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ZeroGear
2013-06-22, 02:53 PM
This is going to sound a little odd, but I was wondering if anyone ever rand/played in a campaign that actually showed the symptoms of a particular problem?
Just so there is no confusion, let me explain:
As far as I have experienced it, most campaigns I've been in usually follow the formula of "Party gets mission -> party beats bad guys -> party gets reward", with the mission pretty much handed out on a pamphlet for all to see. What I am curious about is if anyone has had experience with campaigns where the symptoms of the problem are obvious in the faces of the citizens. I'm talking about things like a town full of sick people who are gasping for air because monsters are causing an epidemic; children too weak to move because orc raiders are taking all the food; mountains of corpses left over from rampaging beasts; people drained of color and energy from the blood tributes they have to pay to vampire slavers; and the mournful, crying faces of families who had to send their daughters off as brides for the devil cabal.

So I'm asking: anyone have experience with campaigns where the cleric casting Remove Disease on one person will cause dozens more to cluster around and cling to his robes, begging for his healing touch?

SiuiS
2013-06-22, 03:01 PM
Yes, but I find it more interesting when these problems aren't so macro-scale in the first place. The current campaign we are wrapping up is seeing all, drastic economic collapse as the blood war is escalated and demon lords turn viciously towards their endgame. No longer fueling the material with supplementary magic, wealth and temptation, the scales have swing violently; evil is at an all-time low, but paradoxically everything is grinding to a halt and the effects of an adventurer economy – "hey, cool, an apple! Here's a platinum, keep the change!" – are tearing kingdoms apart.

Of course, we are heading towards covert Armageddon, so it doesn't matter. But the people do notice and do react.

awa
2013-06-22, 03:58 PM
I can only think of one occasion and it was done poorly where it felt like the only reason the problem existed was becuase the peasants were all to dumb to live and the economy/ society was nonsensical. Ironical in the end at a higher level my character came back with a food producing magic item capable of feeding the entire town not to save the people but to spite the ineffectual clerics who were higher level them me who were just useless.

Coidzor
2013-06-22, 06:33 PM
Hard to do right, easy to do wrong, and going straight to narm (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Narm)territory is almost impossible to avoid doing at some point.

Feddlefew
2013-06-22, 09:14 PM
I've always wanted to run an epidemic centered campaign based on a single observation: While cure disease cures diseases, it does nothing stop reinfection.

I even have maps and tokens for marking out the number of infected people in a given area! :smallbiggrin:

Edge of Dreams
2013-06-22, 09:44 PM
I've done this at least once. The players arrived in town to visit one of their relatives, and discovered the whole place had contracted a magical disease. Everyone was bundled up in thick clothes and blankets, huddled around their fireplaces, and complaining about being cold. However, when examined, they all turned out to be feverish and dying from heat exhaustion. This, of course, prompted the party to go research a magical cure and bring it back, only to be confronted by the vengeful creepy triplets who had cursed the town with the disease in the first place.

ZeroGear
2013-06-22, 10:04 PM
Another thought regarding this string of thought:
Has this kind of situation ever deeply disturbed you/your players?

From what I can gather from your replies, it is very hard to do this seriously, but has anyone managed to effectively pull off a "plague" scene where it looks like anything the players do will make a situation go from bad to worse?

This might be me projecting emotions, but I'm asking about how to do something in order to exemplify the fact that just because a characters is powerful doesn't mean they can solve every problem without getting to the core first, and that sometimes they just can't win.
Granted, I'm also asking for example stories so I can create good situations that involve detective work and critical thinking too.

For your replies, thank you so far and I look forward to reading more.

Feddlefew
2013-06-22, 10:31 PM
I've done "Everyone is dead, and you just introduced the disease into the next town over because of your looting.". Hemorrhagic fever is nasty like that.

The longer version is that a group of level 6 adventurers were sent to clear out a giant insect infestation in a nearby mining town. Two of the houses was quarantined, but the local cleric said he could handle it. They spent a longer clearing out the mine than I expected, so everyone was dead when they emerged a week later. They looted the foreman's office so they could by supplies in the next town over, locked up the mines, burned the town to the ground, used all the cleric's remaining spell slots to make certain they weren't infected, didn't think to use it on the tapestries and paperwork they'd grabbed....

