Campaign Ideas/Plots - Need inspiration

[weem]

When my current campaign wraps up (months from now), I will be starting a new campaign. I have been tossing around ideas for a while now and none have been very inspiring.

I've done a lot of searches online, but what comes up most of the time are adventure ideas/plots - but I want plot ideas/hooks for an entire campaign. Things like (off the top of my head)...

The PC's are the reincarnations of various gods but don't know it yet. As they adventure together they realize they seem to always find themselves in the middle of important events, etc - something is going on - eventually, evil god #22 discovers their origin (after having looked for them for years) and is out to get them... can they stop him before he gets to them, etc etc.

My current campaign could be described basically as "a mysterious box leads the group on a journey spanning many kingdoms and planes - discovering the origin of the box and its purpose only poses more questions and they find themselves in the middle of a struggle between an ancient race trying to defend their secret homeland and an evil race of reptiles looking to take it from them."

With that said...


1/ Do you have an interesting campaign idea(s)?

2/ How would you sum up the idea of your current campaign?

3/ Do you know of any resources I could look to for inspiration? I seem to recall a while back a thread of ideas... one of those 1001 Campaign Idea style threads... can't seem to find it now though

Thanks - much appreciated


[edit] Just realized this might have been better to post in the plots forum - my bad[/edit]

 

[Charger28Alpha]

Sorry to answer a question with questions.

1. What Genre and scope are you thinking about running?

2. At what power level do you see the PCs at the start and at the end?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My favorite thread- see my sig- may be just what you're looking for.

I also tend to subscribe to all kinds of threads about campaign ideas, especially if I participate in them, like this one about aquatic campaigns:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/35621-why-underwater.html#post4607957

I don't recall exactly where or when, but I also posted one somewhere on ENWorld about letting your players design PCs from any genre of game, and then have them summoned across time and space to help an oppressed race of subterranean humanoids avoid genocide...and it was an open question as to whether the humanoids in question as to whether the people they had been summoned to help were truly victims (ethnic cleansing? They control access to a particularly valuable resource that the surface worlders are tired of paying them for?) or finally getting their just desserts (like the cannibalistic Moorlocks of HG Wells' Time Machine).

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well random Campaign ideas I have had are:

Opposite Shadowrun: Not Fantasy in Cyberpunk but Cyberpunk in Fantasy. The campaign is about a world where the Spirit World and Material World become separated causing all sorts of chaos (big one being the spirits of seasons/nature die off causing a eternal winter). However prior to this thanks to the knowledge gleamed from Spirits technology has progressed signifigantly in a few years thus combining old medieval stuff with things like Ley-Line internet, Spirit possessed Mecha, Spirit "hacking", etc.

This is my current campaign setting. Style of gaming is lots of mysterious, noir, etc. Has a semi-Ghost in The Shell vibe (very purposefully with how much influence it has had in the design). They are investigating a series of dissappeances leading to finding the people "alive" but without their spirit, and finding out it leads to a conspiracy involving the Spirit Counsel and a major Guild.

City Within a Wall: Less a campaign setting or plot, but a place that can easily lead to one. The idea is a ancient city has been abandoned but one of its major walls has survived it is large enough that a city has been created within the wall.

Vodou Campaign: Taking lots of the various folklore in Vodou and making them all real in the game world. The campaign mainly involving the PCs finding out that the Loa they and everyone else they worshipped are actually devils from a distant land who forced the Loa out and who now inhabit only in the swamps and their underground town. So the PCs have to find the Loa and struggle with what to do, they don't know these Loa so which is worst them or the devils?

Necromancy Campaign: A Civil War has split a country in two for years. This country and the rest of the world is deeply engrained with Necromancy and is the soul force of magick in the world. It has combined with technology to cause a somewhat early 20th century world.

Tanks are steel clad behemoths moving across the ground by the force of thousands of tied together limbs. Bolt action rifles have organic components as their mechanisms. Telephones are tied together nerves for the wire and ears and vocal chords. Things like that.

The Civil War is similar to World War 1. Since Necromancy and death is so common there has been rifts to the Shadowfell in No Man's Land and all manner of monstrosities have come forth. At the same time in the now abandoned holy land, ancient scrolls (taking analogies to Dead Sea Scrolls exist). With these scrolls the first Clerical Orders exist they have no ties to any country/order but their own and exist only to close these rifts.

The plot revolves around the PCs either as members of the order or others sent to watch over them as the plot involves a Clerical Order trying to lead a war against civilization. Their powers being ones that could utterly destroy civilization because of its ties to Necromancy.

 

[Quickleaf]

1/ Do you have an interesting campaign idea(s)?

The PCs are parents whose children have been abducted by an archfey, and they have become adventurers to rescue their children.

2/ How would you sum up the idea of your current campaign?

PCs protect an illegitimate heir to the throne while thwarting the wicked crown prince's efforts to become king.

3/ Do you know of any resources I could look to for inspiration?

I highly recommed Ultimate Toolbox (Alderac) - there's an entire chapter full of campaign inspiring ideas.

 

[weem]

Sorry to answer a question with questions.

1. What Genre and scope are you thinking about running?

2. At what power level do you see the PCs at the start and at the end?

Guess I should have included that, my bad...


1/ Standard fantasy stuff - think any of the common/popular D&D settings (though I have not decided 100% if I am running a pre-existing world or my own). As for scope, again, pretty standard town-spanning to plane/world spanning

2/ Starting between levels 1-3 and going to 30. (4th Edition D&D btw)


And thanks for the responses so far - just now getting to them as my (home) computer died last night

 

[timbannock]

D&D campaigns that I've done or wanted to do:

1. PCs uncover a plot by a group of villains to collect Dragon Orbs (orb of dragonkind) to control a flight of dragons to help them conquer an area.

