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

[theskyfullofdust]

I'm going to continue running my campaigns in the World of Greyhawk. I've ran or played most of my gaming life (25+ years) in that world and have a wealth of info running around in my head.

Been slowly incorprating ideas from 4th Ed. (so far introducing the Shadowfell & the Shadar-Kai as displaced humans) & a few 'rules' (ie. the critical hits, maybe the 'try it' dying rules, but I think they tweaking) into my current game, to get the players used to the idea.

I think, with a bit of forward thinking, that Greyhawk fits in well with the 'points of light' concept and I see no reason why it can't work. Not sure what's planned for the end of Living Greyhawk, but I use my own version of Greyhawk anyway.

I quite like the idea of pulling in the dragonborn from across the Sea of Dust, maybe refugees from some distant war. Not sure yet about where tieflings could come from, other than the obvious extraplanar options, but we'll see.

I'd love to build up my own world, but time is a factor and sadly lacking.

 

[Flynn]

Every new campaign I run tends to be set in a new world, so it will definitely be homebrew. Likely, I will use many of the standard races from the book, although the dragonborn will likely be portrayed as a frontier race that are encroaching on settled territories. Also, the tieflings will all be exiles of some sort from an isolated kingdom that is heavily infernalistic.

Other than that, it'll be heavy POL-influenced, and I'll likely attempt a sandbox arrangement, as I have a lot of time with my current campaign before I am even in a position to consider a 4E campaign. I don't have any other specifics as yet.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Cmarco]

You need a spellplague.

I've actually been thinking that a timeline jump is in order, removing those NPCs who've not found a way to cheat death. I'm also thinking of a series of betrayals, murders, disasters... all engineered by a "new" cabal of bad guys.

Good ole' multiple nation shattering war is always a handy tool.

True. I'm thinking a series of disastrous wars over several years would be good filler between the start and end of the timeline jump.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

The game world I plan to run in is the remains of an ancient world. It was approached by the being known as Atropus and destroyed. Only by the magic of the most learned gith (yanki or erzai..I haven't decided) magicians was a continent ruled by dragonborn and tieflings able to be ripped out of the world and flung into the Astral Sea.

Renaming the continent Haven, the remaining gith set about travelling to other worlds destroyed by Atropus, saving those they can and sailing them through the Astral Sea to Haven. Among those first refugees were several tribes of elves and orcs, who have now existed so long on Haven as to be considered part of the indiginous population.

The gith continued to bring in new races. With the exception of the orcs and elves (who lived rather nomadic, tribal existances), many of the refugees settled in the eastern end of the continent, building over the old dragonborn and tiefling ruins. Now, manifest destiny has reared its head and adventurers set out, usually from the western-most civilized city of Gateway, to conquer this dark frontier and reclaim the ancient dragonborn and tiefling ruins. Meanwhile, back East, a civil war is brewing...

So, yeah, basically it's D&D meets a spaghetti western with elves and orcs taking the place of Native American tribes. There are a few civilizations here and there out west, but they're mostly lawless places beyond the reach of the Eastern Kingdom.

 

[WyzardWhately]

The game starts in a society approximately equal to that of europe in the 1600s - there is some banking and musketry, but no steam-trains. There are great universities where arcane magic and natural philosophy are debated, and complex political maneuvers involving the church, the nobility, the guilds, and the rising merchant class. Or they did once, in the golden age. That ended two years ago.

The PCs and perhaps 20,000 other souls are the last remnants of this blossoming empire, as the ravening dead have overwhelmed the rest of the sphere. At first it was just an endless supply of infectious, Romero-style zombies, but new types of undead have arisen. Faster, stronger ones from 28 days later. And finally higher forms, undeath-spewing monstrosities cobbled together from a thousand corpses. None of them are intelligent or directed past the hunger for living flesh, but they're slowly beating down the walls, and there's not enough weapons in the world to kill them all. It's the whole rest of the world out there.

The only option left is to leave. The Arch-Professors of the Arcane college have put together a ritual to tear a hole into another world. A clean world, a fresh one, free from the undead scourge. And over the course of three long days, all 20,000 people in the city form a baggage train and take what they can into an uncivilized wilderness.

THe adventure really begins here, in a world that has never known empires, kingdoms, steel, stonework, or law. The initial PCs will most likely be humans, tieflings, dwarves, or eladrin. The civilized peoples. The new world will open up some new options - savage lizardfolk that worship the great firebreathing beasts that rule the wilderness here (dragonborn), wood elves that seem to bear some relation to the eladrin of the homeworld, and maybe others.

It'll be crazy, resource-poor, everything will be wild, untamed, new, unknown, and dangerous. That seems appropriate to a new edition. The fledgeling colony will need a lot of help to survive, and PCs will have their pick of all kinds of missions. There might even be faint remnants of a precursor civilization, an entirely unknown species that could have left some dungeons behind.

