Gamemastering advice on preparing adventures for Sword & Sorcery campaigns

[Yora]

Even when you think of a Sword & Sorcery campaign as a series of disconnected adventures, I was still unable to find anything anywhere on how to actually set up individual Sword & Sorcery adventures either.

I also think that your ideas of helping/interacting with the locals don't scream S&S. Your PCs should be heading straight to rescue their friend (or loot his gear) from whatever the threat is. Anyway, in most S&S fiction, I think commoners who are on the run would be very leery of accepting help from strangers.

The players should be free to do whatever the hell they want. I think the task of the GM is to provide them with stuff they can interact with.

 

[Aldarc]

Even when you think of a Sword & Sorcery campaign as a series of disconnected adventures, I was still unable to find anything anywhere on how to actually set up individual Sword & Sorcery adventures either.

IMHO, avoid adventure paths and focus on shorter modules.

The players should be free to do whatever the hell they want. I think the task of the GM is to provide them with stuff they can interact with.

It may help to think about this less in terms about what you can do as a GM but what the players can do. Whether players are playing in a sandbox game or a S&S series of adventures, it's important for the players to understand their characters' goals, ambitions, and drives for themselves. Why are they actually doing this? What do they want out of life? How do they hope to achieve it? How does adventuring contribute to that goal?

Once they know that - once you know that - then it becomes easier to frame conflicts in terms of those goals. Players are free to pursue their own goals, and it's your job to put challenges and complications in the way of those goals for them to overcome.

Much like I said in the other thread, if epic fantasy often involves threats to THE World the characters inhabit, then S&S should mostly be framed in terms of threats to THEIR World as individuals.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Even when you think of a Sword & Sorcery campaign as a series of disconnected adventures, I was still unable to find anything anywhere on how to actually set up individual Sword & Sorcery adventures either.

I don't think you're going to find a tutorial anywhere. But something you could look into are adventures that are explicitly designed and marketed as being "sword & sorcery" for ideas.

I mentioned Primeval Thule in the other thread, and I still think it's a great approach to 5e Sword & Sorcery games. It manages the tone and the feel without removing classes or changing anything about any of the systems it was designed for (it's available for 5e, 4e, Pathfinder 1e, and 13th Age). There are several adventures available, for a decent spread of levels, many of which are only available for 5e. Though some of the best adventures are in the campaign setting book itself.

And that's just 5e. There are other systems (Dungeon Crawl Classics springs immediately to mind) that have tons of stuff written as Sword & Sorcery. I'm not saying you need to play those systems, but if you're looking for adventure inspiration they're great resources.

 

[Dioltach]

It may help to think about this less in terms about what you can do as a GM but what the players can do. Whether players are playing in a sandbox game or a S&S series of adventures, it's important for the players to understand their characters' goals, ambitions, and drives for themselves. Why are they actually doing this? What do they want out of life? How do they hope to achieve it? How does adventuring contribute to that goal?

Once they know that - once you know that - then it becomes easier to frame conflicts in terms of those goals. Players are free to pursue their own goals, and it's your job to put challenges and complications in the way of those goals for them to overcome.

Much like I said in the other thread, if epic fantasy often involves threats to THE World the characters inhabit, then S&S should mostly be framed in terms of threats to THEIR World as individuals.

Of course, the players could start off playing their PCs with a typical fantasy "we have to help these poor farmers" attitude. Then after they've been betrayed by those same farmers a few times, they learn that the whole world is actually quite selfish. That would be very S&S.

 

[pemerton]

I would not start a S&S game with 1st level AD&D, or 3E or 5e D&D characters. I don't think those characters are powerful enough to play the role of competent S&S protagonists.

1st level 4e D&D PCs should be OK.

 

[Aldarc]

I would not start a S&S game with 1st level AD&D, or 3E or 5e D&D characters. I don't think those characters are powerful enough to play the role of competent S&S protagonists.

1st level 4e D&D PCs should be OK.

That's also the thing that sometimes gets ignored. There's not really a zero-to-hero arch for S&S characters. They start out competent when we first meet them in stories, and they are much the same at the end. Conan may start off as a barbarian on the fringe and end as a king at the top of civilization, but he doesn't really have the sort of power level progression that we generally associate with D&D characters going from levels 1 to 20.

 

[S'mon]

I think a good way to avoid gratuitousness

I think if you're avoiding gratuitousness while trying to do S&S, you've already lost.

 

[S'mon]

I would not start a S&S game with 1st level AD&D, or 3E or 5e D&D characters. I don't think those characters are powerful enough to play the role of competent S&S protagonists.

1st level 4e D&D PCs should be OK.

Yes, for typical S&S I'd start with 3rd level 5e PCs. And use the XP system with fairly slow advancement.

 

[S'mon]

I don't think you're going to find a tutorial anywhere. But something you could look into are adventures that are explicitly designed and marketed as being "sword & sorcery" for ideas.

I mentioned Primeval Thule in the other thread, and I still think it's a great approach to 5e Sword & Sorcery games. It manages the tone and the feel without removing classes or changing anything about any of the systems it was designed for (it's available for 5e, 4e, Pathfinder 1e, and 13th Age). There are several adventures available, for a decent spread of levels, many of which are only available for 5e. Though some of the best adventures are in the campaign setting book itself.

And that's just 5e. There are other systems (Dungeon Crawl Classics springs immediately to mind) that have tons of stuff written as Sword & Sorcery. I'm not saying you need to play those systems, but if you're looking for adventure inspiration they're great resources.

The official Primeval Thule adventures have been great to run and give a very S&S feel. I think my favourite of all was The Watchers of Meng, definitely worth getting the pdf to take a look at it.

 

[S'mon]

One of my players is a voice actor and did a couple great accounts of our early Primeval Thule adventures