"Themed" campaigns

[Pielorinho]

I started my current campaign off by sitting the players down and saying, "Okay, you've all created your characters. Now you're going to talk about them and decide what adventure you just went through that made you guys willing to work together in the future."

We all worked together, brainstorming, and came up with a really convoluted story about reclaiming a religious relic from a group of bandits that had stolen it from one PC's uncle's warehouse.

I built the first real adventure off of this one: someone had observed them raiding the bandit's outpost when the bandits were away, and blackmailed them into performing a job for him.

It worked really well: they had a reason to cooperate for the first long story-arc, and by then they'd been through so much that they had motivation for continuing to work together.

Daniel

 

[Desdichado]

I believe SHARK was the source of that idea, which shouldn't really be a surprise!

As to the army making you take a level of fighter, or a thieve's guild making you take levels of rogue, I couldn't do that. After all, it's not like fighters is the only class mechanic that allows you to fight reasonably well, or the rogue class mechanic is the only one that gives you useful skills in working for a mafiosa type organization.

 

[Voneth]

One of the things I do is ask the player to come up with their connections, it usualy ends up to be a group thing such as a traveling band, military squad, or a reunion party of friends.

Currently, I have am apparent "cheesy" begining of the group having amensia via being drugged. The group actualy was part of a merchant caravan and were set up. So the group automaticly has two villians, the slavers who drugged them and the politicos who arranged the "acciddent."

 

[Suzerain]

***

 

[Falcon]

My current campaign had all the players (4-5) start off as recent graduates from the Great Academy, now turned Guard for the Warden, and they were sent to deliver two scrolls to certain personages, then to deliver supplies to a northern outpost garrison, where everything went horribly wrong. We developed stories on how they knew each other at the Academy (same trainers, inns, student debauchery, etc.). The following adventuring sessions contextualized under the pretext of the Charge from the Warden, and that they were expected to reach the garrison within two weeks, helped bond the group quickly. They all had different backgrounds from the various regions, and the Academy and Charge of the Warden helped add to the contextual understanding of why they were together and how they were to act towards one another.

 

[Werdnam]

There's also an idea that I've always thought would make for an interesting campaign: the characters are all of the same race, from the same clan/city/tribe whatnot. Along these lines, I think all-half-orc, all-dwarf, or all-halfling campaigns could be very interesting.

 

[7thlvlDM]

Force Grey, suit up!

"Whenever troubles grow beyond the power to be handled by the watch or the guard without significant loss of life, Piergeiron and the Lords can mobilize Force Grey, an elite cadre of loyal, powerful Waterdhavians able to match or exceed the power of the offenders at large."

This one line is the only thing I've used (so far) from the 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms box set, "City of Splendors", but it was well worth the price of the set since the entirety of my current campaign is based around it.

The PCs play the role of Force Grey agents, who, in my mind, act as Waterdeep's SWAT team/FBI/X-Men, protecting the city from all things unwholesome

-7th

 

[UnDfind]

Oooh! Me! Me! My Turn!

I've always wanted to run a game where the characters had to make criminals...not evil masterminds, but PCs who were convicted of a crime in their youth. They were serving sentences out at a prison and the surrounding town was overrun by orcs or something, and the prisoners were able to escape. But while they were inside, they met a man who had taken care of them by keeping bruisers away and saving their behinds (in a manner of speaking). Well, eventually this dude who helped them out turns up as the big baddie villain dude, so they have to make a choice.

I also would dissallow evil alignments for the PCs on that one, so they'd have to come up with reasons why they committed the crimes earlier in life. Would be a good excersize for the players, and the chars would probably end up being those cool "I bear a scar from my past" types.