airwalkrr
Adventurer
It seems to me that the most prevalent style of campaign today is one where a DM gets a group of players together and they meet for a regular time and play an adventure or series of adventures. But suppose there were a campaign that was a little more flexible, similar to a Living campaign (like Living Greyhawk), but a bit more intimate.
Here is my vision. The campaign would meet on a regular basis, but the players would not always be the same. Players would attend as they like when their availability allows and for each session, they would receive an entry on a log sheet detailing how much XP they earned, any items the PC received, and coin earned. I would speed a lot of things up for this campaign so that more could be accomplished in the space of one session. For example, damage calculation would be streamlined by using averages in all cases; characters still roll attacks rolls, saves, skill checks, etc. normally of course. I would also have any dungeon maps prepared ahead of time instead of drawing them in real time on a map as the PCs played. I have also devised (and almost completed) a simpler skill system that eliminates the need for a number of skill checks. The focus of the campaign would be on adventure and role-playing and less time would be devoted to abstract calculations for the sake of realism.
To make things fair, each PC would be built on a 25-point buy. PCs could use anything from the three core rulebooks to create their characters, but each character would have expanded options as well so as to allow the use of rules from other books. The PCs would have the following options for expanded characters:
-Each PC gets to use one item (feat, spell, class, prestige class, magic item, or mundane item) from another rule supplement for each character level.
-A PC can play a monster race (defined as a race not found in the PH, and this includes subraces such as grey elf) at the cost of one expanded slot per ECL of the race (minimum one). So a PC could play a goblin (no LA) by spending only his 1st level slot, but a PC would have to use up his first three slots to play a gnoll (ECL 3). PCs choosing to play a race with an ECL higher than 1 must use a monster class progression as per Savage Species.
-A PC can trade ALL of his expanded slots for the opportunity to use all items from one sourcebook. For example, a PC could give up his expanded slots to be able to access all the rules items in the Player's Handbook 2. Another PC might choose to give up his expanded slots so he could play a shadowcaster and use shadow magic from Tome and Magic.
-A PC can trade his expanded slots for extra points to build his character with point buy, to a maximum of 7. So a PC could trade his first 7 expanded slots to create a 32 point-buy character. Such a character would be limited to the core rulebooks for his first seven levels, but would otherwise be a more powerful character.
All PCs would pay upkeep for their characters using the Upkeep variant from the DMG. Every 28 days of campaign time the character would be required to pay additional upkeep with the first upkeep due on the date of character creation. I would track the campaign time continuously, so characters that miss a session might need to catch up by paying upkeep. Though this might seem unfair, characters can use this "down-time" to perform non-adventuring activity, like creating magic items, crafting mundane items, practicing a trade, or performing. Thus, such characters, if they invest in a Profession or Perform skill are actually likely to come out ahead in character wealth.
The adventures would center around excursions to Castle Greyhawk with infrequent forays into other parts of the Domain of Greyhawk. On occassion, a group of players might be allowed to use their characters to play a "mini-campaign" by playing an adventure from Dungeon magazine or another published adventure. These sessions would always include the same players and characters and these characters would not be allowed to join in the normal sessions until the mini-campaign has been completed (which may take several weeks), although they could create new characters to play the normal sessions. The in-game time required to complete the mini-campaign would be determined and the character would not be allowed to join the normal sessions until the in-game time had passed for that character. So in essence I would track separate timelines for the mini-campaign and the main campaign and a given character could not join back in the main campaign until it caught up with the timeline of the mini-campaign (although, as mentioned the player could create a new character to play the main campaign). If the main campaign was ahead in time of the mini-campaign, the characters could re-join and perform non-adventuring activity (like item creation or a Profession) in the gap time.
The advantages of the mini-campaigns would be that they would allow a more cohesive group of PCs to play in a more typical D&D style game from time to time. In addition, mini-campaigns would continue the plot of the setting in parts of the world other than the Domain of Greyhawk.
I think this would be a pretty cool idea. It would be a very organic world in which not everything is always tailored completely to the PCs so they would need to be more circumspect about their choices. It seems like it would be similar to the original D&D campaigns Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz used to run. Does anyone have any comments or feedback about this campaign idea? I am thinking of starting it sometime next year.
