Atticus_of_Amber
Explorer
I soon may be in a positon to DM again. If I don't revive my old campaign, I'm thinking of the following as a senario.
A couple of years back now - actually around the time I was still running the old campaign - I stumbled across a site on the internet called Project Silverymoon. I'm not sure if it's still up - it may have copyright issues now WotC has done The Silver Marches - but I printed it all out and filed it at the time. Anyway, the thing that really interested me was the rules for studying at the University of Silverymoon.
Add to that my voracious consumption of Harry Potter novels.
Add to that my love for Druncheons concept of running Freeport with the PCs as policemen.
Anyway, I've always been frustrated by finding a satisfactory way of getting a PC group to want to plausibly adventure - and want to adventure together. My last attempt was a self-conscious piece of railroading. The players were told to set up PCs using Forgotten Realms rules and backgrounds with no need to interrelate their backgrounds, and then I had them wake up naked in the middle of the Greyhawk wilderness with no idea where they were or how they got there, with the sign of Tharizdun tatood on their backs and a large variety of both good and evil factions out to kill them for reasons they didn't understand - in a world they weren't from. At least they all now had something in common...
My idea for teh new campaign is to have all the players be students at the University of Silerymoon. The city has a "scholarships" policy that allows poorer students to pay for their tuition by working for the guard or the army, etc. PCs absent for adventures will be "busy studying".
Has anyone tried this?
What I'd like is to have the players get into a series of scrapes in a kind of Harry Potter style. What I mean is that they stumble on to things which the higher ups could deal with in a second if they only knew about it, but the PCs are too lowly to get ready access and middle level bureacrats are obstructing them through caprice or conspiracy. That sort of thing.
What I'd do is have the characters gain experience and status in the city and let them discover a hidden threat or series of threats against the realm. Then plunge the place into bloody war at about the level 7-10 mark.
The play could go from relatively safe town and close-in countryside adventuring (where challenges are moderate or help is at hand if things get too stiff and PCs can be deliberately but safely outmatched, by setting up the scenario so that getting news to the boss good guys in time is the way to win), to comando and espionage style raids on behalf of the government, to full-on warfare missions.
Ideally, I'd like to put the PCs in a situation where they come to love the city and it's NPCs - the big mentors and the little bit-players - and then I'd absolutely ruin the place with a growing threat to get them really angry (Bill the retarded but loyal stable boy who's been great comic releif from adventure one is cruicified by the evil cult as a message; the PC's inherited friendly haunted house is burned down - that sort of thing). Then I'd have the big mentor-characters LOSE the "final battle" and have Silverymoon occupied and the PCs left as the only people able to lead the resistance...
Thoughts?
Oh, I'm deeply committed to playing with "cannon". My "forsaken Ones" campaign played fast and loose with both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Reams (my version of which I renamed the "Forsaken Realms").
I really want to get the uber-NPCs out of FR. I think I'm going to either nerf Elminster, et al or make them demigods. I also have a big thing about the gods being enourmously inhibited from interfering in the Primes - except through their clerics.
Basically, Silverymoon would just be a means to an end. I'd probably put Freeport nearby as a kind of "anti-Silverymoon" for the players to adventure in and go to to do less savoury business. (Or i might have a quick means of transport between the cities, I don't know)
However, I would still have some pretty incredibly powerful NPCs in Silverymoon. That would provide the sense of security for the players in the early years. "Oh, that poor village, if only we could get to Alustrial in time to get troops here to save them." etc The problem with powerful characters is that there are so many demands on their time and so few of them to go around. They need lower level characters for reconnisance and to "filter" requests for aid. This is where adventurers come in.
But the kicker is to then do a Gandalf/Obi Wan. Have all the major uber-NPCs wiped out by the Big Bad when the characters are just getting to independence level - sort of the Sagiro's story hour level (able to hold own long enogh to get job done and run away fast) rather than the Drfenders of Daybreak level (kick arse, take names, fluffy towels). That's gotta scare them....
The things I like about this idea are that:
- It provides an explanation for the characters having come from all over Faerun and thus makes use of the regional feats/equipment rules in the FRCS.
- It provides scope for conflicting loyalties - race, homeland, Silverymoon, the army/guard/scout/whatever the PC is a member of, class based loyalties (druids, paladins, clerics), the other PCs.
- You can set the players up against clearly superior foes so that they have to use diplomacy and politics and tactics to get the bigger good guys involved.
- The campaign has a clear base but also plausible explanations for the PCs going to far-flung places (sent on missions) and also gives plausible reasons to give them access to high level travel magic (gates, teleport, even astral projection) on occassion.
- Its quite easy to plausibly explain giving the players temporary access to magic items above their power level for plot purposes and then taking them back as necessary (e.g. "Take this Talisman of the Sphere. You'll need it when you sneak into the evil cult's inner sanctum because they're using a Sphere of Anhiliation to power their special protective wards. Once you win your way into the sanctum (yes, I know, not easy), reek havoc with the Shere - just trash the place and aything that registers as either evil or magic. When the wards against me [or any other good or neutral character above level 10 - essential plote device] are down, I'll teleport in, finish up, destroy the shpere, take back the talisman [mentor gives stern look at over ambitious spell casters in the party] and get you out. Good luck.")
(For added fun, let the players play the mentor character in the final clean up - gives them an incentive to get to that high a level themselves by giving them a tast of what it would feel like to be that powerful. Imagine grinding and sneaking your way past guards and cultists, only just surviving by the skin of your teeth and the edge of your wits and then getting to play a character or group that can cut through these foes like tissue paper once you open the way.)
