Fixing "Don't Say Vecna"

[Hemlock]

Hopefully this isn't the wrong subforum for planning actual play.

Motivation and problem statement: WotC's 20th level Vecna adventure (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1264-free-level-20-d-d-adventure-face-off-against-vecna) is kind of terrible, but I want to use it anyway as an onboarding ramp to teach D&D players how to play Dungeon Fantasy, not least because I can give them the WotC version after the adventure so they can compare their experience to how things would have turned out in 5E's ruleset.

One of the biggest problems with the module though has nothing to do with rule system and everything to do with roleplaying. The adventure doesn't really have any hooks! It spends a small amount of design energy on explaining the backstory of three NPC scholars in the adventure, and essentially zero energy on reasons why the PCs should care about getting involved.

Every time I've tried to find a way to run it for my regular players, I've instantly hit a roadblock: I can't even imagine what reason I can give the players for why they should go in to the obviously dangerous, maybe haunted tower, beyond "it's there." Even if I start them in medias res inside the tower, the sensible thing for them to do is to leave. I need a hook!

I think I've got one now though. Two opposing hooks actually, with a twist.

Prereq: one or more 250+ point delvers (i.e. starting characters are okay, since beating Vecna is not a mandatory goal)

Scenario hooks: a scary patron a la Scrogo or Lady Aimara (Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2) has learned that a trio of wizard hermits have a lead on a powerful magical artifact, an undead prosthetic hand fashioned from the remains of a great archmage of ancient memory whose name shall not be spoken. Aimara or Scrogo wants the PCs to find the wizards, trick them out of the info or pay for it ($50,000 are provided; PCs can keep whatever is unspent as a reward), and bring back the wizardhand artifact, in exchange for favors and rewards. (If pressed, another $50K would not be too much to promise.) The employer issues a threat though: do not even THINK about keeping the wizardhand for yourselves, or you will have the rest of your lives to regret the betrayal.

Before the delvers depart however, another secretive offer is made by a rival organization such as the Veiled Alliance or the Justice Underground: "please, please, do NOT give the wizardhand to anyone, especially [Aimara or Scrogo]. Destroy it, and you'll be recompensed in any way we can, with knowledge or favors or backup when you need it."

In any case, when the player characters reach the wizard tower, things are not as peaceful and scholarly as they were led to expect. In fact, the area around the tower is crackling with dangerous magical energies, no one is answering the door, and the atmosphere gives you the major creeps. It turns out that someone else is also interested in the hermit wizards' research about where to find the Hand...

Notes

The actual adventure can pretty much be played straight, but this way players, Vecna, and the hermit wizards all have clear motivations for what they're doing, or not doing as the case may be. (If the players turn round and skedaddle immediately, at least the GM knows what to do next: have the PCs arrested, disarmed, and perhaps imprisoned by an angry patron, but new allies also smuggle in weapons and/or try to help them break out of prison! And the patron still wants the Hand and may still want the players to get it.)

Parleying with Vecna should be the main focus of actually meeting him. Not just a fight, because frankly Vecna doesn't even particularly care if you kill his body, although that will certainly get you added to his Naughty list for when the time comes.

Stabbing him the eye sockets should get you an annoyed "stop that and listen closely."

Incidentally, Deathtouch for 6d as suggested in DF Monsters for liches is a fairly weak move. Instead, Vecna's goto move will be to find the most dangerous fighter in the party (Half-ogre Swashbuckler or whatever) and crush his mind like a beer can with Charm-25, and then have him start cutting down the others.

 

[squeen]

...crush his mind like a beer can with Charm-25, and then have him start cutting down the others.

Don't own it so I'm not much help. Characters make their own goals as play evolves. Motivation is money, levels, slowly acquiring prestige and (for my group) helping out PC "friends" --- i.e. getting to be heroes.

In an episodic vaccum, without campaign continuity, you are kind of left with nothing that matters. Players play because that's what's for dinner tonight---a necessary evil that's more than a little bit hollow.

 

[Alexander Moonbeam]

I'm not familiar with Dungeon Fantasy at all, so I can be of little help regarding its mechanics.

Regarding hooks, though, my advice is this: ask the players for their character's motivations. Level 20 PC's ought to be legendary heroes with years of experience and a whole roster of friends, foes, and agendas. Even if this game is a one-shot and none of that backstory was ever played out, it still exists for the characters. Use that.

 

[Hemlock]

I'm not familiar with Dungeon Fantasy at all, so I can be of little help regarding its mechanics.

