New Campaign Ideas

[Thaumaturge]

1. Check out the campaign setting I've been blogging at ageofshambles.com. The high level summary is that at the end of the last Age, powerful entities raised monstrously large golems that roam the earth destroying everything they trod upon. The only place left for civilization to flee was to the backs of the golems themselves.

2. Or it might be interesting to take the Grecko/Roman campaign and fast forward it to a Dark Ages style game. Your characters could be descendants of the original characters.

3. If you're into the historical thing, play characters in the Ming Dynasty who are trying to protect sacred treasure imperialists. Demonic forces have allied with the Europeans, and what at first looks like simple trade expansion can become something much more sinister. The Ming Dynasty ended when they were considered to have lost the "Mandate of Heaven"; maybe the characters become the physical manifestation of that mandate.

Thaumaturge.

 

[rgard]

I always wanted to run/play in:

1. Conan. I'd use the 3.5 (before Mongoose) version... http://old.enworld.org/Inzeladun/conan.htm

2. Thieves' World. Great setting.

3. Similar to Thieves' World, a city campaign, but everyone has to start out as a rogue (belonging to the same street gang) for at least 2 levels then can multi-class to whatever or stay rogues.

4. Similar to 2 & 3 above, but the characters are rogues & fighters in a crime family in a city. Medieval Sopranos.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

b) A campaign set on a world which is not spherical/solid, but perhaps set in the clouds of a gas giant/elemental plane of air with gliders, balloons, flying steads, and so forth. Islands of rock, floating spherical trees, gardens of gasbag plants, etc.

If you ever do want to go for that, check out Larry Niven's Integral Trees stuff.

c) Steampunk-magitech campaign riffing off of 19th century the way I usually riff off of earlier centuries. Similar perhaps to DA's Vernian/Wellsian campaign, though possibly as more Steampunk meets Ghostbusters meets Call of Cthulhu with the goal to prevent an invasion of the world from beings from the far realms. Probably would ban cleric for this one.

Straight up Lovecraftian Steampunk could be pretty cool, magitech vs incursions from unreality...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

2. Thieves' World. Great setting.

Some help:

http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/44004/thieves-world

www.amazon.com/Thieves-World-Players-Manual-Roleplaying/dp/1932442472

 

[Greenfield]

A little mind-fodder regarding Round Robin campaigns...

Each player writes up their character, *AND* the city or country they come from.

When it's my turn to DM, the adventure finds itself leading to my lands, for whatever reason. My character goes into hiding, or off to visit family, or whatever, and is an NPC while I DM.

I'm free to do whatever I like to my character's home territory. I can kill the King, turn the place into a pool of molten lava, and/or screw with the territory as I see fit. Because nobody else runs games there, nothing I do can screw up the plans of other player/DMs as they get their adventures ready.

We might get permission from another player/DM to include/involve key people or places from their lands, but as a general rule we don't

Unclaimed areas of the map are open for use and abuse by anyone.

When the group finishes my story arc, the clues/trail/adventure leads them to another DM's land. My character rejoins the party, usually with a bit of a tale to tell of what he/she did while out in the cold hard world alone. In short, my character did something on their summer vacation that earned them EXP and treasure similar to what the party earned. That way DMing isn't an advancement penalty.

So, with this thought in mind, having everyone part of the same guild, or from the same home town, or the same anyplace doesn't work very well.

As for the setting: We establish our house rules, in terms of books allowed, and perhaps some adjustments to some spells. We agree on the over all quest, the goal we're working together to achieve. This may give a framework for the game world itself, it may not. The fine details of the world are a collaboration, the sum of all its parts, with the parts being designed by the players.

Our "Lost Secrets" campaign, for example, had the odd interpersonal dynamic that the PCs were not traveling together because we were such good friends. We were representatives of our various lands, sent by some authority figure or group to participate in the great quest to rediscover the secrets of the ancients. Many of those lands had histories of mistrust or out and out warfare with each other. We were sent, not because we liked and trusted each other, but because we didn't. The Paladin from Teveron and the Wizard from the Windward Isles were natural enemies. Each was there to make sure any secrets learned would be shared equally, and not hoarded by the other. Whichever nation learned how to make flying ships or magic swords would have a huge military advantage over the other. Unless, both got equal access to the knowledge. Failure to share could lead to war.

