Ideas for a cool limited-scope campaign setting?

[Unusual Muse]

I'm looking to run a game but I'm short on development time, so I'm trying to come up with a limited-area campaign location that is manageable in terms of size and back-story. You know, like, the campaign is set in a valley with impassable mountains on all sides, or on an island with no other nearby land masses, etc.

So, Playground, what cool microsettings have you come up with that have an interesting flavor and dynamics without being sprawling game worlds? Go!

[FocusWolf413]

I'll just give you some major setting aspects:

A small archipelago about fifty miles offshore.
One small fishing village.
Blacksmith, shipbuilders, fishermen, one person capable of crafting items (warlock, paladin, artificer, cleric, druid, sorcerer).
Cave with a monster they make sacrifices to.
Monster is ______.
Cave connects to buried temple/pyramid/entrance to the Underdark.

[nintendoh]

I was always partial to a spartacus style campaign. Maybe everyone plays warforged and ends up rebelling against the human master. Alternatively replace human with drow and warforged with whatever and escape the arena.

[BowStreetRunner]

One of my favorite micro-settings is on board a ship. In science fiction they managed to encompass so much with this - whether it was Battlestar Galactica, Start Trek, or some similar space jaunt, the vessel made the perfect micro-setting and each episode they had the opportunity to stop at some exotic locale for some additional options. I think that if you put the characters on a ship of exploration you can have your choice of locales to visit and even recycle the setting later if you end up with another opportunity to revisit the campaign.

Some of my favorite explorations were the quests for legendary places like the Fountain of Youth, Eldorado - the city of Gold, the lost city of Atlantis, or some similar locale. Set your campaign aboard a ship off searching for some legendary site and have the bulk of this particular adventure take place on a tropical island. Do something along the lines of Apocalypse Now with the BBEG holding sway over the natives. Give it a real Indiana Jones flair with ancient temples and burial caverns and somewhere amidst it all there might be the source of all the legends.

[ksbsnowowl]

The Domains of Dread.

Some of the Islands of Terror were mere cities, with nothing existing beyond the city (in truth, the city was the whole of existence for that domain.)

Make up your own Ravenloft domain, and have the Domain Lord lock down the boarders. Instant limited-scope setting, but it has the potential to bring in new foes, or expand later on if the DM finds the desire.

[BWR]

I love the Thunder Rift, a supplement for BECMI, and first in a short series of supplements designed to introduce players to D&D. It sets up the secluded valley and has a lovely map and tons of history and locations and hooks for you to build on. The adventures that came were of varying quality but even the bad ones are salvageable for ideas if nothing else, and the good ones are great for low level adventures. The Rift has plenty of varied terrain for you to play with, deep forests, open plains, murky swamps, rocky hills, dungeons etc. Should you wish, it can easily be thrown in just about any setting average-ish setting and has a few hooks to bring you out.
And like so much of Mystara it has plenty of community support from a dedicated and clever bunch. A quick Google search should get you lots of useful information.

It's out of print and hard copies may be hard to come by and expensive (haven't looked) and I don't know about pdf versions (even if I should see about getting some to spare my beloved supplements wear and tear).

[Grod_The_Giant]

A small civilization built on the back of a giant monster, ten miles across, striding through endless mists from which no-one has ever returned. If you go out to the edge of the "world" and stare for long enough, you might see another huge figure trundling along, but the distances are too great for anything but the most powerful magic to cross. (Assuming you're low-level enough

A demiplane, constructed by a mad wizard for... some purpose. Bonus points if it's a Fallout vault (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault) style social experiment thing.

[Honest Tiefling]

Everyone else is dead or missing. Sure, you could run off into the mists, but you don't know what ate everyone else so wandering off might not be the best idea. Perhaps the characters woke up one morning to find out that most of the population missing. Perhaps even cities seem to have been ripped out of the ground, but are completely missing, with not even debris left.

Doesn't exactly negate the need for a setting, but I doubt the players are going to care about the history of that crater. Add in enough of a threat and they won't have time to bother!

[Secret Wizard]

Your airship crash lands in a jungle. The party and four other passengers/crew members are the only survivors. The next town is 40 days of travel away. You only have supplies to keep all of you fed for 13 days, and limited supplies of healer's kits and scrolls.

