Slaughtersea's Untitled Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Slaughtersea


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ORDER OF BUSINESS #1
Adventure Ideas

Quite simple so no need for long explanations, we need to throw in a few ideas for an adventure. Everything from genre to backstory.

I always have a good stash of ideas but I'm interested in hearing all of yours first.


ideas i can bounce everywhichway, but i need a frame....>.>


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

First I think we need to establish what level we are going to begin at. Personally I'd like to put forward 5th, its a level where lots of classes get fun abilities, 3rd level spells are kicking in and you don't often get there in PBP. Thoughts?

Further I'd suggest 20 point buy, two traits, Paizo only, in Golarion.

For a setting I like Absalom, there's loads to do if you read up about the city and surrounding area and I've not got to play around there yet.


Yoshi

Paizo only for sure. I personally prefer lower levels 1-6 but not picky. It's easier to run certain types of games like mysteries when players lack access to speak with dead and blood bio.


i'll admit, as far as level goes, i'm kinda mixed. never touched anything higher than 4. dont know alot about golarion, tbh. and speak dead and bbio can also be crucial for other types of mysteries.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

I think running any kind of extended mystery is going to be pretty hard given a format of switching DMs, and tend to think that those kind of games are not well suited to PBP.

I think Golarion is the way to go, you can find all the stuff easily on the Pathfinder wiki, tons of info HERE with further links you can follow. Some people might not know Golarion well, but its got easily available well fleshed out info, the gods are the default PF gods, and more people are likley to be familiar with it than any other setting.

I'm not keen on doing 1st level, characters are too fragile and an unlucky crit can kill them too easily. How about 3rd?

Off to work now so it'll be nine or so hours before I can post again.


Yoshi

Do we want a pbp game or a game we can run in person?


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

PBP was certainly my understanding, though I've gotten the wrong end of sticks before :) It is in the PBP forum so I think its a reasonable assumption.


Well, we are going encounter by encounter. My original supposition was to create an adventure in the end, perhaps in google docs/word/pdf, whatever and then allow others to playtest it on the PbP forums.

The only problem is, if we use Golarion material, we can't do that as it's product identity.

I was thinking of going along the same route that Paizo originally did and start out small. They began with Varisia and then had hints of other regions and went on from there.

As for the level, I don't mind, though it depends what length we want it to be, and if we want to make a suite of adventures that can follow.

Genre wise, murder-mysteries are hard to make. The simplest is always a good old dungeon crawl or wilderness venture but there's no reason we can't mix it up.

Burnt Offerings was a good combination of multiple smaller dungeons mixed with roleplay encounters in Sandpoint as well as having a good amount of "whodunit" included.


I second the Absalom, Paizo Only, 20 pt. buy, and two traits. I've been reading up on Absalom and man, that's a good setting for an adventure. Though I think we should expand the setting to include the entirety of the Isle of Kortos.

EDIT: Herald has a point about the setting and genre. We should make our own setting, and we should probably stick to Dungeon Crawling or Wilderness Travel as a main theme.

While we're throwing around talk of levels, I want to put in an idea I've had recently, called Battlefield Promotion.

See, it's difficult to build a level 4+ character, because you have to worry about things like retroactive skill points, loads of starting gold, and not to mention it's uncomfortable to suddenly start out with so many abilities. On the other hand, players absolutely can't wait to get to 5th level, where they can really start getting into the meat of the class. So here's the compromise, the players level up extremely quickly.

The concept behind Battlefield Promotion is that PCs start at 1st level, but are really xth level. Here's how it works. Some circumstance or situation has left the PCs idle, causing their skills to become 'rusty'. While going about their daily lives, some extreme circumstance forces them into action, causing their old skills to quickly come back to the surface. In other words, the first part of the adventure is a short series of microadventures that causes the PCs 2 (1 to 3) levels mid-session, and a third (4th) at the end.

In a setting like the Isle of Kortos. The PCs could've been on a sea voyage for a very long time, and upon landing, they find themselves somewhat disoriented and unable to walk on dry land. After that you can either let them loose in the city (they could choose to head to the nearest tavern to rest, immediately start looking for work, Clerics might want to hit up the Ascendant Court, etc., and no matter where they go, you can easily give them a hook.) or immediately force them in a situation ("Look fellas, we can't let anyone through here because Kobolds have taken over thr lighthouse, and no one knows when the guard is gonna get here.").


That's a pretty intriguing idea actually, I'd like to get the whole group's opinion on this as well though.

This could also simply be done by skipping the "1st adventure" which usually is levels 1-4 if I'm not mistaken.

As for who, what, where, why and how... are we making this a one shot or are we planning a follow up. A one shot is always easier to start with and complete of course.


