Thinking about starting a campaign loosely based on paper Mario TTYD

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

As the title states. What do y'all think? Good idea? Bad? Any major pitfalls y'all can think of? Now this would probably be set in a more standard pathfinder style world instead of actually being a Mario campaign so I plan on swapping out the various races with decent stand ins and so on. So yeah. Thoughts?

[Albatoonoe]

Honestly, it has all the good hallmarks of a good adventure. Solid hooks, intrigue, travel, a central hub, and most of all...

THE RAWK HAWK

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

I concur. I honestly think that it'll be a great way to actually finish a campaign. I have a bad habit of fumbling and dropping my campaigns Becuase I can't figure out how to keep them going. This is a story I know well. Neither of my players know it. And it's damn good. I think it'll be great. But I may be overlooking some things

[Sysryke]

Which one is this? I've seen several of the Mario RPG's but only played the one for Game Cube I think. Who are the allies/companions in this one, and how will you parallel that with just 2 players?

Aside from those clarifying questions, I do love the idea.

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

Sysryke wrote:

Which one is this? I've seen several of the Mario RPG's but only played the one for Game Cube I think. Who are the allies/companions in this one, and how will you parallel that with just 2 players?

Aside from those clarifying questions, I do love the idea.

TTYD was the GameCube one. The first companion was goombella. As far as emulating them and all that. I'm probably just gonna omit them from the story except for minor NPC status for some. My players aren't big on GMPCs and neither am I Tbh. But overall I don't think they'll need the partners to advance the plot. I'm not sure though

[Albatoonoe]

I think most of the companions can honestly omitted. I'd say a Vivien stand-in could be a nice subplot, but most don't have a lot going on.

[Sysryke]

I really loved that game, in part because I love teams. To me a big part of the story was the acquisition of each team mate, especially since most of them start as an enemy, rival, or major plot NPC first. Just depends on which aspects of the game you're drawing inspiration from though.

Depending on how you run it, and what you're players want to do, it could be fun to have one or both of them run one of the archetypes of Druid, Ranger, Summoner, or another class that allows for multiple companions/eidolons. At that point the roster of allies would be in there hands, not yours.

Considering the narrow focus of abilities of most of the allies, this would seem to fit the bill; though, power scale could be a bit of an issue. Having each of them be a mini-eidolon or custom built summoned monster really sounds good to me. Then the player can decide how much or little he/she wishes to utilize those characters.

If you wanted to be a little tongue in cheek about things, you could have one player be Mario the other Luigi. Then you could also include the crew in the supposedly simultaneous adventure that Luigi is having. Play up both the brotherly love and cooperation, as well as the rivalry.

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

Just realized that chapter 4 will need to be heavily reworked Becuase the whole stolen name and partners idea doesn't work without partners

[Scott Wilhelm]

Well, you have dragons, turtles, dragon turtles, mushroom people, princesses, castles, giant gorillas, magic vehicles, underground adventures, sky-high adventures, underwater adventures, puzzles, hidden rooms, magic mushrooms, lucky stars, man-eating plants... does that sound like a Mario adventure or a Pathfinder adventure?

I think the answer is, "Yes."

It seems to me like making a Pathfinder adventure more Mario-like is a matter of placement of certain magic items and maybe the creation of certain special abilities, like the Hammer from the first Donkey Kong game and the creation of certain Jump-themed special abilities. Maybe make Flying punishingly difficult to harken back to the Flappy-Bird Game which uses the same background, and while you are at it, how about some encounters that resemble the old Joust game that used the same mechanic as Flappy Bird, and was also punishingly difficult.

I think you are onto something.

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

I'm drafting up session one right now. I don't know what either of my players are gonna play yet so I'm just putting in loose groundwork. I'm unsure how I'm going to dangle the initial hook to them. I know I want them to meet professor frankly and get the magic map from him. But I'm not sure what would have brought them to rogueport in the first place. Maybe that's just something I'll have to talk to them about.

Otherwise session one is gonna consist of them getting the magic map. Going underground to the door and learning about petal meadows. I plan on ending the session with the blooper fight or maybe them seeing Hooktail fly overhead. I can't plan too in depth without knowing their characters but I have an outline going on.

Any more suggestions or feedback on the idea is welcome. I'm unsure of how much I wanna keep distinctly Mario (goombas for example) and how much a wanna change (like maybe using goblins instead of goombas)

[Sysryke]

The bodies are slightly different, but take a look at Myconids (or whatever Pathfinder may have re-named them to). Actual mushroom people, that's all goombas are.

[Dox of the ParaDox twins]

I'm not so much worried about stats as I am tone. I'm not sure how Mario I want this to feel. My group isn't huge on Mario so I'm likely swapping out the distinctly Mario things for others