MAKE AN EXPLOSIVE D&D CAMPAIGN START

#Shorts

This is a ridiculous but fun start to a D&D campaign, if you want it to take place in the Astral Plane.

How it works:
Have one kobold hold a scroll of dimension door in one hand (or ring of spell storage), Bag of Holding in the other, have a buddy next to him that holds another bag of holding. With the Held Action they can shove the 2nd bag in the first as soon as they teleport, giving players virtually no time to react.
Why would kobolds do such a thing? A wizard threatened them, or a dragon asked them, and kobolds worship dragons, or any other reason you want really.

This is of course a bit railroaded, which is why I recommend it on session 1, when players don't really have bonds in the world yet.

Enjoy your campaign in the Astral Plane!

[MonkeyDM]

How it works:
Have one kobold hold a scroll of dimension door in one hand (or ring of spell storage), Bag of Holding in the other, have a buddy next to him that holds another bag of holding. With the Held Action they can shove the 2nd bag in the first as soon as they teleport, giving players virtually no time to react.
Why would kobolds do such a thing? A wizard threatened them, or a dragon asked them, and kobolds worship dragons, or any other reason you want really.

This is of course a bit railroaded, which is why I recommend it on session 1, when players don't really have bonds in the world yet.

Enjoy your campaign in the Astral Plane!

[Nestix_the_stupid_one]

My favorite campaign start I've ever seen on reddit:
Dm- "ok, so yall meet in a tavern"
Player- "wow so original ugh..."
Dm- "i-i... umm..."
*looks over notes, comes up with an idea*
Dm- "as you dangle from the hooks above you, you just barely see the butcher come into the room from the corner of your eyes"
Player- "wait what the fuck what do you mean hooks???"
Dm- "as I said... yall're meat in a tavern"

Fucking genius lmao

[samsonknapp]

My uncle, who was more or less the only DM I ever had, made up a few of his own special magic items.
One of which, was the 50 Gold piece bag. Basically it cost 50 Gold, and basically was a reverse bag of holding that held up to 20 gold of any non magical or nonliving thing you could think of. Basically you thought of it, reached in, took it out and however much it cost was removed from the total you could take out. Once it's value was depleted it became a normal bag.
However the big deal was, that if you put ANYTHING back into it...
It exploded violently. And the explosions size was directly proportional to how much gold value it still had.

[Mike-mmgg]

My favorite campaign start was a prison break. My character and one other had been planning the escape for months but the two other players had ended up causing issues with the plan forcing all of us to try to escape together

[bonecrusher]

One Campagnolo idea I have is based off of what I do for a living (I am a wildland firefighter) have the party start by doing a bounty and the capture the bbeg. Whell it gets dark and thay have to camp. Well when someone takes watch the bbeg puts them to sleep (via spell or poison your choice) and then in an attempt to kill the party he lights the woods on fire. By the time they wake up and notice, everything is engulfed and they are having to navigate a burning forest with falling trees, animals trying to escape, and 200 ft tall flames roaring through the woods around them

[treeckohero]

This, this is so perfect for my game. The whole premise is that they are the haralds of dead gods, trying to fight a different party so that they can revive their god. Oh my goodness, this is so brilliant

[theclarkmaster]

I always wanted to play a campaign were the first session everyone dies from a baldur demon and must climb out of hell to kill it.

[MerijnH]

I thought you literally meant exploding. Like the characters are high lvl adventurers chilling in a tavern and then a giant explosion kills them. In their dying moments they think back to their lives and the adventures they all had and then the campaign is just a series of flashbacks from lvl1 to wherever they start. The campaign then ends with "well that was quite the adventure, now let's get a drink at the tavern".

[samwaterlord]

Or what could be cool I’d have the entire campaign be held around the portal slowly growing and consuming the world around it, forcing you to run from its destruction as it basically chases you throughout the campaign

[Peregrinus_Umbra]

I actually did that to my players. A had no f idea what to do next. Now their campaign is to discover a smuggler githyanki gang on the rock of Bral, having friendship with a smiling beholder and having an Anubis cleric on their side :D we're having so much fun!

[yammoto]

One of my favorite starts was being marooned on a cursed island after being exiled from their home. Then again the DM was a path of exile fan so it makes sense.

[zakkaz]

In my campaign, they start in the middle of the forest with absolutely no memory, either there own name. The only thing they know is that they can trust each other. But i actually have a lore around this. Characters will sometimes see something familiar or have capacity that they remember. Exemple they go on a boat, and one of them is like « idk why but i think i can drive this boat ». And the big twist at the end, is that after beating the villain, they slowly start to fall asleep, and after a weird dream of the DM himself congratulated them, they wake up, in the middle of a forest, without any memories.

[kyleanderson]

The astral plane literally leads everywhere.

[cptcarlos]

My favourite kind of start to a campaign, the;

“Yeah, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got into this mess.”

Wherein you start the campaign off right at the beginning as a flashback, and then you can make up the end result as you go with the key ingredients being a monster that really fucking sucks, and a really good PC or NPC in a storyteller setting.

[lachydragneel]

The group and I woke up on a boat in cages.
One got eaten by a slime as is now a slime.
A dragon picked the boat up and that's where it started on a island

[duphasdan]

Any campaigns with kobold tends to be fun. Love those little guys.

[austinjeffries]

Bag of Holding in a Bag of Holding only makes the Bag of Holding into the first shut down. The Astral rift only happens when you do a Portable Hole and any other extradimensional space.

[svenabel]

DM: "Okay so in the Astral Plane, you can move in all three dimensions by thinking. So the higher your Intelligence Score, the faster- ah fuck you rolled up with all Barbarians"

[redhoodieguy]

I did this today, but instead with a wizard using a relic the party was tasked to collect in order to open a portal to another dimension.
They are loving it, so thank u very much for the idea

[Camabad]

I had a campaign beginning idea that had the party start in a wagon full of 'corpses', and I would have them roll wisdom and constitution saves to not freak out as they come to the realization. When they are able to investigate the wagons they would see that ogres are pulling the wagons and speaking about their boss wanting bodies and complaining about working conditions in giant tongue (In case any party member knows the giant language).
If they flee they will reach a nearby town and figure out that everyday the ogres come through to collect anyone outside that looks dead enough, or make anyone who gets in their way look the part. If they miraculously steal a wagon or search the wagons, they will find out that many of the people are still somewhat alive.

This campaign would be set in a dark fantasy setting and the early big bad would be a hag using the corpses as food, spell components, or undead. servants