Campaign Help Needed!

[PencilBoy99]

I'm into session 20 of the Darkening of Mirkwood (right at the end of the last good year) and my campaign needs help!

1. I'm terrible at coming up with ideas for fantasy games, so that's part of the problem.

2. The only sessions the player's have really dug are the 3 parts of Tales from the Wilderland I've worked in. Those adventures are really well written, have lots of different parts and challenges, and are much better than anything I could ever come up with. See point 1.

3. The adventures in Darkening of Mirkwood quickly become very "thin" (completely the opposite of #2). Those sessions are not very exciting. I never have any idea how to draw them out or make them more interesting. See #1. This is very concerning to me, because most of the adventures from Darkening of Mirkwood from here on out are of the format Journey to X, do a thing that takes one step.

4. The players are completely uninterested in pursuing any of the undertaking kinds of interests the game is premised upon. I've given 3 of them standings, and except for doing the rolls, they don't really have any interest in doing anything with them. They have no investment in any of their home cultures, and I've prompted them for suggestions of things they want to do but no luck. Actually, the Man of Minis Tirith cares about Gondor, but that's kind of far away.

Any ideas? I'd love to be a creative fantasy GM that can come up with all sorts of great ideas (that also fit within the canon) like those of tales from the wilderland but no luck.

[Baalounet]

A little help from France (sorry for my poor english !)

I think you must create personnal enemies for your player with a hight rank in their cultural origin.
The only way to defeat them is to interest to their culture, not with weapons, like Grima in rohan

[Indur Dawndeath]

You can continue to combine Darkening with published adventures, like Ruins and the new Bree. And keep Darkening as minor quests...

[Rich H]

You can continue to combine Darkening with published adventures, like Ruins and the new Bree. And keep Darkening as minor quests...

The geographic locations of those are a barrier to doing this, unless you do quite a bit of work (at least on some of the adventures) to move them into Wilderland or have your players flying all over Middle-earth which feels over-the-top.

I personally think the OP is wanting more fundamental answers than the kind of things he's asking.

I'm away from home at the moment so can't give direct references but I think general fantasy campaign building advice, with references back to TOR in particular, would be the most help here. To the OP I recommend looking over the 'Tale of Years' (re: adventure summaries) threads many of us post here for examples of how campaigns are developed over time and personalised for the characters within the campaign.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8318
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2252
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4403
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9078

These are a good start but there are no quick shortcuts here; reading what others do and experience doing it yourself are the best ways of developing as a GM. There are some great guides to gaming as well that can be found online aswell - will try and reference some when I get back home.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I actually believe that you can successfully combine some the adventures in Ruins.
It worked for me.
So Beorn sends the players to investigate a hidden people in the Northern Anduin Vales, that probably will support Viglund in the fight unless the players manage to convince them otherwise: Nightmares of Angmar.
Following Thranduil to Rivendell in 2953, the players are tasked with a mission about a wicked Captain: Harder than Stone.
The Captain proceeds to Dol Guldur after his ralley and become a chief adversary in the coming struggle in Mirkwood.

The others may need to be modified and moved to Wilderland, but they are great adventures and will definitly get the players exited...

[PencilBoy99]

Thanks! I will do that!

[Rich H]

I actually believe that you can successfully combine some the adventures in Ruins

Some, yes. I agree and said that. Others would feel too forced or require a fair bit of work. The OP said he struggles with GMing fantasy etc so such work could be an issue but your specific tips for the adventures in question do help. I do however think that the OP needs to take a wider view and follow the advice I've given. GMing is an art and it takes a lot of effort to get competent at. Specific tips on using specific adventures is great but it's a band-aid to addressing the underlying challenges.

[PencilBoy99]

Band aids are fine for now

I never realized how much harder fantasy is than other genres.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I actually believe that you can successfully combine some the adventures in Ruins

Some, yes. I agree and said that. Others would feel too forced or require a fair bit of work. The OP said he struggles with GMing fantasy etc so such work could be an issue but your specific tips for the adventures in question do help. I do however think that the OP needs to take a wider view and follow the advice I've given. GMing is an art and it takes a lot of effort to get competent at. Specific tips on using specific adventures is great but it's a band-aid to addressing the underlying challenges.

I totally agree that it is vital for a long campaign to learn the GM skills you are referring to, and the advice is great. But I saw my suggestions as a way to keep his players interested while learning the art.
I myself have had to make several adventures up every year during our Darkening campaign and sometime there is no time to do it or the inspiration is missing, and then the published adventures are just great to have.
Like the OP I find many of the adventures in Darkening to be very thin, unless you really add a lot of your own material.
Fx. My group has just found the path through the Narrows, and now they are returning with emmesaries from Ceawin the Generous. I'll set up an encounter with Amaleoda and the players will have a diciding wote on the matter; if the settlement of Black Tarn will accept the help from Ceawin in exchange for tighter bonds of friendship and marriage between the houses.
Also as part of the search for the path, they were looking for Hunald, a Woodman who dissappeared in the forest recently. They need him, because he hold a treasure map to the fan made adventure "Treasures Long Lost"....
As you see I really need to load all sorts of stuff into the campaign to get some meat on the campaign, and that is great for me, but it requires work, that not all have time for.

The main thing is to have fun, and all the published and many of the fan made adventures are just great fun, so use what you can to get the campaign rolling.

Cheers

[PencilBoy99]

Is there a repository of fan adventures somewhere?