Putting Adventure First

[Lanefan]

I've never had a group last more than a couple of years, even in high school, let alone a campaign.

Is that because you move around a lot, or just keep losing players?

I'd hardly call 1-20th level campaigns short. For me, that's about an 18 month to two year campaign. Compared to you, though, I suppose it is very short.

Yep, 18-24 months is short by my definition...barely getting started, really.

Now, if the PC's decide to drop the path half way through, then the campaign is a failure. You scrap it and try again honestly. Or, if you are fast enough, you crank out a different path dependent on what interests the players. Hopefully the side treks can spark interest again, but, if not, you throw in the towel.

I couldn't disagree more. If they've dropped the original adventure path, one has to assume it's because they've found something more interesting to do...which is anything *but* a failure as it means they've bought into more than just your adventure path, they've bought into the whole setting. So, you start winging it.....

On a completely side note, do your players just randomly strike off in various directions without any goals? They look at the world map and say, "Hey, let's go to this town."? I've found that the people I've played with over the years appreciate having some sort of goal to work towards. Granted, no one likes to be pushed through the steps of achieving that goal, but, given that the goal is known, anticipating steps isn't usually too difficult.

Highly variable. Sometimes, the players just go where they like and maybe even set their own goals. Other times, a goal has to club them upside the head before they do anything at all...depends on the players.

But, honestly Lanefan, you're coming from an experience with the game that I've never had. The idea of a campaign lasting that long is something I've never come anywhere near. And, to be honest, doesn't appeal to me all that much either. I don't want to play the same character for ten years. I certainly wouldn't want to DM the same PC's for that long. I'm just not creative enough to come up with unique experiences for that long. Obviously YMMV.

You would probably not be playing the same character for 10 years, for several reasons: it'd die, or you'd retire it, or something might happen that'd massively change it (alignment change, gender change, whatever)...but if you wanted to, and it survived, and you stayed in the game all the way through, you could. Ditto for DM'ing...even with the same group of players, sometimes I need a program to tell what characters are in from one adventure to the next. The *campaign* is bigger than all these. Players come and players go, characters come and characters go, but the campaign - same DM, same world, same identifyable party or parties - trundles on.

An analogy might be a train. It leaves Vancouver with a bunch of people on it. It stops in Kamloops, some get off, some get on. It stops in Banff, same thing. And Calgary. And Regina. And Winnipeg, and so on...until by the time it gets to Toronto quite possibly none of the people that got on in Vancouver remain to get off. But it's the same train! The only difference between the train and a long campaign is that in a long campaign sometimes characters retire and then rejoin later...analogy would be someone getting off the train in Calgary, then flying ahead to Winnipeg and getting back on it there...

And as for coming up with unique experiences...you're most likely already doing that, except breaking them down into smaller campaigns. Look at the last several campaigns you've run and you'll probably realize that with some tweaking (and a vast slow-down in advancement rate) they could all have been combined into one great big one...

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

Is that because you move around a lot, or just keep losing players?

13 addresses in 15 years, three countries, two continents. Yup, moved A LOT. It hasn't been until I found OpenRPG that I found a way to actually keep a group more than about a year. Before that it was university and groups tended to shift and move every year or so. High school saw groups shifting and moving as well, although that was probably my longest lived groups.

Since high school, I've never really played with friends. Not that I don't like the people I play with, but, they are not the people I would hang out with except on game day.

Brazeku - Couple of things. Yeah, I know this is simplistic. Mostly because it's what I'm pulling out of my posterior at the moment. OTOH, if you look at the vast majority of published adventures out there, find/kill pretty much fits the bill. If it works for Gygax and Cook, it can work for me.

Remember, the theme I'm looking for is dragon hunting. This isn't meant to be a real cerebral campaign. Heh. I suppose with the words of encouragement, I should get my butt in gear and whack out some sort of thing for the first adventure. Sigh.

