u/ThrowRA_5977

Let me start by saying I am running a campaign explicitly for the purpose of resolving my PCs backstories. I’ve been running one shots for my mom, my sister, their spouses, and my husband. We’re a party of 5 & me as the DM

During character creation, they all had really elaborate ideas of who they were as characters and left things open ended to be answered. I really love this idea and love being able to fulfill their fantasies in this way for them. I would go more into detail about other characters if anyone was interested but for right now I’ll tell you the problem I’ve run into:

My sister plays a tiefling. She asked if she could be from Avernus and I told her that’s fine with me. She was somehow someway sent out through a portal at the age of 1, she doesn’t know if she was kidnapped or if they sent her out. She was found in the woods as a baby by her adopted family but they were human and she never felt like she fit in. She left them at 12 and started living off of the land and in the woods (outlander background). She hopes to figure out what happened and find her family again

Now, im a little stuck trying to figure out how we take everyone else’s backstories that are taking place in the material world and moving them at the end of the campaign into Avernus. Also trying to figure out possible motives of why she was pushed out when her siblings weren’t. I would like for her family to be “good”ish devils and not have malicious intent because everyone else has a happy ending and I want that for her too

Ideas ive played around with:

-my mom’s character is a draconic bloodline sorcerer. I was thinking about having an evil wizard conducting experiments on her mom to figure out what makes their blood so special. So maybe somehow also tying that into being my sisters kidnapper?

-BBEG being some other devil/fiend who took her for malicious reasons and they come back at the end to finish their quest

-her mom being a fallen angel who lives in Avernus and that’s the reason she was taken

This is my first campaign I’ve ever run and only done 6/7 one shots. I’m just drawing a blank and would love to hear some ideas to play around with :)

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Just wanna do a cool lil one shot to scratch the itch of interacting with someone else’s world 🫱🏼‍🫲🏽🫶🏼

Was running The Hound of Cabell Manor last night for my party (really really fun for level 3 really recommend). If you’re not familiar with the storyline, there is a family plagued by a devilish curse and every night a hellhound and 4 mist hounds come trying to collect what is “theirs”.

After defeating the hell hound, the mist hounds came out of the fog ready for their turn. I described them as “they appear to be made of the very mist that is surrounding you”

I should mention at this point that my brother in law and my husband were a few tokey tokes in at this point, and it was like 1am. We hear my brother in law pipe up and go “guys! She’s here!!”

SIL: who’s here??

BIL: the lady!

SIL: what lady?!!

BIL: The Maid of the Mist!!!

We all collectively looked at him and asked what the hell he was taking about. Someway, some how, he heard my description of the mist hounds and how they are “made of mist” and thought I said “the maid of mist”

We were laughing so hard we were falling out of our chairs. I love my OG group

Bonus story: when the hell hound first appeared, my BIL (halfling sorcerer) wanted to hit him with a chromatic orb and use twin spell, but he wanted the twin spell to attack him twice instead of one target a piece. I told him if he rolled a 18 or higher I would let it happen just this one. He rolled a 19. The hell hound was blasted in 2 turns but everyone thought the roll was so epic they didn’t even care about that lol

Feeling really bummed out about the session I ran tonight :/

Been DMing for a little, but for my husband and his two siblings. I finally got my mom, sister, and their partners on board for a one shot. They’ve never played before so I helped them create their characters, their backgrounds, backstories, the whole 9 yards. Of course it’s a lot of work but I had fun doing it and was really amped to run the game

So tonight was the night, I ran A Most Potent Brew. We had some in game quirks like them going to an armory and weaponry, kind of being really leery about the mission and dragging their feet a little here and there but I know it was their first time and I didn’t want to railroad them at all so we worked through everything they wanted to do

Finally, we get to the nitty gritty and get the mission going. Then, all of a sudden, they literally just kept getting up for unannounced breaks, my mom was on her phone a lot, I had to repeat myself multiple times because someone was wondering off or didn’t hear because they were having side convos or just completely not paying attention

I just feel so bummed out, I was getting very frustrated and trying to keep everyone on the same page but we only got halfway through the dungeon. I will of course finish, but I just don’t think I see anymore games in our foreseeable future which really sucks bc I love DMing and only get to do it here and there since my husbands sister got married and moved states :(

Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of cool moments in the game, just feeling upset and a little disrespected