But traversing the jungle may be even more perilous than you imagined, as predators competing for food is not your only concern. You've heard whispers at night, that grow stronger as you get deeper into the depths of the rainforest. Ancient ruins, scattered over the place, seem to hint of a hidden story...

[asnys]

A domed city on an asteroid. Nobody knows how the dome was built, or when, or by who, but ancient supertechnology/supermagic keeps the air breathable and the lights on. Portals link the dome to various other realms, which is how you got there, but their use is expensive and/or difficult. There's even a ready-made dungeon: the labyrinth of maintenance passages and other tunnels under the city.

A vast underground cavern, like K'n-yan or bits of the Underdark. There may be passages to the surface, or other caverns, but nobody knows how to find them.

A platform floating in an infinite sky, supporting gardens and a small city. Other platforms can be reached by airship/flying monster, but their use is expensive. Don't fall off.

[Unusual Muse]

I like the idea of a central "home base" with planar gates that go where the adventures are, with access to those gates varying depending on plot threads. Kind of a "mini-Sigil"... except not tied to the actual planes, because that becomes vast and unmanageable really quickly and is thus the opposite of my goal. :smallsmile:

[BowStreetRunner]

I like the idea of a central "home base" with planar gates that go where the adventures are, with access to those gates varying depending on plot threads. Kind of a "mini-Sigil"... except not tied to the actual planes, because that becomes vast and unmanageable really quickly and is thus the opposite of my goal. :smallsmile:
Sounds a bit like the Stargate movie and TV series. The key limiting factor there was that to use the gate you needed to dial the 'address' of another working gate. If the address you dialed did not correspond to a gate, if the other gate was no longer working or was buried, or if the other gate had been moved to another address then dialing would have no effect.

For a fantasy version I might have the gate be a magic circle large enough to fit a decent party and a ritual is needed to activate the gate. The ritual is specific to the second gate to which they wish to connect and also requires some limited resource to use - they can't afford to overuse the gate as doing so will use up the resource. So they both need to acquire the correct ritual and enough of this limited resource to guarantee they can go through the circle and then power the second circle to get back again. (They already have the ritual to return to their own circle from any of the connecting magic circles.)

[daremetoidareyo]

Coliseum, PCs are slaves being used to fight in the games.

or
Traveling Trade caravan that is constantly on the move: flavor of the week town, with flavor of the weak ambush/conflict.

or
PCs are guerilla fighters stationed in a certain set of woods dominated by a peculiar weather pattern in a certain geographic locale. They have a hidden village of 50+ people to protect from the _______ hoard that took over the planet.

or
PCs live in a dungeon of their own design. They must fight off a band of adventurers per week seeking to plunder the place. The plunder that draws them there is the ___column 1___ of eternal ___column 2____. It only works to your benefit while you live in the dungeon.



Die roll
Column 1
Column 2


1
Fountain
Youth


2
Rift
gold nuggets 150gp/day


3
library of ancient forgotten race
All spells maneuvers and feats


4
Crazy artifact
That a powerful lich wants


5
Fey realm
pleasure


6
aboleth
homebrew graft dispensing 1/level

[asnys]

Sounds a bit like the Stargate movie and TV series. The key limiting factor there was that to use the gate you needed to dial the 'address' of another working gate. If the address you dialed did not correspond to a gate, if the other gate was no longer working or was buried, or if the other gate had been moved to another address then dialing would have no effect.

For a fantasy version I might have the gate be a magic circle large enough to fit a decent party and a ritual is needed to activate the gate. The ritual is specific to the second gate to which they wish to connect and also requires some limited resource to use - they can't afford to overuse the gate as doing so will use up the resource. So they both need to acquire the correct ritual and enough of this limited resource to guarantee they can go through the circle and then power the second circle to get back again. (They already have the ritual to return to their own circle from any of the connecting magic circles.)

Alternatively, to limit gate use, the portal could only be open/open-able under certain astrological conditions. So you can only go to World X when Faerun is in the House of Thoth, or what have you, which only happens once every Y years.

[thorr-kan]

X1 The Isle of Dread.

[Unusual Muse]

There are some cool ideas here. Another aspect of what I'm trying to come up with is a "unifying factor" for the PCs beyond just "You all decided to go adventuring together;" some kind of reason to be together that runs deeper than just the need to go kill the evil thing/seek the treasure/etc. etc. Ideally, that common tie would be integrated with the setting itself in some way. Kind of like Amberites in a Throne War... but maybe something a little more creative than "you're all family."

