Brainstorming Potential Underworld Campaign

Dannyalcatraz · Jan 29, 2019

Hey- you know your players better than I! Ultimately m it’s you and your group that have to enjoy it, right?

I have had to deal with a few amateur and professional historians, so I don’t take too many liberties with RW stuff. Big changes are few, and the others will usually flow from them as a consequence. Kind of like alt-history by Harry Turtledove or The Sword of Knowledge trilogy.

Aldarc · Jan 29, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Hey- you know your players better than I! Ultimately m it’s you and your group that have to enjoy it, right?

I have had to deal with a few amateur and professional historians, so I don’t take too many liberties with RW stuff. Big changes are few, and the others will usually flow from them as a consequence. Kind of like alt-history by Harry Turtledove or The Sword of Knowledge trilogy.

You are definitely raising valid points.

I do have another homebrew project that I would like to work on, something more in the vein of "hearth fantasy" - to borrow a fairly obscure term I once saw floated on the net. And that one may have a more restricted historical timescale for its inspiration.

Dannyalcatraz · Jan 29, 2019

Well, it kinda would by definition, right?

I’m kind of curious as to how one maintains a sense of adventure when the Village of Hommlet IS the campaign, not just the starting point. Especially with more than one player.

I mean, Waterdeep I can grok. Lots of moving pieces. Lots of comings and goings. It’s a natural focus.

But a pastoral township? It isn’t that things don’t happen, it’s that players are only going to want to fend off bandits so many time. And that it’s the rare player (IME) who is satisfied with minimal character growth (in the mechanical sense)- past a certain point, their reputations will reach the broader world, ind the world will come knocking.

I suppose...in MY hands...I’d opt to do something on a generational basis. The players play their PCs for only so long, then retire them in favor of new characters some decades down the road.

Aldarc · Jan 29, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Well, it kinda would by definition, right?

Possibly. Hearths are fairly ubiquitous in history.

My sense for "hearth fantasy" though is that it focuses on locally-rooted adventures and on the idea that you have a home/family to return to. You are not a rootless adventurer. This is your town. These are your people. You answer to them. Player characters are invested in a place. You are not adventuring to save the world from the apocalyptic return of anciently deceased Abyssal Lord No. 9 or plunding a tomb to become a super rich Robber Baron. You are adventuring to benefit your people or your standing among them. "Winter is Coming" isn't a statement foreshadowing an apocalyptic endtime, it's a reality that your town desperately needs supplies to weather through the winter because the harvest was poor. Children are disappearing in the mystical woods. A disease is threatening the village and only the wise woman who lives on the mountain can help. The river is running low: so what is wrong with the water spirits? Bandits or a rival tribe are stealing your herds. Your settlement needs a shipment of trade goods from another hillfort. Or to borrow from the Chronicles of Prydain, your enchanter's magical pig escaped, and you have to retrieve it.

In some respects, it's something akin to an anti-murderhobo fantasy genre. In TTRPGs, Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures comes close to emulating this genre. The players build their town and connections through the character creation process. Stonetop is a Dungeon World hack that is in development with a similar idea, where the town has its own playbook. The Trilling Shard for Numenera 2 was essentially about the same idea in a far future science-fantasy setting: adventuring to help the survival and prosperity of your small villager of Ellomyr. So there seems to be something now, even if it's on the periphery, about desiring to play characters who maintain their local roots or deal with less typical heroic fantasy issues.

All that said, I am considering a European late Bronze or early Iron Age backdrop for that. Possibly more inspired by the "proto-Celtic" Hallstatt Culture.

darkbard · Jan 29, 2019

Good stuff, [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]. And kudos for the Lloyd Alexander reference!

DQDesign · Jan 29, 2019

Hi [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]
I dunno exactly, but maybe this can be useful for your 'hearth fantasy' thing, especially when it approaches higher levels (it is 5E dnd, though)

https://koboldpress.com/dunsany-dragons-adventures-from-english-literature/

Aldarc · Jan 29, 2019

DQDesign said:
Hi [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]
I dunno exactly, but maybe this can be useful for your 'hearth fantasy' thing, especially when it approaches higher levels (it is 5E dnd, though)

https://koboldpress.com/dunsany-dragons-adventures-from-english-literature/

Wow. It's like you have a Mary Poppins bag of useful links and resources at your disposal.

darkbard said:
Good stuff, [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]. And kudos for the Lloyd Alexander reference!

Thanks. I also think that its underrated as a series. There are some great quests in these books that make for good story plots.

DQDesign · Jan 29, 2019

Aldarc said:
Wow. It's like you have a Mary Poppins bag of useful links and resources at your disposal.

I'm just old

anyway, feel free to ask for support for any rpg project you have in mind, maybe I can be useful

Dannyalcatraz · Jan 29, 2019

Well, murderhobos aren’t the fault of the DM, game or genre, it’s the players. They’re a cliche born out of the laziness of people who don’t want to do a backstory that makes sense for a PC who is wandering the world.

I have run plenty of non-murderhobos in standard D&D. So have the guys & gals who I have gamed with.

Aldarc · Jan 29, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Well, murderhobos aren’t the fault of the DM, game or genre, it’s the players. They’re a cliche born out of the laziness of people who don’t want to do a backstory that makes sense for a PC who is wandering the world.

I have run plenty of non-murderhobos in standard D&D. So have the guys & gals who I have gamed with.

Sure, you can run all sorts of stories with all sorts of games, and I have not claimed otherwise, but generally you want games or narrative frameworks that better support the play experience you want to cultivate.