Looking for some "open" campaign ideas...

[weem]

After a 6 month hiatus from DM'ing (or playing for that matter) I am preparing to put together a campaign that I hope to start soon. It will be a fantasy setting, though I am not yet 100% sure which system I will be using (and it doesn't matter for this discussion anyway).

One of the reasons there has been such a long period of downtime is having to accommodate schedules of the primary players of previous campaigns. My campaigns generally require that all players be present - so much so that if one can't make it, we skip that night.

This is where the "Open" part comes in.

Now, when I think open, I tend to think "sandbox", but in this case it instead relates to the idea that in this campaign I would like to allow for players to come and go - show up one night and not the next, etc - without having to cancel the game in their absence. Essentially...

Goal = A campaign where new players can come into story easily, and previous players can skip a game when needed without major disruptions in either case.

I have had a few ideas...

A) The story primarily takes place in a small town at the edge of the known world. Game nights tend to focus on moving out and exploring various areas, but ending the night (or trying to end the night) back in town. This way, every time we start, we are back in town - an easy place for players to come and go.

B) A city battling a secret underground war against dark forces - it's primary weapon a growing team of elite defenders who are tasked with taking on these forces. The team regularly brings in new blood, testing them and putting them to work against this enemy.

C) A combination of "A" and "B".


In both cases, the campaign would be played in a very episodic fashion from night to night. This would (much more easily) allow us to play regardless of who could/couldn't make it, etc.

None of this is anything new, but I was looking for some ideas. Any advice is welcome, but primarily the purpose of this post is to gather some ideas of what you think would be fun. Specifically...

1) Do either (or both) of those ideas above sound good?

2) Regardless of the answer to #1, can you think of other ideas that would be fun? These two have been stuck in my head a while and I think they are preventing me from thinking of anything else that might be cool.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Two ways I would go.

• City campigan - where the city is vast and has a the hook that it is built on ruins of other cities. The players are urban explorers, they hear of areas being opened up and then go adventuring, not realing every time an area is opened, they are also breaking seals. Side adventures are families that lay claim to that below them, to other raiders for the same areas.
  
• Base Camp - this is a town that is just getting started in a "new place". Beyond is field of ruins as far as the eye can see. Make the base camp town on a small island for safty. Sort of like Skull island in King Kong.

 

[Gilladian]

Dungeoneering under a large city is certainly very feasible in this sort of campaign. Maybe a standard adventurer's guild sort of thing would work, where teams are put together for various missions; each week a new team is assembled and plunges into the dungeon with a set mission/goal.

A thieves' guild campaign also works well for "missions". Each week a new task or job is assigned. Maybe one week it is pickpocketing in the market, or collecting "dues" from the local merchants; another week it could be planning and carrying out a robbery on a fixed location.

A large traveling caravan of merchants, where the PCs are scouts, guards and passengers, is also good. I did this where the group traveling was actually a whole small city of refugees fleeing across a war-torn kingdom. they'd been cut off from the rest of the kingdom for nearly a year during a siege, and really had no idea any more what was out there; they just knew they had few of their own resources left.

 

[Rel]

What about a nautical (or possibly Spelljammer-esque) type of campaign where the PC's are the crew of a ship?

They sail around the (wherever) doing deeds heroic or piratical. You can sub people out by virtue of having them fade into the background for that episode and having other crewmen step to the fore.

I've often thought that this is how I might run a potential Star Trek or Firefly type of game. Where the spotlight can shift from one set of characters to another for each episode.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Either of those ideas sounds to me like it would work well.

Another option is that the PCs are Dreamers exploring the World of Dreams. Whereas most people merely touch the Plane of Dreams as they slumber, the PCs are able to enter it fully (in the astral form sense). The PCs might or might not be heroes in the real world and they might not even be from the same physical location in the real world. A possible plot point could be that people all over the world are experiencing the same nightmare and the PCs must discover why. Events in the Dream World could also have repercussions in the real world (and vice versa).