[BowStreetRunner]

There are some cool ideas here. Another aspect of what I'm trying to come up with is a "unifying factor" for the PCs beyond just "You all decided to go adventuring together;" some kind of reason to be together that runs deeper than just the need to go kill the evil thing/seek the treasure/etc. etc. Ideally, that common tie would be integrated with the setting itself in some way. Kind of like Amberites in a Throne War... but maybe something a little more creative than "you're all family."
You've all been recruited by the government...some of you are patriots who volunteered...others were given an offer of leniency in return for service...others are just mercenaries who are looking for a payday...but whatever the reason is, you were recruited because you have the talents which the government needs for a team that will be sent on some very important missions.

[LudicSavant]

You've all been recruited by the government...some of you are patriots who volunteered...others were given an offer of leniency in return for service...others are just mercenaries who are looking for a payday...but whatever the reason is, you were recruited because you have the talents which the government needs for a team that will be sent on some very important missions.

Sounds a bit like the Quartermasters :smallsmile:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19966308&postcount=1

[Thisguy_]

"The world as you know it extends X units in all/certain directions, blah setting blah."

The players are Individual AI programs dropped into a greater computer simulation. The simulation controls all of the world's NPCs and only the players have "true freedom of choice," but they don't know it yet.

[Unusual Muse]

You've all been recruited by the government...some of you are patriots who volunteered...others were given an offer of leniency in return for service...others are just mercenaries who are looking for a payday...but whatever the reason is, you were recruited because you have the talents which the government needs for a team that will be sent on some very important missions.

This is a really cool idea... but unfortunately we have another DM already running the "government strike force" campaign. :smallsmile:


"The world as you know it extends X units in all/certain directions, blah setting blah."

The players are Individual AI programs dropped into a greater computer simulation. The simulation controls all of the world's NPCs and only the players have "true freedom of choice," but they don't know it yet.

Also awesome... right now I'm looking for something a little more standard fantasy than sci-fi, but I'm definitely going to file that one for later!

[Flickerdart]

Any exploration scenario - you have an outpost with miles of nothing in all directions, a mission to stick to, and limited supplies to keep you from wandering off.

Being eaten by a whale. When you need to expand the setting: the whale was eaten by a second, larger whale.

A prison, penal colony, or any other area where the PCs are forcibly confined. This doesn't need to be a no-resource campaign, as Arkham City shows.

A Guilliver scenario - the rest of the world is completely out-of-scale for the PCs, whether too large or too small, or possibly too alien in some other way. It's pointless to range out into the areas inhabited by these alien beings.

[BowStreetRunner]

Any exploration scenario - you have an outpost with miles of nothing in all directions, a mission to stick to, and limited supplies to keep you from wandering off.
Start with a shipwreck on an apparently uninhabited island - the PCs were each travelling for one reason or another but not necessarily together and are among the survivors. Exploration of the interior of the island will lead to the discovery of a magical circle in the ruins of an old stone temple. The remains of an earlier expedition are found among the ruins along with everything needed to activate the circle except that it has to be activated during a full moon - and the original expedition apparently died before the full moon. As the full moon appears over the island the PCs discover what killed the original expedition and now it is trying to kill them too (the CR of the encounter will be much higher than the party can handle). Their only chance is to activate the circle and go through it.

This puts them in another abandoned temple somewhere else, not even necessarily on the same world. This second site has some resources to allow them to survive and acts as their base of operations, but now they need to find a way back that doesn't involve facing the monstrosity that chased them through to this site.

[thorr-kan]

Our Friday Night Gaming Group's Al-Qadim group is all children from the same village. They were all seized by slavers as teenagers. When freed by a city priest, they stuck together. Now they are Companions in Adventure! (TM pending).

[Unusual Muse]

Start with a shipwreck on an apparently uninhabited island - the PCs were each travelling for one reason or another but not necessarily together and are among the survivors. Exploration of the interior of the island will lead to the discovery of a magical circle in the ruins of an old stone temple. The remains of an earlier expedition are found among the ruins along with everything needed to activate the circle except that it has to be activated during a full moon - and the original expedition apparently died before the full moon. As the full moon appears over the island the PCs discover what killed the original expedition and now it is trying to kill them too (the CR of the encounter will be much higher than the party can handle). Their only chance is to activate the circle and go through it.

