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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wayne62682" data-source="post: 4832073" data-attributes="member: 40455">I'm mulling over ideas for an Eberron campaign I plan on running for my group in the coming months.  They would probably get the most fun out of a fast-paced action campaign a la Indiana Jones or The Mummy (and of course I plan to ask them to make sure <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />).I have a basic premise for the campaign, with the Heroic tier mainly being exploration as the PCs will be treasure seekers employed by Morgrave University, and tasked by their patron to retrieve various artifacts from across Khorvaire (and probably at least once to Xen'drik).  There's a more to the campaign plot than this, but this is the basic idea for almost all of the Heroic tier.Here's the basic outline for the campaign, in case it might help with suggestions:[sblock]HEROIC:  The PCs are treasure seekers employed by Morgrave University, tasked by their patron to find and recover some valuable artifacts from across Khorvaire for study.  Unknown to them, their patron is really part of the Cult of the Dragon Below, and the artifacts are needed to revive an imprisoned Rakshasa Rajah from the Age of Demons.  Along the way the PCs battle the Order of the Emerald Claw, who they are told want the items themselves for their own evil schemes; when their patron betrays them the PCs have to form an uneasy alliance with the Emerald Claw.PARAGON:  The PCs have attracted the attention of the Lords of Dust (who were backing their now dead ex-patron) who dispatch agents to find and kill them.  At this point the PCs need to try and uncover exactly what the artifacts are used for and how to stop it from happening.  Paragon is a little vague right now but I envision exotic locales and even the Draconic Prophecy coming into play.  At some point the Lords of Dust ambush/gain the artifacts and as the paragon tier comes to a close, the demon lord is resurrected. EPIC:  The PCs must contend with an enraged Rakshasa demon prince and his four commanders (familiar trope, no?) who seek to return Eberron to the Age of Demons, as well as his minions.  They need to find out his weakness and finally can take the fight to him, defeating first his lieutenants and them engaging in a final decisive battle with the demon prince himself.Epic is still kind of vague, too, but would probably be the most "video game" like of the tiers, complete with four fiends, each with their own fortress, and a floating castle in the sky.[/sblock]The problem I'm running into during my brainstorming sessions is how to keep these adventures from being the same exact thing.  What I mean is I want all of the common "tropes" of an Indiana Jones movie - going to at least one strange locale to get information on something (e.g. the location of the crypt where the treasure is), searching for the location itself, dealing with traps and unnatural things inside the dungeon, and possibly some surprise twist at the end with a rival group (e.g. Emerald Claw).  However, since almost all of the early adventures are going to be exploratory/dungeon delves I want to avoid having them all seem like the same thing.  I don't know how to achieve this while still having all of the common experiences.  There seems to only be so much that can be done with this type of adventure, and while the locale might be different I'm sure it will bore my players if every Heroic adventure follows the pattern of: 1) I need you to get this item from X; 2) The map/key/macguffin you need to find the location was stolen/is lost and is located somewhere in Y; 3) Someone in Y needs you to do Z/needs to be beaten up before he'll help you/give you the macguffin; 4) Now you need to actually find X; 5) Traps and monsters and treasure, oh my!; 6) Here's your item, where's our money?  And yet this is typically the kind of pacing that most action/adventure/exploration seem to follow.What advice can you give me to avoid making things repetitious?</blockquote>

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