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The Sorcerer has died of Dysentery!
What started out as an idea for when we didn't have all our players show up evolved into something bigger.
One PC is the prince of a small kingdom. Wanting to strike out on his own, he lays claim to a currently unsettled patch of land on the border of the kingdom. Eager to get started he ropes his three closest friends and two of his servants to go with him and build his own castle.
Now they just has to get there.
I got them through the first session just fine. (Boss fight with an ogre at lvl 1. Found a baby in an abandoned cart and took it to a halfling village.)
But i fear i may run out of ideas fast. What would you do, If you were running such a campaign?
P.S.: PCs are a Cavalier (Prince), a Druid, a Magus, and a Ranger. they are now all level 2. The prince is the only human. The rest are half elves. One of which was raised by dwarves.
Well, they may run out of food quickly. Have some sort of hunt scene. Everyone knows the most fun part of Oregon Trail is shooting an entire field of buffalo. [You have shot 5797 pounds of meat, but you can only carry 200 pounds back to the wagon ...] Of course, preserving the food is a top priority, so purchasing salt will be very important, otherwise they may have to smoke it (and that smoke could attract predators.)
Let them make a choice between a long detour filled with treacherous terrain (natural traps like quicksand and avalanches,) or taking the shortcut through territory inhabited by the savage natives.
Give a percentile dice roll for every week that some part of their wagon breaks (axle, yolk, wheel, or tongue.) While they work on repairing it (I hope one of them trained Craft carpentry!) they may get attacked by bears, etc.
At some point, have them meet an NPC trail guide. Depending on how wealthy they appear and what they offer him, he may lead them safely through his territory - or lead them into a trap.
Very much liking those ideas Rufus. Especially the wagon breaks. One of the characters was savvy enough to take Carpentry.
More ideas are still welcome
Dot.
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I once ran an Oregon trail adaptation in Eberron (essentially a trek from Karnnath across the Talenta Plains and into the Southern Desert and Jungle.
The Game quickly devolved into "monster of the week" but the main thing I tried to accomplish was to make the environment a character unto itself....
Making the players terrified of the grassy plains when the tall grass grew higher than their wagons.
Letting them see, from a distance, high CR monsters that they know they can't take.
Making each night seem perilous
having thunderstorms wash away their trails, swell rivers too high for them to cross, leaving them either camping for days as a sitting duck in monster country or travelling, blind, looking for alternate routes.
You can combine all of this with any number of "location-based" scenarios.
Start with building a village (I would have as much of the "book keeping" parts as possible happen behind the scenes). Have a few families of NPCs that want to help settle the area and have them working (while the PCs proceed with the pacification).
The villagers can provide the 'motivation' for the adventures
- Saw some goblins stealing livestock
- Monster sighting
- stumbled upon cave complex, Kobold threw fire at us and ran
- Crazy druid screamed at us for damaging the land and wolf appears from thin air and ravaged timmy
- Something upstream dammed the river that we rely on for farming and clean drinking water
- At night during a full moon ghostly apparations appear and move about the village as if they live there
- Tavern owner was digging a wine-cellar, broke through into cavern complex that looks like crypt of some long-destroyed church
- Dragon flies into town, demands tribute
For fun you can also place interesting options before the party. A small tribe of monsters is living nearby... should the party talk (and perhaps defeat their chieftan in honorable combat) they will agree to join the settlement and add their strength to that of the party. (Hobgoblins are lawful, they work well for this)
If I do any more brainstorming, I am going to run one of these, so I'll stop.
Everyone knows the most fun part of Oregon Trail is shooting an entire field of buffalo. You have shot 5797 pounds of meat, but you can only carry 200 pounds back to the wagon ...
Guilty...
Holy crap was a great game. I remember waiting for my chance to get to play on the Apple IIe at school so I could play the game. My behavior improved quite a bit that year.
It might be possible to adapt something from the caravan rules in Jade Regent.
Making the players terrified of the grassy plains when the tall grass grew higher than their wagons.
"Don't go out there! Wild Pokemon live in the tall grass!" <RANDOM ENCOUNTER!!>
Dotting this and eagerly awaiting more.
