That Mythic Age Feel

[Dakkareth]

Of course defeating a god will merely banish them, not kill them permanently.

Why that? Have the god be slain permanently and irrevocably - that's the stuff legends are made off for thousands of years after.

Whether the character became a god himself, was cast down to the bowels of hell for his deed or is 'simply' being thanked by the other gods doesn't matter, the point is, that he did it and it shaped the world in a big way.

 

[green slime]

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.

I second this advice. The players are expecting to be well above the cut at the start of the game.

Also, radically remove 2/3rds or more of the MM, wierd monsters need to rare and wonderous, and powerful.

All tenth level or above heroes and PCs should really be powers that are; well known in all the realms, unlike FR, where you tag along behind behind the powers that are and pick up their scraps from under the table.

 

[sword-dancer]

@masque

I wouldn`t even bet to say that Feanor had magical abilities of the highest order.
Take Wieland, he isn`t a caster, but he could forge armor who would keeps people safer than rune sorcery.
Why shouldn`t their exist magical crafters, who aren`t spell casters in the sense but use their magic to craft even artifacts.
Runemasters who use the powers of rune...

Take
Michael Scott Rohans
Winter of the world series

or following this link

http://www.panix.com/~sos/rpg/yrth1100.html

let the pcs lay the basic/foundation of realms of legend or such thing.
Uruk had started with a few huts.

 

[S'mon]

Why that? Have the god be slain permanently and irrevocably - that's the stuff legends are made off for thousands of years after.

Whether the character became a god himself, was cast down to the bowels of hell for his deed or is 'simply' being thanked by the other gods doesn't matter, the point is, that he did it and it shaped the world in a big way.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that gods should be unkillable, just that permanently destroying one - erasing it from future history - should probably take something major, probably more than just defeating its physical form. Eg Diomedes defeated Ares at Troy and banished him back to Olympus, but he didn't 'kill War'.
In the Silmarilion, Melkor is permanently defeated and banished from Middle Earth forever, but not actually 'killed'. For mortal-level heroes I think it should certainly take a major quest to destroy a god (and possibly assume their portfolio?).

In my 1e/2e deity campaign, gods could be and were slain, but were only permanently destroyable on their home plane - where they were vastly more powerful. The smart way to destroy enemy gods was to lure them out of their home plane to fight on neutral ground, dispel them, then follow the defeated god's silver cord back to its home plane and kill it while it was still weak. This was a hard trick to pull off, but could be done.

 

[TiQuinn]

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.

I agree with S'mon about not getting tied down by the rules. This is probably going to be a case where you are going to make a lot of story-based rulings as opposed to determining whether something can be accomplished based on die rolls and levels.

One idea that you may want to play around with is allowing mundane and magic items to gain special powers when the PCs use them in particularly heroic ways. The PC uses his adamantine greatsword to slay a vicious wyvern preying on the countryside. Suddenly people want to hear not just about the PC, but the weapon that slew the beast as well. The greatsword could possibly begin to develop magical qualities on its own due to this notoriety and fame. As the PC's legend grows, so do their most prized items, which become more powerful and magical.

 

[heirodule]

Everway is really good for this Mythic Age type game. Very vague, with a tarot-like deck for action resolution (along with comparison of exponential power level)

At least it might give you ideas for adventure structure. The basic structure is, you come to a new sphere (world). There is some unresolved tension in the world, usually social, and the heroes will resolve that tension in one direction or another, with specified consequences.

 

[shadow]

I love epic/legendary games. One thing that I would do to emulate the feel of myth is to make the heroes powerful and avoid meaningless deaths. This doesn't necessarily mean "min-maxing", but rather pit the characters against hordes of lower level foes that they can defeat with ease.
Also I would implement some form of "hero point" system to allow characters bonuses to die rolls when perfoming a heroic or legendary feat. To avoid to many PC deaths don't pit heroes up against "save or die" type effects, or death traps. No legendary hero dies in some arbitrary manner because of a poor die roll. Also maybe allow heroes to go further into negative hit points (or have them automatically stabilize when in negative hit points.) This doesn't mean that characters will never die, but rather that they shouldn't die in some mundane fashion. Characters should be killed fighting an epic monster, or in some last stand against hordes of warriors.
Of course also one thing that I would do would be eliminating many of the "raise dead" and ressurection spells. In myths when a hero dies they die in a meaningful way and tend to stay dead (with a few exceptions). We didn't see Hector coming back from the dead in the Iliad; Gilgamesh searched in vain for eternal life. IMO raise dead spells are to much metagame and tend to get players bogged down in thinking in game terms.

