...I'm going likely going to make extensive changes.
I have no desire to use the primary baddies that this campaign uses.
I really like the whole Roanoke thing it has going for it, and while islands could work, I also have some things I want to run on my campaign world's moon.
So I'm thinking that there is a portal that only opens rarely to the moon and running the game as a colony being sent to the moon.
Most of the underwater problems/challenges go away.
The main baddies would be draconic.
Does anyone have any advice, or threads to point at here for cool stuff?
I know it the other AP forums there's always lots of neat stuff buried in there created by other DMs, so if someone would be so kind as to point me towards the cool stuff, please!
Haven't run the AP, but as far as Dragons go, consider Outer Dragons (Lunar, Any), Primal (Umbral), or Planar (Rift). You could still include some "underwater" scenes here and there utilizing low gravity pockets.
My (long term home brew, which has its origins in the early 80's)campaign world has a long (ancient) history of conflict between dragon-kind and fey(and by extension elves). I've also used the moon as a inhabited location in the past.
Using areas of low-gravity and low-air is entirely my intent, in fact I intend for the "normal" areas to be the "pockets", simulating islands of normality. There will be water, so if I'm forced to, I can still use outright underwater areas.
I also have a long established 'Atlantean' civilization, almost all of the Runelords material fit very well within the world history with only moderate shoehorning, and I've no reason to make a differentiation between Azlant and Thasilon, as far as my campaign world the IS no precursor and successor empire.
I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't make the fey/elves the enemies in this campaign - I'll have to think about that...
Adventurers find an ancient 'Atlantean' portal to the moon, on the moon they discover rare metals and woods, they decide to try to exploit the resources, but realize it will take the founding of a colony to really exploit them. The real problem is that the portal only opens during a total lunar eclipse.
Rough outline to begin the campaign:
1 - Explorer adventurers set up company to exploit the moon.
2 - Company sets up and organizes a settlement on the island where the portal is located.
3 - True colonization recruitment begins, First Wave selected.
4 - First Wave of colonists sail to staging settlement and trained and sent through portal.
5 - Things happen.
6 - Second Wave selected.
7 - Second Wave of colonists sail to staging settlement (including PCs) and trained and sent through portal.
I'm considering some type of event before the actual travel through the portal such as pirates or something else on the portal island, letting the PCs sort of hit the ground running once on the moon and cut off from resources.
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In the last AP I ran I made the occasional use of "cut scenes" - giving the players the chance to play through some of the events that happen off screen from their regular characters by playing some of the background NPCs for part of a session.
Show rather than tell.
It was very effective in communicating the story to the players.
The thought I have is to begin the campaign with that idea.
Here's the outline:
1 - Before actual character generation, have each player build a 15 point npc classed character.
2 - Have the players experience the selection process through to the final step of the first wave selection, but will ultimately NOT be selected as a first wave colonist.
3 - Have the players generate their own PC characters for the second wave selection after having experienced the selection process once on another character.
4 - The NPC classed characters will be part of the second wave and join the PCs on their mission as second wave colonists.
5- The NPC classed characters will be used on a recurring basis to show the players things that their actual characters are not their for.
Thoughts?
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I've actually started running this - but this will only be very loosely a "Ruins of Azlant" campaign.
I'll still share what I've done in case it sparks any ideas.
I've set the stage, the players made their NPC classed characters - hereafter "colonist characters" and we role-played the selection process with the characters making assorted skill checks.
I went around the table asking questions that could be pertinent and included some questions based on Mars One guidelines. The players had no knowledge that they were going to the moon until the end of the session.
The "...to the moon..." bombshell was exciting, and the players began talking about what to do and plans for their real..."explorer characters".
For a group of long-time jaded players, this was a nice bit of excitement, and the players began revising their explorer character plans.
Role-playing out the interview process turned out better than I'd hoped even if I wasn't quite as prepared as I wanted to be. With all the players there, they quickly were able to get into their colonist characters and at least somewhat begin to form a persona. I also gave the players free reign to make "peanut gallery" comments when their own character was not being questioned. Heckling the active player.
Along with that, they were able to "introduce" their characters without any stilted typical beginning of campaign introductions or descriptions.
If you're thinking of starting this campaign, I thought it worked well for me and my players.
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Making the players respond to questions about themselves while on the spot really did work for my group - people were quickly getting into character and already being forced to answer some questions - perhaps even to themselves about their own characters.
If you have a chance to do any sort of interview process with your players I think it could be of value.
I also created some hand out Stock Certificates for their personal stock in the venture. A tangible item for them to hold on to so that they had some sense of ownership in the success of the mission. They went over pretty well too.
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Global pandemics and other local issues really slowed down my progress in this campaign.
With my heavy modifications making the campaign not just Roanoke, but combined elements of John Carter, Lost (even more than already there), Stargate and Gilligan's Island.
I was very happy with the changes and adaptations I utilized, making a resource available with images available for every colonist along with brief bios and updated information.
I made my player's stretch by allowing them to incorporate story and social elements into the colony to make it a living place - to make the players care about the colony and their fellow colonists.
With decades of experience upon both sides of the gm screen, I was pretty proud of what I was doing with this campaign, I was stretching my skills and my player's - even if it was only for three players.
This forum is also a great resource for ideas and has helped me build my campaign and saved me a bunch of work. But now I'm not feeling the motivation to complete this campaign, and its a little sad that I won't get to see how it all plays out as the story progresses. But not as sad as I am about the reason why.
Earlier this month, one of those players died due to complications after surgery. A player who I've shared a table with regularly for over 30 years. He'll be missed.
All I can say is that I'm sorry for your loss.
...
This forum is also a great resource for ideas and has helped me build my campaign and saved me a bunch of work.
...
Earlier this month, one of those players died due to complications after surgery. A player who I've shared a table with regularly for over 30 years. He'll be missed.
Really sorry to hear that. At least you have all those gaming memories and I'm sure he will be memorialized during future gaming sessions as you reshare those stories. A legacy to celebrate.
I'm lurking here in case I do RoA next after we finish Ironfang, and heartily agree that stuff shared on these forums is gold for enriching campaigns and saving work.
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All I can say is that I'm sorry for your loss.
Really sorry to hear that.
Thank you both for the kind words.
I really like this campaign as it turns a lot of expectations on its head, and makes each and every NPC a critical piece of your game.
For this campaign, I think that making the settlement at least SEEM alive is important.
In between every session I tried to use the "three things happen" guide, (kind of self explanatory).
But I shared out those duties - often assigning the task of what happened or who it happened to, to one of the players, such as:
"There's some celebration in the settlement - what is being celebrated?"
or
"Someone has had an religious epiphany and perhaps change of faith, who is it?"
Sometimes just as simple as "Someone in town approaches <different player's character> to talk, who is it?"
or alternately, "what does the person want?"
Just something small to not only create activity in the settlement, but to get the player's invested in the (very limited number) of NPCs in the settlement.