Planning on Rebooting a Failed Campaign

[DungeonmasterCal]

I created our setting back in 1990, with adventures taking place in and around a massive, ancient city named Unkhoor. Like a lot of GMs out here I went into a pretty meticulous amount of detail about the people, the history of the city and its home country, and so forth. The most important historical detail was that a thousand years earlier it and most of the continent were under the rule of a race of psionic Humans called the Ransoori and that a legendary figure, a gladiator-slave named Daormeti, led an uprising and overthrew the their corrupt and decadent masters.

I ran games in the setting for over twenty years, then created a new city in another part of the world where players could face new challenges, etc. But in 2017, after the final game of what was called the "Dar-Shalul Campaign", one of my players suggested a campaign set in Unkhoor's past, shortly before and then during the uprising that freed the people under Ransoori rule. I thought it was a good idea, so I got to work on it. It started out sort of wonky, with the players doing a couple of things I didn't expect (as usual) but I went with it like I've always done. But things spun out of control in a hurry. I introduced alternate timelines and parallel worlds where the uprising's results turned out wildly different. And then I started hating the game. I couldn't find a logical way to fix it and I didn't want to just snap my fingers like Q would and fix things, so I ended it and started another campaign in Dar-Shalul with the intention of going back to old fashioned adventuring just for the sake of it in a campaign my players named "Fortune and Glory".

My plan for F&G was to do short story arcs for each character, but it's taken so long with COVID shut downs, some of us having COVID (and in my case twice) so we didn't play for six months. We started back this past April and have played four times. One of the group suggested going back to the prior campaign but I didn't want to because it was too fried and I hated the idea. Then I thought of just rebooting it, starting over at first level, and being more mindful of the things I put into the storyline. I'm actually pretty excited for it and a former player is collaborating with me on the do-over and I think I'm really going to have a good time. It's been a very long time since I ran a mostly urban campaign, so I really want to make sure I don't go overboard with stupid ideas and plots that lead to dead ends.

Sorry if this ran long, but not getting to game and hang out with my group is starting to get to me and I just needed to "think out loud" here. And if anyone has any thoughts or ideas about things they'd like to share or contribute hit me with 'em. I'd love to hear what folks think.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Hey Cal, I'm psyched to see what you come up with! Do you have any plots or ideas already that you'd be willing to share with us (telling your players to remain out of the threads or whatever of course!)? You're already very much a sandbox guy, king of ad libbing and you've got over 3 decades of established lore to preserve and draw from, so I don't know if I can offer much in the way of help.

How do you navigate around the "prequel" problem? The history of Unkhoor is fixed; there will be a hero, an uprising, and the Ransoori will fall. For the characters to be involved, there's already a fixed outcome to the larger story beats.

If it were my campaign, I'd force situations where the Ransoori overlords have to focus on the PCs. Plots at low levels could involve the PCs inadvertently hindering the psions' minions, or being blackmailed into working with the overlords. As time goes on, allowing the PCs to level up either because of or in spite of the Ransoori.

While all of this is going on, Daormeti and the uprising are hiding in the background, waiting to ambush the Ransoori unseen. In the meantime, the psions are spending all of their attention on dealing with the PCs. In fact, if you and the players want to keep the action going into high levels, I say you have Daormeti and their uprising take place in the campaign, but allow one or more Ransoori to survive and pin the blame secretly on the party for Daormeti's success.

To the general public the gladiator-slave is their hero, but to those in power they know the real threat was the party all along.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Thanks, Mark!

The first time around, the campaign started with Daormeti having already escaped and was living in the mountains to the north, making guerrilla-style raids on local warlords. In the very first adventure the players ran afoul of the authorities. With some good roleplaying and lucky rolls, they managed to get some information about D's whereabouts (I can't recall all of the details, though). So anyway, they just took off willy-nilly into the mountains (imagine the Carpathians from Coppola's "Dracula" setting).

It took several adventures before they found Daormeti, of course, but along the way I just abandoned all common sense and experience as a GM and the whole thing began to derail to such an extent that I dreaded game nights. After I announced I was putting it back in the freezer for a while to start the current one, there had been two or three mentions of going back to it. After lots of thought, I decided a reboot was best.

This time around I don't even think Daormeti will be that famous a gladiator yet. He's the local boy done good sort of thing, but the news of his prowess is spreading and more and more dangerous opponents are being brought for him to face. But unrest has been bubbling underneath the notice of the Ransoori for some time, especially since the current ruler is mad and demanding more frequent raids on the homes of perceived enemies to sacrifice to their gods in a ritual called The Dark Harvest.

