Questions about very "low" level adventures.

[Death_Jester]

The demon Idea is really just a thing I threw out there for consideration. The full Idea is that the guy they run across is a half-fiend that is been imprisoned for a long time. The time alone has eroded his sanity to the point where he thinks he is the God of death. He even goes so far as to call himself Pale-Horse.

I needed something that could be trapped for a long while and not need to eat. Not only that you can trap a demon with a spell and leave them to be found again later. If you have any other suggestions for a bad guy that you can just leave abandoned some place for a few centuries please let me know, that is other then undead that is. I don't really want to go with the undead this early in the game.

I know what you mean by demons being sort of tired as a villain option but there is just so many good sources books and stuff for them. Heck, they are just as flexible as players anymore and that makes them great options as big bad guys, just because you can do so much fun stuff to make them non-standard. Not only that with the book of Vile Darkness they really have some great henchmen and the like.

For now however I will be focusing on the very low level adventures in order to build a team that will role-play together. Once I build a team and have them invested in each other the game will take on the feeling I want. Then I will unleash the real threats and see if they can weather the storm.

Also if anyone can think of some good team building kind of scenarios please post them here. I really want these characters to like each other and work together rather then just be a group of lone wolf types. I figure that starting the games at such a low level they will have no option but to work together in order to survive but they may need something more.

As before thanks Spatz' and Nifft for the information. I always try to be sensitive to the players’ wishes as one is my wife and another is her best friend and manager. Having two women in your game will make you appreciate how you portray women in gaming situations let me tell you.

So once again any help you can provide would be appreciated.

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Rel,

The secret of salt march is a good module but I no longer own a copy of it. If you could point me to a good conversion for 3.5 it would be appreciated. I think I have the stuff for the haunted house stuff down but I will take a look at because you can never over prepare for what the players will do.




Something I have been thinking about is setting the new campaign in the Forgotten Realms. So it will be a very Epic setting and I don't have the time to dedicate to creating a new campaign setting. I use to have that kind of time and energy but not anymore. So if anyone can think of some realms specific encounters that would be cool too. The players don't necessary have to run across the Zhant's right off but if they meet someone that could possibly be a Harper that would be cool. My knowledge of the realms is limited to the 2nd Ed version of the game and I understand that it has been greatly changed.


I was thinking that one of the elders of the village could get in touch with the harpers or something like that. Start dropping names early so the players can know about the power players in the area. By the way I haven't decided on an area as of yet but perhaps near the wood of sharp teeth.

Thanks for you time.

 

[Rel]

Hello Rel,

The secret of salt march is a good module but I no longer own a copy of it. If you could point me to a good conversion for 3.5 it would be appreciated. I think I have the stuff for the haunted house stuff down but I will take a look at because you can never over prepare for what the players will do.

Here's the Classic Adventure page from the Conversion Library here at ENWorld. It's near the bottom.

http://www.enworld.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewsdownload&sid=4

One note about the setting: I think this is the sort of campaign where you could get away with very little setting info. If you detail the town the kids grew up in, they don't really need to know much about the outside world. I think you could just give very general, vague information like the name of the kingdom, a few bits of prominent local geography and famous place names and let it go at that.

 

[Softwind]

I'd take the view of: what do kids do nowadays, or, what did you remember doing for fun as a kid yourself?

Things that pop into my mind:

Adventures pretending to be someone or something else.
What happens to the kid who pretends to be a wizard, and just happens to fall onto the exact phrase/hand gesture/whatzit to release or capture something good/evil? (Release a nymph, capture a fairy, undo Seal 1 of 4 holding BigBad(tm) captive, etc) Taking it down a notch, someone misinterprets what the kid is doing, and believes the kid hexxed his cow. Can the kid "fix" the issue, or find out just what is causing old Bessie to give green milk?

Construction/destruction of fort or a dam
If the kobolds in the area, not being too smart, see a "fort" being built near town, would they be inclined to let it continue? Taking it down a notch, the teenaged bullies in town don't want the fort built near their fort, and tear it down. How does the fledgling adventurer handle that?
The dam that is built breaks, flooding a nearby field. The farmer is furious, or distraught when his crops are ruined. Can the party pitch in to help, or find someway to make it right?

