About to start an Essentials-based campaign. Interested in lending a minor hand?

[Burgonet]

I am relative newcomer to posting here on ENWorld.
Neve the less I figured I might take the opportunity to post this.

I'm in the process of beginning to once again run a 4e-era D&D campaign.
The current working title of the Campaign is "Heroes of ..." where the dots represent the name of the Kingdom the game will be set in.
The campaign title is also inspired by the "Heroes of" books that constitute the Essentials line, which will be the rules basis for the campaign.
I do own a lot of the older pre-Essentials 4e material however I've decided to stick with an "Essentials-only" approach primarily to highlight and showcase the Monster Vault, Rules Compendium and the Heroes line of books (Fallen Lands/Forgotten Kingdoms).

I've already started to kludge together a campaign, based in part upon suggestions and ideas suggested by the prospective players over the last few months.
These include:

1. A 'Chosen One': One of the players gets to be a Harry Potter/Luke Skywalker/Frodo Baggins/the Arisen/the Dragonborn; a reluctant hero who will no doubt be the son or daughter of a farmer, be human, and basically be a literal punching bag for misfortune, disaster and strife who will suffer greatly in order to Save the Kingdom As Foretold By Destiny.

The exact notion of Destiny and Being Chosen, and how this role will be defined is entirely yet to be decided upon.
This will be something I'll develop with the player who decides to suffer under this role.

This is an idea the players collectively wanted and one I've embraced rather than convinced them collectively of.

2. To Do a Number of Fantasy Cliches well: Stemming from point 1, the group collectively wants to touch upon a number of fantasy cliches and 'do them well'.
What this exactly will entail I suspect is entirely open to interpretation however I'm taking it as "cliches are good with us as long as they are done well".

3. Themes they're keen on include: multiple threats to the Kingdom, Bromance/the Bonds of Friendship, The Blade That Was Broken (an equivalent), a mirroring (to a degree) of Japanese Five Character Theory in group character creation (Hero/Cooler than the Hero/Mentor/Romantic Interest/Comedic Relief); just to cover a few.

4. So far we've already invented a new race for the campaign - the Rahkari; a Lion-person race who rose to prominence during the days of the Great Empire (still working on exact details but it's a Roman Empire equivalent broadly speaking, or a Nerath equivalent in a Points of Light context).
They're statistically fairly similar to the Dragonborn, with a few very minor tweaks.
This request initially tested my own personal "Essentials only" campaign philosophy however I've made my peace with the concept and am now entirely embracing it.

5. An overall Points-of-Light philosophy but spreading the boundaries to an entire Kingdom.
Said Kingdom is still in development and will have a map of sorts but this map will lack detail deliberately so we can fill in detail as we go.
I've already made it clear that a whole World Beyond does indeed exist but that the game will never go there.
Characters can certainly be from Lands Elsewhere and I'll be creating short ideas for those wishing to be a Foreign Hero in the Land.

6. As for inspiration for the Kingdom?
A mix of the Ruritanian Romance, Tolkien, Sir Walter Scott and a host of heroic fiction writers as viewed through a 4th edition D&D setting lens.
It's still to get a name but short-listed names for Kingdoms include Asturia, Galacia and Cantor. Admittedly none of these entirely grab me as THE Kingdom name and it's a work-in-progress.

7. I'm toying with religion somewhat in the campaign as well.
Rather than the usual 4e pantheon (which is fine but I've used it for 2+ campaigns as DM and 3 more as a player) I've decided to invent a world-spanning religion that was popularised during the time of the Great Empire and is still quite prevalent a millennia or so later. Sound familiar?
The twist is that this religion is a mix of Romanesque Mithraism with an emphasis on the "One Major Belief System; Many Interpretations" that the actual Middle Ages arguably had in most of Western Europe.

This in turn will lead to Knights Orders, Monastic Orders (in part clashing with the proactive/Zoastrian/Strive-or-Die approach to worship), Knowledge based Orders and so on; all rooted with the same broad beliefs but in practice all being quite different.

8. Not to disappoint the crystal set, there'll probably be a Green Man/Pagan equivalent in religious terms, as well as "Older Gods" from previous eras of history including a Pantheon that were worshipped in the Great Empire prior to the current religion replacing it (ala. The Greek/Roman Gods), various secretive cults, Demon and Devil Worship (for your evil cult needs) and other non-standard religions for the game's era.