A former player, also named Mark, is always an incredible source of good ideas. We've been sort of brainstorming and it's pretty much a done deal the players won't be starting out with everyone knowing each other, but more of an "I know someone who's good at this sort of thing, let me talk to them", with that person being another PC. We've already come up with four different clandestine groups, three of which are well known among the upper crust of Unkhoor's society for their being able to always provide the right person at the right time for butler or maid service, safe and reliable transportation of people in the city and to neighboring ones, and a very famous tailors' business that caters to the wealthy. These business are fronts for three powerful, yet cooperative thieves' guilds. The fourth one is an assassins' guild called the Twilight Sisterhood that goes all the way back to the beginning of the setting. The kicker about them is they're not MCU Black Widow type beauties, but a Twilight Sister could be ANY woman; a fishmonger's wife, the teenaged daughter of some well-placed noble, the crazy old woman who stands on street corners and shouts doom to all, etc.

So the hope is to entwine the players with NPCs from these organizations and learn about the first whispers of revolution from them. At some point in the campaign Daormeti will make his escape, though it won't be early on, and your idea to possibly pin the blame on the PCs is terrific! That just went into my Handy Dandy Notebook! I've also promised no chronomancers who try to shepherd history one way or the other (there were two factions of them) or parallel worlds and this time I'm stickin' to it!

[Mark Hoover 330]

So, the PCs are a kind of Oceans' 11 type crew assembled by, I'm guessing, the 4 guilds you mentioned? If that's the case, the PCs are being employed for likely cloak-and-dagger type stuff at the beginning of the campaign.

Will they be working AGAINST the mad ruler as the tyrant raids the citizenry for The Dark Harvest? Or, would the overlord be engaging the nefarious guilds to make raid teams and the party is one of those? In other words, are the PCs the heroes or the villains?

If it were my own campaign, I'd go with the PCs being heroes or antiheroes and the outline would go like this:

Spoiler:

Act 1, a few adventures to give the players the feel of things, some missions for the guilds. During this time as an interlude they go to the Coliseum to take in a Daormeti match; this can be where they meet a shady contact or have some kind of intense social encounter, followed by a chase scene through the arena and underground area (guards, monsters in cages, all kinds of hazards to duck and dodge around, very cinematic)

Act 2, the PCs have some established contacts and one of these gives clues that there's something rotten in Denmark. Before the PCs can get more info though, their contact is slain. Pick something unique to one of the characters; a particular combo of feats, a unique weapon, a type of spell energy damage or whatever; that plus a vague description is used to frame the characters for the murder. This entire act is about isolating the PCs from their support networks. Hunt them with their former guildmembers.

Act 3 should see the PCs desperate. You WANT them under WBL (but not so much that it breaks the game), hiding out somewhere in Unkhoor. They can't physically leave the city as the Dark Harvest is drawing nigh. The only support the PCs have is some very lowly NPCs; Commoners, very low-level Adepts, poor folks of the city who are being targeted by the raids. Predictably, the PCs' key supporter is attacked by Unkhoor guards - if the PCs protect their NPC contacts they can defeat the guards easily but they will be exposed, but if they DON'T help out their NPC helpers are forced to give them up anyway. Either way, now the PCs are on the tyrant's hit list and they need to get out of the fire.

Act 4 is where Daormeti comes back in. Just as the PCs are in some kind of desperate state they receive a curious invitation back to the Coliseum. Dwormeti has a way to get the PCs out of the city, to a mountain stronghold nearby. After a tense exit from Unkhoor, the PCs have some random encounters on the road and a short but classic dungeon adventure as they clear some monsters/evil humanoids/whatever from the mountain hideout that Daormeti's people lead them to.

Act 5 - now the stage is set. The Dark Harvest is at hand, the Commoner NPCs that were helping the PCs are somehow still alive but they need a rescue. The guilds are revealed to be helping the tyrant complete the ritual so the path is clear: the party needs to re-enter Unkhoor, take the fight to the guilds and free their Commoner friends while also getting revenge on guild members that framed them in the first place.

Epilogue: while the PCs are doing their part to end one portion of the Dark Harvest ritual, there are actually multiple different "ceremonies" happening, all at once, in Unkhoor. Other sacrifices are being attempted, some of these being thwarted by an "uprising" inspired by Daormeti. Completing the historical arc of the setting canon, the gladiator himself goes toe-to-toe with the mad tyrant and destroys them, but this forces Daormeti into exile.

After the chaos of the Dark Harvest, the gladiator meets one last time with the PCs before dipping out of the city. Daormeti recognizes that the slaying of a single Ransoori will do little to end their empire, so while the gladiator takes to exile, the party will take over running the guilds and being Daormeti's eyes and ears in Unkhoor.