Their pack animals were infected when they hitched them by the pond just outside of town. The disease is caused a kind of amoeba and is transmitted through blood and poorly oxygenated water. They still don't know. :smallwink:

awa
2013-06-22, 10:40 PM
not really in my experience it's hard enough getting players invested in npc they interact with frequently much less random farmer number 5.
IN my experience when pcs realize nothing they can do is useful either they get frustrated (particularly if they feel the reason they cant help is arbitrary) or they just stop caring getting annoyed if the npcs push it to much.

As other have pointed out theirs a point where to much suffering stops being "real" and starts feeling cheesy (narm)

40k is an excellent example of this it so grimm dark you cant take it seriously and it starts feeling like a parody of the subject it's portraying.

Shyftir
2013-06-23, 01:26 AM
40k is an excellent example of this it so grimm dark you cant take it seriously and it starts feeling like a parody of the subject it's portraying.

That's because 40k IS a parody of the grimdark sillyness of a lot of hard sci-fi/90s era comics.

SiuiS
2013-06-23, 04:08 AM
Hard to do right, easy to do wrong, and going straight to narm (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Narm)territory is almost impossible to avoid doing at some point.

I dunno.

The entire point of our current campaign is the last DM to run this world was a rube and a nutter. So while the cause is gone, the symptoms remain, like a computer system with clean source code that was never recompiled. My character is trying to reboot existence only without the exarchial oversight of this foulness, and most of the omniverse – thinking them a but who will destroy reality – are banding against them. The ripples are affecting everything, and new players in this doomed world are constantly faced with symptoms they chalk up to DM flavor.


I've always wanted to run an epidemic centered campaign based on a single observation: While cure disease cures diseases, it does nothing stop reinfection.

I even have maps and tokens for marking out the number of infected people in a given area! :smallbiggrin:

I've done that! I've considered using a quarantine queue to make sure the sick stay on their half of town so no one gets reinfected etc., but most DMs go "no, no. Cure disease won't work, this is a magical disease, with no explanation. Only the McGuffin can cure it" so I don't even bother.

awa
2013-06-23, 07:54 AM
That's because 40k IS a parody of the grimdark sillyness of a lot of hard sci-fi/90s era comics.


I'm not sure about that it seems to take itself awfully seriously particularly in any of the other media like the video games and books.

edit except orks

Coidzor
2013-06-23, 01:37 PM
I'm not sure about that it seems to take itself awfully seriously particularly in any of the other media like the video games and books.

edit except orks

That's just part of the joke/missing the joke, depending on who is doing it.


I dunno.

The entire point of our current campaign is the last DM to run this world was a rube and a nutter. So while the cause is gone, the symptoms remain, like a computer system with clean source code that was never recompiled. My character is trying to reboot existence only without the exarchial oversight of this foulness, and most of the omniverse – thinking them a but who will destroy reality – are banding against them. The ripples are affecting everything, and new players in this doomed world are constantly faced with symptoms they chalk up to DM flavor.

That's a meta-campaign and by nature of breaking the 4th wall completely open like that, not 100% serious anyway.

Ceiling_Squid
2013-06-23, 02:43 PM
I'm not sure about that it seems to take itself awfully seriously particularly in any of the other media like the video games and books.

edit except orks

Depends on the writer. 40k DID start off as a massive parody when it was first conceived, but it has indeed deviated from that. A lot of writers get involved, and many of them are hacks. There are a few gems though.

That doesn't necessarily mean 40k lore that takes itself seriously is bad, though, or that it cannot be possibly anything but parody. Certain writers can do wonders with the setting even from a non-satirical angle. I recommend Dan Abnett. His books on the Imperial Guard and the Inquisition are entertaining reads and are (in my opinion) decent general sci-fi.