9. The campaign will cover the Heroic tier. Starting at level One and hopefully completing at level ten or so.
There may very well be an extension beyond the Heroic but I'd rather factor in an 'end' to the campaign rather than leave things open.
We can always start a new campaign at the Paragon tier if we get that far.

That's the plan.

Character creation is next weekend (about 7 days away) and depending on player availably and interest we'll begin in another 2-4 weeks from that date.
The game will run bi-weekly, so as to maintain another ongoing Pathfinder campaign that I'm playing in with a core number of players that are joining this campaign (and our DM from that game).

Now this is the part that you should skim-read to if your eyes glazed over initially above.
I'm interested in soliciting a brains trust for this campaign!
Not so much to create for me, more as extra pairs of eyes and brains to read over ideas and to make sure I'm making a semblance of sense.

I'm envisaging using email to communicate the more 'secret' stuff but am also entirely open to using the thread here to discuss broader ideas.
So if you'd be interested in aiding me in a "brains trust" sort of way, let me know!
Either in a PM here or by posting in the thread itself.

I'll endeavour to bring more content to this thread as time approaches towards D-day for character creation and beyond.
Thanks for reading and hope to gain a few extra pairs of brains for some mental lifting in the days and weeks to come.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I am relative newcomer to posting here on ENWorld.
Neve the less I figured I might take the opportunity to post this.

I'm in the process of beginning to once again run a 4e-era D&D campaign.
The current working title of the Campaign is "Heroes of ..." where the dots represent the name of the Kingdom the game will be set in.
The campaign title is also inspired by the "Heroes of" books that constitute the Essentials line, which will be the rules basis for the campaign.
I do own a lot of the older pre-Essentials 4e material however I've decided to stick with an "Essentials-only" approach primarily to highlight and showcase the Monster Vault, Rules Compendium and the Heroes line of books (Fallen Lands/Forgotten Kingdoms).

Seems much simpler, although I have to say Essentials does a far better job with martial than non-martial characters. (I'd be reluctant to play a cleric or wizard in such a campaign, especially the former.)

I've already started to kludge together a campaign, based in part upon suggestions and ideas suggested by the prospective players over the last few months.
These include:

1. A 'Chosen One': One of the players gets to be a Harry Potter/Luke Skywalker/Frodo Baggins/the Arisen/the Dragonborn; a reluctant hero who will no doubt be the son or daughter of a farmer, be human, and basically be a literal punching bag for misfortune, disaster and strife who will suffer greatly in order to Save the Kingdom As Foretold By Destiny.

The exact notion of Destiny and Being Chosen, and how this role will be defined is entirely yet to be decided upon.
This will be something I'll develop with the player who decides to suffer under this role.

This is an idea the players collectively wanted and one I've embraced rather than convinced them collectively of.

That's interesting, as players usually don't like that kind of thing. Of course, you could use the tava'ren concept - this is from Wheel of Time - where several characters are in essence "the Chosen One" and fate tends to stick them together.

2. To Do a Number of Fantasy Cliches well: Stemming from point 1, the group collectively wants to touch upon a number of fantasy cliches and 'do them well'.
What this exactly will entail I suspect is entirely open to interpretation however I'm taking it as "cliches are good with us as long as they are done well".

Did they list them? (I'd avoid "you all meet in a bar", not because it's cliche, but because if the PCs don't know each other beforehand it creates problems.)

3. Themes they're keen on include: multiple threats to the Kingdom, Bromance/the Bonds of Friendship, The Blade That Was Broken (an equivalent), a mirroring (to a degree) of Japanese Five Character Theory in group character creation (Hero/Cooler than the Hero/Mentor/Romantic Interest/Comedic Relief); just to cover a few.

4. So far we've already invented a new race for the campaign - the Rahkari; a Lion-person race who rose to prominence during the days of the Great Empire (still working on exact details but it's a Roman Empire equivalent broadly speaking, or a Nerath equivalent in a Points of Light context).
They're statistically fairly similar to the Dragonborn, with a few very minor tweaks.
This request initially tested my own personal "Essentials only" campaign philosophy however I've made my peace with the concept and am now entirely embracing it.

