4e Fan Creations and House RulesWorking on variant powers? Statting up a PC race or your version of a monster? Creating or converting an adventure? Put it here!
I've been working on a setting for 3 and a half years now (originally intended for 3.5) and i'll be finally running it now, in 4e.
I don't mean to sound stubborn, but before anyone asks, i'm not willing to change my mind about magic or races.
The setting itself appears simply as a "medieval" setting during winter, only the winter has lasted 25 years. Magic is nearly unheard of, hearing about a man who can create missiles of magic out of nothing is a pretty huge deal, and most sane people would be worried for their lives is such a man was roaming the world. The wilderness is, well, wild. Few towns scatter the winterlocked frontier, the biggest population in any of the towns is barely 2,000. Infact, most would be considered villages, or hamlets.
The only race in the lands are humans (although I have reflavored some other races ie. Dwarf = burly human, Goliath = mountain men, etc...).
Like I mentioned in the name of the thread, it will also be a sandbox style game.
I've run into a few problems though that I hope you guys could possibly help me with. Based on the (unfortunately) brief info above, what kind of dungeons do you imagine? There are no longer goblins, or gnolls to simply infest ruins. Every sentient beings are human, aside from that there are the natural beasts that also exist here on earth that would survive during a prolonged winter, wolves, deer, beavers, etc...
I'm really hoping that theres someone willing to reply so maybe some ideas can be bounced back and forth, allowing me to be able to finish fleshing out my setting within the week.
If you don't have the DMG 2, then I highly recommend getting that. I'm going to throw out some of the advice from that: ask your players. Get them to help develop your setting. You guys can have a campaign planning adventure where everyone comes up with what they like and find interesting. It will also give you the chance to decide what people aren't too interested in, and then you'll know what to leave out. After all, if there are certain things that your players don't want to deal with in a campaign, why would you have those things?
Personally, I like the idea of reflavoring the races as human. Why not do the same with monsters?
I've been working on a setting for 3 and a half years now (originally intended for 3.5) and i'll be finally running it now, in 4e.
If you have been working on this setting for three and a half years it must be pretty detailed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adamaro23
I've run into a few problems though that I hope you guys could possibly help me with. Based on the (unfortunately) brief info above, what kind of dungeons do you imagine? There are no longer goblins, or gnolls to simply infest ruins. Every sentient beings are human, aside from that there are the natural beasts that also exist here on earth that would survive during a prolonged winter, wolves, deer, beavers, etc...
Wait a minute. You have been working on using this world for three and a half years and you havn't ever thought about what story (or stories) you want to tell?
You have never wondered who the heroes are in this world or yours, or who the villains are?
I find this very confusing
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adamaro23
I'm really hoping that theres someone willing to reply so maybe some ideas can be bounced back and forth, allowing me to be able to finish fleshing out my setting within the week.
In order to try and find something positive here and give you something to work with:
Most of the interest in the campaign sounds like it will revolve around important people or events.
- Political infighting or schemes between nobility or different communities
- Notable personalities - lone psychopaths, strange cults performing ancient (or pseudo ancient) rituals (these don't need to have any magical effect, they just have to believe that they do)
- Ingress or activity of natural threats - hungry wolves desperate enough to approach farms to take cattle etc
Other than that there could be ancient legends or myths about powerful artifacts or secret knowledge (again they don't have to be true, but they could form the basis of an adventure or wilderness search) (ideas for inspiration are stories like Excalibar and the court of the mythical king arthur, and the search for the holy grail etc)
All in all though I think this will be a difficult game to run and your players will absolutely need to know what to expect from the beginning. Like I said at the start I still don't understand what you have been doing for three and a half years instead of comming up with a story.
But what do I know? I am sure you know what you are doing.
When I read the topic title (no magic campaign), I thought the thread was going to be about making do with only the martial classes.
And I would have answered "it works perfectly alright". After all, there exist martial choices for all three of the most important 4E roles (Leader, Defender, and Striker).
