Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ignachile Oct 01, 2009 17:09:46	First of all i'd like to ask that only people who have read the books (or at least have a good sense of how they run) contribute and/or give ideas.  Second, i'd like to ask that we keep this forum free of any "anti-pullman" posts.  I'm a catholic, i've read his books, and they're good. So let's get to the real reason I posted this thread. As stated above, I've read all of "His Dark Materials" and have greatly enjoyed the books.  After recently finishing the last book, an idea struck me as to how good a campaign would be if it were based a little bit off of the books.  I've talked to a member of my party and he agrees (and, as the main owner of pets in our party, had the urge to get a dæmon of his own) that the campaign would be fun as well as using the alethiometer, subtle knife, and amber spyglass.  Finally, the sentences i have bolded are the topics that i need help with badly.  Anything else is greatly appreciated. For the first book, I plan to have the PC's trek up into the north (one of the PC's is looking for a place to build a country) and find that they can no longer continue in the vehicle they are in because there is no more land (ice).  But they do find out about a balloon race taking place in the city of Bolvangar (where they meet Iorek and he asks to come along).  The race takes them to north pole where they would find a temple having an incantation inscribed all along the walls.  When the PC's read it, a new island, Svalbard, covered in armored bears, a bit to the south.  When they get there, Iorek hastily rushes to the palace, in seek of Iofur.  Iorek fights Iofur (duh), but this time with the help of the PC's.  Hopefully, the PC's would win, and continue through the window into the other plane (that appeared there along with Svalbard) to reach Cittàgazze. The second leg of the campaign (just like the book) will be the shortest.  (sadly, because my co-DM doesn't allow modern technology in our games, i have to skip Will's part and assume one of the PC's takes the role of Will).  The PC's will learn about the specters (i need an excuse for why specters wouldn't hurt the PC's and why the PC's wouln't see them), and later on about the torre de angeli (forgive me if i got the spelling wrong).  After seeing the kid going up into the tower, the PC's will (hopefully) be lured into investigating the tower.  There, they will find the kid with the knife and the man tied up in the roof.  The PC assuming Will's role will face off against the kid with the knife and become the bearer. Onto the last portion of the campaign.  The PC's will meet Balthamos and Baruch (I have to plan some way for Baruch to die without the religious parts of the story) and they will help the PC's along the adventure.(if anyone could find a reason for the PC's to go to the world of the dead i'd really appreciate it).  The PC's will go to the world of the dead where they will begin the big chunk of the adventure.  Seeing as to how some of the PC's want dæmons, they'll have to get them the hard way.  Once they adventure in the one town and one of them meets their death (and the death tells him/her where to find the island of the dead), they find the man in the boat on the shore of the town.  The man tells them nobody has ever come back yet the PC's still insist on going forward.(I was thinking about since your soul is left behind on the shore, the characters should take a penalty to ability scores or defenses)  The PC's get to the island, and are greeted by the harpies.  The harpies are intent on making them suffer (not just by scaring and taunting but also by force).  The PC's will have to win over the trust and favor of the harpies to be allowed to open up a portal into another world.  Once the PC's survive the trek above the void to find higher ground, they will cut into another world where they will fight their final battle (which i need and idea for that has to go to along with the campaign). After all the story I need ideas for how to incorporate the 3 artifacts in a way that fits the campaign.  Besides that, i pretty much have the artifacts down (except for a bit of detail). The alethiometer will require training to use and work as an advanced scrying implement.  We're talking REALLY advanced, but it can refuse to give information if it feels the user shouldn't know. The subtle knife would be used as a dagger or shortsword (either would have HUGE attack bonuses) and also as a transporter between the planes.  Attacks made with the knife would do small damage, but do a LOT of ongoing damage (that whole bleeding thing). The amber spyglass would be a measuring tool for consciousness, self awareness, inteligence, emotions, and the such.  (because of the emotions thing it also acts as a primitive mind-reading device)   I had a GREAT time reading the books and thinking up a campaign based around them.  And I want to make this adventure as best as possible.  So like I said earlier, all suggestions are GREATLY appreciated! :D
#2 cascadianone Oct 05, 2009 1:52:12	Sorry, never read these books.   But, I also hate it when my posts get ignored!  ;D
#3 jailbreaker Oct 05, 2009 10:32:54	Adventurer's Vault 2, page 20: Incisive Dagger -- Level 9+ You cut through space as easily as you cut through flesh. Lvl 9     +2       4,200 gp          Lvl 24   +5      525,000 gp Lvl 14   +3     21,000 gp          Lvl 29   +6   2,625,000 gp Lvl 19   +4   105,000 gp Weapon: Dagger Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls Critical: +1d6 damage per plus Property: You can use this weapon as a focus when performing a ritual that involves creating and moving through portals. You can add the dagger's enhancement bonus as an item bonus to any skill checks related to the ritual's performance. Property: When you use a teleportation power, the distance you teleport increases by a number of squares equal to the dagger's enhancement bonus. Power (Daily <> Teleportation): Minor action. You teleport 5 squares. Level 14 or 19: 10 squares. Level 24 or 29: 10 squares, and you don't need to be able to see the the destination square.