5. An overall Points-of-Light philosophy but spreading the boundaries to an entire Kingdom.
Said Kingdom is still in development and will have a map of sorts but this map will lack detail deliberately so we can fill in detail as we go.
I've already made it clear that a whole World Beyond does indeed exist but that the game will never go there.
Characters can certainly be from Lands Elsewhere and I'll be creating short ideas for those wishing to be a Foreign Hero in the Land.

6. As for inspiration for the Kingdom?
A mix of the Ruritanian Romance, Tolkien, Sir Walter Scott and a host of heroic fiction writers as viewed through a 4th edition D&D setting lens.
It's still to get a name but short-listed names for Kingdoms include Asturia, Galacia and Cantor. Admittedly none of these entirely grab me as THE Kingdom name and it's a work-in-progress.

7. I'm toying with religion somewhat in the campaign as well.
Rather than the usual 4e pantheon (which is fine but I've used it for 2+ campaigns as DM and 3 more as a player) I've decided to invent a world-spanning religion that was popularised during the time of the Great Empire and is still quite prevalent a millennia or so later. Sound familiar?
The twist is that this religion is a mix of Romanesque Mithraism with an emphasis on the "One Major Belief System; Many Interpretations" that the actual Middle Ages arguably had in most of Western Europe.

This in turn will lead to Knights Orders, Monastic Orders (in part clashing with the proactive/Zoastrian/Strive-or-Die approach to worship), Knowledge based Orders and so on; all rooted with the same broad beliefs but in practice all being quite different.

8. Not to disappoint the crystal set, there'll probably be a Green Man/Pagan equivalent in religious terms, as well as "Older Gods" from previous eras of history including a Pantheon that were worshipped in the Great Empire prior to the current religion replacing it (ala. The Greek/Roman Gods), various secretive cults, Demon and Devil Worship (for your evil cult needs) and other non-standard religions for the game's era.

I've always wanted to do a Crystal Dragon Jesus vs older religions campaign actually. What does the main religion think of arcane magic (not counting obvious opponents like infernal warlocks)?

 

[the Jester]

You could always put "(MY PLAYERS STAY OUT)" in the thread title, if they read threads on ENWorld and/or post here and are trustworthy enough.

I'm happy to evaluate and critique things in thread. Although your campaign setup isn't to my taste, that doesn't mean I can't help you fine-tune monsters, skill challenges and stuff!

 

[Rune]

I am relative newcomer to posting here on ENWorld.
Neve the less I figured I might take the opportunity to post this.

I'm in the process of beginning to once again run a 4e-era D&D campaign.
The current working title of the Campaign is "Heroes of ..." where the dots represent the name of the Kingdom the game will be set in.
The campaign title is also inspired by the "Heroes of" books that constitute the Essentials line, which will be the rules basis for the campaign.
I do own a lot of the older pre-Essentials 4e material however I've decided to stick with an "Essentials-only" approach primarily to highlight and showcase the Monster Vault, Rules Compendium and the Heroes line of books (Fallen Lands/Forgotten Kingdoms).

I personally love how the Essentials line opened up 4th edition (in a far more balanced way than Skills & Powers opened up 2nd).

That said, while emphasizing and encouraging Essentials elements for thematic reasons may well be a good thing, you don't really need to worry too much about sticking with them dogmatically--they really are well balanced with pre-Essentials material.

Personally, the only reason I lean toward it (other than the generally simplified classes, which I prefer), is that I run most of my games at other people's houses and I don't like taking my library with me everywhere I go!

I've already started to kludge together a campaign, based in part upon suggestions and ideas suggested by the prospective players over the last few months.
These include:

1. A 'Chosen One': One of the players gets to be a Harry Potter/Luke Skywalker/Frodo Baggins/the Arisen/the Dragonborn; a reluctant hero who will no doubt be the son or daughter of a farmer, be human, and basically be a literal punching bag for misfortune, disaster and strife who will suffer greatly in order to Save the Kingdom As Foretold By Destiny.

The exact notion of Destiny and Being Chosen, and how this role will be defined is entirely yet to be decided upon.
This will be something I'll develop with the player who decides to suffer under this role.

This is an idea the players collectively wanted and one I've embraced rather than convinced them collectively of.

This could be problematic, as it inherently makes one character feel more valuable than the other (and requires plot protection, also!).