A team of a Warlord, two Fighters, one Ranger and one Rogue is not a mere "no magic" compromise - it's a perfectly viable 4E party in its own right!
I guess the real question is how fantastic are you willing to let things get? Are there no such things as monsters or are they just rare and hidden away in obscure corners of the world or even just lurking around the edges of civilization? I mean can the party run into a vampire or werewolf or do those things just not exist?
The obvious direction to go is politics, intrigue, crime, wilderness survival, etc. Your choices of opponents for the characters to interact with is going to be somewhat more limited if there aren't monsters around, but humans are always the scariest monster as they say. Bandits and refugees and even just starving people could be interesting. I'd think after 25 years of winter in a basically mundane world things would be beyond grim. In fact its hard to imagine any kind of civilization or very many people still existing at all. Where do they get food from? Even in modern civilization there's no way we could survive more than a few months without crops, and 25 years in a medieval type setting says to me all food stores would be LONG LONG LONG since expended (probably in the first 6 months). So there must be SOME sort of magical/fantastical explanation for the fact that anyone is alive at all. That would probably end up being a central element of any plot, certainly once the campaign gets out of the heroic tier.
Of course that's another question. Just how fantastic are the powers the PCs wield supposed to be allowed to get in this highly mundane setting? Is it even appropriate to run a game in such a setting past 10th level? You may want to decide that pretty early on.
Enemy humans, Insane asylum escapees, plague carriers(undead), bandit bands, slavers(more enemy humans), mutants (Warped ones distorted by left over pools of chaos from when humans thought it was ok to use magic), neanderthals and missing links(orcs). Cultists brain washing children in to thinking its ok to use magic, drug pushers and there addicts? same thing?. Vat grown monsters and Gene engineered master races (sometime elves sometimes others).
PC's are exceptional and even where I do low magic I allow them to be wizards.(if you are an elf you may be attacked by Zealots who want to sacrifice the abomination) if you are a shifter you may be captured by one of those alchemists trying to see what makes you tick.
I let pc's even living in the anti-magic parts of my game world be secret wizards some use coincidental magic which may take arcana checks to notices...others just use more more perception stealth checks... or just get run out of town. Pretending they are just scholars and book sellers.
Last edited by Garthanos; 24th September 2009 at 03:47 PM..
No monsters and no magic. Make it about things that matter to people then. As already posted above, politics and intrigue can be big factors in the game. If you're looking for something more visceral, then make it about war.
Countries going to war, the PCs drafted to work for their kingdom as scouts and knights.
Explore forgotten keeps, left to rot away in the deepest forests or frozen in the neigh-impassable mountains.
Fight bandits in old places, or in city streets.
Twenty five years of winter? Resources have to be getting scarce. If one nation hasn't invaded another for their resources yet then I would be suprised. If common folk arent turning to banditry, then what are they doing to fill their stomachs?
In a setting like you outlined above, small elite groups would be more benefitial to countries than supporting full armies. Less food needs to be given to four or five trailblazing elite knights as they cross into enemy territory and assault a poorly provisioned enemy keep.
Or send these very same people to scout for land worth taking for farming. Or on diplomatic missions.
When times get tough, people tend to turn toward charismatic leaders for guidance. All sorts of cults and rebellious factions could spring up in smaller towns.
Seems like there are plenty of options.
__________________ Adventures in Out of Character:
DM finishes describing an island paradise crafted by the gods for original man. Player A out of character "This place is like the Garden of Eden.. Any apple trees?"
Player B "I saw a show that said that it was most likely Pomeranians not apples back then"
DM laughing "Pomeranians? You meant pomegranate right? Eve convincing Adam to feast on a little dog would of been awesome!"
An interesting option would be to fill the setting with different, roaming tribes of savage humans in place of common humanoid monsters - so that you can use a variety of monster stats from the Monster Manual. Orcs would be a natural fit for your average barbaric tribe, whereas Hobgoblins would make more militaristic, organized cultures. Goblins and Kobolds might even be reskinned as small size (or maybe starving?) tribes, or possibly gangs of juvenile bandits. If you feel like it, you could even justify Ogres as huge humans.
