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Post/Author/DateTime Post
theblackpiece
04-03-08, 11:49 PM (I wasn't sure if this should be in the homebrew forum or not, so i just put it here)

Ok, so I am about to start a campaign, but i've hit a bit of "Writer's Block". I have two options i've decided to work with but i can't decide which one to go with, or what to do after the first 10 minutes of gametime.

All i've decided on is that there is one major city in the north of the world.(EDIT: called Olue)
This city knows nothing of its surroundings, and the few adventurers that leave its walls never come back.
This city is ruled by a council of many different races, however there is a secret group controlling the majority of the councils seats. (10 in all.) This group is trying to keep the city segregated from the rest of the world, in a constant state of isolationism. This group, (called the Keepers of Olue,) has many spies throughout the entire world, and has determined that the rest of the world's nations are evil places, and wish to keep what they belive to be the only good city in the world away from the surrounding nations. THey are determinded to stop,kill,or disrupt any adventurer any adventurer that tries to come back to the city.

The city to the north is a medium sized one, about 10,000 people, but lives in a medium-high-magic setting despite being oblivious to the world around it.

The Party's set up:

I've decided on on 2 different options, but i need ya'lls input on which one to choose.

1) They are a local adventuring company that is commited to discovering the outside world, and are visited by three assasins the night before they plan to leave the city. (the assasins are of course, Keepers of Olue.)

2) They are each criminals banished from the city and forced to travel the world to find new homes, and eventually learn of the Keepers of Olue. (possibly have amnesia from a poison given to them before banishment, maybe one of them is a former Keeper of Olue that was banished because of rebellion once he learned more of the groups goals)
iserith
04-04-08, 12:12 AM How about taking a cue from the movie, The Island, and have the PCs actually be clones of "real" people in the world outside of Olue or - even more horrific - food for some alien aberrations or vampiric undead. Olue is a low-magic but utopian society where all the needs of its people are met. Every now and then, certain people from Olue (like the PCs) get the sudden urge to leave the idyllic town to find their fortune outside its borders. These people are never heard from again because they have been "harvested."

In this scenario, the PCs might overpower their potential captives outside of Olue and learn a little bit about what might be going on. They can explore the "real world" at this point and try to put more pieces of the puzzle together all the while being chased by the creatures who created Olue. At some point, they find out the ultimate truth and take the fight to their hometown to show their people the light. The campaign might end with the PCs liberating Olue, but soon realizing that it is just one of thousands of similar "farms" in this twisted world...

What's outside of Olue? Good question. It should be harsh terrain, a daunting deterrent to leaving. Beyond that, a high-magic setting (as if "the Future") with large cities filled with mind flayers, beholders, and other aberrations and monsters.
Arrowhen
04-04-08, 12:58 AM The second one imposes a lot of background baggage on the characters ("What if I don't want to play a criminal?" "Banished? Screw that, my guy would fight to the death before he let himself get banished!"). Not only that, but if you start the campaign off by making the PCs criminals, the players are naturally going to assume that the campaign is about being criminals. They're going to want to do criminal things, or search for ways to clear their names, or try to sneak back into the city to get revenge on whoever turned them in, that kind of thing. If you're just making them criminals as an excuse to get them out of the city, then the difference in tone between the start of the campaign and the rest of it is going to feel odd and unnatural.

The first option is much better. It leaves more character background decisions in the hands of the players and it makes a clear and focused statement of what this campaign is about -- going out and exploring the mysterious world around you. Not only that, but it's already got the first encounter built in, which provides the beginnings of an unfolding mystery ("Some assassins tried to kill us just for leaving the city! What's up with that?")

The only thing I'd worry about with the first option is that the players might decide to stick around the city to try and figure out why they were being targeted for an assassination attempt. Just make sure to be really obvious in suggesting that The Powers That Be would rather kill them than let them leave the city. Generally, the quickest way to get players to do something is to tell them that The Powers That Be don't want them to do it. ;)

I like your setup, by the way. Having everyone leave an isolationist culture to explore a world they don't know much about is a clever way of starting a campaign without having to give your players a bunch of setting material that you know most of them won't read. It's perfectly logical that the PCs wouldn't know much about the outside world, so you don't have to do a lot of "here's a setting detail I just made up yesterday; pretend your character knew this all along" kind of stuff.