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments??
A couple of years back now - actually around the time I was still running the old campaign - I stumbled across a site on the internet called Project Silverymoon. I'm not sure if it's still up - it may have copyright issues now WotC has done The Silver Marches - but I printed it all out and filed it at the time. Anyway, the thing that really interested me was the rules for studying at the University of Silverymoon.
Add to that my voracious consumption of Harry Potter novels.
Add to that my love for Druncheons concept of running Freeport with the PCs as policemen.
Anyway, I've always been frustrated by finding a satisfactory way of getting a PC group to want to plausibly adventure - and want to adventure together. My last attempt was a self-conscious piece of railroading. The players were told to set up PCs using Forgotten Realms rules and backgrounds with no need to interrelate their backgrounds, and then I had them wake up naked in the middle of the Greyhawk wilderness with no idea where they were or how they got there, with the sign of Tharizdun tatood on their backs and a large variety of both good and evil factions out to kill them for reasons they didn't understand - in a world they weren't from. At least they all now had something in common...
My idea for teh new campaign is to have all the players be students at the University of Silerymoon. The city has a "scholarships" policy that allows poorer students to pay for their tuition by working for the guard or the army, etc. PCs absent for adventures will be "busy studying".
Has anyone tried this?
What I'd like is to have the players get into a series of scrapes in a kind of Harry Potter style. What I mean is that they stumble on to things which the higher ups could deal with in a second if they only knew about it, but the PCs are too lowly to get ready access and middle level bureacrats are obstructing them through caprice or conspiracy. That sort of thing.
What I'd do is have the characters gain experience and status in the city and let them discover a hidden threat or series of threats against the realm. Then plunge the place into bloody war at about the level 7-10 mark.
The play could go from relatively safe town and close-in countryside adventuring (where challenges are moderate or help is at hand if things get too stiff and PCs can be deliberately but safely outmatched, by setting up the scenario so that getting news to the boss good guys in time is the way to win), to comando and espionage style raids on behalf of the government, to full-on warfare missions.
Ideally, I'd like to put the PCs in a situation where they come to love the city and it's NPCs - the big mentors and the little bit-players - and then I'd absolutely ruin the place with a growing threat to get them really angry (Bill the retarded but loyal stable boy who's been great comic releif from adventure one is cruicified by the evil cult as a message; the PC's inherited friendly haunted house is burned down - that sort of thing). Then I'd have the big mentor-characters LOSE the "final battle" and have Silverymoon occupied and the PCs left as the only people able to lead the resistance...
Thoughts?
Oh, I'm deeply committed to playing with "cannon". My "forsaken Ones" campaign played fast and loose with both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Reams (my version of which I renamed the "Forsaken Realms").
I really want to get the uber-NPCs out of FR. I think I'm going to either nerf Elminster, et al or make them demigods. I also have a big thing about the gods being enourmously inhibited from interfering in the Primes - except through their clerics.
Basically, Silverymoon would just be a means to an end. I'd probably put Freeport nearby as a kind of "anti-Silverymoon" for the players to adventure in and go to to do less savoury business. (Or i might have a quick means of transport between the cities, I don't know)
However, I would still have some pretty incredibly powerful NPCs in Silverymoon. That would provide the sense of security for the players in the early years. "Oh, that poor village, if only we could get to Alustrial in time to get troops here to save them." etc The problem with powerful characters is that there are so many demands on their time and so few of them to go around. They need lower level characters for reconnisance and to "filter" requests for aid. This is where adventurers come in.
But the kicker is to then do a Gandalf/Obi Wan. Have all the major uber-NPCs wiped out by the Big Bad when the characters are just getting to independence level - sort of the Sagiro's story hour level (able to hold own long enogh to get job done and run away fast) rather than the Drfenders of Daybreak level (kick arse, take names, fluffy towels). That's gotta scare them....
The things I like about this idea are that:
- It provides an explanation for the characters having come from all over Faerun and thus makes use of the regional feats/equipment rules in the FRCS.
- It provides scope for conflicting loyalties - race, homeland, Silverymoon, the army/guard/scout/whatever the PC is a member of, class based loyalties (druids, paladins, clerics), the other PCs.
- You can set the players up against clearly superior foes so that they have to use diplomacy and politics and tactics to get the bigger good guys involved.
- The campaign has a clear base but also plausible explanations for the PCs going to far-flung places (sent on missions) and also gives plausible reasons to give them access to high level travel magic (gates, teleport, even astral projection) on occassion.
- Its quite easy to plausibly explain giving the players temporary access to magic items above their power level for plot purposes and then taking them back as necessary (e.g. "Take this Talisman of the Sphere. You'll need it when you sneak into the evil cult's inner sanctum because they're using a Sphere of Anhiliation to power their special protective wards. Once you win your way into the sanctum (yes, I know, not easy), reek havoc with the Shere - just trash the place and aything that registers as either evil or magic. When the wards against me [or any other good or neutral character above level 10 - essential plote device] are down, I'll teleport in, finish up, destroy the shpere, take back the talisman [mentor gives stern look at over ambitious spell casters in the party] and get you out. Good luck.")
(For added fun, let the players play the mentor character in the final clean up - gives them an incentive to get to that high a level themselves by giving them a tast of what it would feel like to be that powerful. Imagine grinding and sneaking your way past guards and cultists, only just surviving by the skin of your teeth and the edge of your wits and then getting to play a character or group that can cut through these foes like tissue paper once you open the way.)
Thoughts? Ideas? Comments??
