Single class campaign anyone?

[rich_f]

We did this once, and it was fun. We were all clerics out on a quest to recover a religious artifact. sort of a mini-crusade. There were differeing factions within the "church", each sending out their own crusading bands, and there was a sense of competition between them, which added a nice touch of suspense. The campaing ended before we obtained the artifact, but like most things, it was about the journey, not the destination.

Next weekend, a new campaign is starting. All of the players have agreed to dual-class (it's 1E) and cleric must be one of the classes.

 

[Seule]

I ran a one-shot once where all of the characters had at least half of their levels as Rogue. It made for some pretty astonishing sneak attacks when the straight Rogue and the Rogue-Barbarian would flank something. The concept was that they were all circus performers, so there was the rogue-druid (animal tamer), the rogue-barbarian (strongman), the rogue (acrobat), the rogue-fighter (knife-thrower), the rogue-illusionist (special effects and magician) and so on.

--Seule

 

[BluWolf]

I have done it twice.

Once, along time ago, it was an all "warrior" campaign. All PCs could only choose fighter, ranger or barbarian. It was a militaritic/mercenary campaign. Whent well but required much potion consumption and guest appreances from NPC priests pretty often.

The second one was a city based campaign geared towads new recruits in a thieves guild. It was a 3E campaign that started at 3rd. Only stipulation was all PCs had to have atleast 1 level in rogue and thier background had to be geared towards a very strong interest in the city (ie, no leaving when things get rough).

The thieves guild campaign actually worked a little better than the fighter one. We did a lot of play-by-email between sessions because just about everyone in the group had hidden agendas. Much fun for me as the GM because I usually had so many plot hooks and twists provided from the players themselves that I spent most of my time just creating NPCs. Would do this one again in a second with the right group.

 

[Crothian]

As a question to any that have given deep thought to, or actually run, a single class campaign, how would you handle the leadership feat and gaining a cohort?

This happend in my all rogue one. The way I do cohorts is an NPC becomes the characters cohort, I don't have some strenger new to the characters appear to fill that role. We had two people take leadership one cohort was an intellectual rogue, the other was a sorcerer. I didn't limit the class of the cohort, we just used who made sense in the context of the game.

 

[smetzger]

I am currently DMing a group through RttToEE. I required everyone to have at least one level of Cleric, Paladin, or Druid and started everyone at 5th level. All belonging to the same church.

I ended up with a party of 2 straight Paladin's, a straight Cleric, and a straight Druid.

So far its working out pretty good.

 

[JPL]

It's an idea which has haunted me for years:

All bards.

The adventures of the Hardest Working Band in Sigil.

An emphasis on the sheer weirdness of the City of Doors and the Great Wheel.

Inspired by Max Redo, the Modal Nodes, and my own experiences playing sax in an R&B band for fifty dollars a night...

 

[darklight]

JPL said:

Inspired by Max Redo, the Modal Nodes, and my own experiences playing sax in an R&B band for fifty dollars a night...

Ahhh...nothing like drawing on personal experince

Such a campaign could actually be a lot of fun, though probably of the tongue-in-cheek kind of fun.

Good luck if you ever try it!

darklight

 

[Buttercup]

I haven't done this, but I've dreamed of it. What I'd really like to do would be an all-wizard game. It would be horribly tough for the first few levels; in fact, I'm not sure how they would manage to survive. But once they reached about level 4, I think things would start to get interesting.

 

[Agamon]

I ran an all-wizard game once a long time ago. Let's just say it didn't go well and leave it at that.

It wasn't class-specific, but I did run a successful all-dwarf campaign once. 6 of the PCs were dwarves, one was human. It was 2E, so the classes were obviously limited.

One of my players wants to play an all paladin game, but none of the other players thinks it's a good idea. He also has this notion that they should aquire Leadership at 6th level and build a virtual army. I'm none too fond of that idea, either...

 

[darklight]

Agamon said:

I ran an all-wizard game once a long time ago. Let's just say it didn't go well and leave it at that.

It wasn't class-specific, but I did run a successful all-dwarf campaign once. 6 of the PCs were dwarves, one was human. It was 2E, so the classes were obviously limited.

One of my players wants to play an all paladin game, but none of the other players thinks it's a good idea. He also has this notion that they should aquire Leadership at 6th level and build a virtual army. I'm none too fond of that idea, either...

It would be interesting to know why it didn't go well, though.

A race specific campaign could also be thematically very strong, a dwarf campaign sounds interesting. The atmosphere could get all Grumpy Old Men which could be hilarious, though it might become too much, eventually.

All paladin - hmmm not too sure about that one...
The whole 'lets build an army' situation could actually make for some very differently flavoured adventures, just make sure the army wouldn't steal the spotlight every time. I do think it is valid to gain political power, as well as personal power, as you gain levels so this would be realistic and provide for a different adventure experience. In fact, the player might feel hampered if you do not let them build that army, and disgruntled players are never good, so I'd think about it...

Just my kr. 0.02 (Danish Kroner, that is

darklight