BlackTiger
First Post
Hey EN World. Been awhile 
My players (Hey Eric!) Know the drill. Spoiler Alert.
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I'm looking for specific encounter ideas, feedback or criticism on my campaign design theory, and anything else you all feel like contributing.
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A friend of mine awhile back created an epic character to show players what Epic Characters should really be like. He created a Half-Orc Barbaian named Verne who was trapped in a crappy world locked in the grip of an eternal winter, spreading from the North pole, with the added problem of driving entire races insane. Trapped among a bunch of cowering exiles in a 'warm' river valley near the southern pole, the world at large having given up, he decided,
"Screw this. I'm going to walk to the North Pole and kick this thing's arse."
As soon as I heard of this, I knew I had to run a Campaign where the party is journeying forever north.
The Great Races have given up and fled South, or dug beneath the earth. Something is trying to destroy this planet through eternal winter. The previous great empires of all races, and in most cases the gods they worshipped, are trapped beneath the inhospitable ice and snow that coats the world. Perhaps worst of all, there was a recent glimmer of hope, a decade when temperatures rose (Vernes fault) before things became worse than before.
Now, some would-be heroes with nothing to lose have found reasons to head north, into the heart of winter and ice.
So, I'm planning to run this as a 'summer campaign' when I go home from my college, with my old gaming buddies. The time frame, my knowledge of my players, and some personal choices are influencing my design decisions, but I'm finding that tossing this idea at people and listening to what comes up is a very useful tool for new ideas. I may post some of the finer details later, but here's my design philosophy so far:
1. Write this 'arc' of the campaign from about level 1-8, with journey milestone-based levels instead of raw XP tracking. This gets PCs into their Prestige classes. About those PCs and PrCs -
2. Pre-generated characters. This is a contentious issue I know, but I'm playing in a campaign right now which has used this to good effect. You lay out the past and the paths ahead for the PCs, but everything else is really up to the Player, giving them lots of room to personalize and grow (Including two very obvious prestige classes in different directions, or to stay the course in their class). Each PC also has a big 'choice' built into them based on campaign themes. But this has the advantage of knowing what's on the table, without limiting the player's options because...
3. Without weird PrCs, races, or classes on the table, I am very comfortable with giving out bonus feats that players otherwise might not take (Self-Sufficient, Mountaineer, etc) as a carrot for participation beyond games (Updating campaign wiki, campaign journals, etc), and I'm using XP for party crafting and spells as a reward for in character roleplaying goodness (I have a very mixed group of players; Powergamers, tacticians, RPers and dedicated backpack-packing realists. I plan to limit these at first, but know some people will seek them and encourage the less involved players to participate as well).
As for the actual game, there's a couple things going on.
The goal is exploration. I've recently discovered the idea of a 'hex crawl' and found that it might be useful in certain regions. Of course, all the exploration and personal development builds towards and uncovers the case of the winter.
I envision the typical BBEG / Lieutenant problems along the way, mostly villains who have found ways to use the unnatural winter to personal or group advantage, or in the service of some nasty gods. Also, even some of these gods have been hollowed out and usurped by the Winter, along with their cults.
Dungeons along the way and encounters are ways for Players to dig into the History of the world, and the source of Eternal Winter.
The feral power of the natural world (including the unnatural winter) regularly butts heads the discipline and knowledge of the old empires.
Rediscovering the old gods (That is, the PHB Pantheon) is a big deal to the party, beyond just the cleric and Paladin (Ex; The Druid is in a somewhat 'abusive' divine relationship with Auril, an evil winter deity, Dwarves like the fighter had to leave great halls and monuments to Moradin behind, etc)
Aside from encountering standby cold-themed enemies (Frostworm, Winter Wolves, Rejkar from MM3) what other encounters does this world put in people's heads?
I foresee being chased by and having to outpace a young Frost Giant, angry with the PCs interference in his carefully controlled tribe of Snow Goblins, encountering a verdant valley ruled over by a tyrannical yak-Folk, an old lighthouse keep (up in the mountains, since all this ice has dramatically reduced sea level) an iceberg, once home to a Rimefire Eidolon, killed by the cult of Iborighu (Rival deity of Hleid, see Frostburn) a coastal city on the last unfrozen sea, it's population driven out by monsters searching their homes for... Something, and the giant, glassy expanse of what was once an ocean, frozen over, where the party has to try not to get attention from huge predators lurking beneath thin sheets of frozen water.
Maybe having to push a treasure-boat that never made it from drydock into that southern sea to appease a giant gold and gem munching planar dragon turtle, so that it will push a huge iceberg up the coast and use it to block off a river of coldfire, currently pouring into a crevasse between tectonic plates trying to freeze the very heart of the world - Okay, that's little ridiculous.
But, hey, it's D&D...
