DM Feral's Forgotten Realms Adventure (Inactive)

Game Master Feral

It took some time and three DMs but my group has finally finished the Council of Thieves AP. That game marks my second play by post adventure path to play through to completion and the fourth to finish successfully on these boards ever. Granted I was only involved as a DM in the last bit of the final book but it still feels like a major accomplishment. =P

With CoT behind me and my other APs moving along nicely - Second Darkness (book 5) and Rise of the Runelords (end of book 4) - I find myself ready to start something new.

A while (months?) ago I posted a thread gathering interest on a potential multi-species World of Darkness game but after evaluating the work involved with learning a system I’m not familiar with, I think I’m going to try to stick with Pathfinder. To that end, I’ve got a few ideas bouncing around for my next play by post campaign and I’ve come here to gather interest.

Building an Empire vs Encroaching Otherworldly Menace: Heavily modified Kingmaker with a focus on the metaplot and massively streamlined kingdom building. Likely set in Taldor. Relatively low fantasy.

The Less Cooperative Campaign: An arena campaign set in Belkzen. The PCs will work together on occasion but the campaign will still focus heavily on competition and PVP. Players will be expected to roll up multiple characters.

Something Homebrewy in the Forgotten Realms: A Pathfinder rewrite of a 4e FR campaign I ran a couple years back that went from levels 1 to 20ish. Full epic fantasy including saving the world and plane-hopping.

Something Else: Pitch it. You never know.

***

Let’s get a conversation going. What interests you as a player? What do you want to know more about?

Interested in the first or second option!

The first two options both sound great. I've always wanted to see a well run Legacy of Fire or Iron Gods since you're also looking for suggestions. I am sure option three would be cool, but I am not a huge fan of FR. Would you rewrite it in Golarion?

I think number three would be the most fun to play around with. I've only been playing for about a year, and my first campaign was a bog-standard dungeon crawl, so I haven't gotten to get into any of the really kooky stuff. Sounds fun. :)

Number two would probably be my second choice - a competitive PvP situation could be awesome, and I may be mildly addicted to creating characters, so that wouldn't be a problem.

I'm curious about Kingmaker-style kingdom building, but the rules for it still go way over my head. Maybe if I played it out, it would make more sense, but for now I'm not so sure.

I'm not terribly excited about Iron Gods. Call me a curmudgeon but I'm not super fond of mixing heavy sci-fi with my high fantasy. I've considered Legacy of Fire but I'm more interested in playing that one than running it.

The kingdom building I have planned for #1 will be extremely streamlined. No extensive list of city districts or picking out specific buildings. Choices will be very general (For example: For the following month what do you want to improve: Economy, Security, City Infrastructure, etc). If you've been following my Rise of the Runelords game it'll be similar to how some of the story boons are being handled.

Congratulations on running another to completion!

I find the first and second most interesting, but the first has much more latitude in terms of theme and setting. Scenarios could be:

1. The "encroaching" menace is doing so relatively. Perhaps it is a group of refugees trying to survive at your expense, knowingly or otherwise. Perhaps the protagonists are the refugees with no choice other than to intrude and siphon what they can to get by.

2. As a bit of a branch from #1, it is possible a civilization through divine upset or arcane catastrophe had been moved/teleported to a practically new world. The environment, locals, and acclimation would all be menaces.

3. Maybe the "empire" is a fractious state, where one house/party/tribe sees another as the menace. Perhaps there could indeed be some otherworldly truth to it if the counterparts are impostors or have bonded their souls (even in a weak Cheliaxian fashion) to devils or the like.

4. Building could entail RE-building. Maybe a colony ship escaped this menace, must recover, and has a desire to reclaim their home.

Though it should go without saying, any scenario truly should involve a plethora of platypi.

It took some time and three DMs but my group has finally finished the Council of Thieves AP. That game marks my second play by post adventure path to play through to completion and the fourth to finish successfully on these boards ever. Granted I was only involved as a DM in the last bit of the final book but it still feels like a major accomplishment. =P

Congratulations!

Building an Empire vs Encroaching Otherworldly Menace: Heavily modified Kingmaker with a focus on the metaplot and massively streamlined kingdom building. Likely set in Taldor. Relatively low fantasy.

My recommendation, after running Kingmaker, is to stay on the action of the stuff. The PC's are not the rulers, but the agents of the kingdom, able to move and deal with the dangers. Not the princesses, but the guys that save the princesses.

The Less Cooperative Campaign: An arena campaign set in Belkzen. The PCs will work together on occasion but the campaign will still focus heavily on competition and PVP. Players will be expected to roll up multiple characters.

