I started a campaign after we took a seven month break from gaming. (Gamer politics is the worst) I was planning on just running a series of unrelated adventures from my issues of Dungeon and make our gaming nights very casual fun. But now, after having read a few installments of the Savage Tide adventure path, I'm working at switching things over to it. The purpose of this posting is to get some ideas from the hundreds of experts here on how to do this more smoothly and/or effectively.
I'll start by detailing where things have gotten to then we can see where things go from there.
We have had four,once a month, gaming sessions so far and I used and changed a lot of stuff from There Is No Honor. This is what is complicating things for me.
The campaign was originally going to be Warhammer but we got a fifth player who knew nothing of Warhammer so we shifted everything to D&D. (Hooray!) (some of my players prefer Warhammer, I prefer to run D&D) But we kept our original theme: the players are all Rat Catchers that work for the harbor master i.e., they are all rogues. (Two human, a halfling and an elf.) I know... not a very well balanced party. Could be interesting though.
I began my campaign using the Alhaster map from the AoW campaign and using the city almost exactly as set up in Dungeon. Historically Hextor and Heironeous had an all out war and Hextor won. As far as the PC's know Hextor rules the world. The basic plan was for them to gather supplies then run away from the evil controlled city and explore the many ruins peppering the countryside.
I told my players that they each had a street nickname that they went by. They could make one up themselves or wait till we got together and let the other players name them. Two players named themselves and two waited. The two that waited named each other, Sykes (Alien Nation reference) and Buttercup. We ended up with Buttercup (human), Sykes (human), Talon (elf), and The Wraith (halfling).
Only one character has any kind of history, Sykes. He was born into the noble Milgadris family, his real name is Finbar Milgadris. Unfortunately for the Milgadris family, the prince decided to expand his palace and arbitrarily decided to tear down his family's home to make room. They were quickly forced out and had to take rooms at the local inn. Shortly thereafter assassins came in the night and killed his parents but managed to miss him hiding amongst the luggage. When the guard (hobgoblins) came to investigate they didn't want to deal with a small human child so booted him out on the streets. There he learned to survive on his own and eventually struggled up the food chain to get the job of rat catcher for the harbor master. The pay for this job was actually getting a meal every day!
Buttercup has amnesia. He remembers nothing before having to fend for himself on the streets.
Talon remembers being raised by a human woman when he was much younger but has been on his own for some time. He does not realize that he is an elf. In this Hextorian ruled world elves are hated and very scarce. None of the characters have ever seen one. He knows his ears get him laughed at so he covers them.
Raif The Wraith doesn't remember his family or even if he had one. In this evil controlled Alhaster halflings are considered a nuisance critter little better than a rat. Raif's struggle to survive improved his
Hide and Move Silently skills to staggering proportions.
Jacob the Harbor Master allows his rat catchers to stay in an old tool shed built onto the outside of his office/home. He also has his rat catchers wear identifying collars to keep people from messing with his employees/property.
(Wow, this is taking longer to type up than I expected.)
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