[WoT] I don't wanna muck this up...

[aurin777]

Hey there, lately I've been thinking of running a WoT game for a few friends of mine who are -very- into RJ's world, but they have never played rpgs before/have played, but never 3e. The most important thing is how the story goes, and I thought of running prophecies of the dragon, but from what I have heard it isn't all it is cracked up to be. I don't think I'd like prophecies of the dragon for the same reason I don't like dragonlance.. I think the PCs are too overshadowed by the main characters of the books. I have been thinking about running this game in the past (Like I've read other places) and I've also thought about running the game in the same time as the books, but cutting out rand and crew.. but then I leave holes, such as the asha and the band and whatnot, that I would really like to see in the game. so I guess the point of this post is: what have all of you done in your games, and how have you dealt with these problems? Any help would be GRAND. Thank ya.
~~Brandon

 

[Alchemist]

I have no clue what WoT or RJ's world are, but I'm going to have a go with some general advice.

Don't try to mirror the literature. Don't try and put your party through the same paces the characters in the books go through. The party is going to want to do different things and will get in trouble at inopportune times. Bad juju.

Instead, focus on other aspects of the overarching plot. There must be other areas the characters can be heroic. As well, they can hear tales of the deeds of those in the stories second hand in their travels and keep up on thier "allies" progress.

Hope that's helpful.

 

[Henry]

WoT = Wheel of Time Novel Series

RJ = Robert Jordan, its author

hope that helps!

All I can really add, though is that Alchemist has sound advice. Many people have the same problems with Middle Earth Roleplaying, and with the Dragonlance campaign setting. A big part of the setting is defined by the central heroes, and it';s kind of hard to work around them. But be sure to focus on the PC's, and the fact that their mission has extreme importance, disconnected from Rand and the others. Who is to say that Rand and crew are the ONLY ones who are holding back encroaching evil? The only reason we haven't seen your PC's is because Robert Jordan hasn't written about them.

 

[ZSutherland]

Aurin,

I wish you the best in this endevour. I started a WoT campaign back in november or december, and someone else picked it up. We played 3 times a month until mid March and all hit around 9-10th level. I guess I'll just hit what we did in that time (generally) and what problems we had.

I set the game when Tigraine was only about 15, long before she'd run away. Mordrellin was queen of Andor, Gitara her advisor. Aiel Wars had not happened yet. This nicely ducked the problem of the main story characters getting in the way, but caused a few of its own, including one very serious one. The smaller problems include some of the ones you mentioned. Certain PrCs and the Algai'd'siswai class becomes either unplayable or at least just unbelievable. Perhaps worse, it cut out some of the antagonist types. Trollocs and Myrrdrall were rare south of the Borderlands back then (though we still used them), but you couldn't really use gholams or dark hounds or any of the Seanchan beasties. No travelling meant we spent a good bit of time wandering about and since there's no map scale anywhere that we could find in the book or in the WoT Guide for the novels we just had to guesstimate how far things were.

The main problem we had though is that it was a time or relative peace. We eighty-sixed the idea before we even started of playing in the Aiel Wars because it would just be a huge pain to handle all that, but with all the Forsaken locked away except Ishy's occassional short-term escape attempts, the Borderlanders holding back the Shadowspawn, no Aiel causing fuss and no Seanchan trying to conquer the world, there's just not much to do. We spent our time involved in political and White Tower intrigue. This went fine for a while, and on the whole, even after it was over, we all agreed it was a really good campaign, but we just couldn't keep it up forever, not to mention that having Aes Sedai in your game makes somethings stupidly easy, like getting in to see important people, and something ridiculously hard (like doing anything on your own cause the fussy little witch is always telling everyone what to do and crossing her arms if she's not obeyed.)