Yoshi

Me and my friend were talking about an Andorn game revolutionary america basically and the tensions with its neighbors. Lots of potential with a pre-war/waring area. Higher level encounters are more dificult and time consuming I wouldn't want to start in the double digits as I'm still new to this part of dnd. We should start with one adventure enough to level PCs at least once and see how this style of building with multi. People works out and expand from there. Start small get our barings and a feel for how everyone here thinks and designs a game.


I've always wanted to do a good old revolutionary adventure. AC 3 has some good music if you want to get in the mood for it.


Lets start as a one-shot and then later decide if we want to expand on it.

If we're talking about the Revolutionary War, we should also decide whether we want guns to be a thing or not. Personally, I like the idea of a Revolutionary group of PCs using guerilla tactics against an established empire using Napoleonic-era tactics (line formations of Musketeers sound deadly to me.)


*shudder*


IejirIsk wrote:
*shudder*

Not your thing? Remember guys, it's a group thing.


Yoshi

We can do it that way with a one shot. If it were a whole adventure id want buildup first. Spy missions, diplomacy and interigation, political maneuvering, basic training. that sort of thing before the full conflict begins.

Firearms are rather expensive and a full conflict requires a lot of funding. Prof. with firearms is one feat and you get them all so any class could use them by lv. 3 and if your close enough its still a touch attack.

I prefer to keep 95% of NPCs as NPC classes so no army of gunslingers. It allows the PCs to stand out above everyone else.


i not overly fond of slingers XD but I can live with it. especially if going to do a empire-esque game.


So Commonplace Guns then?

PFSRD wrote:
Commonplace Guns: While still expensive and tricky to wield, early firearms are readily available. Instead of requiring the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat, all firearms are martial weapons. Early firearms and their ammunition cost 25% of the amounts listed in this book, but advanced firearms and their ammunition are still rare and cost the full price to purchase or craft.

That way, Warrior NPCs could wield guns from 1st-Level, and they'd be less expensive.

If we go this War route though, I'd think most of our Encounters would be tactical situations, with the PCs as Captains/Leaders of a small force of men. There's also a possibility for Infiltrator-type missions, but not so much for your run-of-mill dungeon crawls and traps, but that'd depend on the setting.

Edit: It's also worth noting that the adventure will be very "gamist", if we go this war gaming route.


Yoshi

Define "Gamist". Is it a way of saying "Player Oriented" or something like that?

If we wan't dungeon crawls it's easy enough to use an ememy fort either built from scratch or maybe they occupied an existing "Dungeon" type location.


That's why I said it'd depend on our setting. If we want traditional dungeon crawls, we might lean towards a setting with something like the Cairnlands surrounding Absalom.

What I mean by gamist is that it's likely to be more like War Gaming and less like a Roleplaying Game. i.e. For people who treat it more like a game and less like an open story (simulationist), etc.

But that's just an assumption on my part, it completely depends on how we build the encounters.


Heroes of Battle had a good idea for war settings. Instead of maneuvering the armies, they are an elite assault force. While the battle rages all around they go after commanders, officers, key strategic locations, disrupt supply lines, defend outposts, deliver key missives... etc.


Yoshi

Any objections to a war setting?


It seems that that is the best for a free-ish style game...


Lets take a step back and identify all the things we need before we can start writing encounters. We need a SYSTEM, SOURCE BOOKS, a THEME, and a SETTING. The first question is easy enough, we're developing a game for Pathfinder, so we're going to focus on the other questions.

1. SOURCE BOOKS
What books are the players going to need to run this adventure? From a tabletop perspective, this is incredibly important. I can't run an adventure that uses UC and UM, if all I have the Core Rulebook. From a PbP perspective though, this is mostly unimportant, as we have the entirety of the D20PFSRD open to use. So what it really comes down to is... What resources do we want to use in our adventure? All Paizo, or just the CRB? Should Psionics be used, or should we not use any 3PP? The best thing about this is that it isn't set in stone, we can easily go back and decide, "Hey, we actually want guns for this part", or something. REMEMBER, this choice doesn't limit or set what the players are able to do or what they can use, just which resources we'll be using to create the adventure what the DM will need in order to run it.

2. THEME
What's the main theme of this adventure? The trick to answering this question is not to answer in the form of a plot, but rather the topic of a plot (aka the theme). Answering in the form of a genre is also incorrect, things like fantasy or science fiction don't tell me anything about the theme. For example, the theme of Star Trek is "Exploration and space travel"; for Star Wars, it's along the lines of, "Epic conflicts in space"; and for Lord of the Rings, "Epic Journies and Age-long Wars."

