However, during the course of the campaign, refugees took their chances fleeing for the "Lands of Eternal Night". The whole war took place on less than 2% of the planet's surface, the rest having been blasted into lifelessness some years ago by few meteor hits. There's been time for some life to return to the Lands of Eternal Night, and it's been suggested that if I put the world on hold, we can start 4e there by just advancing the timeline a little.
Assuming H1 has pregenerated PCs, my group has talked about taking those PCs and seeing what they can do with them.
How the game set itself up was how the campaign progressed with some monsters that I made different from the standard types. Gnolls, for example, are bloodthirsty scavengers (in general). In my campaign, they were druids and rangers, more akin to the noble wolf than the savage hyena. Many tribes of them fled to the Lands of Eternal Night with refugees from other races. I figure that the other races stayed near the mountains to build their communities near springs and defensible positions. The gnolls, not being comfortable near cities, struck out into the wilderness where they found less-than-optimal conditions for survival and degenerated into the race that the average player would be more familiar with.
The drow were vehemently determined to keep the war from spreading to their realms below, referring to "the War Above" and "the Peace Below". After plenty of convincing by the surface elf tribes that isolationism was suicide, the drow came out in spades and taught the enemy was total war was all about. Holding nothing back, they slaughtered anything that was the enemy with sadistic glee. This disturbed the surface nations, and when the drow found they had suffered heavy losses, assistance was withheld as a protest against their savage methods. This has left the drow bitter against the surface races, and we can pretty much guess which way this is going to go.
Dragons, few in number in the lands affected by the war, had originally been unconcerned with mortal affairs. Now they see what havoc those little ground-scratching apes can produce, having been targetted by the Superweapon. They have split into two camps. One group, the metallics, believe that peaceful interaction with the "lesser races" will give them the opportunity to impart their ancient wisdom and work to avoid such devastating catastrophes in the future. The other group, the chromatics, believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and want to crush the little apes before they can do it again.
The orcs, hobgoblins, goblins, kobolds, etc., a very civilized if harsh people who operated successfully under a caste system and who included humans, dwarves, and elves among the citizenry, have each sworn their own revenge against the war's victors. The orcs in particular cite what we would call war-crimes as a justification for their lust for revenge, but the war has degenerated them to a tribal, savage status, and no large group of goblinoids remains united and organized for long before infighting and personal ambition tears them apart.
Mind you, none of this was planned at the start. I feel this was just the most logical way for things to go. I realized after starting to tie up the loose ends that my "not by the book" races would become more like their "official" counterparts as a natural result of cause and effect, and it all seemed to fit so neatly.
Mix the resetting of the races and a planet of unexplored wilderness, and this particular world has set itself up for 4e all by itself (with the help of some tossed dice). If all goes by the plan so far, we'll be starting H1 somewhere out in the Lands of Eternal Night.
How about you guys? Doing anything to kick off 4e?
So...I've talked them into giving it a shot. I'm going to run a single session and hopefully it will be so cool they'll like it. I don't know yet how I am going to set it up, so I'm interested in this thread to see what others are going to do.
I think I've got my work cut out for me to get them to switch.
I think if you throw them into a time sensative and compelling adventure such as rescue the "X" from the tricksy goblins, or find the Jade statue at the hidden shrine of "Y" before the competition does...
The adventure should feature several encounters, allowing them to see the value of per encounter spells/abilities.
Each of the characters live within the City; a enormous city filled with skyscrapers, locomotives, electrical lights, slums, factories, all manner of entertainment, etc. As they go about their lives in the city for the past couple weeks various incidences have been happening around them, from seeing images out of the corners of their eyes to being stopped in the middle of the street by a stranger who spoke in a strange tongue. All these incidences have led up to tonight.
A murder has caused the city to erupt into a mass of soldiers and Inquisitors, a Aristocrat was murdered during a theatre performance. By bad luck or fate, each of the PCs are rounded up and placed into prison.
There they must learn about eachother and their shared past events and find a way to escape...
This happened at least once before in the campaign world, and it caused the downfall of a massive ancient empire. Among other things, the empire's capital city was destroyed, leaving a crater the size of an inland sea.
