D&D 5E Are you doing something different with 5E?

[SithlordRPGA]

I have played in the same world which I created my senior year of high school back in 1989. I have updated it here and there over the years but basically the same world. I don't see much reason to change it. The being said there is a part of me that says new edition new game world.

 

[The_Gneech]

Using Lost Mine of Phandelver as a skeleton, I've basically statted up a hex crawl for the region, with a bunch of one-sheet style encounters which could appear anywhere as random encounters, and I'm slowly building out Wave Echo Cave as a Moria-style megadungeon.

After umpty-ump years of trying to create epic campaign stories, having a sandbox that basically runs on autopilot with a minimal amount of prep actually required from me on a session-to-session basis is liberating! With bounded accuracy and fast-moving combats (when there are combats), I don't have to try to match the characters' ability so closely to keep the encounters interesting. If the PCs faceroll over any given encounter, that's fine, because there's another one just up the road, and if another one is too hard, they can always run for it back to town.

Honestly, I'm glad to get away from the "adventure path" concept for a while.

-TG

 

[Nebulous]

Using Lost Mine of Phandelver as a skeleton, I've basically statted up a hex crawl for the region, with a bunch of one-sheet style encounters which could appear anywhere as random encounters, and I'm slowly building out Wave Echo Cave as a Moria-style megadungeon.

After umpty-ump years of trying to create epic campaign stories, having a sandbox that basically runs on autopilot with a minimal amount of prep actually required from me on a session-to-session basis is liberating! With bounded accuracy and fast-moving combats (when there are combats), I don't have to try to match the characters' ability so closely to keep the encounters interesting. If the PCs faceroll over any given encounter, that's fine, because there's another one just up the road, and if another one is too hard, they can always run for it back to town.

Honestly, I'm glad to get away from the "adventure path" concept for a while.

-TG

Ooh, would you mind sharing your hex-crawl one sheet with me? I've been wondering what to do after Lost Mine is over, and I don't want to dump a ton of time into designing adventures. I've done that before, and while enjoyable, it's a huge time suck.

Wave Echo Echo Cave = Moria Megadungeon? We definitely need to talk!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I haven't started yet, but I have set up a world based on 80's cartoons and video games.

I took thundercats, and he man/she ra weird sounding names of things (Cave of time, Rainbow dessert ect) and mixed it with a history of hyrul from legend of Zelda. It's kinda of funny that the old sages (pre king randor) for heman and the Sages from Zelda fit together well.

It is the Highlands Kingdom, ruled by a half elf royle family and 9 Sages as regional governors and senate. The world has an evil shadow twin world (dark world) and has an evil mummy over lord in the dessert, a part golem evil demi god villain vurrently working through a death knight/ lich thing and many other villians

 

[The_Gneech]

Ooh, would you mind sharing your hex-crawl one sheet with me? I've been wondering what to do after Lost Mine is over, and I don't want to dump a ton of time into designing adventures. I've done that before, and while enjoyable, it's a huge time suck.

Wave Echo Echo Cave = Moria Megadungeon? We definitely need to talk!

I could scan my notes if you like, but they might not make a whole lot of sense to any not-me people reading them. You can see the players' map here:

Gneech's Silver Coast Homebrew

The hexcrawl itself is not a one-sheet, there are one-sheet minidungeons on the encounter tables. For instance, there is the barrow of an ancient barbarian warlord "somewhere" in the region, which is basically a five-room dungeon that the characters might happen upon if it comes up on the random encounters table.

-The Gneech

 

[Nebulous]

I could scan my notes if you like, but they might not make a whole lot of sense to any not-me people reading them. You can see the players' map here:

Gneech's Silver Coast Homebrew

The hexcrawl itself is not a one-sheet, there are one-sheet minidungeons on the encounter tables. For instance, there is the barrow of an ancient barbarian warlord "somewhere" in the region, which is basically a five-room dungeon that the characters might happen upon if it comes up on the random encounters table.

-The Gneech

It's a good map!

 

[Queer Venger]

A new edition is a good opportunity to start something new - whether an entirely new world, and new campaign, a different kind of campaign, etc. So as the thread title says, the question is: Are you doing something different with 5E? Or is it business as usual? Or somewhere in-between? Tell us about it.