...Unless you turn it on its head, of course. One way, I liked was in the video game, "Bard's Tale," where there were actually a long line of "Chosen Ones" that kept getting themselves killed. If the title is as circumstantial (and, all too often, temporary), it becomes less of a division between the players (and, even, could pass among them!) and, furthermore, completely eliminates the need for plot protection.

2. To Do a Number of Fantasy Cliches well: Stemming from point 1, the group collectively wants to touch upon a number of fantasy cliches and 'do them well'.
What this exactly will entail I suspect is entirely open to interpretation however I'm taking it as "cliches are good with us as long as they are done well".

3. Themes they're keen on include: multiple threats to the Kingdom, Bromance/the Bonds of Friendship, The Blade That Was Broken (an equivalent), a mirroring (to a degree) of Japanese Five Character Theory in group character creation (Hero/Cooler than the Hero/Mentor/Romantic Interest/Comedic Relief); just to cover a few.

4. So far we've already invented a new race for the campaign - the Rahkari; a Lion-person race who rose to prominence during the days of the Great Empire (still working on exact details but it's a Roman Empire equivalent broadly speaking, or a Nerath equivalent in a Points of Light context).
They're statistically fairly similar to the Dragonborn, with a few very minor tweaks.
This request initially tested my own personal "Essentials only" campaign philosophy however I've made my peace with the concept and am now entirely embracing it.

5. An overall Points-of-Light philosophy but spreading the boundaries to an entire Kingdom.
Said Kingdom is still in development and will have a map of sorts but this map will lack detail deliberately so we can fill in detail as we go.
I've already made it clear that a whole World Beyond does indeed exist but that the game will never go there.
Characters can certainly be from Lands Elsewhere and I'll be creating short ideas for those wishing to be a Foreign Hero in the Land.

6. As for inspiration for the Kingdom?
A mix of the Ruritanian Romance, Tolkien, Sir Walter Scott and a host of heroic fiction writers as viewed through a 4th edition D&D setting lens.
It's still to get a name but short-listed names for Kingdoms include Asturia, Galacia and Cantor. Admittedly none of these entirely grab me as THE Kingdom name and it's a work-in-progress.

7. I'm toying with religion somewhat in the campaign as well.
Rather than the usual 4e pantheon (which is fine but I've used it for 2+ campaigns as DM and 3 more as a player) I've decided to invent a world-spanning religion that was popularised during the time of the Great Empire and is still quite prevalent a millennia or so later. Sound familiar?
The twist is that this religion is a mix of Romanesque Mithraism with an emphasis on the "One Major Belief System; Many Interpretations" that the actual Middle Ages arguably had in most of Western Europe.

This in turn will lead to Knights Orders, Monastic Orders (in part clashing with the proactive/Zoastrian/Strive-or-Die approach to worship), Knowledge based Orders and so on; all rooted with the same broad beliefs but in practice all being quite different.

8. Not to disappoint the crystal set, there'll probably be a Green Man/Pagan equivalent in religious terms, as well as "Older Gods" from previous eras of history including a Pantheon that were worshipped in the Great Empire prior to the current religion replacing it (ala. The Greek/Roman Gods), various secretive cults, Demon and Devil Worship (for your evil cult needs) and other non-standard religions for the game's era.

9. The campaign will cover the Heroic tier. Starting at level One and hopefully completing at level ten or so.
There may very well be an extension beyond the Heroic but I'd rather factor in an 'end' to the campaign rather than leave things open.
We can always start a new campaign at the Paragon tier if we get that far.

That's the plan.

Character creation is next weekend (about 7 days away) and depending on player availably and interest we'll begin in another 2-4 weeks from that date.
The game will run bi-weekly, so as to maintain another ongoing Pathfinder campaign that I'm playing in with a core number of players that are joining this campaign (and our DM from that game).

Now this is the part that you should skim-read to if your eyes glazed over initially above.
I'm interested in soliciting a brains trust for this campaign!
Not so much to create for me, more as extra pairs of eyes and brains to read over ideas and to make sure I'm making a semblance of sense.

I'm envisaging using email to communicate the more 'secret' stuff but am also entirely open to using the thread here to discuss broader ideas.
So if you'd be interested in aiding me in a "brains trust" sort of way, let me know!
Either in a PM here or by posting in the thread itself.

I'll endeavour to bring more content to this thread as time approaches towards D-day for character creation and beyond.
Thanks for reading and hope to gain a few extra pairs of brains for some mental lifting in the days and weeks to come.