That would be nice! They are frenemies, that need to work together sometimes. Gladiators, they will eventually kill each other, but until that day they are the best of friends.

Something Homebrewy in the Forgotten Realms: A Pathfinder rewrite of a 4e FR campaign I ran a couple years back that went from levels 1 to 20ish. Full epic fantasy including saving the world and plane-hopping.

Sounds like you liked that one. Go with your instincts! If you have the itch to use that one, go for it!

Something Else: Pitch it. You never know.

Something using the Mythic rules. What about Wrath of the Righteous?

I can understand not wanting to do Iron Gods, I really like the sound of the Empire building to be honest. Would the arena campaign have an overarching storyline or be more arena sandbox? I would be much more interested in the first.

Of all the stuff you've put forward, I'd have to say I'm the most interested in the homebrew Forgotten Realms campaign. It sounds like it'd be fun!

Gratz on the completion, Feral! Maybe some Skulls & Shackles now? It sounds like a fun module! Yarrr

i would be soo into a sea type game i have never been in one, any chance if you might consider Gestalt ^_^ if not totally cool just have to ask

Skull and Shackles probably isn’t on the table. That was the first AP we finished. =P

What about... Way of the Wicked? :)

Depending on how modified Kingmaker is, I might be interested. I'm DMing a standard game of it at the moment, so if that wouldn't be an issue, that'd be neat.

I've personally been really interested in Hell's Rebels (I was in a RL game with a similar concept--fell apart due to a lot of newbies who weren' really invested in it), but given that the first volume isn't expected out until early August, I'm not really expecting that to be your next choice.

The first two are definitely favourites!

You did say we could pitch ideas right?

1 - Take the premise of time hopping from chrono trigger, replace time periods with settings, hop around from hopeless catastrophe to hopeless catastrophe through the Realms/Golarion/Athas/Greyhawk/etc. Talk shop with gary gygax in the Index of Editions at the End of Time.

2 - Wouldn't it suck if you were flagged as a legal target of Summon Monster I? Take a normal adventuring party in <Setting A.>. Make them legal targets for <Setting B> summons, with the restriction that they always come as a group. Feel free to thread some hints of what is going on in <Setting B>'s adventure, but mostly focus on the party and their continued attempts to unflag themselves so they can live 'normal' lives.

3 - The world already ended, and a desperate race through the illithid/elf portal is all that kept your tribe alive, pick up the pieces and lead your colony of survivors on this strange new world. Hexcrawl an island/subterraneous/ocean kingdom.

Dot me as interested. I have tried Kingmaker and it has failed each time, early in the second book was the farthest I made it. (I was in Corsario's but realized that starting at level 8 with Mythic and cohorts was not my style).

I could be interested in the 2nd and 3rd options, but would have to learn more about the campaign setting and how it is intended to be run.

I'd love to play a kingmaker game of any version. I do like Galoria Ginodesa's second option for it.

Ash..'s second option as an interesting idea, not sure how long lasting it would be though.

Hell’s Rebels did pique my interest. I’ve never played or ran an AP when it was a current so doing HR in such a way would be a new experience. That said, I’ve always felt that most of the Paizo APs suffer from at least of bit of narrative cognitive dissonance and it takes a decent amount of DMing to massage the plot into a form that makes sense. Without having all the books in front of me that’s harder to do.

Way of the Wicked was suggested, along with gestalt anything.
Would fit the "empire" theme, as you take down theirs, and start your own.

I've never tried Way of the Wicked before...

I'd be interested in anything you put on the table because of prior experience with your style, but I have to admit PvP doesn't do much for me - I'm more of a team player, I guess.

Not that I don't mind an excuse to create characters, of course.

If you do Way of the Wicked, I will climb over a pile of bodies to be part of that.

If you do Way of the Wicked, I will climb over a pile of bodies to be part of that.

I was under the impression that was sort of the point. However, I too would be greatly interested in a Way of the Wicked game. I've got a hilariously fun character I'd love to try out for it.

Hrm. Way of the Wicked has been on my radar for a bit but I worry that I wouldn’t be able to do it justice on these boards.

If I’m running an evil campaign it’s going to be f!*$ing evil. Saturday-morning cartoon villainy (which is what a lot of evil campaigns end up being) feels like wasted potential.

I have found part of the problem with truly evil campaigns is people have their own wedge of what is "okay evil to discuss" and what is "not appropriate to discuss evil". This played-out with Skaar's campaign if you remember.