During the planar alignment a powerful demon queen is trying to break into the physical realm and wreak havoc. It's the job of the solo PC to stop the demon queen from doing so. If the PC succeeds, then 4th ed campaign world will be pretty well off, and mostly like it was in 3rd ed. If the PC fails, we have a much more post-apocalyptic campaign world. Either way, epic cool stuff.
And either way, the laws of reality get rewritten so that 4th edition is the standard now, and we have a neat explanation why the PC formerly could cast "Mass Whelm" and now cannot. And why thousands of elves lost their familiars.
The Sponser: Scene 1
Three Dragon Ante(cp version) is being played in the local tavern by:
Halfling Wizard, Noolum
Human Rogue, Zeke
Fisherman, Karu(NPC)
Dragonborn Fighter, Thomas
Half-Elf Warlord, Yagi
Human Warlock, James
Fisherman comes out with 87 cp, and leaves.
The player are forced to pay for the fisherman drinks, which takes up all their winnings aswell as makes them wonder how the Fishman was able to drink 53 mugs of beer!
Things around the town begin to disappear, anything from weapons, to furniture, to chocolate, to walls.
Orcs Attack during the confusion, PCs end up fighting besides the fisherman, who's rod is described to "Cute the Orcs in half" and they win. The fisherman avoids questions and nonchalantly teleports away. Afterwards the Party, all run into a scene of a man beating his wife, they try to stop him... violently and get arrested, and thrown in jail for 1 day. However this isn't good enough for the rogue so he breaks out of jail, the others follow, they manage to evade the guards and get into the forest. During their first night of camping they essentially get kidnapped by Elves, and that's where we left off.
And I know that all seems very disconnected, but I'm not posting all the background connections so that if my players read this they won't get any inside info.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dudc/20080430a
For example, in one of my longest running games, the party reclaimed a ruined keep (from the cultists who were living there, naturally), rebuilt it, and used it as their base of operations, dubbing it Stormwing Keep (after the paladin's bronze dragon mount).
100 years later, at the start of my campaign, I've decided that Stormwing Keep has fallen into the hands of evil, and the king (a descendent of the aforementioned paladin) has offered a reward to anyone who can reclaim it. The PC's are the ones who have answered the call. Stormwing keep was a large castle, and it had at least two underground levels, so it should make a great multi-level dungeon that I can populate with all manner of baddies.
As a base of operations, I'm thinking about setting a small village somewhere near Stormwing Keep. So far, I've named the place Brambleshire. They can rest here between forays into Stormwing Keep, making NPC contacts and such. Eventually I'd like to seed information for future adventures into Stormwing Keep, but since I don't even have the rulebooks yet, that seems like puttiing the cart before the horse. Eventually I want the events at Stormwing Keep to lead them elsewhere in the world, perhaps to corners of the continent that I haven't even mapped out yet.
Orcs Attack during the confusion, PCs end up fighting besides the fisherman, who's rod is described to "Cute the Orcs in half" and they win.
Too bad you can't post the whole shebang. It sounds like you're off to a romping good start. I'm just curious how you "cute" orcs in half. War kittens? ;)
Sorry. I couldn't resist the idea of someone getting into a fight and manifesting a few cute kittens to chase a ball of yarn across the tavern floor. Every stops and start going "Awwwwww!" The orcs then explode...
About eight years ago my friends and I started playing AD&D at a friend's birthday party when we were 14. We instantly fell in love with the game and the rest of high school would be spent playing our beloved game (and unfortunately not having any sexual relations without classmates
). Anyway, during those first several months we didn't realize there were premade campaign settings like the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. Instead, we thought we HAD to make out own. In wind of 3e coming out a couple months later we decided to make our own campaign world together and then put our new 3e characters in it. At the time we did not yet have a permanent DM (which would later become me) and instead we would rotate every week. That said, we decided to share in the world creation stage. We took a huge piece of paper, divided it into quadrants and each drew a fourth of the world. We had some of our greatest adventures in that little world, that we called Trinsara. Unfortunately, we lost our map during a friend's move from one house to another around the time the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide was released. We hopped over to FR and forgot about Trinsara.
