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Kjata
2018-06-04, 12:09 AM
So, I'm a fairly inexperienced GM. I've run enough that I feel confident running your typical adventures, often making things up on the fly. But i Have an idea for an adventure, and I feel like some pointers from some more experienced people would be good for me.

The system I'm going to be running is Victoriana 3rd Edition. I'm asking for more broad form help, so if you don't know the system you can still help. If you do know the system, maybe you can help even more.

Anyway, the setup is the players are on an airship for a huge mercantile company. The ship gets attacked by bandits riding pegasi, and depending on what happens here the ship will either be damaged enough that it cant complete its journey, or else it will straight up go down for a rough landing. The captain of the ship will almost certainly be killed, leaving the players as the ones in charge. In any case, the ship will go down hundreds of miles away from any civilization and chances of rescue are slim to none. One reason why this region is so devoid of people is because this region has incredibly dangerous wildlife (among other reasons that aren't relevant). There are nomadic druid-like people in the area, but no cities or anything.

So, the concept is the players are stranded in a hostile environment, in command of the crew of this airship. I figure there around 20 workers (who are armed, they just arent skilled) on the ship, as well as a dozen or so soldiers. Depending on how well the players do during the bandit encounter will determine how many of them are still alive. Best case scenario is probably like 8 soldiers and a dozen workers. I'm going to use a name generator and name every single member of the crew, and as they get killed by bandits (or fall off a crashing ship, or whatever) I'm going to describe their death, calling them out by name. Stuff like "You see Marvin peer out from behind his cover, looking to take a shot, when a bullet tears through his neck." I'm also going to provide a brief physical description for each sailor (Marvin is 6'2", short black hair, and a big bushy beard). It's not just going to be "you have command over 10-20 faceless npcs."

Now, I want to make things like food, shelter, water, medicine, disease, and other hardships of being stranded in the wilderness a part of the game. This means the amount of supplies people can carry will be relevant. However, they were on an airship transporting valuable cargo, so this gives the option to let greed trump survival and carry some of that with them. However, ideas for the survival aspect would be greatly appreciated.

So, yeah, any ideas for a wilderness survival adventure?

Mechalich
2018-06-04, 01:37 AM
Anyway, the setup is the players are on an airship for a huge mercantile company. The ship gets attacked by bandits riding pegasi, and depending on what happens here the ship will either be damaged enough that it cant complete its journey, or else it will straight up go down for a rough landing. The captain of the ship will almost certainly be killed, leaving the players as the ones in charge. In any case, the ship will go down hundreds of miles away from any civilization and chances of rescue are slim to none. One reason why this region is so devoid of people is because this region has incredibly dangerous wildlife (among other reasons that aren't relevant). There are nomadic druid-like people in the area, but no cities or anything.


If there's no civilization in the area, why are bandits attacking them there? Bandits prey on civilization and therefore must be located near it, they can no more survive in the middle of nowhere than anyone else. I'd suggest having the attack be launched by the aforementioned incredibly dangerous wildlife, perhaps incited by an angry druid-type, to set the stage instead. You also may want to avoid having flying animals capable of transporting human riders in your area, because that sort of thing tends to cut short or at least significantly alter survival challenges. If pegasi exist in the impassable mountains, the easiest way out is 'get some pegasi.'

The key factor you need to decide is what sort of biome they are going to land in, because that's going to have a huge influence on the specific survival challenges. Water will matter much less in a jungle or forest compared to the desert, while a desert will likely be fairly light on the disease aspect. You may wish to pick a specific hostile terrestrial location, for example the Amazon Basin or Namib Desert, and then sprinkle in your anachronistic hostile wildlife (dinosaurs, giant arthropods, whatever appeals) on top to up the threat level.

Kjata
2018-06-04, 02:15 AM
If there's no civilization in the area, why are bandits attacking them there?

Because airships fly through. And there are the nomadic people. Plus, it's really only the wilderness if you are stuck on the ground. But the chances of being rescued from an airship is slim, think about how hard it would be to even get their attention, let alone get one to fly down and help. Not only that, signaling an airship is dangerous, pirates fly through the area.

