Campaigns in a nutshell. Adventures in a sentence.

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was looking at this and thought...what would the effects of a coronal mass ejection (CME) look like in a fantasy or science-fantasy setting?

SPACE.com -- The Great Storm: Solar Tempest of 1859 Revealed

I think it could be very much like the background to RIFTS- the CME could cause an incredible flare in the Ley Lines as raw energy- raw mana?- floods the world.

All kinds of effects could result:

1. All kinds of fires could spring up, especially in a technomagical world like Eberron, and even moreso in something like Shadowrun or Urban Arcana.
2. Magic items that have charges could be recharged...or overcharged to the point of explosion.
3. Long-dormant relics and artifacts could be infused with energies that "awaken" them.
4. The massive infusion of solar energy could have a negative effect on Undead...it may even destroy them all. All except the most deeply buried, that is...
5. The effect on Living Constructs could be similar to that on Undead.
6. All kinds of interplanar links and portals, wards and seals and so forth could be strengthened, weakened or destroyed. ([BARBARINO]Welcome back, Mr. Cthulhu![/BARBARINO])
7. The energy release could cause physical harm to creatures with spell-like abilities or innate casters like Sorcerers.

 

[Celebrim]

An endless hallway, a key that opens 10 doors each day, go too far down the hallway and you travel back in time. Once in the past, you can only move forward.

The first session ended with the following:
Your lives would have been so much simpler if that had been the last time you had seen the key or hallway. History would have turned out so differently if the key had never come into your possession, or if you had been able to resist its allure. Perhaps this time will be different.

Sounds like I made the right choice.

 

[Herobizkit]

On the same note, how about a key that can open one lock a day, but never the same lock twice?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...and the world's greatest lothario wants it for getting rid of chastity belts...

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Necessary Ev—er, Retirement: The corners have been explored. The tombs have been plundered. The mystic baddies are dead. Nations use diplomacy and the threat of force rather than force. Adventurers are suffering from habitat loss.
Now what?
Do you settle down quietly with skills that don't mean anything in civilian life? Do you stubbornly keep the Adventurers's Guild (with spelling mistake) open, despite it becoming a leisure club for reinactors? Or do you decide that the world was better off when adventure was needed, and become the bad guy for its own good?

......and Some Have Greatness Genre-Changed Upon Them: Your world used to be "normal", with physics and technology but not magic. And then one day it was like some great big force took up your world and decided to use its favorite pseudo-medieval fantasy RPG system to play you. Oh, sure, not all that much has changed: you wear the same clothes, walk in the same style of city, complain about the changes to your favorite RPG online. But now there are monsters and evil sorcerers who have to be killed with crossbows and fireball spells instead of guns and explosives, and combat's not as deadly as you would have thought.
It's either the best or worst thing ever.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There is a Hungarian movie, Kontroll, that is pretty cool. Its a darkly comedic story of how a regular joe with a mysterious past gets tangled up in a multiple-murder investigation involving the Budapest Metro.

[sblock][ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJQnWCPMrII&feature=related"]YouTube- "Kontroll" Trailer[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IdKpgwA2eo]YouTube - BEST MOVIE CHASE EVER KONTROLL[/ame][/sblock]

The plot elements and structure could be good for a tunnel-based adventure- assuming the tunnels are attached to some kind of population center: in a fantasy campaign, that would be sewers or a subterranean city, possibly an actual tunnel system in something steampunky or urban fantasy.

And the quasi-mystical nature of the killer could be well done in a traditional or modern fantasy campaign. It would also work well in a game like X-Crawl or anything remotely resembling Dream Park.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another thread with the same theme:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/pathfi...1-hundred-one-campaign-ideas.html#post5249703

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Quest for Firepower
(for medium to high level pre-4Ed D&D)

Start the party on an adventure- what kind doesn't matter- and after the party has finished a long and bothersome combat that they were never in doubt of winning, the party's Wizard discovers his spellbook has been nicked.

Thus begins the REAL adventure: recovering the source of the mage's might!

(Keep the adventure short enough that the wiz's player doesn't mug you after the session.)

 

[Orius]

Mug? As a fan of wizards, I'd have to say that dragging something like that out too long is an offense worthy of kneecapping.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There is a guy in my group who feels about his warriors' weapons as most do about their mages' spellbooks...

So when I took the super-rifle from his M&M PC for an adventure, I could see machinations going on behind his beady Sicilian eyes. Mind you, he wasn't disarmed- the locals opened up their arsenal to him- and it was a single-session adventure.

Still, I made sure he left first...