It made for a very different style of game.

 

[hbarsquared]

Midnight

 

[Herobizkit]

All PC's are animals. Not furries, not hengeyokai, not werewolves, not necessarily Druids... (though each PC being part-animal could be interesting in and of itself)

Depending on what wildlife exists in you forest/marsh/jungle/desert... PCs are limited to animal bodies in an animal "Jungle Book" society.

 

[Celebrim]

A little mind-fodder regarding Round Robin campaigns...

Each player writes up their character, *AND* the city or country they come from.

This is not a big deal.

In my 1st age dark age campaign, each character is the chieftain of a different tribe of the elves that stayed behind.

In my campaign without ground, each character hails from a different floating ecosystem - a city on the back of a giant airwhale, city in a floating tree, collection of floating islands, nomadic gasplant herders, etc.

In the Steampunk campaign, each character comes from a different district of a large metropolis.

In the Underdark campaign, each character is a merchant/trader/scout from a different tribe or faction. You meet up regularly in the tunnels to trade resources, and find yourself temporarily united against a common enemy - mindflayers, drow, invading humans, whatever

Personally, the only idea of mine that I'd toss out of this based on the new stipulation is the stone age game, which for me works better if you are all members of the same tribal band.

So, some more ideas:

1) Everyone is an expert. Each of you starts as a 3rd level character, with no more than 1 level in a PC class. Each character plays the head of a wealthy merchant house in a small medieval Italian style city state. Everyone designs there own house and is allocated a certain amount of resources Pathfinder campaign guide style that represents their starting wealth, income, influence, retainers, hirelings, etc. Everyone creates their own family, scheming relatives, loyal and disloyal servants, family motto, coat of arms, tropes, and so forth. You can do this in the real world or in a fantasy world, your choice. If the real world, the houses are descendants of the characters in the Rome game. The essence of the game is everyone's house is basically a criminal organization and collectively the government of the ruling oligarchy. You must navigate your way through various houses domestic disputes, assassination plots by family members, arranged marriages, costume balls, alliances, threats by larger cities, trade disputes, and so forth. You might want to also assign each person to create one nearby city or town as being that person's 'foil' city, where they are free to create grand collective challenges - plagues, invasions, religious conspiracies, whatever. Fantasy elements to taste.

2) Ravenloft: Everyone creates 1 PC and 1 Dark Lord with a domain which is adjacent to at least 2 other player's domains. Each PC is an inhabitant who is secretly disloyal to realms Dark Lord. The PC's are part of a secret order fighting the Dark Lords. Any one can do anything related to his Dark Lord (the PC may not realize who the real dark lord is, the dark lord may know he's disloyal, etc.), provided they don't undermine the entire secret order. Canonical Dark Lords and domains may or may not exist to taste. Ultimate goal is to defeat every player's Dark Lord (in no particular order, presumably everyone isn't so ego motivated as to all create 20th level NPC's as dark lords). Whenever someone's dark lord is put out of play, you can always set things in new domains.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Are you looking for something vaguely inspired by the real world for the setting? What about a golden age of piracy setting in the Caribbean? Each DM could have their own set of islands they control. Ship to ship combat may need some tweaking but just be sure to remind your players of the MANY reasons why you don't want to send your opponent's boat to the blimey deeps.

Another idea of a game I've always wanted to run is something based off of Metro 2033. The surface is inhospitable. The goodly races are living in the remains of the dwarven mines (The Metro) and are struggling to survive. What horrors from above and below seek to destroy what's left of this civilization? I don't know if that will work with your round robin style, unless you give each DM so many camps to control.

As for a middle earth setting, I think this says a lot:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1004

 

[Starfox]

Are you looking for something vaguely inspired by the real world for the setting? What about a golden age of piracy setting in the Caribbean? Each DM could have their own set of islands they control.

I'd give each player a colonial (or possibly native) power to control. Specific islands can change hands, but the dutch are always played by XXX and the french by YYY.