Raenir Salazar
2013-08-15, 05:06 PM
I would like to preface this by first saying even though its a "journal" I would very much like and appreciate any help, tips, points, aid, helping hands, hints, whisperings, advice, warnings, ideas, clues, reminders, hands with the laying on's thereof.
Essentially, about a week ago an acquaintance, lets call him Ron. Asked me to DM for him as he's bored and "just wants to play", I decided to take him up on this and began working on creating a campaign world (he asked for something pirate themed and while there's a geographical area where that's possible if the party goes there... No).
This will be full disclosure my first time trying to do "real DM'ing", I have the setting more or less roughed out with a rough idea on how things will "work" mechanically.
Using pathfinder as the system, the world will be divided up into regions and each region will be further subdivided into hex's each representing a 'zone' of the region and each sector will have "areas of interest", such as dungeons, quest givers, towns, roads, random encounters etc.
Verily I have constructed this to resemble the structure of a sandbox MMORPG so that I always have "content" for the users to explore and can easily plug in storyline information to.
The main "hook" for the campaign I have planned is kinda a mix of Attack on Titan and World War Zed, and MuvLuv; the gods were wiped out 100 years ago in an "Event" [Name to be Determined] and this weakened the fabric of reality such that the negative energy plane is spilling out onto the world plunging it into despair and darkness. The dead that had accumulated buried underground over the centuries, millennia even have all started to wake up and consume anything that lives.
A large amount of the world has succumbed and most of the rest is being encroached upon with few remaining beacons of civilization remaining unharmed and unthreatened, but how long will that last?
As such every zone has a percentage modifier determining the level of corruption by the negative energy plane; at 100% is the CR 20+ encounters while 0% is sunshine and dire rats, with besieged cities sometimes being in the 10-35% zones.
I'm intending for a proper and full experience, so everyone starts at level 1 and has to earn their super awesome characters and hopefully no one meets in an inn.
We're going to be playing in real time over skype using maptools or similar.
Now of my potential players who might not be able to play but is perfectly willing to help out has posited onto me some advice/questions to think about:
1) What is the overall campaign goal?
2) Each session should have a goal which may or may not be related to the campaign goal.
- Think like some of the better sci-fi series (Babylon 5, Buffy, Angel, some of the better anime like Cowboy Bebop)
(1) As I feel it comes down to, is 'long term' "figure out a way to close the breech(s) and restore the fabric of reality" but obviously the players are level 1 and that's not on their minds at the beginning right?
So the goal would be "Survive"?
(2) Thinking in terms of survival each session I think could be looked at in terms of "what supplies do we need?", "Are there people with certain skills we need to find?", "Is there equipment or materials we need?", especially if it gets to the point the party is actually defending and building up a fixed settlement. Or really just L4D style "Just get to the next f*'ing town in one piece".
Part of my design philosophy ties into what I feel about difficulty, I want the world to feel like it has depth and I want the PC"s to feel consequences for their mistakes or over ambitiousness; the zone system is one part of that. There are just regions were you just plain do not pass go at your level without needing invisible walls or railroads.
The nature of the setting and the malevolence of the forces involved should also make "safe" areas not so safe and to expect that. Like undead dragons swooping in or extra locked rooms that you probably shouldn't enter.... As long as there is an element of erratic unpredictability in the world around you it should make you more careful in your decisions, and only take risks when they are damn well worth it right?
I want the sense of danger to be under every corner, even though their in a 5% zone and the worst they'll likely run into is a bugbear wight.
House rules I'm consider:
(1) Removing automatic success on d20 20 roll. Instead it'll be +10 on a 20 and -10 on a 1.
(2) Save-or-die on PC's: At least for the first few levels when you fail a save on a save-or-die effect, enemy gets a crit, etc; I'll just do something else or make down a "strike 1" until strike 3 on my notes.
(3) The DM friend I have above suggested I use unhallowed/desecrated effects for zones instead of fiddling with things. Originally I was thinking of where to represent the weakening of the positive energy planes influence positive energy effects now face spell resistance from undead etc?
***************
For me, my challenge will be that of engagement, if every session is just the party level grinding I don't think that keeps up a weekly sense of excitement, not for long anyways.
On one hand they should "know" that the world is dying and seemingly no one can do anything about it. So maybe the party will take it upon themselves to start questing to figure something out.
If not, would it be sufficient if its undead hordes chasing after them, killing everyone in their path toppling town after town until they're sure enough there IS no hiding or surviving long term, and this forces them eventually onto trying to do something?
Notwithstanding quests such as "We need someone to find and stop the infiltrators sabotoging our walls."
"The food caravan is late, we need someone to find it!"
"The last time the Dead attacked they brought with them a dracolich, we need someone to get a message to [insert old wizard here] to come to our aid for the next time!"
Would that work I wonder, to keep up excitement on a session to session basis?
One last note, thinking back on Rich's comments on how "fantasy stories that don't tell us something about the real world is just petty escapism", I was thinking that the campaign to a degree could serve as a metaphor for climate change; something seemingly inescapable oncoming storm.