This leaves the PCs on the Ransoori's radar as persons of interest in the interruption of the ritual and Daormeti's whereabouts. If the players want to continue on after, say, 10th level you can have them directly confronted by the psions and their more powerful minions, but also have their organizations harassed and infiltrated by Ransoori agents. Build up some intrigue, give them a specific Ransoori villain to focus on, and the PCs are inadvertently contributing to Daormeti's war to end the empire.

[Andostre]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

And if anyone has any thoughts or ideas about things they'd like to share or contribute hit me with 'em.

I can only offer my blessings, but if I think of anything, I'll pipe up. Every idea you and Mark have stated sounds fun as hell, though.

What do you think your party makeup will be like? If this is a reboot, are the PCs the same as before, or can the players choose new PCs? What's the general feel of ancient Unkhoor? If it has a coliseum, is it more Roman or maybe Conan-like? Tech level?

[DungeonmasterCal]

Andostre wrote:

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

And if anyone has any thoughts or ideas about things they'd like to share or contribute hit me with 'em.

I can only offer my blessings, but if I think of anything, I'll pipe up. Every idea you and Mark have stated sounds fun as hell, though.

What do you think your party makeup will be like? If this is a reboot, are the PCs the same as before, or can the players choose new PCs? What's the general feel of ancient Unkhoor? If it has a coliseum, is it more Roman or maybe Conan-like? Tech level?

I'm not sure, yet. Since we haven't had our session zero yet, no one has really made mention of whether or not they're going to play their original character save one. She is going to play her original character, a Forgeborn Sorcerer of a home-brewed race called the Buil, hybrids of Humans and Ogres bred by the Ransoori for their strength, endurance, and lower resistance to Psionic control. They're *Mostly* Human, really looking almost exactly like them except for their greater size and slightly thicker brow ridges. And since I'm going to make this one a much more urban-centered campaign, at least at first, I'm going to make a few class restrictions or at least offer urban archetypes where available. I've given everyone the option of playing their original characters if they want or creating new ones that might need to be tweaked a little.

I always tried to make Unkhoor feel like it's quite old. Our original campaigns were set eight hundred years after the fall of the Ransoori, but even then the city's origins go back very far. The earliest ideas I had for its type of city have mostly stayed the same, with a civilization on the cusp of becoming a bit like the first days of Rennaissance western Europe, mixed with "trace" elements I drew from other ancient civilizations such as Sumer, Akkadia, and Harrapan societies and what we know of them. Geographically it sits on a large island in the middle of the largest river in the empire. The island rises from the its banks to a peak, with different "tiers" of the city's population makeup going from the poorest at the lowest tier to the very top of the island where the palace and other great houses sit, with the average wealth, types of trades, and living conditions getting progressively better as one goes higher up.

I'll write down some bits about the type of coliseum and fighting pits in a little while. I need to run an errand and I think I might be having a small relapse of the COVID I've had for the last three and a half weeks. I've been 48 hours without a fever until now and I'm winding down pretty fast.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So, the PCs are a kind of Oceans' 11 type crew assembled by, I'm guessing, the 4 guilds you mentioned? If that's the case, the PCs are being employed for likely cloak-and-dagger type stuff at the beginning of the campaign.

Will they be working AGAINST the mad ruler as the tyrant raids the citizenry for The Dark Harvest? Or, would the overlord be engaging the nefarious guilds to make raid teams and the party is one of those? In other words, are the PCs the heroes or the villains?

If it were my own campaign, I'd go with the PCs being heroes or antiheroes and the outline would go like this:

** spoiler omitted **...

I'm not going to put players into any guilds without asking if they want to be members first. I've had to railroad things in past campaigns to get things going, but I try to do as little as possible and only when absolutely necessary to preserve the "feel" of the setting or adventures. I'll come back to the rest of your post in a little bit. Gonna run to the store then come back and lie down a bit.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Mark, I just re-read the acts you posted for the overall story line and I have to say they're brilliant. There is so much there that perfectly fits within the ideas I've had. Thanks!

I actually really like the anti-hero angle, and in the first crack at Revolution Calling one of the characters actually played that role. He was a Half-Orc (in our setting they aren't hybrids but their own race called the Ulda) barber named "Scalps" and he used that concept and owned it. I really miss him being able to join in the games now, but work must prevail and his job doesn't give him Saturdays off.

As I mentioned in another post I'm not going to just automatically place the PCs in any of those guilds we've talked about but they will have the option to be if they want. Seldom does anyone play a Good aligned character, unless it's Chaotic Good in our games, with most falling into one of the Neutral positions on the chart and the anti-hero concept is great if anyone picks up on it.

