For King and Country: A campaign idea.

[Jack Haggerty]

So, I was reading through the thread about The Composition of an Elite Town Guard, and it gave and idea for a campaign...

What if the PCs were these guys... A sort of fantasy James Bond or Charlie's Angels of the D&D world. They'd be the elite "troubleshooters" of the local kingdom. They get orders and secret missions from one of the King's advisors. There would be a Court Wizard who would supply them with the necessary equipment to complete the jobs ("And please try to bring the Apparatus of Kwalish back in one piece this time!"). There would evil be archnemesis trying to take over the kingdom with weekly Master Plans. There would diabolical henchmen, and hordes of mooks.

What do you guys think?

 

[Darraketh]

I like the idea. I like it alot. I believe it would also make for a good book or movie!

 

[Crothian]

Well, it certainly solves a lot of the problems in campaigns. How to get the group together? How to introduce new character? How to rationalize the adventurers? I like it.

 

[Tokiwong]

I like the idea... a Spycraft meets fantasy kind of thing...

"Mr. Aragorn your mission if you choose to take it is to escort some hobbits to freedom and avoid the forces of Mordor... we here that Sauron may be in on this..." rumbling voice from a scroll...

"Simple in and out.. deal... got yah..."

"Oh and this scroll will self-destruct in five seconds..."

It would be a fun change of pace... I think would olve some problems with adding new characters or finding motivations for stories... but you need to allow room for proactive characters who may wish to further their own plans

 

[gothwalk]

There are a great many strengths to this kind of set-up - many of which have been used in television and comics. The main one is that you don't have to seek out a motivation for the PCs to get involved; they just do what they're told. This has been used in presentations as varied as the aforementioned James Bond, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Saving Private Ryan. This can save the DM an awful lot of headaches.

The only downside is that the players may start to feel that they don't have any control over the way that the game is going - they aren't free to follow their own impulses. This is a leash that you can loosen or tighten as you need, though - there's plenty of space for personal things as an aside to the main events, especially with the careful use of nemeses - vilains who got away, and come back for revenge.

Drew
http://www.badgerofthelord.net/