Questions? Ideas?
My players (Hey Eric!) Know the drill. Spoiler Alert. -
I'm looking for specific encounter ideas, feedback or criticism on my campaign design theory, and anything else you all feel like contributing.
-
A friend of mine awhile back created an epic character to show players what Epic Characters should really be like. He created a Half-Orc Barbaian named Verne who was trapped in a crappy world locked in the grip of an eternal winter, spreading from the North pole, with the added problem of driving entire races insane. Trapped among a bunch of cowering exiles in a 'warm' river valley near the southern pole, the world at large having given up, he decided,
"Screw this. I'm going to walk to the North Pole and kick this thing's arse."
As soon as I heard of this, I knew I had to run a Campaign where the party is journeying forever north.
The Great Races have given up and fled South, or dug beneath the earth. Something is trying to destroy this planet through eternal winter. The previous great empires of all races, and in most cases the gods they worshipped, are trapped beneath the inhospitable ice and snow that coats the world. Perhaps worst of all, there was a recent glimmer of hope, a decade when temperatures rose (Vernes fault) before things became worse than before.
Now, some would-be heroes with nothing to lose have found reasons to head north, into the heart of winter and ice.
So, I'm planning to run this as a 'summer campaign' when I go home from my college, with my old gaming buddies. The time frame, my knowledge of my players, and some personal choices are influencing my design decisions, but I'm finding that tossing this idea at people and listening to what comes up is a very useful tool for new ideas. I may post some of the finer details later, but here's my design philosophy so far:
1. Write this 'arc' of the campaign from about level 1-8, with journey milestone-based levels instead of raw XP tracking. This gets PCs into their Prestige classes. About those PCs and PrCs -
2. Pre-generated characters. This is a contentious issue I know, but I'm playing in a campaign right now which has used this to good effect. You lay out the past and the paths ahead for the PCs, but everything else is really up to the Player, giving them lots of room to personalize and grow (Including two very obvious prestige classes in different directions, or to stay the course in their class). Each PC also has a big 'choice' built into them based on campaign themes. But this has the advantage of knowing what's on the table, without limiting the player's options because...
3. Without weird PrCs, races, or classes on the table, I am very comfortable with giving out bonus feats that players otherwise might not take (Self-Sufficient, Mountaineer, etc) as a carrot for participation beyond games (Updating campaign wiki, campaign journals, etc), and I'm using XP for party crafting and spells as a reward for in character roleplaying goodness (I have a very mixed group of players; Powergamers, tacticians, RPers and dedicated backpack-packing realists. I plan to limit these at first, but know some people will seek them and encourage the less involved players to participate as well).
As for the actual game, there's a couple things going on.
The goal is exploration. I've recently discovered the idea of a 'hex crawl' and found that it might be useful in certain regions. Of course, all the exploration and personal development builds towards and uncovers the case of the winter.
I envision the typical BBEG / Lieutenant problems along the way, mostly villains who have found ways to use the unnatural winter to personal or group advantage, or in the service of some nasty gods. Also, even some of these gods have been hollowed out and usurped by the Winter, along with their cults.
Dungeons along the way and encounters are ways for Players to dig into the History of the world, and the source of Eternal Winter.
The feral power of the natural world (including the unnatural winter) regularly butts heads the discipline and knowledge of the old empires.
Rediscovering the old gods (That is, the PHB Pantheon) is a big deal to the party, beyond just the cleric and Paladin (Ex; The Druid is in a somewhat 'abusive' divine relationship with Auril, an evil winter deity, Dwarves like the fighter had to leave great halls and monuments to Moradin behind, etc)
Aside from encountering standby cold-themed enemies (Frostworm, Winter Wolves, Rejkar from MM3) what other encounters does this world put in people's heads?
I foresee being chased by and having to outpace a young Frost Giant, angry with the PCs interference in his carefully controlled tribe of Snow Goblins, encountering a verdant valley ruled over by a tyrannical yak-Folk, an old lighthouse keep (up in the mountains, since all this ice has dramatically reduced sea level) an iceberg, once home to a Rimefire Eidolon, killed by the cult of Iborighu (Rival deity of Hleid, see Frostburn) a coastal city on the last unfrozen sea, it's population driven out by monsters searching their homes for... Something, and the giant, glassy expanse of what was once an ocean, frozen over, where the party has to try not to get attention from huge predators lurking beneath thin sheets of frozen water.
Maybe having to push a treasure-boat that never made it from drydock into that southern sea to appease a giant gold and gem munching planar dragon turtle, so that it will push a huge iceberg up the coast and use it to block off a river of coldfire, currently pouring into a crevasse between tectonic plates trying to freeze the very heart of the world - Okay, that's little ridiculous.
But, hey, it's D&D...
Questions? Ideas?
