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Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
So our group's current campaign is winding down, and we're planning to start up a new one in a few months. Since I'm the DM, that means I need to figure out a campaign idea.
I have a few campaign concepts cooking, but I would love to hear your ideas as well. Hearing other people's ideas really inspires me :) So let the ideas roll!
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
Here's a shameless plug, of a short and complete system. In short, you play a bunch of alien rebels who are resisting an all encompassing militaristic human empire. However, it's non chronological, doomed to failure, and ends in execution and failure.
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Fudge Assistant in the Playground.
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
A post tippyverse world that got that way due to a massive planar invasion of slaad, demons, and devils, trying to stop a mad binder from bringing Tenebrous out of the void. It's partially cribbed from SilverClawShift's horror campaign, but the setting should give it a pretty interesting light.
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
Hm...The king of your nation has gone completely out of his gourd. Frankly it was only a matter of time; the royal line has over the years become so highly inbred that the king's family tree doubles back on itself. Several times. The people outside the capital are starving, the citizens in the slums are somehow worse off, the king's bodyguards are seriously considering a coup, and if your nation collapses messily, then it's a prime target for invasion and obliteration.
Basically, your characters have the opportunity to participate in and lead a revolution.
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
A conspiracy of paladins are attempting to destroy an order of evil necromancer kings. Unfortunately this world was ravaged by a zombie uprising and the enlightened rule of the necromantic aristocracy is about the only thing capable of holding back the shambling hordes.
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
You are part of an order of knights who are on a quest to slay an ancient evil known only as the Red Death.
An ancient red dragon whose every appearance marks a massive amount of devastation and death he has been held in almost reverential fear by everyone for several centuries and the goal in killing him is to announce the new heir to a long forgotten imperial throne held by a legendary hero known only as the Overlord of the West who reigned in the only known golden age the people of the free worlds have ever known.
The problem is that we're talking the gojira of the fantasy world who is known for permanently killing the tarrasque completely annihilating an entire continent the size of the america's and razing an entire coastline when awakened too early.
Spoiler
He's also a paladin and the Overlord of the West who willingly relinquished his throne and tried to leave it in a democratic council only his former followers betrayed him to their regret since the only person he left to recognise his succession is actually his true human form that he occasionaly uses to avoid depleting the area he sleeps in of all food stuffs given how big his dragon form is. If they do succeed in killing him then every portal he personally sealed will reopen allowing all of the evils he banished to return and the world literally and figuratively goes to hell.. the only good sign is that he still has mortal descendants which is the failsafe he used in case he does die.
Unfortunately he has only two surviving descendants as the "authorities" read cultists seeking to restore their unholy amd imfernal masters to the mortal realm have been deliberately hunting them down since the Overlord was a half elf and his descendants retain that racial nature as part of the oath that keeps the realms safe from extraplanar invasion...
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
The characters find themselves in the Domain of the Six Princes, a trade hub for most of the known world laying up and down the coast of a continent gradually being subsumed by an expanding waste. Dwarves run the place, mercenaries are everywhere - preparing for expeditions into said wastes - and there's more gold idly floating around than any four other places put together. The dwarves specialize in mining, refining and exporting a byproduct of the magical firestorm that is the cause of this gradual desertification and given the uniquely specific Dm fiatistic powers of this material, it's little wonder that they're rich. The PC's must contend with trade companies, idle power mongering, power and seduction and, oh yeah, the shambling abominations spilling out of the heart of the wastes and heralding another purge from the rift between worlds at the heart of the continent seeing as the material being used by most civilizations on the planet to idly make their own life easier and better is also really HORRIBLE BYPRODUCT!
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The king's gone mad, the economy has imploded and the neighboring kingdom has started making forarys a good deal further south of the border than they really should. The world is ending and the people are looking for a saviour.
That's all on someone else's plate, though. The PC's are a group of dissatisfied knights / peasants / warriors / organized baker's guild and they are bugging out while they still can. There's a new continent of NotAmerica across the oceanic trench and with some luck and good lies they'll make it through civil war, imploding social structure, invasions and plague and get on a boat to somewhere nicer.
Too bad about the refuge column they ran into and the fact that all those people really do expect them to lead them towards salvation.
