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6 months ago ::
Dec 02, 2012 - 11:40PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2009
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Hi there, for my new campaign I would try to drop the core assumpion (see DMG1 p.150) that the "adventurers are exceptionals". Indeed, in my settings - let's do a quick briefing - traveling in search for "holy relics" is highly encouraged by the main religion ("The Faith"), and many people choose the life of an adventurer, expecially people from the lower social classes. The small village of Urlàch (where the PCs live and met) is a popular destination of pilgrimage for adventurers at the beginning of their carrier. There is indeed a famous sanctuary, and every adventurer before getting into this life travel to Urlàch and visit this sanctuary in order to obtain the benevolence of the gods and their protection upon the dangerous life they're going to begin. The "holy relics" The Faith hanker for are artifacts of an ancient and high-tech lost empire (this will lead into a cyberpunk turn of the campaign at paragon/epic), so they try to encourage as much as they can people to start for the seek of them, telling that these "holy" relics must be found before the unfaithfuls do it and need to be secured and sealed in the main temple in the capital (think about the holy graal crusades I got inspired from). The Faith estabilished then a sort of agency called "St.George Union" in order to backup the adeventurers with information flow about holy relics, gathering rumors and lore from all over the kingdom.
The party of course are going to look and find some minor useless relics during the first adventures... The playing group unfortunately can gather only discontinuously, so we agreed to complete the quests during the current session; if not, the mission fails.
Ok, this should be enough... "Adventurers are NOT exceptional" we were saying... I am trying to develope this peculiarity of my setting: I thought to the possibility of find dungeons already emptied, let other parties to break into the play (this can open both to competition or co-op) or viceversa let the PCs to break into another party's mission, or use it for some mission hooks (something like "many parties have left for the site, but no one has ever returned"). What I'm asking here is to help me find some other good ideas. TY!
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6 months ago ::
Dec 02, 2012 - 11:57PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Mar 13, 2008
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I use almost the same premise in my own homecampaign. In my campaign, the party is exceptional in the sense that they're involved in a prophecy, but that's not noticeable to the world at large.
I try to convey this by adding strong and stronger characters to the world that they interact with. Since it's Eberron, this is made easier by the presence of the Dragonmarked houses. There are a couple of high Paragon NPC's running around in the world, which represent their house in various matters. The PC's meet with them and sometimes travel alongside with them as well.
Also, when they encounter evils, they could encounter stronger evils than they can handle. However, the aforementioned stronger NPC's can handle those, while the PC's handle the smaller enemies. I found that this gives my players a better sense of immersion into the Eberron world, which is nice.
Some things you should avoid however are the red herrings. Having empty ruins could be neat, but don't send your party there if they can't find anything useful. Noone likes a wasted session.
If you want the party to Co-op with another NPC party; don't stat out the NPC party. Just narrate what they're doing. Handling more NPC's makes combats longer. Conversely, don't stat out enemy parties as players. Use monster statistics.
Also, if they manage to anger a stronger NPC, don't send the NPC after them personally. They probably have sufficient responsibilities that they wouldn't handle such things themselves. Instead, their weaker comrades should be the ones going after the PC's.
Heroic Dungeon Master
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 3:43AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Feb 20, 2012
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There are two ways you can approach "adventurers are not exceptional". The first is that it's an entire world of badasses. The second is that the PCs kinda suck. I assume the former is what you're pursuing since that's the one that's, y'know, fun.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 5:40AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2012
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EDIT: I realized my original post was a bit too hostile and distasteful. On a more constructive note try to not make the PCs feel worthless instead of feeling non-special. I'd mostly ask them your players for advice on the matter, and make sure you have their buy-in. There are two ways you can approach "adventurers are not exceptional". The first is that it's an entire world of badasses. The second is that the PCs kinda suck. I assume the former is what you're pursuing since that's the one that's, y'know, fun.
By making everyone else in the world badasses, doesn't that mean that the PCs kinda suck? Just a little confused about the statement, and trying to wrap my head around it.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 5:54AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2010
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By making everyone else in the world badasses, doesn't that mean that the PCs kinda suck? Just a little confused about the statement, and trying to wrap my head around it.
Think Hollywood action movies. The hero is awesome, but so is everyone else, especially the bad guys. Last Action Hero put this idea on its head in a funny way.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 6:02AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2012
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By making everyone else in the world badasses, doesn't that mean that the PCs kinda suck? Just a little confused about the statement, and trying to wrap my head around it.
Think Hollywood action movies. The hero is awesome, but so is everyone else, especially the bad guys. Last Action Hero put this idea on its head in a funny way.
Yeah, but the heroes in action movies are always more awesome then the rest of the cast despite how awesome the villians and everyone else is. Isn't an action movie how the "The PCs are exceptional" model of play plays out?
