Ideas for a Survival Campaign

[7th son of sons]

I play in a group of 5 players, and we rotate DMing after campaigns, which tend to last a few months and we usually run 2 at a time to keep from burn-outs. We mostly deal in civilization and city campaigns, with a high emphasis on social aspects and combat, not so much on dungeons or exploring. For my next campaign, I was thinking of changing that, and doing a very open world survival campaign in a heavily natural environment. My group has always had trouble with remembering to eat and drink, as well as the issue of carrying space, as most of us are new to DND and are used to other RPG Games, where these things don't matter, so I figured why not flip things on there head? So My question becomes: How should I accomplish this?

My first idea was too have a massive world map that the PC's could explore at leisure, with everything from Kobold Camps to Dracolich Lairs available to them from the start if certain conditions be met. Is this fair to the players? Would it be fun too play?

In addition, what races should I disallow? I for sure want to disallow Humans (oh so boring, and picked way too often in my group), and Warforged, but are there any other to ban? What about classes? Prestige Classes? The goal of the campaign is for there to be no end all be all for problems, so I figured dropping the big three, but are there any other classes that become insanely good in this setting?

And lastly, the issue of story. if the world is so open, how should I structure the story? Should there be a story at all? I just want to get the Playgrounds thoughts on this campaign, and weather or not it should/could be done in this fashion.

[zephyrkinetic]

Having tried to run an insanely-open world concept game, I will advise you to stop where you are.

Generating a massive map is so time-taxing that it's basically just asking for a mental break-down. Instead, find or create some random-encounter tables, and get really good with using them.

No need to disallow any races or classes; each have their own inherent benefits and drawbacks to surviving, and seeing how your players cope with challenges in their own way is one of the (few) joys of DMing.

And you should always have a story. Always have a goal. Without one, your players will get bored quick. Quick idea: have them look for/end up in front of a planar gate. Then you can move the survival aspect to other planes, where the rules all change. Also, you could have the world you know and commonly play in experience some apocalyptic event. In D&D, thanks to Wizards constantly Doing Things, you can even have it specific enough that the cities are uninhabitable, and the wild is now the only safe place to live.

[prufock]

My group has always had trouble with remembering to eat and drink, as well as the issue of carrying space, as most of us are new to DND and are used to other RPG Games, where these things don't matter, so I figured why not flip things on there head? So My question becomes: How should I accomplish this?
The problem I have with it is the reason why so many people overlook eating and carrying capacity in D&D: it isn't fun.

It's no fun to total up all your weight and say "oh, I'm 1 pound over my medium load, etc." For all it's role-playing and non-combat encounters, D&D is very much a combat-focused game.

That isn't to say a survival game can't be fun! I just don't think I'd use this system.


My first idea was too have a massive world map that the PC's could explore at leisure, with everything from Kobold Camps to Dracolich Lairs available to them from the start if certain conditions be met. Is this fair to the players? Would it be fun too play?
Look up Ars Ludi's West March campaign. This isn't survival, it's simply open environment, site-based exploration. There are combat encounters, but a lot of the work of the campaign is in exploration and describing environs.


And lastly, the issue of story. if the world is so open, how should I structure the story? Should there be a story at all? I just want to get the Playgrounds thoughts on this campaign, and weather or not it should/could be done in this fashion.
I've had a sort of idea to run a game something like the West March campaign, called "The East Road." You'd start in a border town, which becomes your base of operations. The "civilized" peoples are expanding their territory eastward, and the PCs are frontier adventurers who have a huge countryside available to explore. The story starts with the discovery of what appears to be the ruins of a huge brick road to the east.

As the players adventure further east, and gain levels, the challenge ratings increase. There are pockets of higher- and lower-CR areas within each region, though, and some things will be beyond the PCs abilities. They may have to run.

Through it all, they would discover ruins and clues as to the ancient civilization here, and why it no longer exists.

I have no idea if any of this helped you, but maybe it will at least kickstart your own brainstorming.

[Fouredged Sword]

IF you want to do a massive open ended adventure, keep it small and be ready to fill in as needed. No matter how much planing you do, the party will do something you never considered, and you are outnumbers 4 to 1.