#4 sfurtwangler Oct 05, 2009 12:04:16	I loved those books, too, but I don't have much else to contribute here, I don't think. It sounds like you're planning to parrallel the story and world almost exactly, which I think will probably be a disservice to any PCs who did read them, and will be mostly lost on any PCs who did not. I had thought about putting a campaign together that borrowed some ideas from these books, which might be of help. For example - for daemons, I was thinking you could just give everyone the "Arcane Familiar" feat for free (even non-arcane characters). Which solves the issue pretty easily. Characters from worlds where daemons exist outside the body would have their familiars usually in active mode (unless hidden on their body or something, in which case they are passive), and those from more "typical" worlds would have a daemon (which they probably don't even know about, yet) always in passive mode (inside of them). Rather than making daemons work like minions that respawn after 24 hours, though, you would probably want them to simply share HP with the character - so that by attacking the daemon, you can hurt or kill the character. That is a little harsh, perhaps, but it fits with how it works in the books, I think.   As far as the actual dark materials, I would model them as heroic-teir artifacts, which are not very pushy in their motivations, and whose primary use would be allow their users to perform various rituals (probably without component cost). With the compass, you could simply allow a "Consult Mystic Sages" type effect (there are a handful of rituals which all do this sort of thing). Have the necessary skill be Arcana, to represent understanding the symbols, rather than religion, but it would allow the PC who uses it to ask some simple questions and get some vague answers. The knife would be most easily represented by allowing it to use something similar to the Linked Portal ritual, but different because rather than going to a known teleportation circle, it would always take you to your same location on a co-existant plane (up to the DM to figure that out). The spyglass sounds a lot mroe boring. I may have forgotten what it does, but I would effectively allow the user of that item to see invisible things, have blind-sight, and maybe immunity to illusions. It can basically always see the true nature of things. I would also probably provide some perception and insight bonuses, since that is otherwise a bit of a lame power for somethign which occupies your off-hand to use. Hope any of that rambling helps!
#5 sfurtwangler Oct 05, 2009 12:15:38	Another hurdle you will have to overcome is what to do about the normal PC classes. For example, you could have spectres simply be "invisible" all the time, which would work out pretty well, if it took special magical items to allow you to see them - but since some classes (particularly the magical ones) will be able to do the same thigns without being limited by the items you give out, it may fall apart quickly. Likewise, in the books, nobody was throwing magical fire around, or returning the dead to life, or teleporting around the world - but all of thsoe things would be possible, by default, if your PCs have access to all of the usual options.
#6 ignachile Oct 05, 2009 16:13:22	I loved those books, too, but I don't have much else to contribute here, I don't think. It sounds like you're planning to parrallel the story and world almost exactly, which I think will probably be a disservice to any PCs who did read them, and will be mostly lost on any PCs who did not. I had thought about putting a campaign together that borrowed some ideas from these books, which might be of help. For example - for daemons, I was thinking you could just give everyone the "Arcane Familiar" feat for free (even non-arcane characters). Which solves the issue pretty easily. Characters from worlds where daemons exist outside the body would have their familiars usually in active mode (unless hidden on their body or something, in which case they are passive), and those from more "typical" worlds would have a daemon (which they probably don't even know about, yet) always in passive mode (inside of them). Rather than making daemons work like minions that respawn after 24 hours, though, you would probably want them to simply share HP with the character - so that by attacking the daemon, you can hurt or kill the character. That is a little harsh, perhaps, but it fits with how it works in the books, I think.   As far as the actual dark materials, I would model them as heroic-teir artifacts, which are not very pushy in their motivations, and whose primary use would be allow their users to perform various rituals (probably without component cost). With the compass, you could simply allow a "Consult Mystic Sages" type effect (there are a handful of rituals which all do this sort of thing). Have the necessary skill be Arcana, to represent understanding the symbols, rather than religion, but it would allow the PC who uses it to ask some simple questions and get some vague answers. The knife would be most easily represented by allowing it to use something similar to the Linked Portal ritual, but different because rather than going to a known teleportation circle, it would always take you to your same location on a co-existant plane (up to the DM to figure that out). The spyglass sounds a lot mroe boring. I may have forgotten what it does, but I would effectively allow the user of that item to see invisible things, have blind-sight, and maybe immunity to illusions. It can basically always see the true nature of things. I would also probably provide some perception and insight bonuses, since that is otherwise a bit of a lame power for somethign which occupies your off-hand to use. Hope any of that rambling helps! THANKS!  Oh and I forgot to mention that I'm running a heavily-modified version of 3.5 and 4.0.  One that doesn't use rituals very often when 3.5 spells could be used instead. As for the PC's being lost and confused.  I have one PC who I'm letting in on the campaign and asking him what he thinks about it.  Plus I have a Co-DM that'll look over everything to make sure it can be done.  So be aware that this is a campaign in its infancy. As for dæmons though, me and one of my friends are designing a chart of what your dæmon could be (fixed form of course, but with some combat advantages).  For our version of play (3.75) we use all 9 alignments (lg g cg ln n cn le e ce) so the thing I'm creating will basically take your character info and create a list of dæmons the character can have. For example, A chaotic good, Wizard, Dragonborn Blue slaad for chaotic good Owl for wizard Pseudodragon for dragonborn And stuff of the like.  We're still in the process of creating the template and special features to use with the dæmons. The books are some of the best I've ever read and having a campaign based off them would be just AWESOME!
