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Brauron
2009-07-20, 07:42 PM
In the very near future, the PCs in my campaign are going to find themselves in Glanzendstadt, a city, population mostly humans and dwarves(founded by dwarves, hence the name -- in my world, Dwarves are German-esque, based especially on 18th-19th century Prussians), with some elves, half-elves, gnomes and half-orcs (the area around the city is too mountainous and industrial for halflings to be really common). The city's economy is based heavily on an extremely expansive silver mine that the dwarves opened about 40 years earlier.

In town, the PCs are going to quickly learn that hobgoblins in the areas around the city and mine have been causing more trouble than ever -- raiding silver caravans being the most common offense, but also a variety of others are possible -- laming horses, torching farm fields, etc.

So the city -- which is really more of a semi-autonomous city-state -- is starting to take the fight to the hobgoblins, trying to root them out and kill them/drive them away.

Everywhere the PCs look there are big propaganda banners calling on able-bodied men and women of all races to enlist with the Stadtguards, the militia/police force of Glanzendstadt, to "Turn Back the Goblinoid Scourge" and essentially, protect home, puppies and Mom's Apple Pie.

The PCs themselves will be strongly encouraged to enlist as mercenaries -- which I'm hoping they'll do (fingers crossed) as Glanzendstadt needs every individual capable of holding a sword, spear or bow possible.

Anyone here ever run a martial campaign? I'm drawing heavily from Complete Warrior and Heroes of Battle for this, as well as my own historical studies. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on how to keep a martial campaign fresh and interesting session after session.

Some of my ideas for the campaign as a whole:

The Hobgoblins are not so much evil, as trying to regain land that was traditionally theirs, seized by dwarves 40 years earlier. They had attempted diplomacy and been met with derision and insults. They're now waging something of a guerrilla war, using hit-and-run tactics to attempt to wear down Glanzendstadt's resistance to letting the Hobgoblins have the land surrounding the main mine's entrance back. The Hobgoblins don't want the city, they don't want to slaughter the inhabitants, they just want a patch of earth that bears historical and possibly religious significance to them. If granted the land, they'll even keep the mine open and hire Glanzendstadt citizens at a fair wage to mine the silver, and keep trade open with the city.

The Dwarves are not happy about that, and see the mine as "theirs" now, and too rich a silver vein to turn over to "filthy, stinking yellow-bellied goblinoids." And the Dwarves are a huge powerhouse in Glanzendstadt's politics, and have done considerable work to turn public opinion of the Hobgoblins as negative as possible by depicting them as baby-eaters and worse. Public opinion was already kind of on the negative-side of neutral towards the hobgoblins since they're uncivilized (i.e., don't live in cities) and they don't speak good Common and have pointy teeth.

Additionally, others in the city have taken the Dwarves' smear-campaign and run with it, with some demagogues even calling for the Hobgoblins' extermination or enslavement, noting that the land on which the Hobgoblins currently graze sheep and cattle would be ideal land for the expansion of Glanzendstadt's agriculture, with vast fields of wheat growing where currently there are wattle-and-daub huts and mangy livestock. Possibly, they'll add, the Hobgoblins could be "civilized," by force if necessary, and allowed to stay on their land as tenant-farmers under Glanzendstadt landlords.

This is sort of the politics I have in my head as being behind the conflict; whether the PCs get involved in the political aspects at all is up to them; I kind of doubt they will, that doesn't seem their thing. If they're content to bust heads, I'll provide them with heads to bust.

They will be given the Glanzendstadt viewpoint of the matter at first, which I think will fit well with the players' preconceived notion of what Hobgoblins are. If opportunity presents itself -- they decide to capture a Hobgoblin for questioning, or something -- I'll start giving them, in bits and pieces, the Hobgoblin perspective on the conflict, and let the PCs decide which side to support and fight for.

I've got a couple "missions" plotted out (and plotted out in multiple ways, allowing for PCs to be either on the Hobgoblin or City side) based on the charts in the back of Complete Warrior, but I'm curious if anyone has any other suggestions?

