“ What keeps us from the riches of the southern lands? Our need for strength, our pride, our personal glory. These help us survive the cold winters, by blade and by song, but they keep us from testing our destiny against the southlands. We’ll see a High King soon enough—a warlord strong enough to tie our lands together, proud enough that his vision will bring the enemies of the Linnorm Kings to their knees, and visionary enough to tie all our personal glory into a saga that will deafen the world’s ears. I am king enough to know I am not that man, yet I vow this—I will find this King before I die.”
—Sveinn Blood-Eagle, ruler of Kalsgard
“I tell you this, adventurer—forge your own destiny or you will live in another’s shadow for all time. High cunning or low, imagination and desire must be your destiny’s guides. I braved the icy wilds of these lands to gain the favor its people. I chose not to slay but to conquer Boiltongue. I played a game of wits with my life at stake and gained myself a linnorm as a pet. I have proven mighty, and so countless others, now dead, have tried to follow in my footsteps... but they forget that the mind i s a weapon more powerful than any you might carry in your hand.”
—White Estrid, ruler of Halgrim
This is an interest check thread for a solo campaign. I'm not sure if this sort of thing would even be viable, but I think it could work. I'm looking to run a game with one PC, and their NPC cohort and allies. The player would need to be a daily poster (even on weekends) and a quality writer. This will be as much an exercise in story telling as it will be a traditional PF game.
The premise:
Legend holds that there will indeed, some day, be a Linnorm King powerful enough to unite the kingdoms under one banner—but for such a king to rise to power, the old tales require such a ruler to first slay the greatest linnorm in the land: Fafnheir. Many have attempted to slay this legendary beast, beginning with the first of the land’s Linnorm Kings—King Saebjorn Arm-Fang. Yet even he failed to achieve this glory.
Your character will be the mythic hero who will fulfill the prophecy and slay the linnorm Fafnheir, though not before a long and arduous quest. If you suceed, the skalds will sing your sagas for all time. I will start out by running you through the Paizo module Curse of the Riven Sky, and continue from there. The general plot arc would be as follows:
Character Crunch
These rules are not set in stone yet, but are my intial ideas.
House Rules
Character Fluff
Obviously as a twelth level mythic character you're going to have a lot of background, and as a solo player you'll be doing the job of a whole party and a lot of writing. If you don't like writing stories, then this game isn't for you. I wouldn't want a traditional backstory for this, but rather a series of vignettes. I'll just continue with the bullet point lists I guess. Each one of these would be a mini narrative and should build an overall picture of the character. They would be written in past tense, in third person perspective.
Obviously this is a ton of writing compared to a normal background, so I would likely do it in stages. Maybe in the first week of recruitment character crunch only. Then I would weed out people I'm not interested in. In week two applicants would write the first two vignettes, then I would weed out more people, week three two more vignettes etc. Since regular posting will be essential for this type of game, I'd likely also have a requirement that anyone applying post at least once every 24ish hours.
So after vomiting out all these ideas, would anyone be interested in something like this? If I get enough interest I'll make it an actual recruitment. Feel free to comment on any aspects of the post above, or ask questions. Thanks for considering (^_^)
Some Resources:
Lands of the Linnorm Kings
There is also the campaign setting book about the area. It's very informative.
I was very interested when you started It sounds like great fun, but you scared me with the recruitment process. If you do it I am looking forward to reading it.
I would be interested in trying something like this. Rattling character ideas around, I've started thinking about an angel-blooded aasimar paladin (warrior of the holy light) follower of Vildeis. I'd love for him to be a classic character in many ways: innocent farm boy sets out to find his fortune, greatness thrust upon him, classic longsword and shield fighting style.
Would the player get to choose, design, and/or build the cohort?
I'll throw in my interest--I enjoy the storytelling aspect of PBP, and this seems like a great chance to really run with that. I'm rolling around concepts and such at the moment, but a key question is whether the Advanced Class Guide Playtest classes are allowed. If they are, I'm considering a Warpriest, probably of Gorum. If not, I'll continue thinking.
When you say Monks must be re-flavored of their Eastern Traits, does that mean you consider the Martial Artist Archetype to also be 'Eastern', or would you consider that an acceptable re-flavor?
Also, how do you feel about the ACG classes? Particularly the Skald, the Brawler & the Bloodrager?
edit: How would you feel about a somewhat less risque version of Zöoi?
I'd be interested. I think that would be a lot of fun creating that character. Then playing through all that. Yeah, definitely interested. How much time would you give for recruitment? It seems that where this character is carrying the story, and with all the requirements, it might take a bit longer than normal.
Edit: And by Shaitan, did you mean Oread?
Edit2: Just reread your post and saw it at the bottom. I was so excited about the concept, I just daydreamed right through reading it the first time.
Wow. Very cool but too much writing for me. Although, I'll probably follow the game.
