Preparing to run my first campaign in 5th Edition

[Yora]

I played and ran 3rd Edition for some 10 years or so, and when I became frustrated by the tediousness of the numbercrunching, I ran a couple of short campaigns with the ancient Basic/Expert edition over the last years. I am now planning to start a new campaign in march, and I really only started looking into 5th Edition last week. I quite like the general middle ground of complexity between the two games I am most familiar with, and I also found a lot of character content that is really well suited for the kind of setting I had come up with.
But I never ran 5th edition, or even played 5th edition. Looking at the rules, everything looks clear to me and I am confident that I could run it, but I really have no idea how a lot of the different elements will behave and interact in actual play. Since I don't want to run a simple straightforward "everything in the PHB goes" game and then just breeeze through some dungeons, I thougt that some good might come from having people with actual experience in the game giving their opinions on what I want to do. My questions of using the bard as a shaman class got me really very useful help, so I am looking forward on what you might have to give me as advice.

At this point, my plan is to just use some of the character options from the PHB and nothing else. But if there are other resources around (I don't know what else there is for the game beyond the three rulebooks), any suggestions for material that could be great additions to this campaign would also be highly welcome.

The campaign pitch in very short is: "Dark Sun, but on a forest world."

The slighly longer version is a world that takes visual and thematic inspirations from ancient Greece and Persia, Robert Howard's Kull and Conan stories, Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea stories, and Morrowind, taking place on the coastal lands and islands between a great ocean and a vast continent spanning forest. The wilderness is the domain of giant reptiles, giant arthropods, and countless minor and major nature spirits.
To fill the world with content, I want to use a number of venerable D&D supplement, which are with one exception all older than I am.
The High Forest from The Savage Frontier makes up the core of the mainland, with The Isle of Dread being off the coast in the south. The others are Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, The Lost City, Quagmire!, Rahasia, and The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. None of these I plan on using straight, but recreating them from the ground up, with 5th edition rules, and reflavored for the culture of the setting, while trying to bring the core idea and atmosphere to the game. I just really love the style of 80s pulp fantasy.

I think I want to go with custom PC races, because the regular ones that fit almost all have automatic magic spells. But the general idea are Gaelic themed wood elves, Persian themed high elves, Germanic themed half-orcs, Slavic themed earth genasi, Finnish themed air genasi, and Malayan themed water genasi. (Yes, it's totally bosmer, dunmer, and orsimer.)
Additional non-playable humanoid peoples that live in the wilderness are aaracockra, deep gnomes, gnolls, kuo-toa, and ogres. These are the only mortal humanoid peoples that inhabit the world.

For classes, I have decided to use Totem Warrior Barbarians, Lore Bards reflavored as Shamans, Champion Fighters, Hunter Rangers, Thief Rogues, Enchanter and Transmuter Wizards, and for the start as NPCs only Archfey, Fiend, and Old One Warlocks. Part of it is a thematic choice, but I also want to keep the campaign mechanically simple to work well with my style of running games.

Having really enjoyed what the E6 variant did with 3rd Edition, I want to cap this campaign at 10th level for both PCs and NPCs. Primarily to limit the availability of higher level spells to the cultures that make up the setting. 6th to 9th level spells do not exist in the setting, though some might appear as monster abilities. The mortal peoples have to make do with what they got. I also want to use the principle that everyone who is not important enough to get an individual name and motivations get the generic stats for a commoner, bandit, cultist, or guard. First level PCs start as part of the elite. Those 9th level shamans who have 5th level spells are usually found only in the big temples of the big cities.
In addition, evocations and necromancies are remove from the wizard spell list. The powers of fire and death are exclusive to the patrons of the warlocks. Teleportation does not exist, which includes conjuring matter from thin air. Enchantments are spells that control the mind, while illusions are presented as spells that mess with perception. They don't take the form of holograms, but function without mechanical changes.
By default, the Feywild makes up the whole world. It is only around the city states with their great temples that the environment works by the rules that the population thinks of as the normal world. For spell effects, both being in the regular world and in the Feywild counts as being on the same plane. The underground parts of the Feywild take their shape from Pandemonium and Gehennna, but are still part of the same plane.
The only additional plane is the Border Ethereal. It's not actually an overlapping plane, but the space in the cracks of world that mortals usually don't notice. It makes no sense in three dimensional thinking, but spirits move back and forth between the material and ethereal world all the time without thinking. It's like the world has been fractured into countless small pieces, but to mortals it still looks like they are seamlessly touching together. When you use magic to go into the etheral plane, it seems like there's suddenly much more space without lengths and distances getting any larger. Mechanically, there are again no changes.

Gods are very abstract. People believe that the various forces of nature have individuality, personality, and their own will, and these are the gods. It's impossible to meet a god or talk to a god, but the priests in the temples say that their worship and rituals to the gods are what is keeping the chaos of the Feywild at bay and allows mortals to live normal lives. And apparently it seems to work. The most widespread religion worships the three gods of Earth, Strength, and Family, which they see as the deity of the fields, the deity of the herds, and the deity of the home. Other important gods with many temples are the deities of the Moon, the deity of the Night, the deity of Storms, the deity of Death, the deity of Mist and Twilight, the deity of Beasts, and the deity of the Sea. Most of these are adaptations of the old Netheril pantheon from Forgotten Realms: Chauntea, Lathander, Eldath, Selune, Shar, Talos, Jergal, Leira, and Malar. (Mystra seems superflous for this setting.) In addition to the gods, farming and fishing villages, and barbarians living in the wilderness, are also worshipping the various spirits of the land, to keep away storms, flood, plagues, and monsters. For shrines to spirits of the land, I am reusing the really old idea of clan relics, which were a fix in BECMI for how races without clerics could still have priests and healers. Basically the keeper of the relic gets to cast free healing spells from the same energy pool that maintains a permanent barrier against undead around the relic. With each spell cast, the area shrinks, and expands back as the energy refills over time. In practice this is probably not worth tracking, but I really like the concept.
Wizards are mystic scholars and monks who are studying and contemplating the secrets of the mind and the body. They make up the priesthood of the Moon Temples and Twlight Temples, which have few shamans, but there are also large numbers of hermits and secular scholars who are studying this magic.
In the mists of time, warlocks used to only serve Archfey, of which there are many and one of them is actually the immortal queen of a city state. But at some point in the past they searched more distant places for powerful beings and discovered The Realms Beneath and Beyond. The Realm Beneath is the underground parts of the Feywild, and there they made contact with the Fiend, that gave them the powers of fire. The Realm Beyond lies behind the stars, but very few warlocks pledged themselves to the Old Ones. In many of the religions, power is not a force of good. Instead it is a useful danger. It is something that can be a great benefit, but it must always be securely contained in hearths and lanterns. Because its natural instinct is to spread and destroy. You need it, but you should always fear it, because it comes from the nightmarish Realm Beneath. Fire warlocks don't play it safe. Instead they see the unlimited potential of the powers they are receiving from the Fire Below. And with that power, some think they can keep the Feywild at bay and no longer need to serve and worship the gods. The gods only give them small areas of land just big enough to maintain a single city, surrouned on all sides by wilderness. But if they have their own power to drive back the Feywild, civilization can become so much greater and better. But there is a City of Ash, and it's no surprise that most people outside the warlock cities consider them insane villains.
Nobody has any idea what the warlocks of the beyond are up to. Or how many of them exist, or where they might be.

In addition to the limited humanoids, there are no celestials, no fiends, and no dragons. The fey races consist of naga and their serpentmen servants (using yuan-ti abominations and purebloods for stats), sidhe (succubus minus life drain), treants, giants (maybe either hill or stone), green hags, driders, and aboleths. And there is going to be seriously beefed up dryads. All plant creatures are considered spirit, and the plant type becomes a subtype of fey.

The civilization consists of around a dozen city states surrounded by farmland. The cities themselves are usually not very big and are most commonly big fortified towns, located on easy to defend cliffs, hills, or islands. The cities are ruled by kings, with the farms being owned by the noble families who live in big villas on their estates. The farmers pay rent to the nobles, and the nobles pay tax to the king. At the bottom are the slaves, who work on the nobles' own fields, or in the king's mines. In war, the nobles serve as the officers, and they each bring their private guards as troops. Priests in the cities are also almost always nobles, as are most merchants. Kings don't have to worry about the farmers or the slaves. Kings have to worry about the nobles. Things look of course somewhat different when the king is an ancient warlock, but even then the basic structure is the same,
Cities are always either on the coast or on major rivers, since the thick forests of the Feywild make building roads almost impossible. If you want to get somewhere, you always take a ship. Even when people want for some unfathomable reason want to go inland, they almost always first take a boat as far as they can.
Unfortunately, always sacrificing to the gods and spirits does not mean that a city will be spared by floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, and plagues forever. In the end, this is a world where nature rules and nothing made by mortals can ever last. Since the forests of the Feywild keep civilizations from growing larger than a single city, the end of a city is usually the end of the civilization, with the surviving population fleeing to other cities or becoming barbarians that adapt to living in the wilds. Record keeping is terrible and nobody knows much about about the cities and kings of the past. But ruins seems to be everywhere. Whenever settlers find a new place where kind spirits of the land offer to keep them saves from disasters and monsters, there's already crumbling stones on which the new buildings are build. People aren't ignorant of this, and are well aware of the many reminders found throughout their cities and in their fields, that the world they know will one day be just overgrown stones whose names are forgotten. (I love Dark Souls.)

Okay, that for the setting so far. Now to what I want to actually do with it.
1st level PCs are important people with established homes and contacts, all of them living relatively closely nearby. A day or two away from the rest might work for a few of them, but the majority of them should live in or around the same town. Playing nobles is definitly encouraged, and an all noble party is also perfectly fine. Later characters joining the party can be relatives, ascended servants, or recruited NPC allies. Since the king's own soldiers are guarding the palace and the harbor, it's up to the nobles to keep their lands protected from bandits and monsters. Of course not the patriarch and matriarchs themselves, or their heirs. They are busy with running the estate. That's stuff that some nephews or cousins can deal with, who don't have anything better to do with their time anyway. So go get some friends from the neighboring estate, and perhaps grab some guards, and take care of it.
I don't plan on preparing any plot or script. Just various NPCs and creatures that have plans to do some things that will be in conflict with how the landowners want to use and manage their fields. And some of their plans will at some point get them into conflict with each other. There will be plenty of hints to trace back where the problems are coming from originally, plans for what will happen if the players don't interfere with the NPCs activities. In addition, there will be various lairs and dungeons that exist independent of the main trouble makers, but the players will not know until they get there. And they might not know even then, because they have to interpret what they are finding and what it means. They won't get straight answers handed on a plate, and if some of their assumptions are wrong, then that's the way it is.
There also won't be any encounter balance. There will be signs of the dangers ahead, but since there is no fixed order in which locations are to be visited, and no place is necessary to visit, it is up the players to decide whether they want to risk going forward or retreat.
With the supplements and modules that I've piled up in preparation, I already have plenty of ideas for who could be stirring up trouble and what their motivations and resources are.

This is what I have so far. If anyone has suggestions for additional resources I should look into, or variant rules that I should consider, they would be really more than welcome. If there's anything that has been made for Dark Sun, it could have a good chance to be something useful.

[Unoriginal]

Well, an important advice for people who come to 5e from 3.X is:

Let go your 3.X assumptions, and re-learn the rules from scratch, as it is a new and different system.

[EggKookoo]

The campaign pitch in very short is: "Dark Sun, but on a forest world."

Hey, that's kind of what I'm planning, too. Kind of like D&D meets Nausicaa. :smallsmile:


This is what I have so far. If anyone has suggestions for additional resources I should look into, or variant rules that I should consider, they would be really more than welcome. If there's anything that has been made for Dark Sun, it could have a good chance to be something useful.

It's hard to offer suggestions when it seems as though you've already put a lot of thought into things. Do you have specific questions? Maybe about how X worked in 3.x but how would I handle it in 5e?

[lperkins2]

So it depends a lot on your group. If they're all 3.p players and used to making optimized characters, 5e plays very differently than if they're all casual players. While in 3.5, at level 5, an optimized character could output say 50 damage a round, and an unoptomized character none, in 5e the optimized character is still doing somewhere around 50 damage a round, and the unoptomized character is at 10-15 damage a round.

This means 5e works fine for casual players, but the difficulty of the encounters will need to be adjusted if the entire party is optimized or the entire party is unoptimized. Also note that if you have a mixed party, it can cause some friction as one PC can have the damage output equal to any 3 others.

Other things to note. Combat at low levels (<3) is pretty swingy. PCs are incredibly resilient unless the DM targets them when they are down (which is likely to kill them outright at that level), but the low AC and low HP means it's pretty likely for someone to drop in combat at level 1.

[2D8HP]

I with The Isle of Dread being off the coast in the south..


There's an updated to 5e version of The Isle of Dread (http://goodman-games.com/blog/2018/08/24/the-isle-of-dread-chris-doyle-interview/), which is AWESOME!, and from the same publisher there's Into the Borderlands (http://goodman-games.com/store/product/original-adventures-reincarnated-1-into-the-borderlands/) which incorporates B1 In Search of the Unknown (the first module I every ran) with B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and a short linking adventure, all updated with 5e stats.