Thanks all.

deuxhero
2009-07-20, 08:04 PM
Ctrl+f:Tome Of Battle
Phrase not found.

What is your opinon on it?

Brauron
2009-07-20, 08:09 PM
Ctrl+f:Tome Of Battle
Phrase not found.

What is your opinon on it?

I actually haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet, so I have no real opinion. Does it provide advice on building martial adventures?

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-20, 08:46 PM
I actually haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet, so I have no real opinion. Does it provide advice on building martial adventures?

The warblade (ersatz fighter) is fluffed fairly strongly towards being glory-seeking types who love combat, so if your group likes to stick with the default fluff and you had a bunch of warblades in the group, they'd be practically guaranteed to join the mercenaries to see battle. Other than that, there's not much for martial campaigns in particular (beyond the classes' fluff, of course), though there's a nice dwarf-only PrC that you might like which basically makes the Dwarven Defender concept actually sort of work.

Brauron
2009-07-20, 09:09 PM
My players opted to play pretty much core-only. I told them that I'd prefer they stuck to the races in the PHB, but that all classes were open to them, with me retaining final veto over characters.

I ended up with a Half-Orc Barbarian, a Half-Elf Ranger and a Human Cleric. *shrug*

The characters have shown themselves to be greatly motivated by loot, so the promise of a steady stream of GP in the form of pay from the government in exchange for killing hobgoblins should get them going pretty well. Plus, loot from fallen enemies.

AslanCross
2009-07-20, 09:30 PM
The Red Hand of Doom adventure has some good ideas for how to run a martial campaign. It doesn't really have much of big conventional battles, since the point of most of the first few parts is that the PCs execute some surgical hits against the goblinoid horde's secret weapons.

There are a number of encounters where the goblinoids send death squads directly against the PCs (especially once the PCs have made themselves a thorn in the side of the goblinoid commanders), as well as an extended city siege/urban battle that ends with the PCs throwing down with the goblinoid general in the city's cathedral square.

In your case, I guess the PCs will end up taking sides sooner or later.

elliott20
2009-07-20, 09:33 PM
I think when he said "martial" he meant "military", not "martial arts". so, while I think ToB is a great book for any martial character, in terms of running a game about war and such, it's kind of on the same level as any other supplement.

In terms of running a military campaign, you need to limit the number of wizards running around and how they are used on the battlefield. No matter how good your heroes are, they are essentially like ground infantry while a wizard is more akin to artillery, comm system, air support, anti-air, and all sorts of other crazy junk rolled into one.

Best way to make sure the wizards DON'T end up doing that is to limit their numbers and their strength. By limiting the number of wizards, most military people will be more inclined to put them in the back, where they'll serve the far more important function of communication, coordination, spying, equipping, etc.

By limiting their strength, (i.e. no full casters over level 12 or so) you also can limit the possibility that the players will ask "well why doesn't HE just go ahead and do what needs to be done?"

That takes care of the basic set up which will allow you to let the players carry the heavy load.

In terms of actual missions, here are a couple:

- assault and dismantle the hobgoblin leadership structure. if your hobgoblin army has several branches, several different divisions, and a bunch of different leadership structure in each, you can easily make a bunch of missions where they have to infiltrate and kill the leaders and hope for a morale collapse. The process of finding who the leaders are, what they are capable of, and how to confront them can take sometime. To do this though, you need to first figure out your hob army structure and it's leadership core.

create that first, then create a couple contingencies that each leader will take towards guarding themselves. As the players begin to succeed at taking out a couple leaders, they will start to ramp up the security.

and of course, figure out the internal politics with the various leaders in the hob army.

When creating your armies, always remember the following roles
artillery
supply line
security
communication
investigation/scouting
occupation
special ops
strategic analysis

each army should have the ability fulfill these functions in some capacity. While each division might have some more specialized function, they should have the ability to do at least a little bit of these in some fashion.