It's a harrowing tale of of the end of the world, love lies and loyalty and just how much baking it really takes to save a refuge camp.
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The Sworn, a group of [Amount of PC's] [Pc Sexual Identification] dedicated to the local ruler, have decided to intervene in local politics. They're all higher level and with more deeds under their belt than your average adventures, and the coup they recently staged to dethrone a radical religious fear monger organizing to do Mass Bad Thing was actually a success, thanks in no small part to [Nebolous Helpers With Uncertain Motivations].
Indeed, the problem with all was not dethroning the despot, fighting through his personal guard or even taking on the eldritch terror he called forth in a last bit effort to save himself, the problem is the ever important question of "So now what?".
There's no local government any more, you've seen to that explosively, the place has been mismanaged for a good deal of time and the curious practices of the Official State Cult apparently did do a whole lot more than just mass, seeing as reality is tearing up all over the place and the remaining Cultists are making bids for power in various cities.
You've saved the world! Now put it back together again from the shattered pieces you left behind.
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The Empire has landed on your shores, bringing fire and steel.
They've also brought philosophy, religion and plumbing. They've long since taken your cities, routed your armies through sheer mindnumbing luck, skill and technological advantage. The people are actually quite content with their new overlords - the official doctrine does much to alleviate the plight of men - and it seems any chance of a rebellion and heroic come back pretty much ended with a series of skirmishes between the few remaining Northern nobles and the [Roman Numeral] Legion of [Cool sounding Thing].
Well, then. If you can't beat 'em - join them. The Pc's are handpicked, trained and recently hired natives given sweeping powers and ordered to go forth and make the world a better place. They have wondrous items seldom seen in this country, they have powers granted by training that baffle the mind of their countrymen (Psionics vs Magic, Magic vs Psionics, Technology Vs Psionics / Magic, Access to Tome of Battle vs fighters without, Shadow Magic, Warlocks, anything that sets them apart from their former countrymen), if things go absolutely sour they can call on the backing of a full Legion of studiously, stupidly effective soldiers with a full detachment of military engineers.
Now all they have to contend with is the fact that everyone thinks they're traitors to the core, the friction of invaders and invaded, brewing desperation causing people to flock to darker powers, newly inspired fervor leading to the Resurrection of old, banned Gods, dark deeds done in the night and the fact that the reason for this entire invasion in the first place may not be something so mundane as mere expansionism.
Why do the Legions need this much [Common Material Forcibly Taken and Shipped Back Home], anyway?
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Oh man was it a good night out yesterday.
I mean, really good.
And that thing the elf did?
Wow.
... Wow, where the hell are we and what happened last night?
Is this the hold of a ship?
Oh dear oh dear oh dear did we get press ganged into joining the navy?
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Welcome to the small town of Silverfield - so named for the local harvest bringing a decidedly silver sheen to the surrounding pasture come harvest time. It's a peaceful place, it's a peaceful year and everything is actually pretty cozy. Things are quiet, the local forest is overseen by a very welcomining dryad community and the last war was four decades ago between two neighbours who recently married their sons and daughters.
You and your fellow PC's have come to Silverfield for the Harvest Festival, the wonderful beer and to put a crossbow bolt in the eye of the mayor because four months ago, he left you for dead in a [Harrowing Mexican Standoff].
The thing's a Skinwalker, a Shapechanger, a creature of masks and he's had four months to prepare. You know the others in your group, you've taken precautions against being replaced by a monster with no soul and too much guile, but what about the rest of the village?
You only have so many crossbow bolts.
Things could get ugly.
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Ah, Silverfield is a peaceful place. You and your companions have been here for a while, laying low. You all have... different talents so laying low is really your forte. And now men in black armor have come to town, men with no smiles and loaded weapons.
You know them.
You've escaped them before.
Will you run this time too?
Leave an entire town to the mercy of zealots?
Of course, if the town found out who you are odds are they'd side with the other guys but there's few excuses for ignorance and you've seen the things people with your powers can do if they're not careful, so who can blame them?
The PC's play any base class with alternative abilities (Psionics, Magic, Divine Magic) and form a "Set" against the opposing faction who have dedicated themselves to ridding the world of that specific ability. This works the best if the talents the PC's have are very different from your normal adventuring outfit.