What else should I work on and keep in mind as I'm still working on drawing maps and world building?
If this gets off the ground I'll be making journal entries especially after each session as stuff progresses.
Essentially, about a week ago an acquaintance, lets call him Ron. Asked me to DM for him as he's bored and "just wants to play", I decided to take him up on this and began working on creating a campaign world (he asked for something pirate themed and while there's a geographical area where that's possible if the party goes there... No).
This will be full disclosure my first time trying to do "real DM'ing", I have the setting more or less roughed out with a rough idea on how things will "work" mechanically.
Using pathfinder as the system, the world will be divided up into regions and each region will be further subdivided into hex's each representing a 'zone' of the region and each sector will have "areas of interest", such as dungeons, quest givers, towns, roads, random encounters etc.
Verily I have constructed this to resemble the structure of a sandbox MMORPG so that I always have "content" for the users to explore and can easily plug in storyline information to.
The main "hook" for the campaign I have planned is kinda a mix of Attack on Titan and World War Zed, and MuvLuv; the gods were wiped out 100 years ago in an "Event" [Name to be Determined] and this weakened the fabric of reality such that the negative energy plane is spilling out onto the world plunging it into despair and darkness. The dead that had accumulated buried underground over the centuries, millennia even have all started to wake up and consume anything that lives.
A large amount of the world has succumbed and most of the rest is being encroached upon with few remaining beacons of civilization remaining unharmed and unthreatened, but how long will that last?
As such every zone has a percentage modifier determining the level of corruption by the negative energy plane; at 100% is the CR 20+ encounters while 0% is sunshine and dire rats, with besieged cities sometimes being in the 10-35% zones.
I'm intending for a proper and full experience, so everyone starts at level 1 and has to earn their super awesome characters and hopefully no one meets in an inn.
We're going to be playing in real time over skype using maptools or similar.
Now of my potential players who might not be able to play but is perfectly willing to help out has posited onto me some advice/questions to think about:
1) What is the overall campaign goal?
2) Each session should have a goal which may or may not be related to the campaign goal.
- Think like some of the better sci-fi series (Babylon 5, Buffy, Angel, some of the better anime like Cowboy Bebop)
(1) As I feel it comes down to, is 'long term' "figure out a way to close the breech(s) and restore the fabric of reality" but obviously the players are level 1 and that's not on their minds at the beginning right?
So the goal would be "Survive"?
(2) Thinking in terms of survival each session I think could be looked at in terms of "what supplies do we need?", "Are there people with certain skills we need to find?", "Is there equipment or materials we need?", especially if it gets to the point the party is actually defending and building up a fixed settlement. Or really just L4D style "Just get to the next f*'ing town in one piece".
Part of my design philosophy ties into what I feel about difficulty, I want the world to feel like it has depth and I want the PC"s to feel consequences for their mistakes or over ambitiousness; the zone system is one part of that. There are just regions were you just plain do not pass go at your level without needing invisible walls or railroads.
The nature of the setting and the malevolence of the forces involved should also make "safe" areas not so safe and to expect that. Like undead dragons swooping in or extra locked rooms that you probably shouldn't enter.... As long as there is an element of erratic unpredictability in the world around you it should make you more careful in your decisions, and only take risks when they are damn well worth it right?
I want the sense of danger to be under every corner, even though their in a 5% zone and the worst they'll likely run into is a bugbear wight.
House rules I'm consider:
(1) Removing automatic success on d20 20 roll. Instead it'll be +10 on a 20 and -10 on a 1.
(2) Save-or-die on PC's: At least for the first few levels when you fail a save on a save-or-die effect, enemy gets a crit, etc; I'll just do something else or make down a "strike 1" until strike 3 on my notes.
(3) The DM friend I have above suggested I use unhallowed/desecrated effects for zones instead of fiddling with things. Originally I was thinking of where to represent the weakening of the positive energy planes influence positive energy effects now face spell resistance from undead etc?
***************
For me, my challenge will be that of engagement, if every session is just the party level grinding I don't think that keeps up a weekly sense of excitement, not for long anyways.
On one hand they should "know" that the world is dying and seemingly no one can do anything about it. So maybe the party will take it upon themselves to start questing to figure something out.
If not, would it be sufficient if its undead hordes chasing after them, killing everyone in their path toppling town after town until they're sure enough there IS no hiding or surviving long term, and this forces them eventually onto trying to do something?
Notwithstanding quests such as "We need someone to find and stop the infiltrators sabotoging our walls."
"The food caravan is late, we need someone to find it!"
"The last time the Dead attacked they brought with them a dracolich, we need someone to get a message to [insert old wizard here] to come to our aid for the next time!"
Would that work I wonder, to keep up excitement on a session to session basis?
One last note, thinking back on Rich's comments on how "fantasy stories that don't tell us something about the real world is just petty escapism", I was thinking that the campaign to a degree could serve as a metaphor for climate change; something seemingly inescapable oncoming storm.
What else should I work on and keep in mind as I'm still working on drawing maps and world building?
If this gets off the ground I'll be making journal entries especially after each session as stuff progresses.