Changing campaign style - casting for ideas & comments!

[StalkingBlue]

Hi randomling - Thanks for chiming in! Very helpful.

I've been loving the grimness of Midnight. It feels heroic in a Beowulf/Tolkein sense - at best, our heroes are destined to die achieving something earth-shattering and wonderful, at worst we're doomed to die achieving little or nothing at all. I wouldn't want to lose that impression or the dangerousness of the setting. However, I am at a point where I want to start making a tangible difference in the game setting, and (now 6th level) I don't have the power or influence to do that yet.

Another two or three levels and you should be established personalities in your region - whatever that region is going to be at that point: Erethor, or possibly a (partly) new circle of NPCs who'd know you're getting involved in more 'ghost' stuff.

I loved the ghost scenario - it was a refreshing change of pace from our ordinary game style, an opportunity for lots of great roleplay (being one of the already-awakened PCs trying to snap her friends out of the amnesiac state was fantastic) and a genuinely fun adventure where I felt like we'd genuinely achieved something. The repercussions later have reinforced that impression - with the one adventure that didn't take place in the "real world", the PCs made life significantly better for a fairly large number of humans in Erethor, which feels like an important achievement.

Yup, that was the reason I ran it. Well, one of the reasons. It may have made or started changes your PCs don't know about yet ...

Maybe in a few levels we could find a way to have more choice than just being sent. I think that as we get more involved with this, we'll end up with a unique (or near-unique) vantage point on the world, with a much clearer idea of the big picture than many NPCs that we currently think of as being extremely powerful.

Yup, that's what I'd be aiming for.

 

[S'mon]

I'm not planning to go for time travel as such, so leaving items in a place for yourself to find a couple of centuries/millennia later won't necessarily work.

What I'm thinking of is a 'layer' of memories, events and spirits of people that links places and times across the world. It won't bring you into the actual past to murder the world's BBEG in his cradle (although it could be used for quick-travel from place to place if people could figure out how ...), but affecting situations, people and events inside 'pockets' or 'bubbles' that may form (and possibly dissolve) in the 'layer' may affect things in what people experience as the real world.

I like this a lot - I do think for Midnight it's best kept mysterious, without 'time travel' being clearly explained, ie like the ghost scenario. OTO there's the idea of multiple different futures/possibilities that can sometimes interact, I've seen this done in ways (eg in good fiction) that don't detract from the wonder. Eg when Zana and co saved Inuriel, it couldn't save the Inuriel in their 'home' time, but maybe somewhere, somewhen Inuriel & Daghu did survive and get to live happily ever after - ie a new future was created, even though Zana and co could never see _that_ future; its effects could still ripple out into their home time-stream as subtle echoes. Time as a river with many diverging streams and tributaries and currents (and shoals and rapids, and possibly swamps and dry, arid areas) is a nice idea I think and doesn't have to seem banal or overly science-fictiony.

I have a great liking for the idea of crusaders who fight a tragic, heroic battle to make the world a better place - tragic because no matter how well they do, their own time and place must remain largely unchanged, heroic because for other people - other aspects of themselves, even - they can make a real difference; somewhere over the rainbow...

 

[StalkingBlue]

Hi S'mon!

Mysteriousness will be best, yup. I love the river image. (So would Fjorent of course, in another faraway current way over there.... )

Not entirely sure that the crusade will have to be tragic. Depending on how the game goes I envision all sorts of strange interrelations and possible changes - even to the currently so grim and broken world the PCs have experienced up to now.

 

[random user]

Hm. More detail about the "something similar" please?

Sure, the post was getting long enough as it was that I didn't want to make it any longer.

After my players leveled for the first time, they experienced their first group dream. No one in the lands had ever had them before, to their knowledge. This had the added benefit of giving them an in-character reason for remaining together.

After that happened, they started asking around, and they found an expert in sleep and dream research. He traveled to him, but had leveled again in the meantime, and had another group dream. When they talked to him they found out that about 5000 years ago, there was another reported incident of people who had group dreams. (In fact, those people went out to create the doomed city the party later visted in both the past and present...)