Eight years later we had stopped playing D&D 3.5 and instead have only been playing SW Saga. We all grew tired of 3.5 and I simply find it a horrible system, as much as I hate to say it since I love D&D and it will always be my favorite roleplaying game (Whenever I play SAGA I feel like I am cheating on my girlfriend). When I heard that 4e was to be released I seriously thought it was the best news I had heard in a long time (which is probably true since I am a law student). My idea for the campaign was quite simple: in order to bring our love of the game back to life we could use the new system combined with our veteran skill with RPGs in general and use those original ideas we had as teenagers which have stayed in our imaginations ever since.
You see, whenever my players talk about past campaigns they always refer to their original characters who roamed Trinsara. "Remember the time Spark fought the Baron on the rooftops?" "Remember when Loki thought that letter was a real one from the princess and tried to break into the castle to save her, when in fact it was just a big practical joke that almost got him killed?" "Remember when Kronk just got drunk and passed out in the Golden Goblin and missed the entire adventure?"
My idea was simple: everyone is encouraged to play their original characters. I will remake Trinsara, an updated and more sophisticated version, and I will introduce old characters from that world. In addition, I plan on having a lot of memorable PCs or NPCs from our eight year tenure as D&D players make cameos throughout the world.
I am really looking forward to 4e to put the spark back in my game. I think it's how Stella got her groove back.
I'm gonna do one face to face campaign and an online one, each one once a month, with possible overlap if people are dedicated enough to play in both. The point is that I'll have a game for my old group that has dispersed to the four corners of the Earth, and one for my new group in Montreal, and since some of the people in the second group are friends with the first group then they might want to join in on the online campaign as well. Both campaigns will be in the same gameworld, but start in different locations, so because of the PoL focus of the campaign until higher levels it's unlikely the two groups will run into each other.
First campaign is set on the frontier, where a new gold/iron/mythril rush has resulted in many people seeking their fortunes, despite the risk of death as a monster snack (or worse). The citizen militia in those parts is always eager to get a good blade or someone with some magic up their sleeves to help them, and they pay well. Of course, once problems arrive, they're liable to stick a badge on the nearest PC hero, say 'Now YOU'RE in charge!' and beat tail.
Second campaign will be set in the city of Norbizak, anciently known as the Jewel of the North, now most commonly known under the epithets of Rat's Nest, Den of Thieves, Cutthroat Keep or City of Forbidden Delights. This city was the foremost mercantile city in the province while the Empire ruled, but the coming darkness resulted in it falling hard from grace. The merchants that survived the food riots did so by turning to more profitable business. All the old merchant clans that are still around have turned to smuggling, banditry and even less savory actions, and while the center of the city (the rich quarters) has remained mostly intact and as beautiful as ever, the surrounding neighborhoods are shantytowns built on (and, mostly, from) the ruins of the Old City. You can get anything you want in Norbizak, if you can pay the price. If you can't, well... don't stay after dark. For that matter, if you do have money while in Norbizak, better be good with a blade, or have friends who are.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=995422
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=939515
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=971315
I want my PCs involved in the politics of the world, so they're to be associated with the most prominent of the nobles that still remain neutral in the coming war. The themes of the campaign are ambition, corruption, and impending doom, within a Final Fantasy type setting of a few feudal states separated by large regions of monster-infested wilderness. We're all pretty excited about it; there will be a lot of opportunity for the players to both play politics and just go out and fight monsters, and the two will overlap for various reasons.
In any case, the campaign world I have been developing will work with any rules set we decide to use. The group will be starting out all coming from the same town/locality, so it makes it even easier on me. I do not plan on any world shattering events/ life and death/ continuing story arc/must do this or the world ends campaign for this round. I'm going to basically go off what the players want to do.
On the other hand if once it is out and I hear good things for a few months from people actually playing it I do have an idea.
I am going to mix it with something I know they do like. It'll take a few house rules I think and I might have to leave out a Race or two.
Basically I'm going to try and Build a 4E version of the Warhammer setting. My friends have always enjoyed that setting but never really liked the Warhammer RPG (though Dungeon Quest always went over well when we were stuck with nothing to do for a night). 4E mechanics actually sound like they would work pretty well with the Warhammer fluff.
Then I'll tie the D&D game to a Mighty Empires Warhammer campaign. The players themselves will create the map their characters will be playing in and our Warhammer Battles will shape the D&D game.
