I want to run a campaign from Level 1 - 20... Help! Talk me out of it!

[Guilt Puppy]

Okay, so it look like schedules have cleared up a little for me and my roommates next quarter... So, I figure it's high time to start a new campaign.

I've laid out some ground rules for myself: Get the characters from Level 1 to Level 20 within one large story arc. Award levels for story advancement: Each subquest will yield a level. In-game downtime between most subquests. Some may overlap. No random encounters.

For the world: Not low-magic, exactly, but low-magic-item. "Craft Wondrous Item" and "Craft Magic Arms & Armor" are now Epic-Level feats. Magic items are things that are found (or, at very high costs, commissioned), and always unique. I'll give myself a total of 30 magic items to distribute throughout the campaign (3 players, meaning 10 each, meaning one for each player every other level, thereabouts)... They will be more powerful than your average magic item, so the power level of the party should work out about right.

Virtually nothing from the Monster Manual will be used. Religion, also unique. I want to avoid out-of-game knowledge as much as possible: As a player it bugs me to know what's going to happen if I kill that Balor, and trying to act as though I don't (because I failed my Knowledge: The Planes check, which I only bothered making for out-of-game reasons).

Also considering keeping character sheets secret, and trying to limit OOC conversation (a very different direction for the group, which is still pretty metagame-oriented.)

Anyway... So I have all these rules I've laid out for myself in designing a campaign, but I still can't for the life of me come up with a good campaign. I want the plot to be continuous -- the final showdown, whatever it is, should be foreshadowed from the very first session -- without getting too obvious or worn out.

I want to avoid a straight "end of the world" scenario... But I'm not sure what else is really epic-enough for this kind of game. I have some interesting end-of-the-world scenarios to use if I do stick with that (thanks to whoever posted that Mind Flayer Template a while back ), but I'd like to hear some other options first.

I have two ways I'm considering starting the game:

- Joan of Arc style. Travels the countryside gathering the PCs, as instructed by her visions. Eventually takes them to the frontier of civilization, where she dies. Possible twist (maybe unseen by the PCs): She really is just crazy. Anything the players get into from there is just (in-game) happenstance.

- The players are travelling together (no specific reasons). While camping, an old Paladin sees their fire, goes to rest with them. The next morning, he cannot stand: As he realizes he is dying, he tells them the details of his life's quest, and begs them to complete it in his absence. (It would be a one-sided, skewed perspective on the plot as a whole, and open to many twists).

Of course, I need an idea of the overall story arc before either of these work.

Any ideas (or suggestions you have if you've run games like this) are appreciated. I've planned out campaigns of this scale (though not quite structured like this) before, so I know I can handle that part -- the difficulty is just, well, writer's block. So if you've got a large plot that you've run, that worked, and/or that could fit in with the above, and you wouldn't mind me stealing it please let me know.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Okay, so it look like schedules have cleared up a little for me and my roommates next quarter... So, I figure it's high time to start a new campaign.

I've laid out some ground rules for myself: Get the characters from Level 1 to Level 20 within one large story arc. Award levels for story advancement: Each subquest will yield a level. In-game downtime between most subquests. Some may overlap. No random encounters.

So they aren't going to travel anywhere genericly dangerous, or you're going to plan every single monster than might be along any path they take?

But seriously... In terms of a really long arc that could take them from 1st to 20th, the campaign I'm running right now may end up qualifying. The PC's are residents of a town located across a waterfall, and one day their entire river basically disapears. like the two banks have been pulled together with a zipper. They are traveling "up river" having various adventures and trying to figure out whats going on. The river has been moved to a pocket dimension by something of demigod level (they know this, but there's certainly nothing they can do about it now) and as they become more powerful, they have a long term goal of somehow putting their river back where it belongs (and getting their families, friends and lives back).

So you might consider starting the adventure with some traumatic event which 1) bonds characters together, 2) gives them mini goals to persue and 3) establishes a far future massive encounter that will happen on the players' terms (preventing the "well why didn't this squash us at the beginning" problem.) For instance, characters all come to elderly patron/teacher/relative's funeral and discover that he died in some sort of faustian bargin situation and is trapped in one of the hells. First few levels spent sorting out deceased mortal afairs and fullfilling the provisions of his will (we have to get this to who? WHERE?) mid levels involved in shady cult dealing and investigation, then build power like crazy for a raid on Hell.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Guilt Puppy]

Re: Re: I want to run a campaign from Level 1 - 20... Help! Talk me out of it!

