New Idea for a campaign type: Horde Mode.

[Apophis775]

So, this idea came up at our last session, when a number of non-regulars showed up. Instead of having them roll chars or giving them someone who wasn't there's char to roll with, someone else who DMs jokingly said "horde mode" Which got me thinking: why the **** not?

Our group is more hack-and-slash than roleplay anyway (most of the roleplay is one member or another trying to somehow screw another player over), so why not go straight hack-and-slash?

In fact, why not just streamline it into the same arena each time. A big-ass circle pit they start out in each time and I throw a random level-appropriate encounter at them. Then, if they succeed, they get the pot of lewts in the middle (the monsters drop). If they fail, then they die. They can get rezzed if the party will spend their loot on it, otherwise, they re-roll at starting level (or maybe average level -1).

Anyway, what do you guys think? Might this be a way to handle a bunch of people wanting to play with not enough room?


Should probably mention I'd only do this if the number of people where we want to play is more than 5 or 6. You see, we had a club at my last college, and since we received school funding and got to use classrooms, we were not allowed to turn people away, and this could easily be a solution.

...And Maybe not the same exact area each time, but close to.

[Fouredged Sword]

It sounds like some concepts that have already been put into working use an several cons. There is a game that runs a rolling set of players with people makeing a new level one character every time they die and seeing how long you can survive is the point rather than winning anything.

If the group likes to kill things and has fun fughting, then sure go right ahead and run it.

Another idea is to simply have the extra people who aren't going to be constants just take control of relevent NPC's who stop by to help. Another option is to just run a big group. Some of the best DnD games I have been involved in had a ridiculus number of characters.

The bigiest game I have enver seen run coherently was a D20 future game run with 12 players each with three characters. We literaly where the three branches of a full mercenary platoon (foot, mecha, and space divisions), and at times had battles involving both the mecha and ships or the mecha and foot troops, and once had a battle going on in a large mothership we atempted to take by force with foot and mecha while battleing outside with ships and the remaining mecha. It was awsome.

It helps to use a dice roller and prerolled dice.

[Psyren]

My issue with this is that horde-mode style games (I'm thinking of e.g. Gears of War, Halo, Resident Evil Mercenaries etc.) all have one thing in common - a way to replenish your ammo. If you're going to use this in D&D, it might be worthwhile to let your players use the Recharge Magic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm) variant, so they can regain their abilities without resting while simultaneously maintaining a bit of balance. (i.e. very powerful "nukes" like Holy Word will have a longer cooldown relative to player level.)

[Apophis775]

Actually I was thinking that a way to do it would be a number of encounters based on level. Like 5 per level or something. Maybe 5 a day and they know what they are before they start so they can plan accordingly.

[Apophis775]

What do you guys think about these rules for a horde-mode campaign?
And remember, this is a way to deal with too many players showing up for a campaign (Which happens occasionally since we run it at a school sometimes).


So, the story is that the players are gladiators in a magical arena.

1. Each player starts at level 1
2. The number of encounters per level is: Level/3 +3 until level 10, then Level/4+4 for the rest
3. All encounters are a CR for the current level
4. The encounters are rolled at the start of the day, and the players know the order of them.
5. If the players defeat the monster, a magical chest appears containing the loot (if any).
6. Upon death, the player rerolls a level 1 character and rejoins the group next encounter.
7. the party can pay a healer to res any dead character at any time if they have an open spot.
8. When players level, they are given at most 10 minutes to make their changes (they should be thinking about them and noting them during the fights)
10. The arena will be altered between matches to adjust for different encounters as necessary (turned to night, filled partially with water and given islands ETC) with magic.
11. There will be all services available to the players from the "Standby" area where they wait before/after matches.

Restrictions:
1. Level adjustment races are restricted as such: you can *not* choose a race if the level adjustment+1 is higher than the Party Level (Party level is the level they *should* be at).
2. Characters are not allowed to leave the area of the arena (1/4 mile in every direction from the center)
3. ALL Sourcebooks that we have are allowed (Including BoVD and BoNS) but if we do not physically have the book, it is not allowed (no PDFing)




The goal is is to for the party to last as long as possible against ever-increasing odds. If anyone has suggestions or ideas to balance or make this