Regarding hooks, though, my advice is this: ask the players for their character's motivations. Level 20 PC's ought to be legendary heroes with years of experience and a whole roster of friends, foes, and agendas. Even if this game is a one-shot and none of that backstory was ever played out, it still exists for the characters. Use that.

In DFRPG there's not much of a power curve, and especially if I'm introducing new players to the game I don't need them to play legendary heroes anyway--starting characters fresh out of the monastery will be fine.

It's fine to ask players for backstory, I agree with that. But it helps a lot if you've got potential hooks lined up to connect their backstories to.

 

[Beoric]

Characters make their own goals as play evolves. Motivation is money, levels, slowly acquiring prestige and (for my group) helping out PC "friends" --- i.e. getting to be heroes.

Add "revenge" to that list. I'm going through some old play notes from a campaign I was a player in, and it looks like the hook there was an assassin who took a shot at someone in the party, and could be traced to the moathouse outside of Hommlet. Not sure if we weren't biting at anything else, but that definitely worked.

I also find rumors of loot, especially specific loot that one or more players already want or will solve a problem, to be very effective and a bit less complicated. Blackrazor, Whelm and Wave being obvious examples, but components to create a unique magic item, or spellbooks with unique spells that address a problem the party is having, are also good examples.

 

[squeen]

Add "revenge" to that list.

Hell yea!

 

[Hemlock]

I also find rumors of loot, especially specific loot that one or more players already want or will solve a problem, to be very effective and a bit less complicated. Blackrazor, Whelm and Wave being obvious examples, but components to create a unique magic item, or spellbooks with unique spells that address a problem the party is having, are also good examples.

Loot works but generally implies that you're looting a hostile location or entity, so you'd have to rewrite this particular adventure a bit because it's written as a liberation of sorts: Vecna has captured the tower where three neutral (or maybe friendly) wizard scholars live(d).

You could combine it with the revenge motif by making these three wizards responsible for sending an invisible stalker or other magical assassin after the PCs, coincidentally just before Vecna attacked them. It only works if the PCs have a history that would explain why wizards would want them dead or want something they have--probably not good for introducing new players to the game but maybe good in campaign play.

 

[squeen]

I finally read the adventure blurb you linked in the OP.

First question: Where is the map?
Second question: Why is Venca, a legendary arch-lich, in this tiny little tower adventure at all?
Third Question: What about all the rest of Limbo?
Fourth Question: What happened to the three wizards?

Seriously man, this adventure is really, really poor and cannot be saved. Level 20, my arse! This is junk D&D. Small, contrived, and shoddily crafted---a ridiculous 5-room boss-fight without any sort of setting to support it. That's kiddie stuff. There's nothing there you couldn't create yourself (only much, much better) in an hour or two. Don't waste your time with it.

We also learn from this adventurer this useless factoid which only serves to diminish our once awesome antagonist to the mundane:

Vecna was born in the world of Oerth. He was the son of a hedge witch and never knew his father. When he was young, his mother was exiled for practicing dark magic.

Wow. If only he had been given love and support as a child, he never would have become evil (...and you wouldn't be playing D&D tonight!). Worthless pop psycho-babble.
-----

Venca sets wards around the tower that sits in a bubble beneath an ocean of acid---that's why he went to Limbo, so he wouldn't be disturbed while he tortured the wizards for info and then killed them (you have 3 hours until the first one is dead). The moment anything penetrates the bubble, Venca knows there are intruders and he sends wave after wave of his minions to soften them up. Once they have been wounded sufficiently, he takes out the weakest survivor with Power Word Kill from an unseen vantage point inside. Interior doors are warded with explosive, damage-dealing spells and teleportation traps that dump you elsewhere in Limbo. He does not let them rest or use healing magic. Magic-users are silenced so they cannot cast counter-spells. Demons are summoned who start gating in allies. His archers inside the tower fire a cloud of arrows coated in lethal poisons through arrow-slits. Fireballs keep flying at the party from different locations using a wand taken from one of these idiot "scholars". He telekinetically flings characters into the ocean of acid (where there is nothing left to resurrect). Another character gets polymorphed into a worm for tomorrow's breakfast. Whenever the PCS get close enough to hurt him, he teleports to a more secure location. Passwall and gaseous form are ABOSU-F***IN'-LTELY allowed (and Venca uses them too)! He misdirects the PCs' primary attacks at thin-air using illusions while he watches invisibly before counter-attacking. He splits the party and picks them off one-by-one. That's Venca. That's high-level D&D. You are smart and have a plan, or you are dead---otherwise go fight kobolds and goblins.

Yeesh! No wonder there are no hooks---only a complete idiot would take on this suicide mission to altruistically help three academic fools who got what they deserved for playing with fire. There had better be some awesome treasure (not!).

