New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

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Shurijo
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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Shurijo » Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:33 pm

Okay, looks like the 'kids' game that I was going to run (a level 1-5 adventure path) might be too much for kids (~9 years olds) so they decided they wanted to be bounty hunters. Which works great, because I can do a bunch of stand along sessions to keep their interests and attention focused.

However, that means I have to make up almost every single adventure/session. Here's some of my notes that I'll flush out later as session ideas. If you have refinements to existing ideas, that's great too. I'm just looking to brainstorm a few ideas, then pick a couple to start flushing out soon.

(Note - This will be Waterdeep/Forgotten Realms based, but generic ideas will be great)

I plan to print out a few 'help wanted' type BH posters and let them pick which one to take. I'll probably write up 2-3 (and find some sketches online) for first session and hopefully write up another one to add to ongoing list of advertisements each session.

1. Kidnapping - Rich noble has bounty open to find whoever kidnapped his fiancée. City Watched believes she just ran off, so they won't listen to noble. Group tracks her down and discovers that she's ran off to small village outside of Waterdeep with her lover. Plot Twist - do they capture her and bring her back or leave her with lover.

2. Caravan Bandits - Merchant's caravans have been robbed several times this year. Only robbed when no guards hired. When he sends goods via combined caravan, his goods are always taken and others not taken. He believes a fellow merchant is hiring bandits to rob him. Caravan outside of city, so city watch doesn't care. Hires them as hidden guards. Turns out that a third merchant hired them to set the other two merchants against each other.

3. Easy, Peasy they said - Bounty in small town under protection of townfolks and the town doesn't recognize legitimacy of bounty hunters.

4. Child Runaway - Noble child ran away. Find child. Part of massive child kidnapping ring. Werewolf cult kidnapping kids, taking to small village to prepare for the full moon hunt, where they release kids and then capture them and turn them.

5. Thief gets in over his head - Common thief accidentally steals a gem worth 10k gp, Noble sets BHs on him. Thief is very friendly and tried to get rid of it, but now knows it's too big to fence and he's scared of BHs/Nobles and just wants to get rid of gem and not go to jail.

6. Black Cat - Sorta like DC's Black Cat, robs from nobles and helps some poor (and herself). Turns out she's actually the daughter of a noble who hired BHs to find out where the family heirlooms went to. She's really nice to PCs. Nobel family invites them to party, she dances with them, etc.

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Vardaen » Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:07 pm

Sound like some good plot hooks. You can take any movie trope, or published adventure and slot it into a game with them tweaks. Some Magnificent Seven stuff (BH hired by desperate peasants to protect them from evil bandits) things like that. Keep in mind something straight forward, but I'm sure they will wander off,all players do regardless of age.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Shurijo » Thu Jan 24, 2019 2:31 am

Thanks. The Tropes is a good idea. I might try and find some old Scooby Doo type tropes and work those into the sessions. Now, I need to find a few maps for inspiration and ideas. I'll hand draw out the maps onto my battlemap with markers, but it's nice to have something I can look at for reference.

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Grimbold » Thu Jan 24, 2019 9:19 am

Some good ideas, I guess it cannot hurt to put in a pretty straightforward search and destroy or search and rescue or search and retrieve mission without any twists once in a while.
- Something was stolen, track down the thief in his hideout and retrieve it
- Someone was kidnapped, find out where he is and rescue him (maybe follow the kidnappers after giving them the money
- Revenge: someone killed my brother, go and hurt them

You might want to include a recurring bad guy, or bad organisation to connect things.

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Shurijo » Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:11 pm

Thanks for the good ideas. I'm hoping to set up a criminal organization (or two) that reocurrs. In the "Black Cat" (DC-esque) adventure, I'm hoping they befriend the thief and then use the thief as a NPC to call on when they need a burglar/thief. I'm hoping to run her as a 'robin hood' like thief. I just hope they don't turn into kid-sized murderhobos in every adventure.