Our real problem, though, and the one that caused us to stop playing for the most part is that, in our opinion, the game is broken past 9-10th level. While I think the designers did a fine idea of accurately representing all the classes mechanically, they did too good a job. Channelers become very powerful at higher levels and combat becomes an exercise in seeing who can get to a shadowspawn, any shadowspawn and get a hit off before the channeler kills it. None of the creatures present posed a real threat to us anymore. We took a Myrddrall & 10 trollocs (4 of us, the Aes Sedai didn't help) in under 15 rounds. Combat became boring, and thanks to my 18 Cha Wanderer/Gleeman social situations were silly as well. A +21 to Diplomacy & Bluff just smoothes so many things over and bonuses like that are easily attainable, even sans magic items, by mid levels.

Anyway, that's my take and I'd love to hear ideas you have to fix those problems, because we enjoyed the game and might like to play again if we could get past those issues.

Z

 

[Eosin the Red]

If I was going to change time frames - I would go back to the Trolloc wars. The channelers do not face much in the way of any serious threat after 10th level if you remove the real badies (Galina - Davon Hanlon - Ishi and his crew or Luc). The solution to this problem is this (unfinished) The Shadow Made Flesh . Call of the Horn is all about the Wheel of Time - but realisticlly I find that I like the system better than the Book Setting because of all the problems competeing with characters or having to keep certian book characters alive.

 

[aurin777]

ZSutherland and others, I definately appreciate your help and it lets me think on exactly how I want to do things. The trolloc wars seem to be the better idea to me at this current time. It just gives me more flexibility - I know the players will not be happy that their favorite organizations will not be present, but it is much better than the alternative. Being that overshadowed by the main characters of the books would just frustrate them to no end and they truly would not have a good time. Yes, Trolloc Wars it is. Now to read over all the information over and over. I will be able to take a few more liberties, perhaps tweak things slightly to get me more baddies, then write up a few of my own. Yes, I think this will work out rather well. Does the Call of the Horn have most of the book info easily written out or do I have to go back through the books with a pen and paper? Any ideas/campaign arcs/adventures would be very useful to me if y'all have dealt with it.
~~Brandon

 

[Starman]

Have you thought about running a campaign that takes place after the series? You would have to make up what did happen, but it would give you a lot of control over the world as you wouldn't have any "historical baggage".

Starman

 

[kengar]

Many people have the same problems with Middle Earth Roleplaying, and with the Dragonlance campaign setting. A big part of the setting is defined by the central heroes, and it';s kind of hard to work around them.

Have you thought about running a campaign that takes place after the series? You would have to make up what did happen, but it would give you a lot of control over the world as you wouldn't have any "historical baggage".

When I wrote up a campaign for the LOTR RPG, I encountered a similar issue. So I used he 4th Age for my setting; during the latter part of Elessar's reign. That way, the familiarity of the setting was there but the events of the books didn't interfere with the campaign (or vice versa).

 

[Neowolf]

Another thing you could do is base your game on an alternate version of events. For instance, what if the Trollocs had managed to kill Rand that night in the Two Rivers? No one would ever have known that the Dragon had been reborn, and the world would probably be in complete upheaval... wait a minute, sounds like heroes would be needed!

I did something similar to this when I was planning a LotR campaign a while back (the basic idea came from someone here at ENWorld... sorry, but I can't remember who). In my version of events, the Fellowship failed after Gandalf fell in Moria. Frodo, Sam and the Ring were lost, and the War of the Ring went on for ten more long years. Aragorn became king of Gondor, Gimli and Legolas returned to their people, and Sauron's armies marched across the world, destroying everything that wasn't defended. The hobbits were massacred, and only one in four survived.

The real plot though was that King Elessar (Aragorn) decided to call together a new Fellowship to recover and destroy the One Ring.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Does the Call of the Horn have most of the book info easily written out or do I have to go back through the books with a pen and paper? Any ideas/campaign arcs/adventures would be very useful to me if y'all have dealt with it.
~~Brandon

The section on the Trolloc Wars is still sparse but there is lots of room to play. I did much of the research already and posted it into the Shadow Made Flesh. All of the internal facts are given.