Ideas for an epic campaign

[Andrewd0]

I started a campaign several weeks ago that was very experimental, at least for me, in a lot of ways. It uses 3e, heavily modified by the Sleeping Imperium's "grim and girtty" hitpoint system (I'm not sure how many are familiar with it, but it attempts to make combat a lot more dangerous - while characters increase in skill, pretty much every fight has the potential to kill them if they aren't careful). On top of that, the setting is devoid of magic, at least as far as the players know - this is because under the modified system, magic (even low level magic) is extremely powerful. I wasn't sure how this would work out, but so far it's been quite a lot of fun.

The campaign is centered around two seperate continents, one of which is as yet unknown to the PC's. The first is an enormous wasteland which is all but uninhabitable (blood red skies, constant lightning storms, rapidly and randomly changing extreme temperatures, volcanos, earthquakes, abominations and magical beasts all over the place, etc) as a result of the power wielded by wizards a long time ago. The second continent is a much more normal place: green grass, blue sky, people killing each other with swords over normal things like jealousy and greed, etc. It was settled when a wizard (one of the last) freed a ton of some other wizards' slaves and took them accross the ocean, erecting a big ol' magical barrier behind him to keep the others from following.

At this point, he pretty much stopped using magic all together, and he and the people with him settled the new lands the old fashioned mundane way. Of course, one wizard (and a few of that wizard's monstrous servants and experiments) managed to follow to the new continent. He attempted to conquer it, but the good wizard fought him off, dying in the process (and of course *not* managing to kill the evil one - just imprisoning him), and all the evil wizard's followers (orcs, ogres, and giants pretty much) scattered.

Now this campaign takes place a long way down the road. The PC's will rediscover magic (either gaining spells or impressive combat abilities) and become immensely powerful, fighting off some evil wizards and hordes of monsters and all that good stuff. I would very much like to make a strong point of what kinds of responsibilities come with this kind of power, and what it means to the way they live and effect their world. I don't just mean that since they have awesome power, they have to fight off hordes of badguys - I'm talking about making them realize just how deep the responsibility goes, even the obligation *not* to use the power they'll have. The focus isn't so much on whether they *can* change the world, but what they choose to do, or whether they do it at all.

This is where I need some ideas. Frankly - and I can't blame them - none of this is likely to occur to the PC's. They'll go "we have magic! cool!" and battle their enemies, push NPC's they don't like around, and the only moral quandry will be the glaringly obvious one (whether or not to kill the villain once they've disarmed him, etc.) because honestly that's usually what D&D is. My main concern is that these issues of things like balance, natural order, responsibility, power, will, etc. are explored, and I'd rather not have to spell them out to the PC's..

Any help would be appreciated

 

[mseds99]

a simple idea

Howdy,

One way I might try and influence the PC's is to have them discover the ancient "diary" of the good wizard. In it, he could talk about how, with his incredible power, comes responsibility and the need to protect the people and a bunch of other good stuff. The diary also talks about how the ever-increasing power of magic has caused many of the other wizards to lose their minds.

ANother possibility is finding the diary of the imprisoned baddie. In it, he can startoff as someone with admirable goals and positive intent, but over the course of time, as his power grew, his motivations changed, and he began to see the common man as tools to do his bidding. THis could be an interesting twist fully detailing the tragic fall of a weak-minded person. This would also flesh out a major bad guy in the campaign, making the showdown with him much more personal.

The final way I can think of is to discover the history of the war that destroyed thje one continent. If done from a first perosn perspective (think Anne Frank), it could be a powerful testament to the responsibilities and potential pitfalls of powerful magic.

That's just my $.02

Good luck Amigo

Matt

 

[peteyfrogboy]

You could teach them the lessons you want them to learn in a sort of interactive parable form. By that I mean crafting encounters or plots that illustrate the points you want to make. For example, the PCs discover a way to restore a blighted valley to its old fertile state, improving the lives of the impoverished humans living there. Doing so, however, would destroy the home of the peaceful sand dwarves that have always been the party's friends.

Basically, if you make it so that there is no clear black and white answer to any situation, the players will be forced to think and consider the consequences of their actions. Now, not all players will find this fun. Some people just want to come home from work and bash in a few orc skulls. If that's the case, then you could either alternate the heavy lesson-learning sessions with lighter monster-bashing ones or run a secondary campaign in a less morally ambiguous setting.