Building an Open ended [PATHFINDER] campaign

[RBVakarian]

So, i've been thinking about campaigns and Homebrew in general, and deciding instead of having a World-Ending threat, to make a campaign more open ended. I decided to go with an exploration theme style. Maybe travelling to a strange new world and and exploring it and hunting strange new monsters. My problem is I can't get the Synapses firing and cannot think of a way to start the campaign.

Also, should i ban wizards and other powerful casters? Normally i wouldn't but if the goal is to explore this region and then the Wizard teleports them away, doesn't that end the campaign?

(I also plan on starting it at level 5)

[the_david]

Well, you could look into Spheres of Power to replace Vancian casting and then not allow (some of) the advanced talents.

That solves the rules part, now for the crunch...

I'm not sure what you want. The way I see sandboxy wilderness exploration is that, eventually, there will be a world-ending threat around every corner. (Or on every hex.) There has to be some kind of story, or otherwise it'll turn into a hack'n'slash.

There's one scenario that comes to mind though, and that's the going home trope. Whether it's the odyssey, a bunch of kids being led by a gnome with long sideburns, or Adam Reith trying to find a spaceship to take him away from the Planet of Adventure. So get the PC's lost somehow, then let them find their way home. It's not world-ending, though it may also not be that high level. Maybe you should just rethink that level 5 starting point. Depending on where you end, you may not have to worry about stuff like teleportation.

[RBVakarian]

I'm not sure what you want. The way I see sandboxy wilderness exploration is that, eventually, there will be a world-ending threat around every corner. (Or on every hex.) There has to be some kind of story, or otherwise it'll turn into a hack'n'slash.


Well, I was thinking along the lines of there was this huge war going on, and the Elders at the time didn't think they could stop it so they put them all into a Magic capsule and sent it off into who knows where, wanting to save a piece of their history, or as a way to keep a part of them alive past the war. The players start once the capsule has landed, (possibly crash landed?) and are looking to explore and make sure the area is safe.

That could give them the going home trope possibly.

[the_david]

Well, yeah that would work. It might be a bit railroady at first though. Many campaigns start out railroady anyway.

Alternatively, the huge war could also work as not a World-Ending threat. You could use the rules for warfare from Ultimate Campaign or from Heroes of Battle.

[RBVakarian]

That's what I'm trying to avoid. I hate when a campaign gets rail roared, and I'm thinking with an open world exploration, I could nip that in the bud. I'm thinking of just a massive world with all sorts of different biomes and to let them just have at it. Like Kingmaker without all the political stuff

[Stellar_Magic]

I was thinking of running a campaign akin to this (open world exploration based campaign). I have two concepts... one for a true open world (generate the world as we play) campaign, and one similar to the Kingmaker RPG path for Pathfinder.

In the first scenario, I was planing on starting the party on a Spelljammer... an inter-planar sail ship (cool concept from AD&D). Essentially start the session with the players getting to know each other characters, and then... a wizard onboard the ship tries an experimental spell, causing the ship to crash on an unidentified material plane. As the ship sinks, the characters have to escape the wreck and make their way to shore... the rest of the game would be randomly generated based on die rolls as the players explored the land and mapped it out.

The kingmaker scenario, I'm going to open with the party arriving at a Colony where the Lord Mayor has died and no one has taken his place... at the same time people are disappearing due to attacks by an unknown monster.

[unglitteringold]

Also, should i ban wizards and other powerful casters? Normally i wouldn't but if the goal is to explore this region and then the Wizard teleports them away, doesn't that end the campaign?

The players can still be wizards! Making wizards rare can be good to add challenges for travel. Also, the price can be astronomical; then paying for the teleport leads to side quests and stories. (Example, players want to explore the distant land of GoobyGook to get a magical mcguffin they heard about, and there's a wizard who will help them get there, sure, but he wants the Ring of Red Harrington which happens to be in the lair of a dragon at present....)

And if someone wants to play a wizard/cleric etc, then let them play one, but for travel spells you can just make them actually get/track spell components, then make the spell components rare.

The campaign that I'm running is a low magic setting where the players can be magic users, but the rest of the world does not have much magic, thus, if they start bamfing around, there will be consequences, like being hunted down by magic hunters, or being pressed into military service.

As long as you communicate with the players what kind of campaign you are running and don't be afraid to say, "No, but..." when they ask for something you don't want in your world. ("Can't we just get a wizard to TP us there?" "No, but you can take a ship through the seas of hidden encounters, or the haunted troll caves of really big treasure, or the woods of untold riches/despair....")

[RBVakarian]

I didn't even think of tracking of components and the like.

I like the idea of wrecking there via a spell jammer.

The premise would pretty much be mapping the world based on the players, and slipping into another plane would lead up to the "getting back home" trope in later levels.

