Idea for D&D themed story

[Artlebnarg]

Hello, I recently signed up and have been thinking up a couple of stories to write, one such idea is a D&D campaign where the protagonist starts off as a bit of a maladjusted jerk but gradually becomes more and more deviant and corrupt as his powers start to go to his head. Mostly because I think D&D goes really well with stuff like mind control and transformations and would like to see more fantasy with that.

This is my first story, I really want it to go well so I thought I'd ask around if anyone had any advice or comments.

I've already got a rough timeline set up and a fair chunk of the cast thought out, the characters (being randomly generated) ended up giving a party comprised of;

• The main character, a human psychic mage who can cast virtually any spell they know instantly but only one or two spells per day and their pet rock.
• His older half-elf brother, a stealthy cleric of thievery.
• A hard-drinking halfling thief with a penchant for nut-shots and who learnt Orc by picking up swears down at the tavern.
• A rather uninteresting but highly obnoxious elven witch.
• Morkil, the dwarven fighter that somehow managed to roll amazingly for all his stats and is basically an unstoppable tank, who only wears or wields armor and weapons he crafted himself.

I am using a whole bunch of old, non-copyrighted adventure modules as the main bulk of the story, mostly because a fair number of them are really quite poor in terms of writing (one even containing bits where the author copy-pasted without changing anything), just to see if I can rewrite them into a more cohesive whole.
I am worried it could be rather slow-paced though.

...this whole explanation was shorter and better in my head.
What I'm asking is, does anyone think this is a good idea or not?

 

[elmerstories]

I am using a whole bunch of old, non-copyrighted adventure modules as the main bulk of the story, mostly because a fair number of them are really quite poor in terms of writing

"non-copyrighted" as in public domain? Creative Commons? Even if it's badly written or not officially registered, an original work is copyrighted the moment it's created (Keyword is original). You can give away your right to a work by putting it in the public domain or with some restrictions (Creative Commons), but the author should make it explicitly known or have given permission. I'm all for seeing more DnD adventures, but I would start from scratch to avoid plagiarism and to let it be your own.

I wouldn't worry about the pace. It's better to have slow-paced piece than a rushed one, after all. That said, you can certainly liven it up by putting characters into pre-established relationships beforehand

 

[Artlebnarg]

Thanks for the reply, it took me a while to check that they were creative commons (90% are so rushed and brief they dont even have that on them) but the original world idea also works, it does mean I'm going to have to rewrite what I've got so far though, which means I'm probably not going to get anything up until the new year (I want at least the first 3-4 thousand words done properly before I start posting).
A lot of the reasons for the pre-made modules were the poor writing, where the authors have copy-pasted the villain's statblock into the damsel-in-distress' and thus they're both evil or Ettin's riddle (considered some of the worst writing in an official module), I was planning on actually seeing if I could use those errors as plot points.
Now that I think about it, making an entirely new campaign is probably easier than stitching a dozen modules together.

The pre-existing relationships idea is interesting but I'm not sure I could actually fit any in anywhere...hmmm.

Do you think it might help make the story seem a little less linear if I had some short stories/one-shots set in the same world on the side? (I'm thinking the phrase "Dragon-rider" in a interesting direction)

 

[gscmar64]

Like the main gist of your story,well thought out!. Pacing can be deceptive in anyone eyes,it all comes down to the readers attention span. If i may make a suggestion have you considered the entire party is being affected by an outside element slowly changing each of them?

 

[raziel83]

The average (minmaxing) rpg player character only cares about getting stronger. They are likely to pick up any magical item that seems very powerful. Even if it is still in the hands of the villain they just killed. ESPECIALLY if it seems like it was the source of the villain's power.

Having the magic items start to influence the characters seems simple enough and makes a nice point about the dangers of greed and lack of caution.

 

[Artlebnarg]

@gscmar64: I actually really like that idea, the party slowly being altered in different ways as they try (and fail) to figure out and stop whats happening. It doesn't quite fit what I've got planned but I might end up writing it for a different story...maybe I could name it something like "Campaigns of Corruption" or something like that, have both the larger stories in the same place as the short ones too.
That's what I like about this website, if I'm conflicted about which way the story should go, I can simply write both!

@raziel83: That was actually one of the key events leading up to the main character's descent into depravity in the original script, where they have the option of finding immensely cheaper and stronger magic items at the expense of having a dark godmind from the future give them nightmares in an attempt to create the series of events leading up to its creation and the characters seeing if they can somehow get away with using them.
I might end up using something similar in it, you are right though, the main character does seem the type to strip and use every thing they can get away with (in multiple senses of the word).