The Little Raven
First Post
As long as the train takes you and your players to Funville, this isn't a real problem.
DMing your way into a corner
- Thread starter Rechan
- Start date
As long as the train takes you and your players to Funville, this isn't a real problem.
There is a lot of rich ideas here. I appreciate all the contributions.
I feel almost overwhelmed by all the resources I can look to. TV shows/books/movies, not to mention the available gaming resources I have on hand (Isle of Dread/various Dungeon Issues/Nyambe/etc). Since the game is in two weeks, it feels like I have even less time!
Just a quick note: Yes, Roanoke is a big inspiration here. As is Eberron; there's a "Lost, Cursed Colony in a fiend-infested desert" plot seed I turned a (doomed) campaign into.
Definitely will be "Lost Survivors", or natives that know the pigeon language from exiles and exposure to the colonies.
One solution I have to the "Utterly Uncharted" is to present some information from the First Colony. Information written from the explorer who found the area, and a colonist who did some initial exploration. This way I can describe a minimal area (a mile radius, perhaps), have a crude map of the starting area, and give details about the locals. One big thing about the locals is, the natives that are "friendly" have an actual dialect that the Colonist documents - and then when the PCs get there, the natives are mute.
I feel almost overwhelmed by all the resources I can look to. TV shows/books/movies, not to mention the available gaming resources I have on hand (Isle of Dread/various Dungeon Issues/Nyambe/etc). Since the game is in two weeks, it feels like I have even less time!
Just a quick note: Yes, Roanoke is a big inspiration here. As is Eberron; there's a "Lost, Cursed Colony in a fiend-infested desert" plot seed I turned a (doomed) campaign into.
Thing is, if the PCs are all separated from home/their backgrounds/etc, what Quests/goals are they going to Create? What can they do?
Definitely will be "Lost Survivors", or natives that know the pigeon language from exiles and exposure to the colonies.
One solution I have to the "Utterly Uncharted" is to present some information from the First Colony. Information written from the explorer who found the area, and a colonist who did some initial exploration. This way I can describe a minimal area (a mile radius, perhaps), have a crude map of the starting area, and give details about the locals. One big thing about the locals is, the natives that are "friendly" have an actual dialect that the Colonist documents - and then when the PCs get there, the natives are mute.
roguerouge
First Post
Frankly, this sounds enormously fun... I'd LOVE the diplomacy aspects amongst the second settlement the heroes belong to. I'd love the battles for who is going to lead this little community, which would give me a goal at the early levels. I'd love managing the NPC relationships and would want to have every NPC with a personality. I'd love the friendships, rivalries, and love affairs that would inevitably develop. I'd mourn every one that got lost to plague or starvation or "unprovoked" native aggression. I'd love the negotiating with the mysterious natives.
I'd love the chance to try to build a world.
You're missing a world of skill adventures here.
I'd love the chance to try to build a world.
You're missing a world of skill adventures here.
LostSoul
Adventurer
I don't know - whatever they think is fun!
Tie it to why they came here, and what they are leaving behind.
- A noble wants to gain the respect of his family by making a name for himself in the wilderness.
- A penniless man, fleeing from his debts, hopes to evade debtor's prison.
- A royal navigator wants to map the source of the colony's river.
- A devout man wants to spread the word of his god in this new land.
- A diplomat hopes to make peaceful contact with the natives.
- An entrepreneurial sort hopes to create a rich trading company.
Timeboxer
Explorer
- Discover something large and important that you can name after yourself.
- Find new spices and foods, and start a culinary revolution back home.
- See the ocean on the other side of the continent.
- Unify (subjugate?) all of the native tribes.
- Search for the fabled Fountain of Youth.
Possible perssnal hooks/goals:
Find your love's lost father so you can get permission to marry... or at least, find proof of his death.
Run and hide from an arranged marriage - and hope the love struck/scorned/honor-bound fiance(e) doesn't come after you anyway.
Get rich so you can avenge your family, and clear your name - unless the goons of your family's nemesis kill you first.
Find out why your god sent you there through dreams and visions.
Bring the word of your god to the heathens of the new lands.
Find proof for your pet thesis that people from your country settled the new continent 1000 years ago, among them the greatest bard of their age, whose works may have endured here.
Search the jungle for new plants and animals, catalogue them, and test them for use as ingredients for alchemy, medicine, cooking and similar things.
Find new trade goods to make your fortune.
Stop that exiled noble from turning the colony into a staging area for a rebellion against the true king/government.
Find your love's lost father so you can get permission to marry... or at least, find proof of his death.
