Bloodsongg
2018-12-09, 12:37 AM
Hey all,
So this is my first time trying to write my own campaign. After reading through the new Starfinder system I thought a kingmaker-esque campaign would me amazingly fun for my players. I put this on hold for awhile to think of plot/figure out how I was going to run this without going insane. This is what I came up with, and I hope some of you all could give me some feedback/pointers on GMing something like this. I've played Pathfinder for about 5 years but I only ever scratched the surface of the lore so a lot of this is totally new to me and i'm exited to be working with it!
Concept: A group of vengeful Aboleths come together and form a scheme to bring chaos to the surface world of Golarion. To do this, they use their mind controlling abilities to insert themselves into the followers of Rovagug. The citizens of Golarion start to notice attacks from these followers are becoming more frequent, but perhaps stranger, more organized. This continues for a number of years and the worshipers grow in numbers as they continue to organize themselves under the (unknown to them) leadership of the Aboleth Council. Once the followers have a strong enough following, they set their sights on a new goal: The release of their master from the earthen prison, the Dead Vault, an impossible task as the beast was bound by a key held only by Asmodeus; however, there was a way. In the days before time, when the band of the gods we know today (as well as countless others who perished in the struggled) battled and sealed the beast, there were others who sided with the primal chaos. These names were purged from history as traitors to the gods. One of these Traitors was a god by the name of Ditha, the chaos serpent who managed to avoid the God's wrath using an unknown magic. She is now controlling the Aboleth council indirectly through a champion and has given them direction to find a powerful artifact from a dimension outside the control of the modern Gods, this artifact is powerful enough to break Rovagug free from his prison. To do this, the worshipers were given advanced technology and magics (much of which acquired from coordinated raids on the Technic League), and sent off-world in search of this artifact.
The modern gods, now fully aware of the resurfacing of Ditha, feared the power of this artifact; however, were unable to locate it themselves. Thus, their solution was to hide Golarion away in order to keep the Dead Vault safe, and to give some of the planet's population the tools needed to combat this now off-world threat. That was two centuries ago. Now long forgotten, the Starfinder factions have been formed and technology has been developed into what we see in the system today. The story follows a group of mercenaries given a mission by one of the followers of Rovagug (Who now are properly trained to blend in with society and operate in the shadows), to find a scroll in an ancient tower on a distant moon. The party is directed specifically not to read the scroll, and is accompanied by another follower of the organization to help them. This is a Scroll of Ditha, and it provides a piece of the map necessary to locate the hidden inter-dimensional artifact. After finding (and subsequently reading) the the scroll, the party is given direction by an avatar of Abadar, who tells them what he knows of the story, and gives the party the means (and some funds) to fight the organization. To do this, they will need an army generated from the various factions of the universe, and a a means of sustaining a foothold in the taken lands. This adventure will take the party through numerous regions of uninhabited space so they can claim new lands, gather resources, and find allies as they not only attempt to track down and eliminate the organization as well as foil their nefarious plot all while trying to navigate the intricate political climates of the factions.
Method: So part of my problem here was obviously being able to generate planets on the fly, as well as manage infrastructure for the players as they create new settlements, mine resources, and establish trade routes/supply lines. Luckily, I have a web development background and way too much free time So I created a web application to use as my GM dashboard. This auto generates planets for me or allows me to generate them myself. This tool displays the type of planet, it's size, and some traits (such as what resources it has and what hazards exist). I can also store other information such as basic descriptions of the planet (i'm working on auto generating that but its not easy) so for now I can prep the planets ahead of time and write descriptions of them, I can also store information regarding trade routes. With this and the help of my handy-dandy 3D printer, I can more or less dynamically generate a "dark sector" map of the game board fairly easily at the start of the game and add to it as need be. From there, the only other issue I had was army/fleet battles (a feature i'm developing now), and encounter generation. Fleet battles is a challenge because the Starfinder rule book doesn't provide a whole lot of information about them or how to manage them, so I'm going to have to adapt the army battle rules from Kingmaker (which I could use some ideas on how to do).
Why I'm Here: So like I said, this is my first time GMing something on this scale and I really want it to be a hit for my players who all love Science fiction as much as I do, so I was hoping some of you all could provide some insight/feedback/ideas on how I can manage the game, or other problems any of you have encountered with empire sims like kingmaker, or just some general content you think would be cool to add. Again, I've only scratched the surface of the lore so I'm sure there are plot holes in the concept above, Id love to hear some feedback or ways to handle them!
