This is advice seeking from GMs. I've GM'd games for over 15 years, and am also an avid writer. Over that time I've started to notice a small pattern of... Call it taboos that if I include in a custom adventure the players get a little disgruntled over. They're good story points though, with twists or sometimes are the entirety of an adventure unto themselves.
I've watched a few things on bad GMing, like too much history dump on players and whatnot. Those things can be fixed, and maybe it's just me struggling to properly write the following types of things for an adventure not a story. So maybe you could offer how to improve making these plots and McGuffins more satisfying to players.
1) Following a legendary hero across the land. Whether the players are hunting this individual for help or insight, they're following along seeing the scars of the hero's victories, but also the things left behind that the people need dealt with.
I tried this one once, as I was writing a book, having the players following my book's protagonist. The reason being later he was to be a villain possessed and they would have to defeat him. It would have probably been better to start them at the him evil part, sent to solve the issue, but doing the concurrent follow I have issues working without players feeling the story isn't anout them.
2) Starting in a dream. I had an idea to start the players in a level 5 dungeon with their characters, then just before the end of thr dungeon they wake up as their level 1 selves in their hometown to start the adventure there. Later at level 5 they would visit the dungeon again to see the end.
The two versions of the character irked some people. And the fact I set their backgrounds as all living in the same town.
3) Player betrayal. I don't promote PVP, but sometimes a plot is just too good. Had a player want to betray the party at the last possible moment of the adventure because they killed the woman he loved. Big boss fight, but as you can guess the PVP aspect wasn't cool. Especially if the betrayer player won.
4) Temporary power boosts. I wanted to do a campaign with collecting themed artifacts that when used in specific circumstances offered huge power boosts for fights with character-important villains. Had players miffed boosts weren't permanent and some of my next plot point.
5) 1v1 dueling. Not PvP, but the heroes each having uniquely constructed villains and moments where a player has to confront their rival mano a mano. There's a lot of tension for the player involved but the rest can feel waiting for their turn.
The other bit on this is the earlier ones feeling like they were ripped off having their fight when they were so much weaker. Doubled if you also tie in a power boost.
6) Collecting people for a task. Plenty of stories involve collecting specialists for something. I've found players get mad when they aren't tge specialists, because they feel the story isn't about tgem. It's about the people they're collecting and they're glorified messengers.
7) Twist: the item was a kid. Sending players off to destroy an artifact or something only to find it's a child. You want the moral quandary of realizing killing a kid would be wrong, but players sometimes just wanna win... Or if it's not something to be destroyed, the players hauling around a defenseless character I've had them just want to dump them off.
8) Prophecy and plot pivotal NPC murder. I had one story I wanted to run where 4 PCs and an NPC are the party, then give them a poker hand of a straight flush, except the NPC character, who has the right number but not suit. They have a strong hand, and the NPC, knowing the strength of their hand is representative of their power against their enemy's hand.
The enemy of course cheats, using tools the players couldn't have kniwn about, and the weak card NPC is killed. The players can't win without the character, so need to change fate. This suffers again from the plot revolving around the NPC and not the players for a large segment. Additionally, prophecy has the additional problem of if one of the PCs dies and that same leverage is not applied to them, you write yourself into a corner.
9) Temporary allies. I had the pkayers need an escort through the mountains once. When it was over there was betrayal, NPC death, and other things, but the NPC remaining the players wanted to keep. I had ni intention of keeping this character, but the players were hard on not wanting to let her go.
10) Escorting a powerful character. One of my GMs did this one. We met a wild sorcerer really early from another world and vowed to get them hone. She was a pretty bad Mary Sue though, and there was some tension that the story was about this NPC most of the time, not the players.
So then. Can these plot points be effectively used? Or are they just taboo and shouldn't be touched since they take the spotlight from the PCs?