I would be interested in trying something like this. Rattling character ideas around, I've started thinking about an angel-blooded aasimar paladin (warrior of the holy light) follower of Vildeis. I'd love for him to be a classic character in many ways: innocent farm boy sets out to find his fortune, greatness thrust upon him, classic longsword and shield fighting style.
Would the player get to choose, design, and/or build the cohort?
Yeah, I was thinking the player would design and build it and then I'd run it as an NPC (making it a little more fun for me).
ACG classes are fine, though we'd be switching to the final versions when they are published.
As for monk, if the concept would work with a fighter, brawler or martial artist I would much prefer that. If you must use monk for your concept, it should be a westernized monk. Ki becomes magic, etc.
I did mean Oread, not shaitan, whoops.
I'm not really looking for character concepts yet, more commenting on the idea of the campaign itself, whether the heavy background and posting requirement would be doable for enough people that I'd have a variety of people to choose from.
As you say in your original post, it would be more collaborative story-telling than a "game", in the traditional sense.
I once tried a "solo" game of Kingmaker where I played all four PCs, and the GM had one party member NPC. It was more storytelling than game and was a lot of fun. Sadly, it was short-lived, but for RL reasons, and not because the model didn't work.
You mentioned that the chosen player would have to have a daily posting rate. Certainly, a high posting rate is always desirable, but with this model, you won't have to worry about some players having to wait on others. This game will become a lot less "GM and player(s)" and more two people writing a novel together--just with one person knowing the end, and the other following along. The dynamic will be very different, and as GM, you will probably want to be quite flexible with your player making some decisions on where to send the story, at least, some minor course corrections.
Considering who the GM is, I would certainly be interested in applying. :)
As you say in your original post, it would be more collaborative story-telling than a "game", in the traditional sense.
I once tried a "solo" game of Kingmaker where I played all four PCs, and the GM had one party member NPC. It was more storytelling than game and was a lot of fun. Sadly, it was short-lived, but for RL reasons, and not because the model didn't work.
You mentioned that the chosen player would have to have a daily posting rate. Certainly, a high posting rate is always desirable, but with this model, you won't have to worry about some players having to wait on others. This game will become a lot less "GM and player(s)" and more two people writing a novel together--just with one person knowing the end, and the other following along. The dynamic will be very different, and as GM, you will probably want to be quite flexible with your player making some decisions on where to send the story, at least, some minor course corrections.
Yeah, beyond the first part which is a prewritten module, it would be exactly as you say. The player would choose what they want to do, and I'd give them a framework to do it in, and challenges along the way.
The long recruitment/pre-writing process should help to make sure the player and I are compatible writers and to make a strong, well developed protagonist.
This is obviously a much bigger commitment than a normal game so I'd be pretty selective about who I'd want to run it with.
It'll still be a game though, I'll still run combats with normal PF rules and maps etc. With the right player and my ability to post multiple times per day we could potentially get a whole combat done in a day sometimes if we post back and forth.
As CDL just said, I'm also even more interested due to the fact that this is being run by you, Jelani. And I agree with Nazard--this seems like an ideal situation where, if the player and DM both can post multiple times per day, that'd be great, but if one or both needed to take a bit to think out what they wanted to say, how they wanted to spin things, it'd also be easy to have a day or two break until things come together nicely.
I know I for one would love to get things moving as much as possible, but this strikes me as being very similar to the writing of a collaborative story, which means that I'd want to write a lot and make things interesting. The average Play-by-Post post may be a few paragraphs, and short ones at that, but I imagine that this game would have very long posts with a lot of description and background and such. It'd be much more like a fantasy novel than a simple game of Pathfinder.
Very cool concept Jelani.
Way too much of a commitment for me to try out, but I think I'll watch from the shadows :)
As CDL just said, I'm also even more interested due to the fact that this is being run by you, Jelani. And I agree with Nazard--this seems like an ideal situation where, if the player and DM both can post multiple times per day, that'd be great, but if one or both needed to take a bit to think out what they wanted to say, how they wanted to spin things, it'd also be easy to have a day or two break until things come together nicely.
I know I for one would love to get things moving as much as possible, but this strikes me as being very similar to the writing of a collaborative story, which means that I'd want to write a lot and make things interesting. The average Play-by-Post post may be a few paragraphs, and short ones at that, but I imagine that this game would have very long posts with a lot of description and background and such. It'd be much more like a fantasy novel than a simple game of Pathfinder.
I'm hoping that it'll be like writing a fantasy novel a few short paragraphs at a time. It'd be nice to have long posts everyday, but that's not very realistic (even for me). I'd rather have a few small paragraphs a day going back and forth between us than days at a time with nothing.
A problem with normal PBP pacing is that it still relies on group decision making (which means waiting for posts), but this would just be one player deciding everything. So in theory it would go much faster, in and out of combat.
What I like about this whole thing is that, for the last while, I make a character by starting with a neat mechanic I've "discovered" (aka, read about in a forum post and wanted to try it), build a character around it, and then look for a game that will fit that character. This is the first time in a very long time that the inspiration process has started from the campaign idea, to a personality that would fit that campaign, to a class/race/mechanic that fit that personality.
