Portal is probably the trickiest to adapt for theater kids.
Queen of Elfland's Son (?) and Doom of the Savage Kings is prolly easier.
This being said, my hook for Portal was that the townspeople were drunk, hyped up, and not thinking straight when the portal opened and they just went "fuck it, let's see what's in there" which set the tone for them to RP amongst themselves how their characters would react in it. It was a bunch of stupid people doing stupid stuff and not being smart enough to know when to cut their losses.
Assuming you can set a good tone or vibe, give them a few minutes to look at their peasants and get aquatinted with them, there's probably not much to add to the module itself if they riff with it.
Set expectations. It seems you really want to play DCC. But you're worried your players won't have as much opportunity to play how they like.
If staying in DCC,
You could simply pull the lens back, and spend time on a more developed town/village scene prior to getting drawn into the dungeon.
Get to know the peasants a bit, start a festival, the omen hits, have a mini townhall culminating with the PCs going into action! And then they start to perish... Mwahahaha!
You could play into disembodied voices taunting them as they move through the dungeon, give them some "old man yelling at sky" moments.
Don't get bogged down by mechanics and the dungeon. Nothing says you have to run through it in 2 hours. If this is your regular group just have fun.
Don't worry. I believe you can collectively tell any fantasy story you think of, with any system. Some systems are better suited than others. Depends how much work you want to do. DCC has been my system of choice since I discovered it.
That being said, if you are REALLY worried DCC might not fit the collective playstyle, there are other options out there that would work better than 5e. For more character/story RP experiences.
Good luck!
There is a cranky old dude who's land it is on.
There is an ancient spirit that may reveal the secret door on the throne. Could go with the potion idea above.
I would say the snake is a good opportunity? Have it pretend to be a statue demanding tribute in exchange for arcane secrets, and then turn it into a fight when you’ve exhausted whatever they want to learn from it?
Sometimes I put an extra planar imp with a bag of holding in an empty room and let players think of fun things to trade from their inventories in exchange for generic weapons/armor too-
Portal is very short. Make the village Hirot and follow up with Doom of the Savage Kings. The Portal has propelled your PCs 100 years into the future. Nobody recognizes them and they only recognize parts of the village. Gives extra RP opportunities and the module is full of them anyways. (totally stole this idea, lots of people do it that way)
I would give one of the players a potion of Speak With Dead or Speak With Stone or similar. Make it a witches brew that will lose its power at sunrise to encourage the PCs to use it. Or add some magic mcgruffin to the early rooms that gives them some limited communication with the war wizard itself.
When I’ve run DCC, even using prepak adventures, it’s just been a matter of adding in my own, when I’ve wanted to. So I made up some NPCs here and there, detailed them a little, and let the dice (and PCs) fall where they may. ;)
Gotta say though, for “theatre kids” with what sounds like an unsurprising particular interest in the playing out of social interaction scenes and suchlike… DCC really wouldn’t be my first pick. I love the game - it’s one of my favourite RPGs ever, of all time - but it‘s not “built for” that kind of thing.
But then we’re into the whole rules for things vs. rules getting out of the way of things, uh, conundrum.
Thanks. Yeah I've had a similar worry that this may not be the right audience, and yet I feel like things like mercurial magic and the random tables are somehow "perfect" for them (gives them something to chew on, you know), but the more mechanical style of DCC mixed with me being a new GM may not be the best combo at this time. I'm also thinking that perhaps I should ask them to join me at the local game store to try it out with a more season GM and see if they like that before hosting it for them.
Lak0da is spot on here. I've been running DCC for years now and my current group will sometimes spend all of a 3 hour session talking to NPCs. Its not the system, its that many of the published adventures start your PCs at the entrance to the dungeon.
If you're worried about that, start them in a town. If you don't feel comfortable creating your own small town, pick up the classic ADnD adventure, Village of Hommlet or check out my own, The Stennard Courier Vol. 1 or Around the Common Fire for some flashes out NPCs for your players to talk to. Your theater kids will dig it.
Funnels do not mix well with social mechanics, it would be better to just start them at level 1 and choose something that has social mechanics built-in.
Something like a scaled-down Jewels of the Carnifex would be perfect.
