Homebrew Campaign Ideas

[Inkyrius]

Hey everyone, I've been trying to think up good campaign ideas for my site, and I've come up with three. I'd thought I'd put it up on here for the forumites to vote on. Ok, the ideas are as follows:

Elemental War

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Ok, this idea revolves around the idea that the Primordials of the different elements are fighting amongst themselves. The Elementals are broken up into two groups. Group one consists of the 'classic' Elementals(Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Spirit/Life) and group two are some more obscure ones(Wood, Lighting, Acid, Poisonous Gas, and Death). The PCs must choose a side to fight for, combating smaller threats at first, but eventually culminating in, during the Epic tier, the Primordials themselves.

Evil-Aligned PCs

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This one is a campaign where the PCs themselves are evil or chaotic evil and fight against the good guys. The paladins and clerics would worship evil deities; the magic users would use their arcane gifts for ill, rather than good; the rogues are robbers/thugs; and the fighters are mercenaries who do anything for a quick gold piece.

Planar Travellers

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My last idea, this one is one where the PCs(despiter their class) are gifted in planar magic. They use their powers to travel from plane to plane, righting any wrongs they find(and collecting sweet items from the various planes). This one would be kind of episodic, the players 'jumping' from plane to plane, completing a few adventures and quests, spending maybe 2 or 3 sessions at each, then moving on to a new one.

So, what does everyone think?

[Sanguine]

I liked Elemental war the best all though they were all good, and is it just me or is the last one a rip-off of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles?

[Inkyrius]

I liked Elemental war the best all though they were all good, and is it just me or is the last one a rip-off of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles?

Thanks for your feedback. Elemental War was one of my first choices, and sorry, but I've never even heard of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles(I'll Google it lol).
*EDIT: Sanguine: oddly enough, it is a little bit like that, but I was kind of thinking of something more along the lines of the Magic The Gathering: Planeswalkers concept.

[Trodon]

that sound awesome i want to play an elemental war game *goes and looks at the recruiting thread*

[Sanguine]

That is odd that you accidentally got an idea nearly the same, although funny. I've decided to post why I like Elemental War the best. It has a really epic feel to it, I've heard lots of complaints about evil campaigns getting old fast, and I prefer a long arcing storyline to episodic although Tsubasa pulls it off well in my opinion so the plane traveler one could be really good.

So in order I think it should be

Elemental War
Plane Travel
Evil

[Kornaki]

Group one consists of the 'classic' Elementals(Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Spirit/Life) and some more obscure ones(Wood, Lighting, Acid, Poisonous Gas, and Death)

Who's group two?

[Inkyrius]

Whoops! The Wood/Acid/Lightning etc ones WERE group 2. whoops. I'm gonna go fix my little mistake really quick lol.

[Lappy9000]

How about doing Elementals versus Para-elementals (like mephits)?

Kinda has the same sort of feel without you having to make anything new.

[Inkyrius]

How about doing Elementals versus Para-elementals (like mephits)?

Kinda has the same sort of feel without you having to make anything new.

Hmm...that is a pretty good idea, but making the stuff is half the fun! I get to make at least 5 new types of Elemental, 5 new planes, a couple new classes and races, and a whole bunch of other stuff! (If I do this campaign idea)

[boomwolf]

Never heard of the elemental spirit, there are 4 main elements-fire,water,earth and air.

At least in basic alchemy and western fantasy.

Other elements that appears here and there:
-chaos (yet not order, weird isn't it?)
-blood
-death/life
-venom
-lightning
-metal
-wood
-ice
-shadow/light
-fruitcake (well, a WotC jest-for-the-kicks MTG card.)

I suggest pitting the four VS ice(water),venom(earth),lightning(air) and metal(fire replacement, as nothing quite fits.)
The odd 4 I suggest are quite different, and allow a whole other set of abilities for the "odd" side.

[Inkyrius]

Never heard of the elemental spirit, there are 4 main elements-fire,water,earth and air.