What I would do with this setup is tell the players during our character generation session, "OK, all of your characters come from this isolationist city where hardly anyone ever leaves and no one who does comes back. So here's the question: why are your characters going to leave the city, and more importantly, why are they all leaving together? Discuss!"

Whatever reasons they come up with probably going to be more interesting and definitely going to be more meaningful to them than any excuse I could come up with for kicking them out of town. And while they were discussing stuff, I'd be right in there with them, making suggestions, asking pointed questions, looking for ways to tie their goals and backstories together so that by the time we were done, they'd be well on their way to being an actual adventuring party instead of a bunch of strangers thrown into an adventure together. And even better, we'd be coming up with the first few adventure hooks in the process because they'd already know what they wanted to do once they got out of the city.
squidyak
04-04-08, 01:25 AM Is it just a city, or is the surrounding countryside controlled by the city as well? If not, how do they eat?
theblackpiece
04-04-08, 11:14 AM Is it just a city, or is the surrounding countryside controlled by the city as well? If not, how do they eat?

Just the city... uhh... lol i actually didnt think about that... They have farms inside the town. Yah. Thats it.
theblackpiece
04-04-08, 06:14 PM i need some feedback on this:

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn170/theblackpiece/Map-1.jpg

...So thats a rough draft of the map of the world. I plan on adding a lot more islands.

About the World:
The continent is at war, with alliances between the Humans And Dwarves, (with their capital being Krael) and an opposing faction between the Elves and Halflings.( with their capitol being Brae) Half-elves are outcasts, and Half-Orcs and Orcs are scattered tribes through the continent. Gnomes peacefully inhabit the islands,with their capital being Regando, inventing and tinkering things to sell back at the continent, and are completely neutral in this war. The Drow are the rulers of The Keepers Of Olue, and are thought to be exctinct, except in Olue, where they are quite common, whether they known about the Keepers of Olue or not.

(Super DM Secret about the entire campaign)
The land was not populated by the inhabitants being created there. Instead, they each teleported in through portals, Small spheres now unknown to everyone but the Keepers Of Olue.The keepers have long been searching for these spheres to help them get back to the Anscestral Lands, where each race came from.