 

[Hemlock]

I finally read the adventure blurb you linked in the OP.

First question: Where is the map?
Second question: Why is Venca, a legendary arch-lich, in this tiny little tower adventure at all?
Third Question: What about all the rest of Limbo?
Fourth Question: What happened to the three wizards?

Seriously man, this adventure is really, really poor and cannot be saved. Level 20, my... ! This is junk D&D. Small, contrived, and shoddily crafted---a ridiculous 5-room boss-fight without any sort of setting to support it. That's kiddie stuff. There's nothing there you couldn't create yourself (only much, much better) in an hour or two. Don't waste your time with it.

It's a terrible adventure, yes. Contrived scenario, missing pieces (no map, practically no hooks), thin content (only six "rooms" or so). I'm not sure but I think you may have missed the worst part, which is that WotC's Vecna only knows a handful of spells and is mostly dangerous because of his multiple huge melee attacks. *facepalm* It's like they thought they were writing Kaz, not Vecna.

I'm interested in running it anyway, or rather adding it to my arsenal of stuff I can run to entice 5E players to try another game system. Obviously I won't be running WotC's melee-centric version of Vecna, instead I'll be running a Dungeon Fantasy RPG lich from DF Monsters, which is why I'll be doing spellcaster things like mind control if players insist on fighting instead of parleying. (I want to run Vecna as a standard lich instead of a custom lich because honestly standard liches don't get enough respect--they are plenty scary if you run them right, as someone who's been studying magic for centuries or millennia.)

At the same time, the one good thing about this scenario as written is that we're not on Vecna's home ground, nor does a lich have any particular reason to feel threatened by physical violence, so it's easy to justify NOT going all out with the magical traps and summoned minions. For Vecna, after my rewrite, it's just an information gathering mission on his way towards reclaiming the hand that Kaz stole from him. Setting up elaborate defenses in somebody else's tower isn't necessary, and if PCs bust in on him he's got more reason to act like an irritable (and scary) detective than a "boss monster". (I will presume that the elaborate hand/eye/head lock was set up by the three hermit wizards to protect their research library, not by Vecna, and that he merely bypassed it without destroying it.)

Of course, I've also set things up so that players who are inclined to fight things can fight him, in which case they'll get to see what a DFRPG/GURPS lich is like, and compare it after the fact with what a 5E Vecna would have been like.

In a sense, the fact that it's a terrible adventure is the point. I want to be able to say, "see, look how much less fun this would have been in 5E!"

 

[Beoric]

It's a terrible adventure, yes. Contrived scenario, missing pieces (no map, practically no hooks), thin content (only six "rooms" or so). I'm not sure but I think you may have missed the worst part, which is that WotC's Vecna only knows a handful of spells and is mostly dangerous because of his multiple huge melee attacks. *facepalm* It's like they thought they were writing Kaz, not Vecna.

I'm interested in running it anyway, or rather adding it to my arsenal of stuff I can run to entice 5E players to try another game system. Obviously I won't be running WotC's melee-centric version of Vecna, instead I'll be running a Dungeon Fantasy RPG lich from DF Monsters, which is why I'll be doing spellcaster things like mind control if players insist on fighting instead of parleying. (I want to run Vecna as a standard lich instead of a custom lich because honestly standard liches don't get enough respect--they are plenty scary if you run them right, as someone who's been studying magic for centuries or millennia.)

At the same time, the one good thing about this scenario as written is that we're not on Vecna's home ground, nor does a lich have any particular reason to feel threatened by physical violence, so it's easy to justify NOT going all out with the magical traps and summoned minions. For Vecna, after my rewrite, it's just an information gathering mission on his way towards reclaiming the hand that Kaz stole from him. Setting up elaborate defenses in somebody else's tower isn't necessary, and if PCs bust in on him he's got more reason to act like an irritable (and scary) detective than a "boss monster". (I will presume that the elaborate hand/eye/head lock was set up by the three hermit wizards to protect their research library, not by Vecna, and that he merely bypassed it without destroying it.)

Of course, I've also set things up so that players who are inclined to fight things can fight him, in which case they'll get to see what a DFRPG/GURPS lich is like, and compare it after the fact with what a 5E Vecna would have been like.

In a sense, the fact that it's a terrible adventure is the point. I want to be able to say, "see, look how much less fun this would have been in 5E!"

Hmm, Vecna as a melee combatant gave me an idea for a scenario where the antagonist is a wizard, the pages of whose spellbook has been scattered, and the PCs race to get the pages before he does/his minions do. The more pages they stop him from recovering, the fewer spells he has to work with when they finally confront him.