Starting a New Campaign - Advice

[Retreater]

Hello everyone.

We recently wrapped up a Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign run by another gamer in my group. It looks like the DMing duties will be coming my way in a couple of weeks, and I would like some advice in planning a good campaign.

A few things right off the bat. The group has unanimously voted to play D&D 3.5 edition (at least until 4th edition comes out). I don't want to start an epic campaign, running from levels 1-20, if we're going to cross over to 4th edition in a few months. I'm looking for a nice campaign arc to last a few months. The players prefer starting around 8-10th level, just to get a chance to experience some high-mid and high-level gaming before 4th comes out.

The players would like to choose something that isn't so much a straight forward dungeon crawl (we've gotten enough of those in the past 6 months or so).

Now here's the real kicker. Due to different obligations of the players, I'm unsure of how many players we will have each week and the party composition. It's looking like we may have between 2 and 6 players (not including the DM) depending on the week.

I was going to run Ptolus, but I've decided that campaigning in a large city full of mystery and intrigue may not be the best format for an erratic party composition. (I don't want to spend an hour at the start of each session telling the players who were absent from the previous session what had happened.)

Also, I discovered last night that it took me 2 1/2 hours to construct a single encounter that would fit thematically in Ptolus' framework.

So do you have any ideas. I'm looking for possible modules to run, as well as any DM tips for dealing with an erratic party configuration.

Thanks,
Retreater

 

[Piratecat]

You know what might work really well? Make the PCs city guards. That way they can come and go between sessions because they're on or off duty. You'll have to make sure each session wraps up an adventure, but that shouldn't be too hard.

 

[RangerWickett]

You know what might work really well? Make the PCs city guards. That way they can come and go between sessions because they're on or off duty. You'll have to make sure each session wraps up an adventure, but that shouldn't be too hard.

I'm running a Sharn cop game just like that. It's a nice break from traditional adventuring.

Though if you want traditional adventuring, would you be in the market for a war? War of the Burning Sky was designed to have jump-in and jump-out points, so if you wanted, you could run adventures 4 through 8, from level 7 to level 15, and still have a solid story arc.

 

[roguerouge]

I'm going to have to agree: a mercenary company, a war, or the city guards is definitely the way to go. Plus, you can make use of Hangman's Noose from Paizo, Rise of the Runelords 2 from them as well (Hell House fun) and Cage of Delirium from Goodman Games! And isn't there a Jack the Ripper one from Goodman too?

 

[ejja_1]

Rogues and mercs

A few years back I played in a game day short session where the Dm (Mark Clover) ran a one shot were we all played rogues that were trapped in a city that was preparing for war.
We were slated to try and make one last heist and escape under the cover of the coming conflict. We failed miserably, largely due to my actions.
But thats not the point.
You could do something similar where the players all work for the same agency, ie a thieves guild or mercenary company in a land filled with conflict. Have the players that don't show for a session head back to the guild or mercenary camp to resupply or rest up.
Hit and run missions can be a blast if you want some quick and dirty combats, or go with the whole raiding angle and get some treasure.

 

[GammaPaladin]

You could play the campaign I was going to DM which never materialized:

The players are a mercenary company with their own airship. This lets you run different little missions and scenarios in different places each session.

My concept was to sort of do Firefly in Eberron, I'm still sad that it never happened

 

[shilsen]

You could play the campaign I was going to DM which never materialized:

The players are a mercenary company with their own airship. This lets you run different little missions and scenarios in different places each session.

My concept was to sort of do Firefly in Eberron, I'm still sad that it never happened

Eat your heart out - that's the new monthly campaign I started running a couple of months ago!

The big advantage with the above is that it lets one run really episodic sessions (something I'm not used to, since I prefer regular and long, very well-knit campaigns) with whichever players can make it, since whoever shows up is on the "away team".

 

[Jorunkun]

Check out "The Vault of Larin Karr", from Necromancer games. A sandbox setting with multiple plot strands presentable in little episodic chunks. Levels 4 - 9 are catered for, and a lot of it takes place freeform, in a remote valley with only three villages so you should be able to accommodate different group sizes.

 

[Pelwrath]

Idea

Try something different Make then all surviviors of a battle and they don't know if there sid eone or lost, maybe have some of them be from both sides. If you want them from the losing side, have them find an assistant commander who just happens to be fourth or fith in line to the throne and they don't know if he/she is the new king/queen.
Then all they have to do is reach safety, discover if their charge is the ne wking/queem and perhaps help raise an army. If people can't make it for a session, they could be on another mission and meet up later, kinda like War of the Lance stuff.

Here is a website that I've used. It makes dungeons 3.5

http://direpress.bin.sh/tools/dungeon.cgi

 

[GammaPaladin]

Eat your heart out - that's the new monthly campaign I started running a couple of months ago!

The big advantage with the above is that it lets one run really episodic sessions (something I'm not used to, since I prefer regular and long, very well-knit campaigns) with whichever players can make it, since whoever shows up is on the "away team".

So... Jealous....

*cries*