Here is my vision. The campaign would meet on a regular basis, but the players would not always be the same. Players would attend as they like when their availability allows and for each session, they would receive an entry on a log sheet detailing how much XP they earned, any items the PC received, and coin earned. I would speed a lot of things up for this campaign so that more could be accomplished in the space of one session. For example, damage calculation would be streamlined by using averages in all cases; characters still roll attacks rolls, saves, skill checks, etc. normally of course. I would also have any dungeon maps prepared ahead of time instead of drawing them in real time on a map as the PCs played. I have also devised (and almost completed) a simpler skill system that eliminates the need for a number of skill checks. The focus of the campaign would be on adventure and role-playing and less time would be devoted to abstract calculations for the sake of realism.
To make things fair, each PC would be built on a 25-point buy. PCs could use anything from the three core rulebooks to create their characters, but each character would have expanded options as well so as to allow the use of rules from other books. The PCs would have the following options for expanded characters:
-Each PC gets to use one item (feat, spell, class, prestige class, magic item, or mundane item) from another rule supplement for each character level.
-A PC can play a monster race (defined as a race not found in the PH, and this includes subraces such as grey elf) at the cost of one expanded slot per ECL of the race (minimum one). So a PC could play a goblin (no LA) by spending only his 1st level slot, but a PC would have to use up his first three slots to play a gnoll (ECL 3). PCs choosing to play a race with an ECL higher than 1 must use a monster class progression as per Savage Species.
-A PC can trade ALL of his expanded slots for the opportunity to use all items from one sourcebook. For example, a PC could give up his expanded slots to be able to access all the rules items in the Player's Handbook 2. Another PC might choose to give up his expanded slots so he could play a shadowcaster and use shadow magic from Tome and Magic.
-A PC can trade his expanded slots for extra points to build his character with point buy, to a maximum of 7. So a PC could trade his first 7 expanded slots to create a 32 point-buy character. Such a character would be limited to the core rulebooks for his first seven levels, but would otherwise be a more powerful character.
All PCs would pay upkeep for their characters using the Upkeep variant from the DMG. Every 28 days of campaign time the character would be required to pay additional upkeep with the first upkeep due on the date of character creation. I would track the campaign time continuously, so characters that miss a session might need to catch up by paying upkeep. Though this might seem unfair, characters can use this "down-time" to perform non-adventuring activity, like creating magic items, crafting mundane items, practicing a trade, or performing. Thus, such characters, if they invest in a Profession or Perform skill are actually likely to come out ahead in character wealth.
The adventures would center around excursions to Castle Greyhawk with infrequent forays into other parts of the Domain of Greyhawk. On occassion, a group of players might be allowed to use their characters to play a "mini-campaign" by playing an adventure from Dungeon magazine or another published adventure. These sessions would always include the same players and characters and these characters would not be allowed to join in the normal sessions until the mini-campaign has been completed (which may take several weeks), although they could create new characters to play the normal sessions. The in-game time required to complete the mini-campaign would be determined and the character would not be allowed to join the normal sessions until the in-game time had passed for that character. So in essence I would track separate timelines for the mini-campaign and the main campaign and a given character could not join back in the main campaign until it caught up with the timeline of the mini-campaign (although, as mentioned the player could create a new character to play the main campaign). If the main campaign was ahead in time of the mini-campaign, the characters could re-join and perform non-adventuring activity (like item creation or a Profession) in the gap time.
The advantages of the mini-campaigns would be that they would allow a more cohesive group of PCs to play in a more typical D&D style game from time to time. In addition, mini-campaigns would continue the plot of the setting in parts of the world other than the Domain of Greyhawk.
I think this would be a pretty cool idea. It would be a very organic world in which not everything is always tailored completely to the PCs so they would need to be more circumspect about their choices. It seems like it would be similar to the original D&D campaigns Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz used to run. Does anyone have any comments or feedback about this campaign idea? I am thinking of starting it sometime next year.
