That Mythic Age Feel

[masque]

Another school year, another campaign. After talking with my players, they said that they were looking for something other than our normal fare; specifically, they wanted to play a game set in a world's "mythic age." Asking for a little definition, I was told, "You know, like the Silmarillion."

So I read it, and now I have an idea of what they want. They don't want to be chasing after legends, or finding artifacts in ruins; they want to be the legends that build the great palaces and the artefacts. My dilemma is trying to model this in the rules without making them epic.

For instance, the creation of the Silmaril: their creator did not seem to have any spellcasting levels, yet he made a magic item/artifact. Additionally, tales abound of a smith who makes magic swords, but has no spellcasting ability. I was toying around with special material requirement or having "places of power," or even having a feat with required ranks of Craft that allows for magic item creation while ramping up the normal item creation feats so the spellcasters aren't robbed of part of their shtick.

I've toyed with the idea of just having it be normal D&D, with the passage of time creating the myths and legends and escalated power levels, but that's not really what they want. I guess what I'm looking for is just suggestions, however vague, that I can weave into a game and make everyone happy. They want epic feel; I don't want to deal with Epic power levels (as set out in the DMG).

 

[Terwox]

You can get an epic feel at first level, although it's a little difficult. You can get an epic feel under tenth level, and under fifteenth too, and it isn't that difficult. I think you could do most things, and have no one on the planet past level eighteen. Wasn't greyhawk kinda like that? Most of the great wizards were never incredibly powerful? (That's just vague hearsay, I don't know a thing about Greyhawk.)

 

[masque]

You can get an epic feel at first level, although it's a little difficult. You can get an epic feel under tenth level, and under fifteenth too, and it isn't that difficult. I think you could do most things, and have no one on the planet past level eighteen. Wasn't greyhawk kinda like that? Most of the great wizards were never incredibly powerful? (That's just vague hearsay, I don't know a thing about Greyhawk.)

Well, I realize that it is possible, otherwise I wouldn't be asking for suggestions. I just can't formulate anything concrete on how to get that kind of feel.

 

[Caliber]

The world is new. Perhaps it is an idyllic age, without war. Armies are rare, and kingdoms small.

Most characters are VERY low level, with the PC classes being rare.

I don't think you quite need non-spellcasting smiths making magical items to get the feel, but if you want them, I'd say make a PrC that Experts can take.

Just a few brainstorms.

 

[Cedric]

Here's my suggestion...make one of the characters (preferrably someone like a sorceress) have visions. Give her visions of a dark and shadowed room, with slight murmurring in the background and occasional other sounds of conversation, but just a bit beyond her ability to hear.

Explain that as the dream solidifies more and more, she sees a large game board. Most of the pieces on this board are meaningless to her, but some of them shine with an otherworldly light.

She identifies one game piece on this mythical game board as herself. Gradually she gains an image of the others as well, which just so happens to correspond with the indentities of the other characters.

When the dream is closing out, she gets a sense of dread and a dark malevolent voice seems to turn to her and say, "Your move..."

She wakens and has a sensation, a feeling to travel in a certain direction. Placing lifes other burdens aside she travels to this calling and finds one of the people she envisioned (better that this person is a cleric or paladin, someone who knows duty and obligation). She explains the situation and they understand to the core of their being that she speaks the truth and they are compelled to follow.

Repeat until you have the whole group together. Set a common goal, such as first they must find or do .. such and such (oracle, book, artifact, wizard..whatever).

Continue this pattern, providing information through her visions and supplying the group with a certain amount of script immunity, but keeping the fights tough. Until they learn more and more about the Big Bad Guy and eventually find a way to locate him in the Planes. (they could be anywhere from 7th level to 27th at this point).

Make the big bad guy very elusive, hard to even get a name or description of him for a long time. His name and whereabouts should be one of the last things they find. Up until this point, they are faced by his minions in a progressively more difficult quest to stop him.

etc, etc...until they off (or imprison, or redeem, or submit to a God) the BBG.

That's just one possible plan, but something like this could provide and epic feel to a game and keep it fun for the players, without starting at high level or ever really reaching high levels.

