One that a friend of mine and I have worked over the concept on (written in a poetic format because why not):
There once was a lich-
A mighty son-of-a-witch.
Discovered did he
Ways to make phylacteries
And he cackled "hee hee!"
Now, in a time that is dark,
Revolution will spark.
The heroes, entering his lair,
Find the lich fully aware!
Says he to them:
"To fight is bedlam!
So won't you instead try this gem?
In places far and wide,
pieces of my soul I did hide.
Here is the list and a map.
The task should be a snap!
Good luck, my children."
He lets them go then.
Off they wander, seeking to save
All that is pure from the undead knave.
However, to do so, they must misbehave...
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TL;DR or "I Don't Dig Your Poetry, Sam-I-Am" version:
A lich that has discovered how to make 10 or so phylacteries has taken over great swathes of the land.
Eventually, a party of revolutionaries (players included) decide to raid the lich's lair.
The party enters the final chamber and finds him sitting there with a list of his phylacteries and one such item. Which he hands over to them, no problems.
However, the other, less-obvious phylacteries are on that list in riddle form.
They can be interpreted in multiple ways, but often point to things like "the machine that keeps this particular city from falling into a hellish nightmare-pit."
Fun times ensue while the party struggles to decipher the clues and hoping that they do the right thing.
A bit mean spirited, but an interesting campaign idea nonetheless! :)
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Let's just call them Horcruxes and be done with it. Have one be part of a really great sword that a fighter will not want to destroy.
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And then after he destroys the sword, inform him that the only thing he needed to break was the gem in the pommel.
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Let's just call them Horcruxes and be done with it. Have one be part of a really great sword that a fighter will not want to destroy.
Reading Langley's post made me realize that a horcrux is basically a phylactery. I hadn't really made the connection until now.
Incidentally, I compared The One Ring and horcruxes when I was a kid.
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I'm pretty sure the whole idea of Liches and their phylacteries came from Lord of the Rings.
Ditto Demiliches, which is basically what Sauron is as the giant floating eye of impotence. Except for the part where Demiliches aren't impotent. In the least.
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I recently got a chance to run my dream campaign, which was in my head ever since the Monster Codex came out:
The party is a team of wannabe inept vampire hunters.
They fail their first mission, horribly.
Everyone gains the vampire spawn template.
They then become the (bumbling) thralls of the rather-high-level cleric of Urgathoa.
We're still starting, but so far the fighter has sort of been...not-subtle. The drow is actually the voice of reason, believe it or not. Seeing as half the party's endangered children willingly (with a small nudge, admittedly)...they're descending into evil debauchery pretty quickly.
Oh, and the Pharasmin Inquisition is after them. Because nobody expects THAT.
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Long ago, I was so enamored with Vecna's presentation in Vecna Lives that I wanted to make a small campaign around getting rid of him once and for all. Still being a lich despite being a demigod, he has a phylactery... somewhere. The PCs would have to find it, take it to the heart of the crystal sphere (SpellJammer) and touch it against the obelisk there that dispels all magic permanently. Finding the phylactery would involve speaking to an arcanaloth and invading a demiplane near Pandemonium with technology based demons (cough Doom, cyberdemon boss).
I figured after that campaign, there really wasn't anything else I could challenge the party with. It never happened, though.
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According to this post and Gary Gygax's confirmation, the D&D lich does not originate from Tolkien at all.
(Besides, I think that the Nazgûl are closer to liches than, say, Sauron is.)
Wery inteldasting.
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1. "The Porkchop Express," utilizing Savage Worlds. PCs play characters in modern day America, with the only background requirement is that, at some point in their past, they had a brush with the supernatural, and simultaneously had an encounter with Jack Burton. They all receive a letter from an E. Shen based out of Chinatown in San Francisco, and find out that Jack Burton has stopped broadcasting - something completely uncharacteristic for the trucker, for everyone that's met him. There's a few jobs Egg Shen needs them to do in Little China, but eventually they realize they need to track down Jack Burton, find out why he's gone missing, and stop the return of an ancient evil, all while traversing America's weird spots and fighting cryptids like the Jersey Devil or sasquatch.