The Arrival: each race arrived with a VERY High-Magic civilization.
The Humans first arrived in the central continent with and immediatly began exploring. The dwarves arrived second, and made a treaty with the humans. However, when the elves and Halflings arrived, they began fighting immediatly, and did not stop until they were forced to unite to destroy an enourmous orc threat against them.
The drow arrived with the elves, and were at peace for many years, until the drow king, Drawl Kri' Shadowbane, made pacts with a few members of the other races to destroy the High Elves. fortunately, he was very unsuccesful, and he and his army were banished to the north. That is how Olue was founded.
After a long while, about 1000 years, the stones were lost, and much of the high-magic power, was destroyed by the senseless orcs when they arrived. So, people began to forget, and forgetting how they came here, naturally assumed that they have always been here. the Humans and dwarves drew back to the west, and the Elves and Halfling drew back to the east. after they forgot about how they came here, they assumed that they had always lived on this world and forgot about the other races. thus, believing the opposing races to be outsiders, went to war when they re-discovered them.
The army of Drawl Kri' Shadowbane
they have been searching for a way home to the Anscestral Lands, and away from Olue since banishment. They had discovered much, and decided that members of the order were supreme to the other inferior races, and formed the Keepers Of Olue. However, the group is formed only of the high ranking officials, many of Drawl's men were kept in the dark, and live on as citizens of Olue. The keepers of Olue try to keep the populace of the city there, for fear of them escaping to the outside world, and revealing the drow's existence. They use their power in Olue to secretly search for ancient artifacts from The Arrival. once they find the stones, they will use them to return to their homeland, and bring powerful forces back to conquer the world. the world.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
theblackpiece 04-03-08, 11:49 PM	(I wasn't sure if this should be in the homebrew forum or not, so i just put it here) Ok, so I am about to start a campaign, but i've hit a bit of "Writer's Block". I have two options i've decided to work with but i can't decide which one to go with, or what to do after the first 10 minutes of gametime. All i've decided on is that there is one major city in the north of the world.(EDIT: called Olue) This city knows nothing of its surroundings, and the few adventurers that leave its walls never come back. This city is ruled by a council of many different races, however there is a secret group controlling the majority of the councils seats. (10 in all.) This group is trying to keep the city segregated from the rest of the world, in a constant state of isolationism. This group, (called the Keepers of Olue,) has many spies throughout the entire world, and has determined that the rest of the world's nations are evil places, and wish to keep what they belive to be the only good city in the world away from the surrounding nations. THey are determinded to stop,kill,or disrupt any adventurer any adventurer that tries to come back to the city. The city to the north is a medium sized one, about 10,000 people, but lives in a medium-high-magic setting despite being oblivious to the world around it. The Party's set up: I've decided on on 2 different options, but i need ya'lls input on which one to choose. 1) They are a local adventuring company that is commited to discovering the outside world, and are visited by three assasins the night before they plan to leave the city. (the assasins are of course, Keepers of Olue.) 2) They are each criminals banished from the city and forced to travel the world to find new homes, and eventually learn of the Keepers of Olue. (possibly have amnesia from a poison given to them before banishment, maybe one of them is a former Keeper of Olue that was banished because of rebellion once he learned more of the groups goals)
iserith 04-04-08, 12:12 AM	How about taking a cue from the movie, The Island, and have the PCs actually be clones of "real" people in the world outside of Olue or - even more horrific - food for some alien aberrations or vampiric undead. Olue is a low-magic but utopian society where all the needs of its people are met. Every now and then, certain people from Olue (like the PCs) get the sudden urge to leave the idyllic town to find their fortune outside its borders. These people are never heard from again because they have been "harvested." In this scenario, the PCs might overpower their potential captives outside of Olue and learn a little bit about what might be going on. They can explore the "real world" at this point and try to put more pieces of the puzzle together all the while being chased by the creatures who created Olue. At some point, they find out the ultimate truth and take the fight to their hometown to show their people the light. The campaign might end with the PCs liberating Olue, but soon realizing that it is just one of thousands of similar "farms" in this twisted world... What's outside of Olue? Good question. It should be harsh terrain, a daunting deterrent to leaving. Beyond that, a high-magic setting (as if "the Future") with large cities filled with mind flayers, beholders, and other aberrations and monsters.