For doing your own conversions this: guide pdf (https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DnD_Conversions_1.0.pdf) to conversions to 5th edition d&d may be useful.

[Yora]

Yes, I've seen that conversion. But it's really expensive, and with shipping outside the US it's probably going to double that much. I don't think that's worth it for something I already have and doesn't really need any converting.

I still have to watch Nausicaa, but Princess Mononoke is my main reference for forest spirits. Shishigami is just the thing that barbarians would worship.

[EggKookoo]

I still have to watch Nausicaa, but Princess Mononoke is my main reference for forest spirits. Shishigami is just the thing that barbarians would worship.

I very highly recommend the Nausicaa manga. I can't recommend the anime because the only version I've seen is the horrible Warriors of the Wind (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film)#War riors_of_the_Wind) version from the 80s. I'm sure the 2005 edit is much better (it would pretty much have to be).

Nausicaa is much more sword & adventure than Mononoke. Much more epic in overall scale. Dang, now I need to dig it out and reread it.

[djreynolds]

More choices on classes and archetype.

You need to do this to get accustomed to the rules in actual play.

Otherwise, this sounds very cool and intriguing.

[LordEntrails]

I think you will be fine. You've already put in a lot of thought, so I don't think you will have a problem.

As others have said, 5E is a new system compared to 3.x. So don't think of what is different, just approach it as all new.

As a DM, probably the biggest difference to be aware of, a CR4 creature is NOT a fair fight for a party of 4th level characters, it is much easier. Read the DMG rules for encounter sizing.

[Yora]

Am I reading this right? Are they assuming that characters can level up every two or three days?

Overall, my games don't tend to have more than two to four encounters per session, but even then, XP values seem to be crazy high. The lesson I am taking away from this is to never let monsters fight alone. Which of course makes sense for most creatures. But for something like a single manticore or wyver you would have to stack the battlefield seriously in their favor to not hand the players huge amounts of easy XP.
Which actually sounds like an incentive to have monsters and enemies use any possible advantage they can get. Exploiting the environment to maximum effect would make for much more memorable encounters than open roads and forest clearings.

[Pelle]

Am I reading this right? Are they assuming that characters can level up every two or three days?


Yeah, if you do a full adventuring day between each Long Rest, and get a Long Rest every night. If you don't like that you can use gritty resting to space out the encounters in time. And you can also space out each intensive adventuring day by how much time you like with downtime etc.

I think leveling every 2-3 session is a reasonable design goal, but with my group's playstyle it takes more than one session to finish an adventuring day, independent of the in-game time scale...

[Malifice]

The campaign pitch in very short is: "Dark Sun, but on a forest world."

'Thri-kreen on Endor.'

In all seriousness, I recall you stating you didnt want to run a combat heavy game.

DnD is (mechanically) a combat focused game. Look at a class feature (pick any at random, including a spell at random). Barring less than 1 percent of them, they all are designed around combat.

Seriously. Over 99 percent of class features and spells are combat abilities. 1/3 of the 'core 3' rulebooks deal with 'things to kill'. Of the remaining two books, the PHB is virtually all about combat every spell, all the classes, the chapter on combat etc).

The only 'roleplay' mechanic is Inspiration (that frankly most DMs forget to use) and its the first mechanic in an edition of DnD that ties a mechanical benefit to roleplaying (the few minor roleplaying mechanics that have existed in the past revolved around losing some ability based on roleplaying certain ways - Paladins falling from grace etc).

If you're looking for a combat light, exploration/ social pillar heavy game system, Im not sure 5E is for you.

And I say that as a fan of the system.

Dont take this negatively, it's just an observation from your earlier posts.

[Azgeroth]

so i've only been playing dnd since 5th really, so i'm not aware or familiar with prior modules..

however i can tell you that there are a good few 5e books that might be useful, it depends on what your after really..

volo's guide to monsters has some good info/lore on quite a few of the monsters of dnd, obviously not as many as the MM, but instead gives more info as to there environs, appearances and 'culture'

Xanthar's guide to everything has quite a few good player options, but with you already cutting out quite a lot of the phb classes i'm not sure thats what your after, it also has a reasonably decent amount of new spells.

Tales of the Yawning portal is basically a compendium of some well known locations/dungeons as mini modules, can be useful to anyone, or no one at all!

given your running your own setting i cant really recommend the SCAG, i suppose it depends on what your looking for??

[Yora]

The thing is that for anything but combat you don't really need much rules. Utility spells maybe, and on that front the game does seem to have things well covered. More combat options might make players think that combat is more important, but it quickly becomes apparent during play when it isn't. And what I consider low combat is two or three propper fights per session on average. With occasionally no combat because the players are busy with diplomacy, or a lot more fights during major assaults on enemy strongholds.
And when there is a fight, 5th Edition looks like a really fun system to handle them.

[Unoriginal]

Am I reading this right? Are they assuming that characters can level up every two or three days?

Only for the first three levels, and only if you give the max of recommanded encounters between Long Rests.



The lesson I am taking away from this is to never let monsters fight alone. Which of course makes sense for most creatures. But for something like a single manticore or wyver you would have to stack the battlefield seriously in their favor to not hand the players huge amounts of easy XP.

Solo monsters are generally given Legendary actions (and Lair actions when confronted in their lair) to help them handle groups, as befitting of a boss.

Note that in 5e, the advantage in number is always a big factor. 8 goblins against 4 PCs is a more difficult fight than, say, 4 orcs vs 4 PCs, most of the time.



Which actually sounds like an incentive to have monsters and enemies use any possible advantage they can get. Exploiting the environment to maximum effect would make for much more memorable encounters than open roads and forest clearings.

It's part of the trick, yes.

[Yora]

The guidelines for preparing encounters says to treat groups of 3-6 as twice as difficult as they would be individually. I did some comparing of the various table for what they recommend, and when you go with opponents in larger groups and advantageous environments the going should be a lot slower than if you fight big single monsters. I think I leave the XP awards and requirements untouched, unless I run into actual problems with it during play.

[Unoriginal]

Note that while big groups are considered more difficult for the CR calculation, they do not give more XPs.

[Trickery]

I did something like what you're doing for my first 5e campaign, including custom races and changes to classes. My advice: don't do it.

5e is complex enough on its own. Players who figure out how it works don't want to learn an altered version of it just to play in your game. You'll spend more time explaining the rules and the setting than actually having your players play.

At the end of the day, it's not just about your world, your fun. Every other player is just as important as you. And, as they're the ones who will be actively solving problems, it's more their story than it is yours.

You have to give up some of the things you want in order to run a game that will be fun and convenient for your players.

[Malifice]

The thing is that for anything but combat you don't really need much rules. Utility spells maybe, and on that front the game does seem to have things well covered. More combat options might make players think that combat is more important, but it quickly becomes apparent during play when it isn't.

But like; why use a game based around combat, for a game not involving combat?

I dont want to be overly critical here, but take a look at the Paladin.


At 1st level it gets weapon and armor proficiencies (combat), d10 hit points (combat) and the ability to sense the presence of monsters, and minor healing (combat). The only non directly combat buffs it gets at this level are 2 x skills.
At 2nd level it gets fighting style (combat), divine smite (combat) and spells (almost all of which are about killing things faster, buffing players to kill things better, making players harder to be killed in combat, or healing them before they die, or more combat power one way or another).
At 3rd level it gets a divine Oath, which grants it 2 distinct combat buffs (all the Oaths - even redemption - provide direct combat buffs via the Oath).
At 4th level it gets a feat/ ASI. Literally the first class feature since its 2 x skills at 1st level that are not exclusively related to combat. That said, 99 percent of Paladins take (GWM/ PAM/ HAM/ Shield master or a similar combat feat at this level, or +2 Str or Charisma).
At 5th level it gets extra attack (combat)
At 6th level it gets + Charisma to saves (a primarily combat buff for the Paladin and nearby friends).


I could go on, but you get the gist. At every single level it gets almost exclusively combat buffs. Which is OK, because (under the RAW expectation of the game) it only advances in those levels by killing things. It might get the occasional 'non combat' related ability (in 5E these are referred to as 'ribbon' abilities and are rare) but from the social and exploration pillar there isnt much if ant mechanical difference between a Paladin of 20th level and the same guy at 1st level (other than he's now at +6 with skills instead of +2)

It doesnt strike you as a little weird to play a game that is almost exclusively (mechanically) combat based, where you pick a class that is defined by and chock full of combat abilities and little else, gaining more combat abilities as it advances in level... but not have combat as a large part of the game?

I just cant help but feel that there might be other systems out there that do the social/ exploration pillars a lot better than DnD. DnD (as a combat focussed game) just seems a really odd choice for a campaign not featuring much combat.

Im not trying to be a douche here mate, but I just cant help but shake the feeling that for a combat lite game, there are much better options out there for you. I also cant help but shake the feeling that (as a player) I would feel a little pointless advancing in level and gaining all these cool abilities that make be better at combat, when I never really get a chance to use them, and the game is all about something other than... well... combat.

What works for your table and you though mate, go for it!

[Ganymede]

You should probably come up with an adventure, tho. I have first-hand experience with newbie DMs creating ambitious fantasy worlds and forgetting to put in fun and entertaining adventures.

[Helldin87]

I love the world you have built. Also appreciate limiting subclasses to keep the game manageable. My only caution is that you might want to involve the players in that discussion a bit. If your fighter player has his heart set on being a battlemaster maybe you could allow that over champion? You might be able to successfully argue that fighters in this world are unlikely to ever develop arcane abilities and disallow the EK, but not allowing other martial choices seems less fun. (also the champion is super boring to play imo)

Have fun!

[Yora]

5e is complex enough on its own. Players who figure out how it works don't want to learn an altered version of it just to play in your game. You'll spend more time explaining the rules and the setting than actually having your players play.
Which is why I am only going to limit the available options for the time being, not changing existing material or creating new content. (Other than monsters, but that's not player-side.)


But like; why use a game based around combat, for a game not involving combat?
Because every game about heroes in a fantasy world has rules that cover mostly combat and barely anything else.
Because the combat in this game looks more fun than combat in the other fantasy adventure games that I know about.
Because I don't know of any games that would be substentially better suited for this purpose.

I ran campaigns in 3rd edition for ages and that worked. 5th edition looks like it would make the whole process much more convenient.

The ideal perfect RPG does not exist. You got to take something that is good enough.

Unless you have some amazing game that you want me to run, instead of running your game different than you do.

I love the world you have built. Also appreciate limiting subclasses to keep the game manageable. My only caution is that you might want to involve the players in that discussion a bit.

I've been running campaigns for 18 years. In the entire time I've never come across a single player that would reveal the tiniest piece of personal preference even under torture. :smallbiggrin:
It's always "we will play everything that you prepare for us". The character options, aesthetics of the setting, and structure of the campaign will be openly stated when I'm ready for players to sign up. People who don't like it won't be forced to play.

[EggKookoo]

I did something like what you're doing for my first 5e campaign, including custom races and changes to classes. My advice: don't do it.

5e is complex enough on its own. Players who figure out how it works don't want to learn an altered version of it just to play in your game. You'll spend more time explaining the rules and the setting than actually having your players play.

You can also get quite a bit of mileage out of pure fluff changes. Most mechanics boil down to "was my d20 roll good or not?"

Sometimes I think you could make every dice decision a no-mod d20 roll against DC 10 and end up with mostly the same gameplay results. At least in aggregate over time.


I've been running campaigns for 18 years. In the entire time I've never come across a single player that would reveal the tiniest piece of personal preference even under torture. :smallbiggrin:
It's always "we will play everything that you prepare for us". The character options, aesthetics of the setting, and structure of the campaign will be openly stated when I'm ready for players to sign up. People who don't like it won't be forced to play.

My experience is much the same. My players have general ideas: "I want to be the sneaky dude" or "I want to heal people" or "I want to be Gandalf" but of all my players, I have exactly one who has enough system knowledge to go make a build for himself. And that player is also a DM. I've been playing with these people from anywhere between 5 and 25 years.

I always find it strange when I read about players wanting to get into heavy build details on these forums. Not really a criticism of wanting to do that but it's so alien to me...

[Trickery]

You can also get quite a bit of mileage out of pure fluff changes. Most mechanics boil down to "was my d20 roll good or not?"

Sometimes I think you could make every dice decision a no-mod d20 roll against DC 10 and end up with mostly the same gameplay results. At least in aggregate over time.



My experience is much the same. My players have general ideas: "I want to be the sneaky dude" or "I want to heal people" or "I want to be Gandalf" but of all my players, I have exactly one who has enough system knowledge to go make a build for himself. And that player is also a DM. I've been playing with these people from anywhere between 5 and 25 years.

I always find it strange when I read about players wanting to get into heavy build details on these forums. Not really a criticism of wanting to do that but it's so alien to me...

Funny you should mention fluff and making everything a DC 10. I still run campaigns in my homebrew world, but I don't change the rules. Instead, I just change fluff. That works for my purposes.