2. An Immortal -- cursed by Orcus himself to everlasting life -- seeks to raise Orcus (who was slain at some point by the Drow Goddess Kiaransalee) in order to appease him, and thus (hopefully) get Orcus to lift the curse of immortality, allowing him to rest in peace. Of course, raising Orcus is difficult (see the Planescape adventure: Dead Gods for some ideas), and requires the Immortal to slay thousands of people. He does this by unleashing the Tarrasque on an unsuspecting world.

3. Buy a good campaign-length megadungeon and play around with the plot. World's Largest Dungoeon, Rappan Athuk Reloaded, Castle Greyhawk (in its many incarnations).

4. The PCs are the agents of some powerful villain, sent on a quest to gain new evil allies (PCs get to play badguys! Yay!). For a twist, have them wake up with amnesia, and believe they are good guys, only to find out all the evil that they've done. The amnesia came about during an epic fight against some heroic adventurers, who the PCs either killed, badly injured, or gave amnesia to in turn, causing no end of fun as the PCs decide whether they want to turn their lives around and be good guys or go back to their evil ways. Either way, they have to deal with the consequences of the actions they took before their amnesia...

 

[Bodhiwolff]

My advice ...

a) don't buy a single campaign product, megadungeon, or anything of the sort. You wind up investing in a single throughline, which might not play out. More to the point, it locks you in too early in the process. Nothing hurts worse than designing a campaign about slave-rescues and finding out that the players are completely disinterested in that topic.

b) your campaign has to grow as a natural extension of your initial ideas and your player's reaction to these ideas. Furthermore, you want to include the player's interests, and the PC's backstories. The campaign doesn't develop all at once, but rather as a series of responses to the player's responses. You can try to guide it a little, but it is better if they wind up guiding it as well.

c) towards that end, pick a simple initial hook -- a stylistic/adventure style -- and write up a simple adventure that hints that this is the driving force behind it. Have the players run through it, and see how they respond. If they're 'into' it, then you run them through another adventure which reveals more of that style, introduces a minor villain, etc. Take their responses and build the next part. Eventually you introduce your major theme, and you're off.

Example: I picked up "Open Grave", and was intrigued with some of the concepts. I read in the FR guide about Wheloon (prison-city, walled off from the world) and was intrigued. I also was intrigued with the shadow realm, and the country that had replaced the Anarauch, etc.

I wanted to see if I could make anything with necromancy, the prison-city, and the shadow realm.

So I ran a little adventure where the 1st level PCs ran into some Shadar Kai while dungeon-busting. These Shadar Kai were obviously in league with somebody, looking for artifacts of necromantic power.

The PCs dug it. So I invested in designing a second adventure.

I re-vamped "Scepter Tower of Spellgard" and played up the necromantic angle on it, and made the Shadar-Kai villain at the end talk about some menacing, mysterious overall plot. One of his henchmen had a zombie arm-graft ... oooh, mysterious ...

The PCs dug it. So I invested in the next major chunk. Now I look at the character's backstories.

One PC had in his backstory that his religious sect had been wrongly imprisoned.

Another PC hates drow, with a passion. He wants to eliminate them all from the face of the earth.

So I wrote those two factors in.

I had the religious order wrongly imprisoned in Wheloon, but actually they went in voluntarily, because some of the higher order had switched to worshipping Shar, and were now manipulating things behind the scenes. In fact, the PC himself was "off on a mission" when this all happened, because they didn't think they could convert him. He'd be a thorn in their side. They had access to a node inside Wheloon, and could use it to hide their nefarious activities in plain sight, while coordinating with their allies -- a disaffected Shadar Kai sect and a Drow family seeking power.

The PCs are asked by an agent of the crown if they would investigate the mysterious goings on *inside* Wheloon. Since nobody is supposed to be getting out of the city of Shadow/Shar worshipping prisoners, then how come new weapons and signs of prosperity are showing up inside the prison-city? The PCs agree, and are promptly told that their cover-story is that they are wanted criminals. Wanted posters are even now going up outside in the village. Good luck!

The PCs escape the village, find their own way into Wheloon (the just didn't want to get thrown in, after all!) and then proceed to fight gangs, earn their bones, investigate a ruined chapel where the PC's old Order was doing nasty necromantic experiments. They discover remnants of the instigators there -- some Shadar Kai, some drow, and a few Shar-worshipping members of the PC's order.

The PCs are now thoroughly invested in this campaign, have an ongoing villain or two to chase, have direct connections to some of their backstories.

..............

Is it as cohesive and smooth as a campaign designed from the very beginning? No.

Are the PCs feeling that this is *their* story, and invested in following it through? Yes.

Is it cheesy and over the top at times, reminding me of a soap opera where plotlines get added and forgotten? Absolutely -- but the players recognize that this ongoing soap opera is *their* soap opera, and they're as invested as any fans.

 

[avin]

1. Buy Planescape: Torment, the game.
2. Play it and see why Nameless One can't die.
3. Apply.

 

[weem]

Thanks for the feedback so far - some great ideas and I have noted a few things here and there - also tossed you some XP!

I would still love to see some more ideas, or details as to what other peoples campaigns are all about.

Have a new campaign idea, or feel like sharing the plot of your current campaign?