City Campaign Plot Question

[ArmoredSandwich]

Hey guys,

I have been reading for some while now, but now I really need your guys advice in regards to my first campaign as a DM, and ever.

(for my party, if you know the city Korokno, do not read on).

It is a city campaign and the plot is basically to role up the criminal organizations, which the party should eventually find out, are all connected by one evil vampire wizard which was there from the day the city was founded. Everything in the city has a good history and reasons as to why it is their, what their goals are and how it will achieve those goals (lots of 'fluff' or flavor).

But ever since I have been reading The SilverClawShift Campaign Archives ( http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116836? ) I feel the party can never feel the same necessity to 'safe the city' as Silvers party felt for saving the world/universe.

My experience in D&D consists of 4 sessions in a campaign that went in a similar direction as Silvers campaign, and then DMing a couple of sessions.

Now my question: Is it a good campaign for the players if they can explore an awesome city, fighting larger and larger organizations as they go along, eventually discovering the whole truth, and then 'fix' the city. Or is some kind of obvious evilness required from early on?

Thanks!
ArmoredSandwich

[Piggy Knowles]

I would say it depends heavily on the group itself.

I've run two city campaigns total. One involved a more traditional "adventuring" party that didn't really feel any particular attachment to the city, and just treated it as you would treat any other setting or bit of land. The other really got into being a part of the city itself, and became much more involved.

In the latter group, the players were involved from the get-go. I let them know that this was a city campaign, and encouraged them during character creation to be comfortable writing in elements of city life into their background.

It was also shortly after I purchased Unearthed Arcana, and I had decided to incorporate the reputation chapter, and tie in reputation-based rewards. So, for example, one of the characters was a CG goblin barbarian who was a liberator of the downtrodden goblin peoples (goblins in this city had to be registered and working, or they would be sent to do chain-gang labor), and when his reputation bonus went to +5, local goblins who had escaped prison or slavery would begin coming to him for advice or solace. When he got to +10, they formed a secret goblin resistance and elected him leader.

None of this resulted in any mechanical advantage for the characters, but I let them know that I was setting reputation-based benchmarks, and the party loved it. They loved thinking about how their notoriety or fame within the city inspired others, loved to talk about what gossip they caused, etc. Most of them would email me after each session with more ideas for how their stories could continue.

Again, this had more to do with the particular group than anything I did. I knew them all really well, and they were all very invested in the game and their characters.

The other group was just as fun, but they were into a different kind of campaign - they wanted to be pointed at a problem, and they wanted to fight or talk or plough their way through it. Give them a dungeon to clear out or an evil overlord to expose and they were happy as clams. But they didn't really care about the setting as a whole, beyond a few token gestures. So instead of trying to push them into a campaign style that they didn't want to play, I changed my plans a bit and shifted things more toward the style they preferred.

[ArmoredSandwich]

Thank you for your reply! Very useful information. We were actually looking for something like reputation from Unearthed Aracana!

I guess I will check out how the players react on what I have in store for them and take them more by the hand if I feel they require a more straightforward approach for things.

Any tips on how to get the party more involved/active? For example, last session (the first of the campaign) the party witnessed an assassination and one of the players house was ransacked. So I guessed there would be enough incentive for them to go and figure things out, but one of them actually said 'it is hard to get an idea of what we are supposed to be doing' (while its character was in an inn full of people). Naturally, I had one of the NPCs point them in the right direction, but I felt they had to be the ones working to find out what was going on and not just getting things handed to them on a silver platter.