 

[Cam Banks]

One of the coolest ideas for a really mythic campaign came out of reading through the setting search entries, specifically Ryan Dancy's (I think it was his). His idea - the PCs are the first to get whatever levels they get in their character classes. Got a rogue character? He's The Rogue. Nobody else has levels of rogue higher than him. They're all experts, commoners, aristocrats, or warriors - but not The Rogue.

This way, your heroes end up uncovering powers nobody else has seen or used. Others will follow in their wake - you can have fun with cohorts this way, too, as being folks inspired by the legendary acts of the PCs. You can even start the game off at 1st level with this, although ideally you'd pitch it a tad higher just so there are enough suitable monsters to represent dangerous foes for these pioneers of adventure.

Paladin - "I smite evil!"
Crowd of onlookers - "....wow. Look at that! Nobody's ever done that before!"

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Darth Shoju]

The thing about Feanor is that he was one of the most powerful of the Noldor to ever walk Middle Earth. While he didn't have established spellcasting powers, he was considered the most learned of the Noldor and basically the pinnacle of their race:

"For Feanor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind, in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and in subtlety alike, of all the Children of Iluvatar, and a bright flame was in him. The works of wonder for the glory of Arda that he might otherwise have wrought only Manwe might in some measure conceive." (The Silmarillion, Chapter 11, p 115.)

[yes, I have the book at work ]

Now the thing is, most of the lords of the Eldar, such as Finwe, Feanor, Finrod Felagund (who did display some rather impressive magical ability) and Abu Thingol were considered to be very powerful, although this was generally represented as just being tougher, more intelligent and greater in martial prowess than anyone else. But generally speaking, the Elves were just plain magical in nature. Not only that, they were effectively immortal and had a lot of time to become learned and proficient. Beyond that, the Noldor actually lived alongside the gods (the Valar) and learned directly from them.

However, once the Noldor came to Middle Earth, the Valar hid Valinor and the gods had very little contact with the Children of Iluvatar after that (except for Melchor of course). Once humans came to Middle Earth they seemed to be pretty tough themselves, and while not in the same league as the Elves could definately hold their own (I'm thinking Beren for example).

So, back to your situation. You could go the route of having the Gods be close at hand, but I'm thinking they might overshadow the PC's. So I'm thinking have the gods at a distance, and possibly even have them have very little (or no) interaction with the world and it's people. Also, don't build the campaing world "in the ashes of a once great empire" or any such thing. Set it in a period of time when there haven't been any mighty empires or kingdoms-yet. Let the players set the events in motion that found these mighty kingdoms, or even establish them themselves. I also think you have to make the PC's significantly more powerful than any of the common folk of the land *. Now, you can do this through high ability scores, high levels, whatever. But make them respectfully powerful. There should also be some high-level NPCs, but not so high they outshine the PCs. Top it all off by giving the campaign world one powerful evil bad guy that the PCs work to thwart (and eventually do) and I think it will be pretty epic.

Now, as far as the rules go, I'm thinking you should take a look at the Midnight campaign setting. I don't have the book myself (yet), but judging from what is said on the boards here I think the classes in that setting would be pretty good for what you are looking for. They represent a low-magic setting but give the PCs inherent abilities that let them accomplish great things (maybe you Midnight fanatics can jump in here and help me out ). Now, you'd probably don't want to take the Midnight story line itself, as from what I gather Izrador is a pretty tough cookie to take down and the setting is pretty dark (although heroic in it's own way), but I'm betting you could use it as a basis for your own setting. Make the setting a little more hopeful, set it in a brand new world, and give the PCs the ability to mould the world and I'm sure you'll get the legendary campaign you're looking for.

* [edit] I'm not saying you have to make the PC's +15th level or anything, just so long as they and the other major NPCs are much more powerful than the common folk. You could do this under 10th level I'm sure.

 

[mmadsen]

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.

That doesn't sound too difficult. Simply have them find no magic items, no spellbooks, etc. Any magic they encounter comes from one of two or three places: their own cadre of enlightened heroes, their enemies, or the few independently wise and powerful demigods sprinkled around the world.

Imagine being the wizard who knows the secret of the fireball.

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.

It's easy enough to treat +1, +2, etc. weapons as greater versions of masterwork weapons -- perhaps requiring a Feat in addition to some good rolls.

I think you underestimate how different D&D will feel without "generic" magical treasure, all spells available, the PCs as unknown adventurers delving into lost ruins, etc.