Seeking Campaign Module Advice, with a twist.

[zoggynog]

OK folks,

I don't want my personal story to go on for hours, so I'll try and boil it down to my root question here at the start:

Does there exist any sort of modules designed to level up characters no more than two levels at a time...all the way up to 30?

Why I ask (for those with time to read details):

I am a 30 year old DM with a large set of fairweather D&D buddies who want to play, but have gaps in their commitment. All accounted for, I have roughly 12 people who want to on again, off again, play.

I can only sacrifice two full weekend days a month to run D&D, and that's only because my wife wants to play (I'm blessed).

So what I want to do is this. Run a campaign around a wizard who hires mercenaries to do his bidding. He will send groups of 5 out to go do various quests. These quests are to unfold over the course of a day, and should end with a completed task, and my players (the mercenaries) advancing no more than two levels.

Lets say I have two all day Saturday games this October. The first game I would have sign ups, and take the first 5 buddies that want to play. I would put them through a one off that progresses them from level 1 to level 3. The next October game, I would allow a different set of 5 buddies to run a different one off that also takes them from 1 to 3. In November, I would mix up the buddies, and run two one offs, that leveled the players to 5...and so on.

In the odd event of me not filling both games, I would let folks that previously ran, run an alt character, or the same character with no XP gain. For those who miss a month or two, I would auto level their character, but give them minimum gear. This way those who attend more, get the most/best gear.

There seems to be plenty of 1-10 campaigns that I feel I could run in a solid 12 hour game day and advance the players 2 levels. It is past 10 that I see the problems begin to form. Does anyone know of any module content that could push me through to 30...twice basically.

I know of course, I could always begin writing all of this content, but my time is increasingly limited, so I'm looking for any guidance here.

In a perfect world, I would only level one level per session, but I have yet to see anything so "bite sized".

Thanks for any input!

 

[Unwise]

That sounds exciting mate. I think you would be well served to check out the articles on the "West Marches" style of sandbox game.

ars ludi Grand Experiments: West Marches

It is a great read and really gets you thinking about possibilities. It can be a wonderful thing if run well, unlike any other game really.

Some of the many pros of running something in this style is that it starts competitions between different groups of PCs. They can share stories. Everyone wants to be the first group to find and raid the hidden vault. It allows well for player deaths and keeps people on the edge of their seat.

I also love the idea of the shared map (as well as the idea of some adventurers not telling others about a hidden lair they found as they want to raid it themselves).

I could go on, pretty much everything about that style I love. You just need a large number of players and various times a month to make it work, few people are in a position to do that. I am jealous.

P.S. Here is Penny-Arcade talking about it: http://penny-arcade.com/2010/01/06/dnd-sandbox

P.P.S. Are you sure you really want a 1-30 module? It really sounds to me like you would want to pilfer lots of adventures from lots of sources and just use them to make life easier. This does not sound like something you will keep players interested in with an overarching plot. There will be too many holes in it for that. I would cannabilise other adventures. Slot those encounters into a sandbox map. Develop a 'save the world' plot that is only hinted at originally then as they push deeper into the sandbox they fight the BBEG. I would also look at changing the sandbox every now and then like levels 1-14 they save the West Marches from X. Then they venture to the underdark/feywild/shadowfell and play in a whole new sandbox from 14-22. Finally they arrive in the astral sea with each domain being like another zone in an MMO.

 

[mcmillan]

P.P.S. Are you sure you really want a 1-30 module? It really sounds to me like you would want to pilfer lots of adventures from lots of sources and just use them to make life easier. This does not sound like something you will keep players interested in with an overarching plot. There will be too many holes in it for that. I would cannabilise other adventures. Slot those encounters into a sandbox map. Develop a 'save the world' plot that is only hinted at originally then as they push deeper into the sandbox they fight the BBEG. I would also look at changing the sandbox every now and then like levels 1-14 they save the West Marches from X. Then they venture to the underdark/feywild/shadowfell and play in a whole new sandbox from 14-22. Finally they arrive in the astral sea with each domain being like another zone in an MMO.

I'd agree with this point, it sounds less like you need a big overall plot, and instead would get more out of stringing together various missions, that may not necessarily need to be related.

I'm also a little unsure about the goal to get two levels done in a single day. I'm mainly going on my group's experience, but unless they were able to really focus on the game I'd say 12 hours would be about what I'd expect for one level worth of encounters.

But to actually answer the question you asked - advice for a 1-30 plot in ~2 level increments, that's pretty close to pacing of the adventures from WOTC's Scales of War adventure path, though it's not always that steady and might throw things off every now and then. The only other path's I've seen have been the ones published here on Enworld. Don't have any experience with War of the Burning Sky. Zeitgeist is just getting started but from the previews I think the pacing is different than what you're looking for, though the setup might be conducive for slotting in different adventures - it starts as having all the players as agents for a government agency, which could work well as an alternative setup for where they get the missions.

As to the dearth of moducles past level 10, that's a similar complaint I've seen from others, espeicially for Epic tier. Unfortunately I don't have any advice since I've only managed to get my group up to level 6 so far.

