Sailors on the River of Worlds- Update

Psion · Nov 23, 2003

Update - this thread was started long ago. Skip to page 2 for recent developments and points I am interested in input on -- namely, the cities.

Okay, reading Portals & Planes has intrigued me with one of the concepts. To with, the idea for one "pathway" (or in MotP lingo, "transitive plane") is the river of worlds. The basic concept is that you can sail between different worlds/planes. (And watching "Sinbad" only made it worse.)

This is cool in a lot of ways. If you have LotR style elven legends of sailing to the afterlife, it actually makes sense!

This really intrigued me on the idea of making a sort of "Elric" style "Sailor on the Seas of Fate" game, perhaps a bit episodic in style, where the players travel to exotic lands and get exposed to new cultures and situations.

Things I am wondering about:
1) How to approach such a campaign. All I have told my players is I am planning something nautical. Do you think it would be better to surprise them, or to let them know what is going on so they can make character with a bit better tuned skills.

2) How to run episodic games like this. Usually, one has a lot of luxury in being able to use a single consistant game. Throwing the doors wide to a bunch of different world concepts provides for a lot of variety, but it is also very daunting changing scenery so much with fewer consistent references than the norm for D&D campaigns.

So does anyone have any experience running games where the PCs are total wanderers, and they inexplicably work their ways into many important events of places they have never been, like many SF series?

3) Any other thoughts/ideas? This campaign idea is in its infancy, and I am looking for any ideas on making it compelling and interesting.

Sir Whiskers · Nov 23, 2003

Using sci-fi series as a basis, one thing that seems to work well is changing elements with recurring villains/protagonists. Consider:

B5: Mr. Morden and the Shadows
DS9: The Dominion and the Founders; also Sloane and Section 31
ST: Voyager: The Borg
Sliders: the Cromags
Dr. Who: the Master

My thinking is that while you're throwing the players into one different world after another, they'll need some continuity and a good villain (or just friendly competition) might do the trick.

Byrons_Ghost · Nov 23, 2003

I think approach is going to vary with the group. If you know the players well enough that they won't mind a surprise, then leave things vague. If it's newer people you're dealing with, then you'll probably want to give them a better idea of what's going on.

I agree with Whiskers- an ongoing villain or bad guy group would be best. There's an old Companion-level module called "Where Chaos Reigns" which I turned into a mini-campaign. Essentially, the party must go through different periods of history to stop an alien cyborg race called the Oard, who conquer worlds with magic by ensuring that the offending fantasy elements never come into being.

Well, you're not going to want to do time travel with this- that only works with one world to focus on. But the principle- using this framework to string together as many oddball adventures and settings as you can get your hands on (time to bust out the mini-games!). The conspiracy of the villains can evolve slowly, until the players manage to connect all these different adventures to the same source. Then things will sort of snap into focus- it's a longer build-up, but a nice payoff when you see the players really calling for blood.

Oh, one last thought- if the player's aren't going to have a centralized base, or a lot of down-time, you might at least want to tell them to avoid taking feats like Leadership or Craft Magic Item. Then again, you could just arrange some sort of weird, extra-dimensional boat that can serve the needs of a base town for this sort of thing.

Psion · Nov 23, 2003

Sir Whiskers said:
Using sci-fi series as a basis, one thing that seems to work well is changing elements with recurring villains/protagonists. Consider:

B5: Mr. Morden and the Shadows
DS9: The Dominion and the Founders; also Sloane and Section 31
ST: Voyager: The Borg
Sliders: the Cromags
Dr. Who: the Master

My thinking is that while you're throwing the players into one different world after another, they'll need some continuity and a good villain (or just friendly competition) might do the trick.

Good point that. This reminds me of two Monte planescape adventures that involved multiple planes. In Dead Gods the characters trip upon signs that Tenebrous is destroying deities in the search for his wand. In Tales of the Infinite Staircase, the character's various travels take them across several worlds afflicted with a magical sickness that destroys creativity, and using peices of information garnered from each, they can learn how to defeat the spreading sickness.

Probably not by coincidence, these are two of my favorite D&D adventures, period.

Psion · Nov 23, 2003

Byrons_Ghost said:
I think approach is going to vary with the group. If you know the players well enough that they won't mind a surprise, then leave things vague.

I think what I am leaning towards is the characters not knowing what lies ahead, and doing some normal adventuring for a while. Then, getting involved in some adventuring that draws them into the River of Worlds. Not sure what that is just yet...

I am thinking that when they initially get involved, they shouldn't have a good guide or map to the region, perhaps getting lost and looking for a way home. This gives me the opportunity to run some adventures where they bump into random islands with strange adventures sans civilization.

Not sure about the scope of the villain right now, but I am thinking the yuan-ti might be involved, for two reason:

1) They are in the region of my worlds most "Port Royal" type of port, and
2) It gives me an excuse to use Naranjan somewhere along the way.

At the same time, after Tales from the Infinite Staircase, I have an appetite for something a bit more subtle and insidious.

I guess the next big question would be: anyone got in insidious world-spanning plots?

If it's newer people you're dealing with, then you'll probably want to give them a better idea of what's going on.

Oh, no. All old hats.

Then things will sort of snap into focus- it's a longer build-up, but a nice payoff when you see the players really calling for blood.

Nice thing to bring up now.

For some reason, I have sort of a farscape model in my head: One moody villain that the players hate, but said villain is really after the players to stop another threat.

Oh, one last thought- if the player's aren't going to have a centralized base, or a lot of down-time, you might at least want to tell them to avoid taking feats like Leadership or Craft Magic Item. Then again, you could just arrange some sort of weird, extra-dimensional boat that can serve the needs of a base town for this sort of thing.