2. "The Banzai Institute," also utilizing Savage Worlds. Again, PCs play characters in modern day America, with the only background requirement that they all work at the Banzai Institute in New Jersey. They are brought into a closed door meeting with Toichi Hikita, who informs them that the upper brass at the Institute have gone missing - Buckaroo himself, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, all of them. They've been reassigned to try to track down what happened to the Cavs. They have some leads across America, dealing with strange tech advances and quasi-scientific research that Buckaroo was investigating, but nothing solid.
(If these first two sound similar, it's because they are. The real insanity is that the two groups would be playing concurrently, and only find out about the other group about halfway through.)
3. "Rippers," once again using Savage Worlds. It's a prepublished setting on Victorian-era Earth, where all the things that go bump in the night are real - but so are all the fictional characters of the era, like Mina Harker, Sherlock Holmes, and Captain Nemo. So, yeah, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibes are strong here. Continuing with that theme, the PCs would all be fictional characters from Victorian literature themselves - or, at the very least, ancestors from more modern literature or descendants of earlier. I've explained this concept to one prospective player, and he immediately pitched me a concept for John Carter.
4. "X-Crawl AP-style," using Pathfinder (at last!). Someone mentioned this setting earlier in the thread, and it reminded me of the concept I've been idly toying with. In short, it starts with PCs that were hired to work as "orcs" in room 2b in a collegiate level X-Crawl event. They go up against a party of 4th level NPCs from a rival school, and summarily get their asses handed to them. These end up being the rival team that shows up multiple times during the campaign. After they get stomped, they're approached by a talent scout who helps fund Division IV team at their school, with the PCs as the star talent. From there, things get a little fuzzy, mostly because I'm not sure what story I want to tell in this world - take on the Emperor of North America? Expose and defeat the alfar threat from the Underdark? I need to really ratchet that down before I can work the rest of the story.
5. "The Enemy Within," using WFRP 2nd Edition. Because this story is awesome, and I need to justify all the books I bought for this game.
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My Little Plaything: Friendship is Madness
Adorable animorphic player characters deal with Cthulhu Mythos. Can they solve the puzzles and close the gate before going bonkers and slaughtering each other? Only Nyarlathothep knows...
My Little Satire: The players create horrible, destructive for it's own sake, beings that have finally cracked an opening into arrogant reality. Unfortunately, they have also opened up an insipid world of cute, happy, friendly creatures. The ponies, bears, and other brightly colored creatures can project positive emotions that burn the horrors in subtle ways. Too much exposure can turn them into something more like Mr Rodgers. The campaign can end with the horrors trying to attack the cartoon studios generating the things.
Another gaming group creates a party of Ponyfinder characters and Cuddly Bears.
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My Little Satire: The players create horrible, destructive for it's own sake, beings that have finally cracked an opening into arrogant reality. Unfortunately, they have also opened up an insipid world of cute, happy, friendly creatures. The ponies, bears, and other brightly colored creatures can project positive emotions that burn the horrors in subtle ways. Too much exposure can turn them into something more like Mr Rodgers. The campaign can end with the horrors trying to attack the cartoon studios generating the things.
Another gaming group creates a party of Ponyfinder characters and Cuddly Bears.
Cuddly Bears... Next expansion? Maybe...
A pathfinder campaign set in an alternate real world where magic is commonplace would be oodles of fun.
While I was not a fan of the Magic the Gathering card game, the world was super-evocative, and I wouldn't mind playing a Pathfinder rules game set in that world, with an assortment of thematically appropriate green, red, black, white and blue spellcasters.
You know, there is someone else on the forums looking to put an MtG setting in Pathfinder. Here's the link to the topic in Homebrew.
I've always wanted to make use of a random dungeon generator to build a completely random labyrinth on every floor. Set it in a more futuristic setting, with cameras and such in the labyrinth. The PCs are hired as a rag tag team by a washed-up grayed out coach with a manager up to his pointy ears in debt.
