Considering our next campaign goal

[Greenfield]

Our group will be hitting Epic levels within a few months, and since we seldom carry our campaigns past 20th level it may be time to start looking for a new campaign world/plot.

Our game group works on a "round robin" basis, and the campaign is a collective work. Someone comes up with a world setting, usually with some major issue or challenge. Then each player creates their character *and* the city or land that they come from.

The characters travel the world trying to deal with the campaign goal, wherever the story leads them. When one of us is ready to DM, the party finds themselves drawn into that player's home territory, and they become the DM. The DM's character retires to NPc status while we're there. By the time we're done there, hopefully someone else will have a story arc they're ready to DM, and off we go chasing the campaign goal again, on the road to a new land and a new adventure.

So now it's time to start considering what new worlds there are out there to conquer.

I have an idea for "Orcworld": One of the standard tenets of D&D is the emmnity between Orcs and practically everyone else. That, and the mantra of the Orcs: "Orcs will rule the world, some day!".

So that's our world: A great Orc chieftain arose, and the Orcs united behind him. They did conquer, and now they rule.

Long term campaign goal: Find the secret of his power and his longevity (he's over 60 years old, which is insanely ancient for an Orc, and still appears to be in his prime). We also need to gain allies and prepare for the rebellion, the overthrow of the Orcs.

Being an Elf, or even a Half Elf in this campaign would be a problem. Orcs hate Elves, and are seeking the few Elven enclaves that have managed to remain hidden. If the Orcs find an Elf or Half-Elf, they'll try to torture that character into revealing where his or her people are hiding. Grumsh's final vengeance against Corellon would be the extermination of anyone and everyone of the Elven god's people, to sever the god's ties to this world completely.

And obviously, playing an Orc is out. Half-Orc will be a problem.

I know it sounds interesting, but I have a feeling it will be a dark and not-too-fun game world to play in. Not sure if it's one my group would enjoy.

Any suggestions for other worlds, or additions/improvements on this one would be appreciated.

 

[Jacob Marley]

This sounds almost like an orcish version of Fantasy Flight's Midnight setting. It might be something to check out if you go this route.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

How about some sort of Exploratory campaign?

-A new island is discovered, and the Empire seeks to explore and colonize. Your party makes up the scouts to probe the new land and aid the settlers in establishing and expanding.

-A Gate/Portal is discovered. It leads to another world, filled with continents, creatures, nations, races... all unknown to the existing world. You and your party enter this new land with no knowledge of what they might find and what they might get caught up in.

-A massive earthquake splits a chasm along the boarder between three surface kingdoms. upon initial exploration, it reveals a deposit of a very rare mineral/buried ruin/portal to the Earth Plane that each kingdom would gladly have full control over. However, the opening has stirred the interest of Underdark residents who'd also like to get their hands on the prize.

 

[Herobizkit]

Liberally steal the plot of Stargate SG-1/Atlantis.

A generally beneficent PC military power has discovered the ability to pass through to other dimensions via a technologically (or magically) powered gate. The gate, however, opens the world to threats for which their homeworld is ill-prepared.

In my campaign-that-never-was, the portal originated in Eberron and opened to Athas. On the metal-starved Athas side, The Yuan-Ti and their Shardmind warriors learn about the existence of the Warforged and choose to hunt them en masse for their metal. The invaders' weapons and abilities are 100% psychically powered and completely bypass magical and current technological defenses.

Optionally, you could have a second portal open to the Plane of Water, whereupon an ancient city contains psychic weapons/armor etc. that CAN work... but only for a select few (say 1:50 or 1:100 humans are psychically 'aware' enough and/or a PC can take the Wild Talent feat). The city itself is under threat of total collapse and flooding and may require repairs or sorcery to unlock all of its secrets. (The city itself could be a maze that is slowly unlocked, section by section).

The ultimate goal might be to flood Athas with never-ending water. *G*

 

[Greenfield]

While there are some interesting ides in there, our usual format calls for a setting in which each character can come from a different part of the world, and where our adventures will take us to those various exotic ports.

The various "portal" settings proposed don't seem to fit that mold very well.

Usually, it's been "find the scattered pieces of...' or "seek out the lost secrets from..." kind of thing.

