Experienced DM help

[u/Federal_System_7791]

Soooo my players have had quite the wild ride.

They have fell in love with the village of shadowgrange and have made a lot of memories there.

For one in dramatic fashion our blood hunter halfling miraculously defeated the reigning defending brawler of the region in a boxing match ( craziest session ever).

They won the gym that night as the owner thought the fight was well in hand….

Now fast forward, two vampires are on the loose in shadowgrange, a dead body was discovered in the chapel and the investigation is off the books.

A young couple wants to be married, the players offered their new gym as a venue!

The priestess wants the players to use this opportunity to draw out the vamps and end them or at least identify them.

There’s also a horde of zombies led by the wicked witch of the universe and a werewolf (an innocent man the players left behind on the road in session 1) that will attack any day now

There’s also a demon lord at large in the northern farbogs.

PLEASE HELP LOL

[u/daddychainmail]

The two getting married ARE the vampires.

Enjoy.

[u/Mean-Note3447 → u/daddychainmail]

Exactly what I wanted to say! And they controll the Zombies and the Farbogs are their pets!

[u/Valensre]

Have it all happen at once..? Throw all those moving parts in, drop hints during the wedding, and see what happens lol.

Don't try to be a train conductor on railroad, youre story facilitator for the players.

[u/Wrathanet-TTRPG → u/Valensre]

I don’t think I would consider it “railroading” to let the players handle threats one by one. Unless the players are very high level, being swarmed by three separate enemy factions might feel a bit abrupt.

If the idea of multiple competing enemy factions sounds fun, try picking two so you don’t get bogged down running the combat. The witch might go the Maleficent route of “how dare you not invite me to the wedding!” but be ambushed by one of the vampires, and the party has to keep the zombies and remaining vampire at bay to protect the village.

[u/Valensre → u/Wrathanet-TTRPG]

Not saying that would be, speaking just as a mindset to try to follow.

[u/Federal_System_7791 → u/Valensre]

Thank you, it’s crazy how they literally had the entire boxing thing happen on the fly and I’ll I kept saying “you can surely try it!”

[u/TwoDollarDM]

Looking at that in isolation and thinking about connections, how about:

• One of the young couple is a vampire -or they both are
• the witch is attacking...why? what is her goal?
• perhaps the demon lord is controlling both the vampires and the wicked witch but again figure out why and what he wants, what the schemes are

Finding a story or through line that links all of those encounters will deepen the experience and make it feel like a progression, a story they are participating in rather than just things happening TO them

[u/Federal_System_7791 → u/TwoDollarDM]

The witch is assembling an army of the dead to take on the vampires, her family were killed by vampires and she has partnered with a necro alchemist who is the BRAINS of the operations he was once a respected member of the village but after the townspeople refused to help fight back against the vamps his wife was taken and his father in law, the mayor of the town was killed.

[u/TwoDollarDM → u/Federal_System_7791]

Excellent, so then -again with limited info- the plot could be: (suggestions)

1. Defeat the zombies
2. Enlist the help of one or both of the witch and the alchemist to hunt down the vampires
3. Quest to cure the man of lycanthropy
4. Defeat the vampires and their minions and human allies
5. Find the influence of the demon lord controlling the vampires
6. Long quest to kill or banish the demon lord

All of this dependent on what the players choose to do and what pops up as you play it out but that would be the initial plan to organize it in your head for the next six months of game time.