[Any Setting/System] Tell me of your awesome 2 or 3 player campaigns [Archive]

Totally Guy

2012-02-10, 07:53 AM

My most recent campaign was about a group of orcs trying to reunite the warring tribes to reform the legendary horde. We played in Burning Wheel and the characters were Drodush who believe his heritage made him the chosen one, the Whisperer who thought he could control Drodush and The Suumoner, he who could call on troll and demon.

The island of Jalnar had many factions. There aloof Elves and industrious men and a greedy dragon called Vasuki. The orc tribes were, the Slysides who were all mystic and ritualistic, the Ranting Wargs who rode on great wolves, the Dar Cudgels were low born pack hunters, the Elfdoom Tribe wanted to be like elves, the Anaki clan were allied with troll warriors and lastly the Greldits lived in the jungles and surrounded themselves with the great spider's webs.

The factions were spot on as they each fitted a different archetype that conjured the right imagery with minimal effort.

The game went from the group being outcast and betrayed by the Anaki clan at the start to one of conquest and obsession.

The Summoner died mid-campaign and we brought in He Who Makes Effin Brilliant Weapons. The game got much better after the introduction of Effin Brilliant as he loved two of his three sons and he know that Drodush's Madness would be their doom! He orchestrated events to allow one to fake his death and be free of the clan and the other was killed by Least Favourite, his bad son during the big battle at the end.

It was a bloody good game if I do say so myself. Players drove the direction and I played their desires against them.

It lasted 9 sessions.

Binks

2012-02-10, 01:24 PM

I ran a Saga edition game with 2 players once. Had one as the Jedi Master, the other as his Apprentice. I let the master be 1 level ahead of the apprentice (with both player's knowledge/approval) and the campaign went from around level 6/7 to level 19/20. It was probably the best campaign I've ever run. I still have my campaign notes from it, let's see.

LONG
The story began with the Master having been tasked by the council with investigating a series of mining riots on an outer-rim world. While there both the master and padawan could easily feel the presence of another, powerful, force user. They investigated and came to the conclusion that this force user was influencing the miners to riot and fight as the company was actually very good about pay/benefits/freedoms with the miners. They tracked him down to a cave hidden in the mountains where he welcomed them in, chatted for a bit, then tried to kill them. They won, but the body (and force presence) vanished into thin air. The miners immediately were freed of the effect. The players learned, upon returning home, that another Jedi, a master, had been killed at around the same time they were fighting the guy by someone whose description matched the guy they had been fighting.

Their second mission was a pre-gen I found and incorporated. In it they had to save someone from being kidnapped on a space station. They pulled it off and learned that the kidnapper was to deliver the person to her employers on an out of the way abandoned space station.

Their third mission took them to the abandoned station where they prepared for battle by setting traps and such and then met with the employers. They fought them and won, capturing one of the bad guys who was a bit of a coward and chucking the other out into space to fall to the planet below (he was a Gen'dai, they're basically unkillable). At the end as they departed they received a distress call from a nearby system.

Their fourth mission was also a modified pre-gen. They went to rescue the person who had sent the distress call, killed the bounty hunters who had captured the person, and as they were leaving they were confronted by the same person they had fought in the first mission. They force threw him into a vehicle they had pre-rigged to explode and detonated it, once again feeling him not die but rather vanish completely. They learned that they had 28 day until the guy they had captured on the station was to rendezvous with some others from his organization, so they arranged for the padawan to go through the trials while they waited.

The fifth mission was a pre-gen. On the way to the rendezvous (having left early) they hit a gravity distortion in the outer rim and crash landed on a mysterious planet. They were asked by the locals to participate in a local tradition for the parts to repair their ship and did so. At the end they were permitted to drink from the lake they'd been watching over, which the locals believed had magical properties (it did, but the players wouldn't know until the last few missions)

The sixth mission involved them getting to the rendezvous point (a city on Utapau, specifically a part) with about 5 days to spare. They sensed a great evil nearby and went to investigate. They found an ancient sith crypt, were tempted with power by the ancient sith lord's spirit in it, and then fought the spirit. They netted some ancient artifacts from it and then finished preparations for the rendezvous.

The seventh mission had them rendezvous with the enemy. They captured both of the guys this time, also did a lot of sidequests with beautifying the place and trying to make life better for the people there, which they liked because they got to be good guys with no ambiguity.

Eighth mission was a pre-gen, capturing a smuggler captain who was hiding out in an asteroid field. They ended up completely bypassing the space combat I had prepared with a couple well placed orders to their pilot droid (they put their ship waiting at the exit to the facility so when the smuggler jetted out he rammed their ship and both locked up).

Ninth mission I don't remember too well, and my notes are a bit light. They fought another member of the organization they had been capturing members from, got to be jedi in a non-combat situation (negotiations), and interrogated their new captive to learn where the next group would be.

Tenth mission was basically one long fight scene. They went up against two of the top members of the organization. It was a bit of a mirror match, as the PC jedi master had developed into a force wizard, and the knight a two-weapon weaponmaster. The enemies were a force adept force wizard and two-handed weapon weaponmaster. They won, but it was a hard fight. I incorporated lots of interesting terrain for this one as I knew the battle had to carry the entire mission, so there were speeders flying around the players were hopping on, lots of interesting terrain, and plenty of useful stuff.

Eleventh mission was the beginning of the end. The players learned from the guys they had captured where the organization was based and their goals (to kill the force entirely). They set off with backup coming behind them to infiltrate the place, met with the boss, had a big fight, then a talk, then another big fight, then the credits rolled.

Overall I would say the best part is what was mentioned below, partners. You really need to have a kind of buddy cop routine going. I got by with a Master/Apprentice relationship, but the characters need a relationship far more than normal.

Hope something in that huge mess of stuff helps. Good Luck.