Just Survive Campaign

[InfinityKage]

I want to run a campaign were the whole objective is just to not die. Victory is impossible. The enemy is just so numerous that winning the fight just can't be done. The only thing you can do is keep moving and fight only in small pockets. I know it's cliche but I'm thinking zombies. Giant bugs might work too. Or demons.

"Not only is it a fight they cannot win, it's a fight they have no hope of even surviving. They have two options: run away, or be butchered. This enemy is always notorious. Its very presence may inspire panic. The Swarm or The Corruption. In any case, anyone who fights it is screwed, and anyone who could possibly end up fighting it knows it."

Anyway. I was wondering if anyone already knew of a campaign like that or had any advice or a good starting point.

"I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings."
—Max Payne

[Heather 540]

Sounds like a video game's survival mode. You could do a 100 Room Dungeon kind of thing, but with infinite rooms. You would need occasional 'safe' spots so they could use downtime to upgrade or craft weapons, armor, and other items.

[avr]

Make sure you have player buy-in for something like this. It'll stop them accidentally suiciding early on and if they're not interested in such a game it's best you know before the game starts too.

[SheepishEidolon]

I made up an oneshot against zombies a while ago. The two powergamers of my group joined and it was a nice session. Lessons learned:

* Players are good at adapting to enemies, if they are presented with the same challenges over and over. Make sure to add something completely different (like a cleric focused on channeling negative energy) here and there.

* I found myself tempted to build fair encounters all the time. After years of regular campaigns I got used to think among line like "not more than APL+4", "do only a single neutralization effect" or "they don't have a real counter to that yet". Actively challenge that! PCs are here to die, not to succeed.

* If you throw a lot of foes at them, you potentially also throw a lot of XP at them. There was no leveling in the oneshot - if there would have been, they would have wiped the floor with the encounters. And I am afraid the slow advancement track wouldn't have changed much.

* I allowed them to rejoin with "identical twins" of their PCs once a death occured. It was weird for them first, but they were happy to have a second try on the same challenge.

[Meirril]

Two hooks come to mind. The first one has been done to death, but its a good one. Players are among a group of slaves dragged from their beds and taken into the Underdark. They have been held in a Drow slave pen for a week now, watching as other slaves are lead away in small groups never to return. One day after a large number of slaves are taken away one of the guards stabs the other guard and kicks him into the slave pit. Then guard walks away...Have about double the number of fodder slaves as PCs in the group. Feel free to kill plenty of the escaped slaves. Now they have to use whatever they can get their hands on and escape to somewhere 'safer' in the Underdark. It is an entire world where the strong rule, and the ex-slaves are at the very bottom, clawing their way up.

An even worse situation: Welcome to the Abyss! Run a typical 1st level dungeon milk run against Kobolds. Problem 1: The Kobolds work for a Wizard. Problem 2: Said Wizard is ready to summon a demon but now he's a few kobolds short for the necessary sacrifice. Fortunately he has an entire group of adventurers to take their place. Take their weapons and backpacks from then and throw them in the summoning ring. Problem 3: This is our wizard's first attempt at summoning and binding a demon. While he's perfectly capable of defeating 1st level adventurers, they get to see him torn limb from limb by the Glabrezu he summons. The Glabrezu throws the adventurers through the portal and then breaks the summoning circle...stranding our heroes in the Abyss. Fortunately the Glabrezu chose to stay in Galorian so the adventurers have time to struggle out of their bonds but...first adventure in the Abyss is killing Dretch. And they have DR 5 vs anything the adventuers are going to do. If you have some pity you could have some treasure in the Glabrezu's lair. I'd really recommend a 12th level spellbook since any arcane types in the party are unlikely to ever see another one.

[Meirril]

Oh, one suggestion. If you want to keep the players 'alive' have them run into one of those situations where they have no food and they just found something weird but after a skill roll they think they can eat it. Like an orange fungus. The thing tastes awful but doesn't seem immediately lethal.

Then hours later have the players roll a 'fortitude save' which they fail. Then horrible wracking pain that lasts for hours...and they all gain regeneration 1/good. Now its very, very hard for them to die permanently.

[Ryze Kuja]

Use aliens, it's a little less cliche and slightly more terrifying if you're captured instead of simply being killed.

[MageHunter]

Horror adventures might have some stuff that would interest you.

[the David]

Well, you could always do "mojo world". The heroes wake up in a strange land with dangerous inhabitants. When they finally reach the borders they find out they've been inside a giant film set all this time. They've been the unwilling contestants of a bloodsport game, along with all the other creatures on the film set. Their adventures have been staged in order to make a nice profit by broadcasting them to billions of aliens.
You get bonus points if the aliens are Beholders.

I kinda like the abyssal one too. There are plenty of Demons and Qlippoths to use, and the fiendish template gives you even more options.

[Peachbottom]

Dragon swarms. Like the movie Aliens but with medium-sized acid spitting black dragons everywhere. Throw in all different colors of dragons to mix it up.

[Loren Pechtel]

Another approach:

The PCs have inadvertently been gated to a land that has already been overrun by baddies. The gate only opens intermittently (schedule unknown). The baddies know about the gate, when the PCs come though they swarm the gate--the PCs can't just stay by it to get out when it opens again.

You could even give them warning of what to expect--they intentionally use the gate but at the time they are warned about how to do it correctly, if they do it wrong they are going to end up in the blasted land that only those who could gate out have survived. Somehow they do it wrong.

[Dosgamer]

I ran a short-lived campaign based on a Middle-Earth-like world where the bbeg defeated the forces of good. The main centers of society were taken over by orcs, ogres, and giants and the humans lived in scattered groups in the wilderness. It was intended to be a very grim-dark world where the heroes had everything stacked against them but would strive to overcome things in the end. It was an interesting twist on a campaign from the DMs (mine) point of view.