 

[Starfox]

For Orcworld, almost anything can work - you can create basically any kind of background, and that place has since been destroyed by the orcs. This gives a freedom to explore new backgrounds - you can now be the heiress of the queen of the unicorn-riding maiden knights or a student at the Academy of Ultimate Magic, because your heritage has been upstaged by the orcs. Basically, EVERYTHING is now a dungeon or ruin, and you can even go there with the right to whatever you find. That is a lot more cool than the usual murder hobo thing.

As to its greyness, that depends on how it is staged. Orcs are not known for subtle oppression, mind games, or intrigue - orcworld would basically be a points of light campaign with very few points of light. Unless you take it way too seriously it could be fun.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

What works for you guys in terms of "World"? I know you operated of a map of the historic earth, would more exotic worlds such a spelljammer, plane hopping multiverse or Underdark or island-hopping-ships be appealing, or would you again want something more existing for the landscape?

I've always wanted to run a "Island of Doctor Moreau" concept with shipwrecked PCs on an island with a wide variety of templated creatures.

 

[Greenfield]

The physical map is actually irrelevant, as is map scale. How long does it take to get from where you were to where you need to get? As long as the DM says.

We've used Mordor/Middle Earth, we've used the real world, we've used Forgotten Realms, we've used something that got pulled from Steve Jackson's site. I was even looking at a "map of the internet" over on XKCD, just for the giggles.

All that's needed is a map with multiple lands, big enough to explore, and some indeterminate goal that needs to be achieved.

Everything after that is game color.

My "Orcworld" could just as easily be a space invasion, an Illithid occupation, or any form of political turmoil.

The problem that I sometimes run into is that neat sounding world scenarios often have unseen factors that sharply limit the game. For example, I once wrote up a world setting for a superhero game, Reichworld, the parallel world where Hitler won World War II, and the PC supers were part of a North American resistance.

We ran out of plot development after about five outings. The occupying forces' willingness to execute civilian hostages whenever we did anything significant kind of put a damper on things, and the fact that we couldn't turn any "bad guys" over to the police completely shut down any "recurring villain" story lines. We either had to kill the bad guys or let them go, neither of which fit with the super-hero genre very well.

That's the kind of thing I'm worried about in my Orcworld concept. Any reputation the group gets as they advance will work against them, shutting down their access to resources of any significant kind.

 

[Jacob Marley]

That's the kind of thing I'm worried about in my Orcworld concept. Any reputation the group gets as they advance will work against them, shutting down their access to resources of any significant kind.

We once ran a game set in Ringland, the Shield Lands, Greyhawk. This was after Iuz had conquered the Shield Lands and orcs roamed the lands freely. Ringland was a point-of-light in an otherwise dismal land. The orcs and Iuz were unable to perceive the existence of Ringland due to the Fount of Heironeous - a powerful artifact that prevented those of an evil alignment from closing within a couple of miles of the fount's location (with one major exception*). It also prevented us from scrying or teleporting out of Ringland. The fount was also slowly failing. The PCs goals were: First, to communicate with the outside world (Furyondy or Nyrond); Second; find a way to save the fount; Third, take the battle to Iuz and liberate the Shield Lands.

I think something interesting could be done by taking this suggestion and merging it with [MENTION=6674868]RUMBLETiGER[/MENTION]'s and [MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION]'s suggestions above to alleviate your concern.

Imagine a world completely overrun by orcs save for a few points-of-light (these can vary in size from small communities to larger regions). Each of the points-of-light is being sustained by a powerful, but failing artifact. Somewhere, outside the safe regions are portals that once connected the world together. These could be in old ruined cities and dungeons, whatever. The party starts out in one area with the mission of finding one of these portals. (Obviously the portal leads to the next DM's location.) The early part of the campaign revolves around finding and connecting these portals together. The campaign then transitions into how do save the failing artifacts. And so on.

Additionally, you could run adventures of intrigue within a particular point or between two points as different cultures start to once again interact. Outside the points are more classic adventures exploring old ruins and fighting the ever-present orcs. Once the portals become established there really is no limit to threads you can develop.

* There was a demon trapped in an adamantine cage who constantly pounded on it in a futile attempt to escape. He would curse the inhabitants of Ringland and promise to kill each and every one of us. He was a constant reminder of the danger we would face should we fail.

 

[Greenfield]

I like it.