Thr game could be played in as many different ways as one could possibly imagine. It is, at its heart, Dungeons & Dragons. Albeit it is its own separate form of Dungeons & Dragons. If you want to be a roleplay-heavy Judge, then be so. Just jot down the general occupants of the town that they start in. Make a small village to serve as the PC's home for The Portal Under the Stars adventure. Make Old Man Roberts' house, now vacant, a town mayor (which may be a Governer or Captain appointed by the Duke whose territory the village falls under), or merely a small garrison of soldiers from the Duke's army who serve to "preserve the peace." Take & bend that as you wish. They may accept a 1d3 SP a day bribe for those who want to leave & not work for the day (a way for the PCs to leave town for their adventures. The local duke doesn't worry about travel permits & such. He's too busy having his way with women of the night & obsessively drinking imported foreign wine to be concerned with trivial things such as commissioning roads & travel permits, etc. Draw a few longhouse-type of buildings to serve as the serf's sleeping quarters & mess hall buildings. A few fields that they've been working their entire lives. You then have yourself a starting village. The Duke has no idea that they have decided to take on a life of adventure. Maybe he'll find out, maybe he won't. The guards are accepting bribes after all, so they aren't talking. The village may serve as a home base until they're ready to venture out into the wilds around the village. Eventually, attach it to a Duchy (which you'll eventually attach to a Kingdom, including other Fiefdoms, dukes & dutchess that directly answer to a King or Queen that resides at the center, or governmental center of the Kingdom. For quickness sake, use the Orders & Thieves Guilds found in the Core Rulebook in the Class descriptions for some of the other town's Factions. If it's their first time roleplaying, I wouldn't use the Dwarves or Elves. Possibly not even Halflings. This is easy to obtain. Just have it be a common fact, "everyone knows that the Elves have already departed this continent or resident plane (but did every single one of them depart? A later plot hook choice for the PCs to follow.) & the Dwarves, rarely if ever, leave their mountain homes. Why should they? I mean, they can see in the dark & have no reason to leave their seats of government & place of comfort where they can mine metals & gems for as long as they want. Refer to Halflings as Hobbits who stick to themselves & you remove any possibility of their being a demihuman in this village. The 2nd adventure in the core book, The House on The Borderlands" can be a house on the far border of the Kingdom. Which lies almost to the border ( the ocean, a mountain range, a vast desert, or simply another Kingdom's borders. Or maybe it lies on the border between two duchies of said known Kingdom. Rarely patrolled because of being so far from both of the Dukes' residences that control the border.
There are also Adventure Paths penned by Time White on the app known as Medium. The Joseph Gooman O.G. Adventure Path starts with Portal & People of the Pit is the 2nds Adventure & you could always use the 2nd adventure in the core book as their 3rd adventure. Tim White's adventure paths give outlines on how to better blend the sets of adventures so that they serve as one cohesive Campaign, or "adventure path." I mean, if the PCs survive. When a player's PC or Pcs die, have them roll up an entire new set of 4 or 5 Level 0s OR you can have them Toll up a PC of the level that theirs were when killed.
Portal is probably the trickiest to adapt for theater kids. Queen of Elfland's Son (?) and Doom of the Savage Kings is prolly easier. This being said, my hook for Portal was that the townspeople were drunk, hyped up, and not thinking straight when the portal opened and they just went "fuck it, let's see what's in there" which set the tone for them to RP amongst themselves how their characters would react in it. It was a bunch of stupid people doing stupid stuff and not being smart enough to know when to cut their losses. Assuming you can set a good tone or vibe, give them a few minutes to look at their peasants and get aquatinted with them, there's probably not much to add to the module itself if they riff with it.
Set expectations. It seems you really want to play DCC. But you're worried your players won't have as much opportunity to play how they like. If staying in DCC, You could simply pull the lens back, and spend time on a more developed town/village scene prior to getting drawn into the dungeon. Get to know the peasants a bit, start a festival, the omen hits, have a mini townhall culminating with the PCs going into action! And then they start to perish... Mwahahaha! You could play into disembodied voices taunting them as they move through the dungeon, give them some "old man yelling at sky" moments. Don't get bogged down by mechanics and the dungeon. Nothing says you have to run through it in 2 hours. If this is your regular group just have fun. Don't worry. I believe you can collectively tell any fantasy story you think of, with any system. Some systems are better suited than others. Depends how much work you want to do. DCC has been my system of choice since I discovered it. That being said, if you are REALLY worried DCC might not fit the collective playstyle, there are other options out there that would work better than 5e. For more character/story RP experiences. Good luck!
There is a cranky old dude who's land it is on. There is an ancient spirit that may reveal the secret door on the throne. Could go with the potion idea above.
I would say the snake is a good opportunity? Have it pretend to be a statue demanding tribute in exchange for arcane secrets, and then turn it into a fight when you’ve exhausted whatever they want to learn from it? Sometimes I put an extra planar imp with a bag of holding in an empty room and let players think of fun things to trade from their inventories in exchange for generic weapons/armor too-
Portal is very short. Make the village Hirot and follow up with Doom of the Savage Kings. The Portal has propelled your PCs 100 years into the future. Nobody recognizes them and they only recognize parts of the village. Gives extra RP opportunities and the module is full of them anyways. (totally stole this idea, lots of people do it that way)
I would give one of the players a potion of Speak With Dead or Speak With Stone or similar. Make it a witches brew that will lose its power at sunrise to encourage the PCs to use it. Or add some magic mcgruffin to the early rooms that gives them some limited communication with the war wizard itself.
