Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7554431" data-attributes="member: 5142">I'm a bit stumped. Currently beset by decision paralysis about some ideas about an upcoming campaign of which I am in the initial planning stages. The main influencers of our group like the basic elevator pitch. But now I am stuck on the details, including some fairly large ones like which TTRPG system to use. Hopefully I can get a chance soonish to talk it over with the players, but I would still like to brainstorm and kick around ideas here first. Backstory: What spawned the idea for the campaign was essentially something akin to a deconstruction of the dungeon crawl genre. In a dungeon crawl, you generally take your heroes down into the depths of a dangerous monster and trap-filled dungeon for gold, loot, magical items, etc. and possibly face the BBEG at the end. You may go back to home base for more supplies or to plan further incursions. In a lot of early gaming, supposedly characters were rarely named until later in their career because you don't want to become attached to a character so vulnerable to death. But what if you reversed some of the assumptions or gave reason to them? Campaign Premise: The general premise of the campaign is that the characters are attempting to escape the Underworld so that they may live. The characters are dead. They begin deceased in the Underworld, possibly confronted with the Deity of the Dead. How long have they been deceased? Who knows? Who cares? Is this a game that the Deity of the Dead is playing with them? Are they toying with the PCs? Does this serve some greater purpose? :shrug: Not really the point. In some respects, the Underworld is more mythological in nature: e.g., Hades, Sheol, Kur/Ersetu. It's partially inspired by the Katabasis motif of mythology: heroes descending into the Underworld and then leaving it. But obviously more in reverse. So it's probably more similar to the Underdark than the Shadowfell or some abstract plane of existence in that it has a quasi-physical presence in the material world itself. The Underworld is exceedingly dark so light is incredibly important. Monsters, hellish horrors, and various other undead apart from the PCs will be encountered throughout the campaign. (Possibly including NPCs who can potentially shed light on who they were.) If characters die, I'm debating whether they just disappear entirely in a permanent death or if they start back at the beginning but as a starting character. (Hades: "Welcome back. So good to see you again.") Then they could decide whether that character gives up and accepts their fate among the dead - leaving them free to roll a new character - or if they want that same character to go through the whole process again. But built into this campaign premise, I have been musing over what character advancement would mean if characters are deceased inhabitants of the Underworld. And this is partially where the details get murky. I like the idea that the characters are initially nameless, though they may adapt monikers, but as they advance they may discover their true names, which may confer advantages. (An intentional use of old school character-naming practices.) I'm thinking that experience points reflect them regaining life energy or memories of who they once were. They may encounter scattered pieces, fragments, and clues about their old life throughout the labyrinthine Underworld. System Requirements and Feedback: Not D&D. Please do not propose D&D 5e. It is not the answer for everything. And more importantly, my players and I are mostly burned out from D&D 5e. (And I don't really see them touching most earlier editions.) I am currently mulling my system choices between Dungeon World (or John Harper's stripped down World of Dungeons), Savage Worlds, Cypher System, ICRPG, and Black Hack. I am open for suggestions and/or other feedback and ideas you may have.</blockquote>

Verification