Run and hide from an arranged marriage - and hope the love struck/scorned/honor-bound fiance(e) doesn't come after you anyway.
Get rich so you can avenge your family, and clear your name - unless the goons of your family's nemesis kill you first.
Find out why your god sent you there through dreams and visions.
Bring the word of your god to the heathens of the new lands.
Find proof for your pet thesis that people from your country settled the new continent 1000 years ago, among them the greatest bard of their age, whose works may have endured here.
Search the jungle for new plants and animals, catalogue them, and test them for use as ingredients for alchemy, medicine, cooking and similar things.
Find new trade goods to make your fortune.
Stop that exiled noble from turning the colony into a staging area for a rebellion against the true king/government.
MortalPlague
Adventurer
I'd love to second the vote for 'Deadwood'... it's a fantastic TV series which will give you a great glimpse into the workings of a fledgeling town. I gained plenty of plot ideas watching the show, and I'm not even running a frontier game (at the moment, anyway).
Also, this does sound like a tremendously fun game... I would love to play in that sort of a campaign.
Also, this does sound like a tremendously fun game... I would love to play in that sort of a campaign.
Ooh I forgot how much fun talking about this sort of thing is...
Yes. Internal politics among the NPC colonists that the PCs arrive with ought to be pretty intense. And certainly a few of the NPCs should be as able to take care of themselves as well as the PCs can (freeing the PCs to go tromping around of course) including one or two people that appear to be powerless initially.
One way of stoking internal tensions is to have the fate of the previous colony (or one even older) be revealed, and have that conflict with the plans of some of the leadership factions. Retrieving a treasure that awakens something dangerous is the first thing that pops into my head; there should be ways to twist that.
CruelSummerLord
First Post
One aspect that you might like to try is to develop the societies of the natives. There's no reason they need to all be evil and/or savage; seeing some highly sophisticated, good-aligned yuan-ti might make for a fascinating change of pace, for example.
Your players and the colony they may help to found can easily become intertwined with the locals. When Europeans came to the Americas, in many cases they got caught up in the feuds the First Nations and other indigenous peoples carried on with one another. The French fur traders who first arrived in Canada ended up having to take sides in the wars between the Iroquois and the Huron, while in South America Hernan Cortes found many native allies willing to help him defeat the Aztecs. Native and white factions played each other off against their opponents, some acted as mediators, others as middlemen, and so on. If your players love political intrigue and role-playing, this can be a lot of fun.
Similarly, if a colony has already been established, the locals are going to have some sort of impression of the societies the PCs represent. If the first colony became valued trading or military allies with the locals, those locals will probably be willing to help your PCs with things like food and medicine, the dos and don'ts of travelling, and even be able to give some indications as to what happened to the original colony, or at least point them in the right direction. OTOH, if the original colonists treated them badly, the PCs are going to have some serious problems right off the bat-here's an opportunity for combat, if that's what your players want.
Feel free to mix and match, of course-if the original colonists became friends of one faction, and opposed the other, your PCs can become allies with one and enemies with the other, providing for both RPing and combat both at once.
If you decide do go this route, you'll probably want to work out a lot of the social and cultural traits of the local peoples, as well as the history of the original colony and how its residents got on with the natives.
Your players and the colony they may help to found can easily become intertwined with the locals. When Europeans came to the Americas, in many cases they got caught up in the feuds the First Nations and other indigenous peoples carried on with one another. The French fur traders who first arrived in Canada ended up having to take sides in the wars between the Iroquois and the Huron, while in South America Hernan Cortes found many native allies willing to help him defeat the Aztecs. Native and white factions played each other off against their opponents, some acted as mediators, others as middlemen, and so on. If your players love political intrigue and role-playing, this can be a lot of fun.
Similarly, if a colony has already been established, the locals are going to have some sort of impression of the societies the PCs represent. If the first colony became valued trading or military allies with the locals, those locals will probably be willing to help your PCs with things like food and medicine, the dos and don'ts of travelling, and even be able to give some indications as to what happened to the original colony, or at least point them in the right direction. OTOH, if the original colonists treated them badly, the PCs are going to have some serious problems right off the bat-here's an opportunity for combat, if that's what your players want.
Feel free to mix and match, of course-if the original colonists became friends of one faction, and opposed the other, your PCs can become allies with one and enemies with the other, providing for both RPing and combat both at once.
If you decide do go this route, you'll probably want to work out a lot of the social and cultural traits of the local peoples, as well as the history of the original colony and how its residents got on with the natives.
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