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View Full Version : Hunting as a reliable campaign?



Johnjimco
2014-01-11, 01:13 AM
I ran a game of Dungeon Crawl Classics earlier this week and every player wants to continue it as a campaign.

The problem is that I'm having reservations about how I can keep it consistently interesting and fun with the subject matter. What happened is that their characters lived in a small hamlet whose animals keep getting taken by a monster. You know the drill - hunt monster, kill monster, have lunch.

I've had a few thoughts about making it about them slowly killing stronger and stronger monsters/beasts every adventure, but as I said, I don't know if the fun will be a able to last.

Advice, ideas, plot, and anything else you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Kol Korran
2014-01-11, 01:36 AM
Well, we may need a bit more information about the group, their level of experience, and most importantly- what exactly did they liked about the first game that they want to continue it? Do they like the specific set of characters? Gaming as general? (Are they new players or veterans? Are you a new DM or a veteran?) Do they like the setting? The specific NPCs? The general theme of the campaign?

Knowing these we might be able to help more.

Knowing a bit more of the setting (I understand it's some sort of a pre made module?) Could help as well, in giving ideas.

If you're not sure what to do though, I might suggest to run either small episodic adventures, or one bigger "Net adventure" in order to find out what the party is interested in:
small episodic adventures: Basically you run mostly disconnected adventures, till you get an idea for a more encompassing story. I suggest to run them very loosely, and see what ideas and what connections the party might come up with ?(They could suddenly seek advice or alliance from an NPCs of a previous adventure, or decide to take a certain place as their base, or to expand explorations on some matter). Then you have the PCs' motivations guiding the campaign for you.

The advantage here is that you can focus on relatively simple stuff, and not yet worry about a bigger picture. You can have adventures such as "explore the ruins up[ north", "Escort the caravan", "Explore the strange disappearings" and such, or other fancy ideas of your own. The disadvantage is that it may take quite long for a bigger picture to come up, and some players may get bored with that, (Especially story oriented players, Or mystery solvers).

Net adventure: This kind of adventure works if you have about half a dozen ideas (they don't need to be fully formed) of possible adventures. You make an adventure that includes substantial plot hooks for all ("Castign your net") and see what the players bite. Then, by what they choose to undertake, you expand and build further.

For example, I had my players retrieve some item that was essential to their little village by going to a bigger town. They got attacked by strange creatures and theitr overly tough maddened gnollish like leader on the way, who ran off (Hook 1). In the town they got entangled in the political power struggle between 5 power groups. (Hook 2). They also learned of a group of distant honor bound warriors who suddenly became a serious raider threat on the town (Hook 3), one of the characters had an assassination attempt on him (hook 4), and one of the power groups was composed mostly of mutated ghoul like creatures- a sorry bunch, but also expert treasure seekers (Hook 5).

The thing is that you don't need to know the entire details before hand, or how the big picture might come together (I didn't) .You just need cool enough ideas that you think you can develop into something interesting. THEN, after the party chooses to follow a hook (or 2 hooks), you "fill in the gaps" and make it work.

The advantage is that you set a good basis for many adventures in one go, and you give the players the fill of a big living world, and a "menu" to choose from". The downside is that this may confuse some players who like things more simple, who might worry from choosing "the wrong lead" to follow. It also means a bit more work setting up the adventure, as Net adventure are a bit more complicated affairs.
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However, please check up the questions at the beginning of this post, we can help you easier if you do. Good luck! :smallsmile:

Rhynn
2014-01-11, 02:38 AM
Dungeon Crawl Classics? The answer is obvious - big hexmap sandbox with lots of dungeons and random encounter tables with % In Lair (does DCC have that entry for monsters?) to create random monster lairs for the PCs to encounter.

:smallbiggrin:

Seriously, though, I think DCC, like any OSR D&D retroclone, runs best in a full-on old-school campaign with a lot of wilderness exploration, small dungeons, and at least one megadungeon...

Create a setting around the PCs, too - kingdoms, power players, factions, their politics, etc. Let them get more and more involved in that stuff as they grow in level and power.

Sith_Happens
2014-01-11, 02:57 AM
http://img.the-games-master.com/albums/userpics/10001/monster-hunter-logo.gif

Kelb_Panthera
2014-01-11, 05:46 AM
In a lot of series I watch they start off with a mundane seeming premise like this only to have it, after a few iterations to establish "normal," lead into a deeper more involved plot.

Say after a few "normal" hunts, it leads to evidence suggesting that someone is organizing an influx of monsters to the region and our intrepid heroes have to stop them before they're overrun by all kinds of nasties ravaging the country-side.

Johnjimco
2014-01-11, 02:54 PM
Well, we may need a bit more information about the group, their level of experience.

1 person has been playing rpgs since he was around 12, most everyone else are moderately experienced.


most importantly- what exactly did they like about the first game that they want to continue it?

They said that they enjoyed their characters and setting (more on that below), and most of all they like the boss fight against the monster they were hunting, which was a giant snake.


Knowing a bit more of the setting Could help as well in giving ideas.

I actually generated the world out of Dwarf Fortress (Something I recommend everyone to try). I'll try to figure out how to let everyone see those files later.

davidhanna
2014-01-11, 07:35 PM
An idea that comes to my mind is that maybe there is some sort of monster or creature that can only be hunted every few hundred years or so, either due to migration patterns or cicadaesque hibernation, and the next time to hunt it is within a few weeks/months, although the exact date is not known.

The players might need to deal with other hunters trying to hunt the same prey, if the beast is particularly rare or valuable and/or the reward is very large.

Sith_Happens
2014-01-12, 01:28 AM
An idea that comes to my mind is that maybe there is some sort of monster or creature that can only be hunted every few hundred years or so, either due to migration patterns or cicadaesque hibernation, and the next time to hunt it is within a few weeks/months, although the exact date is not known.

The players might need to deal with other hunters trying to hunt the same prey, if the beast is particularly rare or valuable and/or the reward is very large.

http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Jhen.jpg

Jay R
2014-01-12, 12:15 PM
When it starts getting repetitive, start dropping hints that these animals don't really belong here. Eventually they need to go find out what's happening.

Behind every adventure is another adventure to clean up the mess.

Radar
2014-01-12, 12:33 PM
First thing, that came to my mind was Toriko (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/Toriko?from=Main.Toriko).

They have eaten the flesh of a powerful monster and gained part of its power in return (represented by experiance points or equivalent). They might become curious and seek out more monsters to become even stronger or just find out, what has actualy happened to them. In their journey they will find the whole new world of gourmet hunters, learn the importance of moderation and the danger of driving monsters into extinction. They will also inevitably encounter hunters obsessed with gaining unlimited power no matter the cost or others fighting dirty to make a better profit. Seriously, give Toriko a look. :smallsmile:

davidhanna
2014-01-12, 12:41 PM
http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Jhen.jpg

Is that from the game you mentioned earlier? I haven't played it, so could you give some background info please?

Sith_Happens
2014-01-12, 06:50 PM
Is that from the game you mentioned earlier?

Yes.


I haven't played it, so could you give some background info please?

It's a game series about killing huge monsters and making them into weapons and armor with which to kill huger monsters.

The image is of the second-largest monster in the series. It's a bit hard to pin down the scale from that perspective, but its claws are about the size of a small car.