Quirks Of Your Campaign

[Scorponok]

I was wondering, what are some of the quirks of the campaigns you've played in? I'm talking about recurring themes that show up that aren't part of the ruleset, or just cultural things.

One of mine is whenever the players start getting off topic on something, I'll sometimes let it go on for a bit, but after that, I'll find some way to incorporate the conversation into the game, in the form of NPCs having the exact same conversation. Three out of the six players went for a while about Magic: The Gathering once, and when their characters eventually got on a boat to travel somewhere in-game, I had three of the passengers drone on and on about the card game Relic: The Fellowship for 5 minutes.

Another one is gnomes are always rare in the world because for some reason, their main civilization gets decimated, either due to some sort of powerful magic device nuking the city, or Orcs attacking and wiping them out, or mysteriously vanishing into another plane. I kind of make it a side mission for the players to find a gnome and ask them what happened to their civilization.

There will always be a large pumpkin patch located somewhere in the world. The closer the players get to it, the more jack-o-lantern type monsters appear. If they ignore the problem long enough, the main villain then becomes The Great Pumpkin.

What are some of yours?

[Tiri]

My campaign features a lot of shapeshifters, or creatures that can disguise their form. A large minority of the enemies the PCs have encountered so far haven't been in their natural form.

For example, last session the fighter's pet wolf was revealed to be an illusionist human skeleton who killed the wolf a while ago. Right after the party had fought a barghest they had no idea wasn't a goblin.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Probably the most notable quirk for my campaigns is the utterly anachronistic overdevelopment of the intelligence services of any developed nation in my setting. It's like the cold-war *3 is ported into my setting half-a-dozen times over.

[SangoProduction]

Well, at my table, everyone's playing rodents.

[Professor Chimp]

A common element in my campaigns is that the world is on the cusp of an industrial revolution because of several new 'inventions' usually created by either the dwarves, drow or gnomes. The truth is that these new technologies and techniques aren't actually their inventions, but reverse engineered from remains and artifacts left behind in the ruins of a long-lost incredibly ancient civilization buried deep beneath the earth (hence why those particular races tend to be the first to find them).

For example, in my current campaign the dwarves of the Bluestone Mountains have created cannons, rudimentary firearms, airships and other elemental-powered vehicles and machines, and constructs that can be worn as a sort of powered armor, and making a killing selling these to the militaries of the various nations (keeping the best for themselves, of course). But those are really just knock-off versions cobbled together from incomplete plans and sketches recovered from a ruined library which once belonged to the birdlike humanoids called the Dryn. The far superior real things (as do the insane and degenerated descendants of the Dryn) actually do still exist hidden somewhere in the world for enterprising players (or their enemies) to find.

Also, instead of stating something is written/spoken in a certain D&D language before or after reading it out, we use pre-determined accents. For example Elvish = French accent, Infernal = Texas redneck, Abyssal = Mexican, Draconic = gangsta ebonics (don't ask) and so on.

[Val666]

I'm Dming 3 games right now and all of them have a connection with the Daelkyr. I love the flavour of those creatures but I don't use the ones stated on the books or web. My Daelkyrs always have 3 forms which come in "Crizalyd", "Monstruos Form (usually something big") and "Humanoid form". The last form varies between the Monstruos and Humanoid form. All my players also receive "Hypermode" at level 10, from an event involving the Daelkyr. It's something like the Hypermode in Metroid Prime: Corruption and when they use it, for 10 rounds they get +10 to all stats, Max Hp x2, +5 saves, skill checks and AC, then they fall unconscious. They also gain an extra ability depending on their class. Also, all the classes my players have are 10 levels long, I work with each player to create their classes based on what they want to play. After level 10 I create 2 paths, some type of prestige class. Those prestige classes empower some aspect of the former class but they always get things the base class was lacking or things my player want.

There's also this character named Pinzas which is a giant lobster-man (kind of a Zoidberg) which is present in all my games as a recurring villian or ally. The only thing he says is: "Pinzas, Pinzas, Pinzaaaaaaaaaaaas".

[Knitifine]

My campaigns typically always involve a dramedy element. Typically there's a hodgepodge of comedic and dramatic characters, so the tone never stays in one place for two long. A changing of the current age often comes up. Greed is typically emphasized as the worst character trait. There's usually a lot of redemption arcs, or the suggestion that there could be one if there was enough time. Shapeshifting in one form or another typically comes up in minor ways.

On a more deliberate note, when asked about the creators of the universe, a quartet of elder gods is always implicated, though they may be called different things. They typically show up in the formation of 3 + 1, where the fourth god (usually Chaos) is missing, dead or unknown to most people.
Aeon, LN God of Life, Time and Machines.
Telos, CN God of Fate, Death and Purpose.
Gnosis, NG God of Knowledge, Love and Fire.
Chaos, NE God of the Void, Sin and Tranquility.

