Dungeons & Dragons from a Different Angle

[David Davidson]

This is an idea I've been playing with for a long time, and I would like to see the interest it generates.

I have run a total of three very successful campaigns (creating my own setting each time), one not-so-successful campaign (my first), and am currently on my fifth. I wanted to try something different, breaking from the typically high-fantasy settings and Dark Age pulp of most DnD games. I created an early Rennaissance world with the game happening in a number of large cities where politics, trade, and low technology are the ultimate powers, rather than sword and spell.

The gameplay is not typical in that it is investigative. The party works for an underground organization called the Shadow Savants who are dedicated to defending the city from insidious and subtle evils (and often lock horns with the United Church and city-guard investigators). Rather than typical quests, the party receives adventures revolving around finding things out. "Something very strange is happening in Stranolm Port. Soon, we fear it will spill from the shadows and attack the city's people. Find out what the problem is but do not let anyone in the city know why you are there."

I have made use of many, MANY variant rules (defense bonuses due to the implementation of flintlock weaponry making typical armor useless, limited weapons [heavy maces and battle axes are now irrelevant], and classes such as Urban Ranger, Urban Druid, Thug, and cancelling the fighter class in favor of a house-ruled warrior/rifleman class), but the DnD rules are still unsuited for a later, investigative campaign.

This brings me to a number of questions:

1.) Is there a good rule supplement guide, other than Unearthed Arcana, for this sort of game?
2.) Is there a way to spread out skills to investigative ends (rather than just Gather Information) by perhaps cutting back on other skills? (i.e. Spot, Listen, and Search as an Awareness skill, or Climb, Jump, and Swim as an Athletics skill)
3.) Do you think that a variant of the DnD rules for more urban/investigative/modern games would generate any interest?

Please, share ideas, comment on this, or provide advice. I'd like to hear the ideas of other DMs who have tried to do something similar.

[Kirth Gersen]

Your campaign sounds like exactly the type of gaming I prefer best. I've run spies/investigators campaigns using 2nd edition D&D rules, using Victory Games 007 rules, using a hybrid of those last two, and using 3rd edition rules. Of all of those, 007 were obviously best suited, but the bottom line is that all of them can work nicely if you're willing to put the effort into adventure design. Straight 3.5e can even do it, if your players don't mind playing rogues and diviners.

A couple variants I'd highly recommend are hero points/action points, and gestalt characaters. But more importantly than any game mechanics in the world is this: I'd reduce party size from 4 to like 2 (which obviously won't work if you have a larger gaming group). 4 people and a DM are great for tactical combat/dungeon crawls, but for more RP-intense investigation, two people are ideal--that way none of your adventure clues get lost in the clamer of "is it my turn yet?"

[Nicolas Logue]

I too prefer adventures high on intrigue, low on combat. I really think a Heroes of Intrigue would have a been a great supplement. A lot of fans and freelancers alike were pulling for a book like this from WotC, but alas, it didn't come down the pipe ever.

Sounds like a great campaign, and I wish you best of luck with it. I can recommend a lot of resources by the way of books and film.

See: Dangerous Liasons and Elizabeth (Geoffrey Rush's character is a GREAT resource either as a PC or NPC).

Read everything by Arturo Perez Reverte (sp?), I just read his book The Fencing Master and loved it. Also read Scott Lynch's very tasty The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies.

Edit: Also I think you'll find Curse of the Crimson Throne chocked FULL of deliciousness you'll want to steal for your campaign. I know Edge of Anarchy is written very much with a Restoration intrigue play in mind.

[Chris Mortika]

A nice poster on another thread mentioned the Rlue Rose campaign by Green Ronin, the game of romantic fantasy.

I'll be buying some of those books this week, because it looks intriguing. It also looks like its long on social interaction and light on combat. That may be what you're looking for.

[Absinth]

The d20 Modern supplement 'd20 Past' may be what you are looking for. It contains supplemental rules for running pulp- and victorian age-themed campaigns.

[Cpt_kirstov]

it might take some tweaking, but the AEG 7th Sea products have decently developed rules for this type of setting.. but they are older and sometimes hard to find

[Rechan]

Crime and Punishment by Keith Baker might help. There's definitely some stuff in there (including an Investigator class).

