A Campaign that is a Journey [Archive] - Wizards Community

A Campaign that is a Journey [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
SilasleCake
05-04-07, 01:30 PM hello all,

I am starting up a campaign in these coming weeks, and throughout character generation and worldbuilding (which my group did collectively, with a collaborative system called "Dawn of Worlds"), I ended up having to prepare a campaign where the PCs form a group of travelers, making their way across the continent to an unknown land.

Our world's theme is medieval fantasy. The main "unique" (or not so...) aspects are the following:
-The continent is in the southern hemisphere. The most "civilized" human area is near the equator, and is a civilization that lives in a desert area.
-Two years ago (game time), a massive volcano erupted, which was located in the middle of a continent. The mountains around it were covered in ash and lava, and all of the continent was at least set back with its harvest for that year. It was catastrophic in the area near the volcano, and somewhat impairing in the rest of the continent, but not devastating.
-In the south-west, legions of orcs and humans are amassing, under the lead of an avatar of Hextor, a pit fiend named Heitham al-Sayed. They have made some minor conquests, but have not yet begun an invasion... The other civilizations do not doubt that they will eventually, and have formed allegiances, began strengthening defenses, and worrying a whole lot.

The journey is from "Babel", the capital of the desert civilization, south-east to "Mithral Hall", a dwarven city located in an enormous fault caused by an earthquake two millenniums ago. They have to cross the desert, go through the area destroyed by the volcano (or around, but that will lengthen the journey considerably), cross a wood populated by elves...and drow beneath, travel through plains occupied mainly by monsters, etc. They will travel for a considerable amount of time, and seeing as this will be a long campaign, I think the journey will be the first third of it.

As for the PC's ambitions:

-Officially, the party is working for the Guild of Merchants and Explorers of the Occident. However, only two of the five are official members of the guild, one of them being quite highly ranked, the other a "trainee". I don't know the specifics yet, but I am planning on the content of their mission being either a cargo of rare and precious goods or that the high ranked person is being sent to sign a trade agreement with this distant city.

-However, most of the characters has his own agenda...
The high-ranked guild member took the job partly because he has a nemesis in Mithral Hall, who once stole his precious cargo, and he wants to get his revenge.
Another is an assassin in disguise, sent on a mission from a thief's guild, but who is traveling with the party because the journey in a group is safer than on one's own.
A third is a cleric of Wee Jas, who hopes to find mysterious lore in the far away city and on the journey across the continent.

-As you can see, the characters each have their own agendas, but are traveling under the name of the Guild, and are being payed by them to complete one specific mission.

I have many idea for sideplots, sidequests, and the reasons for which the characters are going (some may be going for different reasons than others), but I want to have some advice. Does anyone have any general tips on how to run a world-travel campaign so that it does not get dull after a while? What kind of plot arcs could I make so it is not just that there are random quests every now and then? Any advice that you could give me would be helpful. I am not a very experienced gamer, and I want to make this campaign as good as it can be.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can give me!
Toloran
05-04-07, 01:42 PM I think you, as a prepatory type thing, should read "Monkey" (which is also called "Journey to the West"). It is a chinese tale about a Buddest Priest and his disciples who travel to india to fetch scriptures. The reason I suggest it is because the goal of the characters (the campaign) was to reach india. However, budda wanted to test/ready them (specifically the priest) so the budda put various trials in their way which they had to overcome (the quests along the way).
SilasleCake
05-04-07, 04:14 PM This looks like an interesting book to read as preparation and I will try to get my hands on a copy, but I should mention that this journey is in no way religious. I probably should have outlined the character's ambitions from the start:

-Officially, the party is working for the Guild of Merchants and Explorers of the Occident. However, only two of the five are official members of the guild, one of them being quite highly ranked, the other a "trainee". I don't know the specifics yet, but I am planning on the content of their mission being either a cargo of rare and precious goods or that the high ranked person is being sent to sign a trade agreement with this distant city.

-However, most of the characters has his own agenda...
The high-ranked guild member took the job partly because he has a nemesis in Mithral Hall, who once stole his precious cargo, and he wants to get his revenge.
Another is an assassin in disguise, sent on a mission from a thief's guild, but who is traveling with the party because the journey in a group is safer than on one's own.
A third is a cleric of Wee Jas, who hopes to find mysterious lore in the far away city and on the journey across the continent.

-As you can see, the characters each have their own agendas, but are traveling under the name of the Guild, and are being payed by them to complete one specific mission.

With this information in mind, does anyone else have an idea on how to build plot-arcs into the campaign? I want something so that I don't have a bunch of standalone adventures, but with reoccurring villains who, realistically, travel across the continent as well.
TheScapegoat
05-04-07, 08:32 PM I tried this myself with a campaign I ran a bit back. I don't have to much advice I could give as it didn't end up lasting but maybe 2 months. The only problem I did run into in that time was that the PCs have a goal and unless you give them big reasons to shift from it they might just ignore everything and move forward.

