Comments on: 10 Crazy Ways to Kick Off Your Next Campaign

By: Ken Denk II

Ken Denk II — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:24:21 +0000

3.5 game (Scarred Lands setting from Sword & Sorcery Studios), players: 2 couples, each pair of PCs attached to a different mercenary unit as skirmishers. Each pair sent with 3 NPCs to scout a patch of high ground between a desert and some foothills. Upon arrival, each scout patrol sees the other as their respective mercenary legions spy each other and combat ensues; 5 rounds later there’s the sound of a horn and a titanic skeletal dragon claws it’s way out of the earth beneath the clashing legions. Ghouls come loping in from the desert and the PCs and NPCs that survived the initial skirmish and the 2-3 ghouls that climb the promontory can only escape into the hills to find a convenient cave.

By: Peter Maxwell

Peter Maxwell — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:54:38 +0000

Starting mine out like. They all started out with the same tatoos on the forarms. They each got an invitation from a merchant guild to help him transport his good, they think they were chosen for there specific skills in what ever field (class) they are. Little do they know that those tatoos represent the saviors or destroyers of the world. They are the exceptional beings that have had the souls of fallen angels or devils within the blood. As they level up and get stronger that essence is revealed in there actions, if they do bad or good things. An evil necromancer located each or them and pair the merchant to gather them to set a trap and dispose of them, because they are his biggest threat. After they got gathered up by the merchant and were traveling they were ambushed and thats how it opened.

By: Zach T

Zach T — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 06:57:39 +0000

A fun start could be one of the characters getting kicked out of there home by there father, calling them a fool for not taking the family business and telling them they never want to see them again. (The pc leaves wanting to becoming, well, an adventurer or hero of sorts and declines the offer from the father) The father gives them a horse and tells them to get out of town or they’ll be sorry ( use better descriptions lol). When they get a short distance outside of town they will see a great shadow appear over them, and when they look over head they will see a great dragon fly towards the small town and belch fire across it. The PC will either hide, rush to town and save those that they can, or try to find there family. Theres alot of directions you can go with this introduction.

By: Justin Phillips

Justin Phillips — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 16:31:33 +0000

i wrote an adventure that starts by “you awaken to find yourselves passagers on a fastly driven carage. As you start to come to, you dont remember how you all got in the carage. A matter of fact you cant remember anything you’ve done over the last few days or maybe weeks. The windows of the carage are boarded up on the out side along with the two doors(if the PC’s ask to kick or brake down the boarded up windows and doors have them)role their Dex or lower at a -2 to do so.)” As a window or a door has been broken down the PC’s can see trees wiping by the carage at a very fast speed. (if the PC’s look in front or climb on top of the carage they notice that the carage is being driven to a broken brige hanging off the side of a cliff, by a small hooded humaniod creature.)(the cliff egde is only 300 yards ahead and the carage is aproaching very quickly(8 rounds before the carage is thrown over the side.)

Why where they in the carage?
Who put them there?
Who wanted them dead?

By: Ken Denk II

Ken Denk II — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:45:17 +0000

I stole a march from Roy Winninger’s old 2E edition Dragon Magazine column: Dungeoncraft. The PCs wake up in a large stone cell with several dozen other folks, all of them wearing rags. As the PCs realize that they are the healthiest of the lot, the NPCs tell them that they’ve been captured by some orcs and are being used as slave labor to excavate the buried ruins of some old complex, which has carved freizes along the walls near the ceiling in almost every room.
This way the PCs have 1) some reason to be together, 2) a reason to work together, and by the time they escaped, they had found their armor & weapons, slain the orcs and all the other creatures in the “dungeon”. They’d encountering ghosts in the far reaches of this complex and had started uncovering the secrets of the area. The PCs also hit 2nd level and ran into a big baddy (death knight), who dismissed them and left.
Several levels later, they met up with the death knight and destroyed him aboard the flying ship of his master, the PC wizard’s former master!

My wife reminds me periodically that her barbarian “captained a flying ship”. Classic.