Help me out /tg/
on Wednesday I'm DM'ing my first game, and I decided to do a custom one-shot.
The story will revolve around the players all trying to stop a necromancer from stealing the town's children. I want a big "Oh, Shit!" twist, but I'm not sure what.
I'm also not sure how to end the adventure. Any suggestions? I'm open to everything.
All the children have been dead for weeks, without anyone noticing. The Necromancer is just retrieving his experiments.
so wait why does the necromancer want to take children?
>>47039370
Why the town's children? Why is the Necromancer doing what he's doing? How is he stealing the children? Why this necromancer, why this town, how many children?
>>47039388
What I first thought of, maybe a little on the nose. What about a Pied Piper of Hamelin thing? The necromancer took care of a ghoul/ghost problem, the town didn't pay up, so fuck 'em he's takin' their chidrens.
>>47039391
This is a good place to begin. Decide what the Necromancer's motivation is.
the children are annoying
>>47039397
The revenge thing could work. It's cliche, but it's a solid cliche. It won't make your players go "HOLY SHIT, WHAT A TWIST", but it would definitely work as a believable motivation. The necromancer is still a bad guy, but he's a bad guy with a motive other than just being generic evil.
One idea I had, was that the necromancer was taking them in the night to try to cure them of a disease that they all have, but he is immune to, and that the "twist" would be my players got it and died, but that sounded fucking stupid.
Children were stolen by even eviler dude and were replaced with kender. Necromancer is also evil edgy fag, but he hates kender more than he hates everyone else, and that's his motivation to steal kender and murder them PAINFULLY.
>>47039429
>still
Tge necromancer is actually the towna children put into one body. He accidentally switches their minds.
>>47039429
Plus, it makes the townsfolk look like dicks.
Alternate twist: the townsfolk suck, are abusive, make the children work in industrial revolution sweatshops, and the necromancer is trying to save them from a bad situation and teach them a useful life skill, owing to his own tragic past.
>>47039445
>Tge necromancer is actually the towna children put into one body. He accidentally switches their minds.
This is original, but it's also confusing and kinda silly. From my experience, making the plot too twisted and complicated tends to confuse players to the point where they have no idea what's going on or what they should do next, and that's usually more problematic than fun. If you're new to DM'ing, I suggest treating yourself to running a fairly straight forward story, at least until you get the hang of it. This will also make future plot twists a lot more effective, since the players won't expect them.
>>47039448
That's trying a bit too hard, though. I personally enjoy "both sides are kind of dicks" stories more than "the bad guy is actually pure good and justified, and the good guys are definitely evil and unlikable" ones. That's just me, though.
>>47039495
Not just you. It's just we now.
>>47039495
Yeah, Pied Piper works best. Plus then the story becomes "will the party risk the lives of children over a couple hundred gold?"
The answer is probably "yes" but it'll still be interesting to play out. Bonus for a kid getting killed and the party having to explain to grieving parents that yeah they coulda just forked over the money, but we needed that money for a +2 shortsword.
>>47039611
It's a good moral dilemma. And from my experience, your players' decision might actually surprise you. That's what makes GMing fun.
My advice to you as a new DM is that while it's really tempting to set up elaborate, twisting plot threads, you should always expect your players to just do something you never expected, destroying your plot completely. This is a good thing, that's why I gamemaster instead of just writing books.
>>47039370
There are no children, the village is actually a large bandit settlement and lure adventurers in with promise of work and gold. After they lure em into a trap and slaughter them spectacularly, they take their belongings or sell off survivors if there are any
What if the necromancer is just an old hermit living near the cemetery and the kids are all coming to him of their own free will to get their pets brought back?
The necromancer is the children. Three of them, sat on each others' shoulders under a big coat.