I'll start. I ran an on-again, off-again campaign for 4E over the last few years, which has dwindled over the last couple years as I returned to school for an MA. But the good news (on multiple levels) is that I'm finishing up my degree and hope to start a new campaign come January, so I'm in the early stages of planning.

I'm using the same setting as the last campaign, but with some moderate changes. I'm focusing more on a smaller region - the Fringe Lands, which is kind of a hybrid of something like the Dale Lands of the Forgotten Realms (but wilder), a touch of Hyboria, a dash of Middle-earth, sprinklings of Earthdawn, and tonal qualities of the American frontier. Oh yeah, and plenty of my own seasonings thrown in. I'm still playing with campaign ideas, but as I said elsewhere I'm thinking of integrating elements of the Walking Dead. I might have the PCs start off on a relatively run-of-the-mill adventure, as young "off-the-farm" types looking to make names for themselves, and then returning home after their first learn-the-new-rules adventure (a couple levels later) to find their home town on lock-down due to mobs of zombies. I'm still playing with how I want to do it, but the idea would be to build to a point where the land is over-run by different kinds of undead, and it is up to the PCs to figure out why, and stop it. So it is Walking Dead, but on a smaller scale and solvable. I'm thinking it would be more of a mini-campaign--levels 3-8ish or so--before moving on to something else.

The main thing, though, is that I want to integrate elements of both sandbox and story arc. The game would play like a sandbox in that the PCs would have to figure out what was happening and decide where to go, but there'd be an in-depth metaplot that was playing out (undead incursion) which they have to deal with.

What about you?

I have this idea of adapting Boot Hill to 5e, running a group through Forgotten Realms that gets 'transported' to the world of Boot Hill (inspired by the TV cartoon Dungeons and Dragons) where the PC's must find a way back. I've always loved the idea of gunslingers and magic, Paladin cowboys and spaghetti westerns.

Problem is where to find the Boothill box set, I think its OOP.

 

[Piratecat]

I've always loved the idea of gunslingers and magic, Paladin cowboys and spaghetti westerns.

Gratuitous plug (as I co-wrote it), but Owl Hoot Trail is pretty much written just for you. Simplified d20, fantasy meets the old west. Ridiculously fun.

 

[Jester David]

Not doing anything at the moment with 5e, as I'm running a Pathfinder AP first. One last hurrah with that system (maybe).

After that I'm planning on doing something different by going old school: no plot, no story arc, no grand plan. An old school adventure where the players just explore and have adventures and go where the fancy strikes.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

We started with the Starter Set (go figure!), so our initial 'campaign' was set in FR. After a NTPK, I started the new characters (and transported the lone survivor of the first) to Greyhawk. Alas, three of the four characters ended up being Chaotic (CN, CE, CG...and one N)...with a heavy emphasis on CHAOTIC. The story-line hints at an invasion from Nirvanna (or wherever Modrons are from...Mechanus or something like that?)...then the chaotic forces start to get involved to counter (Slaadi, mainly), and the other forces (Wastri clerics fighting against Wee Jas clerics, with additional hints that the reptile-amphibian semi-annual war is about to start up [campaign is based in/around Suundi and the Vast Swamp]). Double alas...said group was far to chaotic for their own good and has more or less imploded or otherwise got themselves killed/permanently removed from the campaign.

Today we either continue (likely) with the new charcters or...

...we start in my home brew world of Paeleen. It's quite a bit different on the surface from the normal D&D worlds (I think Human, Elf and Dwarf are the only three PHB races...and they are fairly different).

So, in a nutshell, I'm having fun using (and planing for) 5e run in different campaign settings and styles. I have a Birthright one percolating in my grey matter, another that involves pure sandbox (for both hexcrawling and dungeoneering; sort of a "create it as we go" world), and I'm also waiting to hear about anyone doing basic foundational work on using 5e with Ravenloft and Dark Sun. I'd also LOVE to see someone do up a 5e version of Iron Kingdoms! Mmmmmmm.....

^_^

Paul L. Ming