I expect it'll run like a combination of the british colonial period and Lost, maybe some Stargate thrown in, along with my own peculiar DM-style of mixed lovecraftian horror and Metal aesthetic.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I've been working on my "Land of a Thousand Gods" campaign for a couple of months now and running it as the alternate game, when too many players can't make it but I still want to game. Ironically, it was built based on 4e-style rules (nothing with spell slots/psi points, warlocks/dragon shamans/binders as "casters", martial adepts in place of monk/paladin, scout over ranger, etc)

The base setting assumes a cosmos-destroying armegeddon, with this world being an amalgam of hundreds, if not thousands, of other planets. The laws of nature are bent and twisted, with arctic lands next to scorching deserts. No true gods exist but numerous immortals are working on becoming the first of the new pantheons. Some "new gods" are self aggrandizing imposters while others have the title foisted on them.

No two species agree on the details of the origin of the world, beyond "our old one was being destroyed and our patron god saved us but stayed behind." Legends of higher magics exist but the few mages that came through lost their powers. Devils and demons are physically strong but lacking in magic (odd how this meshes with 4e) other than an ability to possess creatures or objects (powerful undead are fiends that possessed corpses). Angels tend to be weird and dangerous; they follow their alignments religiously (cough) being without a "higher up" to get further orders from or report to.

 

[TerraDave]

What kind of campaign?: classic.

A world of adventure...not just some measley points of light...mighty kingdoms, deadly wildlands, amoral city states, scheming churches, chivolrous orders, true gods, a cosmos spanning mythology, dragon princes and princes descended from dragons, eldarin that are called "elves", gnomes that drink tea and smoke pipes, halflings that wished they lived as well as the gnomes....classic.

In which I will run quality adventures produced by fine gaming companies (I have high hopes here, seriously), try to be open to new material (from fine gaming companies) and my players petty demands, and try to avoid to much house rulling or making my own crunch for its own sake.

I am pretty confident on this, except maybe for the last few points.

 

[kenmarable]

Although I still have plenty of awesome 3.5 adventures I want to run (freakin' Paizo!), but when I do get to 4e I know what my first adventure will be. Ever since I was a kid, my friend and I started every new campaign with some variation of "orcs have infested an old fort outside of town, go clear them out." With third edition, I switched it up since the group (as 2e) acquired a keep, I had the orcs attack them to clear it out. So, of course, for tradition's sake, my first 4e game will be some one-session thing involving orcs and a "fort just outside of town".

As for a campaign, lately I've been looking at my old Planescape mega-adventures longingly. So I might see if I can convince my group to go with a Modron March/Tales of the Infinite Staircase/Dead Gods/Faction War campaign. If the adventures already need converting to a different edition (and probably for level as well to spread them out more), I might as well hold off and convert them to 4e.

(The Great Wheel lives!!)

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

A PoL setting based on the rogue-like Linley's Dungeon Crawl. Not set in a dungeon, just extrapolating the races and gods and suchlike into a wider world.

Wyzard Whately, that's an awesome idea. Good luck!

 

[Hella_Tellah]

The game starts in a society approximately equal to that of europe in the 1600s - there is some banking and musketry, but no steam-trains. There are great universities where arcane magic and natural philosophy are debated, and complex political maneuvers involving the church, the nobility, the guilds, and the rising merchant class. Or they did once, in the golden age. That ended two years ago.

The PCs and perhaps 20,000 other souls are the last remnants of this blossoming empire, as the ravening dead have overwhelmed the rest of the sphere. At first it was just an endless supply of infectious, Romero-style zombies, but new types of undead have arisen. Faster, stronger ones from 28 days later. And finally higher forms, undeath-spewing monstrosities cobbled together from a thousand corpses. None of them are intelligent or directed past the hunger for living flesh, but they're slowly beating down the walls, and there's not enough weapons in the world to kill them all. It's the whole rest of the world out there.

The only option left is to leave. The Arch-Professors of the Arcane college have put together a ritual to tear a hole into another world. A clean world, a fresh one, free from the undead scourge. And over the course of three long days, all 20,000 people in the city form a baggage train and take what they can into an uncivilized wilderness.

THe adventure really begins here, in a world that has never known empires, kingdoms, steel, stonework, or law. The initial PCs will most likely be humans, tieflings, dwarves, or eladrin. The civilized peoples. The new world will open up some new options - savage lizardfolk that worship the great firebreathing beasts that rule the wilderness here (dragonborn), wood elves that seem to bear some relation to the eladrin of the homeworld, and maybe others.

It'll be crazy, resource-poor, everything will be wild, untamed, new, unknown, and dangerous. That seems appropriate to a new edition. The fledgeling colony will need a lot of help to survive, and PCs will have their pick of all kinds of missions. There might even be faint remnants of a precursor civilization, an entirely unknown species that could have left some dungeons behind.

I expect it'll run like a combination of the british colonial period and Lost, maybe some Stargate thrown in, along with my own peculiar DM-style of mixed lovecraftian horror and Metal aesthetic.

Small world! I ran a campaign based on an undead outbreak a few months ago that featured planar invasion prominently. In my game they had had contact with a neighboring plane of elan (my plane system is similar to Marvel Comics'), then lost contact a few months later. The PCs find their little country village surrounded by undead abominations and scramble to erect barriers and go ask the dwarven kingdom for aid. They returned to the human capital of Langower and learned that the undead are on their plane because the elan had fled their own, undead infested plane, and hadn't properly secured the portal.

So here's a fun plot point for your campaign: a trickle of undeath through the portal as they attempt to close it.