3. SETTING
Finally, we need to know ehat the setting is. Where is thr adventure taking place? Is it taking place in a village, or between large cities? Will the characters be limited to a country, or an entire world? This can really be anything, but I'd warn you guys not to be too ambitious and attempt to build an entire world from the get-go (unless, you know, you've already done it and have been waiting for the perfect chance to unveil your creation).

I think everyone should focus on these three areas and post their ideas, even if we are currently leaning towards a Revolutionary War. After that, we should vote on which ideas we want to use. My three ideas are as follows.

SOURCE BOOKS - All Paizo, with no 3PP or Homebrew rules
THEME - Revolutionary War
SETTING - A village/town on the countryside, possibly a small fort (we can build the rest of the world later). The surrounding area is meadows, hills, forests, and maybe a nearby mountain or mountain range


Yoshi

Books: Paizo Prd. Would be my vote. But then again Psionics are pretty fun.
Theme: I like the war idea
Setting: Are we using homebrew setting or golorian?


books: paizo on srd/prd, maybe homebrew,

setting: I'd say a region more than a single town (or perhaps a string of towns)


We have to use our own setting because Golarion is copyrighted.

@IejirIsk Multiple towns would be good for a campaign that eventually expands to a whole nation or world, but since we're doing a single, potentially one-shot, adventure, I think it'd be better to limit ourselves to a smaller area. That's just my opinion though.


is true. benefit of single town, is it can spread.

Using/not using Golarion also depends on future plans of it. If planning to publish for money, we can't easily use it, but for just simple homegames...


The thing is that Golarion isn't OGL, so making a campaign filled with information on it is pretty much asking for trouble. Sure, it'd be fine to use for a game, like is so often how here, but not for something we intend to spread around.

While I'm sure Paizo would be lenient, I think we should save the Golarion setting for the next adventure.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

I think I've maybe misunderstood things here. I thought we were just looking to create and adventure we could play swapping out DMing duties and encounter design. It sounds like you guys are contemplating something a great deal more ambitious than that? I don't think I'm really prepared for the commitment getting something ready for publication would require, and honestly I don't think its very realistic.

I was thinking we could settle on character creation rules, level, a cool setting and some kind of adventure theme pick our order create characters and get going.


I said nothing about publication for money, this was just encounter by encounter building.

If however, there are people who would want to delve more into publishing ideas/adventures PM me, but this is simply what DM Carpe said.

We create the adventure encounter by encounter then play through it, either with another GM running it (to see if what we wrote is good) or alternating ourselves.

I recommend:

Paizo official material, sticking to the big books: Core, GMG, Bestiary 1-3, APG, UC, UM.

War themed, with the players having to fight as an elite squad as I mentioned above.

Set in a homebrew small region, couple of towns coming under attack from the motherland? Think Coastal America back in the times of the Revolution.


Yoshi

@Herald
Agreed. We still need a level but I think we have decided on 20pt build and 2 traits.


Yeah, 20 pt and two traits sound good... hmm... I agree with the 5th level. It's still low enough but it's THE level where things get tasty.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

I'm not really keen on the war themed thing, it means we need to come up with a lot of stuff beyond what's necessary for the adventure, and play about with a lot of ideas that seem to be besides the point.

And if we are looking to do the simpler game for ourselves I don't see why we need to come up with a setting, etc., when Golarion is already so readily available. The thing I love about Golarion is there are dozens of wonderful areas that are already outlined for virtually any theme, but allow DMs to paint in the details. You want creepy horror Ustalav, you want steamy jungles Sargava, you want Pirate adventure The Shackles, etc.

I'll go with the overall vote, but I think we would save ourselves a lot of work, and probably get a better fleshed out result if we used Golarion, and I don't see any reason not to.


Hmmm alright then... if we are going to do it in Golarion, Galt fits the revolution theme perfectly.

We already have all the backstory.

Perhaps the PCs are tasked with stealing one of the Final Blades? Slaying a member of the Gray Gardeners? Or the inverse, taking down the current leader of Galt?

We wouldn't even need firearms as that's Alkenstar stuff.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

Could we consider doing the adventure from the recruitment thread? That actually sounded really cool to me. We could set it in Sargava, which would give us the revolution thing since the natives are restive under colonial Chelaxian rule. I'm running Serpent's Skull at the moment and there's a lot of really cool stuff I'd love to actually get to fight.

There's actually an annual race featured in the Sargava fluff that could make for an awesome adventure.

Pathfinderwiki wrote:

The Sargava Chalice is a famous race run annually in Sargava since 4681 AR. [1]

It is the foremost of a number of events organised by the Sargavan government in order to raise revenue and improve the morale of its citizens.

