Undersea Adventures: Comments, Concerns, & Concepts

[Kaodi]

If your current DM approached you with the idea of starting a new campaign set primarily beneath the surface of the sea, what would be your first reaction? Suppose the “core races” were replaced with the likes of sea elves, locathah, and merfolk (or any race that that has a swim speed and the aquatic subtype). Would that be enough to alienate you?

I would be like, " Man, that is awesome! I have a friend, Aeolius, from the TSR days who has been running underwater campaigns forever, and I was always rather intringued. I wish Ben was here for this. " (A fellow in our group who was working on and now has a PhD in marine biology.)

I set my games on Oerth, the world of Greyhawk. Prior knowledge of the campaign setting is not required. I also tend to scale back on the use of dragons, while overpopulating the world with hags. Again, this is simply my personal signature in my games. Is that the killing blow that distances potential players?

Personally, I would not be turned off by Greyhawk, but then that is because Greyhawk is at least natural to me, if not too familiar. I was thinking of ideas for running an aquatic campaign though recently. I was thinking of a custom setting, where the world (at least as far as the players would know initially) was one big ocean with no land whatsoever. The air above the waves would be known as something like the Ocean Above, the Thin Ocean, or something to that effect. The surface would not be a place you visit willingly though, because dragons would be its absolute rules and only inhabitants, preying on anything dumb enough to poke its head out. In fact, the dragons would nest in the clouds/a giant maelstrom, or on floating islands hidden by the clouds/said maelstrom. I am not so much of a hag person though. As a DM, I would probably include one or two. As a player, I could probably handle them if there were not too too many.

My games tend to be role-play heavy and combat light. Rolling lots of dice tends to break my “willing suspension of disbelief”. Spending hours speaking in character as a room full of NPCs is my bread and butter. Again, I know this does not appeal to everyone.

I would like to try a more roleplaying focused game. That could be ambitious on my part though too. I like action, because it tends to be exciting. If the roleplaying *is* exciting, that should work out okay.

I am aware that life underwater has its limitations; typical potions are all but impossible to imbibe, paper scrolls will quickly disintegrate, and typical metal items are subject to corrosion. Many typical spells may not suitable for underwater casting. Treasure may be similarly altered, as many undersea races value rare corals, pearls, and shells far more than coins and gemstones. This is one of my most enjoyable aspects of the game - creation.

Flavour is good. The fact that many weapons do not work as well as they do in air might mean though that magical versions of those weapons would be truly unique. A sword or scimitar named Tursiops with the ability to eliminate friction between itself and the water comes to mind.

Some of the best inspiration for an underwater campaign can come from the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, visiting a local aquarium or fish store, and perusing ocean-related materials in a bookstore. Discovery’s “Blue Planet” series and Penguin Book’s “OCEAN” are as invaluable to me as “Stormwrack”.

With that in mind, what are your preferences, for such an adventure? What would you expect to see, in an undersea game? What would make the campaign memorable, enjoyable, and enduring? What would make you want to spend years exploring the realm of liquid space?

I think that if it were a tropical setting, I would expect a sense of the vivid colour of the ocean floor in coastal waters to be well portayed. In deeper waters, most videos I have ever seen are of old wrecks, where the water is dark, filled with flaky debris, dreary, washed out, green and red, and rather unsettling.

I think, as a player, I would really enjoy a campaign that highlighted parts on undersea life that I never real knew about. Some education in my entertainment if you will.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Especially attacks from lightning fast ambush predators- can you say Engulf?

 

[knightofround]

(Again this is cross-posted at EN World, wizards.com, Giants in the Playground, Pen and Paper Games, RPG.net., PhoenixLore, and Canonfire)

Apathy.

I suppose that’s what it boils down to. In a few weeks, this thread might be 6 or 7 pages back; buried beyond discovery, save for those searching for keywords. So, how do we prevent that? How do we keep a topical and current thread available, for those of us interested in either creating underwater encounters, running undersea games, devising an entire milieu in the realm of liquid space, or all of the above?

So, what would be the best course of action? Should I establish a message-board on a different site altogether, to prevent playing favorites with more established boards? Do we set up a Facebook group (alas, that requires using “real” names) or a Google Wave? Do we set up a weekly chat via IRC or mibbit? How about a merfolk Sim on Second Life? As an experiment, I set up an iWeb domain for my current game. Should I bite the bullet and work on one with Dreamweaver, for future endeavors? I’m open to a weekly offline chat, of course, though I cannot assume everyone is within driving distance of Greensboro, NC.

If a thread is buried, it's buried for a reason. Lack of public interest. Honestly your best bet would be a blog where you can post ideas and get feedback. Personally I check out blogs linked in signatures by posters, if I think they posted something good and am looking for more of the same.

And if you don't get response...then well, ya gotta be honest with yourself here. D&D is already a *very* niche hobby, and making it work in undersea environments is even more niche.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Noumenon]

I agree with knightofround, mostly -- I might like running Castle Whiterock for people, but I don't need there to always be a thread about Castle Whiterock on the front page. I can still play it without there being one.

Now, let's say I want to generate stuff about Castle Whiterock in a never-ending stream of custom tokens, illustrations of each room, dialogue suggestions for each room, but nobody is interested or asking for it, and everybody I know has already played through it. And even on the Goodman Games forums no one wants to talk about it. Well... I could run Castle Whiterock at conventions, hoping 5 of the 200 people who look through the event list want to try it. I could look for people who are making new things that are similar to Castle Whiterock, and apply my efforts to those instead. But I guess ultimately it would become like having a huge affinity for Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. You can keep producing fanfic and doing a watch-n-post thread on the old forum every year, but eventually everyone is going to move on to a new fandom and you're producing for nobody.

I guess you just gotta move on too; maybe instead of D&D underwater adventures, you try making an underwater mod for Civilization 5 or Elemental, or see if anyone wants to play an RPG version of Bioshock with its underwater city.

 

[Noumenon]

Oh, with regard to replacing the races: I don't love it. I mean, when I play a campaign in the underdark I don't have to play a drow or a duergar. And even if I win I'll never be able to go above water and lead a normal life. Basically when you say "fight krakens and jellyfish, see merfolk cities" I'm right there with you, when you say "accept that the entire world is underneath the ocean" it starts to sound limited.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Oh, with regard to replacing the races: I don't love it. I mean, when I play a campaign in the underdark I don't have to play a drow or a duergar. And even if I win I'll never be able to go above water and lead a normal life. Basically when you say "fight krakens and jellyfish, see merfolk cities" I'm right there with you, when you say "accept that the entire world is underneath the ocean" it starts to sound limited.

Fine, you can play the squirrel in the scuba suit...

 

[Aus_Snow]

Just gotta say, that anyone who hasn't played in (or run) an underwater RPG campaign, ought to at least consider the possibility. Why? Because, no matter how fantastic it sounds in theory, it's just that much more awesome in practice.

 

[Aeolius]

The reason I enjoyed reading Schätzing's 'Der Schwarm' was because it's full of fun and often little known facts about everything related to the (under)sea.

100 People Injured By Stingrays In 4 days
Jellyfish Attack More than 700 Tourists

Hrmmmm.....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Fine, you can play the squirrel in the scuba suit...

"Scuba Squirrel
Scuba Squirrel
wettest rodent
in the world

Is he cool?
Listen dude,
He goes swimming
in the nude

Hey maaaaan
there goes the Scuba Squirrel"

I'm soooooooo there!