And regarding everything being a roll vs DC 10, that's not too far off from the game Dungeon World. It's a super simplified tabletop RPG made to fit a wide variety of settings. So, a lot of others agree with you. If everything is going to essentially be a D20 roll, why not cut out the BS? That said, I like a little more complexity, but I'm overall in favor of simplifying measures like this in principle.

Regarding builds, I'm sure we can agree that it's frustrating to play a game you don't understand, but tedious to read through the full PHB and DMG just to learn every rule. I've found that building a particular kind of character is a great way for players to learn the system. Like, if a player wants to create Simon Belmont as a 5e PC, they'll probably learn how several classes basically work, learn about whips and reach, and, best of all, ask questions.

Some feel that build players make bad role players, but I don't think so. I think most builds start with wanting to role play as a particular thing, and the build is the result of research figuring out how to do it. And, whether I'm playing or DMing, I have an easier time playing with people who do at least understand how their own character works.

[Yora]

You can talk about builds all day and come to objective results. If you're into that stuff, you can compare and debate different combinations and arrangement without end.

Playing and running the game is is highly subjective and preferential and nobody ever has any correct answers. You can suggest ideas, but you can't really debate them with objective arguments.

This is why 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition forums always revolve 90% around builds. Not because its a major part of playing the game, but the part most easily talked about.

Speaking of subjective preferences, I have made the experience that the best way to introduce players to unconventional settings is to let them state their intents, and then telling them what the closest match within the setting is. There was a time when no player knew what Dark Sun or Planescape was, and they were just thrown into the cold water. But if the underlying basics are not too radically different, they quickly catch on to recognizing what all the new and exotic elements are. Almost always they are things they have seen a hundred times before, just with a different appearance.

You can also get quite a bit of mileage out of pure fluff changes.
I went through the Monster Manual and found that pretty much all my "custom monsters" can be perfectly done just with reskins of existing monsters. Because, again, most are really just the same general ideas that have been done a hundred times with a sligtly new appearance.
A big benefit of reskinned monsters is that the players don't know anymore about them than their characters would. Many GMs reskin old creatures even when they are running campaigns in conventional medievalesque settings for that reason.

That I can do my idea for a shaman simply by adding 10 spells to the bard spell list was the first thing that hooked me on the game.

[Malifice]

Because every game about heroes in a fantasy world has rules that cover mostly combat and barely anything else.

Is that actually true though?

Im sure there are plenty of games with actual narrativist mechanics instead of mechanics focused on combat.

DnD has precisely one such rule (Inspiration) plus a smattering of skills (bonuses from 0 to +6) and a tiny amount of 'ribbons' and non combat spells and abilities (and even those spells and abilities tend to deal with the exploration pillar, like the Natural explorer class feature or the Fly spell).

Off the top of my head, one such game system is Pendragon:


Adventures are often political, military, or spiritual in nature, rather than dungeon crawls, and are often presented as taking place congruently with events from Arthurian legend. An important part of the game is the time between adventures, during which player characters manage their estates, get married, age, and have children.

The rules system of Pendragon is most notable for its system of personality traits and passions that both control and represent the character's behavior. These are thirteen opposing values that represent a character's personality. The Traits are: Chaste / Lustful, Energetic / Lazy, Forgiving / Vengeful, Generous / Selfish, Honest / Deceitful, Just / Arbitrary, Merciful / Cruel, Modest / Proud, Pious / Worldly, Prudent / Reckless, Temperate / Indulgent, Trusting / Suspicious, and Valorous / Cowardly.
Passions are higher values that influence a character's behavior. They are scored by rolling 2d6+6 or 3d6 and adding or subtracting various modifiers.

Passions roll on a d20, just like Traits. If a character fails a Passions roll, he goes into a state of Melancholy (hopeless depression) for violating his core belief. A critical failure or failed attempt to recover from Melancholy can lead to Madness, which forces the character to go into retirement until such time as he can redeem his actions or be forgiven by those he wronged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendragon_(role-playing_game)

It's an old and clunky system, but there are a ton of newer Narrativist games out there that support the kind of game you want to run mechanically.

Do a little research on GNS theory (if you havent already) and take a gander at some newer game systems that might support the game you want to run a lot better than hack and slash centric 5E will.

If I was going to run a game where the focus was to be on roleplaying, social interaction, allegiances, moral conundrums and political intrigue and generally conducted as a Narrativist game (to use GNS theory of game design) I wouldnt run it using a game system that is almost wholly mechanically focussed on killing **** and taking its stuff.

[EggKookoo]

Funny you should mention fluff and making everything a DC 10. I still run campaigns in my homebrew world, but I don't change the rules. Instead, I just change fluff. That works for my purposes.

Same for me for the most part. I think because while the crunch is how the players interact directly with the game, after a while it becomes internalized. You want your rules to be come predictable so the players can just kind of play off of muscle memory. But the fluff is the interesting stuff -- the fiction, the flavor. That should be evolving and changing and growing as the campaign goes along.

Once you learn how to ride a bike, you can pretty much ride any bike. But you keep going to new places with it...


And regarding everything being a roll vs DC 10, that's not too far off from the game Dungeon World. It's a super simplified tabletop RPG made to fit a wide variety of settings. So, a lot of others agree with you. If everything is going to essentially be a D20 roll, why not cut out the BS? That said, I like a little more complexity, but I'm overall in favor of simplifying measures like this in principle.

Despite saying you could just make flat rolls and flat DCs, I do like the impression (illusion?) of variety. I take some comfort in knowing my character with his +5 Dex is quicker than yours, even if yours with his +5 Str is stronger. But if the dice aren't going my way, that +5 is meaningless. And really dice swinginess rules the game. When the dice are being cruel to a player, it's very obvious.


Some feel that build players make bad role players, but I don't think so. I think most builds start with wanting to role play as a particular thing, and the build is the result of research figuring out how to do it. And, whether I'm playing or DMing, I have an easier time playing with people who do at least understand how their own character works.

Right, I don't think they make bad players at all. And my players do eventually work out the nuts & bolts of their characters, but it usually comes as they play, rather than a front-loaded research process. I recently got my wife playing and she went with a druid. I briefed her on how spell selection worked and I could see the glaze forming over her eyes (she was mainly interested in shapechanging), so I just picked a bunch and told her she could change them later if she didn't like them. Easy enough to do with prepared spells. By the time she was 3rd level, she had researched all the druid spells and had a new prepared list optimized to what she wanted to do.


You can talk about builds all day and come to objective results. If you're into that stuff, you can compare and debate different combinations and arrangement without end.

Playing and running the game is is highly subjective and preferential and nobody ever has any correct answers. You can suggest ideas, but you can't really debate them with objective arguments.

This is why 3rd, 4th, and 5th edition forums always revolve 90% around builds. Not because its a major part of playing the game, but the part most easily talked about.

Very true. I feel like I sometimes want to discuss the ins and outs of my custom campaign setting but I feel like people might get bored with that. But then again, that's what you're doing with this thread and it's rolling right along...


Speaking of subjective preferences, I have made the experience that the best way to introduce players to unconventional settings is to let them state their intents, and then telling them what the closest match within the setting is. There was a time when no player knew what Dark Sun or Planescape was, and they were just thrown into the cold water. But if the underlying basics are not too radically different, they quickly catch on to recognizing what all the new and exotic elements are. Almost always they are things they have seen a hundred times before, just with a different appearance.

I typically use pop culture figures as examples for my players. One player loves Judge Dredd -- she's going to play a vengeance pally. Another is an Iron Fist fan, so here comes the monk. It works well but you do have to remind them that characters from stories are often overpowered compared to how they'd be in the game, at least at low levels. The narrative constrains the story hero, where the rules constrain the game hero.

[Vegan Squirrel]

First off, I've read a bunch of your world-building posts in the past, usually without seeing anything useful to add, and I'm always impressed.

This chart (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byr-i7lu1I5IMU4tbXBGbTFIWU0/view) could help with some of your conversion work (I'm not experienced with 0e/1e/2e, but I've held on to this link for when I run into an interesting stat block).

5th edition's leveling curve is not linear—characters are expected to rush through the earliest levels, then spend a lot of time in the upper single digits (the "sweet spot"), and then I think leveling speeds up again (you can compare the XP to level to the XP encounter budgets to see this in detail). But there's no reason you can't slow down level advancement if you and your players agree to a different pace.

I'll second the mention of Volo's Guide to Monsters as a sourcebook to consider grabbing, especially if you have a store nearby where you can page through it first to see how you like it. A good segment of the book is devoted to the lore and ecology of various monsters (beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti), which can be useful to mine and twist for your own world. There are a few monstrous races presented as character options. And then the monsters portion of the book includes quite a few fey creatures that you might like to use, (annis hag, bheur hag, boggle, darkling, darkling elder, korred, meenlock, quickling, redcap, and yeth hound), and there are a few more plant creatures as well (thorny, vegepygmy, vegepygmy chief, and wood woad). There are also more NPC stat blocks, essentially covering every class/subclass with an NPC option (abjurer, apprentice wizard, archdruid, archer, bard, blackguard, champion, conjurer, diviner, enchanter, evoker, illusionist, martial arts adept, master thief, necromancer, swashbuckler, transmuter, war priest, warlock of the archfey, warlock of the fiend, warlock of the great old one, warlord). It's the only non-core book I've purchased so far for 5th edition, and it could be a useful resource for your world if you're interested in more monsters.

I don't think there's really any issue with using 5th to run your style of game. You've already run similar games (it would seem) in older editions, including 3rd, that are just as focused on combat. In my experience, a lot of people play D&D, especially 5th, with an interest in running a character-driven game that doesn't need to revolve around combat. As you level up, you can deal with tougher combats, but that also says something about your social standing in the world. I'm with you on not needing a huge system of mechanics to role-play (although I'll add that you don't need a huge system of mechanics for combat, either).

5th edition touts its "bounded accuracy," basically referring to the limited range of attack and AC bonuses, which means it's designed so that lower-level monsters are always a threat, even to higher level characters. That's great for a sandbox world, which lets you use various numbers of relatively low-level monsters and expect it to challenge the characters at whatever level they arrive. That's also why the encounter-building rules emphasize the increased difficulty of larger numbers of monsters. For higher-level monsters, however, resistance or immunity to non-magical weapons and legendary saves can still make them nearly impossible to defeat by low-level characters, at least without special preparation and magic.

EDIT: A lot of discussion happened while I was composing this post, so you've already covered some of this ground. I'll just add that the style of game you describe sounds a lot like most of the D&D campaigns I've played, in 3.5 and 5th editions, and I think D&D works great for that. Delve into the rules when you want to resolve combat; delve into the imagination when you want to explore the world.

[EggKookoo]

Do a little research on GNS theory (if you havent already) and take a gander at some newer game systems that might support the game you want to run a lot better than hack and slash centric 5E will.

So thinking about this... I can say I want to play a non-combat-centric campaign, but I don't want to deal with a lot of non-combat rules. Hell, I don't want to deal with a lot of combat rules, but I lack the genius to work out how to run (the occasional) combats without them. But I can run social encounters, investigations, and other general roleplay elements more or less by intuition.

I'd much rather have a game that tells me how to run a fight but is loose enough to let me wing the non-fighty social/exploration/investigation stuff, than a system that doesn't handle combats very well but also has even just moderately heavy rules on how the characters interact socially with each other (*cough*WoD2e).

[2D8HP]

...one such game system is Pendragon....


I love Pendragon.

A while back a had an idea of combining it with Stormbringer to make it more "Sword and Sorcery":

Sorcery & Chivalry (Stormbringer and Pendragon) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?523070-Sorcery-amp-Chivalry-(Stormbringer-and-Pendragon))

Some elements from Mythic Iceland and the new RuneQuest would work well, and a few years ago I suggested those games to the O.P.


I don't know OSR but I do remember old. Off the top of my head from the 1970's there's 2e Runequest (which you can still get as a PDF) and, Tunnels&Trolls. From the very early 1980's there's Stormbringer from Chaosium which may just be what your looking for (most magic is based on Demon summoning). I believe the latter "Magic World" system is based on the same shell.
But my favorite "system" is from 1985 with all but the 4th edition of Pendragon which was authored by Greg Stafford, which is no system at all, instead there was a list of "tropes" for the GM to use, as none of the PC's played Spellcasters! All magic was NPC only except that some non-knight PC's could inherit the ability to make a magic potion. Once you quantify it, magic ceases to be "magical". Pendragon is not Swords and Sorcery, it's "Gawain and the Green Knight" or "The Mabinogoin" rather than "Conan" or the "Grey Mouser", and it is the RPG I most wanted to play, that I never did.
O. K. the Gray Mouser did cast a spell in "Unholy Grail", but imagine instead a party of Thieves and Warriors trying to work unearthly magic from some old scroll, with results both greater and more dangerous than what they expect.
Now that's genre!