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 6:46AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2010
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SpacyRicochet has given you some pretty good advice on how to make the players in your campaign as not the only big-damn Heroes in the world.
It's not that the PC's suck or aren't exceptional adventurers, its that there are plenty of other exceptional adventurers around too. Maybe not in the hundreds, but certainly not just these 5 people to save the world or whatever. Maybe don't have the final focus of the campaign to save the world. THere are ways to make your players feel like big heroes without them being the only exceptional people in the game world.
I think it would be good to introduce some rivals, another treasure hunting group that are also exceptional, someone to have to compete with in a treasure hunt every so often. Sometimes have these bad guys win, but still let your players win.
For example- your group and the rivals are both looking for the Holy Relic Macguffin of the ancients in a temple. While your PC's are making progress, they see that someone else has gottend there just ahead of them. The rivals have taken the Holy Relic Macguffin, but in their haste to beat you to it, completely missed the 2 or 3 Rare Ancient Macguffins that win your guys the same amount of fame and gold, or maybe more.
Instead of having high level NPC's around that are way more powerful than your players, have plenty that are about the same level and experience. Before you think about them having a fight, PC v PC combat doesn't work very well in 4e. I've seen it done once, and it was one hell of a combat. But it was one miss away from being a TPK- literally. If our last guy hadn't hit and killed their last guy, his HP and AC were so low there was no way he'd survive another hit.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 6:55AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2010
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By making everyone else in the world badasses, doesn't that mean that the PCs kinda suck? Just a little confused about the statement, and trying to wrap my head around it.
Think Hollywood action movies. The hero is awesome, but so is everyone else, especially the bad guys. Last Action Hero put this idea on its head in a funny way.
Yeah, but the heroes in action movies are always more awesome then the rest of the cast despite how awesome the villians and everyone else is. Isn't an action movie how the "The PCs are exceptional" model of play plays out?
True. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that unexceptional PCs are more like generic cops or henchmen than like action heroes or BBEGs.
Let's try this again. Not being exceptional means:
a. dying easily
b. always working for/with someone who has a more important role in the story than you
c. missing most shots you fire
This doesn't sound a lot of fun. But after reading the OP again, I think we're misunderstanding something here. The guy's putting forth the idea that adventurers aren't exceptional, but the PCs still are.
So, a world where adventurers are common needs a reason for adventurers to be common. I think the OP's got that down with The Faith who sends people into the world to retrieve lost treasures.
This sounds like quite a savage world. I mean, if adventuring is a mainstream job, then there should be a lot of ancient temples and ruins to plunder to keep the demand for adventurers going. Why is all that plunder still there? Maybe the ancient civilization didn't fall as long ago as The Faith would have everyone believe? I like this idea of a young world that's mostly unexplored.
Oooh!
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Maybe the ancient civilization are aliens who, not long ago, populated the world and were then wiped out by some mysterious source, like demons or Far Realm abberations. Alternatively, adventuring could be so dangerous that only few people survive, which is the reason all the plunder is still there. But why would everyone start adventuring then? Maybe there are a couple of celebrity adventurers (paid by The Faith, of course) who inspire all the youngsters to go on quests? Maybe it's all just propaganda, and these celebrities aren't as special as they're made out to be? As for interesting stuff that happens to the players, failure is never fun or interesting, so try to avoid that. I would build upon the idea that something is not quite right in the world, and let the players be the people who expose the lies of The Faith.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 7:43AM
#9
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But why would everyone start adventuring then?
Taxes. Taxes and tithes.
Let's assume you're a farmer. You pay a portion of your crops to your local Lord as taxes. You pay another portion to his Duke. Then you pay yet another to the King. On top of that you are required to tithe to the local temple, tithe again to a regional temple, and tithe a third time to the Mother Temple.
All this keeps you at the watch-your-children-slowly-starve level of income. You might think that people would only put up with this for just so long before they'd form some sort of rebellion, and you'd be right, but rebellion by half-starved dirt farmers isn't much of a real threat. It does cost money to put down, though, so you need to offer some hope to the starving masses so they don't cost you time, money, and effort with their futile attempts to rebel.
What kind of hope? Holy relics, of course. Anyone finding a single genuine Holy Relic is exempt from tithing to the local temple for 20 years. A second find will exempt them from the tithe to the regional temple, and so on and so forth.
Just a thought.
Boraxe wrote: "Knowledge of the rules and creativity are great attributes for a DM, but knowing when to cut loose and when to hold back, when to follow the rules and when to discard them, in order to enhance the enjoyment of the game is the most important DM skill of all."
Keeper of the Sacred Kitty Bowl of the House of Trolls.
Resident Kitteh-napper.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 03, 2012 - 9:15AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2012
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Yeah, I think I misunderstood the original poster. I changed my post to offer something a little more constructive now, and I hope I haven't offended too many people. My apology to anyone that wasn't too large a fan of the original text.
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