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View Full Version : Unusual Campaign Idea [3.5] - Would this pan out?



Nero24200
2009-09-17, 07:25 AM
Hello all

Whilst reading a few books a good idea for a campaign hit me. Then, with a bit of creative thinking, I got a few more ideas going, but made me think of one problem. While these ideas might make an interesting story, would they work for a game. This was the main idea

The campaign takes place on an isolated continent about the size of Europe. The continent itself is split into several large countries, constantly at ends with each other. While each country houses a large army, each one is reluctent to strike each other, since mobilizing forces to fight one foe leaves them open for another (and there are no existing alliances).

The idea is that the PC's get roped into working with an ambitious Emmersiry who beleives he can get the lands to work together and end the longterm wars (or, the long-term stalemates in this case), and due to his dibilitating health, are soon pushed to take over his work altogether.

A few inital problems seem to crop up just at thinking this -
No.1: This pushes the PC's to play "Good" characters, or characters who would otherwise see a huge benifit from long-term peace (so characters that are sons/daughters of merchants might be willing due to potential increased trade).

Though my group generally play good anyway, so I don't see them hesitating to help this emmerssery (or at least for as long as doing so isn't too life-threatining and they're paid, since, good or no, this is supposed to be a radical idea for someone to try this). I think initial approaches to such a quest would work, but how would I keep the PC's interested once they themselves take over the job altogether? Any tips or advice?

No.2: An interesting idea I had as well is that one of the dividing factors of each country is not only things such as lifestyle, but magic as well. One country, for instance, will be a tribal country, where spells outwith druidic magic and ranger spells are considered blasphemous. Another will cateer to wizardry magic, another to Shadow magic, one to good divine magic, another to evil etc.

My intent, naturally, is that the PC's will initially meet in the "Badlands", which acts as a sort of country-sized no-mans-land, so even with different magic sources, the PC's won't need to worry about the locals burning them at the stake. Is there any potential pitfalls I might be missing with such an idea though?

Anyway, the two above are my biggest worries about the idea. Am I worrying too much or are there certain traps with this idea that I'll need to look out for? Any advice would be appreciated.

BooNL
2009-09-17, 08:04 AM
This looks like a good start to a pretty roleplay heavy campaign.

One thing you should consider is the status your PC's will have in the campaign world. If every country is at (cold) war, how are they able to travel anywhere? I don't particulary see a lot of adventurers in this world. They could act as ambassadors, though that emmissary would need a pretty good influence to be able to send armed warriors to another country.

What was the emmissary's plan? How did he want to bring peace to the world? How much of that has he set in motion before he croaked?

Also, what would it take for the countries to unite? And what would be the implications if only a few of them are willing to listen? I can see two neighbouring countries forging a truce, only to stab a third country in the back and attack them with their combined might.

Nero24200
2009-09-17, 08:42 AM
Well, for PC status, essientially the campaign requires them to be in the badlands at the start of the campaign, so their status may vary. Individual PC's could be acting as scouts for small skirmishing bands for their country, they could be people exiled from their country, or simply someone with the misfortune of being born and raised in the badlands. It will vary, but most likely they'll be looked on with heavy distrust, especially if the party is varied heavily.

While the countries beleive peace is some aburd conceapt that will never happen, most (though not all) countires would still be open to hearing an emessiery, though most likely it'll need to be an emerssery from a distant country (for instance, the country goverened by Druidic magic has had little-to-no-contact with the country goverened by psionics, so an Emerserry from one is likely to have better luck with the other as opposed to other countries).

Where the emerssery is actually from, however, is somthing I'm leaving until I've discussed the idea at lengh with the players, so it's easier to fit it around their characters. Though the countires are distrustful, some may be more willing to listen to certain emerssieries and the party, and the party trying to figure out which ones will be part of the challenge.

The emersseries plan is simply, he plans to attempt to get one or two countires to ally, hoping that their combined strength may persaude the more reluctent countries to ally. One of the few things stoping the countires from going to all-out-war with each other is that they leave themselves open to attack from other forces, but if countries are able to do so and rely on allies to protect them, it becomes less of an issue (as long as the allies trust each other enough).

Although I might alter it depending on what the players decide to play, I intend for the emerseery to simply have started out by the time he has met the PC's, so no progress. I'm trying to keep the campaign sandboxish, so I'm planning on giving the PC's the options on where to start.

As for how they sway certain countires, it will be down to each country individually. The country goverened by Good-aligned divine magic might simply join if they prove their intentions are pure, for the tribal one it might be more of a case of winning each individual internal tribe seperatly, swaying the entire country once the majority of tribes are swayed. Naturally, since I'm intending for it to be a sandboxish campaign, I'm mostly going to push the players to think of interesting and unqiue ways of swaying counties.

As for the long-term effects, I don't think the PC's will actually bring continent wide peace, since it'll take alot to end a long-term war than a handful of adventurers. More likely, I see the PC's (if succesful) instead building the foundation to bring peace in the long-term, somthing they won't see in the campaign, but will be aware that their efforts have made it a far better possibility.

Kaiyanwang
2009-09-17, 10:10 AM
th only thing that concerns me is this one: If a country is focused on a particula kind of magic, you should pay great attention to:

- make lifestyles very different from country to country (say, arcane more easy, divine more healty - stoopid examples)

- keep coherency or your players will immediately feel that something is "strange".

Said this, well managed this could be a gate for more Roleplaying..

Yora
2009-09-17, 10:22 AM
I would try to have the players getting more out of it, than just doing it to promote peaceful coexistance. There's nothing wrong with it, but I think it would be nice if the PCs also get some personal gains from the whole thing.