Yora,
From your posts at this forum, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?483894)
and your wonderful blog, (http://spriggans-den.com/?page_id=38
)
what it seems that your looking for is:
1) A bronze age swords and sorcery setting.
2) A non-"Vancian" magic system.
3) Deadlier combat.
4) A break with the D&D XP/level system.
5) Yet is still "old school".
All of that really seems to me like:1978 Runequest (http://www.chaosium.com/runequest-2nd-edition-pdf/)!
So why are you going to use B/X D&D again?
You may someday come back to D&D, (http://www.chrispramas.com/2008/03/seven-stages-of-gygax.html) but it looks like time to leave it for now.


but face it 3.5 and 5e D&D are "lingua franca"'s of FRPG's, and it's much easier to get players for them than any other games these days (unlike TSR D&D in the 1990's), and since the customisation that @Yora proposes is mostly subtraction rather than addition he seems to be very much on the right track to me.

[Yora]

I'll second the mention of Volo's Guide to Monsters as a sourcebook to consider grabbing, especially if you have a store nearby where you can page through it first to see how you like it. A good segment of the book is devoted to the lore and ecology of various monsters (beholders, giants, gnolls, goblinoids, hags, kobolds, mind flayers, orcs, and yuan-ti), which can be useful to mine and twist for your own world. There are a few monstrous races presented as character options. And then the monsters portion of the book includes quite a few fey creatures that you might like to use, (annis hag, bheur hag, boggle, darkling, darkling elder, korred, meenlock, quickling, redcap, and yeth hound), and there are a few more plant creatures as well (thorny, vegepygmy, vegepygmy chief, and wood woad). There are also more NPC stat blocks, essentially covering every class/subclass with an NPC option (abjurer, apprentice wizard, archdruid, archer, bard, blackguard, champion, conjurer, diviner, enchanter, evoker, illusionist, martial arts adept, master thief, necromancer, swashbuckler, transmuter, war priest, warlock of the archfey, warlock of the fiend, warlock of the great old one, warlord). It's the only non-core book I've purchased so far for 5th edition, and it could be a useful resource for your world if you're interested in more monsters.
I was just looking for meenlock stats and found that they are in that book. And that lineup you're presenting there is really just my cup of tea. :smallbiggrin:
Annis, bheur, darkling (those are dark ones, right?), yeth hound, and vegepygmy are all things I would be statting myself if I had not been able to find them anywhere. Sounds a bit like they skipped doing a Monster Manual 2 and went straight to doing the Fiend Folio. I very much take this book into consideration. There's probably some other stuff in it as well, that I will want to use.


I'd much rather have a game that tells me how to run a fight but is loose enough to let me wing the non-fighty social/exploration/investigation stuff, than a system that doesn't handle combats very well but also has even just moderately heavy rules on how the characters interact socially with each other (*cough*WoD2e).
That's genrally my position on it. I know the concept of narrativist rule system, but I was never convinced by it. Everyone's entitle to an opinion that this campaign is a bad idea, but I don't feel like justifying myself in any more detail.

[Malifice]

but face it 3.5 and 5e D&D are "lingua franca"'s of FRPG's, and it's much easier to get players for them than any other games these days (unlike TSR D&D in the 1990's), and since the customisation that @Yora proposes is mostly subtraction rather than addition he seems to be very much on the right track to me.

Thats the main reason you see DnD used even when its not the best tool for the job. Familiarity.

Anyways, Ive raised my point and dont want to repeat myself anymore.

Good luck with your campaign OP!

[Yora]

Well, I know what I am going to spend some of my christmas money on after my exam tomorrow. :smallbiggrin:

The monster lineup for Volo's Guide looks fantastic: Annis, barghest, bheur, bodak, chitine, choldrith, darkling, darkling elder, devourer, draegloth, elder brain, firenewt, giant strider, girallon, Ki-rin, leucrotta, meenlock, neogi, neothelid, tanarruk, vegepygmy, yeth hound, and lots of yuan-ti. After having read the monster manual, I couldn't have put much more than those on a wishlist for a new monster book. Canoloth and gibberling perhaps, but that would be it.

I never used devourers before and thought they are silly. But for the monster ecology I am putting together for this setting, they seem like a really nice fit.

[mephnick]

Solo monsters are generally given Legendary actions (and Lair actions when confronted in their lair) to help them handle groups, as befitting of a boss.

Just be aware that in actual practice, Legendary Actions aren't nearly enough to make up for action economy and focus fire on a single health pool.

Boss monsters with Legendary Actions absolutely still need minions, unless you use something like Angry's Paragon system (which is basically combining multiple monsters into one statblock with additional health pools)

[Teaguethebean]

I think I want to go with custom PC races, because the regular ones that fit almost all have automatic magic spells. But the general idea are Gaelic themed wood elves, Persian themed high elves, Germanic themed half-orcs, Slavic themed earth genasi, Finnish themed air genasi, and Malayan themed water genasi. (Yes, it's totally bosmer, dunmer, and orsimer.)
Additional non-playable humanoid peoples that live in the wilderness are aaracockra, deep gnomes, gnolls, kuo-toa, and ogres. These are the only mortal humanoid peoples that inhabit the world.

For classes, I have decided to use Totem Warrior Barbarians, Lore Bards reflavored as Shamans, Champion Fighters, Hunter Rangers, Thief Rogues, Enchanter and Transmuter Wizards, and for the start as NPCs only Archfey, Fiend, and Old One Warlocks. Part of it is a thematic choice, but I also want to keep the campaign mechanically simple to work well with my style of running games.



Limiting races never is really that big of a problem but dropping the playable Classes/Sub classes to seven probably isn't a good idea. Is there a reason there can't be a battle master, assassin or berserker in your world?

[KorvinStarmast]

Limiting races never is really that big of a problem but dropping the playable Classes/Sub classes to seven probably isn't a good idea. Is there a reason there can't be a battle master, assassin or berserker in your world? Disagree. The basic rules I got from WoTC in 2014 before my PHB showed up had fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric, each with one subclass. There is enough material to run to Tier IV from that, though the PHB and MM came out long before we got done with Tier 1.

Bravo to the OP for limiting classes. It will work out fine. ( I enjoyed the bard/shaman thread, and think the OP is on to something special with this campaign).

@Yora
Love your general approach.

Totem Warrior Barbarians, Lore Bards reflavored as Shamans, Champion Fighters, Hunter Rangers, Thief Rogues, Enchanter and Transmuter Wizards More than enough, though I think your Fey focus might benefit from a Druid option. Not sure why you removed Paladins (Ancients fits your theme perfectly) but I get your general thematic look and can see why to not allow them.

NPCs only Archfey, Fiend, and Old One Warlocks. Part of it is a thematic choice, but I also want to keep the campaign mechanically simple to work well with my style of running games. Good call.

I want to cap this campaign at 10th level for both PCs and NPCs.
When you reach that level, I'd suggest talking to your players: shall we go on, or shall we end it? By that time, you may feel inspired to take it a bit further. Best wishes in either case.

In addition, evocations and necromancies are remove from the wizard spell list. The powers of fire and death are exclusive to the patrons of the warlocks.
I think you need to review the spell list again; (https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DnD_SpellLists_1.0.pdf) healing spells (cure wounds) are evocation. (I could have sword that there was a 1.1 version of that list, I'll see if I can find a link). That might have an impact on your bard shaman healer.

Enchantments are spells that control the mind, while illusions are presented as spells that mess with perception. That's mostly "as written" ... still suggest that you take a good hard look at "spells by school of magic" when you put your spell lists "allowed" together.

By default, the Feywild makes up the whole world. It is only around the city states with their great temples that the environment works by the rules that the population thinks of as the normal world. Love it.

PS: IMO, Volo's is a waste of money.
PPS: Druids are not OP in this edition.
PPPS: Absolutely love your powers/deities/beliefs framework. *tips cap*

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm still going to chime in on letting more archetypes in...But on a case by case basis. I assume you have some players in mind for this campaign, so I'd jot down a list of 'absolutely not' archetypes (Such as beastmaster Ranger, which...Gets confusing, due to the rework in my opinion) and let players argue a case for other archetypes from the books you DO have if they can really work it into the campaign setting. So you don't lose any player interest but don't shovel more work onto your plate right now either for something like the Battlemaster fighter.

Through...Why warlocks of the Old Ones? I love the rework of the fiend, and an explanation for why a non-evil person might decide that setting the world's problems on fire might be an excellent idea. But the old ones seem more like NPC options, since they are so mysterious and weird. Also, how does one become a warlock? Are there bloodlines of unsuspecting warlocks? Do you research it? Just light stuff on fire a lot and hope for the best?

And because I must, why not have tieflings/fire genasi? I think most players are familiar with the fire/earth/air/water/something something system anyway. If you have run out of time/inspiration, they could be a diaspora given a (true or false) connection to the Realm Beneath and just living on the fringes of wherever, taking on cultural norms of any place they can settle.

I am unfamiliar with your source material, but I am going to guess that serpentmen are sorta a thing. Why not have a reworked Yuan-ti with the backstory of being mutated humans? I don't know why but I feel like that should be a thing. Maybe because I've been watching too many reviews of crappy 80's movies with mutated monsters/people.

I also would not go with the relic idea until you can think of a foolproof way to keep the PCs from attempting to steal one. It could make for a fun plot, but I assume this isn't supposed to happen.

[KorvinStarmast]

maritime/islands in the setting
Quick suggestion: take a peak at the Unearthed Arcana for some nautical material, granted it is play test caliber, about ships and boats.
https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_ShipsSea.pdf

[Captain Bob]

To mention a consideration that I've not seen in this thread, I'd strongly think about holding off on allowing wizards into your game at all if the evocation and necromancy spells are axed from their lists. This is a reductive statement...but in essence this version of wizard is sort of a 'less-bardy' bard. Utility spells are all well and good...but the roles these classes will fill with spells will likely strongly overlap - and the wizard player will simultaneously not benefit from expertise, inspiration, or any of the other bard goodies (including having boosted social skills from a Charisma casting stat). Teleportation not 'being a thing' also exacerbates this issue, given that such spells are also on the wizard list. I'd also note that there are some evocations built into the bard list - not sure if they have access to this stuff or not in your game, but I figure I'd mention them in case you were unaware. Not a huge detail...but an upcast shatter is suddenly a pretty big thing when other PC's can't sling fireballs and such.

In combat, I'd also mention that the damage cantrips of 5e - evocation and necromancy for the most part, other than maybe vicious mockery (?) - were intended to make magic-users have a more 'magical' combat flavor when they aren't casting a spell; instead of reverting into a bland, or off-theme crossbowman, 5e gave wizards sorcerers and the like firebolts or rays of frost. Your mileage may vary, but if you've players at the table who are used to traditional 5e casters, this may be a disappointment. I'd note that this is also a more significant issue in 5e given the concentration mechanic. These caster classes will likely be throwing down illusions and control spells; this means that 9/10 times their first spell cast will require concentration, severely limiting what they will be able to do on subsequent turns - perhaps relegating them to shooting arrows if alternatives don't exist in your game. Maybe not an issue for your shaman that can also inspire, heal, vicious mockery, or lesser restoration...but a wizard player may find themselves without an appealing action after their first spell goes down. Again, food for thought.

In any event, best of luck with your game, this is just my 2 cents - if nothing else, you might avoid a headache with a player not enjoying their class pick.

[Yora]

You raise a valid point. Looking at my current spell lists, there aren't many spells exclusive to wizards, and none of them anything spectacular. Though there are a couple that a shaman doesn't really need. I'll be seeing what I can do with that. As it is, there's not much to make wizards relevant.

One idea I have right now is to have the shaman use the bard abilities and the druid spell list (minus fire and lightning). That might both make a better shaman and at the same time give wizards their own niche as some kinds of mentalists.


Quick suggestion: take a peak at the Unearthed Arcana for some nautical material, granted it is play test caliber, about ships and boats.
https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/UA_ShipsSea.pdf
I might never get to use it, but if it ever comes up, these rules are good to have at hand.


I am unfamiliar with your source material, but I am going to guess that serpentmen are sorta a thing. Why not have a reworked Yuan-ti with the backstory of being mutated humans? I don't know why but I feel like that should be a thing. Maybe because I've been watching too many reviews of crappy 80's movies with mutated monsters/people.
Of course there will be yuan-ti. Lots of them. Just not as PCs.

[Honest Tiefling]

Of course there will be yuan-ti. Lots of them. Just not as PCs.

I don't know, I feel like having some stats/rules to change one of the PCs into a snake person against their will is pretty fitting for the type of setting. Definitely something for later, however.

As for the bard/wizard issue, Druid (land) and Wizard (Transmutation/Enchantment) seems easier, as you aren't tweaking anything. Heck, having Druids (Land) and Bards (Lore) instead of wizards might be even better, since bards can be easily made into mentalists as-is. I also fear that when players see the description of this setting, their minds are going to wander into druid and ranger territory given the emphasis on spirits, forests, and fey.

[Yora]

I think it's mostly wild shape, that doesn't sit right with me. Having all but the most junior priests being shapechangers wouldn't fit.

But then, NPC priests wouldn't necessarily have to have druid levels. Having one or two of these strange hermits with their mystical animal powers in the party wouldn't be that much of a problem for the setting as a whole. Moon druids would be completely out, though.

I admit that the bard isn't really ideal either, with all its skill monkeying. I do like bardic inspiration, though.

I shall contemplate this on the tree of woe.

[EggKookoo]

I shall contemplate this on the tree of woe.

Such a waste...

