PDA

View Full Version : "We're not those guys"



PapaMojo
2018-01-21, 05:22 PM
I had an idea for a campaign. Basically, the idea is that the world is threatened by a great evil and there is a prophecy of a chosen one yadda yadda, usual business. There are a dark lord and a prohpecized party duking it out.
The twist is, the PCs are NOT those guys. They are doing something else. What do you think they could be doing instead? I thought it would be cool if they were con artists trying to make a profit off the fight between the dark lord and chosen ones.
The trouble with this is, it has to be as interesting or more interesting than being the chosen party. So I challenge people to think of cool ideas for it. If you have any, post them down below.

Sermil
2018-01-21, 06:34 PM
The final, climatic battle has been prophesied to take place in the town of Hill Valley -- which also happens to be the PC's home town, where they grew up, and where their mom lives. They're trying to keep both the horrible evil and the armies of light out of the town; they don't care about the big battle, they just want to avoid having the town destroyed.

Think Adam in Good Omens, telling the forces of both Heaven and Hell to get lost.

Might not have a lot of chances to travel around, though.

Edit: Bonus points if the prophesy could be interpreted as referring to any one of three different places, and the FoD & FoL just kinda arbitrarily settled on Hill Valley. That at least gives the PCs a chance to succeed without breaking the prophesy.

KillingAScarab
2018-01-22, 02:00 AM
This was Brian Clevinger's approach to 8-Bit Theater, so you could take quite a bit from there. You could bring in applications for a destiny (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2001/04/15/episode-016-the-quest-to-assault-the-elderly/), the real heroes (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/12/10/episode-1202-so-thats-where-theyve-been/) show up then and again, and... set someone entirely else up to take the credit (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2010/03/20/episode-1224-a-legend-is-born/).

Khedrac
2018-01-22, 03:36 AM
One I would like to run sometime (but probably never will) is the party getting summoned to the place where the main loremasters etc. of good reside...
They know that something big is happenig and that there are loads of omens and portents abounding, they also don't think they apply to them.
On their way in they see "practicing" in the courtyard a totally hopeless bunch of incompetents.
The get escorted in to see the leaders and told that the omens have been interpreted and the saviour of the world are ... that bunch in the courtyard (oh no - we're doomed).
Their mission is to go ahead of the prophesy party to clear out 90% of the enemies. It is important that the prophesy party don't realise they are doing this (though their poor loremaster assigned will know).

This also has the potential to make for a more interesting campaign than the usual 'hack 'n' slash' - they must not leave big piles of corpses unless they can contrive an explanation, so misdirection, getting enemy armies to chase you for long enough for the party to get through and other weird tactics are the way to go.

Lvl 2 Expert
2018-01-22, 09:18 AM
I thought it would be cool if they were con artists trying to make a profit off the fight between the dark lord and chosen ones.

That would be pretty cool. Or maybe smugglers. People who's business is directly tied to the war (demand for certain goods, which routes and towns are still safe) but who don't really have to pick sides if they don't want to. This in contrast to say mercenaries, who'll typically get hired by one side or the other and that's it. Do they choose to do the contract where they bring magic weapons to the dark forces? Do they choose to do the contract where they bring recreational drugs to the dark forces? Do they spike these drugs with a mix of laxatives and slow working poison and leave an anonymous tip with the heroes?

Sermil's idea of a more location focused adventure is also pretty cool. There's a (not particularly good) movie called The Last Valley, where during the 30 year war one valley has been spared, a little paradise in a sea of destruction. Several outsiders and soldiers happen upon the place and manage to more or less peacefully coexist with the locals. But what happens if a larger force would ever find the place? The PC's can set illusions and lead patrols away, they can defend the town or ride out to stop raiders, they can bring in supplies or negotiate with both factions in the war.

It gets harder if there isn't really a war, just a BBEG with some henchmen and a single party of heroes, and the story doesn't really affect the world until aforementioned world is blown up. In that case... Maybe people who lived in the evil guys lair before he came in? Like a colony of goblin miners in a huge cave system or something? Keeping their home safe, getting chased around, finding new sources of food, being taken for enemies by the heroes.

Sidekicks are also an option, but you will have to kill the real heroes and let the sidekicks take their place.

Or maybe sailors. They have nothing to do with the heroes' quest, they just keep getting into supernatural storms and mist banks and running into zombie pirates and all that jazz that is slowly destroying the world while the heroes are trying to put a stop to it on land.

Cozzer
2018-01-25, 05:47 AM
Me and my gaming friends talked a bit about a "humble adventures" campaign. My personal spin on that was a party of humble adventurers that have a small-ish goal but get tangled into the big heroes' adventure and indirectly save the realm by somehow saving the big heroes when they are in a pinch (or fail to do that and indirectly fail to save the realm by letting the big heroes be defeated).

PopeLinus1
2018-01-25, 08:28 AM
Have them do what I do in a pinch: Let them get drunk, then have them get kidnaped. It works every time.

veti
2018-01-26, 04:08 AM
There's a great episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a premise like this. Basically, Buffy and her pals are saving the world as usual, but the episode isn't about that - that's just background. It's about Xander encountering some undead classmates, running away a lot, and thwarting one of them who tries to blow up the school. He's so preoccupied with all this, he barely even notices the Big Bad going down in the next room.

To give your players a good game, all you need to do is ensure there's enough pressure on them. World threats are clichéd. You can achieve greater tension with something much smaller scale, more intimate, and undeniably urgent - as in, if the players don't do this *right now*, then nobody else will, but they personally will be devastated. Or killed. Whatever it takes to motivate them.

Avoid the temptation to connect their plot to the world saving one. Keep that firmly in the background. Otherwise you'll just make them feel they're playing second fiddle.