Cespenar
2018-06-04, 04:15 AM
So, one thing you could do for a more "organic" survival situation is that you could divide the surrounding land into areas and put the different resources and dangers into the areas beforehand. And let them scout their way and choose what to do for themselves.

You could then add reactive elements and special events and whatnot, but the prebuilt areas will serve as a good skeleton for you to build upon.

Blymurkla
2018-06-04, 11:15 AM
Hm. This is just an idea, so feel free to shot it down. The start of your adventure has warning bells ringing in my ears. It might feel too scripted for your players - now, there's nothing wrong with planning a story, but you're setting them up against a fight that they're not supposed to win just to start the 'correct' adventure and that might rub some of them the wrong way. They're not likely to appreciate the subtler victory of having more supplies when they're either A. mourning the loss of an airship in a fight they think they screwed up and could have one or B. feel tricked by you.

So, why not be upfront with them? Simply start the session by saying that you want a cool survival-adventure, so now you'd like their cooperation to making it happen. State the initials: that they're travelling with an air ship captained by yada-yada that gets attacked by pegasi bandits;and the inevitable result; that the captain is killed, the airship comes crashing down and only a set number of men survives. Then, hand over the reins to your players.

Let them describe the fully awesome combat that preceded the crash. Have each player set up a situation during the combat about another players character, say 'Reginald is caught in the rigging together with a pegasi bandit. They're super close, but the ropes make it hard for them to fight'. Then Reginald's player describe how her character got out of that situation, and sets up another for the next player. Go around the table, twice or trice if you need to. The last time might be the impact moment, or when they're crawling out from the wreck. It should be a fun, exciting start that sets the tone and really drives home the point of the adventure (surviving in the wild, rather than that initial combat which isn't really important).

I'll try and give some advice on the actual adventure, the surviving stuff, too, but I'm strapped for time. I'll come back.

Darth Ultron
2018-06-04, 04:09 PM
So first off, you might want to ask the players if they want to run a mini survival game. As GM, you can just ''have stuff happen'', but as a person it's often better to ask before you do so. Unless you have players that agree to anything.

Second, I doubt very much the game system your using has any Survival rules. After all, most games don't...unless they are Survival Games. So with no rules, it's hard or even impossible to do a 'survival' game.

Third...well..basic survival is really not all that exciting, even more so for game play. Even if the game does have 25 pages to detailed hunting rules, it's still pretty boring to shoot a bird or even worse catch a frog by a pond. And a lot of stuff, like say making a fire is more like a roll...did they roll a 4, then they made a fire...it's not like your going to spend and hour of real time role playing making a fire.

Fourth, for ''survival'' you really need the lost of items and health...and chances are the game rules don't cover that. You want the characters to be hurt or wounded and be low or have no supplies. But again, you need rules for this. Most games have characters be the same at one HP or one hundred HP, so it does not matter. The same way a lot of games don't have 'wounds' effect actions. And once items are gone, characters can be useless.

Fifth, the different expectations...and this can ruin the game. You are thinking: Skyship crash Wilderness Survival Adventure loads of fun! and the Players are thinking: crash whatever lets just go and continue what we were doing in the game. See the problem? You want the players to ''sit around and survive'' and the players are like ''exit stage left''.

Slayn82
2018-06-04, 06:12 PM
I think your plot is decent. Maybe the player's ship is taking a valuable cargo for a nation, and the Pegasi riders are privateers from a rival nation who were combing the area for shipment routes. Both nations are competing fiercely for control over new territories in unexplored land. War is brewing between both countries, and from the point of view of the raiders, sabotaging the shipment would be both profitable and give valuable inteligence. An unusual storm appeared on the path of both sides, and as they manouvered to stay out of it's path, they ended up meeting unexpectedly.

Now, for the dangers on their path. There's things that are obviously dangerous, like Tigers, snakes and dragons. And there's the truly dungerous stuff, because you hardly notice it until it's late, like mosquitos (malaria), leeches, good looking fruits who are poisonous, animals who steal your food at night, etc.

