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Hello all.
I'm thinking about creating my own campaign for my players and I'm looking for ideas and may be if you have some you could share it with me.
My aims are
- try not to spend too much time in dungeons.
- I would like to have it settled in archipelagos, to have a real feeling of aventuring, discoveries, ships fights a la "Pirates of the caribbean". Something different from the european middle age fantasy we get usually. Probably low magic settings.
- They should have morality dilemnas and get surprised. And may be work for Evil or neutral clergy against good clergy. The aim is not to make evil characters but to push them to do evil things for a greater good or may be to save their lives.
- I'll probably add an horror scenario in a castle around lvl 3 to 5 as it's an old scenario i LOVE and only mastered once very successfully (My players were scared to death by any noise in the living). It's not easy to add in this but i'll try.
My ideas so far are :
- Players get hired by a priest of Abadar (or any lawful neutral god) to do something which is illegal (the players don't know this yet). Things get bad and they get arrested. They killed some people and performed a sacrilegious act. They are judged and sentenced to galleys, Of course the priest who hired them is the prosecutor and denies being involved (which makes it worse). the idea was to put the local leader of the cult in a bad position such that he has to resign. The priest who hired them is now the new leader and he wants things changed in a rather extremist way.
- Players are now used as slaves in galleys. In order to make sure they don't escape, some sort of tiny beast is implemented in their stomach. If they don't get their daily ration of Klar (an anesthesic liquid for the beast). Treatment on these galleys are brutal. Some NPCs are punished and don't get their ration of Klar of have it stolen by other galley slaves. Of course they are eaten by their beast (a la "Alien"). The PCs know that they have to get rid of this beast, but first to escape with enough doses of Klar to leave them enough time.
During the days they are used to hunt a marine beast as their raw material is very rare and used for some magical, alchemical formulas.
- At some point they will escape with enough rations of Klar, probably sinking the boat due to their escape.
- Now they will have a BIG "Damocles sword" above their head to get the way to cure them. They are obviously hunted by all the security forces around (although it's easy to hide in all these islands).
- They will get helped by a group of thieves and cut-throats who see them as rebellion leaders. They will give them some help on how to cure and remove the beast inside them .....
- They will probably fight against minions of the priest who hired them at first.
Ideas to be added and continued.
If you have some you are more than welcome !!!
thanks for your help.
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Players tend to react poorly to being "tricked." I recommend that the priest be upfront with them about the illegality and give a false explanation of why it is for the greater good. He even provides them with a place to hide out and a time that he will meet them for their reward. Of course that is exactly where the city guard catch them.
The tiny beast should be introduced early in the game. Perhaps a galley slave is held in stocks in the city square until his beast breaks out and kills him. Encourage a player or two to get craft alchemy so that they can try to replicate this Klar while on the run. If the players run out of doses before they can get rid of the beasts that might be trouble.
Craft alchemy might also give an opening to killing the beast. The first thing some players might try is to drink too much Klar thinking that they could over dose the beast but survive it themselves.
Hi Chewie --
Having been forced into slavery on a ship as a player, let me say this:
Players will feel railroaded into your plot -- especially with the whole being lied to by a LN priest.
And, having experienced a "lost year" as a galley slave (though, to be fair, the rowing wasn't the worst part of that), let me also say that the players hate feeling helpless -- and that's what this does.
Having said that, you could likely get the same sort of campaign, plus or minus, by having them agree to the exploration and then get shafted by the taskmaster at the nearer the end of the voyage -- and set it up -- the guy running the ship is a cruel one, and they pick up a few snippets of conversation foreshadowing things (like the taskmaster mocking the bleeding heart idiots he got to finance the voyage, or that he's pocketing the money he's supposed to be paying them), have a few fellow workers be uncooperative and then be stricken by a mystery illness, etc...
Players are engaged, feel a sense of mystery, get a villain -- and the net result is the same once you do the big reveal - the eggs for the wee beasties were in the food on Day 1, and they've been getting the antidote ever since, as long as they cooperate. They rebel, try to get as much stuff as possible, steal some of the stuff, sink the ship, and you've got the same campaign, but the players don't feel violated by the GM (just by the bad guys).
Hello all.
I'm thinking about creating my own campaign for my players and I'm looking for ideas and may be if you have some you could share it with me.
My aims are
- try not to spend too much time in dungeons.
- I would like to have it settled in archipelagos, to have a real feeling of aventuring, discoveries, ships fights a la "Pirates of the caribbean". Something different from the european middle age fantasy we get usually. Probably low magic settings.
- They should have morality dilemnas and get surprised. And may be work for Evil or neutral clergy against good clergy. The aim is not to make evil characters but to push them to do evil things for a greater good or may be to save their lives.
- I'll probably add an horror scenario in a castle around lvl 3 to 5 as it's an old scenario i LOVE and only mastered once very successfully (My players were scared to death by any noise in the living). It's not easy to add in this but i'll try.
One possibility here would be to actually follow the RW "New World" idea from the ground up. Your PCs are hired to explore, arrive, and find strange natives (new races or variants on the standard ones -- you could, for instance, have elves here that trade all the normal elven tricks for new APG traits and look different) who don't speak Common (or at least not *your* Common), etc. Their society is advanced in its own way (perhaps a high reliance on Divine Magic to get things done, so there's way less actual technology and no arcane magic at all...) They worship different gods (who may or may not be the same gods in different aspects). They have practices that seem savage and horrible -- and then have a few people aboard who are sufficiently small-minded (but still LG) that they think these people are all evil.
If you're hired to defend a town against these bad guys, then to lead raids against them because of their evil attacks, and basically whip the adventurers into thinking of them as they would a civilization of Orcs or Hobgoblins -- and then you start seeing signs that they're not evil.... well, that's the sort of thing that could make a campaign that looks at the themes you're discussing (the flavour, maybe not so much now that I get it out...)
I'll offer some quick input on a "pirate" kind of game that has a good deal of ship to ship combat.
We have tried something along these lines a couple of times and had the same experience both times....
It works OK until someone gets fireball. It all goes downhill pretty quickly from there.
Your experience may vary.
As for the resot of your ideas, I am a fan of giving players options. If your group does not have a alot of "go getter" types they may be fine with being led around a bit. If you have more independant people it may not work as well.
I find most adventure ideas are like more battle plans, they do not survive much past first contact.
It works OK until someone gets fireball. It all goes downhill pretty quickly from there.Your experience may vary.
Yes, developing some sort of effect that protects ships from powerful magic attacks would be wise. In such a setting, perhaps there are legends of powerful sea-gods or other denizens that react badly to people using "offensive" magic at sea. Or maybe there's a type of charm that functions as spell turning and is commonly available, but for some reason or other only works on ships. Or a special substance that can only be used to treat wood (of a certain thickness, so that the PCs don't carry around "treated" wooden shields) that resists magic.
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Thanks a lot all for your quick input... I was gone in archipelagos myself for a few weeks so couldn't answer. Now that I'm back I'm looking at your feedback with a lot of interest.
Your ideas of "not so" Savages could be also used. My players don't mind being a bit railroaded ...
For the galley part not being fun, I remember I had great fun in a Cyberpunk game trying to escape from a high security prison. We didn't all make it but it was fun to everyone... What I want is to remove the usual feeling you get in dungeons.
I want to surprise my players and disturb them... Let them be the prey and not the hunter for once. Really struggle for life...