- Just like the Giant did for the battle of Azure City, figure out the over all strategy that the hob army is going to run with, and figure out how the human army is going to counteract some of this. (or if they catch on to it at all) You don't need precise details, but you need to have an over all approach. surround the city and starve it out? full frontal assault? destroy surrounding cities first to take out the military support structure for the city? Having this basic strategy will help you write out how the dwarven alliance might react.

Seeing as the players are on the dwarven alliance side, it might be better to let the dwarven alliance guys be a bit of the underdog in the fight. Gives the players more chance to shine this way.

Maybe the dwarven alliance has far more in fighting issues than the hob army.

Glimbur
2009-07-20, 10:20 PM
There's a third party book called Testament. In addition to a bunch of rules on role playing in the Old Testament era, there are also rules for mass combat.

If you want first party, there's Heroes of Battle but word on the street is that it becomes less interesting at about 6th level.

My personal advice would be to have them act as a Spec-Ops squad, doing small raids on targets of opportunity and such. Assassinations, even, if they have the skills for it.

awa
2009-07-20, 10:44 PM
I assume you already know it but unless your group is unusual their an excellent chance they switch sides quickly on if their big on role playing not just killing stuff. Having it only been 40 years since the dwarfs took over the land the fact that the hobgoblins use to own it should be relatively well known and while they were savages for not living in city might be perfectly fine justification for the npcs it probably wont go over as well with more enlightened pcs.

You've really set the dwarfs up as the bad guys heavily here I would suggest making it a little more Grey (unless your goal is for the pcs to join the hobgoblins and don't want to make it a difficult decision) The hobgoblin seem extremely forgiving of being driven out off their lands and having their territory stolen, much more so then a human in a similar situation.

moving on
pastoralist tend to have much smaller populations then agrarian peoples this mean less specialists including professional soldiers. nomads can rarely afford full time warriors. That said because all their wealth is mobile raiding tends to be much more common among nomadic herdsman so the average fighting ability would be much higher then that of a typical member of an agrarian society. To model this I would make the average hob goblin grunt have higher level then the average grunt of the agrarian society but would make the non named character elite slightly higher level for the agrarian society.

non industrial tribal armies have the advantage of their mobility they can often just move out of the way of an enemy and choose to only fight when the odds favor them allowing them to cause damage far out weighing their numbers. their greatest weakness is because they don’t have the food surplus that farming communities do they have a much harder time staying in the field because they are also the food producers.

Historical warrior nomads typical get destroyed either because the enemy can keep their army in field longer or because their herds/ women and children are much less mobile and are easy prey for the enemy army.


A simple strategy that was effective against the British in New Zealand during the land wars was to rapidly construct a small wooden fort goading the enemy to attack it when the enemy attacks fight for a while kill a lot of people and then abandon the fort. Rinse repeat. This tactics was effective against cannon so should work against any mundane weaponry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81_(M%C4%81ori)
One of these forts might be to hard for large groups of low level characters to break what with all their choke points but a small band of mid to high level characters could assault one with much less difficulty

Now one thing these strategies are good for is assuming they side with the dwarves. The dwarves slow moving army has little ability to force the hobgoblins to battle the hobgoblins can see it coming literally from miles away and make sure their not their, a smaller group of warriors on the other hand say the pcs might be able to actually be able to get close enough to do some damage with out the enemy disappearing.

You could mix up the encounter s a little how about fighting ghouls or a necromancer come to scavenge bodies from the battles remains.

If the pcs fight large forces of basic troops use the mob template maybe with some modification otherwise they will likely feel bored after they spend an hour or two killing enemies that virtually can touch them

sorry about the long post

Raum
2009-07-20, 11:14 PM
Anyone here ever run a martial campaign? I'm drawing heavily from Complete Warrior and Heroes of Battle for this, as well as my own historical studies. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions on how to keep a martial campaign fresh and interesting session after session.What are you looking for when you say a martial campaign? Do you want the PCs to be commanding companies of troops? Or are they simply members of a military organization and subject to orders? Or something else entirely?