Arrowhen 04-04-08, 12:58 AM	The second one imposes a lot of background baggage on the characters ("What if I don't want to play a criminal?" "Banished? Screw that, my guy would fight to the death before he let himself get banished!"). Not only that, but if you start the campaign off by making the PCs criminals, the players are naturally going to assume that the campaign is about being criminals. They're going to want to do criminal things, or search for ways to clear their names, or try to sneak back into the city to get revenge on whoever turned them in, that kind of thing. If you're just making them criminals as an excuse to get them out of the city, then the difference in tone between the start of the campaign and the rest of it is going to feel odd and unnatural. The first option is much better. It leaves more character background decisions in the hands of the players and it makes a clear and focused statement of what this campaign is about -- going out and exploring the mysterious world around you. Not only that, but it's already got the first encounter built in, which provides the beginnings of an unfolding mystery ("Some assassins tried to kill us just for leaving the city! What's up with that?") The only thing I'd worry about with the first option is that the players might decide to stick around the city to try and figure out why they were being targeted for an assassination attempt. Just make sure to be really obvious in suggesting that The Powers That Be would rather kill them than let them leave the city. Generally, the quickest way to get players to do something is to tell them that The Powers That Be don't want them to do it. ;) I like your setup, by the way. Having everyone leave an isolationist culture to explore a world they don't know much about is a clever way of starting a campaign without having to give your players a bunch of setting material that you know most of them won't read. It's perfectly logical that the PCs wouldn't know much about the outside world, so you don't have to do a lot of "here's a setting detail I just made up yesterday; pretend your character knew this all along" kind of stuff. What I would do with this setup is tell the players during our character generation session, "OK, all of your characters come from this isolationist city where hardly anyone ever leaves and no one who does comes back. So here's the question: why are your characters going to leave the city, and more importantly, why are they all leaving together? Discuss!" Whatever reasons they come up with probably going to be more interesting and definitely going to be more meaningful to them than any excuse I could come up with for kicking them out of town. And while they were discussing stuff, I'd be right in there with them, making suggestions, asking pointed questions, looking for ways to tie their goals and backstories together so that by the time we were done, they'd be well on their way to being an actual adventuring party instead of a bunch of strangers thrown into an adventure together. And even better, we'd be coming up with the first few adventure hooks in the process because they'd already know what they wanted to do once they got out of the city.
squidyak 04-04-08, 01:25 AM	Is it just a city, or is the surrounding countryside controlled by the city as well? If not, how do they eat?
theblackpiece 04-04-08, 11:14 AM	Is it just a city, or is the surrounding countryside controlled by the city as well? If not, how do they eat? Just the city... uhh... lol i actually didnt think about that... They have farms inside the town. Yah. Thats it.
theblackpiece 04-04-08, 06:14 PM	i need some feedback on this: http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn170/theblackpiece/Map-1.jpg ...So thats a rough draft of the map of the world. I plan on adding a lot more islands. About the World: The continent is at war, with alliances between the Humans And Dwarves, (with their capital being Krael) and an opposing faction between the Elves and Halflings.( with their capitol being Brae) Half-elves are outcasts, and Half-Orcs and Orcs are scattered tribes through the continent. Gnomes peacefully inhabit the islands,with their capital being Regando, inventing and tinkering things to sell back at the continent, and are completely neutral in this war. The Drow are the rulers of The Keepers Of Olue, and are thought to be exctinct, except in Olue, where they are quite common, whether they known about the Keepers of Olue or not. (Super DM Secret about the entire campaign) The land was not populated by the inhabitants being created there. Instead, they each teleported in through portals, Small spheres now unknown to everyone but the Keepers Of Olue.The keepers have long been searching for these spheres to help them get back to the Anscestral Lands, where each race came from. The Arrival: each race arrived with a VERY High-Magic civilization. The Humans first arrived in the central continent with and immediatly began exploring. The dwarves arrived second, and made a treaty with the humans. However, when the elves and Halflings arrived, they began fighting immediatly, and did not stop until they were forced to unite to destroy an enourmous orc threat against them. The drow arrived with the elves, and were at peace for many years, until the drow king, Drawl Kri' Shadowbane, made pacts with a few members of the other races to destroy the High Elves. fortunately, he was very unsuccesful, and he and his army were banished to the north. That is how Olue was founded. After a long while, about 1000 years, the stones were lost, and much of the high-magic power, was destroyed by the senseless orcs when they arrived. So, people began to forget, and forgetting how they came here, naturally assumed that they have always been here. the Humans and dwarves drew back to the west, and the Elves and Halfling drew back to the east. after they forgot about how they came here, they assumed that they had always lived on this world and forgot about the other races. thus, believing the opposing races to be outsiders, went to war when they re-discovered them. The army of Drawl Kri' Shadowbane they have been searching for a way home to the Anscestral Lands, and away from Olue since banishment. They had discovered much, and decided that members of the order were supreme to the other inferior races, and formed the Keepers Of Olue. However, the group is formed only of the high ranking officials, many of Drawl's men were kept in the dark, and live on as citizens of Olue. The keepers of Olue try to keep the populace of the city there, for fear of them escaping to the outside world, and revealing the drow's existence. They use their power in Olue to secretly search for ancient artifacts from The Arrival. once they find the stones, they will use them to return to their homeland, and bring powerful forces back to conquer the world. the world.