Also I really want to create Waaagh!! as a power source
Then we'll probably run the new adventure path mods (H1, H2, etc), with rotating GM duties, similar to how RPGA Living campiagns are run. That will give everyone a chance to play, and everyone who wants to a chance to GM, and will let people try out new classes without being stuck with one they ind out they hate for an entire campaign, etc.
Then, once the FR books come out, I'll stop being lazy and run an honest-to-god full campaign.
Forgive my naivete. "Waaagh!"? Is that a Warhammer thing? (Funny, I rarely saw the Warhammer RPG, usually when I didn't have any money,but this place is crawling with Warhammer 40K.)
Yeah it's a warhammer thing.
Basically Orcs generate their own kind of energy They call it Waaagh!!
The more orcs you have in one place the more Waaagh!! there is, and if those Orcs are engaged in violent behavior the energy ramps up a little more. Every so often a particularly big nasty orc becomes the focus of the Waaagh! and all the other orcs follow around behind him to go smash stuff. Warhamemr orcs are basically Rugby fans on a pub crawl.
Shamen can tap into that energy to cast Orcish spells like the Foot of Gork (giant foot appears and steps on an enemy unit). Too much though and the Shaman's head explodes.
Basically in 4E terms it's a power source available only to Orcs and other Goblinoids that is dependent on the number of Green Skins present and how violent they are being.
the Striker and Controller classes for it are easy (shaman and witch doctors) plus the Spell lists in the Army book makes a good start for creating powers for them, and I have some ideas for Leader and Defender types already. Can't make the actual classes until the 4E comes out of course but I'm thinking them over and jotting down idea in a note book.
That of course is my opinion. Out of my six member gaming group I think we're split down the middle. The other half of the group seems to be of the more "if it works, don't mess with it" type of mindset. I'm not sure how this is all going to work out.
Methinks Psyguard is posting in the wrong area. On topic who's going to play Keep on the Shadowfall with custom characters when 4e comes out?
Shiftkitty asked me a question about my earlier post on this thread so I answered her.
I suppose I could have written the answer on a totally different thead but then I would have no way of knowing if she was going to read that thread and it would most likely confuse other people. And starting a new thread just to answer her question seemed kind of silly. I could have PMed her but I thought, Why bother.
With regards to my original on topic post, I'm hoping by letting them influence the setting through the Warhammer side of things I can dazzel them with Shiny Newness (It will be our first time playing both 4E and Mighty empires)and the fun of knowing that, for example, a Victory for the Orc armies over the Elves, will have an impact on the D&D side of things.
Frankly I'm going to have to try something exotic like that because if I just say "lets play D&D", they will pull out their 3.5 books and that will be the end of it. If I don't do something major to get their attention they will never bother to try it. it was the same way with 3rd and a little with 3.5 (one of them still uses a 3E PHB)
Yeah it's a warhammer thing.
Basically Orcs generate their own kind of energy They call it Waaagh!!
The more orcs you have in one place the more Waaagh!! there is, and if those Orcs are engaged in violent behavior the energy ramps up a little more. Every so often a particularly big nasty orc becomes the focus of the Waaagh! and all the other orcs follow around behind him to go smash stuff. Warhamemr orcs are basically Rugby fans on a pub crawl.
Shamen can tap into that energy to cast Orcish spells like the Foot of Gork (giant foot appears and steps on an enemy unit). Too much though and the Shaman's head explodes.
So it's like a psychic orcish group hug on PCP? Hee hee! Hey, I kinda like that! Maybe I'll give the orcs in my new setting a weird phenomenon, probably from Gruumsh, that allows that sort of thing! Can you PM me any info on it, like bonuses or something? I'd like to have it on hand to mix in, and if you've used it in your game, send it on! Thanks in advance, even if just for the inspiration.
Finally, once I have a good grasp on 4e, I'll be converting a lot of my older modules to 4e and then writing some new ones.
Quote Kugu
Some hints? (Newbie)
So I've decided to start the players off on an isolated group of large islands(3 to be exact.) With a large barrier surrounding said islands. The islands serve as a prison camp for a empire on the 'mainland' or one of the continents and is main purpose is to mine out iron ore and the like and send it back to fuel the struggle on the mainland. The players obviously will be trying to escape,
Heh-heh, looks like it's gonna be a fun ride!