I've been thinking about running D&D again, at my local gaming store. But my work schedule is 12hr shifts on a two-week cycle, so I'd only be able to run it every other week. I therefore need a campaign premise which allows for the inevitable random attendance by players who make other plans between sessions. And the best solution I have at hand is to frame their missions as discrete tactical engagements (which can be completed in a single session) rather than broad exploratory delves into the unknown.
So I'm planning a war campaign, with the PCs cast in the role of an elite team possessing unique tactical skills (by virtue of having PHB classes), who are frequently sent unsupported into enemy territory for surgical strikes intended to tip the momentum of the war in their nation's favor.
Characters with the Soldier Background would obviously be properly military in their training, while those of other Backgrounds would be people who developed extraordinary skills in other walks of life, then answered the call to service when asked.
And I want there to be an obvious moral imperative for the PCs to take up arms against the enemy, without either irony or any hint of a plot twist subverting that belief. The villains should genuinely be villains, so the heroes can simply be heroes. However...
I have no bleeping clue what I should make into the enemy whom the PCs' nation is at war against.
I know that I want villains rather than monsters; instead of their enemy being goblins or drow or any other breed of hideous creatures which are always bad guys because the traditional tradition of traditional traditionalism says they're always bad guys, they should be PEOPLE who are up to evil badness which must be stopped through military action.
And I know that I don't want to be tied down to any published campaign setting, so that I don't have to invest the time to read extra books in order to understand a PC's intended backstory, nor constantly come up with reasons why the various signature-character archmages are conspicuously uninvolved in the international crisis of my campaign premise.
But that's all I know.
All suggestions are welcomed.
So I'm planning a war campaign, with the PCs cast in the role of an elite team possessing unique tactical skills (by virtue of having PHB classes), who are frequently sent unsupported into enemy territory for surgical strikes intended to tip the momentum of the war in their nation's favor.
Characters with the Soldier Background would obviously be properly military in their training, while those of other Backgrounds would be people who developed extraordinary skills in other walks of life, then answered the call to service when asked.
And I want there to be an obvious moral imperative for the PCs to take up arms against the enemy, without either irony or any hint of a plot twist subverting that belief. The villains should genuinely be villains, so the heroes can simply be heroes. However...
I have no bleeping clue what I should make into the enemy whom the PCs' nation is at war against.
I know that I want villains rather than monsters; instead of their enemy being goblins or drow or any other breed of hideous creatures which are always bad guys because the traditional tradition of traditional traditionalism says they're always bad guys, they should be PEOPLE who are up to evil badness which must be stopped through military action.
And I know that I don't want to be tied down to any published campaign setting, so that I don't have to invest the time to read extra books in order to understand a PC's intended backstory, nor constantly come up with reasons why the various signature-character archmages are conspicuously uninvolved in the international crisis of my campaign premise.
But that's all I know.
All suggestions are welcomed.