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

[Mathew_Freeman]

I reckon I'll be running H1, H2, H3 onwards, and working with the players between sessions to flesh out the campaign world.

 

[Mephistopheles]

However, I'm currently looking at ways of removing some of the higher power NPCs from their comfortable positions, and making the PCs "center stage" again... any thoughts?

You need a spellplague.

 

[BASHMAN]

It will begin with the party on one side of a 50' canyon-- and an army of bandits on the other side, pelting them with arrows. The fighter will turn, and run full tilt for the edge of the canyon, leaping the 50' chasm. Then he will shout, "ka... May...HA.. MAY... HA and level the entire bandit army with flaming boomerang sword strike. All that remains standing is the bandit leader-- a Dragon Born Warlord, who shouts, "Get up you apes! Attack!" And the enemies that had been out get up for one more assault. After that I say, "Okay guys, surprise round is over. Everybody roll initiative!"

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Possibly an Urbis playtest campaign, using all of the rules and cares from the 4E core rules plus some extra ones about joining organizations (and possibly controlling them).

It would start out with street-level intrigue and grow from there as the PCs gain in power. I'll leave it up to them if they want to pursue their own agendas or merely get caught up in the intrigues of others.

 

[Khuxan]

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).

Can I ask, how are you going to address characters from different races? Will all races live in the one tribe, or will there be allied tribes, or race restrictions?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

My first 4E campaign is likely be set in the same world as my current one, although I plan on advancing the timeline 75-100 years. Magic in this world has always fluctuated to some degree, so I can use that to explain the changes in magic; no need for anything as elaborate as a spellplague. The exact nature of the game will depend on what exactly my players want to do; I have several embryonic concepts, but I like to give my players a pretty strong say. I may do a series of shorter campaigns, mini-adventure paths rather than one big 20 level deal. Another thing I plan on doing is seperating sections of the game by long expanses of time - I think I'd like to run a game where the character got to 20th or even 30th level but it took them from age 20 through 50 to do it. I might divvy the game into three "adventure paths", with each seperated by 10-15 years, each path probably matching up to the heroic, paragon, and epic tiers.

 

[Steely Dan]

I'm going for a slightly hyperborean, semi-eastern type setting – hobgoblins/genies/jackal lords/giants/devils/minotaurs/yikaria/medusae/sphinx/titans/ogres are all big players.


-There are no elves, dwarves, orcs, halflings or gnomes. There is also no undead, dragons, or fey.

-There is also no gods, so no divine power source, so no clerics or paladins.


Races available:

-Human

-Azer

-Centaur

-Hobgoblin

-Minotaur

-Nagaborn (dragonborn re-fluffed and with a cosmetic change – lower body serpentine)

-Tiefling

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

It will begin with the party on one side of a 50' canyon-- and an army of bandits on the other side, pelting them with arrows. The fighter will turn, and run full tilt for the edge of the canyon, leaping the 50' chasm. Then he will shout, "ka... May...HA.. MAY... HA and level the entire bandit army with flaming boomerang sword strike. All that remains standing is the bandit leader-- a Dragon Born Warlord, who shouts, "Get up you apes! Attack!" And the enemies that had been out get up for one more assault. After that I say, "Okay guys, surprise round is over. Everybody roll initiative!"

Fantastic! I'd play that.

I really appreciate all the work that every seems ready to go to for 4e - so far I seem to be the only one saying I'm just going to run the adventures from the box, as it were...

 

[Kzach]

I'm planning on starting from scratch with a group of people (most likely online) with the standard town as presented, minus dragonborn and tieflings.

The world will be discovered by the players only shortly after I've made it up on the spot. I don't plan to plan much beyond being familiar with the rules and numerous monsters

This way, the world is fresh and new for everyone. What lurks around the corner is as much a surprise for me as it will be for the players. Our group will create the world as we adventure!

 

[kolvar]

having played in about 7 centuries of my campaign world, with different moods and technologies behind each "setting", I will just jump my campaign another 100 years into the future and put part of the campaign in some kind of victorian age (i.e. I will have quite a bit of background than and my players realy have fun, when their new characters visit places their old ones once knew ... or reffering to their old characters as some kind of hero)
Than, I will have a look at the 4e rules and think about doing some kind of E6 with it.