Around the World in Eighty Days: A Campaign

[delericho]

It sounds like a fun campaign. It sounds like an even more fun campaign to run with two groups concurrently.

I'd suggest running it for characters of low enough level that magical travel isn't an issue, or at least doesn't totally trivialize the challenge. I'd also suggest it's best run with a setting like Eberron (or with an equivalent level of magic/technology).

 

[Koloth]

One of the reasons the original Verne character was able to pull off the trip was the near universal presence of the British Empire in some fashion almost everywhere along the trip. Or a country(USA) that was at least semi-friendly to the Brits. Unless you are assuming a similar mostly friendly route, very likely the adventurer will wind up dead or captured. Or way behind schedule. Stealth is almost always slow.

Even if the character survives combats, possible any mounts might die. That dragon you paid handsomely to carry you? Too bad random adventuring party 482 shot it out of the sky thinking you were a captured being(Or were just hoping to score some loot). Now your ride is dead and 482 is rather irritated there is no loot. This assumes you survive the attack on the dragon....

A variation would be a race where you have to collect cards to make a hand at predetermined check points. Sort of like a modern poker rally. Less a race where speed is important but more a collection trip.

 

[aco175]

Sounds fun. The need to make 10 places that are different enough with cool things happening can become a set piece. There is a lot of nothing if they are on a ship for many days. This can or cannot be interesting, especially if the rival group is on the same ship and can lead to good roleplay. Having different environments would be cool with a camel race through the desert followed by ice sleds or something.

Movies for inspiration:
Hidalgo- horse racing through the desert.
Call of the Wild- or the other dog one with sled racing through Alaska.
Maverick- The Jodie Foster/Mel Gibson 1994 movie with American West and riverboats and gambling
Maverick Top Gun- In case you feel the need...

 

[jian]

The other thing that made Fogg’s journey possible (or at least much more comfortable and faster than it would have been otherwise) was international banking and the ability to wire himself money regularly along the route.

D&D heroes might have bags of holding stuffed full of cash and items for barter instead. As well as decanters of endless water, magically generated food, and so on.

In the same way as Fogg occasionally found himself unable to access his money, there could be plot points about the PCs’ reliable magical resources being temporarily inaccessible, especially if they’re annoying the GM.

One of the many things I like about the idea is that it takes players out of their fantasy comfort zone of monsters and dungeons and sets them against different challenges such as braving the elements, not speaking local languages or understanding local culture, actually having to navigate (there’s little benefit in turning into a goose if you don’t know where you’re going), and so on. I personally wouldn’t care to monitor their resource management (food, water etc) because that’s not as interesting as them working out how to cross a desert they know nothing about.

 

[GuyBoy]

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, Dragon mag ran a series of articles called "Voyage of the Princess Ark" which told the adventures of an airship navigating/exploring a campaign world (I can't remember which world).
If you can find them anywhere, the series might be useful for ideas.

 

[jian]

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, Dragon mag ran a series of articles called "Voyage of the Princess Ark" which told the adventures of an airship navigating/exploring a campaign world (I can't remember which world).
If you can find them anywhere, the series might be useful for ideas.

That's a very good thought. I'll see if I have the Dragon issues (1990-2, I think) anywhere. I see there's a pdf based on the serial:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17344/champions-of-mystara-heroes-of-the-princess-ark-basic

Another supplement I might be inclined to use would be Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (5E) which of course has its own Star-Trek-esque premise but mainly consists of adventures in ersatz versions of Mali, Mexico, Haiti, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Bengal, Sudan, Iran, Venezuela etc., which might be a good structure for the voyage. While there will be lots of "how the heck do we get to X now" type plot, the PCs would probably also be pulled into local adventures a lot ("I'll let you have my guide to get across the desert if you sort out my aurumvorax* problem" type shenanigans).

*Yes, they're eating the local gold mine.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That’s a very respectable 120mph at a sprint which nobody should be able to sustain for long. Even assuming you can sustain half that for 10 hours a day over uneven ground, that’s only 600 miles a day, which is pretty close to the speed required to meet the target. If it wasn’t for all the oceans.

A huge advantage of boats and trains is that they move while you sleep, so you can travel 24 hours a day for many days.

You've hit my point exactly - which is that one might be able to pull off that monstrosity of rules exploits (at level 18, with a combo of spells and magic items no sane DM ought to be allowing) but it's not exactly a threat to the STORY that the OP is suggesting.

It's not likely to be wildly extant in the world (L18 Monk Tabaxi with those items available to them), AND they can only do it every other round (tabaxi speed) AND they have to get across oceans. The list goes on.

Not to mention, assuming all that came together, the player (IMO) ought to be slapped for gaming the system, rather than the expectation that it's common in the world enough to ruin the story.

And it's still a far cry from 2600mph.

 

[Blue]

I ran a campaign in 13th Age where while they weren't trying to explicitly go around the world in 80 days, but over the course of the campaign they perfectly circled the map of the Dragon Empire, with asides to the Overworld and Underworld. The started tied to the ground by a cult near the entrance to Anvil waiting for a Koru Behemoth to step on them or not to prove their innocence in the same way if a woman drown she wasn't actually a witch, and went clockwise around. There was a bit of back and forth, such as the detour to the Sea Wall where they ended up fighting a kaiju, but they made the full circle, then dove down into the underworld, then to the finale of the campaign deep under Horizon.

 

[jian]

Oh, the PCs should absolutely have to fight a kaiju at some point. It’s the only way their ship will agree to leave port.

You could also throw in all sorts of Verne references, like a righteous pirate sinking imperialist naval ships in his improbably advanced magical submarine*, and maybe a magical gun club who plan to win the prize by shooting their expeditions massive distances across the planet.

*Bonus Gainax points if he’s actually the last survivor of the Atlantean royal family, one of the PCs is his daughter, and his brother is a megalomaniac commanding an evil secret society.

 

[Deset Gled]

1) No teleporting or dimensional travel. You must physically traverse the world between the way stations (see below).

2) No polymorphing for travel purposes. You can turn into a goose to flee danger but not to cover 1000 miles easily in a day.

This needs some expanding.

My first thought was Wind Walk. It's not in any of the above categories. By my rough calculation it would let you travel around the world in about 45 days. I'm sure there are other options for an easy win.

There’s various answers to that. You could rule out summoning as well. It could be that the prize is simply not worthwhile to someone high enough level to do this trivially. Yes, you could cast wish to travel safely around the world in less than eighty days without breaking the rules, but why bother when it’s so trivial for you, for a trivial prize?

Maybe I'm just jaded, but this is not my experience with how capitalism works. If the reward is significant enough for the adventurers to care, it's also enough to make it worth some high level NPC to care.

I recommend putting a story-based limitation in to address it. Maybe the traveler needs to be the first person from Mist's home town to travel around the globe (and there are no high level adventurers there). Or there's a pre-race contest to become part of the race. Or maybe simply an age limit.