With an open world, you take a reactive roll, rather than an active one. Have the players end each session by talking about where they want to go next. This allows you to fill in the world without having to plan for every contingency.

Do create a broad strokes world plan, but leave it at "here be dragons" rather than "This is Marhal's lair, he is a level 4 sorcerer old gold dragon." Remember, maps are a rather renaissance thing. They where really bad for most of human history. Given them a map, but it isn't very accurate or useful.

[prufock]

IF you want to do a massive open ended adventure, keep it small and be ready to fill in as needed. No matter how much planing you do, the party will do something you never considered, and you are outnumbers 4 to 1.
Agreed. This is true of any campaign; you can only plan for so many contingencies, and players are a creative lot.


Have the players end each session by talking about where they want to go next. This allows you to fill in the world without having to plan for every contingency.
A Facebook conversation between the whole group, or a thread on a forum wiki for your campaign, can work very well. The group can discuss, make decisions, and plan outside of session time, and you can read their input.

[Duke of Urrel]

I would suggest creating a flow chart as well as a map. The flow chart works as an if-then sequence that responds to the choices that the players make. It's a good way to try to prepare for contingencies.

The map shouldn't provide the players with too much detail, because that precludes interesting surprises. But of course, the map should provide a way for players to orient themselves and to make choices that have real consequences. For example, if the players explore the mountains, that will have different consequences from exploring the forest, and it should.

Another thing that a map can do is create boundaries. In other words, you can limit your player's movements by making some areas seem too dangerous to enter (such the Forbidding Desert of Hot Raspy Death in the east, the Turbulent Sea of Dragon Turtles in the west, and the Awesome Mile-High Cliff in the north), and others too boring to enter (the Land of Friendly Halfling Peasants in the south). That way, you don't have to plan the whole world in advance; you can keep players confined to an area of reasonable size.

I would also advise placing helpful as well as harmful creatures along the way. By "along the way," I mean either in your flow chart or on the map, or both, according to your own wishes. Remember that creatures can move around, just as players can, so it's your choice when and where an encounter happens. There's no rule that says encounters have to be random, and I believe well-planned encounters that seem random are the best of all.

Last but not least, as the DM, you are in control of the weather. You can use it just as it's used in the movies: for dramatic effect. Should major battles take place in thunderstorms? Well, not always, but once in a while sure is good. Consider also what snow can do to tracks – it can both make them visible and cause them to disappear by covering them up. And you're the one who decides when it snows!

Postscript: Speaking of snow, think of that chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring in which Tolkien's heroes tried, and failed, to cross the Misty Mountains through the pass at Mount Caradhras. The snowfall was so thick that they eventually had to give up and take a detour through the Mines of Moria. One might almost accuse J.R.R. Tolkien of railroading by means of inclement weather... But I don't think any of his readers complained, and I don't think your players will complain, either. If your railroading event is realistic enough and makes enough sense in-game, I don't think it's a problem.

[DrDeth]

The problem I have with it is the reason why so many people overlook eating and carrying capacity in D&D: it isn't fun.

It's no fun to total up all your weight and say "oh, I'm 1 pound over my medium load, etc." For all it's role-playing and non-combat encounters, D&D is very much a combat-focused game.

That isn't to say a survival game can't be fun! I just don't think I'd use this system.
.

It can be fun- for a couple of nites. Then it gets old.

[incarnate236]

I did a zombie survival in Stormreach from the Eberron setting where I essentially just built a bunch of random encounters and told them to try and escape the city. We didn't finish because of time constraints but for the most part it was easy to steer an "open ended" campaign along one of a few different paths so long as I put huge masses of undead in front of the routes I didn't want them to take. Since shops were largely rummaged through or guarded by survivors they had to fight or make skill checks for supplies which made any attempt to go shopping a risk.

If the encounters are frequent and challenging enough it shouldn't be necessary to ban classes or races since eventually even the most optimized will run low on resources.

Dracoliches and the like are fair in my eyes as long as the players have a chance to run or hide when they realize they can't handle the opponent. Just make sure not to use abilities that one shot any of the PCs until the climax.