Discovering the undiscovered
Townkids, having gone on a "journey", being bold adventurers, and enter that forbidden cave/ruins/hole in the ground, haven't come back yet. Adults go looking for them, and find that they are somehow trapped. It's up to the "adventurers" to rescue them, since they are small enough to get to the kids themselves. Up a notch, they themselves are the ones trapped somewhere, with danger fast approaching. Using that rope, a rock, a spluttering candle, and some tree sap (oh, and a dead frog) can they make their escape? And warn the town about the bad guy who just also happens to use that place as a hideout?

 

[Wraith Form]

Things that pop into my mind:
*SNIP*

Your mind = GOOD

I like these ideas!

 

[Davek]

How about a cattle drive?

The characters can be part of a group of villagers taking the cattle to the regional market 'x' days/weeks away.

Along the way they encounter many things such as;
- mundane accidents, illnesses
- strange new geography
- natural/unnatural predators
- small towns with secrets
- fugitives
- natural/unnatural weather
- inter group rivalries/friendships
- trade caravans

and finally the 'Big City'

 

[Rel]

How about a cattle drive?

Neat idea. Don't forget to include one NPC who looks and acts EXACTLY like Jack Palance.

"I crap bigger'n you."

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Softwind and Davek,

Glad to see more people joining the conversations. Always good to have more people taking an interest in what is going on here.

Originally I was only going to do about a four part mini campaign where the commoner children grow up and take it in 2 year increments or something like that till they were starting age but now I have enough information to really do some justice to the low level adventures. I could pull about 6 or 7 games out of what we have discussed here already.

As for the "cattle drive" I was thinking of an adventure where the characters had to accompany the annual harvest to market. This could include cows and pigs and all kinds of other stuff. Along the way they run afoul of bandits/kobolds/goblins (this could tie into the Saltmarsh game later on . . .hummm) that try to take their village's only hope of getting though the winter months to come. In the fight perhaps I would kill off a few of the players family members or something equally traumatic. Sort of give them the whole Batman origin story but in a fantasy setting.


Imagine the scene: There is a fighter type all dressed in black armor with a horned helmet. He/she is holding a smaller green skinned figure over the edge of a cliff. The Green skinned figure looks fearfully at the warrior and says. "Who are you?" The warrior's response though gritted teeth is, "You don't know me? You and your kind made me!"
End Scene

Something else I want to do here is introduce a band of adventurers to the players as possible mentors/heroes. What I was wondering should I kill off one persons family and have the adventuring heroes adopt the character? I might even have the bandits/kobolds/goblins take away one of the players siblings too not necessarily the same one that lost a family member though. The character would spend long nights awake wondering where their sibling was or if they were even alive. If I do, what do you think the "PLAYER's" reaction to that would be? Because if I do kill them it will have to be a vicious and brutal scene for them. Lots of pathos and the like to make the right impression on everyone. I mean if something like that happens in real life it is going to be emotional so I want to tap into only a very small part of that. As I don't want people really crying in my living room but I do want it to have some impact on the players as well as the characters. If you have any suggestions here it would be very helpful. Also I don't have to introduce the adventuring heros at this time I could always just bring them in later on and have them adopt the player's character.

Now you might ask why brutal and vicious? Because bandits/kobolds/goblins are all brutal, vicious creatures in my way of looking at it. They would hit those that look like that would put up a fight first and try to take the fight out of them. That in turn would intimidate the rest of the villagers into compliance. The bandits could be the only exception to this as they may want to continue to use this ambush place from time to time and killing off a bunch of people is sure to bring the local constabulary down on their heads the other two groups would not care that much. Or the bandits could be of the mind set to leave no witnesses.

My Goal with this game:
Overall what I want to do is make a game where the stats are NOT the character. A game where the characters are not defined by how many magical items they have. I would like to see personalities develop before that level of play comes around. The characters should have a deeper motivation to go out into the world of adventuring then to just get stuff. It would do me proud to see a group of very complex characters come out of this with their own specific goals and motivations. All of my players are dedicated role-players and storytellers so there is the rare mix of GM and players all on the same page when it comes to gaming outlook.


So now my long winded typing has come to an end please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. Have a good one guys and gals. See you soon.

 

[Davek]

with newbie characters/players you might want to tone down the brutality/emotion a bit initially, at least until they get the hang of things.

Make your journey to market etc... fairly lengthy, then have an event that cuts off their easy return to their homes (invasion, natural disaster etc...). This gives you a hook for allowing a mentoring group to assist, and will allow you to develop the return scenario (which should be difficult and time consuming) to match the signals your group is giving to you regarding the emotional/gritiness direction they want to go. Then at the end, if the group is ready for it you can have your brutal/traumatic event (if you still want it) or a softer ending (based on what the group is ready for.

