Quick Little Campaign Ideas

[Breakstone]

So now that I'm a player instead of a DM, I find I have a lot more time to come up with campaign ideas.

Ironic, eh?

Anyways, I need some sort of output for all these ideas in my head, so I figured I'd start a thread for Quick Little Campaign Ideas... campaign premises of a paragraph length. Here we go:

1) Mixing Mecha Crusade with Kaiju (from Dragon Magazine): The characters would be part of a government Mecha program, fighting the monsters from Monster Island, battling creations of Mad Scientists, and duking it out with Evil Communist Nazi Robots. At lower levels, characters would be solving small, suburban cases (Boogeymen, mad scientists, baby monsters). At mid levels, the characters would get their Mechas and start helping out in battles. At high levels, they'd be the main Mecha pilots, fighting the Kaiju Carrion Crawlers and Machiavelibots over huge city landscapes. Added ingredients would be government conspiracies, harsh politics, and the celebrity of being a Mecha Crusader.

2) The Lost Treasure of Captain Carcasse: A light-hearted D&D swashbuckling campaign. The characters are pulled together by an old dying mentor and given the unique map of the 50 treasures of the Pirate Captain Carcasse. At low levels, they'd have to earn money to charter ships to get to the islands. At mid levels, they'd discover that other adventurers have copies of this "unique" map. At high levels, they'd find out that the "Old Mentor" is actually a wizard in a guild that discovered immortality... and is now completely bored. They set up the adventurers in a rat-race-style treasure hunt. Time for revenge!

3) Exploring a New Planet... Earth! D&D, heavy wilderness/exploration. The characters start out on the moon, where all of civilization is. However, once a month the Dragon Ships take pilgrims to Earth, the strange planet full of deadly forests, harsh deserts, and strange monsters. As the characters explore the odd environments of Earth, they discover deep dungeons filled with perfectly cubic rooms, amazing ancient metal artifacts, and the fact that this is actual our post-apocoliptic world... in the future! Perks: Mutant animals are D&D Monsters. Radiation mages. Being a wild frontiersman!

So those are the campaigns I've been cooking up recently.. how about you? Any Quick Little Campaign Ideas in your head?

 

[Zappo]

4) Ascension. A heavy-roleplaying campaign set on Mount Celestia; the PCs' goal is to reach the highest layer of the plane, but to do so they have to each choose and follow a path of virtue and enlightenment. As they come closer to spiritual perfection, they can climb higher.

5) Thieves guild. All PCs are members of a large thieves guild (they don't need to all have the rogue class) and the campaign centers around daring thefts, escaping the law, and dealing with rival criminal powers.

6) Cthulhupunk. In your typical cyberpunk world, virtual reality and neural interfaces allow you to visit cyberspace. But cyberspace isn't just mathemathics and the wasted time of geeks; it can actually touch other dimensions where alien gods rule...

7) DooM. In a near-future setting, the characters work on the first large, manned scientific research station on the Moon. An experiment which could allow faster-than-light travel instead opens a gate from which "alien" hordes pour through. Soon it becomes evident that the gate actually leads to Hell itself...

 

[Piratecat]

8. Politics of Gith. The mindflayers are overthrown, Gith is ascendant and you're part of her inner circle. Now the politics of what to do next have begun, and the race is threatening to split itself in two if you can't do something to stop it. . .

 

[Death_Jester]

Do I dare add my thoughts to such great minds? Awwww. . . what the heck!
Here is my .02$

9) Dragon Kin campaign, the players are children of dragons and they are contacted by their parents to lead a new "golden age" of dragon kind across the world. At low levels they will be spies in the courts of the humans finding out weaknesses and exploitable traits. At the mid levels the players will have to raise the armies of the dragons to take on the rest of the world. High levels would be the actual war with the other races.

10) Retro Dungeon campaign, the players start off very high level and are facing off with their arch nemesis. A poorly worded wish removes them from harm but strips them of all their levels and possessions. They now have to get the levels back in order to face the arch nemesis again and learn from their mistakes. At low levels the players will be on the run from the bad guy and trying to hold onto what they had built before the wish. Mid levels would be regaining what was lost in and building a new coalition to take on the bad guys forces. The upper levels would be confronting the henchmen and the nemesis himself. (A friend actually ran this and I want to take his idea and do it some day.)

11) Supers in a Fantasy world. The players are all touched by a great event that covers the land. They awake with powers that until recently only mages had. They can fly and shoot beams of energy out of various parts of their bodies. Low level would be fighting other supers in the area and finding about who is behind their power. Mid levels would be seeing a plot unfolding as the people responsible for the event begin to show their hand by organizing some of the more powerful supers into teams. High levels would consist of the players trying to over the masterminds. Leading to the discovery of where the powers come from and making the decision to give up the powers or keep the powers and become like the creatures that bestowed the powers.
(Been wanting to do this since I heard about mutants and masterminds came out.)

 

[Beard in the Sky]

12. Inheritence - The PCs are followers of a powerful adventuring party who controls a small kingdom. One day, their masters don't return from a mission... who is going to run the kingdom now?

 

[Kazuel]

13 Nature's Revolt - The druids of the world have faught back against the inbalance and have bolstered the wild. Creatures long since though extinct now roam the forests and plains. It's a harsh world where survival outside the protection of forts and cities can be messured in heart beats. The PCs are charged with the mission of stopping the druids in a dark gritty fight for survival.

 

[demiurge1138]

14. Welcome to Hell. The party finds themselves stranded, one way or another, on one of the Lower Planes, and now needs to find a way to get off alive. A dark and violent campaign, with the potential for heavy role-playing and/or a lot of combat.

15. CSI: Waterdeep. My apologies to whoever it is on these boards who's actual campaign this is. The party is a detective agency, either freelance or working for city officials, solving crimes in the big city. Since high magic allows for discern lies and other measures, the criminals have to be very clever indeed...

16. Something Wicked This Way Comes. The quiet struggle between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of the Fey erupts into a full-on civil war, engulfing the Prime world the players call home. Especially good if the fey flavors of some PC races, like elves and gnomes, is emphasized.

17. Iron Chef! The party hunts for rare ingredients (sometimes even monster parts) and hopes to prepare the best dishes to cater to the whims of a culinary-obsessed monarch. OK, so this is a little out there.

Demiurge out.

 

[Breakstone]

These are awesome!

I'd love to hear more!

 

[Zappo]

18) Dawn of Magic. Take a typical sci-fi campaign. The characters land on a newly-discovered planet, and find that it is populated by a medieval-level humanoid race, and the natives can do "things" that are very, very real, but science can't explain (I've been playing Albion recently )

19) Dawn of Technology. As above, from the PoV of the newly discovered spellcasters.

 

[demiurge1138]

20. Mysterious Mysteries. A slightly tongue-in-cheek d20 Modern camapign. The players are the cast and crew of a paranormal investigation TV show, but hte phenomena tend more often than not to be real...

21. Prehistory. Set in a world before man, the dominant races are kobolds, lizardfolk, trogs and other reptilian species. The land and its people are often savage, and dragons are still more common than most people would like.

Demiurge out.