The whole campaign is basically to "out-adventure" other adventuring teams (of which there will be PC party vs NPC party combats) on live television; get a $%)(^ ton of loot; get as many sponsors as possible; and eventually become the best of the best.
If that sounds similar to other stuff, well, it's an idea that's been done before. I just wanted to use it as a random excuse to use a good random dungeon generator and fill it with randomized monsters from a table.
Though the more I thought about it, the more I thought that, hey, maybe they're using this as an excuse to get the creme of the crop to go deal with the REAL world-devouring eldritch-abomination that returns every 5 or 10 years that previous "champions" have only ever managed to put back to sleep.
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"Has Anybody Seen My Construct"
- the premise will be that five powerful wizards who all belong to the same guild were all rushing to complete a sophisticated construct to win the Annual "Rusty pelican trophy for the best practical construct design of 1380" but unfortunately a Solar flair and confluence of planetary alignments (with Jangle in Retrograde) caused all five constructs to escape. Now it would be embarrassing for the guild if the wizards went out and captured the runaway constructs themselves so each of the five wizards sends there best, most qualified (most expendable) apprentice to capture the constructs, as a team effort
But here is the twist - each player in the game must create a third level character (the apprentice) AND, a construct as if it were created by a 17th level wizard (with no more than nine months creation time available to the wizard). The party of apprentices will hunt down each construct one at a time, and each player must control their own construct, doing their best to keep it on the lose in the city. The player whose construct is the last to be captured, wins the game.
I so want to start this game - and I know it will not go well...
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Another one I want to run: (though I doubt it would get a full campaign, so I'll have to be satisfied by slotting it into my Vampaign as a side trek to Numeria...)
"Welcome to the Gateway Technologies Computerized Enrichment Center. Please stay on the testing tracks for your safety and that of the test. If you should suffer a fatal injury, do not worry. You will be cremated."
The PCs (about low-mid level or so) get lured into a technological nightmare - a sadistic, impassive AI puts them through the races as they struggle to defeat monsters, complete puzzles, and pass whatever tests set for them by their AI master. Technology Guide rules would be heavily used, along with a good helping of Deadly Neurotoxin and other gases.
I doubt it could run for long, as I'm no ingenious AI, but it'll be a helluva time should i ever slot it into an existing campaign!
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Funny, Ullar, I was going to post with my own very similar idea.
Basically, the premise is this: MODIS (Metal-Osseous Dual Incarnum System) was an experiment by a cabal of powerful mages seeking to design a lich that could possess multiple phylacteries. To accomplish this, they manipulated haunts, created powerful magic items, and eventually created a lone entity from parts of bone, enchanted metal, and parts of a wyrmling blue dragon. This, of course, was MODIS.
MODIS later killed them all, and the site of the experiments became a major draw for adventurers interested in acquiring some of those magical treasures—and unaware of MODIS's existence.
MODIS is an incredibly powerful entity with control over numerous undead, but there are pockets in the facility where her power is lessened. She's sustained by numerous haunts, and some of those haunts have become separated from her. An adventure would involve finding several of these haunts (such as a sentient spider inhabiting a skull of one of the mages) and attempting to work with some of them to take MODIS down. All the while, MODIS is running the adventurers through dangerous "tests", mostly out of extreme listlessness (and awareness that listlessness is what generally kills liches like her).
She communicates to the adventurers constantly, but because she is not whole (her "ears" haunt is missing), they can't speak back to her—something which endlessly frustrates her.
Eventually, the adventurers might make the mistake of trusting the wrong haunt—the former head of the facility—and putting him in command, making things even worse, but that's all speculation. I've never gotten around to designing this adventure.
I do know that the ending twist is that MODIS has, like, a jillion phylacteries hidden away. She's still alive.
TF2 Tabletop RPG
absolutely terrible idea but now I want to do it.
I AM BULLET PROOF!
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TF2 Tabletop RPG
absolutely terrible idea but now I want to do it.
I AM BULLET PROOF!
Man, RPGs have the two worst things about TF2 baked right in though (Critical hits and damage spread).
At least the hit detection is probably better.
TF2 Tabletop RPG
absolutely terrible idea but now I want to do it.
