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6 years ago  ::  Aug 25, 2007 - 10:03AM #421
CuddlyZombie
Date Joined: Aug 17, 2007
Posts: 3

KJW wrote:

I think this is a very good intro to the campaign and you just need to catch the imagination of the PC, which should not be a problem. As for my suggestions they are my opinions and remember it is your game so follow your instincts. If my ideas help then great, if not don't fret.


They are PERFECT. Very easy to integrate into what I have planned, I don't see anything in here that won't be helpful. Thanks!

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6 years ago  ::  Aug 27, 2007 - 8:00PM #422
noctambulist
Date Joined: Jan 16, 2007
Posts: 14

KJW wrote:

Just take heart that 3.5e is actually a good system and there is no need to rush to 4e (which won't be fully out till probably late next year), as the saying goes do not be the first to cast the old aside or the last to embrace the new.


Yeah, I figured there is no rush. It doesn't matter what version we play, as long as it's fun.

KJW wrote:

You joined your faith:
a) after receiving an invitation to the seminary that was delivered by owl.
b) after your mother sold you to the church for some magic beans.
c) after you heard a wonderful sermon about why peasant girls didn't need to marry ignorant and smelly farmers and could instead join the faith.
d) after you received a vision from an angel.
e) after your parents died you were raised in an orphanage hosted by the faith.


That's hilarious. I don't want to give her any ideas :D

KJW wrote:

I might suggest a rival faith or two (but you can make it a friendly rivalry and they may cooperate against the mayor), also why not use a community on a trade route this can be the angle for the criminal faction. This allows you to start with a weaker agent of the organization at the beginning, but later as the PC advances they may send in someone else who is more powerful.


Hmm, I'll have to think about working in other faiths. Maybe it can be like the friendly rivalry between the CIA and MI-6 in the James Bond movies. They ultimately work together, but have different goals.

KJW wrote:

There is no rush I just use LBEG (little bad evil guys) at the beginning until I figure out where the player is going to take the PC. Patience is my mantra, just focus on the adventure at hand and in time a broader story arc will take form that has grown from the campaign.


Sage advice there. I need to remember that I don't have to work out EVERYTHING beforehand.

KJW wrote:

I think this is very solid and good. The key is adventure ideas, this outline should have inspired lots of adventure ideas. If it didn't then it might need to be reworked. I have found that if my idea for a campaign cannot inspire me to quickly come up with five different adventure ideas I have a problem.


I took your great advice from other posts about gaining inspiration from other sources. Her favorite TV shows are ones like CSI, Burn Notice, Dresden Files and MI-5 on BBC. Basically solving mysteries, murders, and foiling evil plots. Shows like that are great sources for me to steal ideas and rework them into a fantasy setting. I already have ideas for solving some different murders, a kidnapping adventure where she can either negotiate for the ransom or stage a rescue mission or both, and stopping an assassination attempt on a member of royalty who happens to be passing through the small town. I keep taking mental notes on story lines I like as we are watching these shows together and how I could twist them to fit into the campaign.

KJW wrote:

Don't give her an animal companion give her a spiritual companion! ...... You can even use this animal as a focus for some spells. Imagine for augury, commune, and the like if instead of the cleric just knowing the answers to their questions if the spiritual companion is the source of the information instead. I am thinking of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and its use of daemons, but if she likes animals and you want to give her one then just come up with a reason and do it. :D


I love this idea. I'm not familiar with Pullman's works, but I Wiki'd it and it sounds like a great direction. It could also be a good way to give her another source of help if she can't think of what to do in a certain situation. I don't want it to necessarily be awakened but probably stopping just short of that. It can't really speak to her, but it has a spiritual/mental link to her which allows it communicate on some non-verbal level. Maybe it communicates through emotions and feelings instead of words. This could also be another adventure - how she gets her spiritual companion and learns to communicate with it.

Thanks for the great advice. I always know when I get great advice if it gets my mental wheels spinning. I'm more excited and anxious now to get this campaign going.

I'll be sure to post updates on how it's going, and I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get deeper into the NPC and story creation parts.

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6 years ago  ::  Sep 10, 2007 - 10:50AM #423
KJW
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SAGA CAMPAIGNS
With kids and lengthy work hours for poor Dakini it has become impossible for use to move campaigns from low-level to epic in a reasonable amount of time.  So we have been experimenting with Saga Campaigns which has been working very well to keep a campaign moving and fresh though we are limited to maybe only 6 hours a week of gaming.  Saga Campaigns are basically a series of campaigns that take place at different points in a character’s life.  Once you think you are down with a stage you advance the PC to a higher level of ability and start a new campaign that takes place in the future after the current campaign. 

