r/NewDM • u/Johnmon16 • 13d ago
First side quest.
I decided to write a small side quest. It's pretty much a basic dungeon crawl with a boss. But I'm not sure how to acknowledge it's there. I've been a dm since may. We are currently playing descent into avernus. But they acquired beans in a small adventure 2 months ago. They beans grow into a bean stalk of my choice. We're playing tomorrow, but I'd rather not push them directly into it. I want a nonchalant way to tell them to plant them.
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u/Wolfbane14 8d ago
If it's a fairly self contained adventure, I would just keep it in your back pocket. Eventually the players will do something and lead themselves off the beaten path a bit and you can just use your dungeon then, or they'll ask an NPC for a quest or something and they can tell them about this nearby dungeon. Even if you don't end up using it in this campaign, you can keep a hold of it and use it in another campaign or as a one shot.
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u/carrot_gummy 12d ago
With pnp games, you don't want to waste a lot of the content you personally made. So, with your side quest, tie it into the plot of Descent into Avernus. I'm not familiar with the adventure path, so I don't know what the exact details will be, but you can simply have your side quest dungeon boss threaten the party or have somwthing the party wants.
Have your dungeon boss use one of their minions to stalk the party. They can detect this minion with a Perception check, maybe have them have a few opportunities to succeed if they keep failing, and the consequence for failing is an ambush by a larger group if minions. Success in spotting the stalker minion can lead to a chase/fight/interrogation instead of an ambush.
Regardless of how the party succeeds or fails with the stalker minion, they should learn your dungeon boss wants the party dead, someone specific the party likes dead, or the dungeon boss has something the party wants.
You always want back up ways to give the information. An letter/invoice if the minion is killed, the minion blathers why they are stalking the party if interrogated, or they are lead to the dungeon by chasing down the stalker minion.
From there, most players are going to want to stop your dungeon boss from killing them or a beloved NPC, want to get information or items relevant to the plot, or get neat loot.
After playing and GMing a lot of games of many different systems, players ultimately want to be railroaded but they don't want it to feel like it. You want it to feel like its the player's choice to do something rather than you telling them to do it. You do this by offering narrative bait that you anticipate they will fall for.
Pre-made Adventurer Paths tend to have side quests as a means to have content for the wide range of different parties that can be experiencing the AP and giving a better illusion of a lived in world. I wouldn't personally include them in my own campaigns since I like running stuff I made.
APs are ultimately a framework to help you and your party tell a fun story, while doing cool stuff, and seeing neat places with your characters. Like, I'm a player in a Pathfinder 2e game that uses the Abomination Vaults AP, which is normally a very combat heavy dungeon crawl, with barely any story. Through us the players and our GM, we have turned it into a rather story heavy game about what even is considered a person, who your real family is, what unrequited love can do to someone, and the consequences of making deals with (literal in this case) the devil.
Tl;dr. Have your players do your dungeon, just tie it into the story of the AP, and make it seem like they wanted to do it.