Cedric

 

[tetsujin28]

IMHO, BESM and/or dX can model this kind of campaign a lot better than D&D.

 

[S'mon]

IMHO, BESM and/or dX can model this kind of campaign a lot better than D&D.

I would say you need to actually 'vague it up' and strictly AVOID rules adherence in this 'mythic age', if you want to use D&D at all. Let smiths make Weapons of Power because they're legendary smiths, not because they're arcane casters with the right feats. Have visions, dreams, mystic occurrences (Arthurian legend can be a good inspiration) and DON'T nail it all down in rules terms. For this setting more than any other the rules need to be a support not a straitjacket. Avoid too much min-maxing and number-crunching by either yourself or your players. Maybe use a Fate or Hero-point system to encourage dramatic play.
You want to avoid magic being mundane, while at the same time having powerful, epoch-making characters, so I'd suggest using the "no more than half a character's levels can be spellcaster levels" (so eg Wiz 10/Ftr 10 is ok, but not Wiz 20 or Wiz 10/Clr 10) or similar "for every level you take in a spellcaster class, you need to take a level in another class" (so Wiz 10/Clr 10 is ok, but not Wiz 20 or Clr 20).
If it's like the Silmarilion or most ancient-world mythologies, the gods should be close to the world, often found walking the world, and their power should not be much greater than the greatest mortals, so statting them out as 20th-level Templated NPCs would work, assuming there are no mortals over 20th. Of course defeating a god will merely banish them, not kill them permanently.

 

[S'mon]

So I read it, and now I have an idea of what they want. They don't want to be chasing after legends, or finding artifacts in ruins; they want to be the legends that build the great palaces and the artefacts. My dilemma is trying to model this in the rules without making them epic.

I'd suggest starting the PCs out as already great heroes, princes, wizards etc, with defined places in the setting. Starting level should feel heroic, I suggest starting PCs at 10th (but no higher than 5th level in any spellcaster class, per above), with a campaign probably going up to 20th and an ultimate challenge to the dark gods for the destiny of the world.

There's an old Dragon magazine article, "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy", which is a great source of inspiration. Encourage the players to make strong backstories unconstrained by prior setting detail - you and the players should literally be forming the world as you go along, so it's ok for players to create characters like "Prince Varrian, Lord of the White City of Karran-Tarm, Slayer of the Black Serpent" - you can work out what & where Karran-Tarm and the Black Serpent are later, if it comes up.

 

[Zerakon]

Check out Morningstar by Goodman Games, it might save you a whole lot of work, to use in full or just to mine for ideas.

http://www.goodman-games.com/4100preview.php

 

[DMScott]

The campaign I'm currently playing in has sort of a low-powered epic feel. The background when we started was that the gods were dormant and had been for a thousand years or more. The gods were the source of magic in the world, so with them gone only low-level spell effects were possible - up to maybe 3rd level spells. There was a corresponding lack of magic items, and because of this a 5th level character was considered extraordinarily powerful and competent - it's hard to get to higher levels with so little magic.

Our group, starting at 1st level, found out that one of the really evil gods hadn't actually been banished like the rest of them - he had a long-term scheme to steal all the power, magic, and worshippers for himself. In the process of stopping him, we restored knowledge of the gods, freed the main good deity, and thwarted the evil god's plans at the last second to become epic heroes of legend... at around 6th level. We've since continued, mostly with other characters, through kind of the "gold rush" phase of the campaign where magic returns, people rush to discover the lost secrets of magic, and more gods get freed (or become part of the plots of evil gods seeking their power). Right now, the upper limit of power among the living is mostly around 11th level or so, with a few more powerful undead (who are understandably objects of great fear).

Most of the rules are fairly standard; the big change from standard D&D is the lack of a magical economy. If a fifth level evil cleric casts Blindness/Deafness on a third level PC, that's a really big deal - you can't just find a village priest to cast Remove Blindness because there are so few clerics of that level around. Magic items are few and far between, and something like a +3 equivalent sword is probably treated as an artifact. And so on.

The biggest difference is in style - there's never a feeling that there's somebody else who can handle whatever the PCs are doing, and as the campaign progresses characters can hear tales of what they've done spread around the land. Basically, it's a campaign where you make the legends.