Origin Story
This is where you begin the saga and ideally it should introduce the world and the PC.  With our recent campaign we began with Cassidy Sundreamer being a Rebel Alliance starfighter pilot around the destruction of Alderaan.  She interacted with her fellow pilots and took part in several missions, but this was just a warm up.

Beginning Hero
This is where the hero gains autonomy from the masters/mentors/leaders of the origin story.  With the Cassidy campaign we switched gears and had her transferred to lead a SpecOps team (the elite of the Rebel Alliance) and gave her three sectors where she was to strike against the Empire. 

Experienced Hero
The Cassidy Campaign started to lag so we jumped ahead in time to right after the Battle of Endor and the formation of the New Republic.  She leaves the military and becomes a freighter captain, but keeps getting drawn into adventure.  Eventually, she tracks down a lost group of Jedi and decides to give up everything to train as a Jedi which occurs at the end of this stage.  At this stage the PC is more than capable enough for most challenges and the GM can pull less punches.

Epic Hero
This is when the hero is a force to be reckoned with and is a major player of the campaign setting.  We have moved up to the return of Emperor Palapatine and she is a major Jedi leading the New Republic against the resurgent Empire.

Endgame
This is the end of the saga; this is the retirement campaign, though depending upon things PCs can (and should sometimes) die at earlier stages. 

Now the trick to this is to figure out how things change.  I am using the Star Wars universe as modified by the dozens of campaigns I have run in Star Wars over the years, so for the setting I have a good idea how things play out.  But no matter what setting you are using make it your own and try to add changes that are the result of the PCs actions in the last stage of the saga.  The main issue to make it work is to figure out how the lives of NPCs change, you have to make decisions like who lives and who dies between stages, who are new NPCs the PCs knows, and how have things changes.  Have some fun and twist things between the stages to make each stage new and exciting and don’t be afraid to make some serious changes if you think it will make the campaign more enjoyable.
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6 years ago  ::  Sep 30, 2007 - 10:13AM #424
KJW
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Admittedly, this is only loosely related to duet (solo) campaigns, but it's close enough! :D

First, I started a thread awhile back herethat is a petition for there to be added a Family Gaming forum. I know this might be of some interest to a number of people who do duet gaming and so I point that out.

Second, there is an interesting discussion on the Gleemax forums here that is about really the future of these forums. Part of the discussion is open to all and part is closed to a small group that will be growing as people are sponsored to take part in it. There is a lot of discussion here to get through, but it is pointing at the future direction of this online community so I would be remiss if I did not mention it here.

So just a little information on these fronts.
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6 years ago  ::  Sep 30, 2007 - 12:43PM #425
Stoyrm
Date Joined: Sep 26, 2004
Posts: 295
Though it is not a Solo Campaign i made this for 2 players. They seemed to like it.

I used the Gestalt Option. And created a mentor for my 2 pc's called Repridon. The 2 pc's are people who lost their families due to a famous swordsman / rebel. They both seek revenge upon the same person. Their fathers was part of an organization (i used their background and wrote in some of mine). This Organization has 13 people in power. Their mentor is nr 10 in this organization. They Are nr 12 and 13.

This organization has alot of control. They control several small cities. And have high influence. They deal with problems, assassinations, smugling, and warfare. They have lots of spies etc, and they are an underground movement that almost none know of. Since the pc's fathers are dead, the 2 guys on the age of 18 and 21 joined the Organization.

At the start i played Repridon and he has gotten orders that a renegade agent from the organization has to be taken care of. His name Artorius Fargonen. And he was last seen in a small village 2 days march north of their current location. In that town, 4 guards has gone missing. And one of their agents is now the Commander there. Grek a dwarf fighter.

So they went up there and investigated etc. There i gave them alot of rp'ing, some smaller battles.
I feel they get in the spotlight much easier than in games with 4 ppl. One thing i found hard to incoorperate was that they would have alot of choices. But they thought it was the best game they had played so. ^^
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6 years ago  ::  Oct 25, 2007 - 9:48PM #426
sessle
Date Joined: Sep 25, 2005
Posts: 16
Absolutely love the thread. I'm in the process of reading all of it.

A reccomendation: all the posts that have broad/general information could be copy/pasted to the front page, for easier access, for example on page for the bits about punishing the PC.

Also, I've heard the word everywhere, but couldn't make sense of it: What are Gestalt rules?
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6 years ago  ::  Oct 26, 2007 - 5:00AM #427
KJW
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sessle wrote:

Absolutely love the thread. I'm in the process of reading all of it.

