D&D 4E "Orphans Preferred" - Planning for my 4e Practice Game

(My players out, please.)
[d]gf[/d]
[bq]"Wanted. Young, strong, healthy people over 16. Must be willing to travel and to risk death daily. Orphans preferred."

"You are soldiers in the Caprian Foreign Legion, the legendary military and exploratory force that is joined when a person has no other choice. Some soldiers are running away; some are trying to find something new within themselves. Either way, those who join the Caprian Legion are given new names and a new home in distant lands. Their enemies fear them. Few ever return."[/bq]

When I get 4e, I'm going to run a placeholder game for a few months -- go up levels every game, try new stuff, rework your character as much as you like, play around with options, players swap in and out. I'm trying to find a fictional structure that supports this in a high adventure politically isolated setting.

After some brainstorming with the Rat Bastard club, my thought is that I'll make the PCs all members of what's effectively the French Foreign Legion. This way (as Plane Sailing suggested to me) the party can come from all backgrounds and all walks of life to serve in the legion, in this godsforsaken fort in the back end of jungle-nowhere. This allows me to have any mixture of races and classes in an exotic location, easy to bring new characters into focus and let older ones drop out of focus, camp commandants can send them on missions (getting away from the old 'why are we doing this again?' question), and I can even have the good old grizzled commandant replaced by a pompous ninny who starts making atrocious decisions.

I'll have the PCs stationed on a newly discovered jungle continent, maybe one where the dragonborn originated. They have moved into a local "native" town and head out on missions from there. This will give me lots of dungeoncrawling in steamy wilderness, and let me swap PCs in and out as needed.

[sblock=Possible game ideas (to be filled in as I go along)

Game 1: 1st level. PCs arrive in the port town of Pliss, a ruined dragonborn city now co-opted by the "civilized" races. Monsters are raiding the city. PCs are rushed into battle. (Features skill challenges as well.) Monsters: goblins and a gnome.

Game 2: 3rd level. PCs must enter the jungle and find out what happened to a destroyed lizardfolk village. Monsters: zombies, lizardfolk, young green dragon.

Game 3: 5th level. An important diplomat comes to the city. The PCs must bodyguard him against assassination.

Game 4: 8th level. Prevent debased tieflings from summoning their ancient evil epic hero.

Game 5: 11th level. Fight an undead tiefling hero who has only partially been brought back to life by his minions.

Game 6: 14th level. Plunder the tomb of Huz'zok, an ancient deathtrap, in order to recover a legendary cultural artifact of the tieflings. With it, they'll have the upper hand in negotiating with a dangerous tiefling warlord who threatens Pliss.

Game 7: 19th level. The Negotiator's Ball. Diplomats from every faction threatening Pliss comes to the city in a delicate negotiation for peace. Can the PCs pull it off?

Game 8: 22nd level.

Game 9: 25th level.[/sblock]

See any good improvements? What about fun plots and adventures? I'd love ideas and suggestions.

Tiefling Bashing

Unless it is central to your world to be, it seems like an awful lot of tiefling antagonists. I think I would tone it down a bit to offer the PC's some variety.

I understand that this is more of a "try before you buy" for your PCs to see how things work at different levels, but you might want to leverage the MM a little heavier to see how things fair against a variety of different types of foes, with different tactics.

Overall I think the general concept is great, I love the Foreign Legion theme and it's perfect for characters that no one will be too disappointed if they die.

I would recommend perhaps some lizardman and or Yuan-Ti cults to mix things us if this is in a jungle settings. Some step pyramids and sacrificing of baby kobolds (scrambled eggs?) and such will mix things up nicely from the tiefling angle.

CarpeDM (latin: Seize the Dungeon Master)

I like this concept a lot. It's a perfect fit for the new Point-of-Light direction vanilla 4e wants to take. On the topic of fun plots and adventures an invasion would seem like a perfect fit with the CFL (Caprian Foreign Legion) being used at first as the first line of defense and eventually as the spearhead of the counter-assault. With revealed critters like the swordwing giving you a viable "Starship Troopers" meets Far Realm invasion angle, you can easily try out any and all abbarrations included in the 4e Monster Manual. It also easily allows you to pit your higher level PC legionaires against overwhelming odds of lower level monsters. Even for 20th level PC's facing 5 to one odds of lower level soldier and skirmisher type monsters backed-up by a leader and some controllers will make for some hair-raising moments.

What I might try doing is something similar to what has been happening in the City Watch game I've been involved in: associate the Heroic, Paragon, and Epic tiers with a commensurate increase in the characters' rank and responsibility, and possibly even give them some low-ranking soldiers to command. ("We need you guys to scout out Rl'thagh's Pyramid; come back with reconnaissance information. Remember to put on these red shirts before you head out.")

It seems like tier transitions are a big part of the 4E experience, so it makes sense to bring them to bear in the story, I think.

Not to worry if it seems like I'm dumping on tieflings. In my fevered imagination they're one of many monsters that I'll use for bad guys once I finally have a chance to peruse the MM. I just love the image of debased warlocks skittering out of thick jungle foilage in the heat a huge, red jungle sun.

I imagine that one of my challenges will be making a 4 hour game that doesn't drag continue from one session to the next. Like an episode of television or a one-shot campaign game, these will have to be finished in one sitting. That's going to limit me somewhat.

Limitations

I think you should use the limitations you are imposing on yourself as a good thing. You can also use it to put pressure on you players to think fast and play fast and loose. I would recommend giving yourself ratings on the challenges for each "episode", and use that to see what may need to get dropped if things are dragging a bit. Rate something that isn't critical to the plot low, that way if you seem to be running behind you can drop that portion easy.

I've been planning on doing something similar for my players that way they can get a feeling for what they want to do when we start our primary campaign for 4e

I can't remember why I didn't click on this thread sooner. Amazing idea.

malcolm_n said:

I can't remember why I didn't click on this thread sooner. Amazing idea.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I was trying to figure out a way to try lots of cool stuff quickly. This seems to fit.

I'll fill in details as I flesh out the setting, for folks who are interested.

Update: the plan for game 1.

After extensive negotiations and bribes, the Caprian Foreign Legion has found a goblin who is willing to betray his allies and act as a guide for Foreign Legion explorers (treasure hunters). In specific, he will guide them to a rich and abandoned ruin that's been recounted in fable, but which no human has been able to find.

The other goblins aren't so keen on this idea.

At the start of the game, a fire and mock attack has been set at one end of the city to attract and divert Legion troops. The PCs are commanded to go guard the goblin while other people deal with the attack. Of course, the real attack comes after the goblin, and it's up to the PCs to stop it.

This will give me several encounters in several different waves. Roofs, fountains, carts, a well, statues, chickens, and various other items can be used in the fight. Best of all, the bad guy behind the attack - the boss monster leading the goblins and other humanoids - can be a jungle gnome of some kind. Can't you see it now? "I'm a monster! Rarrr!"

Sounds good, as expected. If you haven't read it, the first portion of Paizo's Rise of the Runelords has a goblin raid. I mention this because it has some stellar examples of goblin 'competence', such as missed leaps from rooftops and drowning in rain barrels. It adds some great flavor to the sessions and can help distract from some of the new mechanics of the fights.