D&D General Looking for inspiration

[Greenfield]

I've probably mentioned this before (a few dozen times), but my campaign uses a "Round Robin" system for DMing.

We pick a campaign theme, the grand goal of the adventure, and then each player comes up with both a character and the city/state/region/country where that character hails from.

As the story advances everybody can have a chance to be DM. When someone is the DM, it means that the adventure is taking place in their home region, or in some unclaimed portion of the multiverse. Their character becomes an NPC, and the previous DM's character comes out of NPCdom.

But to make all of this work, you need that grand scheme, the big bad of the campaign world, the goal everyone is working towards.

Well, I expect our current campaign to end within the next month or so, so it's time to start planning our next campaign.

To give a review of themes we've used in the past:

Lost Secrets: Secrets, over time, do one of two things. They either come out and aren't secrets any more, or they get lost when the last holder of that secret passes on. In this game world many feats, prestige classes and spells have simply been forgotten. There are no 9th level spells. Raising the dead requires a trip to the underworld to retrieve the soul of the one lost, because there are no rais Dead spell o any of their variants. There are no Teleport spells (though Dimension Door exixts). Nobody knows how to craft permanent items of any sort.

But the gods have foreseen the dark times coming, and have called together people from many lands, to work together and rediscover what was lost. It's time when the mortal world will need those secrets again.

Broken World: Before time began the gods would fashion worlds by working together. They'd create a great crystalline model of that world, the primary artifact of creation itself. The world, as mortals know it, is the image of that artifact.

But when your world was formed the Good gods conspired to create a world where there was no room for Evil. The Evil gods rebelled, realizing that they had been betrayed at the last moment, and there was a battle. In that battle the crystal was shattered, and the backlash sent the gods of creation into a state of shock. They still live, but they sleep, and all the gods the mortals know as "greater gods" are in fact the servants of Those Who Came Before.

The world is dying, broken, because the artifact is broken. Your job is to find the shards of that crystal and bring them to the Temple of Ancient Light where they can be reassembled. But Evil is in the world, and the Evil gods are spiteful. Their forces will oppose, so take care and hurry.

There have been more, but you get the idea. Some grand goal that can be carried on for as long as needed for the a campaign that can run for years.

So I'd like some help coming up with a campaign theme, the next grand story arc.

Let's kick a few ideas around, shall we?

 

[MarkB]

The world is slipping away.

It begins with a town here and there. Then a city. Then an entire region. Parts of the world disappear, replaced with strange expanses of blackened stone.

Is it a cataclysm? A deliberate act? A terrible crime of mass theft and kidnapping to be opposed and stopped however possible?

Or is it an evacuation? A desperate plan to save as much of the world as possible by taking it elsewhere? And if so, what doom is it being saved from?

 

[Bawylie]

A werewolf’s unrequited love for the moon drives it to increasingly destructive rampages in a vain attempt to capture the moon’s attention. It grows in power, ferocity, and size until ultimately becoming Tarrasque-like in proportions and devastation.

Possible Adventures:
What attacked this inn?
Who is the werewolf when the moon is not full?
Is there a pattern to its devastation?
Why is the monster’s cry so sorrowful?
Can it’s next target be anticipated?
Can it be driven off before it attacks again?
Wait, is it infecting others now?
The pack is destroying whole towns now?
Can we protect this town for three nights?
Oh crap, it’s a Were-asque!

 

[Oofta]

Dream a little dream.

The god of dreams is all powerful, after all they grant the people the ability to see long dead relatives once again, grant the power of flight and to do extraordinary things most would deem impossible.

But what if the dreams become too real? People from across continents or planes being pulled into common dreams or even transported to other worlds? What happens when the god of dreams starts to have nightmares?

A campaign in three acts. Act 1: what's going on? Act 2: who's disturbing the god of dreams and why? Act 3: how do we stop this before the realms are pulled into a never ending nightmare?

 

[JenniferL]

Hi!

I am new here and it is nice to be a part of this community!

Well, I can say that for me traveling is the best way to be inspired!

 

[Greenfield]

The Dream idea is kind of similar to the campaign we're just finishing, where the Big Bad was the "Nightmare King". Good thoughts though.

On the Werewolf tale, here's an interesting twist: In 3.5 Lycanthrope is a template and it comes in two flavors.

Some are born as Lycanthropes, and can be of any alignment. They get a higher DR, and can infect others when they bite them. We refer to them as "Born Furry".

The other type are the ones who were normal people until they got bitten. Their alignment is forced into the new mold, as spelled out in the template description in the MM. Their DR is usually about half that of the Born Furry types, and they can't spread the "disease". We refer to Lycanthropes of this type as "Once Bitten".

As for the Vanishing World theme: Most of the defined world is defined by the players themselves, so, well, nobody's going to have their own home territory wiped clean as a story premise.

Bigger picture, it isn't a process that can continue through 20 levels of play, which can take over two years of real world campaign time.

 

[Oofta]

Well, I guess that goes to show there are no new ideas in the world. I've run shared campaigns before, but we always did it in a common world.

Bopping between worlds can be handled any number of ways of course. There could be The Tavern of Many Doors where you walk into one and if you go out a different door it goes do another world. The campaign could start out as a simple get hired to do job X on different worlds when you realize that there's a common theme amongst the bad guys. It's the same organization causing trouble on multiple worlds.