Maybe they belive, that not all of the countries should become friends with each other, but that one or two of them are real dangers, that would soon start to pick the others one by one. And only if the lesser conflicts are laid down, the more peaceful countries would have a chance to prevent an invasion of their nations. So the motivation could be defending their homeland against a greater threat.

Or the whole conflict is staged by a secret cabal of Diviners who use it to gain more influence in the courts of the several countries. And the PCs would have to convince the rulers that they are not true enemies, and are only used by the Wizards. The personal motivation in this case could be, that some of the PCs have run into the wizards before and want to use the help of the Kings to destroy them.

Or there's an evil from the outside that is about to invade the entire continent, and the countries won't survive if they fight each other.
Or as a variant, someone wants a war as a component for a massive ritual to call a great evil to this world.

But I think working to get people stop fighting each other because it's the right thing to do, would be a bit to thin to make a full campaign of.

Rhiannon87
2009-09-17, 10:29 AM
The emersseries plan is simply, he plans to attempt to get one or two countires to ally, hoping that their combined strength may persaude the more reluctent countries to ally. One of the few things stoping the countires from going to all-out-war with each other is that they leave themselves open to attack from other forces, but if countries are able to do so and rely on allies to protect them, it becomes less of an issue (as long as the allies trust each other enough).



[political science degree hat goes on]

This is where I see a big problem. Someone mentioned it earlier, as well. Say that druid country and good divine country come to see the error of their ways and unite. They're allies. Yay! Well, then, evil divine country and shadow magic country feel threatened by this new alliance, and they become allies against the first two. Less yay. It seems that you're assuming that the countries will all start allying with each other; that is highly unlikely, in terms of basic international politics.

Basically, I'm seeing this ending up like Europe prior to World War I: countries jumping into alliances with one another against ever-increasing threats, bandwagoning together to become stronger, and then some duke gets assassinated and the whole thing explodes.

Now, to my mind, that's got potential for an interesting campaign. The party's going along for a while, forging alliances, while other things are happening in the background, other alliances are happening, there's betrayals and trades and deals being cut, and then suddenly the cold war-esque stalemate shatters and the continent is at war.

Nero24200
2009-09-17, 05:44 PM
Just wanted to thank everyone for the advice, got some good ideas here.

herrhauptmann
2009-09-17, 11:49 PM
A big part of the players plans, could be to earn the trust of the separate heads of state. Otherwise, they're just a bunch of dudes/thugs/outlanders traveling under the writ of an enemy, attempting to get the king or whoever to commit to a plan.
So some of that could be ending border raids, tracking down slavers, foiling an assassination etc. If someone was exiled, it might be a good idea for them to keep silent when talking to the monarch of their home country at best. At worst, it would severely hurt the PCs if an exiled person is marching into the country as part of the delegation.
They'll need to choose the party face wisely, maybe even change it depending on where tehy are. The bard might make a great face, but not in the country which only likes Ranger/druidic magic.

My one concern, is that the countries would be too dissimilar considering how close they are.
A good example is the world Gothos from The Hunt: Rise of Evil by Mystic Eye games, back in 3.0. In that world, most everything happens around a series of islands, most of which are no larger than England, several of which have 2 or 3 countries on them.
Yet the cultures, and even weather, of the islands are drastically dissimilar. A fiendish samurai culture is less than 30 miles by boat from an island of frozen tundra barbarians. To the east of the barbarians is a desert island (quite large), to the west of the barbarians is a tropical jungle. South is Roman empire circa 600AD but split over 2 smallish islands, and a series of archipelagios, and everyone is half drow.

If the countries are that dissimilar, and that close, it can be very jarring.

Xenogears
2009-09-18, 01:45 AM
I'd suggest having the emmisary be from the badlands himself so as to not give the impression that one of the countries was more "right."

I also hafta gree with the whole WWI predictions but maybe you could go for more of a shades of grey campain and have them all pull an ozymandias and fake a super threat to force all the countries to unite or die.

Kol Korran
2009-09-18, 02:16 AM
what i feel is lacking is adverseries. serious adverseries, that the party can get personaly involved with... lords of bandit, evil advisor to a king and so on are fine as part time opponenets, but you need someone (or someones) to be a more powerfull, more infulential, more personal foes of the PCs.

a suggestion: do you know of the Aurum from Eberron? this is an organization made mostly out of merchants, that tries to use it's vast wealth and influence in order to shape the worlds politics from behind the scene. since you don't realy have merchants between countries (though you might create a race or a people that are allowed to trade, like gypsies, amongst countries. hey, the emmisery could be of their origin!) then you might have to adjust that idea, but it could work.

other ideas have been suggested, hope you choose something. in my experience, worthy adverseries are amonst the most powerfull ways to get players more invested in the game.

Kol.

Xenogears
2009-09-18, 02:27 AM
If you want to go the generic route for a villain just have some great evil demon lord have a cult that is devoted to continuing the endless mistrust and warfare as it lends power to and speeds up the ressurection of their dark lord. Now send basic Cultiss at first and then later on have them summon minor demons and maybe even have the demon lord channel his powers through a high ranking cultist or something.

Alternatively have the PC's be evil bastards that are trying to unite the kingdoms so they can become the rulers of the united lands and rule with an iron fist or something.

Or for something in between have the PC's encounter another group who is trying to unite the nations and have them decide to work with them or not and at the end have the other group turn out to be trying to become the evil rulers and now phase 2 begins and the Pc's have to spend a ton of time convincing the populace that group #2 is evil.