The race run over several days through the harsh terrain of the Sargavan interior. Competitors are expected to run through dense jungle and rugged mountains, and not all of them survive the experience. In the past they have included Pathfinders, adventurers and even a deposed monarch.

The winner’s name is inscribed upon the golden chalice from which the race gets its name. [2]

You could face restless natives anxious to derail the governments plans to raise money and placate the population, other teams, jungle monsters, take a short cut through an abandoned mine, cross a crocodile infested river, etc.


That'd actually be fine with me as well, I tend to like everything though. Let's hear it from some of the other guys first.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

My thought was to get a setting that allows for a wide variety of enemies that make sense. Galt seems like it would lend itself less towards this and more towards a heavily NPC primarily human enemy roster, the Frost Giants mentioned in the Pathfinderwiki write up could be cool, but would require us to go much higher level than I think we are comfortable with.


Yoshi

Sounds interesting. Def. Has that guerrilla vibe.


True, Sargava gives us a huge repertoire. And as a "race" we can feasibly add anything with the "it was another team's trap/tric/beastie".


The only Golarion location that I have any knowledge on is Absalom. So someone is going to have to explain Sargava to me.


Yoshi

I also have no knowledge of Sargave.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

Sargava is essentially a sort of fantasy darkest Africa with a heavy jungle theme - so if you think the Congo rainforest region you are probably pretty close. It was colonized by Cheliax, but lost contact with the homeland after the death of Cheliax's god Aroden - the good god of humanity - and became its own nation still governed by the colonists. Cheliax tried to reestablish its rule thirty years later, but the Sargavan Government made a deal with the Shackles pirate Captains who destroyed the Chelaxian armada.

There are many ancient ruins and a lot of tension between the dominated native Mwangi people and the colonists. Many tribes are extremely hostile, in Serpents Skull tribal warriors hang up dozens of corpses of colonists and from "gallows trees".

You can read about it in detail HERE


Thanks for putting up that link for the others. It's a pretty flavorful place.


Alright, sounds good.

I recommend either Herald of Omens or DM Carpe go first, since Little Green DM and I are still learning about the setting.


Sure, sounds cool. So, 5th level, Sargava right?

Sargava Chalice Race:

The Sargava Chalice is a famous race run annually in Sargava since 4681 AR. [1]

It is the foremost of a number of events organised by the Sargavan government in order to raise revenue and improve the morale of its citizens.

The race run over several days through the harsh terrain of the Sargavan interior. Competitors are expected to run through dense jungle and rugged mountains, and not all of them survive the experience. In the past they have included Pathfinders, adventurers and even a deposed monarch.

The winner’s name is inscribed upon the golden chalice from which the race gets its name. [2]

We'll use that as the premise.

Sargava

Here's the link for flavor.

I'd actually love to let DM Carpe start as this was his idea.


Lacedon Monster Info:
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 hp 13 (2d8+4) Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +5 Defensive Abilities channel resistance +2

I'm cool with that, I propose we start a different Campaign for the actual game since we've been posting in the gameplay thread. We can call it The Sargava Chalice.

Let's say that for the first time the Sargavan Government has made it a team event. No mounts can be used, though magic may be and all five team members must cross the line to win - although they do not need to be alive!

I suggest we play the Pathfinder Society team as they are probably the most disparate and traditional adventuring organization and ought to allow us all to play virtually anything and have it make sense. They are basically a Guild of Adventurers who act all over the world exploring and recording their deeds in The Pathfinder Chronicles.

MAP of Sargava
Pathfinder Society Info

How about us each taking an opposing team as our own? That way we can determine how we use them, etc., and each get to create something that suits us, we could of course make use of each others teams in encounters if we asked for permission, etc.

Obvious team candidates would be...
The Sargavan Governments Team - likely made up of mostly Sargavan Colonists with perhasp a token native or two.
Tribal teams, there is info about a number of tribes in the Sargava link under inhabitants. Kalabuta and Ijo, and Bas'o teams probably make the most sense.
Aspis Consortium Team - Golarion's most powerful trade group is renowned for their ruthless pursuit of coin and could probably see a number of advantages to winning The Chalice. They could use mercenaries from all over Golarion.
Shackles Pirates Team - heavily involved with the Sargavan government it makes sense for them to field a team.
National Teams - from any Golarion nation that we fancy, Osirian for quasi Egyptians, a viking team representing one of the Linnorm Kings, an Andoran team looking to embarrass the Sargavan government for its allowance of slavery, etc., etc.


perhpas a team or two of convicts hoping for pardon


Sounds good, if everyone's ok with this I'd love to nab me the pirates.

I would like to keep the Encounters in this gameplay thread though, as that was the point.

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