D&D 4E What will your first 4E campaign look like?

[Zaruthustran]

It'll be like Conan pulp serials, essentially. A series of loosely-connected mini-campaigns. The Points of Light setting seems like it'd fit our group's tendency to often swap out the DM role (as ever-changing work and life schedules wax and wane).

In PoL, it makes sense that one DM's "world" (or rather, particular corner of the world) is quite different from another's. There's no real requirement to have everything work together, or to mesh plots.

 

[Generico]

My new setting is built around exploration of unknown lands. There is one "known" continent, which is divided by a vast mountain chain into two distinct parts. One is a human dominated civilization, consisting of 13 city-states which are all ruled by a central theocratic government. The other division is a vast and largely uncharted wilderness dominated by non-human races, many of which have great resentment for the citizens of the human civilization that drove them across the mountains hundreds of years ago.

The rest of the world is more or less unknown. The planet is large, and crossing the oceans is difficult. As such, one is far more likely to discover distant lands in myth and legend than on a map. However, that's not to say that those lands aren't there.

My first campaign will start within the human civilization, and will probably spend the better part of heroic tier within that region. When the PCs are ready, they'll move on to explore the wilderness across the mountains, where danger is much more constant and more deadly (Points of Light are very few in this place). When they've had their fill of that, they'll be able to sail to new lands, which will have new civilizations and strange things to discover.

I'm hoping that this emphasis on discovering the unknown will allow me to take advantage of 4e's superior "on the fly" capabilities, as well as giving the players an experience that they really can't get when playing in a setting that's already detailed by a large book. I think exploration can be far more meaningful when you have absolutely no idea what you might find.

Also, it gives me the opportunity to have many very different areas in the world. There might be continents with civilizations that are far more advanced than the known human nation. There might be lands where orcs are peaceful and elves are war-like. Isolation of world areas makes for a much larger possible variety of experiences. Much like earth was before western culture started to overrun everything.

 

[PeelSeel2]

First thing we are going to do is roll-up my players Epic level characters as 4e incarnations. We stopped a 3 year + campaign because playing and DM'ing a campaign that was in the epic levels was about as fun as blowing your brains out. We are going to give it whirl at the epic levels. I had a story arc I wanted to finish, but in 3.5e I came to the conclusion I just was not going to do it!

As some one-offs I want to run Keep on the Shadowfell, and Keep on the Borderlands. It should be great!!

Next thing, maybe skip several generations in my campaign and set it when the Epic level characters have left the world with their mark on it. The new characters will face all new challenges and their old characters will be legends....

Or, perhaps, start a Temple of Elemental Evil campaign. I ran it in college at USD. The players got down to the 3rd level before it faded.

 

[Lord_Psathus]

Hoping to run a campaign in a Grim n' Dark campaign setting I've been working on.

Basically, the gods waged a war on the glorified dead body of Pelor's 'son' (the sun) for thousands of years, which is why so many cleric powers are based on combat, because as soon as a follower of a god dies, their soul would go to join in on the war. The heat and light from the sun were all caused by this endless war, but the bloodshed was eventually enough to call the World Born Dead, Atropus. Basically, the war ended with the good aligned gods fleeing, unable to see the world they once blessed as Pelor's son no longer served as a beacon. Because of this series of events, the world is now sunless and magically heated, evil has a HUGE upper hand and nobody is safe.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this all plays out, I've already set up what will likely be my first 4th edition adventure upon it's release!

 

[tresson]

Mine going to look alot like the movie Labyranth(sp?). With a surprisingly life like David Bowie look-a-like as the fey king

 

[The Little Raven]

Mine going to look alot like the movie Labyranth(sp?).

I've been tinkering with something like this, but my original inspiration was a guy at work wearing a Zork t-shirt.

 

[Darkwolf71]

I've been tinkering with something like this, but my original inspiration was a guy at work wearing a Zork t-shirt.

You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.

 

[RangerWickett]

The idea I'm kicking around, inspired by fusangite, is to have each player start off by making a 30th level character. This is a god in a newborn world, and the gods each have something they want accomplished, but cannot do themselves. So they send their followers on a mission to explore the world and fulfill this task. However, some danger requires several gods to work together.

So the players also make 1st level PCs who are like cave men or primitive tribesmen coming out into a horrifying and mysterious world. And with the blessing of their gods, they go on a long adventure. If a PC dies, the god grants his power to another member of the same tribe and sends a replacement (same level, different personality, same goals -- easily sidesteps the problems a narrative faces when too many characters die off).

 

[Terramotus]

Count me in for leveraging the implied setting, with a few other twists. Planar weakness is going to be a big theme, and in the distant past there was a huge magitek empire. Think Eberron 200 years in its future. Because I like the clockwork stuff.

Overall plot will be highly influenced by Final Fantasy I - the original. Final Fantasy has been doing PoL for years and years.

Adventures will start at level 1, low-down and dirty. Eventually the players will learn that they're the heroes of legend.

 

[Grymar]

Very cool ideas. For me, I'm going to stick with Eberron (the only world I've run since 1987). If that means I have to wait a year before shifting to 4e, that's fine.