My last campaign there was a large war that had been going on for centuries between the Fey and the Dwarves. It was set up so that players could choose who they wanted to help; because neither side was evil... However, all the players went full tilt on the Pro-Fey side and it got crazy. After doing this campaign I thought it would be fun to lower the stakes so to speak.

So currently in my head, they start out in this ship, maybe a session or two of them on the ship. The ship is powered by the essense of magic; and someone sabotages the motor, causing the ship to begin crashing. it jumps over to another plane and where they crash its the cold dead of winter, so then they have to find a way to get warm.

[RBVakarian]

After beginning to build this, I'm going to run it as P6. I like the idea of exploring this new world as a gritty fantasy. Going to build a couple of custom races to have roamed about. giving them city states to rule as opposed to a central government. I'm thinking of maybe 5 basic tribes.

1.) Tundra. a -Proto-Yeti like people who are peaceful and fishermen
2.) Forests. a Variation on Standard Elves, who are almost Fey.
3.) Deserts. a group of Lizard people who see power as power by combat.
4.) Hills. probably a version of hill giants. simple folk.
5.) ???




Does anyone know where i can find the P6 information?

[Stellar_Magic]

For the Forest dwelling elves that are 'almost fey', you could use the stats for Drow or Drow nobles, and swap the darkvision and light-blindness for low-light vision. I'd actually suggest using a lot of fey for this campaign... Nothing says uncharted wilderness like Fey.

I'd suggest adding Taiga to the list of environments... it falls between Forest and Tundra. Also, remember that coastal zones are usually different from the norm... perhaps a good place for something semi-aquatic to live.

You might consider mixing multiple races in climate zones and have them competing or fighting. The party stumbling on a fight between two or more groups makes for an interesting and different encounter.

[RBVakarian]

You might consider mixing multiple races in climate zones and have them competing or fighting. The party stumbling on a fight between two or more groups makes for an interesting and different encounter.

Yeah, i was thinking of 2 of the reptilian races, one that's all mystic, and one that's extremely combat based. I like the idea of the party stumbling on fights, makes the world feel larger.

[Yora]

Red Tide might be of interest to you. Not only is it widely regarded as the best book on sandbox gaming, the sample setting is about the survivors of a fallen empire that has been devestated by a magical catastrophe who have been transported by an archwizard to a distant continent where they might be safe. It's set 300 years after they arrived on the new continent and already established a handful of new kingdoms, but there should be lots of ideas for you.
The pdf (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/89888/Red-Tide-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Sandbox-Toolkit) is only 7€.


1.) Tundra. a -Proto-Yeti like people who are peaceful and fishermen
2.) Forests. a Variation on Standard Elves, who are almost Fey.
3.) Deserts. a group of Lizard people who see power as power by combat.
4.) Hills. probably a version of hill giants. simple folk.

This seems a bit problematic. To visit both tundra and desert peoples, the party would have to travel almost a quarter around the world. Sandboxes generally work best if you keep the setting limited to a single region. One big island, a group of small islands, one forest, one big mountain valley, and so on. A 1000x1000 miles map would already be huge. Something the size of Ireland or Greece would already be pretty big.

[RBVakarian]

This seems a bit problematic.

Hmmm, I didn't think of the distance... Maybe landing on an island wouldn't be a bad idea, Foresty, with a pinch of Taiga, and change/takeaway the desert aspect.

[Mechalich]

You can vary environments greatly in a small area by utilizing elevation. The Big Island of Hawaii manages to squeeze in an arctic zone, despite being tropical at sea level. If your island includes a mountain range to produce rain shadows, you can throw in a desert on the opposite side.

[RBVakarian]

You can vary environments greatly in a small area by utilizing elevation. The Big Island of Hawaii manages to squeeze in an arctic zone, despite being tropical at sea level. If your island includes a mountain range to produce rain shadows, you can throw in a desert on the opposite side.

Awesome! That puts them at the top of the mountain for the start, and they have to find their way down to safety, finding different tribes at different altitudes, Probably make an all-father deity that is alluded to as the mountain. Have a small range of them with one of them being incredibly larger than the others. I'm going to draw the world map this weekend, and upload it when i get a chance.

[RBVakarian]

Here's the map:

The north corner is where the tundra will be, and the longer mountain range will cut off rain for a desert. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwcyc-LSLFWFX28zTjd0SUdjaU0/view?usp=sharing)

[paladin1818]

Maybe just ban teleport spells, replace with different spells instead, & ban travel & portal domains for clerics. I've seen many travel adventures where the party works for an organization, like a church or spy agency, that sends them out to complete missions, spell-capsule being the biggy. Add mutants of standard monsters, & have their bodies be equipment, like a troll's skull giving +1 against other trolls, or a evil elve's ear be able to listen to things a mile away.