This is true. If Way of the Wicked is run, it would probably be a decent idea to have the players who end up playing discuss exactly how far they want to go, so as to avoid inter-group conflict.

That said, I'm totally down for an all-out evil game. Haven't played one in a while.

That sounds like a good idea. The more I think about it, the more I'd like to give Way of the Wicked a go.

I would love to see another seasoned GM take on the Wicked. I'd be in!

Oh, my. I'd have to give that serious consideration.

By someone having invoked Way of the Wicked, this thread is guaranteed to have 500+ responses. That is evil.

I would enjoy the homebrew Forgotten Realms. Anything where you get to travel to many exotic lands, meet new people and (potentially) kill them.

In short, I'm up for FR or WotW.

WotW would be really cool, but I would try my hand at creating a character for any of your ideas. I feel like playing an evil campaign requires a lot of discussion from the players and GM beforehand on what is acceptable, for both players and their characters. (Personally as a player not much would be going too far as long as we aren't getting into overly gruesome descriptions of dispicable acts) My PC might be evil, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is okay with burning down orphanges, can he accept one of his allies doing so though? But by the same token he might be perfectly fine with blasphemy which another party member may not be cool with. I feel like in a normal campaign where these lines are drawn is much more obvious.

Hehe yes, I confess, I invoked Way of the Wicked... But I always wanted to play this module and never got the chance :) maybe now, who knows? Go full evil, Feral! It'd be fun ;) and, plus side, you're a GM who actually finishes the APs! Dream coming true :D

i would so try hard to get into a Way of the wicked gestalt too just so much awesome, I do agree that with some players a limit on how evil one can play should be discuses since some players could trigger of you make a vary graphic post about a kill/rape etc.. but a evil game who dose not love that ^_^

edit

really though I would be up for a gestalt anything game I love gestalt because I feel it allows players to have an even bigger pool to make a unique/fun character

I, for one, am interested in your FR idea.

I quite agree with you on the feasibility of a WotW campaign on the boards.

Would love to play in just about any Paizo AP, especially Carrion Crown or Mummy's Mask.

Congratulations Ferral! That is a great accomplishment!

Building an Empire vs Encroaching Otherworldly Menace

Although I love Empire building games (oh Civilization!), I have arrived to the conclusion PbP does not fit good to the purpose. It fast becomes tedious and boring trying to manage a Kingdom through share narrative and manual grids. In that sense, I have been scanning Kingmaker in the boards for a time and understood it is one both attracting the most attention and failing the fastest.

This is because it both involves exploration and party driven action, two aspects PbP is frankly weak on, because you cannot get fast feedback from the other players and the GM, and thus taking group decisions usually involves a lot of time and tend to bog down games until you give up bored or out of time.

I like Corsario's advice. If you get the focus on the action, based on events rather than simulation, you might succeed into moving a Kingmaker style game to the end.

The Less Cooperative Campaign

It is fun creating new characters, but once you are involved with them and you have some spicy background behind, it is a shame to let it see die, even worst at the hands of other player. I prefer to leave the PvP concept to videogames where you can enjoy the adrenaline of the confrontation.

Something Homebrewy in the Forgotten Realms

These idea is the one I like the most. Although my advise here, if you homebrew, is to keep the campaign short, because if you plan for a long campaign and you find yourself decaying on interest, you will have problems to find a GM to retake it and understand where were you going. On the other hand if you keep it short, you can always begin a second campaign where the first ended.

Something Else

I would like to see more conventional premade APs to be taken by already proven people. You can always introduce new events and concepts to the narrative to make it more fit and interesting to you, but it allows for other people to take your work if needed, because a new GM can always refer to the published AP and the existing posts to continue your plot.

Also picking more GM narrative driven APs I think work better in PbP than dungeon crawls or party driven campaigns. Because PbP is mostly about reading, and having a GM and a group able to narrate an interesting history based on events it's just natural to the format and very enjoyable to read through. Compare how easy is to describe the environment to the PCs or what your character is doing to the difficulty and time needed to obtain an agreement on what the party is exploring next, who is opening the next door, or resolving a combat round with a lot of rolls and attacks of opportunity.

I would love to participate in campaigns like Council of Thieves, Reign of Winter, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Jade Regent or Legacy of Fire which seems more narrative, less dungeon or party decision centred, and thus work better with PbP.
It would be great to have figures on games played and successful histories depending on game type. I would like to help with obtaining such statistics.

If you really want to experiment with new concepts, I suggest you pick up a 4-5 levels span and build your concept/history over it.