#7 aidan_blackthorn Oct 06, 2009 15:03:21	So you want to recapitulate the books without the underlying religious theme?   While I love the books, I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.  It'd be like making a campaign based on Milton.
#8 ignachile Oct 06, 2009 18:58:30	So you want to recapitulate the books without the underlying religious theme?   While I love the books, I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.  It'd be like making a campaign based on Milton.     By this ("I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.") do you mean about the religious theme?  If you did, I would like to incorporate as much of the books as possible but one of my PC's wouldn't enjoy putting the religious themes in it.  basically saying, he's one of those pullman-haters that hasn't even read the books let alone has a good idea what they're about.  I know the whole campaign sounds like a book spoiler, which it probably is, I mainly created it to find something to occupy my time while I'm waiting for the Book of Dust.  Although most of the PC's haven't read the books so technically speaking, there would be nothing to suck the life out of, or would I just be making an ill-suited wannabe campaign?
#9 mostly_ghostly Oct 06, 2009 19:02:24	While I agree that taking out the religious themes of the series would suck the life out of them, I don't think simply making a campaign out of them would. Why not make a campaign from Milton? If you took the themes and grand events, you could focus on different characters and make a great campaign. I think that's the approach to take here too. Don't make the characters follow the plot of the books, because not only will it lead to some extreme railroading, it will also (as those above me have already pointed out) make for a rather boring game for players who have read the trilogy. Instead, why not explore some of the unexplored parts of the setting? I'm sure your players would love to be witches or bears or gyptians. Perhaps the story could center on Lord Asrael's bid for heaven and the players could decide which side to take, or simply attempt to survive in the chaos. The characters in the books should probably only be the stuff of rumors, but Lyra's world especially is a wonderfully rich source of potential stories and characters.
#10 aidan_blackthorn Oct 07, 2009 11:31:26	So you want to recapitulate the books without the underlying religious theme?   While I love the books, I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.  It'd be like making a campaign based on Milton.     By this ("I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.") do you mean about the religious theme?  If you did, I would like to incorporate as much of the books as possible but one of my PC's wouldn't enjoy putting the religious themes in it.  basically saying, he's one of those pullman-haters that hasn't even read the books let alone has a good idea what they're about.  I know the whole campaign sounds like a book spoiler, which it probably is, I mainly created it to find something to occupy my time while I'm waiting for the Book of Dust.  Although most of the PC's haven't read the books so technically speaking, there would be nothing to suck the life out of, or would I just be making an ill-suited wannabe campaign? What I think is that the books portray a vibrant world, and had a lot of action and cool things in them, I mean, who wouldn't love the Panserbjorn? Sure you could take these elements and put them in a campaign. But to me, the greatest part of the books, is internal and quiet, it's not the action, it's the critique of the whole dogmatic religious machine that is crushes all creativity for the sake of power, and kills children or turns them into zombies and calls it a good thing.  It's about what makes up a person's soul and what ethical choices are.  It's about two children on the cusp of adolescence awakening to love because they were 'tempted by the serpent'. It's about bulding the Republic of Heaven where you are Now and not waiting for the Afterlife.  I think that unless you're as brilliant of a writer, trying to follow the books would fall flat on its face.