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Vardaen » Thu Jan 24, 2019 6:14 pm

You can take the things Grimbold mentioned and link them easily enough. On the search and recover somethings strange is found. Or when they return to get their reward their benefactor has gone missing, so they have to go find them, etc. Kids that age will enjoy a more narrow scope I think. My son really likes Descent 2: Journeys in the Dark because of that and he's 11.
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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Shurijo » Thu Feb 07, 2019 10:09 pm

Game Journal, just in case anyone was wondering. We played about 6 hours of D&D over last Saturday and Sunday. If I hadn't taken a few hours break to print more maps and figure out what to do next, we could have played 8+ hours.

session 1 - Jake the Elf Bounty for Hire walks into Waterdeep and meets my half-orc paladin GMPC (pregen). First job is body guard of friend of friend of friend's daughter who's a reporter working on story about assassins guild. Reporter kidnapped and taken into sewers, so chase. Enter sewer, I had 2 kobolds killing and chasing rats around and making a ton of noise, I wanted to see if he'd shoot first or what. He ended up befriending the 2 kobold brothers (named "Bob" and "Bob") who was just killing rats for money as their job. Chased assassin, who turned out to be a wererat. Freed hostage, but wererat shifted into rat and fleed into sewer drainage pipe. fought rats, giant rats, giant poisonous snake, wererat

session 2 - returned to look around sewers with Half-orc, helped Bob & Bob by giving them some gear they found and the dead rats they killed, found secret door to assassin sewer lair, captured wererat 1, but wererat's brother arrived and they captured him too.

session 3 - found a ring in sewer lair, was just a generic signet ring that had no meaning and I expected him to sell it along with gems, but he is under the impression that everything is a clue, so he keeps every treasure that's not coins. So I turned ring into something related to his friend's friend (inn keeper). Inn keeper (retired dwarf fighter) asked him (solo) to go to keep to make sure his friends are okay. Went to keep, found it zombie infested, he ran around on keep walls shooting slow zombies like a elf would. Found a werewolf trapped in the keep, captured werewolf. Werewolf turned out to be assassin guild leader (wererats were lieutenants), bounded werewolf, but at night, while sleeping and camping on road back to Waterdeep, werewolf shifted and escaped, tracked for day, but had to return to his wagon and horse.

session 4- returned to sewers, recruited Bob & Bob as sidekicks (UA 5th edition), bought them crossbows, armor, etc. took them into forest for survival training with hunting and fishing. Killed brown bear, 2 boars, caught fish, etc. Bob & Bob are having fun now.

session 5 - return to city as heroes, reporter's article printed talking about how he saved her and stopped an assassin guild. Half Orc Paladin (who's name was Feng, but I accidentally and constantly called him Holg the entire day - Vardaen might remember Holg, Nirus' mentor) found the assassin's hideout in town, so they (HalfOrc, Bob, Bob, HalfOrc's dog, PC) went to hideout, fought a bunch of thugs, a zombie ogre (who had turned the others in keep into zombies), they made a bunch of noise kicking doors down which was cool, but alerted all the thugs and they got outnumbered quickly, the werewolf got away, they got beaten up really hard (I gave thugs too many HP), but eventually the last thug just ran away.

Magic items - longsword +1 (hideout), gift from dwarf's friend wizard (parent of reporter) was a magical quiver I invented that gives him access to a dozen types of damage (pull arrow, say fire, get fire dmg arrow, etc.).

Next session ideas - big feast at inn from the meat he took to get smoked (session 4), then as they are eating, weaponless, armorless, the werewolf's bust down door saying "Where's the elf!". Big tavern brawl - going to hand-wave a bit to get him knocked unconscious.

Next next session idea - The High Hunt - each season under full moon, Malar (evil lycan demigod) worshipers hold event where they release a captured prisoner without armor or weapons into forest (magical boundary) and have from midnight to sunrise to kill him. He'll be without weapons (he's ranger) and armor and without friends. Fighting a couple werewolves. Going to have him meet the demigod of rangers and the demigod will give him a hunting knife that has 'remove curse' on hit, so werewolves will revert to normal commoners. He's a survival kid (4h, classes, has box-a-month survival gear thing, etc.) so I think he might like that. I'm trying to figure out various things (like should there be survival checks to find Goodberries, should I have a dead elk there so he can make a knife/spear from antler, etc.). Also, he gets his ranger companion here, he picked a pseduodragon, so that'll also be in the forest.