I AM BULLET PROOF!
Man, RPGs have the two worst things about TF2 baked right in though (Critical hits and damage spread).
At least the hit detection is probably better.
I don't know if that makes it even worse, or better in a terrible way.
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2. "The Banzai Institute," also utilizing Savage Worlds. Again, PCs play characters in modern day America, with the only background requirement that they all work at the Banzai Institute in New Jersey. They are brought into a closed door meeting with Toichi Hikita, who informs them that the upper brass at the Institute have gone missing - Buckaroo himself, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, all of them. They've been reassigned to try to track down what happened to the Cavs. They have some leads across America, dealing with strange tech advances and quasi-scientific research that Buckaroo was investigating, but nothing solid.I'd go with Blue Blaze Irregulars, not Institute Employees.
4. "X-Crawl AP-style," using Pathfinder (at last!). Someone mentioned this setting earlier in the thread, and it reminded me of the concept I've been idly toying with. In short, it starts with PCs that were hired to work as "orcs" in room 2b in a collegiate level X-Crawl event. They go up against a party of 4th level NPCs from a rival school, and summarily get their asses handed to them. These end up being the rival team that shows up multiple times during the campaign. After they get stomped, they're approached by a talent scout who helps fund Division IV team at their school, with the PCs as the star talent. From there, things get a little fuzzy, mostly because I'm not sure what story I want to tell in this world - take on the Emperor of North America? Expose and defeat the alfar threat from the Underdark? I need to really ratchet that down before I can work the rest of the story.Why go big?
Unnecessary Roughness meets the Longest Yard. Also, Blood of Heroes.
Re: Blue Blaze - nice catch. It's been a minute since I've watched the movie, so I'd need to go back through the trivia to determine exactly who they'd be working for.
Re: X-Crawl story - because X-Crawl has never really told a good story outside of their dungeons. The world is fascinating to me, so much so that I've occasionally set to work at "fixing" the head-scratchingly perplex choices they've made for things in their world, mostly on the domains of the gods, as well as which gods to stat, and which ones not to stat. I also reworked the Emperors of the NAE, because I didn't like arbitrary choice of Emperor Reagan I. Taking things one step too far, I decided that I'd start with the presidency of George Washington in the real world as the exact moment when Emperor Washington I took control of the Empire. From there, what year a sitting President died in real life, that would be the year that Emperor died in X-Crawl, and the President that was seated in that year took the throne in the NAE. As a result, the revised seated Emperor of the North American Emperor is from House Clinton, first of that name.
Fun fact - I was pleased as punch to find that Emperor Cleveland gained the throne during what would be in our timeline his first presidency. As a result, I fudged my own rules so he could have his second presidency as well. In my campaign, Emperor Cleveland I was a tyrant, and only survived for a few years before he was removed from office in the way befitting all tyrants - stabbed to death by Senators on the steps of the Capitol building. His body was entombed as befits an Emperor, but a vengeful priestess of Hecate raised him from the dead using foul sorcery, bringing him back as a powerful lich. His second reign was even bloodier than his first, and while an organized resistance within the government was able to destroy him, they could not permanently kill him. His body was buried again, but monuments were raised in order to channel the mystical power inherent in Washington, IC (Imperial Capital), to ensure that there is never a Cleveland III.
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TF2 Tabletop RPG
absolutely terrible idea but now I want to do it.
I AM BULLET PROOF!
I think PF2 would have to treat the mercenaries more as monsters than as normal NPCs/PCs—that'ss to say, with their own special abilities independent of class/race/gear.
The Scout, for instance, would have the choker's Quickness ability, coupled with Wind/Lightning Stance to give him near-constant Total Concealment (because I just don't think giving him Fleet and Dodge is gonna cut it, guys).
Whoa, wait, I just thought of a great idea for a choker villain.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Dragonstar.
Stargate SG-1 meets Dragonstar.
Stargate SG-1 meets Nyambe.
Stargate SG-1 meets 7th Sea.
Stargate SG-1 meets Golarion.
