Is it possible to make this jumbled mess work?

[dagger]

First of all, here is an inkling of what I have gathered together.

I have scoured all the Dragon Magazines starting with 309 (which is the first one for 3.5) for any fantasy themed crunch. I have gathered a huge vat of new feats, domains, races, variant PHB core classes, spells, and a giant pool of prestige classes.

I want to take all the above (and more ), and have a reason they all can exist in a campaign. Some of the other options I want to include are books from WoTC (core and FR), Bad Axe Games, Green Ronin and others. Being able to easily drop in other crunch down the road is important also.

Is there a way to make this work? One of my players suggested using Sigil from Planescape, but I also want to solicit some ideas from this fantastic community (I’m a suck up).


I know this is illogical and may seem like a campaign you might find school kids playing. But, this is going to be something rare and not run very often. I usually prefer to run games that are much more tightly focused and consistent. This is kind of going to be an experiment in option overload, but I don’t want it to be silly.

Oh yea, thank you for replying and not ridiculing me to much.

 

[Crothian]

Actually, this isn't a Planscape Campaign.......it's Oathbound.

 

[fredramsey]

First and foremost, I would say it is impossible to use all of it at once. I mean, that would be one big encounter

I essentially do the same thing in my campaigns. There's not much I rule out. If someone wants to try a new base class, or PrC, or spell, or Feat, I say go for it. I certainly pull from whatever I want to for NPCs. In the end, all of these things are just toys. What counts is that all the players and the DM are having fun, playing the game they like.

You'll get a lot of flak for this, so good luck.

 

[Psion]

Well, my selection was somewhat more deliberate, but I am running a planehopping campaign called the River of Worlds, which primarily concerns a huge body of water that contains gates to dozens of worlds within it. The players have opportunities to make a variety of characters, as they can have hailed from any of many worlds.

Your selection of material sounds sufficiently small that I don't think that plane-hopping is strictly necessary. Just assign regions to various tidbits you want to put in, possibly according to feel. As an example, but ONE of the worlds that is part of the above mentioned has within it:
AEG's Mercenaries races and PrCs
Green Ronin's Freeport, Mindshadows, Hamunaptra
Necromancer's Necropolis
Mystic Eye Games' Bluffside

 

[William Ronald]

One possibility is to create a campaign world with different continents, and many nations and cultures. Certain races might only be found in regions of some continents, as well as some of the classes, feats and spells. To meet a member of one of those rare races, you might have to travel to a distant land. Or conversely, a relatively rare race/class combination might be a traveller -- who might be a subject of interest to the PCs and communities. Many of these races, classes, spells and feats may be unknown or mere rumor to many people in one area of the campaign setting -- and somewhat common elsewhere.

If I recall correctly, Japan sent an ambassador to several European nations in the 1600s. The ambassador and his staff must have seemed fairly exotic to the people of Europe. Just think how diverse our own world is, and you might get some ideas of how to have some things found in one region and others elsewhere. Possibly, you might have a few areas, such as trade centers or religious pilgrimage or historical sites, that some people from different cultures will travel to on occassion.

Edit: Wow, post number 2,700!

 

[dagger]

You'll get a lot of flak for this, so good luck.

Thanks

Wow, post number 2,700!

Congrats!

River of Worlds

This sounds familiar to me, I know you have talked about it in other threads. Is it from a d20 product (Portals and Planes?) or a homebrew you have created?

 

[Psion]

This sounds familiar to me, I know you have talked about it in other threads. Is it from a d20 product (Portals and Planes?) or a homebrew you have created?

The concept is from Portals and Planes, but of course I am having to make up several specifics (eg, about worlds and islands and major powers therein), many of which are in a long running thread I have posted here. The entry in P&P, while it forms the foundation, is only a few pages long.

 

[dagger]

I still need to check out Portals and Planes.

 

[VirgilCaine]

One possibility is to create a campaign world with different continents, and many nations and cultures. Certain races might only be found in regions of some continents, as well as some of the classes, feats and spells. To meet a member of one of those rare races, you might have to travel to a distant land. Or conversely, a relatively rare race/class combination might be a traveller -- who might be a subject of interest to the PCs and communities. Many of these races, classes, spells and feats may be unknown or mere rumor to many people in one area of the campaign setting -- and somewhat common elsewhere.

Thats what I was gonna say. Just have a global world--use all the land.

If I recall correctly, Japan sent an ambassador to several European nations in the 1600s. The ambassador and his staff must have seemed fairly exotic to the people of Europe. Just think how diverse our own world is, and you might get some ideas of how to have some things found in one region and others elsewhere. Possibly, you might have a few areas, such as trade centers or religious pilgrimage or historical sites, that some people from different cultures will travel to on occassion.

Think what would happen if a Bushman and an Orthodox Rabbi were to meet or a Buddhist and a Western businessman. Or, on the other hand, a Bushman, an Australian aborigine, and an Amazonian Stone Age tribesman.

 

[D+1]

I want to take all the above (and more ), and have a reason they all can exist in a campaign.

You don't need a reason any deeper than they all DO exist in your campaign. The problem is that the vast majority of them will never see the light of day in your game. You can structure a campaign setting that has all those prestige classes and where various NPC's SOMEwhere have those feats but when you as DM start trying to ensure that they ALL get used by PC's and NPC's in the course of the campaign your players are going to chafe. They will still likely play the characters they've always played no matter all the expanded options and the vast majority of those options will simply sit, unused and uneeded on a shelf.

I'm of the opinion that a handful of PrC's and feats that WILL see fairly regular use in your campaign - and will thus distinguish your campaign from an overfull kitchen sink - is far superior than that kitchen sink full of every option under the sun that is just going to be unused, USELESS clutter.

Less is more.