1) This seems fine for a somewhat-railroaded campaign (as the explorers can't take too long or go too quickly or it's ruined. Diablo 2 is technically based around the Wanderer
2) I don't mind it. I like having false encounters and such personally. That said, designing two character sheets may be obnoxious and nerfing the characters could go either way. I'd rather keep them the same level and maybe they find the dungeon at a later level and it's harder or something.
3) Not big on it but if it were planned it's fine. Normally you want *everyone* to be in on it before it occurs as far as I understand it. Haven't done it myself. EDIT: I did plan on killing a player with a Succubus if they fell for the ruse and then having them play normal for some number of sessions until the Succubus attacks the party; with that character having been dead for a number of sessions. I think a doppleganger betrayel thing based on the player doing something hideously dumb (like going to bed with a succubus) is potentially fitting if you think your group can handle that.
EDIT Side note: The player wouldn't have known they were dead for a number of sessions; but additionally i'd have provided Sense Motive checks and such for the party to realize something was off. Technically, the player *could* have survived if my secret rolling went in their favor as well.
4) Make the boosts permanent but specific to a task (+2 damage against Orcs) or have the player Choose to give up the boost by giving them something attractive to "drain their power into."
5) It's fine. Just try to make it so everyone isn't bored watching. Be willing to kill PCs if they fail, consider doing it only every once in awhile to a single PC for good reason. Have it be their choice as that causes investment and interest; and keep it short enough.
6) Sounds like something went wrong here. Either the players should feel necessary (since they're integral to the plan) or the players were immature.
7) Moral quandaries are difficult if your group isn't into it. Just consider who is in your group if you're going to pose it.
8) Meh. Convoluted and potentially predictable.
9) Allow the players to choose to play her; but still only allow 4 PCs at once. It's still a game and needs to be balanced in a variety of ways; which the NPC can screw up. Either they leave for a good reason or they can't participate all the time for some other reason.
10) Almost the same as 1. I would only do this for a session or two; and probably for a big plot reveal or some sort of "I'll hold on <X> while you guys go do <Y>." Think of a game where the Boss has to focus on the big NPC for a moment while the players solve a thing. This can be even better if you present a major Moral Quandary right here; making them choose between the NPC and the Boss to decide something interesting. Whoever they will assist will win (unless it all gets bungled.)
Try to keep it about the players, give them choice, but have the NPC be helpful. My players captured and used an NPC recently, thinking it'd join them just because it helped them once; but in reality it was intimidated into helping each time so of course he wasn't sticking around. Had they approached it different; maybe?
_______________________-
For context; I run my campaign with perma-death and you don't get to build your replacement. Your replacements are NPCs you've found along the way that join your cause. Players can readily swap characters (and should) in order to level those characters. Additionally, it takes feat-tension off of crafting and such since you have other characters to do some of that downtime-stuff with.
This makes my considerations of 6, 8, 9, and even 10 skewed. Additionally, it means I can more readily deal with 8. If someone dies; it can be a PC or NPC and it makes the same difference.
For #4, I already do (permanent and possibly conditional) boosts based on quests, player actions, and other stuff to characters. These often make them feel cool for doing something and since it's not an item it gives a unique un-obtainable bonus to the character. It also allows me to hide "you need this" kinds of bonuses in the party long before they're necessary; allowing them to feel like the bonus is them being creative in solving the big problem they encounter later.
Example: "<some god>'s Blessing: You may counter a single Fire spell as a swift action once per day; instead, you can change a single enemy hit into a miss once per day."
Some number of sessions later, a nasty fireball you had planned maybe gets countered. Players will feel great for dodging 60 damage (or w/e) while if they use the ability willy-nilly they get blasted. Their fault!
Interesting ideas! Some I really like.
Following a legendary hero across the land. Whether the players are hunting this individual for help or insight, they're following along seeing the scars of the hero's victories, but also the things left behind that the people need dealt with.
On the surface, this doesn't seem as interesting. I think the idea is good, but if the entire campaign is simply following, I think I would get bored. Crossing paths with the hero, becoming disillusioned by him, becoming worried about, deciding that they have to do something about him...then its the PCs plan, not yours.
