Hey, y'all. I came back to seek some help from creative types for a campaign I'm gonna run , and it looks like I did so just in time.
Anyway, I'm asking for some brainstorming from you fine folks here for a campaign I intend to run. For a number of reasons, none of which are important, the campaign will likely be 5e, but it could be honestly anything. 13th Age, 4e, f-ing GURPS for all I care. The help I'm seeking is not mechanic related.
I have a friend who is moving far away from my regular group. While we often play online due to conflicting schedules (we all have jobs and kids), there is something special about gathering around a table and rolling some physical dice. So, because this will be the last time this particular group wil be sitting around the table together for a long time, if not forever, it was proposed that we start a "special" campaign with us gathered 'round said table, even if we have to finish it online.
Because this campaign is being started as a remembrance to our shared past around the table, it is supposed to be a callback to the gaming days of yore, a sort of love letter to our shared history of gaming in our parents' basement, drinking Mountain Dew and listening to Led Zeppelin. This campaign needs to be a 70's van-with-an-airbrushed-wizard-on-the-side come to life. If that wizard was riding a winged unicorn while shooting rainbow lightning at a dragon, all the better.
We've all been there. We've either lived that past, or we've seen it parodied countless times. Give me your memories, your ideas. Inspire me. I've got plenty of my own, but more's the better. Share your D&D powers. By your powers combined, I am CAPTAIN DUNGEON MASTER!
I'll take your ideas in any form. You have a concept for elves that is totally f-ing awesome? Rock on! You have a scene in your head that you think is balls out bad-ass? Share it! You have a dungeon idea that will thrill players so hard they will collapse into paroxyms of joy and nostalgia? Bring it on!
Loving winks to old settings and adventures, ironic references to ridiculous conventions, even indulgent insertions of dated pop culture are on the table and begging to be included. I've already got an idea for a time-travelling hero named Dei Loryuun, who rides his trusty steed M'Artee along with his half-crazed Chronomancer buddy Dahkk. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Want to help me bring to life the most Dew-chugging-ist, Cheetoh-finger-ist, dank-basement-ist, Led Zeppelin-dialed up to eleven-ist campaing ever? Then charge with me into the depths of our shared nostalgia like a Barbarian in the maw of Elder Wyrm, bloody axe raised high in glorious tribute to yesteryear!
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● And the reason for fighting though 20 floors of dungeon has to be something rediculous. Because let's be honest, as kids we had even more rediculous plots than we do now as adults. I suggest trying to destroy the 4E Martial Power Source.
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●Everytime you exit a dungeon lv through the only "official" exit (wich is one way of course) you lv up. If you get creative & somehow bypass that exit ? Then too bad.
●Mt.Dew. Because great quantities of this stuff MUST be consumed.... I suggest that all healing potions be physically represented by those dinky little bottles you can get nowdays. 1 bottle = 1d8 worth of healing. Hope none of you are diabetics.
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●One player, chosen at random MUST play a cleric.
I’d hit the literary tropes that were strong in the late 60s and early 70s of fantasy. Visitation fantasy (the heroes arrive from another world), environmental/political themes and subtext. Drawing on strong Arthurian/Medieval, Tolkien, or R.E. Howard influences. The more blatant and low-rent the better.
Make it a Frank Frazetta, Heavy Metal magazine, Roger Dean, Ralph Bakshi's Wizards blowout!
Wizards remains an awesome piece (peace?) of 70s fantasy.
Brock_Landers wrote:
Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
Nothing beats being in a forest during a thunder storm as the sun starts to set and seeing a host of skeletons approaching the party. But seriously, a dungeon crawl is in order and a good reason to explore ancient ruins. You must include some type of ancient map that is discovered by mistake and re-open some lost lore that was forgotten by the ages.
My friend had a barbarian called land roamer back in the day.
If there is a rogue in the party, they chould recieve a letter from their guild stating there is a price on their head. Let them figure it out.
I recommend playing time of the dragon from Krynn as a setting.
Enough random thoughts for now.
I've always loved Harry Harryhausen films: Jason and the Argonauts (favorite scene: Talos, the giant bronze statue), Clash of TItans (favorite scene: the Medusa fight).
Stop motion animation was used to bring it all to life. It was herky-jerky but that's exactly how I saw fights play out in my mind in D&D (back when I first started playing).
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I prefer the original King Kong over the remake. One thing I did enjoy about the modern film however, is that King Kong seemed to see Ann (the 'beauty' that killed 'the beast') more as a 'toy' (something to possess); there was no suggestion of emotional affection.
The Clash of the TItans remake was cool. Not a fan of Sam Worthington though (at all).
Artifact wrote:
I'm a little young and serious for this type of challenge, but let me see...
Why not have the party ordered about by a mysterious council, whose table is littered with dice and strange orange objects?
Just recently came up with a machine city idea, but that is suited for a campaign length by itself, but take a newly discovered, buried city that constantly shifts and grinds, locking some terrible force within its depths.
Go to Atlantis
Name the characters Fighter #1, Wizard #1, Theif #2 (we don't talk about what happened to poor #1) ect. and have them run into their twins constantly.
First dungeon everyone is hit with a belt of gender changing, but one of them is defective and does not work. Hint that one is really a belt of alignment change and ask if anyone has a goatee.
That is all for now, work calls.
The heroes are summoned to a council room, where Raistlin, Elminster, and Mordenkainen give them their next quest... Drinks are served by a weird fellow called Bargle.
Kenders! Space Hamsters! Kenders riding space hamsters!
A starship falls on the Heroes' village. They have to deal with the collateral damage, then explore the starship.
A Scooby-Doo hallway fight where the enemy knows where the doors lead and pop in and out to harass the PCs.
Magic Mouths on two doors next to each other. One of which leads to the next area, the other is a trap. One lies and the other always tells the truth.
The most treacherous Kobolds and traps they set that you can possibly come up with.
A metal labyrinth with unusual technology patrolled by strange constructs.
The whole thing? A quest to destroy the evil artifact that the bad guy needs to end the word, of course.