I imagine eventually the players will get their bearings, and discover some of planar port close to the trade currents that they might be able to establish a semi-permanent home.

Or, they get a real snazzy ship.

Or both.

Psion · Nov 24, 2003

Just for reference and ideas:

Most of my campaigns these days tend to have "core resources" that contain central add-ons to be used in the game.

For reference and possible inspiration:

Planar/locale resources:

Portals & Planes
Manual of the Planes
Book of Eldritch Might III (has a variety of exotic locales.)
Mindshadows (Naranjan)
Requiem for a God (two gods died in my last campaign. The site of the death of a god could make an interesting locale, and those seeking it could be interesting patrons or enemies.)

Nautical and chargen resources:

Seafarer's Handbook
Seas of Blood
Broadsides!
Pirates!
Skull & Bones. (not much I'll be using for chargen here, but some of the information on islands may be usable.)
Masters of Arms (for rapier masters and the like)

Creature resoureces:

Creature Collection II (has lots of nice aquatic threats)
Monsters of the Boundless Blue

Adventure resources/inspirations:

Planescape Dead Gods
Planescape Tales of the Infinite Staircase
An old White Wolf anventure anothology (has a really cool island adventure I want to run)
Dungeon Mag (forget issue, but thinking of running Rana Moor as one of the seafaring episodes.)
Isle of Dread (classic D&D module, looking at converting)

Any other suggestions for resources?

Varianor Abroad · Nov 24, 2003

Psion said:
I think what I am leaning towards is the characters not knowing what lies ahead, and doing some normal adventuring for a while. Then, getting involved in some adventuring that draws them into the River of Worlds. Not sure what that is just yet...
QUOTE]

I'm currently DMing a message board campaign using a similar concept (Ways) that connect up various Lands, which are different pocket universes. It's a great opportunity to use lots of d20 product too. You can file off the serial numbers and give something a new coat of paint. Or if it's obsure enough, just use as is.

The sailing model has a cool nautical application, so they'll choose relevant skillsets to that. It looks like you're going to run island adventures a lot, so that should work. What you might want to do is to create a handout talking about legends from various islands. At least 50% of them should be true, which will give them some grounding (if they read the stuff) in what they're potentially going to face.

In fact, I think that if you're not telling them everything, that foreshadowing is the key. B5, for example, did this really well, providing hints to things seasons in advance. In an RPG, where it's still an evolving story, you can't foreshadow everything. But you can hit the highpoints. Handouts and various player backgrounds handle this reallly well.

Personally I'm in favor of telling PCs what's going on based on having done "surprise" campaigns and gotten negative feedback. But it's entirely based upon your gaming group. A group of strong roleplayers will love the opportunity to run up against the unknown. Your tactician types and combat wombats will not like it as well because they'll feel cheated and sub-optimized.

Now, the question is, "What about insidious world-spanning plots?"

I think that the simplest and nastiest would be some looming disaster the PCs are going to hear about and want to prevent...that they are the carriers for.

Another one (building on the them) is that the "ocean" is slowly turning poisonous or drying up in places, turning once dazzling lands into barren wastes. Who's doing it? Why? How long has it been going on?

The one suggestion I have for extreme wanderer campaigns is to periodically recap for the PCs what has gone before. It gives them a chance to look through and say "Ahah!" Then you can reveal a layer in your insidious plot. Which just leads them to the next one!

Cool idea. Good luck with it.

Psion · Nov 24, 2003

I think that the simplest and nastiest would be some looming disaster the PCs are going to hear about and want to prevent...that they are the carriers for.

As for that last bit, I have used it too recently. A few months ago, they had characters who were infected by shadow parasites that attacked nearby innocents. Soon, they found out these parasites constituted an avatar of a god that grew in power wherever they went... and if they did not feed on others, they would feed on the party.

They were cured, but at the end of the day, two gods were dead. But that's another story.

Tonguez · Nov 24, 2003

I once did a setting based on the PC game Pyrates (the one where you guide a ship through a series of mazes avoiding traps sea serpents and sky pirates!)

I set up the PCs as the crew of a Merchant ship the got sucked through the Nexus pools into new lands (each with its own theme eg the Sea of Tethys was Greek Myth, whereas Savage Isle was zombi infested voodoo jungle)

For plot I burrowed from Pirates of Darkwater - Bloth was the villain

Inconsequenti-AL · Nov 24, 2003

For some consistency, perhaps there is a central ground where travellers on this river meet/trade and fix their special ships? If the minor deity/powerful ruler strictly enforces non violent behaviour there, then it would be interesting to see how players react to a place where mind flayers and beholders roam about, rubbing shoulders with celestials and god knows what else?

As far as an overall plot goes... my best stab is: some group trying to connect the pathways with 'hell' and allow the unstopable demon hordes to devour all creation. That would be quite unpleasant

and it makes for quite a variety of nasty opponents. Perhaps the remains of a once universe spanning Yuan-Ti empire feel it's a way they could regain power, or at least get back at the people who deposed them. Possibly some demon has tricked them into it. Could certainly fit with a moody villan trying to steer players into stopping it.

Bonus points to anyone who can remember where I ripped this off from. Sure I've read something similar, years ago, but can't remember what for the life of me?

Sailors on the River of Worlds- Update

Psion

Adventurer

Sir Whiskers

First Post

Byrons_Ghost

First Post

Psion

Adventurer

Psion

Adventurer

Psion

Adventurer

Varianor Abroad

Explorer

Psion

Adventurer

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow

Inconsequenti-AL

Breaks Games

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