 

[Hussar]

For the first adventure, I'm looking at 1st level PC's. So, I gotta go really, really small. At first, I thought black, mostly because blacks are cool. But, I had an idea that I wanted to get the players together as caravan guards - heavy handed perhaps, but, hey, they're first level characters - and I could threaten them with a grass fire. That ruled out blacks since they can't light fires. I thought about blues, but, then I had a second idea. Since I'm using the environment as a threat, why not use winter? Cold weather is only a threat to low level PC's, so, let's make the most of it. A pair of wyrmling white dragons is an EL 4 encounter, which makes it a sweet capstone encounter. So, bouncing the idea around, I came up with the following:

Adventure 1 - Cold Snap

Synopsis for Part 1

A merchant has hired the PC's to escort his wagon to a frontier town in the very early spring. He is gambling that a recent warm spell will hold and he can get an early jump on the competition. The party is ambushed by bandits about a day and a half from the town. After the fight, the weather turns very cold and a blizzard sets in.

Hunkering down, the party waits out the snows, only to be awakened by the sounds of their mounts being killed. Heading outside, they will see the wyrmling dragons, battle them very briefly before the dragons flee. Now on foot, the party must proceed to the town.

In town, they will have to convince people to help them retrieve the wagon and hunt down the dragons. Upon returning to the wagon, the earlier bandits have absconded with it and the party tracks them down. The dragons, angered that their loot has been stolen, follows the party.

Defeating the bandits and retrieving the wagon should end the first part of the adventure.

Ok, it's very, very skeletal and I need to add in some goodies as well. I'm thinking that there could be several rp encounters in town as the party tries to convince people that they've been attacked by dragons. Additionally, there could be encounters on the way back out as well. Depending on how large the bandit camp is, it could be a series of encounters as well. Perhaps the bandits have hit a few other places and have captives. I realize this needs more work.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hunkering down, the party waits out the snows, only to be awakened by the sounds of their mounts being killed. Heading outside, they will see the wyrmling dragons, battle them very briefly before the dragons flee. Now on foot, the party must proceed to the town.

(1) If all the beasts are killed, that's a lot longer than a "brief" battle....and you have to take into account that some of those beasts might be tough enough to damage or kill a wyrmling.

(2) As for "Heading outside, they will see the wyrmling dragons, battle them very briefly before the dragons flee.": The PCs may surprise you. What happens if they prevent the wyrmlings from fleeing (tanglefoot bags in the wings, perhaps)? You'd be better off with one wyrmling attacking while the other circles in the sky out of easy bowhot range, so that the end of the encounter doesn't have to be prescripted....who then cares if one is taken out now or not? They still have to take care of the other.

 

[Raven Crowking]

A merchant has hired the PC's to escort his wagon to a frontier town in the very early spring. He is gambling that a recent warm spell will hold and he can get an early jump on the competition. The party is ambushed by bandits about a day and a half from the town. After the fight, the weather turns very cold and a blizzard sets in.

What happens if the PCs try to convince the merchant to push on to town? Especially, what happens if one of the PCs is an uber-charisma type?

In town, they will have to convince people to help them retrieve the wagon and hunt down the dragons.

I assume that the merchant asks them to convince people to help retrieve the wagon. Why are the PCs hunting down the dragons? There should be some specific reasons for doing do.

Upon returning to the wagon, the earlier bandits have absconded with it and the party tracks them down.

What if the PCs killed the bandits in the earlier battle?

What if no PC can Track? Wagon-ruts in the new-fallen snow make the trail obvious? What do the bandits do about this? At the very least, they would be prepared to ambush anyone following them....preferably with well-concealed archers.

Just some grist for the mill......

 

[Hussar]

Well, horses have 19 hit points and will have taken some subdual damage due to the cold. A couple of breath weapons puts the horses out in a round, perhaps two. It would take at least 2 rounds for the PC's to get out of the tents, plus visibility in a blizzard means that they are at significant disadvantages. Tanglefoots bags to the wings stops them from flying, but, even at 1/2 speed of 30 feet, they can still easily evade the PC's. But, again, ranged weapons in a blizzard are extremely difficult. Snow means the PC's have difficult terrain. Fastest speed might be 20 feet/round. The dragons escape.

Pushing on would have to be taken into account, although, again, blizzard conditions will kill 1st level characters. Hunkering down isn't a tough call.

Remember too, the PC's aren't going to come back out to find the wagons until about 3 days later - travel time to and from the town - so, while there may be ruts, it is very unlikely that the bandits would still be manning ambushes.

