Dragonbane general thread [+]

[stormwriter]

General Question: if you were to run a DB campaign for players new to the game, would you pick the Core Set campaign, or Path of Glory? Why?

Path of Glory is made for advanced characters, it assumes characters have more experience, additional talents, skills and XP. It even recommends you use characters that have already finished the core box campaign in power level. Based on that I would use the core Set campaign first so they can learn how the game works with less buttons to push. The adventures in the core set are also smaller and simpler, Path of Glory has bigger and more complex adventures.

 

[Aldarc]

Love seeing your process with a campaign I have run twice. I'd suggest Troll's Spire over Riddermound to be honest. Riddermound is a bit rough on beginners.

Seconded. It's also a bit more mayhem and social.

 

[Staffan]

Ooooh, this is interesting. On a whim, I got curious and wondered if Free League were working with Erik Granström to make a revamped version of Svavelvinter/The Fifth Conflux, often considered to be the crowning achievement of the old version of Dragonbane and... a mere Google search away, it turns out they are.

Svavelvinter was the first adventure released for the Expert rules back in 1987, taking place on Marjura, an island in the far north that had been occupied by the nation of Tracoria for access to their sulphur mines. As I recall, there was a main reason the PCs would go there, but the adventure as a whole was pretty sandboxy. After a few years, the adventure was followed first by a sourcebook on Tracoria and then a series of three more adventures: The Four Eyes of the Oracle (where the PCs have to interpret a prophecy that has just been finished – it has taken hundreds of years for it to be finished because the prophetic being speaks really slowly to the point that the monks listening to it and transcribing it need special training to even be able to hear it – and figure out how to get the people it is talking about to safety before the Big Bad can get to them), the Crystal Bull (which involves a bunch of planar travel to get some weird stuff), and finally the Fifth Conflux where the PCs return to Marjura to make sure various evil factions do not get to dominate the Fifth Conflux, a moment where the fate of the world for the next few hundred years is determined.

Four Eyes of the Oracle in particular had some inventive stuff going on, notably that the GM was expected to recruit outside assistance for helping running the Big Bad and, if possible, a second person running a neutral-ish spy faction. Ideally this would be a friend of the other players who isn't involved in the game itself, because if the players talk about the game and give the Big Bad information about what they're up to, well, that's poor OpSec on their part and totally fair game for the Big Bad to base decisions on. Other than that, both the Big Bad and the spies have a lot of resources to use to figure out what's up and stop the PCs.

It appears they're doing a remastered version, where the Crystal Bull is removed and has its material spread across other books, and also where they can plan a bit more since they already know where things are going.

This is probably the thing about Dragonbane that has made me the most excited about it yet.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Ooooh, this is interesting. On a whim, I got curious and wondered if Free League were working with Erik Granström to make a revamped version of Svavelvinter/The Fifth Conflux, often considered to be the crowning achievement of the old version of Dragonbane and... a mere Google search away, it turns out they are.

Svavelvinter was the first adventure released for the Expert rules back in 1987, taking place on Marjura, an island in the far north that had been occupied by the nation of Tracoria for access to their sulphur mines. As I recall, there was a main reason the PCs would go there, but the adventure as a whole was pretty sandboxy. After a few years, the adventure was followed first by a sourcebook on Tracoria and then a series of three more adventures: The Four Eyes of the Oracle (where the PCs have to interpret a prophecy that has just been finished – it has taken hundreds of years for it to be finished because the prophetic being speaks really slowly to the point that the monks listening to it and transcribing it need special training to even be able to hear it – and figure out how to get the people it is talking about to safety before the Big Bad can get to them), the Crystal Bull (which involves a bunch of planar travel to get some weird stuff), and finally the Fifth Conflux where the PCs return to Marjura to make sure various evil factions do not get to dominate the Fifth Conflux, a moment where the fate of the world for the next few hundred years is determined.

Four Eyes of the Oracle in particular had some inventive stuff going on, notably that the GM was expected to recruit outside assistance for helping running the Big Bad and, if possible, a second person running a neutral-ish spy faction. Ideally this would be a friend of the other players who isn't involved in the game itself, because if the players talk about the game and give the Big Bad information about what they're up to, well, that's poor OpSec on their part and totally fair game for the Big Bad to base decisions on. Other than that, both the Big Bad and the spies have a lot of resources to use to figure out what's up and stop the PCs.

It appears they're doing a remastered version, where the Crystal Bull is removed and has its material spread across other books, and also where they can plan a bit more since they already know where things are going.

This is probably the thing about Dragonbane that has made me the most excited about it yet.

Memnon! There goes yet more of money...

I hadn't heard of this campaign/setting, being quite new to Dragonbane, but I read that blog post and I'm all in.

 

[Von Ether]

General Question: if you were to run a DB campaign for players new to the game, would you pick the Core Set campaign, or Path of Glory? Why?

Nine times out of ten, the boxed game.

An experienced GM might be able to run Path for a group inexperienced with DB but familiar with 5e or PF. The book gives you suggestions on what new PCs need and those players may feel more comfortable with more options. But the learning curve will be steeper with higher stakes.

 

[Aldarc]

General Question: if you were to run a DB campaign for players new to the game, would you pick the Core Set campaign, or Path of Glory? Why?

Core Set. It gives you more options to shorten or lengthen the campaign as needed. It's basically a sandbox campaign where the PCs are looking for pieces of the MacGuffin in various adventure sites. So it could take three excursions or maybe eight.