Gamemastering advice on preparing adventures for Sword & Sorcery campaigns
Bilharzia
Fish Priest
This might help:
Picaro and the "Story" of D&D
I mentioned previously that I believe Dungeons & Dragons has a "story," by which I mean a thematic core. I probably never should have used ...
grognardia.blogspot.com
I agree with the first part of this, but not the second. REH's Conan isn't as you describe; and I'm not sure that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are that ruthless either.
Bilharzia
Fish Priest
Perhaps not
I'm more thinking of typical PCs here ...Yes, that would be my initial concern, also.
For my village I'd roll classic 2D6, where extremes are something very bad/good the Gm elaborates in a fancy situation to be played;
average: just a note on the party log: village plundered, stuff taken as per normal village, moving on...
If I was resolving a pillaging of a village in BW, I might just call for a Scavenging check FoRKing in appropriate weapon skills and Intimidate, plus Village-wise if the PCs have that.
If there was some reason to give the village a defender, there might be an initial encounter to resolve that. Or if the village has defences (say a palisade and militia) then maybe some initial Range and Cover would be in order.
I could see the "reason" for defenders or defences to be chosen by the party in order to gain more wealth, in a risk/reward manner.
Thinking again of BW, the village defences could be established by the players (via successful Village-wise or Militia-wise, say) or by the GM (if a Wises check is failed; or if the players don't engage with it one way or the other and so it's the GM's job to frame it).
Yora
Legend
Yeah, I found that too some days back. But I don't find it terribly useful.
Let's say I make the rolls and get "Acolyte of Darkness", which is about "destroying" a "crown", because the PCs are "cursed by a god". The antagonist is a "cunning madman" and they get help from a "honorable captain of the guard". However, an "invasion or occupation by foreigners" and an "inscription that needs translated" make things complicated and "the entire adventure is actually a delusion or dream". But at least there's "precious jewels" as a reward.
Now what?
I guess the whole thing could be improved by saying that "someone wants to destroy a crown", and that there are a cunning madman and a honorable captain of the guard who could both either be allies or antagonists to the PCs. But in the end, it's still just random word salad. That's the trivially easy part. Making an adventure out of that stuff is where actual structures, advice, or suggestions would be helpful to GMs.
Bilharzia
Fish Priest
It feels like you are flogging a dead horse at this point. It's really not that hard, not much more than a basic sandbox setup, ie. one settlement, a wilderness, some adventure locations, a couple of antagonists, a rumour table. Sword and Sorcery is not that complicated, and coming up with an adventure to suit is pretty easy. There are plenty of supplements you can pick from to populate your adventure space. The players will do the rest, you are over-thinking it. If you think it is complicated, I wonder what Sword & Sorcery fiction you have read.
I have to say, you seem to be complaining a lot that there's no help or that what there is is useless. It's not, you just have to do a bit of invention yourself, and don't do too much, then run the game.
I have to say, you seem to be complaining a lot that there's no help or that what there is is useless. It's not, you just have to do a bit of invention yourself, and don't do too much, then run the game.
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