[Amiel]

Like you I've ran and played in many, many games of 3.5 and Pathfinder to the point where I came to dislike the mechanical variance and mechanics-heavy nature of the game. 5e is a breath of fresh air and it's freeing to have such a streamlined game, and yet it's not totally devoid of mechanical complexity. 5e is a game where it's also just as easy refluffing and modifying things, and puts the onus of decision-making back to the DM (YMMV with this, but I've made decisions only after everyone's said their piece).

Creating combat encounters in 5e though is as much of an art as a science, as you have to create the level of difficulty of the encounter to the combined difficulty level of your PCs and using the charts and numbers in the books is a bit of a nuisance.

Kobold Fight Club (https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder) is a godsend with this.

Might I also suggest using the 5e Basic Rules (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules); not all classes are included, and the included classes seem to fall within your stipulations, and there's a MM in there as well, with artwork.

Welcome to 5e.

[Slidebazaar]

Running campaign often requires attractive graphics. You can access some fantastic PowerPoint presentation templates from #Slidebazaar.

[Yora]

Might I also suggest using the 5e Basic Rules (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules); not all classes are included, and the included classes seem to fall within your stipulations, and there's a MM in there as well, with artwork.

There is Champion Fighter and Thief Rogue. I need a bit more than that, and the warlock with its three specializations is the main thing that makes the game attractive to me. Hunter Rangers are also nice.

[Amiel]

Having read some stuff over at your website, let me also note that you don't have to use XP at all in 5e. The DMG gives rules for session based leveling and also for story-based leveling. A lot of their published adventures use what they call milestone leveling. Some of my tables use these methods and they work out just fine.

Yes, milestone leveling is pretty great and also puts less of an emphasis on combat.
5e has a lot of variant rules, be sure to check those out.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Okay, so I might be late, but here's my observations from running and playing in multiple campaigns of 5e since it came out.

1. Forget balance. There is none. Don't even try to use the CR numbers except in the most abstract form. Just do what comes natural.

2. Try vanilla first, before doing homebrew and specialized class/feat/spell/race combos. It helps ground your expectations and gives you a sense of how the system thinks it's supposed to work.

3. Cheat. You're the DM. As long as you don't obviously break the action economy, they'll never know if you alter the math to make the game more fun for them.

4. When in doubt, make it up.

5. Oh. Don't use PHB Ranger. Use the Revised Ranger. It's...it's just better.

[Yora]

The big difference seems to be that you get the Natural Explorer benefits for all environments, and that Primeval Awareness turns into favored enemy radar. Not sure if these are good things.
This doesn't make a party with a ranger better at dealing with the wilderness. This makes a party with a ranger no longer having to deal with the wilderness at all. It removes the aspect from the game that the ranger is supposedly good at. Knowing the precise number and location of all your favorite enemies within 5 miles seems clearly too much for me.

Hide in Plain Sight is a real improvement though. I gladly take that as a patch.

[mephnick]

The Revised Ranger just gave a bunch of combat buffs to a class that didn't need it and made Primeval Awareness silly. The fact it's so popular just shows how much people crave combat power over fixing the actual issues of the base class. It's terrible design and that's why they're reworking it again.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

The big difference seems to be that you get the Natural Explorer benefits for all environments, and that Primeval Awareness turns into favored enemy radar. Not sure if these are good things.
This doesn't make a party with a ranger better at dealing with the wilderness. This makes a party with a ranger no longer having to deal with the wilderness at all. It removes the aspect from the game that the ranger is supposedly good at. Knowing the precise number and location of all your favorite enemies within 5 miles seems clearly too much for me.

Hide in Plain Sight is a real improvement though. I gladly take that as a patch.

I'll give you another bit of advice then.

If you want players to care about exploring nature, you have to ban Druids and Rangers. It's a sad fact that their class features don't really make exploration fun. They let them bypass it entirely. 5e is deceptively High Magic, really. If you wanted a low-fantasy setting (as I recall from your worldbuilding threads) then this is the wrong edition. Alternatively, require things like Goodberry to sacrifice their material components so they have to look for more.

As for the Rev-Ranger, it's just mechanically better than basic Ranger, which suffered from being BORING more than anything else. And in any case, it's clear WotC is more concerned with Wizard archetypes than fixing Ranger correctly, so I'll take the band-aid if the alternative is bleeding out.

[KorvinStarmast]

Knowing the precise number and location of all your favorite enemies within 5 miles seems clearly too much for me. Not quite.

For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or within up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terrain): Aberrations, Celestials, Dragons, Elementals, fey, Fiends, and Undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.


It's best to read the fine print. :smallbiggrin: Or the bolded print ... :smalleek:

[Yora]

By spending 1 uninterrupted minute in concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), you can sense whether any of your favored enemies are present within 5 miles of you. This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present, their numbers, and the creatures’ general direction and distance (in miles) from you.
It's best to read the thread properly.

[Yora]

Over the week, I've been giving a lot of thought on the many good comments I got and digging deeper into the rulebook to search for the best options to make my ideas work best.

The results as of now are this:

Races
Half-Elf (Iranic)
High Elf (Finnish)
Wood Elf (Gaelic)
Half-Orc (Germanic)
Goliath (Turkic)
Triton (Malayan)

Classes
All classes capped at 10th level. If we should ever reach this point and feel the campaign is far from over, multiclassing to higher levels might be an option, but I very much doubt this will ever become an issue. The main reason is to make 6th and higher level spells unavailable from scrolls or NPCs.
Barbarian: Totem Warrior.
Druid: Arctic, Coast, Forest, Mountain, Swamp; no fire spells.
Ranger: Hunter (PHB/SRD)
Rogue: Thief.
Warlock: Archfey, Fiend, Old One.
Wizard: Enchanter, Transmuter; minus elemental evocations, necromancies, conjuration of objects, and cloudkill.
Priest: Custom hybrid class of Bard and Cleric using the Cleric spell list, plus charm person, dancing lights, dominate person, dream, fear, hold monster, see invisible, sleep, suggestion.
Excluded Spells: Teleportation spells, unless from a druid or warlock specialization; light spells, except dancing lights (I want to work with light and darkness); force barriers, extradimensional spaces.

Equipment
Restrictions entirely for cultural style:

Coins:
Platinum pieces renamed "gold pieces".
Gold pieces renamed "silver pieces".
Silver pieces renamed "copper pieces".

Armor:
Leather scale armor (studded leather)
Lamellar armor (scale mail)
Heavy lamellar (chain mail)

Weapons:
No light hammer, crossbows, flail, lance, morningstar, rapier, trident, war pick, and warhammer.

Mounts:
Riding goat (pony + charge)
Riding deer (riding horse + charge)
Riding lizard (war horse + trampling charge)
War lizard (rhinoceros :smalltongue:)
Flying lizard (giant eagle)

Various Great Ideas
Because I am an oldschool hipster.

Minions: Background NPCs that don't deserve a name or individual characterization are always acolytes, bandits, cultists, guards, or tribal warriors with 2d8 hit points. If I want NPCs to have more advanced stats, I have to work them into fully developed NPCs.

Group Initiative: Because every fight becomes so much more fun and faster when nobody has time to not pay attention while waiting for their turns.

Reaction Rolls: When the party encounters creatures for the first time, and the situation does not give any obvious reason why it has to want to fight them, 2d6 are rolled to see how it reacts:
2: attack
3-5: hostile but doesn't want to attack first
6-8: waits and sees
9-11: backs away or hails the party
12: friendly welcome

Morale: Because it's helpful to have guidelines when to consider if enemies might flee. It's easy to forget that it makes sense for enemies to flee when you only do it "when it feels appropiate".

Encumbrance: All items are assumed to have an average weight of 5 pounds. This means you can carry a number if items equal to your Strength score and be unencumbred, twice your Strength score and be encumbred (speed -10 ft.), and thrice your Strength score and be heavily encumbred (speed -20 ft., disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls; Str, Dex, and Con saves). Items over 10 pounds count as two items, items over 15 pounds as three items, and so on.
This is less precise or "realistic", but makes tracking encumbrance easy enough so that you don't give up and ignore it. (I like to have inventory sheets with numbered lines, and a big red line marking when you get into encumbred, heavily encumbred, and overencumbred. You don't even have to count your items, just look if your total crosses the first, second, or third line. Mounts and pack animals get their own inventory sheets. Riders have a weight of their inventory total, plus their body weight divided by 5. You're welcome, but thank this guy (http://www.paperspencils.com/making-encumbrance-work/).)

Time: Time is tracked in "scenes" of roughly 10 minutes. An encounter, major obstacle, or exploring a room counts as 1 scene, unless it's clear that it takes longer than that.
This is less precise or "realistic", but makes tracking time easy enough so that you don't give up and ignore it. (This was actually in the D&D rules in the 70s and 80s.)

Light: A torch lasts for 6 scenes, a lamp for 36 scenes. Light will be tracked. And I love to flood dungeons all the time. :smallsmile:

[KorvinStarmast]

Various Great Ideas
2: attack
3-5: hostile but doesn't want to attack first
6-8: waits and sees
9-11: backs away or hails the party
12: friendly welcome

Looks like the old Men and Magic reaction table; old school indeed. :smallsmile:

Love your time framework. *tips cap*

[2D8HP]

Looks good to my 50 year old eyes.


And to my 50 years old eyes as well!

I may be projecting but it seems to me that fellow commenters who've enjoyed TSR D&D are liking @Yora's ideas the most.

[Yora]

Well, I enjoy 80s D&D more than 2000s D&D. There might be a connection there. :smallwink:

[Honest Tiefling]

Why the hate for the trident? I didn't think it was all that modern given it's connection to various ancient deities.

[Yora]

Like the one handed spiked flail, I don't think this is a real weapon. I've only ever seen them depicted in gladiator fights, and in those the gladiators were given deliberately nonsensical equipment to make things more interesting.
Not that I've ever seen a trident appear in D&D either.

[Honest Tiefling]

Personally, I'd make them caster weapons if there are any spirits/gods that are associated with them, but giving casters pointy sticks instead of tiny sticks is a bit more visually appealing to me. Maybe because I personally associate the weapon with a few gods.

Perhaps make tridents a improvised weapon instead? I mean, I find it highly unlikely that at no point in your campaign a brawl won't break out in multiple different areas. Or heck, give them to the snake dudes, given a heavy connection between water and snakes in various cultures. Also, if the players don't find themselves forced into gladiatorial combat at some point I'd be very surprised.

I think a similar case could be made for the flail, as it did exist to thresh grain in ancient Egypt, and when you're a peasant getting invaded you don't get to be picky about what you have to defend yourself. It probably wouldn't be spiked unless the gladiatorial games are to spill blood to ensure the fertility of the crops or something.

[Yora]

You should probably come up with an adventure, tho. I have first-hand experience with newbie DMs creating ambitious fantasy worlds and forgetting to put in fun and entertaining adventures.

Well... this is embarrasing... :smallredface:

I've been having this in the back of my mind the whole time, and of course I had a solid general ideas of what I wanted to do. But while I was writing an "as short as possible" pitch for the campaign, I realized that those ideas where really half baked and actually rather bad. I had planned to recreate some cool classic dungeons and have them be the lairs of monsters and evil wizards who will threaten the towns if not stopped from becoming powerful enough, and somehow this would miraculously come out as a super engaging player driven saga. What is there to advertise? Go to caves and ruins and face the typical creatures that live in these places? That's a terrible plan.
I mean, it works, but you don't need a fresh setting with customized character options for that. It's generic low-level dungeon crawling.

This needs seriously more thought put into it before the campaign can start.

My goal is to have the players explore and discover an environment that has several interesting actors and parties in it and to become involved and entangled in their ongoing conflicts. And also to learn the internal rules and logic by which this word works, so that they become able to use the cultures, traditions, relationships, and unique magic to their advantage. When put like that, it is rather obvious that the basic blocks of such a campaign aren't dungeons, but NPCs. I guess that would make a campaign somewhat politics focused, though in this case this wouldn't have to mean (and I don't want it to) government and statecraft. I am thinking more of something in the way of secret societies.
However, I also want to make the natural environment the main stage for everything and it should always feel like adventures in a wondrous and magical wilderness. I think this can be done by making the influential NPCs druids, hermit wizards, and intelligent monstrosities and fey.

In case you are curious, I already have planned a campaign specific bestiary:
Wild Humanoids: Gnoll, harpy, kuo-toa, ogre, yuan-ti broodguard, yuan-ti pureblood
Monsters: Carrion crawler, chuul, ettercap, giant eagle, giant owl, girallon, hydra, manticore, phase spider, umber hulk, wyvern
Forest Spirits: Blights, deep gnome, doppelganger, dryad, air elemental, earth elemental, water elemental, green hag, myconids, stone giant, succubus, treant, will-o-wisp, yeth hound, yuan-ti abomination
Underworld Spirits: Aboleth, chitine, choldrith, darklings, devourer, helmed horror, fire elemental, meenlock, mind flayer, neothelid
Undead: Ghast, ghoul, shadow, skeleton, wight, wraith
And plenty of ordinary big reptiles and insects.