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Vardaen » Fri Feb 08, 2019 3:39 pm

Nice session report, that's ALOT of game in one day.

I think your plan forward is a good one, survival checks for components, food and water, supplies, making vine rope or a dead fall trap,things like that are cool. Have ideas for what failure could mean without being to hard core against him.

Sounds like fun, I was curious about how strong the werewolves were without silver weapons, I like the knife idea.

Holg!!!! Sweet.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by RorytheRomulan » Sat Feb 09, 2019 7:50 am

Depending on what he picks for the ranger companion, you can drop hints about the creature being able to help him hunt. Also, I'm use the following pdf for a ranger character.

https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/down ... Ranger.pdf

Maybe there's a secret, powerful connection to the Feywild in this forest, and he happens upon a pool that can be used to scry into at plane. He sees Sehanine, who is both curious that someone has used this pool after so much time (and hopefully amused). She knows what has been going on in her backyard, and she is not happy. She can send the boy(?) some help, but she'll need him to follow her instructions for a way to allow her to send something (or someone) across the magical boundary/barrier to help him.

Idea
You could have a noble family, child and all, put up a request for someone to come and exorcise a spirit from their home with a Witcher-style spin on it. Good people who have a ghost problem the watch just can't figure out because whatever it is always seems to know when they're coming, so the watch just recommend moving to a new home (they believe the frightened child).

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New D&D "Kids Game" - Give me some interesting plot hooks

Post by Shurijo » Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:44 pm

He selected a Pseudodragon as his companion (special case, I'm playing loose with the rules since he's just 9yo).

Session 6 - Tavern Brawl :) Being greeted as heroes, they return to the tavern for a big feast. Late in the night, after they were well fed, a Malar cleric with 3 werewolves busts through the door and says "Where's the elf?". Most of the remaining tavern humans then shift into werewolves. They had to fight with plates, silverware, chair legs, etc. The dwarf tavern owner nearly knocked out a werewolf with his trusty tankard. Their gear was upstairs in their room being cleaned by his sidekicks (2 kobolds named Bob). His character was knocked out then he blacked out.

He woke up, tied up, bound feet and hands, gagged, in darkness. Riding in a wagon or something in the dark.

Session 7 - Malar clerics held the High Hunt and he and another NPC wizard were the prey. They had to survive in the magically bounded forest from midnight to sunrise before the pack killed them. He and the wizard had only daggers, hand axe, armor.

There he climbed a tree and meet the god of rangers (Gwaeron Windstrom) who told him where to find a special item. Swimming to the island in the nearby pond, he retrieved a hunting knife. He then went "Assassin's Creed" all over the werewolves, jumping down from trees and stabby-stabby. The knife did extra dmg to evil lycanthropes and also removed curse & paralyzed for hour on failed DC - so the werewolves turned into normal people. Since the normal people were helpless, I had to explain the difference between being a murderhobo and a good aligned ranger - which meant not killing the helpless commoners.

He found the wizard - dead - with the wizards familiar resting in a tree. The pseudodragon was scared and angry and he was able to befriend it. He survived until morning, then started walking back west towards ocean and Waterdeep (about 3-4 days away).

On the road, he finally encountered his friends (with his gear) looking for him.

Session 8 - On the way back to Waterdeep, he saw a goblinoid army raiding a town. Decided to help, took the bounty offered by town to capture the hobgoblin commander. Tracked down their cave, killed a few goblins, hobgoblins, and the hobgoblin captain.

Next - I gave him a Neverwinter D&D graphic novel with Minsc and Boo in it, I thought he'd like it and he loved Minsc/Boo as I thought, so now he wants to travel to Neverwinter - probably by boat - and wants to buy a 'pirate boat' so he can sail around the coast

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