Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 kiljoy795 Mar 22, 2012 9:38:04	Within a week or so, I will be running an 8 hour marathon game for a few friends of mine in a homebrew campaign. The campaign setting is a frontier continent, with the old continent's nations unmade/unwritten so the players can have freedom to have whatever character background they want (within  limits). I've tried to design the setting so that it has potential for all three core campaign themes (role playing, combat, exploration), and the players can choose which they want to do. But how do I set up the scenarios so that the players can change at whatever time they want (within reason)? Right now, the three major plot archs for each theme are: Exploration: The Cartographer's Guild is trying to collect pieces of an incomplete map made by a famous explorer/cartographer over a century ago who wouldn't release maps until he was finished, but he died before he finished the map of the continent, so the map was never published. So the players have to explore and either make new maps, or find the scraps of the map he made. It would feature some role playing with the players bargaining and negotiating to get pieces from collectors and such, and it would feature combat by the players having to fight the dangerous inhabitants of wherever map pieces might be.' tl;dr finding map pieces Role playing: The Sea Merchant's Council has implemented steep fees and restrictions on trade for a string of towns and cities along the coast, stifling the economy. The players are self-motivated or motivated by another party to negotiate with the Sea Merchant's Council and other organizations to lift these fees and restrictions. It would feature combat with the players fighting thugs and and assassins sent at them by the Sea Merchant's Council, and it exploration through the exploration of large cities. tl;dr trade negotiations Combat: The players can join up with the Huntsman's Lodge to hunt the many beasts that inhabit the continent, or they can join the Road Knights, an organization of fighters and such who are dedicated to keeping the roads safe, in taking out potential dangers to innocent life. It would feature exploration in either the hunting or finding of dangerous bad things, and it would feature diplomacy through, er, well, I don't know. tl;dr gone hunting I need ideas to expand on these ideas, to give them more options for those, how to integrate all three themes (RP/Combat/Explore) into ideas, ideas to give them the ability to change what they're doing, etc. I thank you for reading my post and giving me your feedback! I appreciate it! If you have any questions, go ahead and post them and I will answer them to the best of my ability.
#2 TheForgottenCommand Mar 22, 2012 18:33:32	Some ideas, for what they are worth...    Cartographer's Guild Campaign: If you wanted, you could add a time limit to this idea (something akin to around the world in eighty days). You could be specific or general with this limit such as six months or as-soon-as-you-can because there are others trying to publish/find the map before you do. This adds a little more pressure on the characters to move on and gives you a pricetag for a decision. Ex: You want to help the village find the remains of their founder, well that could take a few days...      The exploration for this campaign is already covered. As for the combat, aside from battling critters for the map pieces, they may also have to clear out populations of giant crabs that guard the coasts or remove the curse of an everlasting storm on a lone mountain pass, anything as long as it impedes thier journey. Also, you could pull a few pages from Indiana Jones and have people ranging from rival scholars to thieves that are underming the efforts of the party and must be battled. On the note of roleplaying, i doubt that the party wants to do all of measurements and calculations personally, nor be the only ones on a small ship vs a galleon. They could be the captains of a ship with a crew that they have hired or have been loaned. This way when they stop at a certain location, someone can be "mapping" the coast while they adventure, and it gives multiple role-playing opportunities between hiring and promoting crewmates and securing their loyalty. A crew of misfits also reeks of potential plot hooks.    Sea Merchant's Council Campaign: Alternatively, the party could be working for the Council and trying to maintain order or expand the Council's influence. Most of the people under the Council honestly believe that it is working for the betterment of the region, whether or not it really is. Quests could include peacefuly quieting riots and chasing down smugglers and pirates.      Exploration could go into the wilderness as well. Money for trades and bribes could come from mines in the hills and mountains farther inland and they might need to be guarded against barbarians or liberated from the Council's influence. Also, the party might look for lost ships that were carrying persons of interest or reports of the Council's misdoings. Perhaps a settlement cannot be reached by the Council and the people, who revolt and begin a civil war that requires winning over the people. The party would lead from the frontlines on important battles, skulk in the shadows to find unguarded paths in the enemy's defenses, and spread propoganda in the streets while charming key figures.    Huntsman's Lodge/Road Knights: Perhaps the Huntsman's Lodge is really a secret recruiting center for an old brotherhood devouted to eradicating abominations through questionable means. They cannot recruit openly for fear of drawing attention to themselves but they have members in positions of authority in the lodge that watch for worthy members. The Road Knights protect the highways, but if they are called upon, they sometimes come to the aid of city to repel the wild hordes. This introduces the party into a bitter and desperate war to hold back the.coalescing warbands and preserve civilization.      For more diplomacy/non-stabbity-stab-stab encounters, include civilization and neutral or good monsters for the party to bargain and form alliances with. Ex. A trent guarding the forest refuses to lend needed aid to the party because he does not think the dryads/druids/werewolves/somethings that inhabit his forest are evil and requires proof of thier deeds. The Party could just kill the orcs, but then they wouldn't have rescued the hostages. By the way, are you a new DM? There is a thread in Whats a Dm to do that covers a little bit of world building.           community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...    Hope this helps
#3 PoniesNSunshine Mar 27, 2012 1:03:59	Generally what I do is run a quick dungeon first, that gets people over the mechanical hurdle of the game, while providing opportunities to "win" by roleplaying and puzzle solving along with set piece encounters. Once we've completed the session, I use the downtime to figure out what the players want to do based on the information they've uncovered - I have lots of threads laid out (current campaign has about 20) - but usually I keep "Current Goals" at 3 or 4 - never more than the number of people in the party since usually each character only has one thing that they care about.  Once this is done, I actually start building out the potential scenarios vs. having them just be threads.   I also try to set up scenarios where the characters get put on the spot and have to tell something about themselves - an NPC that has to question the player on their background, a door that only opens if the character tells a deep, dark secret about themselves, a game in which losing means they have to recount a memory of their past - This allows me to weave in personal stories of the characters into the campaign.    I also write updates describing activities of the NPC's, to sort of clue the players in on their movements and motivations.