Starting in a dream. I had an idea to start the players in a level 5 dungeon with their characters, then just before the end of thr dungeon they wake up as their level 1 selves in their hometown to start the adventure there. Later at level 5 they would visit the dungeon again to see the end.
Your players sound a little whiny about 'starting in the same town.' If that's what is established during character creation, then ok. I would say, that this sounds incredibly hard to carry off, and if you don't have the right group of players, this would probably just fall on it's face.
Player betrayal. I don't promote PVP, but sometimes a plot is just too good. Had a player want to betray the party at the last possible moment of the adventure because they killed the woman he loved. Big boss fight, but as you can guess the PVP aspect wasn't cool. Especially if the betrayer player won.
Full stop; if the group killed his love, meaning murdered her, then you know what? I'm all for the betrayal! That's great storytelling and roleplaying! However, if this messes stuff up IRL for friends...well..maybe they shouldn't have killed the woman to start with. This does sound like the possible end of a campaign, however. ;D
4) Temporary power boosts. I wanted to do a campaign with collecting themed artifacts that when used in specific circumstances offered huge power boosts for fights with character-important villains. Had players miffed boosts weren't permanent and some of my next plot point.
5) 1v1 dueling. Not PvP, but the heroes each having uniquely constructed villains and moments where a player has to confront their rival mano a mano. There's a lot of tension for the player involved but the rest can feel waiting for their turn.
This on the whole just sounds uninteresting to me. I have a friend who, when he DMs, always tries setting up these big huge events of powers and bombastic items. It just feels more like story Macguffins for a DMs dreams of plot coolness versus cool PC builds.
The rest to me fall under 2 categories:
-the idea is an awesome story. However, RPG are about adventuring, not fulfilling story parameters for a book editor.
-no matter the game, Escort and Protection missions suck. My thought. When you take away the PCs ability to control their choices and future path in lieu of fulfilling an adventure plot point for the DMs, I immediately don't care.
Also, as fun as roleplaying amazing characters, and really getting into their heads and mindsets, moral quandaries can be fun-but the exception to that is killing kids. No thanks, I still want it to be fun.
Very good insights. Yeah my groups in some cases may have been the problem. Number 10 in particular I was one of the players for that game. There was a moment our barbarian got taken down so one of the "big bads" took him and basically said we hand over our McGuffin sword and NPC or they toss him off the bridge. My rogue, being the leader, trusted our ability to save the barb via our bard's readied action healing and my iwn incredible mobility. The GM fudged it a bit for the moment (giving the enemy extra actions) whihch I don't blame. When the barb got thrown and my rogue dove off the bridge to save him it was a cool moment. We would have barely survived the fall and been swept to sea.
It was undercut when the NPC sorc dove off after and cast feather fall... A spell none of us knew she had. The NPC became a Mary Sue that took away a lot of the best moments from the campaign.
Rant aside I actually realized I forgot 2 of the main plot points I wanted to talk about.
11) The party loses. Not outright killing or TPKing the party, but putting them in a situation they are intended to lose. Whether to show the gap in power between the PCs currently and the odds they're against, or to introduce a powerful foe for later.
I actually did the latter and was playing with some variant permanent injury rules. They ended up cutting off her arm, which as a spellcaster was devastating, but one of the players (the one who was GM with the Mary Sue sorc) complained to why I would make them fight something so much stronger that, had I played smarter, could have TPK'd the party in two rounds.
12) An omnipotent, ever-changing foe. Get right to the point with this one, it was 4e D&D. A simpler time, very different game, but I had the idea after watching some of the old D&D cartoon to have the GM as a deific being. His Chaotic half running amok. As an enemy he would have an ability to change his class at will (standard or full round action), gaining new abilities, resistances. One turn he could be sneak attacking, the next unleashing a fireball. This was easier with 4e since it was as simple as swapping out his powers with another class's.
Just never had a game get to 20+ without players disappearing for personal reasons or TPKs.