If you're thinking 'members of the military' and looking for a variety of missions, here are a few ideas. First, think variety. They all need to be small unit / special forces style missions, but they don't need to be the same. Hostage rescues are a possibility ("They captured Lord Ammud, go save hime!"). So are assassinations ("They're beating us, that general is too good...go kill him."). Supply line disruption is good ("Capture or destroy those wagons of food!") as well as infrastructure destruction ("Knock down that bridge!"). Or other sabotage ("Go poisons their wells."). Of course there's always spy missions ("Go find out how many troops they have coming. Don't get caught!").

If you're looking to have them commanding troops in the field, I'd look into systems more suited to that style. Perhaps the Miniatures Handbook if you want to stick close to D&D. Perhaps another system entirely such as Savage Worlds. Or just wing it. But rolling detailed D&D combat for company plus sized battles does not sound fun to me. :)

Lamech
2009-07-20, 11:30 PM
I'm going to second the "dwarves are the bad guys here". You may very well end up with the PC's deciding to slay all occupying forces, with out any grayness at all. Its very easy to see this in black and white terms:

Occupying invaders = evil
Freedom fighters trying to regain what was stolen = good

Brauron
2009-07-21, 06:29 AM
Thank you all for the imput.

Raum: Sorry I wasn't more clear. I never really intended the PCs to be leading masses of troops -- I recognize that in D&D that gets very boring very quickly, I had intended from the start for the PCs to be operating as a small cell performing specialized missions meant to cripple the enemy.


Any ideas on making the dwarves more gray, and less bad? I've got some ideas that might bring the Hobgoblins a little further out of the good and into the gray area -- having their "forgiveness" be a ruse, for instance, or having them be willing to kill innocent civilians to get their point across. An Irish friend of mine whom I described this to viewed the Hobgoblins as being IRA-like in terms of tactics and suggested I go with this and have the Hobgoblins use morally-reprehensible means to accomplish what they view as good ends.

Also, any thoughts on making the Dwarven conquest of the mine (and resulting growth of the city) significantly old? 40 years, on reflection, seems too young. If it were, say, 250 years ago, it'd be in no living human's memory and most Dwarves in the city wouldn't remember it either.

horngeek
2009-07-21, 06:36 AM
There's a book on large-scale battles and how to intergrate PCs into them. Heroes of Battle or somthing like that.

Kiero
2009-07-21, 06:41 AM
The PCs themselves will be strongly encouraged to enlist as mercenaries -- which I'm hoping they'll do (fingers crossed)

Why do they need convincing? Shouldn't it be an explicit part of your pitch that the PCs will be mercs, and thus the players already understand and expect this?

T.G. Oskar
2009-07-21, 06:51 AM
Any ideas on making the dwarves more gray, and less bad? I've got some ideas that might bring the Hobgoblins a little further out of the good and into the gray area -- having their "forgiveness" be a ruse, for instance, or having them be willing to kill innocent civilians to get their point across.

Well, perhaps not all of the Dwarves share the feeling. Perhaps only the mine leaders and those who benefit directly from the mines may want the Hobgoblins out of the way. Perhaps others are just being drawn out of propaganda itself, or because of xenophobia: a Hobgoblin that goes and speaks their version of the truth while attempting to amend may cause some people to wonder. Perhaps some Dwarves may be willing to cooperate and make peace attempts, but they are being swallowed by the anti-goblinoid feeling.

As for the Hobs, you may also want to divide the feeling in two. Some, perhaps the big bulk of the Hobs, want to recover their lands and may have resorted to war out of desperation. They feel that negotiating with the Dwarves (or at least the ruling class, which may be on the favor with the mineholders and thus unwilling to lose the chance) is turning increasingly pointless, and decide to fight. Others may be genuine to their MM alignment, taking the "reclaiming our ancestral lands" as an excuse for eventual domination. They may not care about their ancestral lands, but rather use that as an excuse to begin their conquests.