The PCs might not have perfect control over their Dreaming abilities, so a PC in media res might awaken suddenly in the real world (if the player needs to leave early) or be unable to enter the Dream that night (if the player can't make it). If you need an explanation for why the PCs tend to appear in the same area of the Dream, you could say that it's due to the gravity of shared destiny.

 

[weem]

Thanks for the responses so far!

Two ways I would go.

• City campigan - where the city is vast and has a the hook that it is built on ruins of other cities. The players are urban explorers, they hear of areas being opened up and then go adventuring, not realing every time an area is opened, they are also breaking seals. Side adventures are families that lay claim to that below them, to other raiders for the same areas.
  
• Base Camp - this is a town that is just getting started in a "new place". Beyond is field of ruins as far as the eye can see. Make the base camp town on a small island for safty. Sort of like Skull island in King Kong.

The great thing about this idea is that I already have a city that fits this description in my homebrew world. I also dig the idea of the base camp. Isn't there a mod for 4e that is similar to this - focused on exploring the ruins of an entire city? Might get some ideas from that as well.

A thieves' guild campaign also works well for "missions". Each week a new task or job is assigned. Maybe one week it is pickpocketing in the market, or collecting "dues" from the local merchants; another week it could be planning and carrying out a robbery on a fixed location.

A large traveling caravan of merchants, where the PCs are scouts, guards and passengers, is also good. I did this where the group traveling was actually a whole small city of refugees fleeing across a war-torn kingdom. they'd been cut off from the rest of the kingdom for nearly a year during a siege, and really had no idea any more what was out there; they just knew they had few of their own resources left.

I dig the thieves guid idea. Let's you mix up the missions, as you have mentioned - get some variety in. Plus I have always loved said guilds, hehe. The caravan idea is great as well - I have always been fond of the traveling aspect as it allows you to present your entire world/large kingdom/etc to the players - especially in a world that is new to them.

What about a nautical (or possibly Spelljammer-esque) type of campaign where the PC's are the crew of a ship?

They sail around the (wherever) doing deeds heroic or piratical. You can sub people out by virtue of having them fade into the background for that episode and having other crewmen step to the fore.

I've often thought that this is how I might run a potential Star Trek or Firefly type of game. Where the spotlight can shift from one set of characters to another for each episode.

Yea, I did a little bit of this in my previous campaign - players were on a large airship. There was a large story arc they were a part of (the ship was heading to a temple that was going to take some time to get to) as well as smaller stories they could explore day to day.

Funny you should mention Firefly as well - we have been playing in a Serenity RPG campaign with our own ship! The airship idea is still kicking around in my head as a potential idea, I would just need to do something different with it as the players have done that with me semi-recently (and some of them played in the Serenity game).

Another option is that the PCs are Dreamers exploring the World of Dreams. Whereas most people merely touch the Plane of Dreams as they slumber, the PCs are able to enter it fully (in the astral form sense). The PCs might or might not be heroes in the real world and they might not even be from the same physical location in the real world. A possible plot point could be that people all over the world are experiencing the same nightmare and the PCs must discover why. Events in the Dream World could also have repercussions in the real world (and vice versa).

The PCs might not have perfect control over their Dreaming abilities, so a PC in media res might awaken suddenly in the real world (if the player needs to leave early) or be unable to enter the Dream that night (if the player can't make it). If you need an explanation for why the PCs tend to appear in the same area of the Dream, you could say that it's due to the gravity of shared destiny.

Interesting. There are a number of places this could go (come from). Maybe there is a group who has the power to get it's members into this dream world in such a fashion that they have more control over their actions there than anyone else. This way, even when they are not in the dream world, I can explain why they are together. Maybe there are even residual effects for interacting with the dream world in this way that carry over to the real world.

 

[Scott DeWar]

i am a little pressed for time to have read all of the posts above, but ai saw a base camp mentioned. Here is an idea that works off the same principle.

