Campaign Ideas

[lunasson]

I'm working on a new campaign for 3.5. I was wanting to get feedback from people who aren't part of my gaming group.

The basic premise is that the group is hired by a king to find and rescue his daughter. What nobody knows is that the princess was never kidnapped but in truth fled herself due to being fed up with royal court. I'm thinking Robin hood meets Brave.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

[Gildedragon]

Well what are the complications: time limits, distance limits, dangers, why now, factions aiding and opposing?

[DrMotives]

You still need some adversaries for the party. Maybe someone in the court who is happy with the princess being gone seeks to make sure she never comes back? That's a cliché for a reason, after all.

The neighbouring nation who thinks the search party is scouting for an invasion can escalate for war.

[lunasson]

Well what are the complications: time limits, distance limits, dangers, why now, factions aiding and opposing?

Well, fleeing to avoid a marriage is a common trope, but it's been done before. The player with the least experience in the group has been gaming for 13 years. I'm thinking she might've chosen now due to her parents being distracted by visiting dignitaries. Which may put the blame on them, leading to a possible political issue.

[lunasson]

Some setting background may be in order.

Over the last hundred years, the polytheistic faith of the past has been replaced with a monotheistic faith, very reminiscent of the catholic church, there are still pockets of pagans out there but they remain hidden. Nestled within fey circles, their faith and way of life are threatened by the encroachment of the church. Unbeknownst to the court, the princess had fallen in with the pagans, fleeing the stifling nature of royal court side by side with the church.

[Bonzai]

I had a campaign where the party was hired by a noble to root out a cult in his kingdom. The cult was led by a sorc/blood magus/flesh warper who specialized in the Necrotic Cyst feat. Reason I bring it up, was that ANY one in the kingdom could have been a cultist or being manipulated by them. That old woman on the side of the road could explode and leave a skulking cyst. The party couldn't trust anyone. You could do something similar, but with a druid spin on it. The party's horses refuse to budge or carry them. Birds go out of their way to crap on them, Vermin harass their sleep, etc... stuff like that.

[lunasson]

I had a campaign where the party was hired by a noble to root out a cult in his kingdom. The cult was led by a sorc/blood magus/flesh warper who specialized in the Necrotic Cyst feat. Reason I bring it up, was that ANY one in the kingdom could have been a cultist or being manipulated by them. That old woman on the side of the road could explode and leave a skulking cyst. The party couldn't trust anyone. You could do something similar, but with a druid spin on it. The party's horses refuse to budge or carry them. Birds go out of their way to crap on them, Vermin harass their sleep, etc... stuff like that.

That sounds like a good idea, but it seems too overt for what I'm thinking.

[EisenKreutzer]

Do you want a low-key style of campaign, where the players have to deal with more personal difficulties?

Or do you want an epic atory about grand betrayal, supernatural doom and terrible villains?

[Pleh]

Some setting background may be in order.

Over the last hundred years, the polytheistic faith of the past has been replaced with a monotheistic faith, very reminiscent of the catholic church, there are still pockets of pagans out there but they remain hidden. Nestled within fey circles, their faith and way of life are threatened by the encroachment of the church. Unbeknownst to the court, the princess had fallen in with the pagans, fleeing the stifling nature of royal court side by side with the church.

Yes, NOW we are getting somewhere.

You mentioned the princess running away could have elements from Brave or Robin Hood? Sounds like this princess should have class levels and probably should ambush the party disguised as a bandit with the other pagans. Clearly, the intent is to discover her identity part way through the fight, but it does imply the chance that the PCs could accidentally MurderHobo the Plot Hook MacGuffin Princess. I think that would be a great direction for a campaign with experienced players to go, since 1) being experienced, they should have foreseen this possibility and 2) it subverts genre standards and enforces the realism of dealing with the consequences of not thinking things through far enough.

But if they are smart players, this should be a relatively low probability outcome. More than likely, smart players will be using some kind of divination style magic to locate the princess which makes the mundane disguise less likely to fool them. Also, experienced role players are less likely to murder bandit hobos if the DM drops the hint that the bandits aren't fighting to the death and wish to surrender or flee, because they will recognize the moral conundrums of "murder every bandit, zero exceptions" policy when the bandits are clearly rational human beings.

Not to mention, it is in itself a common enough trope that they should be readily able to guess it just from the setup. In short, if they accidentally kill the princess, they really had it coming.

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What are the party's motivations? If anyone in the party is playing the "evil" party member who's only in this for the money, maybe before they embark a mysterious noble approaches and offers a substantial reward for making sure the Princess has an "accident" instead of coming home.

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When the lead NPCs are drawing influence from Brave and Robin Hood, I like to think most of the drama to the game should be drawn from Political Intrigue. Perhaps the King needs his Daughter to take the throne as she is the heir, or else the Church will elect a different successor. Law of the land states that they only get to do this if there is no rightful heir, but if she doesn't take the throne, they get to put someone in power who is more cooperative with their suggestions, despite the effect it can have on the nobles and their subjects.

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Maybe a rival kingdom or barbarous tribes have heard of the Princess's disappearance and are hunting for her, allowing you to create Counter Parties of enemies with customized class levels.

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Maybe the Pagan Fey worshipers have bewitched the princess with their Fey enchantments and the heroes will have to fight an army of plant monsters (plant type monsters often see too little game time in most settings).