I ran it with a group composed of Ozodrins, evolutionists and connoisseurs.
The other guys were named Blackwatch.
[All three baseclass are in the homebrew section of this forum, and they are fantastic. 3.5 D&D]
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The last transmission from the Expeditionary Fleet was routine, a status update about further analysis of the local sub sector with a note attached about some peculiar gravity fluctuations (Within acceptable parameters for high mass, old objects but still).
That was [Amount of decades] ago.
And now High Command is getting worried, so they're sending you - the usual go to guys - to boost through Slipgate, end up in an unknown sector and find out just what this is all about.
You're loaded up with the best of the best, although the usual mass restrictions on Interstellar travel with small crafts apply so none of you are wearing Full Mechanized Combat Gear, but hey, you're probably not going to need tactical nuclear support anyway.
Right?
... Right.
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You owe Old Cleve money. And Old Cleve always gets his money. So now you're stuck working a dead-end graveyard shift for one of his operations, sorting through piles of old crap arriving by the pallet-load to find a few worthwhile objects inbetween the useless gimmickry.
And that's when you find, one auspecious Monday night, The Thing.
Six hours later the neighborhood is on fire, Old Cleve is barking mad and sending his goons after you, the paramilitary organization of Eminent Ordeals are sending hit squads after you, the Watch is sending out guys in full battlegear to curbstomp anyone on the streets and you've just incinerated a house by snapping your fingers.
And that's when a guy you've never seen before steps out of an alley and tries to electrocute you. With lightning.
From his hands.
Clearly there's more to The City than you knew about, mate.
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"It seems any sufficiently pragmatic Evil is broadly indistinguishable from cynical Neutral"
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
Here's some off the wall ideas that I've had.
1. It is a dystopian future where war is entertainment. Soldiers are bred and genetically engineered for maximum carnage. You play one of those soldiers, but you've broken your conditioning. The game starts as you are escaping over the wall of the laboratory where you were made. Your goals: stay out of the hands of the war corporation that spawned you, escape the sprawling degenerate city and get to one of the free cities, where you can be safe. The corporation sends a battery of seekers (likewise engineered) out to hunt you down.
Behind the scenes: Breaking your conditioning and escaping was a set-up. You are on camera the entire time. You are implanted with a tracking device, a POV camera, and a microphone. Your escape and encounters with the seekers are all filmed. If you discover your tracking devices you can get them removed.
2. Each player creates a character that models a figure from fiction - any fiction is fine, so you will have an odd group. Mutants and Masterminds is probably the easiest way to do this. They are pulled into the REAL world to today's date, and this might be off-putting for some of them. They have to figure out how to get back to their own time, world, or continuity.
This game is meant to be silly and meta. The characters are fictional in the real world. They've been brought into the real world by a role-playing group playing the game that you're playing. The goal is to find and defeat the role-players, or convince them to stop playing the game.
BONUS POINTS: Have them choose their characters prior to the game. When they get to the end of the session, where they discover and encounter the role-players, have hired actors/friends who are dressed up as the players' characters invade the location where you are playing. It then becomes a pseudo-LARP session where your players are deciding both their own actions and the actions of the dressed-up actors.
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
As soon as my friends and I are reunited I'm going to be running a SWSE campaign that I would like to see other people use.
It's set right after Order 66 with the characters being rounded up by the 501st and thrown on a prison barge. The reason for this is that each character is given Use The Force for free because they are all latent force users.
Eventually the barge gets boarded by Jedi who survived the order and while they are trying to rescue people from the empire the barge also gets boarded by Sith who follow the old way of doing things. The characters have the choice to either fight with the empire as Darth Vader's personal force, the Sith who don't believe in the rule of two or the Jedi.
Either side they choose they'll be fighting a war on both fronts.
Re: Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
This.
It's basically a giant easter egg hunt with a 20 questions mechanic. Restore the kingdom, explore exitic locales, and squirm with suspense as you wait for the king to slip up... or not.
Now that you have the plot put together, you can use it to string along a series of dungeons.
If you don't have time for making dungeons, use the handy-dandy Donjon Dungeon Generator! Have fun!
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Recommend campaign ideas (the more creative the better)