He had no idea how to recreate the dreams, but told them that he would like the opportunity to study them the next time they thought they would have the group dream. He also noted that he had been doing experiments with subjects with deep trance-like states which sounded similar, although on an individual level.

He hypothesized that also using the same setup for the characters might affect them. For his experiments, he does the following: He gets blessed incense candles from a temple, an uncut topaz which has only been out of the earth for a year or less, and 1/5 of a potion of confusion (custom cursed magic item, causes the drinker to be confused as per the spell). The potion is hard to get ahold in the general population, and unless you have a permit, will land you in prison.

Pour the liquid and the gem into a bowl on a suspension (or find another way to get the candles under it). Light the candles (they are fairly large) under the bowl. Be in an enclosed setting so that the vapors won't all escape. The liquid won't boil over, but the heat will create some vapors. Breathe in the vapors and do the mental exercies he advises.

The next time the party leveled, they went back to him and let him do the experiment on them before they went to sleep. Whether it worked or not was unclear, but the characters found themselves facing a choice of a door they had seen before (the path back to the dreams they previously had) or a castle they had never seen. They chose the castle and ended up in city 5000 years ago.

So there are potentially (my players may be reading this so I don't want to get more specific) many ways for my party to experience alternate scenarios.

We...ell, Eberron isn't exactly on my must-have list right now....

Seriously though, I take your point.

Yeah Eberron is just the flavor of the day. I'm not likely to do that either. But I did forget to mention that don't forget you can drop them into the future as well as the past. The "present" and "future" are really relative, after all.

Nice idea. What's the mechanic you will be using for this?

In my first (experimental) scenario PCs had their own stats, if not (at first) their own memories. It would be nice to be able to drop in certain rules bits from their Outside host NPCs it it suits the scenario.

For my campaign, each scenario will play out differently. For the gestalt, they will all have their own stats. When the time gets closer that they might want to do this, I will ask them create a N-level single class character. They will be able to reference both sheets to determine which is better for any particular score.

I wouldn't rule out altering stats, weapons, etc, for other scenarios. There's a lot of freedom here, and I don't know if any book that has a specific ruleset to cover options here.

How do you explain the transition between real-world and dream scenarios in your game anyway? Do you give PCs control? Do you give your players input on what kinds of scenarios they'd like to play? What's the in-game justification - time-travel, plane-hopping, or something else?

The very first dream scenario was railroaded onto them, but I had told them when the campaign started that there was one thing that was going to happen to them, that they would have choices after that, and that it was the only time they would be forced to do something. I likened it to being in a caravan and being ambushed by orcs or being in a tavern when a brawl ensues. It's a one time thing used at the beginning of a campaign, and shouldn't be taken as an indication of the way things will usually run.

My PC's do have some control, though they might read this and they aren't sure what methods they have yet, so I don't want to say. They have limited choices of scenarios based on... something they haven't totally figured out yet. And the justification is the group dreams.

And they also have a mechanism to end each dream if they simply want to hit the eject button.

Cool twist. I assume the PCs were supposed to protect the fountain from being destroyed? What would you have done if that had failed?
I mean: what would you have done to the city in their present time, would the fountain still be there or not?

The party actually wandered around through the night trying to figure out where they were (Sola, the name of the city, looked very different back then), then what date it was, and then their names. Then they were sent away on a mission and the city was destroyed by lizardmen while they were gone (which isn't what happened in reality). As a note, there is a bard in my party, which has made life a lot easier for them.

Hm, good point. Can you tell me more about your method of scenario presentation and players' control over it?

If the players go back, they will be reset in time, a la Groundhog Day. Though this time they will know where and who they are, and spent some time making a contact that they will have this time around. They're still not sure what they are "supposed" to do.

I definitely don't want time travel as such, OTOH pure dreams that affect nothing in the real world except maybe laying some ghosts to rest aren't a viable basis for a long-term game. Especially not in Midnight, where the present-day situation offers more pressing challenges and problems than dealing with the problems of dead people from a few thousand years ago.