But yeah, on the subject of the OP - all the time when I'm playing Dark Heresy. This is a setting where millions can die due to obstructive bureaucracy and freaking rounding errors. You're there to protect a Lawful Evil society that is fundamentally broken and riddled with problems, and its important to illustrate the effect on the common person.

It's very over-the-top, but it's meant to drive home the fact that, with trillions upon trillions of people in the Imperium, human life is by far the cheapest resource. If nothing else, it makes for hyperbolic satire.

SiuiS
2013-06-23, 02:59 PM
That's a meta-campaign and by nature of breaking the 4th wall completely open like that, not 100% serious anyway.

It's meta now, but we got there honestly using all in-game information. It's jut gone on two years longer than anyone wants, so now we are driving toward completion, and that requires open, meta level interaction. Otherwise the two main players have class features which are, literally, "You are so smart you have a contingency that undoes or subverts some major effect". We have to play the players, not the game.


Depends on the writer. 40k DID start off as a massive parody when it was first conceived, but it has indeed deviated from that. A lot of writers get involved, and many of them are hacks. There are a few gems though.

That doesn't necessarily mean 40k lore that takes itself seriously is bad, though, or that it cannot be possibly anything but parody. Certain writers can do wonders with the setting even from a non-satirical angle. I recommend Dan Abnett. His books on the Imperial Guard and the Inquisition are entertaining reads and are (in my opinion) decent general sci-fi.

But yeah, on the subject of the OP - all the time when I'm playing Dark Heresy. This is a setting where millions can die due to obstructive bureaucracy and freaking rounding errors. You're there to protect a Lawful Evil society that is fundamentally broken and riddled with problems, and its important to illustrate the effect on the common person.

It's very over-the-top, but it's meant to drive home the fact that, with trillions upon trillions of people in the Imperium, human life is by far the cheapest resource. If nothing else, it makes for hyperbolic satire.

Huh. Dark Heresy? Separate game line or a companion product?

DigoDragon
2013-06-25, 06:45 AM
I once ran an adventure where the PCs arrived at a town where most of the populous was very ill (I described the symptoms similar to black plague). The town only had one cleric and even curing the disease wasn't enough. Citizens could get reinfected. The PCs were conscious of what they touched to avoid catching the disease, but vowed to do what they could to help end this plague.

The short of it was that they found a nasty disease-carrying creature in the horse stables and killed it. This helped to curb the disease's spread, but then they realized that horses could become carriers of this illness without much in the way of visible symtoms.
Thus the PCs had to track down a departed caravan before it reached it's destination. :smallbiggrin:


Fun time for all and they saved 60% of the town's population.

Lothmar
2013-06-25, 03:03 PM
My favorite moment of this was when me and a party were hunting undead and had a stop over in what we had suspected was a livestock colony / work camp of theirs. Apparently they had a payment system where you could buy your freedom or the freedom of others, after which you would simply be paid for your continued donations/tithes.

Well as we investigate we visit the local temple and find that they are pretty much overwhelmed and have decided to simply resort to natural healing and using a lottery system for the worst people afflicted by energy/con drain. So thinking that we're helping out we decide to tend to the sick/feeble and restore a handful of them to complete or mostly complete health. After some grateful praise one of them invites us to dinner at his table that night.

When we arrive at his house sure enough he's back to the way he was, pale, barely on his feet etc but he and the family and lack lusterly celebrating having finally bought their daughters freedom by paying the aforementioned blood price which we discover at that point in time through the use of gather information and an enjoyable dinner.

We left (snuck out) that night after they put us up in their house, I mean come on would you feel comfortable sleeping in a cattle town for the undead? We continued up the mountain and after a good many sessions and a month of total travel etc we come back to tell the people of their freedom. This is the point where we learn that the people are 'kept' and purchase most of their food etc from the undead as the land is likely cursed/barren and has refused to grow anything in their time. And their main source of income was based on blood tithes and extra donations so they have no real source of income now either. So the people are relatively healthy now but are near starved as our attacks have cut their supply lines.