A reccomendation: all the posts that have broad/general information could be copy/pasted to the front page, for easier access, for example on page for the bits about punishing the PC.

Also, I've heard the word everywhere, but couldn't make sense of it: What are Gestalt rules?


Yes, I keep toying with the idea of going through and reorganizing the information to make it easier to plow through, maybe that will be a project for winter. This thread is a little overwhelming. :D

Gestalt is simply you take the best features of two classes and combine them into one class. So if Class A has better saves and spellcasting while Class B has better attacks, skill points, plus some combat abilities you combine all that into Class A/B or C which has the saves and spellcasting of A and the attacks, skill points, and combat abilities of B. It was discussed in Unearthed Arcana I believe with other variable rules.

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6 years ago  ::  Oct 30, 2007 - 7:09AM #428
Gathris
Date Joined: Aug 11, 2006
Posts: 2
I am looking for some advice for a campaign with my GF. She doesn’t like D&D after a bad experience in Uni so I am trying out a different system with her. My trouble is coming up with scenarios and things that could happen around her.

The only concept she had an interest in was working on a horse breading farm and this presents a few challenges for me as I don’t know much about horses let alone breading them. A couple of hours on the net has informed me a bit about them. The only thing is I am worried about not having enough things to give her to do in the first few sessions. I have ideas like a country festival coming up that some horses need to be ready for, maybe a pregnancy and then birth to help roleplaying and possibly organising some labour to improve the farm by building another stable or increasing an existing one.

I had thought about introducing an antonagist in the form of another girl in the village that my GF could grow to hate (not sure what she could do around town so she would interact with my GF’s character). The BBEG I could bring in would some sort of necromancer that has been buying up any dead horses and eventually using them as undead Calvary. Possibly the necromancer could get desperate later and start disturbing graves and killing people for his army.

The big challenges are not the problem, It’s the small things that I am not sure I have enough of to keep things going. Anyone got any ideas I have missed?

Thanks in advance.

PS: this is cross posted in GMing with GF as they should both be required reading.
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6 years ago  ::  Oct 30, 2007 - 3:18PM #429
KJW
  • VCL Emeritus
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Date Joined: Aug 30, 2005
Posts: 3,677

Gathris wrote:

I am looking for some advice for a campaign with my GF. She doesn’t like D&D after a bad experience in Uni so I am trying out a different system with her. My trouble is coming up with scenarios and things that could happen around her.

The only concept she had an interest in was working on a horse breading farm and this presents a few challenges for me as I don’t know much about horses let alone breading them. A couple of hours on the net has informed me a bit about them. The only thing is I am worried about not having enough things to give her to do in the first few sessions. I have ideas like a country festival coming up that some horses need to be ready for, maybe a pregnancy and then birth to help roleplaying and possibly organising some labour to improve the farm by building another stable or increasing an existing one.

I had thought about introducing an antonagist in the form of another girl in the village that my GF could grow to hate (not sure what she could do around town so she would interact with my GF’s character). The BBEG I could bring in would some sort of necromancer that has been buying up any dead horses and eventually using them as undead Calvary. Possibly the necromancer could get desperate later and start disturbing graves and killing people for his army.

The big challenges are not the problem, It’s the small things that I am not sure I have enough of to keep things going. Anyone got any ideas I have missed?

Thanks in advance.

PS: this is cross posted in GMing with GF as they should both be required reading.


OK these are just some random thoughts.

First, you might go more fantastical for the type of animal she is herding.  Imagine instead of horses she is dealing with pegasi, something like thestrals (from Harry Potter), or even a dragon (thinking of the Temeraire series here).  You can take the research from horse raising you have and just extrapolate it for a fantasy creature.  This will give you more interaction with the creatures as they are more intelligent.

Second, give the PC a special gift like the ability to talk with these creatures that may make others seek her to solve problems with their animals. If you go with horses just read something like Black Beauty to get tons of ideas on rescuing horses from poor owners and the like. 

Third, give her some financial problems.  Maybe this is the family farm and times have been hard and maybe there is a competing farm which is trying to buy them out. 

Fourth, maybe have there be some fairies at the farm which are friendly with the PC and help out, but they might also have problems that require big people to help solve. 

Fifth, focus more on giving her some friends as opposed to antagonists, friends are great for support, roleplaying, and this will serve as launching pads for adventures. 

Sixth, go to this article and this should really help.

If this doesn't help then ask again and I will try better.

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5 years ago  ::  Dec 18, 2007 - 9:40AM #430
KJW
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Yes, this is just a bump, but I do worry sometimes about this thread ending up archived or something. :D
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