There are a lot of methods to generate effects in the real world based on alternate scenarios, no matter how they are created. One is to provide rewards (xp, stat books, spells which remain memorized after waking (which I will rule can then be scribed to a spellbook), information that leads to rewards (such as hiding a cache of treasure or helping a minor lord become a major player and then say "I give you this ring in secret and ask you to keep it secret, only handing it down to your direct heirs to your lands. Some day in the distant future, someone may come and describe this ring to you exactly. When they do so, please help them in any way you can."), etc.

The other is recon info. You may be able to wander around the castle during peacetime and learn it's defenses. Back in the present, you need to infiltrate the castle. You may go back to witness a battle between the BBEG and someone else (or perhaps yourselves in alternate guises) in order to better understand his tactics and weaknesses.

I definately think that these scenarios should be uncommon to rare, at least to start. They do have the ability to bog down a campaign if it is presented too quickly or if there is too much of it. And they should tie into the campaign if possible. If you are curious as to the specifics about my campaign, I'd be happy to email you more info. I just don't want to write down stuff which my players haven't been warned to stay away from.

There was also a time-travel thread here recently that I can't seem to find...

Edit: found it: http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93728

 

[StalkingBlue]

Sure, the post was getting long enough as it was that I didn't want to make it any longer.

After my players leveled for the first time, they experienced their first group dream. No one in the lands had ever had them before, to their knowledge. This had the added benefit of giving them an in-character reason for remaining together.

After that happened, they started asking around, and they found an expert in sleep and dream research. He traveled to him, but had leveled again in the meantime, and had another group dream. When they talked to him they found out that about 5000 years ago, there was another reported incident of people who had group dreams. (In fact, those people went out to create the doomed city the party later visted in both the past and present...)

He had no idea how to recreate the dreams, but told them that he would like the opportunity to study them the next time they thought they would have the group dream. He also noted that he had been doing experiments with subjects with deep trance-like states which sounded similar, although on an individual level.

He hypothesized that also using the same setup for the characters might affect them. For his experiments, he does the following: He gets blessed incense candles from a temple, an uncut topaz which has only been out of the earth for a year or less, and 1/5 of a potion of confusion (custom cursed magic item, causes the drinker to be confused as per the spell). The potion is hard to get ahold in the general population, and unless you have a permit, will land you in prison.

Pour the liquid and the gem into a bowl on a suspension (or find another way to get the candles under it). Light the candles (they are fairly large) under the bowl. Be in an enclosed setting so that the vapors won't all escape. The liquid won't boil over, but the heat will create some vapors. Breathe in the vapors and do the mental exercies he advises.

The next time the party leveled, they went back to him and let him do the experiment on them before they went to sleep. Whether it worked or not was unclear, but the characters found themselves facing a choice of a door they had seen before (the path back to the dreams they previously had) or a castle they had never seen. They chose the castle and ended up in city 5000 years ago.

So there are potentially (my players may be reading this so I don't want to get more specific) many ways for my party to experience alternate scenarios.

Nice detail on the potion especially.

I especially like how you re-use times and places in different ways, and manage to give PCs/players some degree of control (in deciding to go through gate or towards castle, for example) - and also manage to keep the fantasy flavour, with the ritual and keeping the exact nature of the 'dream(?) travel' mysterious.

If you like, e-mail me at KS1cps@aol.com . I'd be very interested to hear more.

Yeah Eberron is just the flavor of the day. I'm not likely to do that either. But I did forget to mention that don't forget you can drop them into the future as well as the past. The "present" and "future" are really relative, after all.

Yup, noted.

For my campaign, each scenario will play out differently. For the gestalt, they will all have their own stats. When the time gets closer that they might want to do this, I will ask them create a N-level single class character. They will be able to reference both sheets to determine which is better for any particular score.

I wouldn't rule out altering stats, weapons, etc, for other scenarios. There's a lot of freedom here, and I don't know if any book that has a specific ruleset to cover options here.

