Questions about very "low" level adventures.

[Death_Jester]

Hay Davek,

The direction of the game will be alternately gritty and light hearted. Because the real world is neither one all the time, so there will be good times and bad time for the players. All of the players are old school and very tough to impress that is why I’m trying to do something that will bring the fear and wonder back into running into some very weak monsters.

I like the idea of setting things up for the trip home and introducing the adventurers/heroes before anything happens so the players have some place to run when all hell breaks loose. I really like that.

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Rel,

Thanks for the feedback, as always it is very useful. The campaign will not focus on the kids as characters exclusively. The children’s campaign is not going to be the main focus of the game. It is meant to be only a prelude to the game to come. So the first games will be sort of stand alone moments of the players early teenage years. They will take place about a year apart roughly so the players get a feel for the area they live in without being able to influence anything as of yet. This is a little better then me handing the about 20 pages and saying read this back ground so you can make you characters. It gives the world and the game a little depth I think.

The campaign will eventually come to the point of acquiring loot, it is the forgotten realms after all, but I want to have some clearly defined characters before it gets to that point in the game. So that when we are in the epic levels the players aren’t defined by their items but by their experiences. Sort of a little reverse of the way I have seen it done in the past.

As for rewarding the characters it will come in the form of money and recognition in their little village. They will be the troubleshooters in the village and when people have problems they will come to the players to help them out. Eventually they will be very important in the village and have much local support.

As for Experience that will not exist until they start the apprentice level of gaming. I will be giving them some bonus skill points a few free items but don’t want the players to have to take a level of commoner and have it weight them down when trying to become real first level characters. However the luck point thing is a stroke of genius man. I will give everyone three to begin with and one every adventure and they can keep these as they gain levels but once they start their careers I will stop awarding luck points. How does that seem to everyone? The last thing I need is a 12th level character with a hundred luck points spending them all at once.

The trip to the market will be second to last adventure that the player will be on so they will find their mentors and have some time to train before they run into the demon thing in the forgotten dungeon.

Hope this answers the questions about the campaign if there are any other feel free to drop me a line.

 

[Spatzimaus]

You can avoid the "kiddie game" issue altogether, I was just using it as an example; this is sort of why I mentioned the Scooby analogy. Teenagers would work fine. That way, you don't need to work out any stat penalties for being a child, and it's reasonable that no one would have any money.

I bought the ToEE computer game a few weeks back, and I realized how much fun a low-level campaign could be. Most campaigns I've played started at 3rd or 4th level or higher, just because the AD&D "Wizard with two hit points and a Magic Missile per day" problem was so obnoxious. But in 3E, low levels are great. It was just a strange sensation to be trying to find masterwork weapons.

As for the XP gain, I like the Luck Point idea. In fact, you can use that as a general rule in any campaign; at the cost of 100 XP per level/HD/ECL/whatever, you gain one Luck Point that allows you to re-roll any roll. In your campaign, you could just give the players half as much XP as normal, with the other half automatically going to Luck Points; that'd keep them Commoners for a while. At least until they meet their arch-nemesis, Meepo...

In a campaign I ran when 3E first came out, we came up with all sorts of rules for how people gain their first levels, including the ability to "upgrade" levels (Commoner upgrades to Warrior/Expert/Aristocrat/Adept upgrades to PC classes, and so on). It worked pretty well.

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Spatzimaus,

In the past I have ran a kiddie level game with the point buy system and the players really seemed to like it a lot. Everyone started with 8s in there stats and as time moved on the would receive some points to purchase stats as the players decided that the character had developed during the last year. That is why I want the penalty for being a young character again so that the players are free to grow into adults. Once again it is just a tool to let the players shape their characters before they actually become PC Classes.


