Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 7wis7ed Sep 15, 2015 10:50:25	Hi all,    thanks for stopping by,   I started playing D&D a few months back and the group i am playing with take turns to DM, which as far as i am aware is pretty standard.    I recently had a brilliant idea (or so i think) for the beginning of a new campaign, i do have a history with creative writing but as im new to being a DM no matter creating one i was hoping there may be a few of you kind souls out there that would be willing to help me to turn my idea into an ongoing campaign for my group.    the base idea i guess is a little complex to start with, and i know perfection is impossible but i do strive to get things right the first time. i guess im looking for someone i can 'sit down with' who is not a part of the group i play with  that would be willing to turn my crazy idea into something fun that we can bring to our tabletops.   the idea starts as such.        the players awake, they slowly open their eyes to realise they cannot see anything, there is a feint glow of light in their periheral vision. the air smells and tastes salty. There is a cold metal around their wrists, a corse rope ties their ankles, backs pressed tightly against a hard surface and you realise your tied to what holds you,    you try and think to remember but you cant, it hurts when you think, whats your name...? where are you from...?   its then that the cold air bites into you, and you realise that wherever you are your naked, tied and blindfolded.     so that is basically how i wish to start the campaign. ive also decided that the players will have nothing going into the campaign, they dont know who their character is, all they know is what race and gender they are, everything else will be tested through the first session(s) of the campaign. I plan to set challanges for the players that will then determine each players stats. but each player is different just as everyone has different ideas and thoughts.    The biggest thing for me when i came up with this idea was that i wanted the players to truely become and define their characters and have a say in everything, however i also wanted to create a mystery and a challange for them. will they remember details about their lives, who they are and where they came from, or will they just continue to have no memory of before that day.    if anyone is interested in helping me bring this to life can you please reply or send me a message as this is something i have been thinking about for a while,
#2 bawylie Sep 15, 2015 14:26:59	Neat idea. It strikes me somewhat as a prequel. As such, it may be best to unveil in flashbacks, maybe using flash-fiction.    If it were me, I'd run a six session mystery, and dedicate session 4 & 5 to this prequel idea. Session 1 would be a kind of typical day in the life, setting up my locations, NPC, tone, & theme. If you have a final conflict in mind, you put a small-scale version here in the first session.    (For instance, in the Actual Play Transcripts thread, our first real conflict was a demon-worshipper who exploded when he died, and our final battle was against a Balor who exploded when he died, some 19-20 sessions later).    Sessions 2&3 should build the mystery, investigation & conflict. Session 6 should bring all these elements together in a resolution.    Keep your pacing tight, use your creative writing prose skills to shore up tone while playing at the table. Don't over-write it in the planning stage.
#3 7wis7ed Sep 15, 2015 14:46:55	bawylie wrote:
#4 bawylie Sep 15, 2015 14:58:14	Sort of like the beginning of Fallout 3?
#5 7wis7ed Sep 15, 2015 15:20:57	yeah i guess so, i mean i just wanted to be able to incorporate a more creative way of character creation into my game, we normally keep our characters between DMs however we are currently playing a sort of 2e/3.5 homebrow and i wanted to give the players the opportunity to create a new character with new abilities, and also a chance to use some of the new races from 5e and EE,    i want to try and make it so that the beguinning of the campaign will be unusual and something that the players will find enjoyable, i know the first couple of times i created a character i found the process to be a little overwhelming, so i want to try and cut out that feleing of what do i roll for this or what do i need here,    im going to try an bypass that feeling of what do i do next by encorporating the character creation and builidng into the first session or so of the campaign, so that it creates a more freeflowing and dynamic start, whilst offering the group a different approach i aslo want to try and make it enjoyable for them as that is what the this is all about, maybe i am just trying to over complicate it, but i think if i can get it to work it would work really well, and as this is my first creation i guess im hoping theres people out there who i can just bounce my ideas off and maybe get to check over the work/planning i do before i sit down with my group, as i dont want to spoil any of the suprises i may or may not have in store for them.    the problem i think i may end up facing is the whole conversion and rng of being able to still provide the possibilty of a few bad rolls with some great ones, and not having a team with amazing stats, i mean yeah thats all well and good but it can also make the game less fun if you have a group of 4 walking round with all above 15 stats,    its something i guess i will just need to tweak as the game goes on, we shall see,
#6 Imaculata Sep 15, 2015 15:42:15	A friend of mine once experimented with a tarot card system, where the cards determined your stats, regardless of what ever class you had in mind. What also might be interesting, is the book Central Casting : Heroes of Legend. It is a really cool character creation book, that comes up with countless interesting roleplaying hooks for your character's backstory. It goes into great detail regarding events at your birth, during your childhood, and teen years. Maybe your character lost an eye in a bar fight, or was cursed at birth. Definitely check out that book if you've never heard of it before.
#7 7wis7ed Sep 15, 2015 15:47:01	thanks i will check the book out any and all information is appreciated, never really had a problem creating characters myself, its just when it comes to the naming process. the tarot card system sounds interesting, might look into that, im just trying to create something different but something the players will aslo enjoy whilst they create their characters and the backstory for their characters during the sessions i have planned,
#8 Imaculata Sep 16, 2015 1:33:05	One of the reasons we tried the tarot card system, was to get away from all the min-maxing that easily slips into the game. So we figured it would be interesting to all play a class with completely random stats, and also to gradually discover what class our character is through roleplaying.
#9 7wis7ed Sep 16, 2015 2:13:52	yeah its an interesting idea, how did you uys set it up, would be interesting to find out as the way ive began to set up the character creation is through a challanges so breaking the shackles that bind the characters hands and feet, using a d20 along with percentile dice to determine the stat for strength etc,
#10 Imaculata Sep 16, 2015 2:47:40	Our DM started us off as children, and described how the whole party grew up together. But one day a mysterious carnaval moved into town, and each party member received a special tarot card reading. We used an existing tarot system for 3rd edition, I'm not sure if it's compatible with 5th edition, but it might be. The cards basically determined all of our ability points, through fortune and ill-fortune. Some cards can gives points, and others can take them away. I think it was called the Three Dragon Ante. This might be it: http://www.ravenoaks.org/jim/3da/files/readings.pdf   The advantage of this, is that players are forced into different roles, and need to step out of their comfort zone. The disadvantage of the system, is that it takes a lot of choice away. But it's interesting to try for a change.
#11 7wis7ed Sep 16, 2015 3:06:32	thanks for the info i will take a look, it may end up creating an interesting twist, its something i could experiment with, it sounds like it was a good campaign, any input is appreciated, i just want to try and make a campaign the group can say that was different and i enjoyed it,
#12 sleypy Sep 16, 2015 11:00:48	Something you could do for the first session is to have six stack of cards each representing the different ability scores. As the players make decisions, give them cards based on the choices they are making instead of rolling any dice. Concluded by sorting the attributes from greatest to least and assign them as primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. to an array of their choices.