 

[S'mon]

The 4e game is designed around 1 level per 10 hours of play. To get 2 levels in 12 hours without levelling by fiat you would need to either double XP awards, or possibly do what I do and halve monster hp, use more or higher level monsters, and then generous quest XP awards on top. That might just get you to 1 level per 6 hours.

I agree with previous comments that with alternating groups a sandboxy style might work better than a mega-adventure. You might like to pick up 'Dungeon Delve', the 30 short adventures of levels 1-30 are easy to fit into a sandboxy game with minimal work, and promote fast levelling.

That said, the H-P-E series modules which tend to be very heavy going as written might work better with each group only fighting half the monsters? If run as written you'd need to increase XP awards to keep PCs at the right level; if each group does half the fights then x2 awards should work, and they should level every 5 hours or so.

 

[zoggynog]

Thanks all,

I don't think I explained myself well enough. I really do want to sandbox the crud out of this. That was my original intent.

I guess my hope was that somebody out there produced several "mini modules" I could use to work from. I really got inspired a while ago by a very successful camping one off using the excellent module "Good Little Children Never Grow Up" by Sneak Attack Press. It was a two level module, but I had a solid day and a half.

I left the camping trip having had more fun running from a module, than the tedious 7 player, 2 DM's (my wife and I) campaign setting I had worked so hard on, and ran twice a month regularly.

It was at this point, that I decided to take a break, and work out something different.

For those who care, I do know that my Wizard/Merc Employer will have access to "teleportation" points as part of his business and I will be using this to quickly sand box the players around the map. In fact, I eventually want to run my campaign out of Sigil come Epic tier.

I guess I was hoping to find out something awesome like: those DnD encounter sessions at game stores were something akin to a single level module, or that I could go to bla bla bla for bite sized one offs.

I must agree, two levels is going too far in a day. I could see pulling it for the first few games, but after 5th level, too much ground to cover.

O, and thanks so much for the sandbox info, I'm going to go comb through it now.

 

[Will Doyle]

I guess I was hoping to find out something awesome like: those DnD encounter sessions at game stores were something akin to a single level module, or that I could go to bla bla bla for bite sized one offs. .

Another vote then for the Dungeon Delve book: each delve is 3-4 encounters long, and there's one for each level up to 30. If you're just looking for encounters, it's worth a shot, but they're very light on plot.

Of course, a delve isn't enough to level you on its own - but then, if I were in your shoes I'd probably just throw XP out the window and level them up whenever feels best.

I'm running a vaguely similar setup at the moment with one of my groups: we only get to meet once every two or three months at best, so I design short one-shots of three or four encounters, and level them up at the end of the day.

 

[Kerranin]

Another vote then for the Dungeon Delve book: each delve is 3-4 encounters long, and there's one for each level up to 30. If you're just looking for encounters, it's worth a shot, but they're very light on plot.

Of course, a delve isn't enough to level you on its own - but then, if I were in your shoes I'd probably just throw XP out the window and level them up whenever feels best.

I'm running a vaguely similar setup at the moment with one of my groups: we only get to meet once every two or three months at best, so I design short one-shots of three or four encounters, and level them up at the end of the day.

I agree about using the delve book, and you can always re-fluff each delve to suit your setting.

I also agree about ditching XP, especially if the player group can be different each month. Just use a group-level approach and make sure all your players know what level everyone is at.

I'd also recommend using a form of intrinsic bonuses from the DMG. With players swapping in and out, items can easily get unbalanced between players.

Best of luck.

 

[D'karr]

I played in a 3x campaign that ran from level 6 to level 20. We played weekly during the summer and monthly after the summer. The intent was to level once every session. It worked badly for about 4-5 sessions, and worse after that. In the end we agreed to stop that progression. The problem became that we kept on leveling before we were familiar with the character capabilities and we had to keep bringing new versions of the character to each session. Every new session was a new start for each player, and it quickly became torturous.

Once every couple of sessions would have worked better for us.

Since you plan on having "rotating" players, you might also want to plan ahead of time what you are going to do as characters level so that the "group" stays somewhat in sync. If a player misses 3 sessions he'll be several levels behind everyone else. So you might want to address that before you start so that you have a coherent plan to handle it.

Good luck with this campaign. They can be very fun.

 

[Riastlin]

I too would recommend the idea of "level them up when it feels right". In 4ed there isn't really any need to track XP other than to show a sense of progress. XP isn't used as a resource anymore and there are no level-drains (to my knowledge), etc. That being said, I also agree that one level per session might also go a little quick and cause players to be too unfamiliar with their characters, but of course, your mileage may vary.

As for module suggestions, one thought that pops to mind is to use the LFR adventures. It would be pretty easy to reflavor them for your world and even though each adventure is typical designed to be run in 4 hours, it wouldn't be too overly difficult to string two or three of them together to fit into your particular play window. They offer the advantage of giving you a pretty good idea of how long it will take to get through each mod so you can plan your sessions and there's enough of them that you can run alternate mods each session if you want. I think the mods do get fewer in number in paragon tier and there are only a few currently out for Epic tier, but you are likely looking at quite some time before you hit epic tier (even if they gain a level every session).