The last time I did this I had the players just create a person from a small village. I made sure that they had the understanding that they would not have a character class till later on in the game. So our bard was a shepardess' daughter. Our Mage was a logger's son that loved to read and was very quite. They started out as the equalivant of 1st level commoners with 8 in all stats but they had 6 extra points to put anywhere they wanted per the point by system in the DMG. They were about 13 years old and the very first adventure I had them run into a beholder. The never got close enough to confirm that It was a beholder but they found an old eyestalk and they saw a big globe-like object with snakes writhing around it. This is something they are still talking about as a very good experience. Because the creature never found them and they were smart enough to not provoke it. This is from the same group that are just as jaded as you can get about Dungeons and Dragons. So it made a good impression on them. My point with all this is that the character points were a good thing in the last game not a bad thing. They allowed the players to develop the characters and that is what this little "intro" series of games is all about.

So the player know what to expect from this kind of adventures and are looking forward to it on some level even though they will be very fragile. They like the thrill of being close to the edge for some reason. That really isn't my main concern here what I was needing from the board is some day-in-the-life kind of things to use as adventures hooks. I also would like to get some life changing events in there too to give the players some motivation to break out of their day to day lives and become adventures. It is all about the character development to me as you can see and I hope this is something they will be talking about for a few years to come.

I was thinking of this for a more random method of stat generation. How about everyone starts with 8 in all their stats and then gains 2d6 every game? With the six games I'm planning that would be just a little over averages stats once they reach starting level. They like the idea of building the charcters but they are really tired of the point buy system so they want something random this time. So point buy is RIGHT OUT as a method of building characters. Or I could make it a d6 and a d4? What do you think guys how would you do it?


By the way I would never put my players up against Meepo, they wouldn't stand a chance.

 

[Steverooo]

First of all, if you go ahead with your game as planned, you should expect some PC deaths... If you run the PCs into bandits and kobolds, you should expect them to pick up a rock, stick, or staff, and to enter combat two-handed, wielding them as a club. If they do, they will probably die...

You need to stick to lower-powered, team-building exercizes. LOOK at the PCs, and what skills they have. Try to design situations where one PC, alone, can't handle it, but the TEAM can.

For example, if one PC has Climb (4), a child falling in the well might be good (the DC for climbing an unknotted rope, when you can't press against the wall, is pretty high - 15?). Two can run for help, while the climber climbs down, and someone stays to help winch them up, once he has a grip on the child.

You're going to have to pay special attention to the wizard PC, as he may well have no generally-useful skills... You may have to work Knowledge (Arcana) and/or Spellcraft into the game... Of course, if you start them as Commoners, this won't be a problem.

Another team building episode might be the "see the Bard" idea, where one PC has a Profession or Craft skill, and has to "finish his work" before he can go... and there's just TOO MUCH to do! The other PCs can use the "Aid Another" action to help him finish his chores, and the PC with the skill can use Profession or Craft to "supervise unskilled workers". For every PC who succeeds, the skilled PC gets a cumulative +2 modifier on his roll. If he makes it, they get done, in time. If not, he doesn't get to go...

As for other adventures, here's a list of 70 or so, although this one is geared more towards Sci-Fi, and some may be too hard for neophytes... It will give you some ideas, anyway:

http://anch_stevec.crosswinds.net/5-minute.htm

You'll notice that "Cattle Drive" is one of them!

Also (especially if you have a Ranger in the party) tracking anything lost is a good idea (whether it's Bossy the cow, or Spot, the Widow Rohl's poor pup, or even little Pauline). Once they find it/her, quicksand is a good option to make things tougher without serious risk to the PCs (can they get it/her out, before it/she sinks?).

In general, you're going to have to look at which skills the PCs take in order to figure out what adventures work best to utilize those skills. If no one takes Search, for instance, having lost things isn't such a good idea. If no one can track, missing cows and pets will be tough to find. If no one can Climb or Swim, kids down the well will probably just get a PC drowned, etc.

By the way, in situations where the PCs "die", especially in town, they really shouldn't... The village priest should intervene, and the kid just have pneumonia for the next month, instead. Letting a PC drown because they failed their Swim check while trying to save little Timmy from the well isn't going to come off very well... Better to let the grownups arrive, and someone pull them both out, reviving the "dead" PC.