Somewhere there's a thread about 'Stargate Golarion'
I haad an aborted FR campaign where the party were seeking the '8 runes of power' for the Macguffin. They were going to have found 7, then go to the island where the 'well of worlds' was located.
I was expecting to have objects thrown at me when they realized the runes were Gate coordinates...
... to the Antarctic gate.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Two I'd love to run/play in.
1) A "No wizards" game. Well it would be a 'no 9 level casters game' using Rituals for the 7-9 spells and the only casters being Bards, Magi, Inquisitors, Etc etc. Would make APs and other high level stuff interesting.
2) A 'second string' game WoD style. PCs are Ghouls/Revenants/Dhampires/Kinfolk/Hedge Mages. What brings them together? Something has killed their mentors and is after them...
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TF2 Tabletop RPG
absolutely terrible idea but now I want to do it.
I AM BULLET PROOF!
I think PF2 would have to treat the mercenaries more as monsters than as normal NPCs/PCs—that'ss to say, with their own special abilities independent of class/race/gear.
The Scout, for instance, would have the choker's Quickness ability, coupled with Wind/Lightning Stance to give him near-constant Total Concealment (because I just don't think giving him Fleet and Dodge is gonna cut it, guys).
Whoa, wait, I just thought of a great idea for a choker villain.
Why Concealment? Scouts are fast, but easy enough to hit with hitscan weapons (like the Shotgun).
They just have a high Touch AC.
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They're only easy to hit if they're standing still. The scout doesn't just bob and weave, he runs and jumps, implying that it's his move speed and not just his Dexterity that allows him to avoid blows.
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They're only easy to hit if they're standing still.
Or if you can aim. =)
Scouts aren't hard to hit, they're just taxing to keep track of in the first place. Once you pull the trigger, if your crosshair was on them, they get hit.
Or the shot gets lag compensated and misses, but that's a 20% miss chance against ALL characters there.
The scout doesn't just bob and weave, he runs and jumps, implying that it's his move speed and not just his Dexterity that allows him to avoid blows.
TBH this is getting into the realm of "Not even close to possible to represent with PF rules".
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"Has Anybody Seen My Construct"
- the premise will be that five powerful wizards who all belong to the same guild were all rushing to complete a sophisticated construct to win the Annual "Rusty pelican trophy for the best practical construct design of 1380" but unfortunately a Solar flair and confluence of planetary alignments (with Jangle in Retrograde) caused all five constructs to escape. Now it would be embarrassing for the guild if the wizards went out and captured the runaway constructs themselves so each of the five wizards sends there best, most qualified (most expendable) apprentice to capture the constructs, as a team effort
But here is the twist - each player in the game must create a third level character (the apprentice) AND, a construct as if it were created by a 17th level wizard (with no more than nine months creation time available to the wizard). The party of apprentices will hunt down each construct one at a time, and each player must control their own construct, doing their best to keep it on the lose in the city. The player whose construct is the last to be captured, wins the game.
I so want to start this game - and I know it will not go well...
I so want to see that on Face Off.
A necromancer after a lifelike flesh golem.An dwarf mason hunting a statuesque stone golem.
A transmuter after a scarecrow.
An artificer after the iron golem.
A witch or warlock after some sort of android.
A wererat universalist mage after a thing made of many different materials.
A baker after a candyman.
They're only easy to hit if they're standing still.Or if you can aim. =)
Scouts aren't hard to hit, they're just taxing to keep track of in the first place. Once you pull the trigger, if your crosshair was on them, they get hit.
Or the shot gets lag compensated and misses, but that's a 20% miss chance against ALL characters there.
The scout doesn't just bob and weave, he runs and jumps, implying that it's his move speed and not just his Dexterity that allows him to avoid blows.TBH this is getting into the realm of "Not even close to possible to represent with PF rules".
Except Wind Stance and Lightning Stance are direct representations of "moves so fast you can't keep track of them". :P
Dragonstar.
Stargate SG-1 meets Dragonstar.
Stargate SG-1 meets Nyambe.
Stargate SG-1 meets 7th Sea.
Stargate SG-1 meets Golarion.