#11 tomcardin Oct 07, 2009 13:27:26	What are you going to do with the players who don't want to follow the plot of a book? Or those who know the plot and skip ahead and use out of character knowlege to let them know which NPC's to trust and which not to, or which should have a knife stuck thru their back before they do the nasty deeds to you that they did in the book? As a setting and a theme for a D&D campaign those book are great! But I would be very very wary of trying to force the players to follow a plot...rather they should be the plot, their actions should write the story. You as the DM can guide them through quests and patronage and dangling carrots but if you are just going to make them relive the books... I think I would rather just read the books again. The same thing goes for any DM who has his plot line all layed out in advance. I want the world to be affected by my actions, otherwise why should I stop that dragon from rampaging about the countryside? Not just so I can level and get phat lewts...I want to be able to walk through town as a hero, use the true stories of my exploits to help land that buxxom wench in my pile of hay. I want to be the hero, not parallel some other hero.
#12 ignachile Oct 07, 2009 15:45:34	While I agree that taking out the religious themes of the series would suck the life out of them, I don't think simply making a campaign out of them would. Why not make a campaign from Milton? If you took the themes and grand events, you could focus on different characters and make a great campaign. I think that's the approach to take here too. Don't make the characters follow the plot of the books, because not only will it lead to some extreme railroading, it will also (as those above me have already pointed out) make for a rather boring game for players who have read the trilogy. Instead, why not explore some of the unexplored parts of the setting? I'm sure your players would love to be witches or bears or gyptians. Perhaps the story could center on Lord Asrael's bid for heaven and the players could decide which side to take, or simply attempt to survive in the chaos. The characters in the books should probably only be the stuff of rumors, but Lyra's world especially is a wonderfully rich source of potential stories and characters. Thank you SO MUCH!  What I plan to do now is create a campaign like you said (following a side-story.) and not incorporating Lyra and Will into the campaign.  Although I could do something such as have the plotlines cross once or twice, kind of like the Valdemar books, where one series can take place at the same time as another and cross over in slight, barely noticeable ways. I do agree that my previous idea would have lead to EXTREME railroading, and I don't want that for me or the PC's.  Although the three artifacts could all be found:  another of the 6 alethiometers, fixing the subtle knife, and creating another spyglass.  I point this out because one of my friends is crazy for the chance to have the artifacts.  I naturally want to please people and he'd be PO'd if i didn't incorporate them. I think for the first book, I'm going to make the PC's play the roles of Panserbjørne-allies?  for the second I'll have them play as specter-hunters/defenders of the subtle knife and have them give the knife to Will.  And for the third group i believe that i'll have them protecting a clan of mulefa from the tualapi.  I took your advice, and made these as open-ended as possible. Thank goodness for constructive criticism, where would mankind be without it? MAKING TERRIBLE CAMPAIGNS LOL
#13 ignachile Oct 07, 2009 15:56:03	So you want to recapitulate the books without the underlying religious theme?   While I love the books, I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.  It'd be like making a campaign based on Milton.     By this ("I think a campaign based on them like this would pretty much suck the life out of them.") do you mean about the religious theme?  If you did, I would like to incorporate as much of the books as possible but one of my PC's wouldn't enjoy putting the religious themes in it.  basically saying, he's one of those pullman-haters that hasn't even read the books let alone has a good idea what they're about.  I know the whole campaign sounds like a book spoiler, which it probably is, I mainly created it to find something to occupy my time while I'm waiting for the Book of Dust.  Although most of the PC's haven't read the books so technically speaking, there would be nothing to suck the life out of, or would I just be making an ill-suited wannabe campaign? What I think is that the books portray a vibrant world, and had a lot of action and cool things in them, I mean, who wouldn't love the Panserbjorn? Sure you could take these elements and put them in a campaign. But to me, the greatest part of the books, is internal and quiet, it's not the action, it's the critique of the whole dogmatic religious machine that is crushes all creativity for the sake of power, and kills children or turns them into zombies and calls it a good thing.  It's about what makes up a person's soul and what ethical choices are.  It's about two children on the cusp of adolescence awakening to love because they were 'tempted by the serpent'. It's about bulding the Republic of Heaven where you are Now and not waiting for the Afterlife.  I think that unless you're as brilliant of a writer, trying to follow the books would fall flat on its face. I agree about the underlying message, i obviously have to put in a ruling force like the magisterium but maybe different?  Like just have a king doing this?  I'd rather make the underlying message as close as possible with the whole magisterium thing but as I mentioned before, I've got some people in the party who would leave the gaming table as soon as I mentioned anything against the church or its authority. It's obvious my campaign has some huge flaws and I'm gonna try my best to fix them.
#14 dave2008 Oct 07, 2009 22:55:40	Why exactly do you want to make the PCs immune to the specters?  In the books some characters could influence the specters through force of will or the pullman style of magic - why not the pcs.  Or perhaps they could fight them.  The subtle knife could harm them - maybe other weapons can as well. I would be wary of being to literal with your translation.  If you're not going to have modern tech or the magisterium than you might as well not worry about following the books plot, but just pull out cool ideas and add them to your campaign.