Tell me about you 4th ed campaigns..

[Piratecat]

I'm running two 4e campaigns, one with six players (3 male, 3 female) and one with five players (4 male, 1 female.) No players overlap. Both campaigns are set in the same world, that of a corrupt and dying Roman-like empire.

One campaign is set in the capital city and (primarily) a lost jungle continent. The PCs are agents of a noble house who imports spices. They will get tied up in political intrigue and jungle exploring.

The other campaign is set in the northern end of the empire, where countries are considering rebelling and splitting off. The PCs are members of the Grey Guard, an apolitical organization (similar to GRRM's Night Watch) whose job is to keep the empire's citizens safe from monsters.

So far, both are ridiculously fun.

 

[malraux]

In my group, we started with KotS just to learn the system. From there, I've adapted Speaker in Dreams to both 4e and to the DMG town of Fallcrest, with a change in theme slightly such that the far realm is attempting to invade the town via the Feywild. After that, I'm going to run EtCRavenloft. From there, I'm not sure exactly what I'll do. Possibly complete homebrew, possibly not. The general theme that I'm playing up in this campaign is extraplanar threats, so possibly long term the campaign will culminate in fighting a Primorial plot to collapse the differing planes back into the Elemental Chaos.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

My Campaign is set in a homebrew setting. It essentially is a 18th century messed up version of Louisiana, with plenty of fantastical and supernatural elements too it.

Some changes in rules that we use for the campaign:

-I use the Swashbuckling PDF for my firearms.
-We changed Per Encounter to Per Scene and Daily to Per Chapter because of the decrease in combat.
-We allow separation of the different elements of a Power, ie; you could just use the healing part of a power or just the attack part of a power.

In the campaign, the PCs are slowly beginning to unravel a long-held secret that for many generations the Loa they worshipped too have been outcast or turned too a foreign legion of Devils. This turning is what initially led to the separation of Vodoun faith into various cults (though each in turn worship unknowingly a Devil).

The PCs have to decide when all is investigated and all mysteries unravelled how to proceed. They know the Devil's are lying about who they are, they know the real Loa still exist in the deepest corners of the lagoons. But, they also know that life here isn't ungodly hard, and they do not know what the Loa are like either.

The Campaign is fairly combat light, with most of it being oriented towards RPing, diplomacy, simple chit-chat, lots and lots of Skill Challenges and plenty of investigative work. There is some combat usually when nearing the end of a investigation, but even this sometimes doesn't happen.

 

[catsclaw227]

Right now, I am running Age of Worms, which we converted when the PCs were in the 4th adventure, Hall of Harsh Reflections. We are now a good way through the 5th adventure, Champion's Belt.

The conversion has been fairly easy and the players didn't really focus much on the small differences in their PCs abilities, because the personalities are still the same.

Good fun, and we are having a blast, now that the rules are disappearing into the background.

We play a fairly strong RP game, our game on Tuesday night was 1 encounter with a lot of RP for a 5-6 hour session, though generally we run a long weekend day game that goes for 8-10 hours.

 

[fba827]

To be honest, at the "campaign" level, 4e isn't any different from any other edition of D&D for me. It's not like I could run a certain type of campaign in one version, but not the others.

Agreed; what he said.

I just have a basic plot story in mind. And then look to the rules to find ways to make it play out (stating out npcs and monsters, etc). But I could take my same current campaign and plop it in to any edition.

But, since you asked (in case you're looking for general campaign inspiration rather than edition specific inspiration)... the campagin I currently DM for is on a home-brew world (that I am making up as the PCs continue to explore) where an evil tyrant has been waging war for around 10 years.

My players, although I'm not necessarily giving anything away, please don't read any further...

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The tyrant slaughtered all his victims in every place he conquered leaving a bloody trail and conquering about 3/4s the continent. One day, however, he vanished without a trace. The PCs are from the next kingdom over (that would have been attacked next if the tyrant hadn't disappeared). And the PCs are basically dealing with the aftermath that this tyrant left -- people whose lives he changed (perhaps some of his soldiers who were left behind) or items he left behind(evil artifacts), or refugees whose lives were ruined. As well as figuring what exactly happened to cause this evil tyrant to disappear... could he reappear at some point? is he just in hiding while some other scheme is being concocted? And something is going on in the kingdom that the PCs are from too (maybe they know something about the disappearance? maybe they are hiding the tyrant? but something is definitely amiss). The PCs are directly or indirectly dealing with it all...
[/sblock]

But my DM style for this campaign is as player-driven as I can allow it to be... they pick whatever plot points to chase after or what direction they want to go, etc. And (so far at least) there hasn't been much in terms of dungeon-crawling...