Then you get to the supernatural dangers, like valuable looking treasures left near humanoid remains in an alcove, where actually roots from carnivorous plants entangle you to death;
a valley full of flowers and edible berries, where giant snakes nest and have a tunnel network underground, and meanwhile the smell of the flowers causes alucinations (everyone saves or becomes confused);
Giant bees, and miraculous honey;
Near human inteligence giant gorillas, who domesticate giant insects and hunt intruders;

What do you think?

Epimethee
2018-06-04, 08:24 PM
I played a few wilderness adventures and they could be really fun. Cespenar gave you a really good idea: a map is a great start. The Players should feel that the world is reacting not only against them but also to their ideas. The map is really helpfull to give them this feeling

I would go more for the exploring part than the survival. Making a fire is great as a one time scene, like securing Food and water. Depending on the place, and weather conditions, even finding wood of the proper moisture can be hard. Your Job is to make it about ideas, about the use of their scarce ressources and their brains, not about throwing dices. Make your players work for the mundane the first time, be very carefull for the little things and reward good ideas and forward thinking. But don’t overplay it.

They were ( i hope) smart in building this trap to catch some critter and you were carefull to ask them about the where, the why, the how. That’s fine. The second time they should be able to just say «*we place a trap*here» and you should be fine throwing some dices. You don’t want to bore them, you want to give them the feeling that there is no easy task in a dangerous environement.

The weather may be a great opponent. A storm in the wild can be lethal and can drastically change their surrounding.

Diseases are also great but you should use at first the NPC. You want the Players to act in your game and making them weaker may not be the best way to do it. Later, to add some urgency if they fail to react to NPC dropping from malaria, don’t hesitate to punish them.

You should also try to come with some strong beasts. Try to think of them as episodes that give your players a feeling of the jungle and not as random encounters. A cunning feline that circle around the camp for some days can be as much a character in your game than any NPC. Don’t play your hand too soon. The beast should remain as mysterious as possible for some time. This add a lot to the setting.

Don’t go too far with the managing of ressources. It should be a dramatic tool and not an accounting job. State regullarly how long food will endure, take care of what they do with conservation and replenishement, play some rotting if they are not carefull, use some critters, like ants, mouses and so on if they don’t take precautions against them, or to add some Drama or if you want to make them explore their surrounding.

Also add some wonders, like ruins, landmarks, wildlife... Even in a savage land, they should see the specific of the place.

And try to use the indigenous people. There is a lot to do, from understanding that folks live around them to the first encounter to the relashionship that should come naturally, good or bad.
Like the wonders, the people are important to give your players something to look forward to. You want to have a setting and not a repetition of the same task every day. So you should have a few stories that grow from what your players do and discover, some mysteries that they could explore or not but that they will remember.

The more you make the jungle alive and varied, the more your players should have fun. Mine where really surprised by how many things happened in a valley devoid of any people. (For the first two or three seances at least, they then started to encounter the hidden realities of the place...)

TheStranger
2018-06-04, 09:33 PM
I'll second Blymurkla's idea of just starting the game after the airship goes down. You really need a very specific outcome for the fight with the bandits - the bandits need to take the ship down, but be forced to retreat so that they can't follow the ship down, kill or drive off the survivors, and loot it at their leisure. That's a very specific level of banditry (https://shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=615).

With regard to the survival aspect of the game, I'm not familiar with Victoriana so it's possible that there are great rules for that sort of thing. But in general, I think it's hard to make survival work in a RPG. If the system has some type of survival skill, it's pretty common that one or more characters have enough ranks to make basic survival trivial. Or, they're the only one who does anything and everybody else just watches. It's kind of like trapped and locked doors - they sound good in theory, but in practice everybody watches while the rogue rolls a bunch of dice, announces success or failure, and everybody moves on to whatever was behind the door.

If there isn't really a survival system in the rules, then you just have an ad hoc system of rulings based on a combination of IC and OOC knowledge. This has a number of potential pitfalls, although they can be avoided. You need to be very evenhanded, and avoid the temptation to say, "Oh, you hung your food from bears. Well, that night while you sleep, your food supply is raided by... flying squirrels!" And your players need to accept the game for what it is, and not get into, "No, I didn't say I hung the food. But my character is a Ranger, so obviously he hung the food."