It ended up falling apart because 1 of the players was the driving force for half the party and he became to busy to play for a while and secondly I spent too much time working on the destination that sometimes I didn't give them enough direction for the journey, which was the problem I mentioned above.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SilasleCake 05-04-07, 01:30 PM	hello all, I am starting up a campaign in these coming weeks, and throughout character generation and worldbuilding (which my group did collectively, with a collaborative system called "Dawn of Worlds"), I ended up having to prepare a campaign where the PCs form a group of travelers, making their way across the continent to an unknown land. Our world's theme is medieval fantasy. The main "unique" (or not so...) aspects are the following: -The continent is in the southern hemisphere. The most "civilized" human area is near the equator, and is a civilization that lives in a desert area. -Two years ago (game time), a massive volcano erupted, which was located in the middle of a continent. The mountains around it were covered in ash and lava, and all of the continent was at least set back with its harvest for that year. It was catastrophic in the area near the volcano, and somewhat impairing in the rest of the continent, but not devastating. -In the south-west, legions of orcs and humans are amassing, under the lead of an avatar of Hextor, a pit fiend named Heitham al-Sayed. They have made some minor conquests, but have not yet begun an invasion... The other civilizations do not doubt that they will eventually, and have formed allegiances, began strengthening defenses, and worrying a whole lot. The journey is from "Babel", the capital of the desert civilization, south-east to "Mithral Hall", a dwarven city located in an enormous fault caused by an earthquake two millenniums ago. They have to cross the desert, go through the area destroyed by the volcano (or around, but that will lengthen the journey considerably), cross a wood populated by elves...and drow beneath, travel through plains occupied mainly by monsters, etc. They will travel for a considerable amount of time, and seeing as this will be a long campaign, I think the journey will be the first third of it. As for the PC's ambitions: -Officially, the party is working for the Guild of Merchants and Explorers of the Occident. However, only two of the five are official members of the guild, one of them being quite highly ranked, the other a "trainee". I don't know the specifics yet, but I am planning on the content of their mission being either a cargo of rare and precious goods or that the high ranked person is being sent to sign a trade agreement with this distant city. -However, most of the characters has his own agenda... The high-ranked guild member took the job partly because he has a nemesis in Mithral Hall, who once stole his precious cargo, and he wants to get his revenge. Another is an assassin in disguise, sent on a mission from a thief's guild, but who is traveling with the party because the journey in a group is safer than on one's own. A third is a cleric of Wee Jas, who hopes to find mysterious lore in the far away city and on the journey across the continent. -As you can see, the characters each have their own agendas, but are traveling under the name of the Guild, and are being payed by them to complete one specific mission. I have many idea for sideplots, sidequests, and the reasons for which the characters are going (some may be going for different reasons than others), but I want to have some advice. Does anyone have any general tips on how to run a world-travel campaign so that it does not get dull after a while? What kind of plot arcs could I make so it is not just that there are random quests every now and then? Any advice that you could give me would be helpful. I am not a very experienced gamer, and I want to make this campaign as good as it can be. Thanks in advance for any help that you can give me!
Toloran 05-04-07, 01:42 PM	I think you, as a prepatory type thing, should read "Monkey" (which is also called "Journey to the West"). It is a chinese tale about a Buddest Priest and his disciples who travel to india to fetch scriptures. The reason I suggest it is because the goal of the characters (the campaign) was to reach india. However, budda wanted to test/ready them (specifically the priest) so the budda put various trials in their way which they had to overcome (the quests along the way).
SilasleCake 05-04-07, 04:14 PM	This looks like an interesting book to read as preparation and I will try to get my hands on a copy, but I should mention that this journey is in no way religious. I probably should have outlined the character's ambitions from the start: -Officially, the party is working for the Guild of Merchants and Explorers of the Occident. However, only two of the five are official members of the guild, one of them being quite highly ranked, the other a "trainee". I don't know the specifics yet, but I am planning on the content of their mission being either a cargo of rare and precious goods or that the high ranked person is being sent to sign a trade agreement with this distant city. -However, most of the characters has his own agenda... The high-ranked guild member took the job partly because he has a nemesis in Mithral Hall, who once stole his precious cargo, and he wants to get his revenge. Another is an assassin in disguise, sent on a mission from a thief's guild, but who is traveling with the party because the journey in a group is safer than on one's own. A third is a cleric of Wee Jas, who hopes to find mysterious lore in the far away city and on the journey across the continent. -As you can see, the characters each have their own agendas, but are traveling under the name of the Guild, and are being payed by them to complete one specific mission. With this information in mind, does anyone else have an idea on how to build plot-arcs into the campaign? I want something so that I don't have a bunch of standalone adventures, but with reoccurring villains who, realistically, travel across the continent as well.
TheScapegoat 05-04-07, 08:32 PM	I tried this myself with a campaign I ran a bit back. I don't have to much advice I could give as it didn't end up lasting but maybe 2 months. The only problem I did run into in that time was that the PCs have a goal and unless you give them big reasons to shift from it they might just ignore everything and move forward. It ended up falling apart because 1 of the players was the driving force for half the party and he became to busy to play for a while and secondly I spent too much time working on the destination that sometimes I didn't give them enough direction for the journey, which was the problem I mentioned above.