whose mother or father is falsely imprisoned and is gonna be imprisoned for a week before being hanged. The child develops some kind of bogeyman or invisible friend when this happens and this invisible friend decides to start killing of all the people involved on the false accusation of the child's parent. So the scenario consists of trying to discover who is killing all this people, how and why and in doing so maybe discover the framing that the child's parent was subject to, and do it all before the week is out.

Well my question to you fellow members of this fine boards are: What do you think about this idea? Is it good or maybe a little boring? Could it be too much for a beginner? And secondly, can you think of something to flesh it out? Any recommendations for a beginner adventure? Have had a plot involving children in the past?

Any and all input is greatly appreciated.

[Intrepid]

I have to say that is a very creative scenario and one I might draw inspiration from in the future.

My one concern that I would consider would be making sure that the child is not overly victimized or evil because if your girlfriend likes childen it could be a hard pill to swallow.

As far as fleshing things out.. I iwll chew that over and if I come up with anything I think might help you out I will make sure to share it.

[Epically]

My one concern that I would consider would be making sure that the child is not overly victimized or evil because if your girlfriend likes childen it could be a hard pill to swallow.

Or make the child especially victimized, as, afterall, this is a Ravenloft campaign. A good indicator to her if Ravenloft is the place to be for her.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Or make the child especially victimized, as, afterall, this is a Ravenloft campaign. A good indicator to her if Ravenloft is the place to be for her.

You've got to be careful with stuff like that. Knowing which buttons of your players are OK to push and which will truly upset them is a difficult task. When the player is your girlfriend, it's a bit easier, since you know her better than the average person (in theory!), but it's also more difficult, because the last thing you want to do is have her run from the house and then refer to you later as "that creepy ex- who played that game where he pretended to torture little kids." Like Intrepid said, I'd err on the side of caution, especially for her first RPG experience ever.

Really, I don't know how suited Ravenloft is to being a 1st setting to play in. I don't know if people really appreciate it until they've gotten a bit of the ol' classic slay the dragon, save the princess stuff to compare it to. As much as I love RL, what makes it special is the differences from "regular" D&D.

But of course, you can tweak the settings on Ravenloft as you see fit. So, for an intro campaign, I'd start with the dial set well away from "Super-Grimdark." The scenario laid out by Baron Zamedi is way cool, but already a bit dark. If you go with it, I would definitely make the kid an innocent. He may have idly wished for his father's enemies to die, but become spooked and scared when it really starts happening. I wouldn't have him controlling the bogeyman, or whatever force it is, even if he accidentally birthed it (due to latent psionic ability or whatever). But neither would I have the bogeyman harm him, since it sees itself as protecting the boy.

[Baron Zamedi]

First of all thanks for the replies guys, you rock.

Well my idea was to make the child a sort of unwanting "villain" in the sense that his distress at losing his parent is what triggers the events. And that probably the solution to all the troubles would be making him feel happy and safe again, so definitely an innocent. The real bad guys in the whole situation are the people that framed the parent.

Which leads me to my current problem, the whos and whys of this framing. Have any of you done something similar in a campaign and could throw some ideas my way?

[Intrepid]

The who's and Why's are always the trickiest part.

You could always go with the father was a good scape goat for a criminal group that really had nothing to do with him. This works for an easy solution and gives a sense of "sometimes bad things happen to good people". This also has the benefit of after your girlfriend figures out the who and why she has a group to work against in continuing adventures.

Another idea would be that the father did something to someone in the bast and they used framing him for murder as a way to get revenge. There is a lot of story fodder here such as another woman loved him but he spurned her or that he killed someone a long time ago and was never brought to justice.

Finally you always have the powers of Ravenloft to play with. It could easily be a family curse and the only way to stop the father from constantly being accused of crimes he didn't commit is to resolve the curse. This gives you an excellent long term style option that goes beyond the initial adventure.

Hope some of that helps get the ball running.

[Hazgarn]

One idea might be to make the boy and his father "undesirables" of some kind (e.g. homeless poor, foreigners, non-humans, or someone who is considered "marked" or "unclean" due to their profession, such as a gravedigger).