1) Kingmaker rules for exploration. You set what is on the grid for expected encounters. it is used in all three (if not more) of d and d, so I am not trying to start any edition war here.

2) if you have a first edition DMG you will find in it a table of randome terrain. it works quite well with the Kingmaker rules. It also may be in the OSRIC srd.

3) in the base camp/town there would be an Inn with a table that has carved in the terrain map of the surrounding area. Maybe start with the town hex and all hexes touching it. When ever you have a g4roup going out to fight the great evil, they always have this map of wood that can be refered too by any group going out.

3a) alternately, the duke of this area that has hired them has a room or rooms set aside for the group one of which is a map room with a cartographer as part of the duke's personell to keep the map updated.

I am sorry if womeone has already mentioned any of this, but like I said, I need to get out of the door!

 

[weem]

i am a little pressed for time to have read all of the posts above, but ai saw a base camp mentioned. Here is an idea that works off the same principle.

1) Kingmaker rules for exploration. You set what is on the grid for expected encounters. it is used in all three (if not more) of d and d, so I am not trying to start any edition war here.

2) if you have a first edition DMG you will find in it a table of randome terrain. it works quite well with the Kingmaker rules. It also may be in the OSRIC srd.

3) in the base camp/town there would be an Inn with a table that has carved in the terrain map of the surrounding area. Maybe start with the town hex and all hexes touching it. When ever you have a g4roup going out to fight the great evil, they always have this map of wood that can be refered too by any group going out.

3a) alternately, the duke of this area that has hired them has a room or rooms set aside for the group one of which is a map room with a cartographer as part of the duke's personell to keep the map updated.

I am sorry if womeone has already mentioned any of this, but like I said, I need to get out of the door!

Thanks for stopping in! (would XP you, but I have recently already).

No one mentioned this one specifically, but it is what inspired me to consider the town at the edge of the known world as an idea. Have one location everyone operates out of etc - it's perfect for what I am looking for, though perhaps without the hex-ploration as my players aren't so much into that (rather, exploration of ruins, abandoned towers, and things down at that level being what they prefer). Those can be worked into a hex-to-hex style setting, but that's a little more sandbox'y than my players would like.

Thanks again Scott!

 

[Rel]

Another possibility would be to have the PC's start off as part of a mercenary company that has been hired to "keep the peace" in some newly conquered city. And of course with the regime change there are all kinds of power grabs, great and small, going on as well as possible counter attack by the defeated country or even a third party (like a different nation or group of monsters or whatever). This way each session can be about assembling a "team" to handle whatever problem has cropped up.

As the campaign unfolds if you want to have the PC's be a bit more self directed then you can have some of them promoted to officers and assigned their own group of mercs to similarly hold onto another town that has been conquered.

The benefit to this setup in my mind is that you have already built in a way to have things progress once you feel like the PC's need a change of scenery.

 

[amerigoV]

I've done this recently for an Olde Skoole game (running Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk). It mostly is an on-line gig.

Here is what I did:

• Continuity does not matter Once you free your mind of this hobgoblin, gaming gets tons better. Players and PCs come and go, but the adventure goes on. In the dungeons, I just explain it as "its Castle Greyhawk, there are tons of Teleport traps that zaps PCs in and out." My rule is if there player is not there, the PC is not there.
• Put the players in charge of the group My job is to run the adventure. Its the PLAYERs job to make sure they have enough and the right PCs to get the job done. I allow them to have some Extras (this is Savage Worlds, think 4e minions) to help when there are only a couple of players.
  

The combo of the two opens up so much more gaming opportunities. I tell the players my schedule, they group then picks the gaming time that fits ("I'm doing prep - you lazy bast_rds figure out when we are playing!"). If they are lacking a party resource, its their job to recruit another player/PC to fill the hole. If I want to run a holiday special, I just run it and hand wave when it occured.

Eventually the story gets told. I do make them take a log every time or no XP and loot. I let the player that likes to write figure out how to stitch together the final story.