Yup - if I throw in the occasional scenario with Elven or Dwarf 'hosts', they'll get lowlight vision or darkvision for that, of course. There might be more changes.

Midnight has those nifty special magic items that accumulate abilities over various levels, I'll have room to play with that....

The very first dream scenario was railroaded onto them, but I had told them when the campaign started that there was one thing that was going to happen to them, that they would have choices after that, and that it was the only time they would be forced to do something. I likened it to being in a caravan and being ambushed by orcs or being in a tavern when a brawl ensues. It's a one time thing used at the beginning of a campaign, and shouldn't be taken as an indication of the way things will usually run.

Good you warned them, especially if it was a new group. It takes a bit of time to establish a base of trust.

I sprang my first Outside scenario on the players without explanation or advance warning, but we'd already been playing for five months and they knew I'm not a railroading DM generally, so when they got handed notes for different characters at the start of the session and were dropped into a different place and time without explanation, after a stunned silence of a couple of minutes everyone happily played along.

It's not something I'd do often of course - have to leave players freedom.

My PC's do have some control, though they might read this and they aren't sure what methods they have yet, so I don't want to say. They have limited choices of scenarios based on... something they haven't totally figured out yet. And the justification is the group dreams.

And they also have a mechanism to end each dream if they simply want to hit the eject button.

Eject button? Can they leave at any time?

The party actually wandered around through the night trying to figure out where they were (Sola, the name of the city, looked very different back then), then what date it was, and then their names. Then they were sent away on a mission and the city was destroyed by lizardmen while they were gone (which isn't what happened in reality). As a note, there is a bard in my party, which has made life a lot easier for them.

If the players go back, they will be reset in time, a la Groundhog Day. Though this time they will know where and who they are, and spent some time making a contact that they will have this time around. They're still not sure what they are "supposed" to do.

I like this a lot.

I might well use a similar technique in my game, I'm thinking in such a case I might change the feel of the place very slightly for the PCs' return.

There are a lot of methods to generate effects in the real world based on alternate scenarios, no matter how they are created. One is to provide rewards (xp, stat books, spells which remain memorized after waking (which I will rule can then be scribed to a spellbook), information that leads to rewards (such as hiding a cache of treasure or helping a minor lord become a major player and then say "I give you this ring in secret and ask you to keep it secret, only handing it down to your direct heirs to your lands. Some day in the distant future, someone may come and describe this ring to you exactly. When they do so, please help them in any way you can."), etc.

The other is recon info. You may be able to wander around the castle during peacetime and learn it's defenses. Back in the present, you need to infiltrate the castle. You may go back to witness a battle between the BBEG and someone else (or perhaps yourselves in alternate guises) in order to better understand his tactics and weaknesses.

Yup, very good points.

Over and above those direct effects, I'd want there to be ripples of indirect change - subtle and strange changes caused by, or happening during, the PCs' absence from their own reality.

I definately think that these scenarios should be uncommon to rare, at least to start. They do have the ability to bog down a campaign if it is presented too quickly or if there is too much of it.

How would such scenarios bog down a campaign?

We've been playing for a little over half a year and have had only one 'special' scenario yet, three sessions ago. I'd now like to introduce more of them - the frequency of them will depend largely on how much we enjoy them and how well I can tie them in with the more 'realistic' parts of the game that we've already established in play.

And they should tie into the campaign if possible. If you are curious as to the specifics about my campaign, I'd be happy to email you more info. I just don't want to write down stuff which my players haven't been warned to stay away from.

I'll be checking my e-mail...

There was also a time-travel thread here recently that I can't seem to find...

Edit: found it: http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=93728

Yup, saw that thanks!

 

[random user]

Email sent...

How would such scenarios bog down a campaign?

We've been playing for a little over half a year and have had only one 'special' scenario yet, three sessions ago. I'd now like to introduce more of them - the frequency of them will depend largely on how much we enjoy them and how well I can tie them in with the more 'realistic' parts of the game that we've already established in play.