P.S. for some reason I was thinking that your group was fairly new to role playing, but rereading the post, I cannot seem to find what made me think that . If you are unsure of how gritty/emotional you group wants to get, however, my suggestion still stands.

 

[Rel]

Death_Jester, I'm liking this campaign idea more and more all the time. I thought of a few other points that I think bear emphasizing:

If you're going to have the "Kids as Characters" thing be the main focus of the campaign rather than a prelude to a more traditional game, you should be very clear and up front about it with the players. This is the sort of game where differences in expectations between the DM and players can be deadly to group cohesion. So long as they're good with the idea in general, I think it can work out great.

You've already mentioned that the campaign won't be about the acquisiton of "loot" (in the traditional sense of the word) and that's as it should be of course. But the characters need to be rewarded somehow and I suggest that you use detail to your best advantage. Let one of the characters find a dagger. But it isn't just a dagger, it has some wispy runes carved on the blade that might be written in Elvish! And the quillons are carved to look like vines and the pommel looks like a rosebud. And when they take it to wise Old Man Wivring, the village elder, he tells them that the writing IS in Elvish and says that the blade is named "Rose's Thorn"! How exciting is that?! For a kid, very exciting. Hopefully the players will be able to be excited about that sort of thing too.

It also seems that you are going to have to MASSIVELY reduce the amount of XP you give out as well as the treasure. If not then you'll soon have 4th or 5th level 9 year olds running around. I doubt you'll have a problem convincing the players of this necessity because they should understand that "finding Mrs. Jones' lost puppy" will garner you less XP than "defeating the goblin raiders". Since they aren't going to be getting much in the way of XP rewards, they are not going to be getting better at what they do. Think a lot about this.

If the party is going to stay at a static and low level of ability, they have got VERY LITTLE margin for error. When everybody in the party has, at best, 4 hit points (not to mention little or no healing magic and probably very little skill at Healing), it's very easy to get killed, even on the sorts of low risk adventures you're talking about. If you are not fudging for the party on a regular basis, some of them are eventually going to get killed.

Given that their treasure is going to be meager (if interesting and detailed) and they're going to be rewarded with little in the way of XP, I suggest an alternate reward system: Luck. They say that the Lord watches over drunks, fools and children and they'll fall into one or more of those categories at all times. Call it "Karma" or "Fate" or whatever you like, but reward them with the ability to avoid bad luck. Maybe give them a couple of "Luck points" each session that they can accumulate as the campaign goes on. Then they can spend these to alter dice rolls that might otherwise end their young lives.

I'd suggest getting a cheap pack of poker chips or those marbles that are flat on one side (you can buy these at the craft store by the hundreds for very little money). At the start or end of each session, reward them to the players in lieu of much of the XP they would have gotten. Reward more of them for exceptional roleplaying or heroic deeds or whatever you like. Then when the lone goblin attacking them with a club rolls two natural 20's in a row, they can spend a chip to avoid the cruel hand of Fate.

I think your ideas for the adventuring party that takes some of the kids under their wing are great. I'd wait a couple of sessions before I introduced them though. Have the first couple sessions be very light-hearted, kid stuff types of adventures. Then maybe let the party get involved in something a bit over their heads but when it looks like they're going to get squashed, the adventurers come in and save the day (note: I usually try and avoid this type of deus ex machina but in this case I'd make an exception so long as it doesn't happen too often).

That's when the adventurers display their various personality types. Maybe the Wizard delights in an audience for his Prestidigitation parlor tricks. Perhaps the Paladin gives the kids a stern lecture about obeying their parents but also says that he admires that they were willing to engage in heroic deeds. The Rogue might tell one o f the kids that he reminds him of himself when he was younger and teach him a few moves with the dagger that might bail him out of a scrape someday. The Cleric may fear for the children's lives should they get in danger again and slip the one he deems most responsible a Cure Light Wounds potion. Tons of possibilites there.

As for the ideas of killing or kidnapping family members, I think you should base that decision on the tone you are seeking in the campaign. If you want things grim and gritty with an edge of desperation, whack the relatives whenever you feel like. If you're looking for something a little more light-hearted, steer clear of that. If your players are as into roleplaying as you say they are, they'll take such losses seriously.

I hope some of that was helpful.