[erok0809]

Everyone loves gnomes in my world. If there's a gnome whose hated by pretty much anyone, he has to have really ****ed up somewhere. They're all just naturally charming, and people seem to love them for no real reason. It even confuses the people sometimes, if they're asked directly about it. No one can explain it, it's just accepted as true. Gnomes also tend very much toward Good though, so it's rare that this gets taken advantage of for more than just pranks.

[Inevitability]

My players tend to adopt kobolds. I don't know why, it's just the moment only one enemy is standing in a fight with kobolds they start pouring all their resources into making sure it survives and becomes the team pet.

Being a self-respecting DM, I had a recurring villain disguise himself as a kobold with magic and infiltrate the party that way. It took them half a dozen sessions to figure out: the look on their faces was priceless.

[martixy]

Monsters! Monsters everywhere!

It's kind of the "shtick" of my campaign setting.

You see, I kind of wanted to have a setting where you could play any odd thing you ever thought of.

Mostly because I got tired of the human-centric world of every. Single. DM. I've EVER seen!

Other than that...
Elves are isolationist.
Gnomes are Eberron-style advanced. They created the warforged.
Dwarves did guns to fight the drow over territory.
Lizardfolk maintain a large theocratic empire.
...and some other more boringly obvious adaptations.

There are floating dead-magic zones around the world, the result of an ancient cataclysm. As a result teleportation is highly unreliable. Casters need to make Spellcraft checks using special maps to have any hope of not ending up beneath miles of rock or somesuch. It's a concept I borrowed from how hyperspace travel works in many sci-fi universe.

It is somewhat of a Tippy-verse, except not anywhere near as extreme. Most communities larger than a small town have some kind of TP wards, etc, etc.

[Echch]

There are two things I always like to do:
The Violence and Taint rule from Heroes of Horror. The full-force one, not the "The Lesser Evil"-version.
Sanity rules, except that Mind Blank doesn't protect you full-on, but rather halves your losses.

I also like playing in cartoony worlds, with talking animals and all that, but it's not something that I put into the regular world (I normally reserve that for Nightmare Realms). That apple pie you are eating? The apples died screaming.

[Darth Ultron]

I throw in lots of humor. A funny gnome, goblin or such is a common sight. A love the mix of humor/horror mixed in with the seriousness. For example the autognome (aka gnome golem) that kills anyone who laughs or a goblin alchemist that accidentally makes poisons and not other potions.

I throw in lots of little touches like the well that curses anyone that uses it or a haunted killer door. I don't like the ''well this town is just boring'' idea.

A bit of an obvious one is a serpent humanoid in a dark shop, often on Cheat Street that will sell things like a sword of sharpness +5 for like 1,000 gold....and it will only be an illusion...or cursed...or worse.

As I'm a fan of 4th wall breaks, some NPC's will do this from time to time.

A classic of mine is to have a dowar (aka penguin people) wander over with some sort of deal that ''sounds too good to be true'' and ''snowballs into trouble''.

[DrMotives]

I always have orcs as more civilized and less savage than normal, but still more wild than other "standard" races. I also have them as always being at war with gnolls, who are LE slavers and assassins.

I have a god that became extremely popular with my players, who was created off the cuff. A 1 adventure villain, cleric of an insane death god, who I assumed would die in combat was given a public execution by the PCs. When he returned as a Heucuva, the PCs assumed he was much more powerful than that, and cowered & did his will. His insane death god became the PCs favorite deity. Eventually, it got out of control enough I brought in a primordial, more powerful death god simply named Burial who sent an Avatar to destroy the insane gods temples. It was really metagaming on my part to wipe the old god out of my campaigns.

I also have a trio of yellowish dragons who recur in several campaigns; a Bronze, Copper, & Topaz. Imagine Statler & Waldorf from the Muppet Show, only 3 of them and they're elderly dragons instead of old men.

[NerdHut]

Session 1 of the first campaign I DM'd, the party escorted a teamster along a dangerous road. The whole time, they're trying to figure out what the cargo is, but the teamster is very protective of the haul because the client doesn't want their business broadcast. At the end of the 4 day journey, they reach a small cottage and the old man comes out and cracks open a container. It's all dried cranberries. More than a ton of dried cranberries. One of my players lost his mind over how weird it was.
That evening the man made cranberry soup for everyone. Since then cranberries have popped up every once in a while, so the same bewildered reaction.
In the second campaign, they had cranberry soup again.