Well, part of it depends on how complicated your campaign is already. Adding too many different timelines, which may or may not be reality is a lot to keep track of for DM. For a player, who doesn't have the DM's full picture so at least you can fit all the pieces together, it can be absolutely impossible.

Secondly, it's much harder to come up with suitable rewards for these scenarios. Having a party bury a treasure chest only to find it hundreds of years later is fine to do that first time. But the chances that multiple attempts at this will all go successfully (ie no one finds it in the intermin) starts to stretch plausibility. And while information is a "reward" it's not as "tangible" (I use that term loosely) as a magic item.

Lastly, there is a possibility that your players will get sidetracked into these scenarios for so long that they either forget about the regular campaign, or even grow to like the side treks more. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, it may take your campaign in a direction you're not ready to DM (each scenario, IMO, takes a lot longer than a normal session).

 

[StalkingBlue]

Thanks for more comments, random user! This is absolutely wonderful for me, seeing how you run a similar idea in your game and bouncing ideas back and forth is very inspiring, it gives me tons of ideas and also helps me to define my own concept more clearly.

Email sent...

Got it cheers! Nice stuff. I'll be replying by mail to avoid any danger of information leaks...

Well, part of it depends on how complicated your campaign is already. Adding too many different timelines, which may or may not be reality is a lot to keep track of for DM. For a player, who doesn't have the DM's full picture so at least you can fit all the pieces together, it can be absolutely impossible.

Ah I see now what you mean. Yup, I sure expect this to add complexity to the campaign. I'm planning to use a more flexible approach though, not really the same as different timelines - maybe think of locations/times for scenarios as bubbles of quasi-reality that form and dissolve in the Veil rather than fully formed alternate realities. I'm not expecting players to keep track of all the details, in fact when they return to a 'same' time-place later in the game it might have changed in subtle or dramatic ways, so perfect consistency won't be as much of an issue as it would be in a campaign with a number of ongoing alternate realities.

One anchor point of consistency will be recurring NPCs, who might occasionally turn up in (for them) unexpected places in unexpected roles. I'm also thinking that with the respective player's consent, I might let 'alternate reincarnations', 'Veil echoes' or whatever you wish to call them, of former PCs have cameo appearances as NPCs once in a while. With the high death rate we've had in the past I've got a plethora from dead PCs to choose from ... and this way something fruitful and enjoyable might actually still come out of my big bloody harvest!

Secondly, it's much harder to come up with suitable rewards for these scenarios. Having a party bury a treasure chest only to find it hundreds of years later is fine to do that first time. But the chances that multiple attempts at this will all go successfully (ie no one finds it in the intermin) starts to stretch plausibility. And while information is a "reward" it's not as "tangible" (I use that term loosely) as a magic item.

Ok, I see. The problem of items availability won't be as much of an issue for my game as for a standard DnD game I think - in Midnight, attractive items and treasures are few and far between. Also I'll allow limited transition of items - and people! - from one place-time to another, in fact we're going to have a new PC who's coming in from a 'Veil bubble' in the next scenario I'm planning to run. This kind of transition will be under DM control primarily, especially at first.

Lastly, there is a possibility that your players will get sidetracked into these scenarios for so long that they either forget about the regular campaign, or even grow to like the side treks more. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, it may take your campaign in a direction you're not ready to DM (each scenario, IMO, takes a lot longer than a normal session).

Sidetrack:
Point taken. My Veil scenarios might be all the more attractive to some PCs/players because at they will often portray a much healthier, wealthier world than the one the PCs have been operating in up to 5th/6th level. OTOH there is a strong motivation in some PCs/players to continue with what they've been doing up to now (the Midnight setting sure screams to be saved from evil!), so I think the main problem for me to take care of might be to find a sound balance between Veil and non-Veil scenarios that's enjoyable for all of us.

Not sure why your 'dream' scenarios tend to take longer than normal ones, my admittedly limited experience with the one Veil scenario I've run was the opposite: it's been the only scenario so far I've managed to get through in a single game night.

 

[S'mon]

This is so cool...

 

[StalkingBlue]

This is so cool...

Glad you think so S'mon!