I suggest pitting the four VS ice(water),venom(earth),lightning(air) and metal(fire replacement, as nothing quite fits.)
The odd 4 I suggest are quite different, and allow a whole other set of abilities for the "odd" side.

If I do decide to do the elemental war campaign(which seems to be most popular), I'm going to use this, with one exception: I'll replace venom with wood. It just seems to fit better as Earth's opposite in this line-up.

[Lappy9000]

I know the Classic Elements in D&D are

• Air
• Earth
• Fire
• Water

The Wu Jen (from Complete Arcane) uses the five elements

• Earth
• Fire
• Metal
• Wood
• Water

Some paraelementals include

• Ash
• Dust
• Glass
• Ice
• Magma
• Ooze
• Salt
• Steam

...just throwing out ideas.

[afroakuma]

Lies.

Those are quasi-elementals, you. A few paras, but largely quasis and you made one up.

[Harperfan7]

Wasn't the original 5th element supposed to be cosmos?
I imagine Ozma from ff9.

Anyways, the 4/5 elements are the most overused theme in fantasy. They are in many movies and damn near every video game ever.

Also, para/quasi elementals? Come on! How many different forms of "I use slam and am immune to everything but normal damage and banishment! RAWR!" do you need? Even dragons are element coded!

My point being, who really wants to go through a campaign based on the elements? If anything, switch over to alignment (C,L,G,E).

[PId6]

What about combining all three? The PCs are evildoers that travel from elemental plane to elemental plane, spreading chaos and destruction for their demonic overlords while the good guys hunt them from behind?

Wasn't the original 5th element supposed to be cosmos?

I've always preferred Boron.

[Lappy9000]

Slander.

Quasi-Elementals they may be, but none are made up.

I could even add Lightning, Smoke, Mist, Radiant, Mineral, and Sulfur to that list.

[DracoDei]

I think by Life and Death, he meant the Positive and Negative energy planes.

I also agree that the Elemental one is the most interesting for an in-depth story.

[Inkyrius]

Hmmm...everyone seems to agree on the elemental one; I think the Planeshifters one sounded pretty b.a. myself. Hmm...

[Inkyrius]

Although...the Planes one would be pretty difficult to encorporate, seeing as how it would be really hard to design, oh say 20 well thought-out planes, settlements/religions/races for said planes, and all that other fluff...I think I'm even leaning towards the Elemental one now.

[Xuincherguixe]

I think by Life and Death, he meant the Positive and Negative energy planes.

I also agree that the Elemental one is the most interesting for an in-depth story.

Positive/Negative Energy is really more of a D&D specific thing, and boomwolf was talking about fantasy in general.


Personally, I'm more a fan of "Law vs Chaos" than "Good vs Evil", because then what you have is a battle of ideology instead of "right vs wrong". It becomes easier to identify with the opponents. And, you might be forced to work with people you don't necessarily like.


If you do a PCs as evil vs the forces of good, I would recommend playing it up for laughs. It's pretty much impossible to play the game seriously when everyone acknowledges that they are evil. In a normal game you might be able to slide in an Anti Hero, but an evil campaign in which the object is to kill people just because they're good? Best to acknowledge it's a farce and embrace that fact.

Now the PCs just happening to be evil is another story. Then they can kill, or (and here's the crazy part) not kill anyone to serve their own selfish interests.

In a way, the PCs as antiheroes kind of makes a lot of D&D make a lot of sense.



Elemental wars are overdone. Better is a war of abstract concepts. In my own setting I'm toying with there's a kind of war/friendship in hell (to these beings, it's the same thing) Between a Black Hole (The Devourer, God of certain kinds of systems like economics), a massive living explosion (The Destroyer, God of light and beauty), A massive Wind (The Invader, God of greed), An illusion essentially (The Deceiver, God of Truth and Lies), And a massive spatial warping (The Corrupter, God of change). They're all kind of "order in chaos" type entities. In a way, they're like elementals which is why I bring this up.