One thing I noticed is that two thirds of them are CR2 or lower, but that seems to be a general thing with the monster books.
Another thing that became noticable in 3rd edition, but I've already seen lots of people point out in 5th, is to not have your villains face the party alone in battle. Bringing their guards to a fight appears to be strictly necessary.

[EggKookoo]

My goal is to have the players explore and discover an environment that has several interesting actors and parties in it and to become involved and entangled in their ongoing conflicts. And also to learn the internal rules and logic by which this word works, so that they become able to use the cultures, traditions, relationships, and unique magic to their advantage. When put like that, it is rather obvious that the basic blocks of such a campaign aren't dungeons, but NPCs. I guess that would make a campaign somewhat politics focused, though in this case this wouldn't have to mean (and I don't want it to) government and statecraft. I am thinking more of something in the way of secret societies.
However, I also want to make the natural environment the main stage for everything and it should always feel like adventures in a wondrous and magical wilderness. I think this can be done by making the influential NPCs druids, hermit wizards, and intelligent monstrosities and fey.

What about the ruins of an ancient, overgrown megalopolis that's being slowly re-settled? I mean huge, like Manhattan-size (without actual skyscrapers -- or maybe one or two ridiculous towers). You could build all your "dungeons" as basement complexes and so forth, and the various secret societies being propped up by different gangs who have carved out their territories.

Just a thought...

[2D8HP]

What about the ruins of an ancient, overgrown megalopolis that's being slowly re-settled? I mean huge, like Manhattan-size (without actual skyscrapers -- or maybe one or two ridiculous towers). You could build all your "dungeons" as basement complexes and so forth, and the various secret societies being propped up by different gangs who have carved out their territories.

Just a thought...


I feel a sudden strange longing to read "Red Nails" by Howard and 'Lords of Quarmall' by Leiber.

Whence the urge came?

[EggKookoo]

Whence the urge came?

I just have a thing for dying earth settings. Not that I'm a pessimist or doomsayer. I just find it satisfying in a fictional narrative sense. Dying earth could actually be very optimistic, with the bulk of humanity elevating to some new level of enlightenment and leaving their old home behind. I love Gene Wolfe's stuff, and not just from the weird trip of reading his prose. The aforementioned Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind has a lot of the setting feel I like. OD&D (1e mainly) had a hint of DE, maybe because of its Vancian roots. My own setting(s) could be described as LotR meets Mad Max.

[2D8HP]

....My own setting(s) could be described as LotR meets Mad Max.


That actually sounds like it could be AWESOME!

I've long maintained that "default D&D" is post-apocalyptic, which brings to mind something REH wrote in one of his letters:


"All my stories... are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time or another by a race who, in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again."



Now that is a proper setting!

[EggKookoo]

That actually sounds like it could be AWESOME!

I don't want to derail Yora's thread. I'm building up the courage to post my own setting thread, although to be honest I'm not quite sure what I'd expect out of doing that.

[Yora]

Just a thought...
A great thought. I had an idea about some refugees taking shelter in a ruined city, but making warlocks and druids creeping around in the underground passages makes it much more elaborate.


I feel a sudden strange longing to read "Red Nails" by Howard and 'Lords of Quarmall' by Leiber.
Also a great idea.

Xuthal of the Dusk? (the one with the sleeping dreamers) also makes for a great lost city. And the island from The Sunken Land also makes a great one-shot dungeon.

[Yora]

This thread (like the bards as priests thread) had been a real help for making me decide which elements of the game I want to use in my campaign. There have been a lot of really good suggestions and in some cases people have been quite insistent that I should reconsider some choices, and after reconsidering them and reading the relevant rules more carefully, I agreed that my initial choice had not been that great. This really has been useful input.

Having the rules mostly in place, my work has now shifted to creating actual content for the campaign and preparing for what is going to happen. While this is mostly unrelated to specific rules, with this thread going so well this far I just want to continue here.

While I have started running games 20 years ago, I don't think anything I ever ran was really that great. Nobody ever complained and players always came back again to play more, I always felt that there is still way more room to become so much more. I had many great ideas over the years, but when it came to actual play I never got to put them into practice. The other big contender that I had been considering for this campaign is Apocalypse World, which in many ways is quite amazing, but the familiarity of D&D makes 5th ed. look much more simple and safe. But one really cool thing that Apocalypse World includes is to set out clear priorities and procedures for the GM to follow. In the heat of action, when you need to keep the game going, you almost always go with whatever feels instinctively right in that moment. And what feels instinctively right is usually the conventional, the generic, the default, and the cliche. So even when I start preparations for a new campaign with the explicit goal to do something different and new, it still ends up being dungeons with a series of encounter rooms and a boss at the end.
So trying to use this really smart sounding advice from Apocalypse World, I want to prepare in advance some objectives and procedures that I can cling to when I need to improvise or create content on short notice. I'd like to hear what you think of these in general, and how optional or variant rules for 5th ed. might come in handy for these purposes. I am certain that there will be people who are feeling personally insulted that I want to play badwrongfun, and want me to not play their beloved game, but I'm not even going to read those posts and won't reapond to them.

1. It's all about the Player Characters: The PCs are the heroes of the adventures. The PCs are the stars of the campaign. Everything revolves around them. The PCs are the reason there is a story in the first place. NPCs are supporting characters, the story is not about them.

2. Player Characters need connections: There will be no mysterious strangers and wandering drifters in the party. These can be great characters, but the tales in which they appear are not really about them. The depths and drama of those stories comes from the backgrounds, motivations, and connections between the other characters. When the campaign is about the PCs, then the PCs need to have connectons. Today I saw the suggestion that GMs should try to make backgrounds be more important than classes. I want to try this, and it make me realize I have not yet looked at what backgrounds do in the game. (Might even create some custom backgrounds for the setting.)

3. Use retainers, hirelings, mounts, and pack animals: If the players don't go looking for them, have NPCs approach them themselves. These are great opportunities to give the players more connections.

4. Everyone can die, every item can be lost: There should be an understanding with the players that the campaign will be about characters who fight and die heroically. As GM, I want to take steps to avoid PCs dying out of the blue from random accidents caused by bad rolls, but in dramatic situations, PCs can die in dramatic ways if their plans don't work out. Players should think of their characters accordingly. Contrary, every NPC lives and dies by the dice. No steps will be taken to ensure that an NPC gets away or a fight goes on longer.
Magic items should be regarded as tools, not as part of a character. They might get broken and they might get stolen, with the PCs never managing to get them back. Players should understand this from the start.

5. New Characters start at 1st level: This could get increased as the other PCs reach higher levels and the difference becomes so big it gets disruptive. If players want to take over an allied NPC, the level might also be higher but still the lowest level character in the party.

6. (Still undecided) PCs only level up at the end of winter: PCs get XP normally, but they can only advance by 1 level at the beginning of spring when they start into a new year of adventures. The goal is not to slow down level advancement, but to steadily progress the in-game calendar. Adventures don't happen end on end, but PCs spend a lot of time at home with their day jobs and travelling to destinations can take weeks. A year might be too short for the highest level PCs to level up every year.

7. Gifts and bribes give big modifiers to negotiate with lords and nobles: Not only adds this a nice ancient feeling cultural element to the setting, it's also a great way to get the players to spend the heaps of treasure they gain.

8. Great stories are made by great antagonists: I only made this realization this week. All the great moments from adventure fictions come from confrontations with major antagonists, or desperate struggles to stop the minions from carrying out the villain's plans. It's almost never the places that make great adventures, though of course a memorable and evocative environment makes a great stage that can greatly enhance the confrontations.
I am as big a fan of cool dungeons as anyone else, but the primary part of setting up a great campaign is the preparation of major NPCs, not the preparation of dungeons.

9. The goal of a fight is not to kill: Enemies are obstacles between the PCs and their goals. When players decide to attack or walk into danger, it should be because their goals demand it, not because fighting is rewarding. This obviously requires to not make XP dependent on combat, though I am not sure yet what to do instead. Basing XP primarily on treasure also seems like a poor fit. But wealth and non-protective magic items can be very sensibly stored in vaults that players can plunder without necessarily fighting the owners.

10. Encounters will not be balanced to be winable for the party: Encounters will be set up according to what makes sense in the situation. There must be indications of how much risk there is for the PCs before they commit to a lethal fight, but it is in the hands of the players if they want to risk the fight or retreat.

11. There need to be multiple routes through every dungeon: Avoiding a possible fight is only an option when the players have other available paths to proceed. If the only other option is to leave and go home, there is no real choice.

12. The environment makes fights interesting: No more empty square rooms. Every fight becomes several times more awesome when there are stairs, balconies, bridges, pits, pools, difficult terrain, obscured vision, ropes, ladders, and fire. Make the opponents move around and use the environment so that the PCs have to follow them.

13. Don't have opponents fight alone: With some exceptions, villains should never allow themselves to get drawn into a fight without their minions. It's just stupid to not use the protection of guards when you can have it. Villains in fiction often fight alone, but that's because the heroes attack them alone. When the PCs fight as a party, so should the villains.

14. Everyone wants to live: With some rare exceptions, nobody goes into a fight without trying to survive. If they know they can not win, they will not attack or try to flee. If it becomes apparent that they can not win, they will try to flee or surrender. Villains will negotiate for their lives and spared enemies not stab the PCs in the back when they have no chance to get away with it. This counts as victory for the PCs, the enemies are defeated, and the PCs get their reward. If there are obvious ways to improve their chances to win the fight without risk of dying, they will use them.
Morale should always be used in fights.

15. Wandering Monsters are important: A stronghold or dungeon is not static. There will be patrols and creatures moving around, with encounters being determined by dice rolls. Players spending a lot of time discussing what to do will lead to random encounter checks, in addition to those based on how long it takes to moves through the dungeon.

16. Use light and darkness and make use of water consistently, and keep precise track of light sources: Both restricted vision and air can massively increase the tension of any situation. Light sources and flooding are both terribly underused aspects in almost all adventures and campaigns.

My homework for tomorrow is XP awards and backgrounds.

[EggKookoo]

9. The goal of a fight is not to kill: Enemies are obstacles between the PCs and their goals. When players decide to attack or walk into danger, it should be because their goals demand it, not because fighting is rewarding. This obviously requires to not make XP dependent on combat, though I am not sure yet what to do instead. Basing XP primarily on treasure also seems like a poor fit. But wealth and non-protective magic items can be very sensibly stored in vaults that players can plunder without necessarily fighting the owners.

This reminds me of something I've been thinking, that D&D and the DMG in particular should put some structure around the concepts of a campaign (a collection of adventures), an adventure (a collection of challenges), a challenge (a collection of encounters), and an encounter. As part of this, an encounter could be defined as one or more entities with a shared goal.

So if you think of each encounter as being made up of entities with a goal -- guard the door; protect the amulet; kill anyone who approaches; SURVIVE! -- then it gets easier to think about how to reward XP for not-killing. If the PCs foil the goal of the entities -- however they do it -- they get XP. If they kill the guards, XP. If the sneak past the guards (thereby defeating the guards' goal of "don't let anyone pass"), same XP. If they bribe the guards, same XP. The XP doesn't come from a mechanical action like fighting, but recognizing and winning against the goals of the encounter. Regardless of how they do that, the PCs get the same amount of XP.

[Vegan Squirrel]

So even when I start preparations for a new campaign with the explicit goal to do something different and new, it still ends up being dungeons with a series of encounter rooms and a boss at the end.

I'd recommend reading this series on node-based design (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach). I recently used nodes to structure a wilderness "dungeon" and it worked quite well. It's just another go-to option to vary your adventures.


5. New Characters start at 1st level: This could get increased as the other PCs reach higher levels and the difference becomes so big it gets disruptive. If players want to take over an allied NPC, the level might also be higher but still the lowest level character in the party.

I'm always intrigued by this possibility, but monster damage and abilities scale up quickly. Perhaps have new characters start at the first level in the party's current tier of play (PHB pg. 15)?


8. Great stories are made by great antagonists: I only made this realization this week. All the great moments from adventure fictions come from confrontations with major antagonists, or desperate struggles to stop the minions from carrying out the villain's plans. It's almost never the places that make great adventures, though of course a memorable and evocative environment makes a great stage that can greatly enhance the confrontations.
I am as big a fan of cool dungeons as anyone else, but the primary part of setting up a great campaign is the preparation of major NPCs, not the preparation of dungeons.

Check out this article by Rich Burlew (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html). I actually printed out, oh, maybe a dozen or so insightful internet articles and put them in my DMing binder to reference when designing various aspects of a campaign.


9. The goal of a fight is not to kill: Enemies are obstacles between the PCs and their goals. When players decide to attack or walk into danger, it should be because their goals demand it, not because fighting is rewarding. This obviously requires to not make XP dependent on combat, though I am not sure yet what to do instead. Basing XP primarily on treasure also seems like a poor fit. But wealth and non-protective magic items can be very sensibly stored in vaults that players can plunder without necessarily fighting the owners.

You talk about achieving goals rather than defeating monsters later, and amen to that! Here's a useful reminder (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?454210-Thread-from-the-Wizard-Forums-Guide-to-Alternate-Goals-in-Combat) of some possibilities.