[Vic Wertz]

[moved to D&D forum from Pathfinder forum]

[Molech]

Well, this doesn't really answer the Thread -- it's just some advice from a long-time DM.

These certainly are great "story" campaigns but I've learned that a campaign goal of finding out info, counter-intel, and such, then putting all the clues together and formulating a plan really needs to lead to roll-play action. Otherwise there is absolutely no sense of "game" to your game.

No one feels a sense of accomplishment at he end or the excitement of not knowing whether the PCs will win the climactic "fight."

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Also, consider this; unless the DM is quite careful, it's way too easy to create a railroad-ONLY campaign. You get so caught up in your story and the depth of your NPCs that you are disgruntled when (not "if") the PCs think of a solution early or see a loophole in the BBEG's designs or just steer the campaign off track. The solution, DON'T WRITE STORIES; write campaigns! Design NPCs with some background, goals, resources and flaws but don't put any of it together. As the PCs plow their way through the campaign, so do your NPCs.

In your Stranolm Port campaign, for example, have your evil NPCs at the (relative) beginning of their plots. The key to it all, even you, the DM, have no idea if they will succeed. You only know what the next step in their plans are.

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Oh, and you might want to check out the Game of Thrones Campaign Setting.

-W. E. Ray

[varianor]

Do your players want an investigation-first game? If so, check out Robin Law's {i]GUMSHOE[/i] system from Pelgrane Press. It places the emphasis on enabling receipt of clues by the players, with greater success giving more detailed clues, rather than D&D's methodology, which really is slanted towards denying or making information very hard to get. It's I think easily adapted to what you want to do. Good luck with it. Sounds like a fun idea!

[CourtFool]

Dark Champions + Fantasy Hero = Right up your alley

[David Davidson]

To Kirth:

Thank you for the input. I offered the party gestalt classes, actually, but they refused. I would have, of course, limited them to only one combat-class that had to have investigative/subtle capabilities (i.e. no gestalt barbarian/sorcerers) but they preferred to have single classes.

I'll check out the hero/action points (I like that idea a lot). I have 4 people in the group, but I budget time fairly and wisely. We have a very vesatile party, as well, and each has an important part in the adventures: the truenamer is the magical know-it-all for arcane mysteries, the cleric is the face/religious liaison for the party, the urban druid is the straight-up urban tracker, and the rogue is the scout/sneak/spy.

Glad to see I'm not the only person who likes story-intensive DnD rather than DnD that plays like a MMORPG.

[David Davidson]

To Nicholas:

I appreciate the input. I'll write down those author's names and check out "Curse".

And if I had enough pull to get it published, I would write a Heroes of Intrigue in a heartbeat

[David Davidson]

Molech:

These certainly are great "story" campaigns but I've learned that a campaign goal of finding out info, counter-intel, and such, then putting all the clues together and formulating a plan really needs to lead to roll-play action. Otherwise there is absolutely no sense of "game" to your game.

No one feels a sense of accomplishment at he end or the excitement of not knowing whether the PCs will win the climactic "fight."

Also, consider this; unless the DM is quite careful, it's way too easy to create a railroad-ONLY campaign.

In your Stranolm Port campaign, for example, have your evil NPCs at the (relative) beginning of their plots. The key to it all, even you, the DM, have no idea if they will succeed. You only know what the next step in their plans are.

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Your advice is sage and falls upon open ears! I have taken into account all your advice.

Two of the main villians were among the first encounters. Noremac the Jeweler appraised the party's gems and they ran into the dwarf-murderer the first night. Nothing makes me feel better than having players voice OOC rage and desire to trounce an imaginary bad-guy.

I do not write stories, either - I write adventures in a way that I am sure you do as well. All I do is outline what the bad-guys will be doing over the course of a few weeks, outline their contingency plans, and then have them reacte as they would when the party throws a wrench into their plans. For example, when they ran out of the lair of the cult's high priest to recharge he used "lesser planar ally" to call a stealthy, hunter-like monster to aid his trackers in hunting the party down.

FYI: The campaign ended well and the players loved it. They specifically said that one of the best points was the "open-endedness" of the whole adventure. We had one casualty, though - the elf swashbuckler got skewered on the business end of the high priest's weapon.