The biggest problem with survival is that, whether there are rules for it or you're running it on the fly, it's an abstract challenge that can be won. If your players are capable, they won't be on the ragged edge of survival for any amount of time. They'll roll well, do smart things, and have the supplies they need to supply indefinitely. Or they'll fail at survival, go into a downward spiral, and either die or need to be rescued. But the dramatic tension only exists at the point where they could go either way, and much like the fight with the bandits, you can't easily achieve that result while allowing for both player agency and an element of chance.

All of which isn't to say that you can't have wilderness survival elements in a game. But they can't *be* the game, and at the end of the day they won't take up too much time unless you have the kind of players who will spend a whole session going over gear lists and encumbrance rules to figure out what to carry away from the wreck. And that's okay - presumably the PCs have goals, like getting out of the wilderness and doing whatever they were doing before. The wilderness survival part isn't the adventure, it's just an encounter or two as part of the adventure.

BlizzardSucks80
2018-06-04, 10:56 PM
Your adventure idea kind of reminds of the intro to a video game RPG called Arcanum. I could tell it was a great game, but im too noob for it and it really isn't my cup of tea.
The intro also involves an airship, but it isn't being attacked by guys on pegasi.

As far as ideas for the adventure goes, one of the first things the survivors would do is establish a pecking order. Yes you say the captain left the PCs in charge upon his demise, but there may be other survivors who may not really care about that. They may challenge the PCs for authority over the group, and have to be put down.

Another idea is there may not be enough food or water for everyone, and some of them might just have to go hungry/thirsty, maybe even die of starvation or thirst. Or maybe 1 of the survivors is pregnant? Who knows

WindStruck
2018-06-04, 11:28 PM
I think it would be best if a freak storm and lightning strike brought the ship down. Rough landing without much injury or casualties. Then when they tried signalling for help, that's when the bandits came. The captain dies, along with some crew. Give them a set amount of helpful NPCs and skip over the intro. In addition to bonus treasure they could take if they are greedy, there's other possible objectives: for example, caring for wounded/dying NPCs from the aftermath, establishing peaceful relations with the natives, and super duper awesome bonus: somehow "securing" the location of the wreck back to their superiors at home so that all the treasure might be able to be extracted. That would be sure to be an extra exp and gold bonus reward!

Unless the point of the game really is just being stuck there and not leaving asap.

Kjata
2018-06-05, 01:55 AM
Thanls for the responses, guys, you've given me some good stuff to think about. Let me just address a few specific points that stood out to me.


I'll second Blymurkla's idea of just starting the game after the airship goes down. You really need a very specific outcome for the fight with the bandits - the bandits need to take the ship down, but be forced to retreat so that they can't follow the ship down, kill or drive off the survivors, and loot it at their leisure. That's a very specific level of banditry (https://shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=615).

Not really. Causing an airship to go down, waiting for the survivors to leave, then grabbing the cargo seems like a very solid banditry strategy.


Hm. This is just an idea, so feel free to shot it down. The start of your adventure has warning bells ringing in my ears. It might feel too scripted for your players - now, there's nothing wrong with planning a story, but you're setting them up against a fight that they're not supposed to win just to start the 'correct' adventure and that might rub some of them the wrong way. They're not likely to appreciate the subtler victory of having more supplies when they're either A. mourning the loss of an airship in a fight they think they screwed up and could have one or B. feel tricked by you.

Th thing is, they can win the fight. In fact, I expect them to. The outcome I'm most expecting is that the airship is damaged in such a way that it is still airborne, held aloft by the balloons, but doesn't have much in the way of propulsion. The ship actually crashing is a worst case scenario.


As far as ideas for the adventure goes, one of the first things the survivors would do is establish a pecking order. Yes you say the captain left the PCs in charge upon his demise, but there may be other survivors who may not really care about that. They may challenge the PCs for authority over the group, and have to be put down.

Another idea is there may not be enough food or water for everyone, and some of them might just have to go hungry/thirsty, maybe even die of starvation or thirst.

I like these scenarios, they are quite interesting.