14. Everyone wants to live: With some rare exceptions, nobody goes into a fight without trying to survive. If they know they can not win, they will not attack or try to flee. If it becomes apparent that they can not win, they will try to flee or surrender. Villains will negotiate for their lives and spared enemies not stab the PCs in the back when they have no chance to get away with it. This counts as victory for the PCs, the enemies are defeated, and the PCs get their reward. If there are obvious ways to improve their chances to win the fight without risk of dying, they will use them.
Morale should always be used in fights.

Definitely. I haven't used a morale system, but I try to know what the monsters are fighting for, and how much they care. Sometimes I'll specifically note how much of a beating they'll take before giving up, but going by the feel of the fight works for me.


My homework for tomorrow is XP awards and backgrounds.

Backgrounds can serve a variety of functions, but foremost among those is getting players to think about their characters as multidimensional, with distinct motivations and internal conflicts. They also serve as one of those connections to the world that you really want—backgrounds can tie characters into organizations like churches, guilds, or armies, or at least give them a place in the world.

As for XP, I don't see anything wrong with any approach to XP; work out something for your group and your campaign. But with your seasonal plan, do take some time to consider how players will use their non-adventuring time. There are lifestyle expenses, and then the crafting, training, and profession rules, which you might want to tweak or further develop for a campaign with an expanded amount of downtime.

I love your ideas, and your campaign sounds like it would be lots of fun to play!

[2D8HP]

"They're coming," whispered Taralyndoah from her seated position beneath a millennium tree.

Poladrian, Justalion of the West, glanced down at the pale woman with the raven locks and simply nodded before turning to look westward to gauge the progress the heathens were making in the pass.

Captain Troyalasdair led his troops through the mountain pass three moons ago. Of the hundred men accompanying him, only a handful of soldiers had returned less than a tenday ago, most gripped with madness. One of the guides of that expedition, Nestorestes, had also returned with this wild-eyed girl in tow. He spoke of a growing horde of Lazarwanion ambling through the Ruewynesta Mountains towards Arberyl, the sprawling ruins they now occupied and were trying to rebuild before this latest news.

Governor-General Bellumarius first arrived on this wretched island continent over a hundred seasons ago. Shortly thereafter, he had attempted to build a road west from Moorhythe Bay through the mountains without much success, eventually abandoning the project altogether. It was a good thing though, Poladrian now thought, as the cobblestones from that old disused road were now being put to good use building a series of walls and other defenses across the pass. They were desperately awaiting another shipment of materials from Riverbend, but Poladrian didn't hold out much hope they would arrive before the Lazarwanion. The crumbling and decayed ruins themselves did not yield many materials for building or repairing anything, much to the chagrin of Stavrossi, the priest in charge of the construction effort.

Standing beneath the millennium grove staring at the heathens as they worked on the defenses, Poladrian wished he were back in Krome, having a flagon or three. No chance of that any time soon he mused, his contract had him stationed here for another four years. Perhaps he'd settle for a pint at the Lusty Mermaid in the port town of Crestuary Point, far to the east of here. Maybe he could persuade Ulanissa or Majunni to dance for him again. Maybe he would dance with both of them at once. For that chance, he thought he might even suffer through listening to more tales from Commander Ormandylan, who seemed to have a permanent seat at the Mermaid...

"They're coming," whispered Taralyndoah again, a slight smile creeping into her expression through the tears which seemed to permanently stain her cheeks with salt, all the way from her viridian eyes to her jawline. She was an eerie little waif to look at most of the time thought Poladrian, but that sadistic grin almost unnerved him.

"I heard you the first time witch!" he growled in reply, tearing his gaze from her to look towards the mountain pass again as if the Lazarwanion would be there any moment.

"No," she said firmly, her eyes flashing a warning before glazing over. "The Time of the Gloaming shall soon be upon the whole of Xentellus. With it hails the arrival of the Others and worse, much worse" she intoned, patting the earth next to where she sat leaning against the nearly thousand foot tree. "They're coming," she paused, tilting her head to the side as if listening, "from below..."




In an age long past Eldarrain Knights fought the diabolical Savolkh and their Tyrgotha minions, slaying the vast majority of them. The Savolkh survivors fled before the knights and their Kin o'Fae allies, hiding themselves away where they could recuperate in remote, dark places. There the most powerful among them have waited, biding their time, until the world forgets them, until their names pass from legend into myth, then from myth out of memory completely.

Then, only then, will they return to reclaim their birthright.
I'm impressed!


....Backgrounds can serve a variety of functions, but foremost among those is getting players to think about their characters as ...


For me "Backgrounds" is the biggest change from old D&D that 5e brings (yes the '79 DMG had "Secondary Skills", but that's not quite the same).

[Yora]

I'm always intrigued by this possibility, but monster damage and abilities scale up quickly. Perhaps have new characters start at the first level in the party's current tier of play (PHB pg. 15)?

I did some quick calculations, and the speed of catching up to other characters in the party isn't much of an issue.
In the extreme case of a new 1st level character joining a party of 9th level characters, by the time the others have enough XP for 10th level, that new character would already have the XP for 7th level.
A new 1st level character joining a party with 5th level characters will have reached 5th level by the time the others have reached 6th, and from then on will always be just one level behind. Doing some spreadsheet magic, I calculated that you need to lag 5 levels (or 14,000 XP) behind for the gap not closing by the time the higher level character gets his next level. At a 23,000 XP lag, it becomes more noticable.

The real issue is indeed whether that new 1st level character will survive those fights in the company of characters five or more levels higher than them.

In a conventional scripted adventure with balanced encounters, I would rule this approach out completely as being totally nonsensical. But in a campaign where encounters are not leveled to the party or the progress of the adventure, the players become significantly more flexible in what they will be facing in battle. The biggest risk in such circumstances is players with higher level characters not being concerned with the fun of the other players and pushing for paths where lower level party members are going to be useless and at extreme risk.

I am not really commited to this idea yet. An alternative is to have characters start at a level one lower than the current lowest level character in the party. Which really is not that much to ask of players. Until the highest level PCs reach 4th or 5th level, that's still probably going to lead to new characters being 1st level. Once the campaign reaches that point, I think there will be sufficient experience with the lethality of the game to judge whether starting at 1st level would still be fun, or whether the level for new characters needs to be set higher.

[Pelle]

I'd like to hear what you think of these in general, and how optional or variant rules for 5th ed. might come in handy for these purposes.


Looks fine to me, a lot if it is similar to how I run my game.



6. (Still undecided) PCs only level up at the end of winter:


Just be sure that players are ok with the characters sitting around and twiddling thumbs, instead of feeling like they have to go out and do something urgent. My players always want to use their time as efficient as possible.



9. The goal of a fight is not to kill:


Make the players determine a goal, either long term or for the session, and give them the amount of xp you think they deserve when they achieve it. You can decide before how much you think it should be, or after, or negotiate with the players about it. Then it doesn't matter if they solve it by combat or something else.

What I do is give out xp per challenge overcomed, as long as it is something that achieves something or brings them closer to a goal. If fighting and killing a group of bandits would be a medium encounter, that's a good measure of xp. If they stealth past them, or parlay with them, you could give them the same xp, or less/more if you think they deserve it. And you can use that for judging how much you want to award overcoming traps, finding important information, etc. At the end of the session we do a recap of what they have done, and I award xp by DM judgement, giving by the books for combats and using that to judge other types of encounters. Doing so, it reinforces what happened in the session so that the players better remember next time, and they learn what I reward the characters for, even if it slightly arbitrary. But it doesn't have to be a rigid system as long as it is fair and follows a pattern.



15. Wandering Monsters are important:


Just be aware that this can take up lot of table time. If the players care more about the destination than the journey this can be unsatisfying.



16. Use light and darkness and make use of water consistently, and keep precise track of light sources:


Just make sure that this is the game experience the players want. With many class features, tracking this quickly becomes pointless. And most of the races have darkvision. Is the gameplay going to be predominantly dungeons? Personally I have hard time motivating my players for dungeons with only the promise of loot and exploration for the sake of exploration.

[Vegan Squirrel]

For me "Backgrounds" is the biggest change from old D&D that 5e brings (yes the '79 DMG had "Secondary Skills", but that's not quite the same).

It's definitely a nod to modern gaming trends. From my understanding, early D&D relied less on character personality, partly due to the higher expected rate of character death (though cause and effect are intertwined). For example, I can't remember a single character in a campaign I've played or run in person where seeking treasure was at all a motivation for adventuring—that was the implicit motivation of early D&D (where gp = XP, in particular). That's not to say one style's better than the other.


...Doing some spreadsheet magic...

The best kind of magic. :smallbiggrin:

So that might work out well for you. But, that also depends on how you handle leveling. If everyone gains one level at a time, roughly every spring, then the rate of XP accumulation will make little difference—everyone will still gain one level per world-year.

Also, with multiple death saving throws and bonus action healing spells, it shouldn't be too hard for higher-level characters to keep lower-level comrades alive. But they might be knocked unconscious uncomfortably often.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KueQNqIVAGRRFKuqsxckRYbpDSzd2HUcOPEvdxfHKk8/edit#

I've found this document a great source for 5e. It has links to everything from official SRD to character building to map making and so much more. It's frequently updated/moderated so the trolls don't do too much damage.

Hope that helps from the mechanics side of running the game!

[Yora]

I think that's just something I can not make any final decision about at this point. This really will depend greatly on how lethal my encounters will turn out and how well or poorly characters will fare in the presence of powerful foes.


Make the players determine a goal, either long term or for the session, and give them the amount of xp you think they deserve when they achieve it. You can decide before how much you think it should be, or after, or negotiate with the players about it. Then it doesn't matter if they solve it by combat or something else.

What I do is give out xp per challenge overcomed, as long as it is something that achieves something or brings them closer to a goal. If fighting and killing a group of bandits would be a medium encounter, that's a good measure of xp. If they stealth past them, or parlay with them, you could give them the same xp, or less/more if you think they deserve it. And you can use that for judging how much you want to award overcoming traps, finding important information, etc. At the end of the session we do a recap of what they have done, and I award xp by DM judgement, giving by the books for combats and using that to judge other types of encounters. Doing so, it reinforces what happened in the session so that the players better remember next time, and they learn what I reward the characters for, even if it slightly arbitrary. But it doesn't have to be a rigid system as long as it is fair and follows a pattern.

XP are primarily a tool to incentivise players. When they get XP, they understand that they did something right and will start to try doing it more often. XP for treasure was actually a great way to incentivise creative sneaking around monsters. XP for combat incentivises to seek out combat.
XP for story development seems the way to go.

[Yora]

I have adopted the stance that you should be completely open about what the players can expect in the campaign. Not just for the purpose of customizing character abilities and gear accordingly, but it really helps everyone a lot with getting the hang of things when they know what kind of story they are in.

Surprises and twists are things that can make for great moments in moderation, but with no kind of fiction do audiences into a story without having a previously existing idea what kind of story it is. Even a mystery is the most fun when you go into it knowing that you will be getting a mystery. A campaign pitch should be like a good trailer. Show a few cool things that will apper without revealing their context, and give an overall impression of the style and the topic of the work.

There are so many adventures and campaigns that start with the players being faced with goblin bandits and wolves, only to have it be revealed in act two that the whole thing is really about mind flayers, yuan-ti, or planar travel, or whatever. I think this is almost universal. But I feel that this is a waste of everybodies time. Buildup is good and important, but don't have the players make their way and get used to one thing before revealing to them what they will actually be doing for the rest of the adventure or the whole campaign.
Surprises are best for unexpected turns of events. Don't surprise the players with what game they will actually playing after they have already been playing for hours or weeks.

[Vegan Squirrel]

I mostly agree, but be sure to throw in those rare exceptions. If the party finds that everyone will flee or surrender all the time, the whole of it becomes less fun. Be sure to throw in some fanatical minions that will gladly sacrifice themselves for their beliefs, the BBEG, etc. The party needs a reason to be vigilant, so one or two rare cases of stabbing the PCs in the back (maybe so at least one of their number can escape and report to the BBEG) may be warranted. Sometimes martyrs are needed, sometimes fanatics just want to die in a blaze of glory. What's logical to the party shouldn't always be the case.
Adding to this, mindless creatures (particularly undead) are much less likely to value self-preservation. I imagine this is already accounted for in old school morale rules, but I've never really looked into them enough to be sure.

[EggKookoo]

Surprises and twists are things that can make for great moments in moderation, but with no kind of fiction do audiences into a story without having a previously existing idea what kind of story it is. Even a mystery is the most fun when you go into it knowing that you will be getting a mystery. A campaign pitch should be like a good trailer. Show a few cool things that will apper without revealing their context, and give an overall impression of the style and the topic of the work.

This is a good time to point out that despite superficial similarities, an RPG (especially a TTRPG) is not the same thing as a narrative story like a movie or book. They appear to share a lot of elements but they really don't.

I ran into this pretty clearly years back when a friend and I tried to make a Highlander RPG (and yes, I know there are many attempts). The biggest issue we ran into was we couldn't make a rule that allowed for instant-death decapitation that wasn't either impossible to ever pull off or made it way too easy to immediately kill someone. The closest we came to was that an immortal could, when making an otherwise normal killing blow, opt to decapitate. But that wasn't especially satisfying. Things happen in stories for very different reasons than why they happen in games.