But, yeah, needs some work.

I thinks, maybe, I need to kill the merchant. Possibly. Not too difficult, I think. Bandit shots could easily get him. Or, let a dragon eat him.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Huzzah Hussar! Okay, that was tacky, but it's the thought that counts, right?

I want to congratulate you for posting your ideas and letting people bounce them around. I like the basic idea of a "Theme" campaign, but I would come up with two or three themes and alternate them.

Example Themes:
1. Dragon Hunting
2. Political Infighting between the Queen and the Parliament
3. Ancient magic corrupting old ruins

Using your fine suggestions for Dragon Hunting, that leaves only two more themes to develop. Some of them could be the "side adventures" you mention. Each theme might only be three adventures.

2A. A mid-ranking member of Parliament hires the PC's to investigate strange goings on across the aisle.
2B. Those goings on reveal that the Opposition is infiltrated by shapechangers and a group with plans for taking over the kingdom.
2C. Investigating the shapechangers reveals an assassination plot against the Queen, and barely enough time to attempt to foil it.

3 - Tie together some dungeons, possibly with an artifact that has been separated for some reason, with each part guarded/hidden in a different exotic/"dungeon" location.

Long story short, I like your idea. I would just suggest fleshing it out slightly differently to add more variety and different options for your characters. Using my three-theme example, some of the PC's could become specialized dragon hunters, some might become Intrigue specialists, and others might develop more typical "dungeon/explorer" skills.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Hussar]

Oooh, I like it. Much better than my idea.

An idea that I have blatantly stolen is the concept of an adventure matrix. Hopefully you could have enough adventures at any given level to be able to give the players a number of choices. As the players move through one adventure, they could possibly go back to one that they missed or move forward as new options (hooks) open up. If you had, for example, three adventures at any given level, you could easily have about 9 options for any given level - 3 easy that would need to be leveled up, 3 spot on and 3 hard options that would need to be toned down.

I'm hoping with the Dungeon magazines that I have, plus some other goodies as well as adventures of my own design, to be able to run a campaign like that sometime.

The Theme Campaign example above is pretty skeletal. It needs a fair bit more meat before I'd consider running it.

 

[Brazeku]

Perhaps I can make a suggestion? I think what you have is much improved, but I had a few ideas. See below for alterations; this would also help make the campaign more dragon-centric.

Adventure 1 - Cold Snap

Synopsis for Part 1

A merchant has hired the PC's to escort his wagon to a frontier town in the very early spring. He is gambling that a recent warm spell will hold and he can get an early jump on the competition. The party is ambushed by bandits about a day and a half from the town. After the fight, the weather turns very cold and a blizzard sets in.

Hunkering down, the party waits in a rocky mountain cave, but are shocked to see a pair of white dragon wyrmlings returning to their den, one of whom has arrows imbedded in its wing and side. The fight takes place either in the cave, halfway in the cave, or in the pass (it could move as the battle progresses). If the party is having trouble, now is an opportunity to introduce the opponents who were pursuing the dragons to help out. (otherwise they can arrive after the fight). They are a trio of hobgoblin rangers.

After one dragon is killed, the other flees (if possible). Now is a good opportunity for a moment of tension and some quick diplomacy at the hands of the players - perhaps if they roll well enough, the hobgoblins will give them a little something for helping out (healing potions or some magical arrows are a good bet). Gather information checks could reveal that the hobgoblins are working for a green dragon who lives in a nearby boreal forest in the mountain valley. The young dragon has become concerned that the white dragons enter it's territory during the winter, concerns which have intensified with the birth of several wyrmling whites. He hired the hobgoblins to kill his competition. It is possible to convince the hobgoblins to take the PCs to meet the green, otherwise they can return to town.

Depending on how much info the party gathered and how the encounter with the hobgoblins went, they may or may not have knowledge about the white dragon wyrmlings. As in this battle the mounts were unharmed, the wagon should be safely returned. The party has the option of dealing with the bandit problem, dealing with the wyrmlings, or even pursuing the green. Either the whites or the green could have links with the bandits, or even competing groups of bandits.