I played a few wilderness adventures and they could be really fun. Cespenar gave you a really good idea: a map is a great start. The Players should feel that the world is reacting not only against them but also to their ideas. The map is really helpfull to give them this feeling

The weather may be a great opponent. A storm in the wild can be lethal and can drastically change their surrounding.

Diseases are also great but you should use at first the NPC. You want the Players to act in your game and making them weaker may not be the best way to do it. Later, to add some urgency if they fail to react to NPC dropping from malaria, don’t hesitate to punish them.

You should also try to come with some strong beasts. Try to think of them as episodes that give your players a feeling of the jungle and not as random encounters. A cunning feline that circle around the camp for some days can be as much a character in your game than any NPC. Don’t play your hand too soon. The beast should remain as mysterious as possible for some time. This add a lot to the setting.

Don’t go too far with the managing of ressources. It should be a dramatic tool and not an accounting job. State regullarly how long food will endure, take care of what they do with conservation and replenishement, play some rotting if they are not carefull, use some critters, like ants, mouses and so on if they don’t take precautions against them, or to add some Drama or if you want to make them explore their surrounding.

Also add some wonders, like ruins, landmarks, wildlife... Even in a savage land, they should see the specific of the place.

And try to use the indigenous people. There is a lot to do, from understanding that folks live around them to the first encounter to the relashionship that should come naturally, good or bad.
Like the wonders, the people are important to give your players something to look forward to. You want to have a setting and not a repetition of the same task every day. So you should have a few stories that grow from what your players do and discover, some mysteries that they could explore or not but that they will remember.

The more you make the jungle alive and varied, the more your players should have fun. Mine where really surprised by how many things happened in a valley devoid of any people. (For the first two or three seances at least, they then started to encounter the hidden realities of the place...)

This is all really good, thank you.

Anyway, so I've decided to not faf about with a bunch of book keeping and all that crap. Basically just something like "Each man can carry enough supplies for 2 weeks" or something to that effect.I'll post more after I've thought about this a bit more.

Kaptin Keen
2018-06-05, 05:16 AM
It might feel too scripted for your players

I just wanted to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with scripting. It's fine and nice to make it believable, but by no means does every event in the history of everything need to be decided by the players.

Personally, I'd propably go for letting the players win the fight - but lose the ship. A final suicide attack on the .. whatever, engine? Controls? Air elemental thingamajig?

Epimethee
2018-06-05, 11:27 PM
One more thing: you should think of the Flora and fauna not only in terms of adversaries and tools but also as flavor element. One of the highlights of one of my wilderness campaigns was a mealing, a kind of little horse the size of a big cat or a little dog. It was intended as nothing more than a short description but one of my players was so fond of it that he tried to make him his pet. Cue a great roleplaying moment. The mealing became a faithfull companion and his kind a distinctive pet of the latter inhabitant of the place. (The name is an obvious Tolkien reference.)

You should look some books on prehistoric biology, they are really helpfull to picture a few animals. Birds, squirrels, flowers... it is easy to come with something alien enough to play on the sense of wonder and discovery without transforming every encounter in a deadly trap or a necessity of survival.

Blymurkla
2018-06-06, 03:38 AM
I just wanted to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with scripting. It's fine and nice to make it believable, but by no means does every event in the history of everything need to be decided by the players.

Personally, I'd propably go for letting the players win the fight - but lose the ship. A final suicide attack on the .. whatever, engine? Controls? Air elemental thingamajig? I didn't say there was anything wrong with scripting. I'm suggesting the most scripted thing ever: the GM simply tells the players what happens! What I'm a bit worried about is Kjata hides a necessary outcome behind a combat that for the players initially feels open-ended. There's not necessarily something wrong with unwinnable fights, but I think they tend to benefit if: A. it's the players who pick the fight, rather than the PCs being shoved into it; B. it's a fight the PCs can retreat from when they realize what they're up against; and/or C. the game system has a way of showing the players that they're at least scoring partial victories/compromises like Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard/Torchbearer. I'm not sure how Victoriana works, but it looked like Kjata's fight didn't have any of those three components.