Really liking the First choice. Always wanted to help run a kingdom.

I would be up for most of these, particularly the Belkzen arena one and the Taldane Kingmaker sounds fun too. However, I do know next to nothing about the forgotten realms so I'm not as keen on the 3rd one.

As for my own ideas... this is a long-shot, but Cerulean Seas anyone?

I went back and forth on the viability of WotW but I don’t think I can comfortably run it on these boards. The litany of trigger warnings I’d have to fill the campaign with would be a major immersion killer and I’d rather save that experience, untainted, for a group and place where it can be run as it should be.

In short, thanks for the suggestion but Way of the Wicked is off the table.

Fair enough.

Ash..'s second option as an interesting idea, not sure how long lasting it would be though.

It can run as an additional aspect on any existing AP if you want to steal something's published structure, but there are Summon Monsters all the way up to 9th level, so the mechanic has plenty of staying power as a random source of extra events.

You can tell some fairly compelling stories with it, the campaign I used it in last was modeled on persona. Daytime school life, nighttime summoned, and exploring the effect on 'ordinary' adventurers was interesting. We had a druid swear off summoning, for example. Later, one of my players used it for a ravenloft game where it was aristocrat vampires being yanked out of their gothic summer homes to strange nighttime battlefields in athas, then coming home traumatized. The key is to find sufficiently different settings for the 'home' and 'summoned' planes that the culture shock makes for interesting reactions.

It's other benefit is that you can have the players "lose" some fights without it causing too much trouble. Summoned creatures when 'killed' don't actually die, although the details depend on the specific rules chosen by the GM. So you can have that wild "we fought orcus and lost" fight -and- actually talk about it. It's not a TPK, it's foreshadowing. Obviously this gets dull if overused, but it's still something a normal campaign rarely has access to.

In general the summoning mechanic allows a great deal of extra quests and hooks for one up front suspension of disbelief by the players. It's a nice tool.

I'm going to dot this for interest regardless of the final outcome on what type of game it ends up being.

Mainly because it seems so rare to find a committed, long-term GM.

I know how much effort it has taken to get my own CC game here to near the end of Book 4 so for you to get 2 to that point and one to completion deserves kudos.

I look forward to seeing what you decide to run and submitting a concept :)

hold on really only 4 times a group has been able to complete a AP campaign how long has this sight been up. wow, well i can understand that with RL getting in the way i wanted to complete a campaign and had really good pacing but i had to end it when i thought i was loosing my contract i do hope the i will be able to run and complete AP more than likely it will be a gestalt game

I have not yet completed an AP, although I am currently in Book 4 of Lof, Book 5 of CotCT, and Book 4 of Runelords (pretty sure that is where my campaigns are, and all have been running for nearly 4 years). CotCT has been lagging, but the Runelords had a great replacement DM pick it up, and the LoF has only had 1 original player of 4 drop in the 4 years.

Regarding WotW - it can be run on the boards quite well. We made it for 18 months, and about 15,000 IC posts, before RL got in the DM's way. If anyone wants a LONG read, here is the thread for the first book - Doug M's WotW. Although it will give you an idea about the campaign, Doug M changed so much that I rather doubt it would ruin playing it on your own.

Evil campaigns can work. The GM just needs to insist on a few things.

1) Everybody is a team player on the player side. Which means that they are dedicated to keeping the game fun for everybody.
2) No IC conflict without OOC discussion. This works to keep things fun for everybody.
3) Honest discussion of what people's issues are. I've had one game where somebody didn't have a problem with the most depraved acts, so long as they were on humans. But they didn't want animals being victimized.
4) Agreement on how much detail to put in. You don't have to list all of the details of how you torture your prisoner. You can simply put, "And the interrogation commenced."

You know, most of these are good ideas for non-evil games too.

Philo Pharynx has a great point. Evil campaigns don't need to have nitty gritty actions noted.

While I am personally quite willing to loosen up and enjoy a few varieties of mayhem, I really don't feel the need to do more than give a few suggestions or a summation of actions.

We don't get four color in describing the spells we sling now, now the method of blows we deliver with a sword. So why would that change with an evil campaign?

"I lock the doors and light the kerosene, setting the church on fire. I was hired to run the church out of town, what better way than to burn the building and a few parishioners with it." No need for me to go into the grizzly details there.

Since there seems to be somewhat equal interest in the three defined options I presented, I’m going to turn this into a bit more of a poll. Favorite the ideas that interest you the most below!

Bah!

This is a filler post.