The rest of this looks well thought-out, detailed, and fun. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out!

 

[Burgonet]

EN World posting:

Seems much simpler, although I have to say Essentials does a far better job with martial than non-martial characters. (I'd be reluctant to play a cleric or wizard in such a campaign, especially the former.)

We've already got a player wanting to play an Essentials Wizard. Not sure if we'll get a cleric in the party, there was some talk of doing this 'hardcore' minus the healing bonanza a Cleric brings via unlocking healing surges and the like.

That's interesting, as players usually don't like that kind of thing. Of course, you could use the tava'ren concept - this is from Wheel of Time - where several characters are in essence "the Chosen One" and fate tends to stick them together.

I'll be working with the player that decides to take on the "Chosen One" role. This will include actually naming the title as well as working with myself and the group about what broadly being the "Chosen One" might entail.
Naturally there will be surprises on the way to avoid predictability for the players-as-audience. I did contemplate using a variant form of 'themes' for the mechanics of being the Chosen One however I suspect I might instead either add some hand-waiving for story around the role or instead offer some unique incentives for the player taking on the role to compensate being the campaign's punching bag.

Did they list them? (I'd avoid "you all meet in a bar", not because it's cliche, but because if the PCs don't know each other beforehand it creates problems.)

They did list a few. These included:

- Heroics!
- Chosen One
- Dark Lord or Evil Wizard as Mastermind
- Prophecy
- Internal threat and external threats to the Kingdom

The cliches they're after are more of the 'fantasy' mould than D&D specifically. So we can avoid the "you all meet in a Tavern" cliche.
But a meeting with a shady character in a tavern who watches the door while the others he meets are waiting for a powerful Wizard could be on the cards.

I've always wanted to do a Crystal Dragon Jesus vs older religions campaign actually. What does the main religion think of arcane magic (not counting obvious opponents like infernal warlocks)?

Our Wizard wants to also be a Priest. More a "Scholar Priest" but a Priest never the less. It works quite well. I don't see why you can't have Divine Magic and Arcane Magic both under a "Church" umbrella and will be developing the World Religion (which won't be the Only Religion, just a very prevalent and dominant one) with this in mind.

In practice we'll still have the classes act mechanically as Rules As Written however as flavour I dont' see why you there has to be a strong divide.

I personally love how the Essentials line opened up 4th edition (in a far more balanced way than Skills & Powers opened up 2nd).

That said, while emphasizing and encouraging Essentials elements for thematic reasons may well be a good thing, you don't really need to worry too much about sticking with them dogmatically--they really are well balanced with pre-Essentials material.

Personally, the only reason I lean toward it (other than the generally simplified classes, which I prefer), is that I run most of my games at other people's houses and I don't like taking my library with me everywhere I go!

Exactly! I am able to fit all my Essentials books into one briefcase which I see as a major boon. The book layout the Essentials books use is pretty much what I'd hoped for when the game was first released.

This could be problematic, as it inherently makes one character feel more valuable than the other (and requires plot protection, also!).

...Unless you turn it on its head, of course. One way, I liked was in the video game, "Bard's Tale," where there were actually a long line of "Chosen Ones" that kept getting themselves killed. If the title is as circumstantial (and, all too often, temporary), it becomes less of a division between the players (and, even, could pass among them!) and, furthermore, completely eliminates the need for plot protection.

We'll be working with the Chosen One player and the group to fashion the legends around their role. Destiny in stories has a long and proud tradition of being quite vague and only retroactively making sense.
So hopefully we'll be able to salvage at worst or forge at best a solid narrative through play as to the destiny of the Chosen One.

The rest of this looks well thought-out, detailed, and fun. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out!

We'll see! I'll have one new player who I've known of socially for awhile, the rest of my players I've gamed with before and generally avoid the 'murder hobo' cliches of gaming.

You could always put "(MY PLAYERS STAY OUT)" in the thread title, if they read threads on ENWorld and/or post here and are trustworthy enough.

I'm not sure if they're honestly reading EN World. Some very well might, I know most have read other forums in the past.

I'm happy to evaluate and critique things in thread. Although your campaign setup isn't to my taste, that doesn't mean I can't help you fine-tune monsters, skill challenges and stuff!

Fair enough. I do intend to post mechanics based stuff here, so stay tuned for further updates.