 

[Henry]

I'm running a 4E Eberron game currently - about 6th level right now. All the adventures so far have been homebrewed, using Eberron Maps, the Eberron Setting books from 3E, and just taking the players wherever they want to go. I've got a plot they're going to be thrust into soon, so the campaign has a natural wrapping point at 10th level, maybe 11th. The overall theme right now has been "out of work town militia, seeking work as everything from artifact reclaimers to Peacekeepers for hire." Currently, they're trapped in a Cannith underground bunker in the Mournland, trying to find a way out.

I've been having fun with the DM rules for 4E, coming up with challenges on the fly in a way that I had a hard time with in 3E.

If you're looking for ways to "sell" your group on 4E, the scales of War path in the early issues of Dungeon magazine for 4E (still available on the website, I believe) are a good way to go. I'd put most emphasis on keying into what the players want to seek and do, though, and focus on story first, and then use the rules from pages 184/185 of the DMG to make their opponents on the fly if needed, and just add color. The players will never know the difference between a level 4 human mage from the monster manual and a level 4 artillery NPC you threw together from the DMG, if you describe them the same.

Failing that, they might just really dislike the way 4E plays, and there's not much to change that if it's the case, but good luck either way.

 

[Nebulous]

Maybe it's just me that is not very used to running set modules, but when I run such things I have a hard time connecting the story/adventure with the character's purposes, background, etc.

No, i'm sort of the same way. We started with H1 and i was originally planning on segueing into H2 and H3, but after creating a few homebrew side treks in the Forgotten Realms i just might branch off on my own and start adapting 1e adventures to 4e.

 

[juggler434]

I'm running a Lovecraftian DnD game right now. 4e has actaully catered to my setting nicely. I'm not allowing divine classes, and now that there is other healing classes other than cleric, its not such a huge setback. I switched Tieflings to be more setting appropriate, they now have greenish skin and tentacles instead of hair, are born to humans and considered a bad omen. They're stat bonuses are changed to +2 int, +2 Con to keep them suited to the warlock class but I didn't want them to have the +2 Cha anymore, and they're resistance to fire is switched over to psychic instead.

 

[Nebulous]

The Campaign is fairly combat light, with most of it being oriented towards RPing, diplomacy, simple chit-chat, lots and lots of Skill Challenges and plenty of investigative work. There is some combat usually when nearing the end of a investigation, but even this sometimes doesn't happen.

Now this really interests me...do your players not mind not using 90% of the the player's handbook? If nothing else, 4e is geared for combat.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Now this really interests me...do your players not mind not using 90% of the the player's handbook? If nothing else, 4e is geared for combat.

I would say we use a fair amount of the rulebook without using combat.

-Skills obviously are heavily used
-Powers are heavily used (we simply don't use them so neatly with RAW, ie; a player can decide during a time when intimidating to use a Power to shift and then use a Skill check to pin-someone to a wall. Since the shift in this case represents a sudden burst in speed. That can be pretty intimidating).
-Skill Challenges which I find by creating a base for non-combat situations has allowed D&D to be much easier when it comes to creating non-combat is HEAVILY used (while in the DMG it ties into Skills).
-Obviously Races are used, or there be no Players or NPCs
-Same with Classes, obviously used.
-Items, with the way magical items are handled I have changed it from being that the actual items are magical. But that the various trinkets, baubles, etc. that people use to decorate and enchant a item are magical. So it isn't say... +2 Dagger, it is a +2 chicken bone tied too it, that the Players can untie.
-Rituals are also used occasionally (completely Martial party) so mainly through NPCs and just situational occurrences.

Hmm... What else besides like the actual rules for governing things like cover, etc. is there? Which is also heavily used I might add for lots of the sneaking around and just general exploration type stuff.