I did something like this for a rifts campaign 5 years ago, but it was more along the lines of Lewis and Clark, and not Oregon trail. The group did alot of map making, diplomatic encounters, and creating trails for the influx of expansion.
dont forget the journey to the location, as well as finding a suitable site for the village to be built. In the old west, settlements were built close to water, if not next to it. Make sure to allow for a water source, either water springs or preferable a river. Perhaps think about the Snake River, large enough for a couple boats to travel on, but not large like the Missouri.
Resources in the area. Hunting will be key to survival, until that first crop can be planted. Having the druid there will help keep the party alive, but say that a group of 10 settlers followed their trail to their location. SInce the human is a prince, he is bound to care for them. Druid cannot produce enough to keep 15+ people alive, so its down to hunting, gathering, and farming.
Locals in the area. Old west had Indians. Some were nice and willing to trade. Others, not so much. Will there be conflicts between locals? Elves in the woodlands? dwarves in the mountains? Gnomes from a small settlement down the river? All possible diplomatic adventures.
What time of year is it? spring? fall? summer? flavoring, but can make for interesting weather patterns. Weather, can be a great motivator, especially when not frequently. One day its nice out, next day severe thunderstorms that tear down the shelter you built. Perhaps checking the weather wouldve saved the shelter?
MC Templar: Definitely things i will consider when the group actually gets to the location and starts building.
Son of the Veterinarian: Linx on rules please?
RIZZENMAGNUS: The Prince, our cavalier and founder of the trip, says he's consulted Geologiseers and based the location they are traveling to on that. What that means, I haven't a clue. Probably iron deposits.
Our next session is this Saturday. I can give you guys an update then.
Son of the Veterinarian: Linx on rules please?
http://paizo.com/products/btpy8mh3?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Jade-Regent-Pl ayers-Guide
Caravan rules are in the player's guide.
Hmmmm... Use dragonlance elves to represent the various indian tribes, hill dwarves found in appalchian mountains, moutain dwarves in the rockies, gnomes could be the souix, and orcs could be Crow. Humans are exploring, and half races are a rarity.
Well, with that concept in place, one could make a campaign traveling the oregon trail in this world setting...
Are they traveling with NPCs?
Update! Our ranger couldn't make it due to real life. So the character, Sir Humphrey Barrington Parker, Esquire was promptly kicked in the junk at the halfling village they took the lost baby to and dragged into the the local brothel. He stayed there for the rest of the Session.
They found the mayor of the village and attempted to give the baby to him. Since i wanted to make it interesting. I made it so, none of the halflings understood or could speak Common.
It took a whole day attempting to negotiate with someone who didn't know any of the PC's languages. They almost didn't take it because it was a Teifling, but a few lucky rolls later the group could venture off without a crying sack of baby, distracting them.
When they set off, and traveled a distance. They made camp near a small waterfall. One of the PCs found a gold vein, thanks to his dwarven upbringing, and mined the crap out of it. He ended up waking up an earth elemental and had to put that down.
The next morning a Really bad storm started rolling in. They took shelter in a ravine with a roof. It was a solid choice, save for a Raptor chewing on a sheep corpse. The rest of the party wanted to sneak past it. The prince wanted some dinohide boots...
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Indagare: Two in fact. A stable hand from the royal stable (Retextured Farmer from the GM guide), and a Bodyguard (Retexured Thug from GM Guide.)
Brothels in halfling villages tend to make my skin crawl.
It isn't that they shouldn't be around there any more or less than a village of any other race... it's the pint-sized humanoid hookers and the connotations that carries, that prevents me from putting them in my games.
Brothels in halfling villages tend to make my skin crawl.
It isn't that they shouldn't be around there any more or less than a village of any other race... it's the pint-sized humanoid hookers and the connotations that carries, that prevents me from putting them in my games.
Short-folk-paedo-conflation, DRINK!
In fairness, halfling culture tends to not lend itself to houses of ill-repute, but that doesn't mean they don't have their own libidinous sorts.
EDIT: Plus, it gives an outlet for the freakier of their number without having to ship them off to a big city to be a novelty.