The idea is that, while at first the PCs will see only two sides, through further investigation they may realize there's more than two sides. In theory, there should be two sides, and eventually the dwarves and hobgoblins that think in a peaceful or diplomatic resolution cooperate as one sole group under the banner of the PCs. This makes for a really complex conflict, but a very exciting one. That way, neither the Dwarves nor the Hobgoblins are good or evil, but rather torn by differences and equally capable of doing good or bad.


Also, any thoughts on making the Dwarven conquest of the mine (and resulting growth of the city) significantly old? 40 years, on reflection, seems too young. If it were, say, 250 years ago, it'd be in no living human's memory and most Dwarves in the city wouldn't remember it either.

Perhaps the battle has begun or intensified for the last 40 years, but the conquest was done before that. Perhaps the bulk of the Hobgoblins were off on a distant war, and the Dwarves took the chance to conquer the lands. Perhaps it was a mission driven by xenophobia, or perhaps the honorable Hobs were drafted to the war and couldn't realize they left the bad Hobs around, which prompted the conquest of the Dwarves. Later, when they return (perhaps 60 years ago), the Hobs try to reclaim their lands through peaceful methods (although perhaps intimidating ones), and only 40 years ago they decided it was pointless to go peaceful, so they honor their warrior tradition and regroup their warbands into battle. Hobgoblins are capable of both guerrilla and large scale military battles, but perhaps these tribes learned of guerrilla tactics after they returned. Perhaps, and as an expansion, they drew from other Hobgoblin tribes which follow the MM traditional alignment, and the original inhabitants of the land follow a distant alignment. Thus, in that sense, you form the seeds and the terrain for the conflict.

Kzickas
2009-07-21, 07:46 AM
-snip-

At all inspired by the Great Middle Eastern Political **** Up?

Anyway if even both sides really are devided then it's not going to make it easier to find a peaceful solution, since even if the more moderate don't at all agree with the radicals they're not going to make more than token attempts to reign them in while they have those bloodthirsty <other side> to worry about. Basically the radicals on both sides preventing the moderates on the other side from dealing with their own radicals. In this kind of situation the best hope (if the PCs are strong enough) to get a happy ending is to help one side to total victory and then threatening the leaders of the winners into publicly claiming to have had an epiphany, deciding to forgive their enemies and work towards harmonic coexistence. Then you have to instutionalize the new attitude before you have to flee with would be assassins trailing you

Brauron
2009-07-21, 03:24 PM
Thank you all for your replies. You've been very helpful in helping me organize my thoughts and kind of start pulling everything together.

Haven
2009-07-21, 03:40 PM
Why do they need convincing? Shouldn't it be an explicit part of your pitch that the PCs will be mercs, and thus the players already understand and expect this?

This. Don't begin the adventure with "So you see a mercenary company recruiting"; start it off with "So you're members of a mercenary company..." Or something like that.

Aside from that: maybe this is just because I'm American, but it's kind of a refreshing change to see the revolutionary group be the antagonists. :p

Kzickas
2009-07-21, 03:44 PM
This. Don't begin the adventure with "So you see a mercenary company recruiting"; start it off with "So you're members of a mercenary company..." Or something like that.

Aside from that: maybe this is just because I'm American, but it's kind of a refreshing change to see the revolutionary group be the antagonists. :p

I see it all the time

T.G. Oskar
2009-07-21, 03:59 PM
At all inspired by the Great Middle Eastern Political **** Up?

If it were like the Middle East conflict, you'd have a battle between Humans who want to consume protect the mines, the Dwarves which are part of the owners, the Orcs which stop their chaotic ways to help in the genocide righteous battle of the Hobgoblins, the Elves joining because the Orcs joined, and so forth.

This pales in comparison with that.