Like I said above, for the first week of recruitment it would only be crunch for your character and their cohort. Making a 12th level character takes a lot of time in and of itself, not to mention the cohort. This campaign will also be a unique optimization challenge, as you will be facing tasks that are normally accomplished by four(+) people with only two. Your character should be able to handle social situations as well as combat, and also have a way to handle the skill challenges of exploration (whether that be through their cohort or some other way).
Obviously you'll need to have a character concept to work on crunch, but yeah...
Technical question then: how much gear does a cohort get? PC WBL? NPC gear? Assume a 10th level character.
Is the cohort also mythic?
NPC gear appropriate for their level, non mythic.
Does the cohort need to follow the PC creation rules for race and class?
Will followers come into play?
Preliminary crunch done. Still a work in progress, and lots of things to double check with a build this complicated.
even though the described aplication process scares me. I am willing to try it even if I don't get further than doing the crunch it will be fun.
Does the cohort need to follow the PC creation rules for race and class?
Will followers come into play?
Cohort no, but they'd need a solid story reason to be in the LoTLK and why they would want to follow an Ulfen hero.
You will of course have followers according to your leadership score. You can do whatever you want with them, but they will likely be too low level to really effect anything central to the story.
Preliminary crunch done. Still a work in progress, and lots of things to double check with a build this complicated.
Thanks, but not taking any submissions yet. Still mulling over whether to make an official recruitment.
So far it looks like five people are showing interest in applying. I'm really busy this week, so I'm going to leave this sit for a few days and see if anyone else takes interest.
Am I one of the five? If not, please up it to six.
Cohort no, but they'd need a solid story reason to be in the LoTLK and why they would want to follow an Ulfen hero.You will of course have followers according to your leadership score. You can do whatever you want with them, but they will likely be too low level to really effect anything central to the story.
I'm thinking about playing a druid. Would an awakened former animal companion work as a cohort?
This sounds rather intriguing, but I need to finish reading through everything as opposed to the initial skim I've done so far.
Wow, I'm extremely interested in this! And I really look forward to the writing side of it as well. I'll work on getting a strong character concept up in the next 24 hours, then work on publishing more stuff from there!
I see you're not looking for concepts yet. But that doesn't keep me from working on one :).
But to your original question: Yes, there is some fantastic interest in such a concept. The idea of creating a cohort, customizing some background, etc.
I'm sure you've worked with it before, but the 10-minute background provides a great kickstart for characters that feel a little daunted at the thought of establishing that much background. It helps get your brain thinking on greater concepts than stats and immediate personality.
So for encouragement, yes please, run this game. Even if I'm not selected it'll be a fantastic read with my morning coffee as I'm loving the theme!
I have to agree with Sven. While you've made it clear your not looking for concepts yet, that does not keep my imagination and creative juices from getting started.
I feel like the setting and theme just screams Barbarian or Bloodrager, which is why I'm currently looking into what I can do with such classes. As for a side kick, I feel like a Shaman or Witch just makes sense.
Sweet Idea, A Synth Summoner could do this fine. I would go with a Bard companion to chronicle my story. I don't know if I'm a strong enough wrighter to pull this off. I am interested and will have crunch in a few days.
Good to see lots of people would be willing to try something like this. Like I said up thread it might be a while until I move it to an actual recruitment.
I've heard of the ten minute background, yes, I've used it before. It's a great way to flesh out the basics of a character. We'll be going well beyond it in scope, but it would be a great starting place.
Captain Fremont, I'm rolling with a Barbarian at the moment, and Ashe, I'm planning on having a Skald companion. Great minds think alike!
My paladin took the divine source mythic ability a couple times, and his cohort, a wizard, just multi classed as a cleric... of my paladin.
Wait... I just got a crazy idea. So the Longevity ability from the Universal Path Abilities means that you never die from old age or take the penalties, although you gain the bonuses from aging. This means, from my reading, that a character could be really, really old...
So, could I play an ancient warrior from the days of old, a man who's been striving to meet this prophecy for centuries--maybe a millennium or more, even--without having met success yet? An unaging warrior who has been chosen by the gods, or whatever other power may lay behind the Book of the Titan, and will not find peace until he fulfills his intended purpose? It's an interesting concept that just struck me, and it could lead to an epic backstory that spans across the ages as he tries to unite the kingdoms.
If you'd rather not deal with something like this, that's fine, but the notion struck me and I'm thinking about it deeply now.
Sounds like a cool concept, definitely. You'd want to read the Lands of the Linnorm Kings book as it has a lot of the history of the region in it.
Huh, that is a really interesting concept. I was looking at a Human Bloodrager with the Destined bloodline. I feel like the flavor of it could work really well with this type of game. His primary stas Str, Con, and Cha makes a lot of sense for a campaign like this.