An important concern when levelling up will be replacing magic weapons, in order not to mess with the math of the game. You could have masterwork weapons with enhancenment bonuses, but most special abilities from magic items would be a hard sell. Maybe turning the weapon's magic enchantments into special training for the characters would work?
Also, although martial classes are obviously well suited to the setting, you might consider reflavouring some classes from other power sources in order to add more variety. Barbarians translate very well to a non-magic enviroment, though their most supernatural rages would have to go. You shouldn't have much trouble with monks, either. Bards are slightly more complicated but definitely viable - you may need to get rid of their implement powers, or you could attempt to justify them, using only musical instruments as implements.
As a final consideration, what would be the role of science in the game? Could a character get the Alchemy feat? It might be too difficult to do, but a completely technological, Da Vinci- style Artificer could make a really cool PC...
__________________ My blog about 4e rules and news: Square Fireballs
The first thing I think of when I hear of these kinds of campaigns is to take what is there (regular animals in the wild etc) and make them and everything about them BIGGER.
Like a bear being 2x it's normal size, and maybe with Sabertooth like fangs - just a quick example.
Also, nature itself (plant-life, etc) would be much more dangerous, bigger, (intelligent even).
Weather could be a big factor as well - it would be deadly to be out in the elements for long periods of time, etc.
Anyway, just a quick blurb on my through, sorry if any of these have been mentioned already (though I quickly skimmed)...
__________________
Dark Water Campaign run in the Last Lands
----=====----
I ended up doing something like this myself. The start of my DMing career began after I finished the last of Joe Abercrombie's First law Trilogy. The world is large and the story threads are just begging for adaptation for a campaign. If you haven't read it, I recommend it heartily. As for why this is germain to the discussion, I feel that it's relatively little use of magic and humancentric storyline is a perfect fit.
Magic:
there are stories of magic in older times, that of the great Juvens and his twleve apprentices. The only character in the book that can really do magic is Bayaz, first of the magi, and when he does magic, it's world-changing. No magic missle stuff here; he makes people explode from the inside, makes things spontaneously combust, but all of this happens very, very rarely. Most of the characters are martial.
Races as subraces:
The easiest fit Goliaths, who could be the Northmen from the story. but since there are different races of man from different continents in the story, it would be easy to "convert" them to a campaign setting.
Conflict:
What's not to love? You have two wars brewing and a quest to find an artifact of great power that may not be anything. If you haven't read the story, I won't spoil it for you much, but the quest to find the Seed is an amazing heroic journey.
Somebody suggested a dwarf hammer wielder as the basis for a lame staff using monk, and budda bing... after that it was no going home.
The ceiling is not nailed down Horatio go ahead and dive.
I consider the games races archetypes. In the game world if you wanted to be a reincarnating character... you might pick deva, or human... or tiefling
Add in more flavor adaptability devas pick which pair of yin yang resistances... then make the character look however you like... or even have a life span or other flavor and fluff bits mixed in.
If you want to be one of the cat-folk with uncanny luck (build him with halfling) and if you wanted to build one of those same cat-folk but emphasize the nine lifes build him with deva.
A lizardman might use the warforged archetype and treat there incredibly hard to kill nature as being tissue regeneration...
I've run into a few problems though that I hope you guys could possibly help me with. Based on the (unfortunately) brief info above, what kind of dungeons do you imagine? There are no longer goblins, or gnolls to simply infest ruins. Every sentient beings are human, aside from that there are the natural beasts that also exist here on earth that would survive during a prolonged winter, wolves, deer, beavers, etc...
Empty and boring ones.
Honestly, what do you expect when you take away all that is fun about D&D? You're surprised there's nothing interesting to fill your dungeons with?
And 4e just isn't a good fit for this type of game. On the one hand you're saying that everything fantastic and magical in the world has gone, and yet you're using a system that inherently relies on the PC's being fantastical and magical.
I'd recommend not only another rules system, but that you look at similarly sparse settings for inspiration.
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