This puts them in another abandoned temple somewhere else, not even necessarily on the same world. This second site has some resources to allow them to survive and acts as their base of operations, but now they need to find a way back that doesn't involve facing the monstrosity that chased them through to this site.

One of the issues I'm trying to balance with the "limited scope" one is that the players in my group are notoriously averse to being railroaded... so it has to be a sandbox with lots of open options, but a small, manageable one. :) That's the thing I'm kind of struggling with: How to tell a cool story that still gives the players plenty of agency, without having to stat up a whole campaign world.

[daremetoidareyo]

One of the issues I'm trying to balance with the "limited scope" one is that the players in my group are notoriously averse to being railroaded... so it has to be a sandbox with lots of open options, but a small, manageable one. :) That's the thing I'm kind of struggling with: How to tell a cool story that still gives the players plenty of agency, without having to stat up a whole campaign world.

Great approach!!!

I found that giving players all the same job does a lot for this. You make them all political appointees to a magistrate job in a city. I once for the first 5 levels or so, made it a contest for the job of magistrate noble between the PCs. The PCs wind up having to investigate crimes that is "part of their job" for regular dungeon delves, some of them were just appointed because whatever, and others actually want to excel at it, thinking that there are rich spoils attached to it. Meanwhile, the PC ran hunt down some of their personal interests. Which I presupplied stat blocks for, simply to dump into randomly generated names and personality traits. Just having a trunk full of hijinx to insert into NPC interactions that the PCs run into is a great way to be ready for this.

Eventually, I'll mess up real bad. Like I'll have a story line about a jealous mistress and then have to turn her into a spider demon or whatnot to keep ramping the action up. Then, I need a reason why the one path that I started actually comports with the knuckle grating near-death combat that I finished the night with. But I introduced a sister somewhere in the middle, so now I need to figure out what that means, cuz the PCs are sharp, they're gonna chase that lead down...

Filling in those holes takes preparation, which often leads to some of the weirdest campaign arcs that I can imagine. It's a pennigalen coven that is in a personal contest of who can sleep with and then kill, and then inherit the totality of who they kill's wealth. They are keeping all the winnings in an unseelie escrow account managed by a half devil/half leprechaun, and after 100 years, the ones that have accumulated the most wealth get to keep all of it.

Stuff that I could never come up with by sitting down and thinking about what I want a campaign to look like.

I Save the dungeon delve mini-adventures and mysteries for when I need to interrupt the PCs because they are bombarding me with too much and I need space to think. "A Courier interrupts, the heir prince of wabash has made an unexpected visit, you are all to provide security detail for the ________ ceremony, starting forthwith and posthaste."

Rather than design an epic movie, I can sort of set up a sort of fantastical soap opera effect.

[thorr-kan]

Or the Lonely Coast setting from Raging Swan Press. A keep, some woods, several villages. The base PDF is a free download. The various villages get indepth treatments, and some adventures are set there. Both are cheap PDFs (2-8 dollars each).

[Unusual Muse]

Or the Lonely Coast setting from Raging Swan Press. A keep, some woods, several villages. The base PDF is a free download. The various villages get indepth treatments, and some adventures are set there. Both are cheap PDFs (2-8 dollars each).

This looks promising... especially if I drop in some of the more unusual elements I'm looking for. Thanks!

[Flickerdart]

One of the issues I'm trying to balance with the "limited scope" one is that the players in my group are notoriously averse to being railroaded... so it has to be a sandbox with lots of open options, but a small, manageable one. :) That's the thing I'm kind of struggling with: How to tell a cool story that still gives the players plenty of agency, without having to stat up a whole campaign world.

Player agency is a strange duck - they will only want to exercise it if the options presented to them are not interesting. "Options" need not be plural - PCs engrossed in the story will follow the next plot hook without prodding. It's bored players that declare "we bugger off from the lich's tomb and set up a fashionable brand of chainmail."

[thorr-kan]

This looks promising... especially if I drop in some of the more unusual elements I'm looking for. Thanks!
I can't say enough good things about Raging Swan Press. Creighton's a great guy, and his stuff's enjoyable.

I read the Village Backdrop series for light reading; it's that good.