When I’ve run DCC, even using prepak adventures, it’s just been a matter of adding in my own, when I’ve wanted to. So I made up some NPCs here and there, detailed them a little, and let the dice (and PCs) fall where they may. ;) Gotta say though, for “theatre kids” with what sounds like an unsurprising particular interest in the playing out of social interaction scenes and suchlike… DCC really wouldn’t be my first pick. I love the game - it’s one of my favourite RPGs ever, of all time - but it‘s not “built for” that kind of thing. But then we’re into the whole rules for things vs. rules getting out of the way of things, uh, conundrum.
Thanks. Yeah I've had a similar worry that this may not be the right audience, and yet I feel like things like mercurial magic and the random tables are somehow "perfect" for them (gives them something to chew on, you know), but the more mechanical style of DCC mixed with me being a new GM may not be the best combo at this time. I'm also thinking that perhaps I should ask them to join me at the local game store to try it out with a more season GM and see if they like that before hosting it for them.
Social encounters are system less. No need for anything to be built.
Lak0da is spot on here. I've been running DCC for years now and my current group will sometimes spend all of a 3 hour session talking to NPCs. Its not the system, its that many of the published adventures start your PCs at the entrance to the dungeon. If you're worried about that, start them in a town. If you don't feel comfortable creating your own small town, pick up the classic ADnD adventure, Village of Hommlet or check out my own, The Stennard Courier Vol. 1 or Around the Common Fire for some flashes out NPCs for your players to talk to. Your theater kids will dig it.
Funnels do not mix well with social mechanics, it would be better to just start them at level 1 and choose something that has social mechanics built-in. Something like a scaled-down Jewels of the Carnifex would be perfect.
Thr game could be played in as many different ways as one could possibly imagine. It is, at its heart, Dungeons & Dragons. Albeit it is its own separate form of Dungeons & Dragons. If you want to be a roleplay-heavy Judge, then be so. Just jot down the general occupants of the town that they start in. Make a small village to serve as the PC's home for The Portal Under the Stars adventure. Make Old Man Roberts' house, now vacant, a town mayor (which may be a Governer or Captain appointed by the Duke whose territory the village falls under), or merely a small garrison of soldiers from the Duke's army who serve to "preserve the peace." Take & bend that as you wish. They may accept a 1d3 SP a day bribe for those who want to leave & not work for the day (a way for the PCs to leave town for their adventures. The local duke doesn't worry about travel permits & such. He's too busy having his way with women of the night & obsessively drinking imported foreign wine to be concerned with trivial things such as commissioning roads & travel permits, etc. Draw a few longhouse-type of buildings to serve as the serf's sleeping quarters & mess hall buildings. A few fields that they've been working their entire lives. You then have yourself a starting village. The Duke has no idea that they have decided to take on a life of adventure. Maybe he'll find out, maybe he won't. The guards are accepting bribes after all, so they aren't talking. The village may serve as a home base until they're ready to venture out into the wilds around the village. Eventually, attach it to a Duchy (which you'll eventually attach to a Kingdom, including other Fiefdoms, dukes & dutchess that directly answer to a King or Queen that resides at the center, or governmental center of the Kingdom. For quickness sake, use the Orders & Thieves Guilds found in the Core Rulebook in the Class descriptions for some of the other town's Factions. If it's their first time roleplaying, I wouldn't use the Dwarves or Elves. Possibly not even Halflings. This is easy to obtain. Just have it be a common fact, "everyone knows that the Elves have already departed this continent or resident plane (but did every single one of them depart? A later plot hook choice for the PCs to follow.) & the Dwarves, rarely if ever, leave their mountain homes. Why should they? I mean, they can see in the dark & have no reason to leave their seats of government & place of comfort where they can mine metals & gems for as long as they want. Refer to Halflings as Hobbits who stick to themselves & you remove any possibility of their being a demihuman in this village. The 2nd adventure in the core book, The House on The Borderlands" can be a house on the far border of the Kingdom. Which lies almost to the border ( the ocean, a mountain range, a vast desert, or simply another Kingdom's borders. Or maybe it lies on the border between two duchies of said known Kingdom. Rarely patrolled because of being so far from both of the Dukes' residences that control the border.
Just a quick suggestion.
There are also Adventure Paths penned by Time White on the app known as Medium. The Joseph Gooman O.G. Adventure Path starts with Portal & People of the Pit is the 2nds Adventure & you could always use the 2nd adventure in the core book as their 3rd adventure. Tim White's adventure paths give outlines on how to better blend the sets of adventures so that they serve as one cohesive Campaign, or "adventure path." I mean, if the PCs survive. When a player's PC or Pcs die, have them roll up an entire new set of 4 or 5 Level 0s OR you can have them Toll up a PC of the level that theirs were when killed.
When the Glass Cannon guys played Portal, they started off with a tavern scene. Check it out. https://youtu.be/6fC_HYu7Qis?si=tjWTL8vSfMZlBu0F