So they aren't going to travel anywhere genericly dangerous, or you're going to plan every single monster than might be along any path they take?

Before each session, going to plan out every single monster that might be along any path they take, yep. Further, I'm not going to go to the trouble of statting anything that might not have some plot relevance (even if it is only a secondary plot -- for instance, weird messed up monsters have to come from somewhere, or even at low levels, wolves don't attack travellers for no reason...)

But seriously... In terms of a really long arc that could take them from 1st to 20th, the campaign I'm running right now may end up qualifying. The PC's are residents of a town located across a waterfall, and one day their entire river basically disapears. like the two banks have been pulled together with a zipper. They are traveling "up river" having various adventures and trying to figure out whats going on. The river has been moved to a pocket dimension by something of demigod level (they know this, but there's certainly nothing they can do about it now) and as they become more powerful, they have a long term goal of somehow putting their river back where it belongs (and getting their families, friends and lives back).

Neat adventure Just the phrase "travelling up river" brings to mind Apocalypse Now, which has some entirely different ideas associated with it...

The Faustian suggestion is pretty good as well.... Powerful wizard makes a deal with devils, such that his soul belongs to them when he dies... And then arranges in his will to have his soul rescued. Players end up being forced to carry out this task, only they don't realize just what task they're carrying out until much later on... Eventually discovering they're just pawns in this guy's evil plan, and striking back with great vengeance Can be combined well with the dying Paladin hook, as well...

Good ideas, much appreciated

 

[Capellan]

If you're not keen on an 'end of the world' kind of threat, then you might like to consider something more in the 'insidious corruption' mould: some sort of conspiracy that is aiming to take over the PCs homeland, for instance. Warhammer's "Old World" setting has a lot of useful material for this kind of thing, with the creeping corruption of Chaos subverting the human realms. Heck, that's what the whole "Enemy Within" campaign was all about.

Personally, if you did take an approach like that, I'd avoid anything too overt as a plot hook. Let the PCs drift into the major game story arc through a variety of tangential involvements. Maybe the villains target a minor noble who has previously done the PCs a favour, or otherwise get entangled with the PCs own agenda.

Alternatively, if you want a totally different approach, go with a campaign arc where the PCs are not trying to avert a disaster, but build something new. Perhaps your game world is just coming out of a dark age, and the PCs will be integral to rebuilding the shattered world that remains (this was the basis for my WotC Setting Search Submission, actually - not that I got very far with it! ). If you think of it as a post apocalyptic fantasy game, you'd probably have an idea of the kind of thing I mean. This has the advantage that the PCs know from the start the general shape of their adversaries - those who want the world to remain in its present, semi-barbarous state - but gives lots of flexibility to you in terms of who those adversaries are.

In a nutshell, my idea for my setting search was something like this:

- four hundred years ago, a vicious magical disease was unleashed by a group of demented cultists of the Plague God
- the disease swept the world, being highly communicable, resistant to healing magic, and virulently deadly
- something like 90% of the world's humanoid population was wiped out. Cities were leftr empty, to crumble into ruins. Learning; magical and otherwise; atrophied.
- eventually, the disease began to lose its virulence as immunity built up to it, and some semblances of civilisation began to recover: mainly small settlements, widely separated
- the elves were almost annihilated by the disease, due to their weaker constitutions, while dwarves were amongst those to survive best. As a consequence, pure blood elves are now almost unknown, while half-elves, half-dwarves, and fey-blooded (humans with a hint of elven blood) were playable races
- the PCs would face many challenges in rebuilding society: barbaric tribes, humanoid incursions, dangerous wilderness, anicent cities filled with terrors from a previous era, the Plague Cultists, and - behind it all - a shadowy group of near immortals known as the Undying.

Feel free to use it if you like it. Let me know if you'd like to get more details.

 

[Reynard]

The "rebuiild civilization" suggestion would certainly work but might be a little vague for what you are asking. If you want to avoid the cliche of the end of the world, I would suggest centering the campaign around the creation of something new.

Without knowing all the details of what you are doing, this is the storyline I would go with:

There is a shake-up in Heaven and it is time for a new deity to be born. Mere mortals know of this only in passing and as bits of ancient legends, all garbled by time and politics. Boiled down, mortals know only that "a new god of the sword with cut a path across the world when blah-blah happens."

Well, "blah-blah" happens at the beginning of the game. It happens near the PCs and, unfortunately, they are now pretty much forced to help deal with it. How heavy handed you want to get is up to you, from strange dreams and compe.llled actions, to devas and solars (or balors and pit fiends) giving them orders.

