"Exploration of the New World" Campaign

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's an old tradition of the Australian bush of frying eggs on shovels. The probable source? The First Fleet forgot to bring frying pans. Let the players make mistakes at this stage, and half the plot is written for you already.
<snip many good points>
I say to hell with published adventures. Make mistakes. Get stuck in.

<emphasis mine>

I actually agree with the sentence I boldfaced.

However, if the players aren't thinking like would-be explorers, you could easily get a TPK if you're not careful, and that's not fun for most people.

Some of the things I listed in my first post would be standard ship equipment, items unlikely to be forgotten by any except the most incompetent captains & ship stewards, etc.

Other stuff they might not have just because the environment they expected was not the environment they found.

I guess what I'm saying is that you may need to guide the players a little, but you shouldn't spoon-feed them.

 

[Quartz]

Unless you plan to start with the PCs shipwrecked, I suggest you handwave the small stuff it will provide for plot hooks later on: "Guys, we're running out of nails; we need to find some iron ore. Can you escort Fred here to find some?"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While there is a lot of merit to that suggestion, I'd say doing that depends upon the kind of players you have in your group.

Some, told that they're running low on nails, would counter that there's no way they'd be so unprepared, etc., meaning you'd have to come up with some kind of justification- "you lost a few barrels of them during that last major storm that hit your ship on the way over..." and so forth.

Others would just run with it.

Only you as the DM know which way to go.

 

[weem]

Hey Wolf88,

It's been almost 3 weeks since your original post about your upcoming ("soon") campaign - I'm curious if it has started yet!

I myself will be starting a new campaign in the near future (when the current campaign ends) and exploration is going to be a primary feature as well, so the topic is very interesting to me