Anyway if even both sides really are devided then it's not going to make it easier to find a peaceful solution, since even if the more moderate don't at all agree with the radicals they're not going to make more than token attempts to reign them in while they have those bloodthirsty <other side> to worry about. Basically the radicals on both sides preventing the moderates on the other side from dealing with their own radicals. In this kind of situation the best hope (if the PCs are strong enough) to get a happy ending is to help one side to total victory and then threatening the leaders of the winners into publicly claiming to have had an epiphany, deciding to forgive their enemies and work towards harmonic coexistence. Then you have to instutionalize the new attitude before you have to flee with would be assassins trailing you

The idea is to make it interesting, no matter how difficult is to reach peace. The OP requested a way to make the Dwarves and the Hobs a bit more gray, and the best method is through internal conflict. Perhaps they aren't exactly divided; perhaps they work as one sole group, but one side can either subsume the dissident voices, turn them down while the fight rages on, or simply couldn't care and let the voices scream while they know they're "on the right". It also provides the group with a choice for lateral thinking: if the idea is to have one or the other group win, and neither of the sides seems favorable, what you can do? Choose the dwarves, who are the outsiders but now have a solid standing? The Hobs, which originally ruled the land and now are trying to claim it by force? Or Take the Third Option, and force a stalemate while forming a third group, and ensuring that third group wins.

Otherwise, you'd be hunted by the monster tribes for "not recognizing the ancestral rights of the Hobs", or by the humanoids for "consorting with monsters". And a forced peace (which, at your favor, is lateral thinking) may cause bigger troubles because "a third party meddled in the battle".

Kiero
2009-07-21, 05:45 PM
This. Don't begin the adventure with "So you see a mercenary company recruiting"; start it off with "So you're members of a mercenary company..." Or something like that.

Before that even. "People, I'm thinking of running a military campaign where all your characters are part of a mercenary company. Sound cool to you?"

And get your buy-in up front before a character is even made.

Brauron
2009-07-21, 05:47 PM
This. Don't begin the adventure with "So you see a mercenary company recruiting"; start it off with "So you're members of a mercenary company..." Or something like that.

Aside from that: maybe this is just because I'm American, but it's kind of a refreshing change to see the revolutionary group be the antagonists. :p

I'm actually not beginning a new campaign with this -- shifting gears to try and keep my players interested. The campaign began as something very intrigue-heavy, though still having some combat, and I discovered quickly that one of the players is bored by this, one is enthralled, and the third is...well, it's like having Belkar at the table. He just wants to stomp on some faces, though he can put on a courtly face long enough to get license to gut an assassin working for another courtly faction.

At the moment they're sealed in a castle/demi-plane whose single commonly-known entrance opens one day a year. They're not high enough level for plane-hopping yet, so they're effectively stuck until it opens again. However, there are other entrances/exits in the various sub-basements of the castle, one of them being near an item a high-ranking noble has asked the PCs to procure. What they don't know is that the item in question is the key to keeping a demon imprisoned, and if they retrieve the item, the demon goes free. They will be warned of this fact by the ghost of the individual who imprisoned the demon in the first place. If they believe the ghost, the ghost will show them a secret way out and they continue on to the mercenary campaign. If they disbelieve the ghost, they stand a very, very, very high probability of being killed by the demon.

At which point I give them a very Dwarf-propagandist style account of the events leading up to where they would enter the mercenary campaign, and ask them to roll up appropriate characters.

With the mercenary campaign, I'm hoping I've tweaked the balance between politics and face-stomping enough to keep all the players happy -- more combat for those who like combat, but with enough of a background capable of supporting intrigue to make that player happy. I'm also hoping they won't get themselves killed by a demon in the castle/demi-Plane and I won't have to ask them to roll up new characters, but what happens, happens.

Kiero
2009-07-21, 05:54 PM
I'm actually not beginning a new campaign with this -- shifting gears to try and keep my players interested.

Even so, "players, I'm going to change gears a little, how does a stint where you all join a merc company sound?".

Tell them what you're telling us in this thread.

AslanCross
2009-07-21, 06:07 PM
Even so, "players, I'm going to change gears a little, how does a stint where you all join a merc company sound?".

Tell them what you're telling us in this thread.

I agree with this. When I began my current campaign (Red Hand of Doom), I prepared the players for it by asking them "How does a war campaign sound?". The players asked me for some D&D over the summer since they were bored, and one player wanted to explore the origins of his characters (they were war heroes in a much higher-level one-shot), so they pretty much agreed with it.