However, given Kjata's comment that the fight isn't unwinnable soothes me. I get the impression that the survival adventure is one of several possible outcomes, which strikes me as doing a lot of prep work for little return, but at least it gets rid of the heavy scripted feel. So I'm going to drop the subject and get into giving what I hope is advice on how to run a survival adventure.

___


Real world, actual Robinson Crusoe survival is pretty bleak. You survive the ship wreck, find yourself alone on an island and can only hope that you might be saved.

That premise makes for a really ****ty adventure. It risks becoming the players dreading through the daily survival (gather supplies, consume supplies, fight of random encounters, rinse, repeat) until the GM steps in and announces that rescue is at hand.

To avoid that, you need to communicate a clear goal to the players (and, less necessary, to the PCs). »If you do this, you've made it«. That way, you can build a fulfilling story.

I can think of a few goals that's reasonable. Fixing the air ship so they can fly away. Building a huge bonefire to call for rescue (obviously, you first establish that that would work). Gathering enough supplies to last during a hike through 'Steampower Pass' behind which civilisation lies.

If you want to keep it easy, you settle on one goal for the players to complete. Then you decide what important things they must undertake to finish the goal. And you would probably need a big climax scene - say that the wild beasts aren't initially that many, but the crash attracted them from far and wide, so right when the PCs and the rest of the crew are getting the air ship ready (or prepare to light the bonefire, or start their wandering to the pass) the wild beasts attack en masse.

To mix it up, have two or three goals running separately. The players must decide which to focus on (great player agency there!), and events unfolding during the session(s) can change that. Perhaps they initially think the air ship is a total bust so it's either hike or bonefire, but then they discover MacGuffinium so maybe they can get the thing up in the air ... but is it worth the refocus when the bonefire is almost big enough and the beasts are closing in?

Kaptin Keen
2018-06-06, 04:38 AM
There's not necessarily something wrong with unwinnable fights

There's definitely something wrong with unwinnable fights. But this isn't an unwinnable fight - that's only the case if your only objective is to save the ship, and that can't be done.

Ideally, you want the players to care enough about the state of the ship to fight for it - but not enough to feel their hopes and dreams crushed when it crashes. You want, early in the fight, to inform them that the ship is in trouble, and that they're now fighting on two fronts: To beat back the attackers, and to keep their boat afloat.

And then let them win both fights: Kill the attackers, and (mostly) save the airship. At the end, have some memorable NPC exclaim 'by all the gods, you did it! We'll have her airworthy again in a matter of weeks - well, provided we can find the [insert magical ingredient]!'

Knaight
2018-06-06, 04:54 AM
If there's no civilization in the area, why are bandits attacking them there? Bandits prey on civilization and therefore must be located near it, they can no more survive in the middle of nowhere than anyone else. I'd suggest having the attack be launched by the aforementioned incredibly dangerous wildlife, perhaps incited by an angry druid-type, to set the stage instead. You also may want to avoid having flying animals capable of transporting human riders in your area, because that sort of thing tends to cut short or at least significantly alter survival challenges. If pegasi exist in the impassable mountains, the easiest way out is 'get some pegasi.'

There's a lot of solid reasons - trade routes, an insider who told the bandits the route ahead of time, the bandits just following them from civilization, etc.

Epimethee
2018-06-06, 05:52 PM
I agree in general with Blymurkla but in this particular case i think you could put an emphasis on the survival part of your story by disorienting at first the characters. The best part of a Crusoe story is not the day to day grinding but the clever idea that help the survival. In a way the Main goal is clear: getting out of here. You could make them work a bit about the how.

It may roughly look something like this: on the first moment in the Jungle, the players know almost nothing about their situation. They should work for every information. Where are the others, who survived... at first of course it is more in reaction to the situation: they save the PC and NPC, they secure their immediate surrounding... then they can start assessing their options. They will certainly assess the ship and scout the jungle. What Blymurka said tottally apply by this point.

But with one difference. The Main goal is in my opinion already stated. Your players could have different options to choose from. You should state clearly the avantage and disadvantage of each solution, or at least as clearly as the players were looking for informations. They have many options, repairing the ship, staying, try to trail the jungle, contact the locals...