Somewhere there's a thread about 'Stargate Golarion'
I haad an aborted FR campaign where the party were seeking the '8 runes of power' for the Macguffin. They were going to have found 7, then go to the island where the 'well of worlds' was located.
I was expecting to have objects thrown at me when they realized the runes were Gate coordinates...
... to the Antarctic gate.
There's a quantum mirror in The Cleaves. Some knights of Bast are guarding the other side of it. They are waiting for natives to attack them so they can stun, interrogate, and manipulate them. Nobody has volunteered stats for Goa'uld yet.
No combat.
I thought this thread is about weird campaign ideas, not something normal?
No combat.
But we NEED murder-hobos and XP tables that are fueled strictly by combat encounters! /sarcasm
While I understand the purpose of no combat games, I do not understand the desire to do so with Pathfinder. 9/10th of the rules are combat related.
That's like using the most complicated forms the IRS offers for something that can be done with a 1040ez.
I'm gonna be honest...why not just LARP if that's all you're gonna do?
Even with lighter rules systems, I stand behind my LARP question.
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Even with lighter rules systems, I stand behind my LARP question.
Not everyone is interested in LA, crowds, or dressing.
For a long time I kind of wanted a ridiculously cathartic historical WWII FPS where you go kill members of the NSDAP as a character you create yourself, but now I realize that it might work out well as a tabletop game, possibly even better as it can have more depth.
Pathfinder or d20 wouldn't be the right systems for it, though. Gurps maybe? Possibly?
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For a long time I kind of wanted a ridiculously cathartic historical WWII FPS where you go kill members of the NSDAP as a character you create yourself, but now I realize that it might work out well as a tabletop game, possibly even better as it can have more depth.
Pathfinder or d20 wouldn't be the right systems for it, though. Gurps maybe? Possibly?
Of course, GURPS is great for anything you can think of, also GURPS World War II, GURPS - Infinite Worlds, Call of Cthulhu game set in 30-40s, or Mage The Awakening with Mage Noir book, to name a few options.
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GURPS is not so good for huge-point games, such as four-colour superheroic action, but otherwise, yes. :)
For a long time I kind of wanted a ridiculously cathartic historical WWII FPS where you go kill members of the NSDAP as a character you create yourself, but now I realize that it might work out well as a tabletop game, possibly even better as it can have more depth.
Pathfinder or d20 wouldn't be the right systems for it, though. Gurps maybe? Possibly?
Wait, killing Nazis is a weird or rediculous campaign element now?
Three of my last four games have been about killing Nazis. Including my Stargate SG-1 game.
Nazis are pretty much the only "safe" bad guys left.
You're right, it isn't weird or ridiculous at all actually ;)
You're right, it isn't weird or ridiculous at all actually ;)For a long time I kind of wanted a ridiculously cathartic historical WWII FPS where you go kill members of the NSDAP as a character you create yourself, but now I realize that it might work out well as a tabletop game, possibly even better as it can have more depth.
Pathfinder or d20 wouldn't be the right systems for it, though. Gurps maybe? Possibly?
Wait, killing Nazis is a weird or rediculous campaign element now?
Three of my last four games have been about killing Nazis. Including my Stargate SG-1 game.
Nazis are pretty much the only "safe" bad guys left.
I am pretty sure you can make killing Nazis weird with the right alternate world background. And you can give them ridiculous outfits. Wait... I don't think they would qualify as Nazis without Hugo Boss uniforms.
GURPS is not so good for huge-point games, such as four-colour superheroic action, but otherwise, yes. :)
Depends on the exact power scale. Batman was four-color superhero once too. And I think that limitations of early Superman might still fit and work, more than his later iterations that (as far as I know) pumped his powers considerably.
Superman can currently LIFT INFINITY (okay he had help but infinity divided by 4 is STILL F@$+ING INFINITY), move something on the order of trillions of times the speed of light, and hear a sound-based signal activated on Earth from hundreds of light years in space, while lounging in front of a star.
Yeah, they have buffed him considerably since he was just lifting cars and leaping tall buildings in a single bound.