In my very first campaign I had a much harder time trying to ease my players into the "we're at war" mindset. When they realized a war was beginning to break out, they sort of whimpered and whined.

quick_comment
2009-07-21, 06:09 PM
To make the scenario a bit less black and white, you should ensure that (a) each side is mighty pissed off at the other and (b) the players will, when they hear each case presented, be able to understand it emotionally, and not immediately refute it without seeming exceptionally insensitive at the very least.

The hobgoblins need to be a bit less noble in their future plans for the dwarves. They're not bloodthirsty enough to just want to slaughter everyone, but they're not going to tolerate the continued presence of their oppressors after they've won -- they'll want to drive every dwarf away and then rebuild their home as it was before.

The dwarves cannot be driven cannot be driven only by economic concerns, because that definitely does paint them as the bad guys. Play up the emotional desire to protect the nation/city where many young people will have lived their entire lives. Moreover, the hobgoblins have been waging a guerilla war; that's bound to leave the dwarves feeling bitterness and fear. Some of the other dwarven recruits will be "righteous fury" types seeking to avenge slain family members (possibly civilians; the inevitable accidental casaulties of guerilla war if you don't want the hobgoblins to be too callous) -- try to portray these as earnest and honourable, not as overzealous fanatics.

Of course, if your PCs are the sort of people who want the best for everyone, the best they can do in this situation is to arrange for a peace treaty, shedding as little blood as possible in the process. Since you're running a military campaign you presumably want some battles, so you should make plans for some fanatical elements within both sides that won't be convinced to lay down arms except by force.

AslanCross
2009-07-21, 06:21 PM
To add to what quick comment said, keep this in mind: neither side has a hive mind. They don't all think exactly the same way. While they are predisposed to hate each other, there are also some individuals, likely on both sides, who might not favor conflict or who just want to move on with their lives. This adds a layer of complexity that will mirror pretty much how social dynamics regarding conflict work in real life.

Brauron
2009-07-21, 06:32 PM
Even so, "players, I'm going to change gears a little, how does a stint where you all join a merc company sound?".

Tell them what you're telling us in this thread.

Thanks...it's amazing the little things we forget sometimes. I just sent them all a message asking for their input -- their actual thoughts regarding where the campaign has been going, rather than going strictly by my reading of their facial expressions, choice of words and actions in-character, as well as what they would think of a war campaign involving conflict between hobgoblin tribes and a prosperous silver-mining city.

Kroy
2009-07-21, 07:02 PM
This reminds me massively of the Israeli/Palestine conflict. You might want to take a few ideas from real life to make this black and white. However, lets not get into a discussion about this as it is both political, and religious. Just something to think about.

Brauron
2009-07-21, 09:02 PM
This reminds me massively of the Israeli/Palestine conflict. You might want to take a few ideas from real life to make this black and white. However, lets not get into a discussion about this as it is both political, and religious. Just something to think about.

Agreed, though this campaign idea evolved more out of my studies of the English/Irish conflict, though I think my campaign concept has evolved away from being a direct copy. But again, it's not something to get into here.

Kobold_Love
2009-07-21, 09:13 PM
Well, I imagine that if the elves of the city discovered the truth, including all that ancestral/religious/natural land part then they could potentially turn against the dwarves in the city council/government. Hence now you have a divide in the city as well.

That is what I would consider if I was running that is.

Brauron
2009-07-22, 05:57 AM
Well, two of my three players have responded to my question of whether they'd be interested in working as mercenaries in a conflict between Hobgoblins and Dwarves.

The woman playing the Half-Elf Ranger, who seemed to enjoy the politics of the current campaign, replied: "that sounds interesting. maybe find a way to get the two sides to stop their war and maybe reconcile. that way we can move on easier."

The guy playing the Half-Orc Barbarian, who seemed a little bored with the politics of the current campaign, replied: "I vote we kill both sides of the war!"

Seems so far I've been right on in gauging how they'd react to the idea.