People on the margins of society can be made scapegoats very easily, because they are routinely denied the sort of protection that other people in a community are often able to rely on. And, for various reasons, people aren't likely to risk themselves to put things right. It could even be possible that the people in the village/town/community know that the father is innocent--they may even know who is responsible--and out of fear of the real criminals, or fear of being associated with the falsely accused suspect, would allow him to take the fall anyway.

A kid who has grown up aware that his family is "other", and vulnerable because of it, could harbor a lot of resentment about that. And if it is widely known that his father is innocent, and yet people are doing nothing, then that resentment can turn into hopeless frustration and powerful anger very quickly.

One interesting way to take this: Right now, the kid is an innocent. He doesn't fully understand what he is doing. But if nobody reaches out to help him, and he is forced to accept the violence as the only way to make things right, he might wind up embracing that darkness and losing his innocence entirely.

[A G Thing]

I like a lot of what Hazgarn said, especially for one key point about Ravenloft that we can often forget.

As much as it is about darkness and battling that darkness it is also about preserving and protecting the light and good in the world from succumbing to that darkness.

Making the kid be at risk of accepting that darkness and allowing her to try and save him from that is a powerful thing.

While the monsters and events maybe frightening the heroes get to be all the more heroic for facing them and the victory all the sweeter when it can save those they protect.

Just something I thought I should mention, as I have gotten a little wrapped up in the darker aspects and sometimes forgot the good things that keep the heroes fighting.

[Scipio]

Yeah, I'm thinking I may yoink this idea as an introduction to the game for my players...

[Deewun]

All of this sounds very strong to me as an introductory story. You have your basic "whodunit" stuff, then the Monster Revealed, then learning that you need to protect an innocent from going down the darkside. Introduce some memorable baddie to be a tempter and try to get the kid to turn to the dark side, and you have a tangible villain again that is NOT the child, once more creating the separation that might be a necessary boundary to make sure our kid doesn't look like Damien.

A lot of the details can fall in with what domain you want to start in. Is this in Hazlan, where they are Rashemi? Is it in Tepest and they are a family of graverobbers like earlier suggested? Are the family vistani? Heck, the kid could easily be a Gentleman Caller's spawn if you wanted to go that direction.

Also, is this going to be one-on-one roleplaying? Or will your girlfriend have a party with her? That'll help give us a better idea of "scope."

All of the ideas you presented I like. And I plan to steal.

[Baron Zamedi]

Wow, thanks for all the replies and the support.
So to give a little more background on this: My girlfriend character is halfling bard, an escaped slave from Falkovnia where she was a kind of handmaiden for her noble master's daughters (hence learning proper manners, entertaining skills and her storytelling act). We are gonna do this one-on-one but I plan to get a DMpc in the mix to help her out in case she needs it. The scenario is going to be set in Richmulot (which IMC is a lot more post-revolutionary France) pretty much just because I needed a place near the falkovnian border.

We just started the adventure in a short session where I mostly explained mechanics and I had her meet a certain merchant (the father in question) and his entourage who were taking a shipment of grain from Falkovnia to Richmulot. Along the way she learned that there is more than meets the eye about the merchant and his shipment. We finished with her just across the border having hidden in a cart to make it through customs and seeing the merchant pay off a falkovnian officer to let them through without too much off a search.

Where I want to take this? Well the "merchant" is in true a member of a drug dealing ring in St Ronges who recently acquired a license to trade with Falkovnia, and thereby, the means to smuggle abfalduz into Richmulot. This has unsettled the balance in the criminal organization and now one of his "partners" in crime, a long time rival, is determined to make his glory turn to ash in his mouth. He cannot make the drug trade known to the authorities but he can frame him for some other crime (still thinking which). In this way I hope to make the story even more “gray”, having the father being guilty of a crime, just not the one he is imprisoned for.

That’s what I got for now. Thanks for the advice, keep it coming. And to all who expressed a desire to use the plot, be my guest, I would be flattered.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

hmm.. random idea... now that the father is established as a drug-runner, you could have the manifestations of the bogeyman explained away as drug-induced hallucinations at first. abfalduz is more of a depressant than a hallucinogen, IIRC, but that might be a distinction lost on the authorities. "Looks like Hans had been hitting his own wares. He was heard screaming about being chased by a slavering beast before he threw himself out that window..."

[Baron Zamedi]

That's a great idea and a fantastic clue, I'm definitely going to use it!

Any more of those you come up with?