The thing is, no one knows what a "new god of the sword" is. the name sounds like a war god, and the text suggests that it will be bad. SOunds like an "end of the world scenario". Good. let them think that. then, determine what is really going on.

Maybe it is a god of the forge and the "cut a path" thing is anti-forge-god propaganda. maybe it is a good god of paladins and concurrent to his arrival is a rising force of evil in the wordl (which, of course, the PCs will think is in cahoots with this enigmatic deity). playing with cliche's is fun, but can be a bit messy.

Oh yeah. one last thing. That twentieth level party? Well, one of them *is* the "god of the sword" when the campaign ends.

 

[Dagger75]

Alrighty, My game has just gone from level 1 to level 21. I will not lie to you, I gave a few more xp, my unscientific estimate close to 4500 xp a session, some a little lower, some a little more. Least was 750, most was close 13000. We played almost 2 sessions a week 4 hours each one. It took about year.
The group never had gold peices or magic items equivalent to the table in the DMG. This is still true in Epic levels. And each character has +5 armor, +5 Weapons Periphats of wisdom +6, belt of str+6 and the rest of there item slots are filled.

I also had a plan for a grand story arc. I threw it out about half way through when the group started getting more and more powerful.

Rethink the monster manuel stance. It is much harder to make NPC's than pick monsters out of the MM sometimes.

 

[Guilt Puppy]

Capellan: The "creeping doom" and "build something anew" ideas are definitely something to work with... I could see doing something with both, actually (as your setting seems to)... The setting itself isn't a great fit, as I want to stick closer to the general D&D feel (I'm aiming somewhere between Greyhawk and Middle Earth, actually), but there's plenty of yoinkable stuff in there.

Reynard: The specifics don't work so well (I'm using Gods as a less-than-tangible force), but a general prophecy like that would be nice...

"That twentieth level party? Well, one of them *is* the "god of the sword" when the campaign ends."

My last one-shot ended with a character attaining Godhood (I stuck that in as a possibility on the "off chance" they tried to drink from the flask they were sent to retrieve... of course, the party rogue went for it.)... I'm not sure I want that to become a regular theme

Dagger75: Mind if I ask what your original story arc was (and how/why you ended up changing it?) And how many sub-adventures did it cover (if you could divide it up like that... as I mentioned, I'm planning to work without XP, leveling only on story advancement... I'm still trying to figure out how to make this non-linear.)

Also, I've played with the same monster manual stance before, and it worked fine... I should clarify, though, that I have no problem using stats straight out of the monster manual -- it's just might not look like the same thing, or have quite the same properties (for instance, all my dragons, by stats, are Red Dragons -- sometimes they are different colors, but they always progress the same, and breathe fire. But they can be of any alignment. So the players don't just see that a dragon isn't shiny, and think "oh, we're supposed to kill it.")

Thanks all for the replies... I think I'm going to work on a basic world/plotline, and throw it on the web for critique later today.

 

[Nvvyn]

Sounds like your trying to control your game way too much. You know the exact exp, and items your players will find from levels 1-20. What if they do something really awesome that deserves much more exp, are you gonna jip them and only give them the next level?

 

[Guilt Puppy]

Sounds like your trying to control your game way too much. You know the exact exp, and items your players will find from levels 1-20. What if they do something really awesome that deserves much more exp, are you gonna jip them and only give them the next level?

If you're talking about uneven XP awards -- giving players bonuses for creative, useful stuff -- I've tried that. Whenever I gave them an option to reward it to each other, they always dumped it into whoever was running behind. So I figure that's not an issue.

As far as "something really awesome that deserves much more exp"... That's just a change in the goals. Since I'm not rewarding XP, "something really awesome" is judged in terms of how well it furthers the characters' goals (which is why I won't be wasting their time with random encounters)... If you have a brilliant plan, maybe you'll complete the sub-adventure in four sessions instead of five... Bam, you're at the next level sooner (same as the XP awards).

Regarding magic items... It's not so different from most games, I'm just removing the "magic item shop" (which a lot of people don't have to begin with)... There are fewer items, but they are proportionally more powerful (ie, rather than +2 Armor, a +2 shield, a +2 longsword, and boots of striding and springing, the character might find an amulet which cloaks them in protective damaging whenever there are Undead within thirty feet.) While this takes out some degree of customization, it also shifts the focus more toward feats, class abilities, et cetera...