There are several directions you could go with that. A race of Githyanki are trying to rebuild their homeworld that is dying. They want to open portals to other worlds to steal their resources. Not world-ending for the target worlds, but not good either. By doing this option at some point you have a dilemma. Simply stop the Gith, causing the extinction of an entire planet? Work with the Gith to find out who the real threat is? Even if you stop the Gith, who's to say that the threat that destroyed their world won't spread to other worlds?

 

[Blue]

The Land, As It Was

The Goddess of Fate, Destiny and Time has been slain. All prophesies are now null and void, there are no more Chosen Ones, and the future is entirey uncharted - but you can't get there. Without time, the lands have frozen. Creatures bring a little bit of their own time with them, and enough creatures together it is can sustain them. So Small settlements, travellers, monsters have frozen, but the bigger cities were able to continue within their borders. Some only until they starved, but others were able to, though magic and hard work, become self-sustaining. Effectively Arcologies. But each cut off, and they are all slowly dying out.

Now they have found a way to create a device that will hold some time, so that groups can go out for a period to find what the cities need. So parties go out into the lands frozen when the Goddess was slain, but the time bubble they need to survive will also bring time to the land that they pass through it. Especially to creatures, who already generate some of their own.

So for the DMs - everything is frozen, but creatures much further away then the PCs can experience can become unfrozen. To fill up their Time receptical there's probably a need to be helpful for cities, be it directly sent on missions or just bringing them a bounty. The cities are somewhat post-apocalyptic archologies, while the land is as-it-was. Is the goal to resurrect the Goddess? Have someone ascend to that position? Break the deadlock of the gods determining who will take that domain? Find a mortal solution?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

It’s that little box in the upper left of your character sheet. If it has a tick mark, you have some to spend.

Wait, that's not what you were asking...

I've always wanted to play a campaign where the border between the Material plane and some other plan was getting frayed/blurred/weakened for some reason. Maybe it's the Feywild and tricksters and other malicious fey are starting reek havoc in the land. Or maybe the fray is not between plane but between the material plane and the deep void of space and strange aberrations and eventually a Void Dragon come through causing weirdness beyond comprehension. Anyway... sorry for lack of detail, but maybe that gets you down a path that you like...

 

[Greenfield]

Well, I guess that goes to show there are no new ideas in the world. I've run shared campaigns before, but we always did it in a common world.

Bopping between worlds can be handled any number of ways of course. There could be The Tavern of Many Doors where you walk into one and if you go out a different door it goes do another world. The campaign could start out as a simple get hired to do job X on different worlds when you realize that there's a common theme amongst the bad guys. It's the same organization causing trouble on multiple worlds.

There are several directions you could go with that. A race of Githyanki are trying to rebuild their homeworld that is dying. They want to open portals to other worlds to steal their resources. Not world-ending for the target worlds, but not good either. By doing this option at some point you have a dilemma. Simply stop the Gith, causing the extinction of an entire planet? Work with the Gith to find out who the real threat is? Even if you stop the Gith, who's to say that the threat that destroyed their world won't spread to other worlds?

This is a shared world. All of the cities/states etc exist on the same map, and all the adventures are supposed to be tied in to the common long term goal.

On your Gith' idea, the Githyanki are notorious for hating everyone.

But let's take a look at another approach. Do you ever read the Guilded Age webcomic? In that story line the Sky Elves live in floating cities built on clouds. They are the most powerful mages in the known world.

What isn't instantly obvious is that a city like that can't have any adjacent farm lands, rivers or roads. No steady food supply and no ready way to trade.

In these stories their Wiz' types conjure up what they need, but they know that such conjured goods and supplies aren't simply created by the magic. They're effectively stolen from somebody else, and at some point that "somebody else" is going to get pished.

Seems like that scenario, where the "bad guys" are approachable, has possibilities.

Premise a serious drought, which hurts farmers and affects food production. Add in the idea that what food there is keeps getting "conjured" away by some unknown force.

It will turn out that a lot of things go "missing" in people's lives. The odd sock, a quill pen, a small tool. In this world they're being conjured away.

Now one aspect of this type of campaign is that the person who frames the original setting doesn't necessarily know who or what is the cause of the problem, nor know the resolution. After all, they'll be players in the game too.

So each DM is free to build on the foundation laid, adding twists and complexities to the tale, and letting the PCs "discover" more about the issue or the "bad guys".

So in this tale, are the bad guys the Sky Elves? Or perhaps Cloud Giants? Maybe Storm Giants? After all, if it rains, clouds get consumed, so somebody has the potential of losing their home. The result is that, in protecting their homes, they're causing a drought down below. The conjurations, which may seem like the big problem may simply be a symptom of it. They've been going on forever, but weren't noticed until there was a shortage.

The only real change to the rules needed to drive it all is that there are few if any Conjuration(Creation) spells. The spells are there but they're now Conjuration(Summoning) type spells.

The speculation about the Sky Elves or various Giants won't be mentioned in the campaign introduction, and may actually have nothing to do with the problem. Some DM along the way might decide it's them, or the game may go in a completely different direction.

Consider, not all of the world is divided into cities and towns, farms and fields and "civilized" races. Some of the "Savage Races" are going to be having problems with the drought as well. They'll need to find food somehow, and that may cause trouble of its own. And, of course, they'll want someone to blame.

So many potential campaign issues to deal with, all from bad weather and a single, small change in the way a particular class of spells work.

Oooohhhh! This has potential. The only problem is that it overlaps somewhat with a previous campaign, one where there was smokey cloud cover over the world, which also affected crops. That may be an idea-killer, but I'll see what my group thinks.

More ideas are welcome of course. Who knows, one of you might decide to try some of these things for your campaigns.