Thanks again for the inspiration. I might just use the whole darned thing.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Andostre wrote:

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

And if anyone has any thoughts or ideas about things they'd like to share or contribute hit me with 'em.

I can only offer my blessings, but if I think of anything, I'll pipe up. Every idea you and Mark have stated sounds fun as hell, though.

What do you think your party makeup will be like? If this is a reboot, are the PCs the same as before, or can the players choose new PCs? What's the general feel of ancient Unkhoor? If it has a coliseum, is it more Roman or maybe Conan-like? Tech level?

Oh, another thing I've striven to do is stay away from "Western" and Tolkien sounding names for NPCs and locations. I pull names from the ancient civilizations I mentioned found for the most part online and then I sometimes modify them just a little, but not often. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to find those name lists, too. I tell ya, once the internet entered into my life my world building was supercharged. I am always jotting down things, looking them up online, and either slotting them into the campaign world or setting them aside as "maybes" for another time.

As far as the fighting arenas go, I have always used a sort of mix of the Conan-style pits all the way up to Romanesque coliseums, depending on the location and size of the town or city. Gladiators are bought and sold from even the meanest of fighting pits and if they get better and become more famous they are often traded or sold to higher bidders.

The things I've always had the biggest problems with are non-fighter types in such situations. While magic and magic users are far from scarce in the setting, I still try to keep most of the "NPC" magic low-key, with things like ever-burning flames for street lights in the most affluent of areas in the greatest cities and it is necessary to use magic to transport the food and other necessary goods Unkhoor uses because they are a land-locked capitol. The great river is good for moving cargo, but if someone wants the freshest oysters (as an example) someone is going to teleport or be teleported where they need to go. "Low-key" doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any butt-whoopin', spell-spittin' BBEGs, but most magic is often more utilitarian in the setting, if that makes any sense.

OK, back to the problem with magic wielding classes in gladiatorial settings. I need to brush up on the rules for magical dueling, but how do I keep high level casters from just blasting or teleporting their way to freedom whenever there's a chance? All suggestions are welcome here.

Signing off for the night. I hope everyone has a great evening!

[Andostre]

Pre-internet days, I used to keep a pocket atlas with my gaming books so that I could look up names from Africa or central Asia for name inspiration.

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

OK, back to the problem with magic wielding classes in gladiatorial settings. I need to brush up on the rules for magical dueling, but how do I keep high level casters from just blasting or teleporting their way to freedom whenever there's a chance? All suggestions are welcome here.

The only thing that immediately comes to mind are custom magic items limiting which spells can be used, but that could be unsatisfying for a player. Or it could encourage the player to use allowed spells in creative ways, but verisimilitude would demand that NPC casters that have come before would have already thought of most tricks. (I feel like if someone is enslaved/indentured, someone who can cast the sort of utilitarian magic you've mentioned wouldn't be made into a gladiator. They'd be put to work by a rich house, guild, or government.)

If the only issue is combat balance, the solution seems like it should be party vs. party instead of pairing a single gladiator vs. another, where one can summon a demon and the other has a spear.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Andostre wrote:

Pre-internet days, I used to keep a pocket atlas with my gaming books so that I could look up names from Africa or central Asia for name inspiration.

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

OK, back to the problem with magic wielding classes in gladiatorial settings. I need to brush up on the rules for magical dueling, but how do I keep high level casters from just blasting or teleporting their way to freedom whenever there's a chance? All suggestions are welcome here.

The only thing that immediately comes to mind are custom magic items limiting which spells can be used, but that could be unsatisfying for a player. Or it could encourage the player to use allowed spells in creative ways, but verisimilitude would demand that NPC casters that have come before would have already thought of most tricks. (I feel like if someone is enslaved/indentured, someone who can cast the sort of utilitarian magic you've mentioned wouldn't be made into a gladiator. They'd be put to work by a rich house, guild, or government.)

If the only issue is combat balance, the solution seems like it should be party vs. party instead of pairing a single gladiator vs. another, where one can summon a demon and the other has a spear.

While much of society's magic is practical and utilitarian, PCs can go nuts with spells...lol

Thanks for the great ideas!

[Azothath]

For gladiators RAW has +1 performance on weapons. I'm not sure that it is all that practical but if you're going thematic, there ya go.

I'll also point you towards K. Kurtz's Deryni{Fantasy similar to your theme}.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Azothath wrote:

For gladiators RAW has +1 performance on weapons. I'm not sure that it is all that practical but if you're going thematic, there ya go.

I'll also point you towards K. Kurtz's Deryni{Fantasy similar to your theme}.

Thanks! I'll check it out!