Slight twist, is going with that Wujen approach. One cycle is unbalanced and leads to destruction. The other allows life to flow. And the PCs have to restore the balance.


... While we're on this theme (Wow, I'm usually not this good at staying on a single point). In Final Fantasy 3, you learn that in the past there was another group of heroes setting out to restore the balance. Only these were the dark warriors. Turns out that some fools had decided to abuse the forces of light for their own selfish reasons. Rather than evil, you could have just dark characters.


I know nothing I've said there is anything new. but I find it's always a good idea to subvert the classic theme's a little. Stereotypes are never good. And as TVTropes will tell you, the subversion itself can be a stereotype too. (Or in this case a trope... which aren't always bad). The best thing to do is forget about being original or edgy, and just making a good story. Which in RPGs means creating a world in which the PCs can become involved with, and influence.


That being said... the Planar Travel campaign idea seems like the best one to go with. It has the most potential for variety. Probably goes best with the whole "adventurer" thing. PCs generally wandering about and ... well having adventures. And misadventures. PCs being the way they are they're likely to cause a few wrongs themselves. Whether they want to or not.

[Inkyrius]

That being said... the Planar Travel campaign idea seems like the best one to go with. It has the most potential for variety. Probably goes best with the whole "adventurer" thing. PCs generally wandering about and ... well having adventures. And misadventures. PCs being the way they are they're likely to cause a few wrongs themselves. Whether they want to or not.

See, that's almost the same opinion I had when I thought of it. The only difficulty would be in making all the planes and all the stuff that would go with them.

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

The planar travel one sounds the most interesting. You could play it like a fantasy version of Star Trek. "The Astral Plane... the Final Frontier," heh. What's more, it would be an easy campaign to manage, since there won't be a whole lot to remember between episodes except for the odd recurring character.

...dang, I might need to use this.

The elemental war could also be interesting, but it brings on a lot of questions. What are a bunch of big elemental avatars fighting about in the first place? Does the world's climate and composition gradually change as one side gains or loses ground? Does the typical low-level elemental have its respective stereotypical disposition, or the mindset of a soldier or an animal or a human being?

I would recommend going with the four classical elements if you use this, as it has the most epic feel to me - the rest tend to be described as combinations of the others, save for mind/void/whatever, which would probably not have much representation besides the heroes themselves.

All of the evil campaigns I've heard about quickly degenerate into a series of 'chaotic stupid' plays which, while hilarious, would eventually make me wonder why we're not playing Shadowrun instead. Given the first-post description of this one, I jump straight to the wondering.

[Xuincherguixe]

I forgot to add that the planar campaign sounds promising because that's a lot like Planescape, which is made of awesome and win.

All of the evil campaigns I've heard about quickly degenerate into a series of 'chaotic stupid' plays which, while hilarious, would eventually make me wonder why we're not playing Shadowrun instead. Given the first-post description of this one, I jump straight to the wondering.

There's something to be said for the fantasy genre, in which the PCs are a bit genre saavy. Not that they know they're in a game, but that they understand how villains operate, and what a dungeon is like. And can then set about attacking at their weaknesses. Or doing something really bizarre and talk their way out of conflict.

One of my pet themes is the idea that peace is rebellion. In worlds where violence and inequality are the norm it is rebellious to seek to change that status quo. It's the kind of thing that takes heroes to pull off. It only makes sense to kill the Orcs because they are a threat. To not kill them is an assault on the cycle of violence. It might backfire on them, but maybe the PCs are so heroic, they can defy the blood thirsty universe.

... Which is probably a pretty Shadowrun like theme too actually. But that's not really a bad thing. Shadowrun is a better game ^_^*.


*I really do believe it's a better game system for a number of reasons. But I'm going to judge anyone for playing D&D**

**That's what WoD players do***

***Kidding!