BY MARK
I took my kids to go see Frozen over the weekend. It was actually a really good movie, which managed to avoid the “damsel in distress” plot, and completely threw the idea of “true love” on its head. We all really enjoyed it.
As I was watching it, however, I naturally began thinking, “This would make a great D&D campaign”. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, there are a few spoilers up ahead.
A good princess always packs a few torches in her adventuring bag.
You have the princess, heir-apparent to the throne, born with powers she can’t control (a white dragon-bloodline sorcerer perhaps?). On the day of her coronation, her powers are set loose, and she flees into the mountains, where she builds an enormous ice palace. Her sister pursues her, adds members to her party including a ranger and his animal companion as well as a snow golem. Combat against a pack of wolves, some skill challenges as they struggle through the mountains, and they finally reach their sister’s palace. After trying to reason with her, they are forced to battle an enormous ice elemental. The Ice Queen is captured, returned to the city, where her sister is forced to face her again after being magically healed by a band of trolls. In the end, the younger sister sacrifices her life for the queen, and is resurrected. They all live happily ever after.
Right there, it’s a great plot for an adventure. Let’s take a few things and analyze them.
1. A sympathetic antagonist. The Ice Queen isn’t a villain, but she is the antagonist. It’s she who has locked the kingdom of Arendale in eternal winter. By giving the antagonist something they cannot control, it’s something even they cannot fight. In addition, tying the antagonist to the heroes makes it harder for the heroes to simply kill the antagonist to fix everything. Instead, they’ll look for a better solution.
2. A great adventuring party. Everyone’s skills were put to use here. The ice merchant (really, he’s a ranger) is in it only for the money, and comes prepared with a pickaxe and 100 feet of rope (always useful for any adventurer). His skills come in hand in the more physically dangerous places, while the princess, Anna, is useful in charismatic situations, persuading, haggling, things like that.
3. A stunning twist! I really want to avoid spoilers here for those of you who haven’t seen the film, but damn, that twist was pretty good. You know the one, where it’s revealed that… you know what? If you’ve seen it, you know. The point is, there should always be a great plot twist ready to keep your players on their toes. By taking your players’ expectations and flipping them, you should keep them interested for sessions to come.
4. Interesting locales. Sweeping mountain vistas, a city locked in ice, a magical winter storm sweeping across the landscape, ships frozen in ice. All of these make great set pieces for your campaign. Keep the locations interesting and different, even if you’ve got a single unifying element (in this case, ice and snow).
The film was really fantastic, and I would recommend it to anyone. While I enjoyed Tangled, Frozen is a far superior film, with some really great visuals, great voice work, and a few good musical numbers too.
