Gamemastering advice on preparing adventures for Sword & Sorcery campaigns

[Azuresun]

So here's what I did for the start of my Primeval Thule game. The PC's started off chained up in the bowels of a slave ship, when it came under attack from a sea monster. The overseer bursts in, declares that they're all going to be thrown overboard, then a tentacle smashes through the hull and drags him out to get eaten. Fortunately, he drops the key. After a fight, the ship capsizes, and they wake up on a deserted island haunted by walking dead that contains an Atlantean temple guarded by a maddened demon, a fortress of the Crimson Slavers of Marg at one end, and a wizard of the Black Circle of Thran who wants something in that temple, and who is looking for disposable paw.....brave heroes to go in there and get it for her.

Overall, because the players appreciate clear objectives and impetuses, I've been aiming for giving them self-contained adventures as part of something larger, which hopefully give them some freedom in how they go about each objective.

 

[xoth.publishing]

I'm a bit late to the party here (having been on vacation ), but my advice would be to check out the following thread and download the Player's Guide discussed here:

D&D 5E - Free 60+ page Guide to Sword & Sorcery for 5E D&D

The Player's Guide to the World of Xoth is a free PDF with more than 60 pages of sword and sorcery material for fifth edition that allows you to play in adventures inspired by the stories of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Venture in the footsteps of Conan the Cimmerian, Satampra Zeiros...

www.enworld.org

Then in terms of running actual adventures, there's a bunch of premade adventures here (including several freebies):

xoth.net publishing - sword and sorcery roleplaying adventures

Xoth.Net Publishing - Sword and sorcery roleplaying adventures

xoth.net

Even more freebies here:

Adventures of the Hyborian Age

hyboria.xoth.net

 

[ART!]

I can see arguments for asking this in any number of S&S-themed threads, but I think it's more of a "how to run" question.

How do you pitch a S&S tone without it sounding depressing and nihilistic? When I ran some of what i saw as the core concepts past a few players in our group, the response was either static or "sounds depressing". Firstly, I'm a little surprised that playing S&S isn't automatically appealing to them, but I they're all very, very used to D&D's kitchen sink approach to fantasy.

The concepts or themes I pitched were basically:
1. Freedom and danger > oppression and safety. Civilization trades danger - the natural state of all living things - for safety, but also trades freedom for oppression and corruption. The only way to truly live is to seize your freedom and face the danger. PCs aren't beholden to any great cause, faction, or hierarchy.
2. Goals and quests are personal, not epic. That rumored treasure in those strange ruins could set you up for life - or at least a fun life until the money runs out. The crew members who left you for dead on a desert island will pay! Saving the world from evil is nowhere on the list of goals.
3. Magic is dangerous and corrupting.
4. Whatever gods there might be are not demonstratively active in the world.
5. No race or class restrictions, but innate spellcasting will be replaced with a feat, and a lot of utility spells and a few others will be unavailable.

Reading that, I guess I can see how that would read as drudgery if you're used to default D&Disms and aren't familiar with S&S as a genre. Did I over-sell or under-sell things here? I feel like I didn't make it sound fun. How would you handle this?

EDIT: Come to think of it, no one bit when I pitched the 5E Adventures in Middle-Earth, either, so maybe my group just wants default D&D and nothing but.

 

[xoth.publishing]

How do you pitch a S&S tone without it sounding depressing and nihilistic?

I feel like I didn't make it sound fun. How would you handle this?

Here's how I would approach it:

Ask them to read a couple of the classic stories, such as Tower of the Elephant, Queen of the Black Coast, or Red Nails. The stories are not that long and can be found for free online. Hopefully the players will be fired up for a S&S campaign based on the strength of Howard's writing alone.

If they can't be bothered to read the stories, perhaps they can skim through a comic book adaptation of the above stories (the Marvel adaptations by Roy Thomas are great, but use the Dark Horse versions if they prefer color).

If that doesn't help, then ask them to view the following 2-minute video on YouTube:


If they are STILL not interested after watching that, then you need a new group!

 

[Yora]

Sword & Sorcery is fun!

Action, adventure, excitement! Awesome monsters and villains and big damn heroes, with magical palaces and jungles.

 

[Aldarc]

Here's how I would approach it:

Ask them to read a couple of the classic stories, such as Tower of the Elephant, Queen of the Black Coast, or Red Nails. The stories are not that long and can be found for free online. Hopefully the players will be fired up for a S&S campaign based on the strength of Howard's writing alone.

If they can't be bothered to read the stories, perhaps they can skim through a comic book adaptation of the above stories (the Marvel adaptations by Roy Thomas are great, but use the Dark Horse versions if they prefer color).

If that doesn't help, then ask them to view the following 2-minute video on YouTube:


If they are STILL not interested after watching that, then you need a new group!

That's where you have already lost my group. If your elavator pitch requires that the players read anything more than a few pages, then that is a total no-go.

 

[xoth.publishing]

That's where you have already lost my group. If your elavator pitch requires that the players read anything more than a few pages, then that is a total no-go.

So... show them the video?

 

[Aldarc]

So... show them the video?

Not sure if this would do anything for them, to be honest. What impresses you and your players will not necessarily impress mine. I, for one, only see boring Hollywood cinematic duds with over the top special effects and quick cut edits in that trailer. I'm not sure if it really gets me in the mood for S&S adventure.

 

[Dioltach]

"Short adventures, cinematic action, and uncomplicated, guilt-free scenarios. Give it a try, if you don't like it all you've lost is one or two sessions."

 

[J.Quondam]

Here's how I would approach it:

Ask them to read a couple of the classic stories, such as Tower of the Elephant, Queen of the Black Coast, or Red Nails. The stories are not that long and can be found for free online. Hopefully the players will be fired up for a S&S campaign based on the strength of Howard's writing alone.

If they can't be bothered to read the stories, perhaps they can skim through a comic book adaptation of the above stories (the Marvel adaptations by Roy Thomas are great, but use the Dark Horse versions if they prefer color).

If that doesn't help, then ask them to view the following 2-minute video on YouTube:
[...snip...]
If they are STILL not interested after watching that, then you need a new group!

Totally agree! I've come to feel that can go a lot farther, too, if it's done as a group, eg, as a session zero thing to make sure everyone is on the same page about the genre. That's not possible for every group, but I think that makes it a lot easier to get buy in and to make sure everyone's on the same page about the sort of game to expect.

I've done this a few times on the day before long-weekend game-a-thons: watch a S&S movie like Beastmaster or Conan, and do storytelling or "interpretive readings" of a story, all over bbq and beers or something. Then roll up characters and run the intro scene/s while it's fresh in the mind. Good stuff!

I imagine that works for most any genre for which there's a lot of media to work with: Arthurian myth, kung-fu, cosmic horror, or whatever. Movies or video shorts, short stories or comics, videogame or boardgame, maybe even an ultralite RPG, etc.

Just pick out some appropriate media and enjoy it as a group, if at all possible. That way everyone can sort of experience it "the same way," feed off each others' enthusiasm, talk about the genre and/or the specific game, and just have an all around good time.