If you let them choose an option, you should also be able to evaluate their interest in the jungle. By this point you should have given them some possible plot hook, like a strange formation in the jungle (obviously a Ruin), proofs or strong clues of intelligent peoples, and a few actions sequences.
If they enjoy it you have so many options... I’m thinking of the Terror and the Erebus. Two ships that were stuck in the ice. There is a book by Dan Simmons and a tv serie. The social dynamics between the survivors, a pitiless environment, some huge monster... i’m sure you could find something there...

But Blymurka is Right: at some point you have to give them achievable goals. A wilderness adventure can in my opinion give you an endless supply of often disregarded mini-adventures. They are a great complement for a main plot but his comment give you all the necessary informations .

Psikerlord
2018-06-11, 04:42 PM
I think it would be best if a freak storm and lightning strike brought the ship down. Rough landing without much injury or casualties. Then when they tried signalling for help, that's when the bandits came. The captain dies, along with some crew. Give them a set amount of helpful NPCs and skip over the intro. In addition to bonus treasure they could take if they are greedy, there's other possible objectives: for example, caring for wounded/dying NPCs from the aftermath, establishing peaceful relations with the natives, and super duper awesome bonus: somehow "securing" the location of the wreck back to their superiors at home so that all the treasure might be able to be extracted. That would be sure to be an extra exp and gold bonus reward!

Unless the point of the game really is just being stuck there and not leaving asap.
Yeah I like this better too, unless you're willing to have your PCs prevail against the bandits, and the ship continues on its merry way. I would start it as the ship is crashing, or the aftermath of the crash - bandaging survivors, working out a pecking order as an earlier poster, suggested, then the bandits come in...

Wiwaxia
2018-06-11, 08:31 PM
I'd say you should run through the initial combat. Predetermined combats are bad, but there's too much potential for player agency in determining what supplies and people they have to be lost by fast-forwarding through it.

Instead, I'd just be upfront with your players. Say that you're planning a wilderness survival game and that the idea is that they are on a merchant airship that is downed by raiders. Tell them that you're balancing the raider attack to disable or crash the airship, but that they can try to save as many people and as much cargo as they can if they hold out or drive the raiders off. And, critically, if they do better than expected and win with the ship intact you won't fudge things to make it go down anyways.

And then do that. You can stack the deck as heavily in favor of crashing as you like beforehand (someone mentioned high winds, which sounds like a great idea and like something bandits would love to use to their advantage) but after combat starts just play things as they lie and let go of the idea of the ship being disabled. Your players may decide to just let the ship go down because they want to do the wilderness survival stuff anyways, and if they don't and keep the airship aloft, doing something the GM designed to be impossible is a fantastic way to start a campaign. Do have something prepped in case they keep the airship aloft - just a session or two of trying to fly an airship after the attack or the city on the other end of the trade route - to buy you time to prep the new campaign direction. If the ship does go down you can use it if/when they get back to civilization, too.

On a related note, if you want to get the captain out of the way, stack the deck beforehand by having her at the quarterdeck or equivalent exposed command-y place and have the bandits plan to target her first, both of which make sense and which don't require any finagling mid-combat to make sure she dies before the bandits retreat.

On another note, I'd suggest letting the NPCs in on whatever character advancement PCs get, to help them be distinct and get the players invested. That way they can be backup PCs if anyone dies, too.

It might be worth considering morale as a resource, so the PCs have to try to keep everyone happy and working together. May not be the tone or gameplay focus you're going for, though.

I'd second Cespenar's suggestion of distributing resources and dangers and events that will react to the PCs poking them across the map and letting the PCs scout. It sounds like you want to go light or abstract on resource management so the classic "if you are working in the space with x resource you are assumed to have unlimited amounts of it" might be good, so you only need to track which spaces you have access to at a given time (lake with fish, hillside with iron ore, etc.). Make sure there's resources for several different possible plans (off the top of my head: repair the airship, hike out, signal a passing airship, get a message to civilization to call for help, or try to make a place to live in the wilderness indefinitely) as well as allowing PC improvisation for unanticipated crazy bull****.