Just my $2.50.

 

[starwolf]

Well, here's an idea in regards to the older, experienced adventurers.
Why are they in the area?
Maybe, they are returning the body of a fallen comrade-in-arms back to his or her home village.
Maybe, one of the youngsters has never been told of the "black sheep" uncle (or aunt) of the family. The one that was disowned because he (or she) ran off to become an adventurer.
Maybe, one of the youngsters has always wondered why the village elders look askance at him or her.
Maybe, this particular band of adventurers passed through the village before, say about 12 to 16 years before. (How old did you say these youngsters were?)

O.K. so it might have shades of Luke Skywalker and King Arthur, but hey, even cliche's can work out at times.

 

[Death_Jester]

Greetings Steverooo and Starwolf,

Good to hear from you two. Sorry it has taken so long to get back in touch with everyone but NWN has gotten my attention again.

For Steverooo
I hadn't thought of the players trying to fight back when the bandits attack. I might have one of the NPC parents grab them and force them to run away. Or have the children out helping to hunt for food during the evening hours and have them come home to find their loved ones missing and or dead. Thanks again for pointing that out.

The list looks very interesting and I will have to take some time to read it.

As for the team building episodes I will look into it once the players have built their characters and we have a confirmed play list. Something I would like to point out about the Kids game is that everyone will be NPC "commoner class" and have skills based on that. They will be allowed to keep these skills once they become first level "character class" characters. The same will happen with their hit points as well. My little bonus for having survived the stuff I will put them though. So starting off the skill points for my kids game will be (character class base)+int bonus times 2 and then at first level they will get (character class base)+int bonus times 4 but the skill cap will remain the same. Level +3 for class skills and half of the class max skill for cross class skills. That will force them to spread the extra skills out a little more and make diverse characters.

I like the idea of the player not dying but just being very ill while recovery. I am going to use Rel's suggestion about luck points saving their lives but I might make this a side effect of using them to escape damage. It would be like a karmic see saw. For every very lucky action there is a dept that must be paid. That is something to think about. As always if you have any questions or observations about the kids game please feel free to post them and I will answer in a post.




For Starwolf
I like the long lost relatives kind of idea that could be fun to play with have one of the players have a connection the adventuring company. Maybe even have some old enemies come back to haunt the house. That can put a really personal spin on the games. Not to mention a motivation for them to be accepted as apprentices. Thanks for that wonderful bit of information.

 

[mmadsen]

I want to come up with some adventures that 1st level commoners could have before even taking up an adventuring career.

One line of thinking you might want to explore: how would you approach a typical D&D adventure (e.g., Sunless Citadel) if you knew you had no hope of winning any of the potential encounters by force of arms? A typical fairy-tale hero might rely on trickery, magical gifts, and unusual allies. Maybe your young heroes can do the same?

 

[Saeviomagy]

The easiest way to do it is to assume that the characters will fail every roll they try to make, then design a scenario that they can still have some input into, and still succeed at.

IOW - if you have to ask a PC to make a roll, you or they made a mistake.

 

[Death_Jester]

Greetings all,


I will be coming back from time to time in order to post some random thoughts about this little experiment and to keep my ideas straight.

The over all idea for the Adventures before the players have a career is twofold. One is to introduce the players to the setting and the campaign area before anything really gets started. The second is to allow me to set the scene for the up coming conflicts of the main story. So here are my thoughts about the story, as it will develop.

First the house rules about "Luck Points". At the beginning of the first game I will be passing out three poker chips that represent luck points. These points are a reflection of the inherent good will of the universe has for children.
At the beginning of the next six or so games I will be passing out one additional chip that have to be used before the players take up an adventuring career.
These chips are only valid for games before the players take up an adventuring career. Once the characters become 1st level all unspent chips will be turned in to the GM and are gone forever.

These chips will allow the characters to "avoid" situations that would cause their death. For an example

More Later. . .