At a town hall they debated, their options were mostly pack up and take over the old undead castle (we convinced them not to) ; Travel to a new land and set up a new village elsewhere or join an existing location with us ; or pray that the malevolence was lifted from the land and attempt to tough it out here in the cold barren lands. So we do our best with magic, skill etc to keep the people feed and safe and begin a trail of tears through the mountains and by the end are down to only a handful from numerous complications/attacks that occur along the way.

It figures the survivors are the npc family we're relatively invested in and healed and had us for dinner etc. We set them up in a village and continue our travels, a week later we return on a side quest back down the road to deliver a parcel along the way and sure enough we find the family hanging from a tree at the edge of town with some sign or another cursing them for heresy, witchcraft or something else. Our party retired from adventuring at that point and it became a city campaign for a time and we avoided practically every plot hook that dangled nearby for fear of it ripping the flesh from our hearts until the gm had to pretty much sit down with us after game and ask us what was wrong after three sessions of this. ~chuckle~

ZeroGear
2013-06-25, 05:51 PM
@Lothmar:
Wow. No offense meant, but that was a real bi*ch move to pull as a GM. Gotta note not to do something like that should I run a campaign like that.

Coidzor
2013-06-25, 06:13 PM
Fun time for all and they saved 60% of the town's population.

...Town was still destroyed though, I imagine.

Cealocanth
2013-06-26, 12:48 AM
I had an interesting time trying something like this. It never reached full fruition because one of the kids in my campaign can't handle when bad things happen to his character, but it was fun while it lasted. Basically, the high priest of this theocratic town is corrupt and agreed to open a portal for a devil in exchange for immortality. The portal is opened on the outskirts of the town and the party (along with the local militia) rush there to close the portal before the army of undead flowing out of the portal overwhelm the town. While successfully stabilizing the portal and preventing it from getting larger, a local wizard tells them that unholy powers are keeping it open, and they would have to venture into the portal and eliminate the source of the undead.

After entering the portal, the party finds themselves in a strange location clearly far away. They began in the courtyard of a castle, which was clearly haunted, but after repeated exposure to a strange green mist the party realized that something more was happening here. The victims of the mist, throughout the castle, made continuing references to something known as "The Green". At first the castle seemed very conventional and logical, but room by room stranger and stranger things began to appear. Zombies with human faces on their hands, who used bite attacks. Corpses with tentacles coming out of the feet hanging from the ceilings. Macabre visions haunting their extended rests. Very deep into the castle the party began to find themselves lapsing, finding themselves in strange alien locations for brief moments before waking up. By the end of the castle, the party was fully in the thrall of the Green, and killed the Mother of the Green in an arena constructed of floating platforms made of glowing mucus above endless void.

When the party got back, they found that the undead had stopped, and the portal could now be closed, but while the normal storyline continued in the town, strange occurrances began throughout the town. Stories of people going mad. Some lashed out violently at others around them, some showed a strange obsession with death, playing with necrotic flesh. All in seemingly random patterns. It didn't help when the only female party member began to have nightmares, sometimes waking up with strange glowing slime on her hands, or waking up in a different place altogether. While from here I planned to go complete epidemic. No one is safe kind of situation, but with repeated moments of having to cancel the game because one of my younger players was breaking down and crying about his character, the campaign took a turn for the "solve the problem and eradicate the evil" side. It turned out that with the death of the old Mother of the Green, the player had been chosen to become the new Mother, and so was spreading the corruption in the night. The Green was eradicated with lots of fire, and the chosen player underwent an exorcism to get rid of it. Although the spirit of the Mother hasn't manifested in the town yet, there are rumors of a spreading madness in a nearby town in the hills...

Things I learned:
1. D&D is not exactly designed to be a horror game. Don't try to make it that unless all your players are on board.
2. Know your players. If you don't think they can handle it, they probably can't.
3. Unless your players are aware that their characters are at risk and they make the conscious decision to accept that risk, don't put their characters at serious risk if they aren't emotionally equipped to handle it.

nedz
2013-06-26, 05:15 AM
I once started a campaign as follows:

All the PCs grew up in the same village.
The village is hit by a plague.
The only survivors are the PCs.


I mainly did this to provide a reason for them to go adventuring.