Thanks all, and I look forward to the feedback! :D
So this is my first time trying to write my own campaign. After reading through the new Starfinder system I thought a kingmaker-esque campaign would me amazingly fun for my players. I put this on hold for awhile to think of plot/figure out how I was going to run this without going insane. This is what I came up with, and I hope some of you all could give me some feedback/pointers on GMing something like this. I've played Pathfinder for about 5 years but I only ever scratched the surface of the lore so a lot of this is totally new to me and i'm exited to be working with it!
Concept: A group of vengeful Aboleths come together and form a scheme to bring chaos to the surface world of Golarion. To do this, they use their mind controlling abilities to insert themselves into the followers of Rovagug. The citizens of Golarion start to notice attacks from these followers are becoming more frequent, but perhaps stranger, more organized. This continues for a number of years and the worshipers grow in numbers as they continue to organize themselves under the (unknown to them) leadership of the Aboleth Council. Once the followers have a strong enough following, they set their sights on a new goal: The release of their master from the earthen prison, the Dead Vault, an impossible task as the beast was bound by a key held only by Asmodeus; however, there was a way. In the days before time, when the band of the gods we know today (as well as countless others who perished in the struggled) battled and sealed the beast, there were others who sided with the primal chaos. These names were purged from history as traitors to the gods. One of these Traitors was a god by the name of Ditha, the chaos serpent who managed to avoid the God's wrath using an unknown magic. She is now controlling the Aboleth council indirectly through a champion and has given them direction to find a powerful artifact from a dimension outside the control of the modern Gods, this artifact is powerful enough to break Rovagug free from his prison. To do this, the worshipers were given advanced technology and magics (much of which acquired from coordinated raids on the Technic League), and sent off-world in search of this artifact.
The modern gods, now fully aware of the resurfacing of Ditha, feared the power of this artifact; however, were unable to locate it themselves. Thus, their solution was to hide Golarion away in order to keep the Dead Vault safe, and to give some of the planet's population the tools needed to combat this now off-world threat. That was two centuries ago. Now long forgotten, the Starfinder factions have been formed and technology has been developed into what we see in the system today. The story follows a group of mercenaries given a mission by one of the followers of Rovagug (Who now are properly trained to blend in with society and operate in the shadows), to find a scroll in an ancient tower on a distant moon. The party is directed specifically not to read the scroll, and is accompanied by another follower of the organization to help them. This is a Scroll of Ditha, and it provides a piece of the map necessary to locate the hidden inter-dimensional artifact. After finding (and subsequently reading) the the scroll, the party is given direction by an avatar of Abadar, who tells them what he knows of the story, and gives the party the means (and some funds) to fight the organization. To do this, they will need an army generated from the various factions of the universe, and a a means of sustaining a foothold in the taken lands. This adventure will take the party through numerous regions of uninhabited space so they can claim new lands, gather resources, and find allies as they not only attempt to track down and eliminate the organization as well as foil their nefarious plot all while trying to navigate the intricate political climates of the factions.
Method: So part of my problem here was obviously being able to generate planets on the fly, as well as manage infrastructure for the players as they create new settlements, mine resources, and establish trade routes/supply lines. Luckily, I have a web development background and way too much free time So I created a web application to use as my GM dashboard. This auto generates planets for me or allows me to generate them myself. This tool displays the type of planet, it's size, and some traits (such as what resources it has and what hazards exist). I can also store other information such as basic descriptions of the planet (i'm working on auto generating that but its not easy) so for now I can prep the planets ahead of time and write descriptions of them, I can also store information regarding trade routes. With this and the help of my handy-dandy 3D printer, I can more or less dynamically generate a "dark sector" map of the game board fairly easily at the start of the game and add to it as need be. From there, the only other issue I had was army/fleet battles (a feature i'm developing now), and encounter generation. Fleet battles is a challenge because the Starfinder rule book doesn't provide a whole lot of information about them or how to manage them, so I'm going to have to adapt the army battle rules from Kingmaker (which I could use some ideas on how to do).
Why I'm Here: So like I said, this is my first time GMing something on this scale and I really want it to be a hit for my players who all love Science fiction as much as I do, so I was hoping some of you all could provide some insight/feedback/ideas on how I can manage the game, or other problems any of you have encountered with empire sims like kingmaker, or just some general content you think would be cool to add. Again, I've only scratched the surface of the lore so I'm sure there are plot holes in the concept above, Id love to hear some feedback or ways to handle them!
Thanks all, and I look forward to the feedback! :D