[Yora]

Don't hate the metagame. Embrace it. Approach the game in the full knowledge that it is a game and work with it as something that is meant to be played. Not something to be observed. The players are primary participants, not an audience, and they have to get involved.

I've been going through all the backgrounds, and I think almost all of them would work great in this setting, with only minor reflavoring.
Both the Guild Artisan and the Soldier can be repurposed as Palace Artisan and Palace Guard. In a setting inspired by bronze age cultures, the palace is the main economic and industrial center, and the king's personal guard the only permanent troops in the kingdom. The king's craftsmen and workshop are the guilds of the period, and the palace guard the army. I'd just switch Intimidation for Perception for the Palace Guard.

The Guild Artisan also makes a good base for a Merchant belonging to a merchant house. Mechanically the same as the regular Guild Artisan, but with navigator's tools instead of artisan's tools, but with different contacts of course.


The Urchin works just as well for a Slave.

I also want to have Temple Guard and Mercenary as new backgrounds.
Acolyte might make a good base for a temple guard with Perception and Religion as skills, but I would like to come up with a somewhat different feature.
Soldier is the obvious base for Mercenary, though I would also like a different feature that relfects the mercenary being a traveler of dubious reputation.

Charlatan and Folk Hero are the only ones I probably don't want to use. I think they don't quite hit the tone.

[Vegan Squirrel]

I also want to have Temple Guard and Mercenary as new backgrounds.
Acolyte might make a good base for a temple guard with Perception and Religion as skills, but I would like to come up with a somewhat different feature.
Soldier is the obvious base for Mercenary, though I would also like a different feature that relfects the mercenary being a traveler of dubious reputation.

I'd look to the Sailor's variant feature Bad Reputation as a possible starting point for your Mercenary feature. Come to think of it, something not too dissimilar could work for the temple guard—people usually assume you're authorized to do what you're doing, even if it's normally illegal for others. At least in civilized areas where the temple holds sway. That's just a spur of the moment thought, though.

[Yora]

That's a good idea. I think something like that might work for the temple guard, assuming the character does in some way appear to be in the service of a temple. Though I probably would phrase the ability somewhat more positively. Maybe NPCs are less insistent on denying temple guards entry or to see someone they are looking for.

For mercenaries, I am thinking more about something that reflects that they have been on campaigns in distant lands, rather than being known thugs.

[KorvinStarmast]

For mercenaries, I am thinking more about something that reflects that they have been on campaigns in distant lands, rather than being known thugs. Mercenary Vteran background in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is OK, but I am not sure if it fits your world's theme.

Skill proficiencies are: athletics / persuasion

Tool proficiecies are a gaming set and land vehicles.

Equipment: merc company clothes/travelers clothes, rank insignia, gaming set, 10 GP being the pay off wage.

Feature: the whole schtick here is knowing who all of the merc companies are in that region of the world, and knowing places where people look for mercs to hire. This reflects your idea of "well traveled so knows things about the world" well enough, I guess.

For ideals, traits, bonds, flaws the Soldier table is good enough.

[Yora]

While I was browsing around for advice on setting up open world campaigns, I remembered that several people advised to work with themes. Key things that the campaign is about. Both in the sense of the events that are playing out, and also in regard to using motifs and symbols that reflect and evoke the theme shared by the events.

I think the main theme I want to go with is Ignorance. People are starting conflicts, cause damage, and set threats into motion not because they mean to, but because they didn't understand what the things they are dealing with are, and are not aware of the side effects of their actions. And things always get much worse when they don't have any interest to understand things they don't know, or don't care what consequences their actions will have for others. The biggest starters of troubles and disasters are people who just do what they want and take what they want and believe that nothing bad could come from that.
Contrasting that primary theme is the secondary theme of Humility. Dangers can be avoided and conflicts resolved when people accept that they don't understand things, that what they think might be wrong, and that much of the world is beyond their control. Problems are solved when people try to learn and understand, and accept that it is not within their power to get everything they want.
This is how I want to introduce new problems to the campaign as it goes along, and the way I want the world react to the actions of the players. When characters try to use brute force to get what they want, things get worse. And when the players work to get a better picture of the situation and understand the reasons of their opponents, then their plans will have better chances of success and things will get better.

In addition to that, I also have five more minor aesthetics and motifs that I want to dominate the entire campaign, from NPCs, to monsters, locations, magic items, and events. Now I am looking for things I can use and do to make the themes and motifs visible to the players.
You've seen the classes and spells I want to use in the campaign, as well as the creatures that are going to populate the world. Maybe you can think of creatures, items, or any other things that could be symbolically associated with these.

Ignorance
The major warlock factions are the primary manifestation of ignorance in the setting. They gain strange powers from sources they don't really understand and use them to control and alter the environment around their cities, without any real idea of what consequences it could have in the long term. There are already countless corrupted wastelands and scorched ruins in the wilderness where their careless ambitions have wiped out city states.

Another representation of ignorance are mercenaries. Most soldiers fight for their king and come from the higher levels of society, so they are quite deeply involved in the conflicts they are fighting in, and they are fighting either in their homelands or the lands of rivial cities they are quite familiar with. Mercenaries generally don't really understand what they are fighting for, and know nothing about the places they are fighting in. And they are strong and well armed, so they don't care what the locals think of them. And most of the time they will soon be leaving for different places where their services are in demand, so they don't feel affected by what happens to the places they are coming through. Sometimes a war goes really poorly, and mercenaries find themselves without a master, with no supplies in a land they know little about and the locals are hostile, regularly resulting in a destructive rampage as they try to find a way back to their distant homelands.

Bandits are very similar to mercenaries in many ways. They have lost most connections to the rest of society and got used to live on whatever they can take from whoever happens to cross their path. They hide out in the wilderness and break or knock over everything that gets in their way if there are no obvious signs of danger to them.

Also out in the Feywild wilderness are uncountable weird anomalies, strange phenomena that warp or outright ignore the rules of nature. There are anomalies of light, gravity, and even time, phenomena that confuse the mind and ravage the body. They aren't spirits that could be bargained with. They simply are. Unpredictable, and unknowable. But while each anomaly is different, they have their own regular patterns. Discovering the patterns can make it possible to get past or through them safely, or even make use of them for some benefit. Though most of the time it is safest to recognize their strangeness and stay well clear of them.

One of the main spirit races are the sidhe (for which I will use a modified succubus).


They look like people, and they talk like people. But they don’t think like people, and they don’t feel like people.

They are unable to feel compassion for mortals, and they are selfish beings, rarely thinking of anyone else. They are volatile and erratic, but not easily harmed, and strike out at each other without thought. When they get agitated, things get broken. And they get agitated easily.

They are always dangerous to be around, even when they like you. They are proud and easy to anger, but you must never go with them.

Humiliy
The only good example of humility I can think of yet are the wilders, the shamanistic barbarians of the wilderness. Wilder see that the natural world is much more vast than themselves and beyond true mortal comprehension. They don't try to tame the land and adopt large scale farming, but accept their place as small creatures among the trees and the spirits. This does not make them nice, hospitable, or friendly people, but they are much more capable to survive out in the wilderness and their tribes have endured over the ages while city states constantly rise and fall.

Timelessness
I've been hugely influenced by 80s fantasy, and works from that time overwhelmingly create for me a feeling that there is no real sense of past history or a more advanced future. In these worlds, it seems like things are as they always have been and always will be. There might be new warlords appearing and conquering cities, but in the bigger picture of things, it doesn't make any difference. Life for the people changes from better to worse and from worse to better, but there is no sense that the current cycle is in any way different than the last.

Civilizations last for so short that they never get really big. There are no empires, only city states.

There also is no universal calendar. All records simply state who is king and for how long he has ruled yet. How long his rule lasted in total, and who came before and after him is something you simply have to know or discover in a chronicle. But even then its fiendishly difficult and often simply impossible to tell which records from one city date from before or after the records from another city. No city state ever got so powerful that its calendar became used by other cities, and most scribes don't why anyone from future city states would ever want to read their records.

Similarly, there is no common tongue. Currently there are the six languages of the main cultural groups, as well as Sylvan (fey, plants, giants), Draconic (yuan-ti), Abyssal (yugoloths), and Aquan (aboleths, kuo-toa), as well as countless dead and monster languages.

Aditionally, time in the lairs of spirits makes no sense. Time seems to flow normally while you're there, but things are effected by it in very unpredictable way. Objects are unaffected by time or eternally on fire without burning out, and then suddenly crumble into dust when the spirit stops caring about them. People get lost and sleep for centuries without starving, or guardians stand vigilant before gates for many ages.

This goes hand in hand with countless ancient and overgrown ruins that still look very spectacular. There are many more ruined cities than currently inhabited ones.

Baroqueness
By which I mean "grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, and flamboyance". I am imagining a visual style (I might be doing some ilustrations for important things to show during play) inpired by Dark Sun, Planescape, Morrowind, Moebius, Dune from the 80s, ancient Greece, Persia, and Egypt. Just with much more trees. Not something that can easily be pinned down, but for me it's primarily huge pillars, big fancy robes, masks, and lots of bronze and gold.

I think the main places where I can go wild with this are temples, and the description of priests and wizards.

And it's the obvious style for templars, the elite soldier-priests of the warlock god kings. These will all be put into fancy shiny armor with elaborate helmets and masks and strikingly colored cloaks.

And the god kings and their palaces will be the most ridiculosuly extravagant and flamboyant things in the whole setting.

The storehouses and ships of merchants should always get some description mentioning some of the exotic goods and items.

There are no dogs, horses, or cows. Instead, the main riding and pack animals are a riding elk, hadrosaur, and triceratops. I am also thinking about guard hyeneas. Wagons are not usually used, because there's no overland roads.

Mythic Wilderness
This is the concept of the Mythic Underworld carried over into the wilderness. The wilderness in this campaign is not just unsettled land, but it is effectively the Feywild. There are patterns, but no laws. The spirits and gods of the land can do whatever they want. Nothing has to make logical sense. Things that are impossible in the mundane world protected by the temples can very well happen in the wilderness. Not frequently, as the wilderness still on average behaves mostly like one would expect nature to, but every seeming rule can be broken.
When you negotiate with spirits, they often make demands that seem to make no sense, or ask for things to be done that appear to serve no purpose. And for every thing that a spirit can do that should be impossible, there's also a restriction that leaves it powerless to do things that should be trivially easy. The rules by which spirits live are very different from the rules of mortals, and it's very difficult to predict what these could be.

Weather
Since the world is mostly wilderness and open sea, I want the weather to have a presence as much as I can.

Storms are very frequent and sudden, and often quite violent.

Earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions are also somewhat common.

When the skies are clear, they are very impressive. The sun is big and yellow-orange, which makes dawn and dusk make up long portions of the day, and the moon is a massive blue gas planet that dominates the sky. There are also frequent polar lights.

Polar light signal that the spirits are agitated and the wilderness becomes even more dangerous and unpredictable.

With the moon being that much larger than the sun, eclipses are quite common, happening once or twice during most springs and falls and lasting up to half an hour. During eclipses, it is possible to accidentally walk into the Etheral Plane and end up stuck there when the eclipse ends, so it's always best to stay in place and wait out the eclipse. Which becomes much more difficult whenat the same time the wards created by the temple that keep spirits calm and out of sight lose much of their strength. People usually seek safety in temples or homes guarded by protective runes when an eclipse approaches. When the sky is clear, eclipses can be easily predicted several days in advance, as the moon is passing closer and closer by the sun, and it becomes quite obvious in the hour or so before it begins. When the sky is overcast, an eclipse can come from out of nowhere. However, priests and many wizards can give quite accurate predictions for when the next eclipses are going to happen, if they are asked.

I also love fog.

Druids have various spells related to wind, water, ice, and lightning, but I removed all their fire spells.

Fire
Partly I am shamelessly copying Dark Souls. But it also just happened to come out that way when several parts about the setting came together. In this world, all fire comes from hell. Or rather, from the Realm Beneath. Fire is the power of the underworld.

One of the three deities of the largest religion is the goddess of the home and known as a keeper of fire. Fire is extremely useful and necessary for civilization, but it is also very dangerous. She is not a deity of fire, but rather guards the fire and keeps it contained, which mirrors most people's perception of fire.

I'm also a big fan of lamps as magic items. It's the enchanted glas that makes them magical, but its the fire that gives them their power. They are very useful and can protect against spirit, but they are also fragile prisons of fire.

Fiend Warlocks are the biggest manifestation of this element. They have access to many fire spells and they are the only ones to have any fire magic. Druids and wizards don't have any fire spells.

Unlike the other elementals, which come from the Feywild, fire elementals come from the Realm Beneath.

One of the two planes that make up the Realm Beneath is Gehenna, the plane of giant volcanoes within an endless black void. (The other one is Pandemonium.)

--

Some of these things could be in multiple categories. Which is actually perfect. Maybe some of you have ideas for creatures, spells, or items that also have associations with these themes.

[Yora]

For those who are curious: Here's my campaign material (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?582573) that I created help from this thread.