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View Full Version : DM Help Westmarches style campaign thoughts.- a rambling mess.



KyleG
2021-02-10, 06:17 AM
I want to start a story without a BBEG. As a start i have a small somewhat western-esk town i want to ingrain my players in at session zero. They might be the barber, the priest or the sheriff, the woman passing thru, or the miner working each day. But they live this life. I have some adventure ideas. Trouble in a mine, a drug (gives magic) problem in town, missing person idea, passing caravan with some issues and somethings going on near the smaller satellite town. and that's just to name a couple. I've easily got a half dozen adventurers i could run if they get invested in town. Maybe they get drawn out of town to the big smoke or the open wilds for some reason and have to leave deputies, apprentices and acolytes in charge and their relationships prior determine the success of those individuals.
But what i don't have is a BBEG and it doesn't feel wrong except for the internet which says hook your players into the BBEG/inciting incident. Of course i intend to seed things that are happening elsewhere, people will come thru with tales, PCs have knowledge of there own (well those that haven't been here a while), and the world is their oyster. And even though the play is likely to be regular and with consistent players i think we are going to run it a little west-marches style until things stretch too far from home that is.
Of got ideas of dragonshards (a diamond like crystal) being magically important, new magictech arrising in the world and even had this though of magical nulls. NPCs with no connection to magic, certain types of magic dont work on them, or certain spells, or all magic. I'm not sure if they are the norm and thus making the PCs mutants or if they are something new arising, or even something that just is. Some people do get hurt and die in this world, magic cant save everyone perhaps.

Please add your thoughts and suggestions, your questions and comments. I want to flesh out the properties of this world and the 'local' adventures a little before committing to doing this.

Lacco
2021-02-10, 11:27 AM
But what i don't have is a BBEG and it doesn't feel wrong except for the internet which says hook your players into the BBEG/inciting incident.

Oh, your players will get you BBEG sooner or later - and not just one. In this case, you are just letting the players pick one of the rogues gallery instead of choosing for them - so, good for you.


Please add your thoughts and suggestions, your questions and comments. I want to flesh out the properties of this world and the 'local' adventures a little before committing to doing this.

I'd go for strange locations that provide something to discover and play with in addition to traditional sites. Depending on how weird you want it to be...

A forest where everybody gets lost, and if you drop something, you will find your way out and find an item somebody else dropped.

A pool of water that shows people what dangers/challenges they will face in future (completely random, most of the time truthful).

Dream circles, which may show you future, past, make your dreams manifest or even transport you elsewhere.

Temporal displacement sites, places out of time, places where past replays and affects future...

I'd also go for some of the traditional tropes, maybe with a twist. Wild hunt (ghost riders in the skies, chasing their herd - you can join them and if you survive, you'll be dropped somewhere else with a reward), the Bulletproof Sherrif, campsite with few shady figures that play poker (one of them being Death)...

Democratus
2021-02-11, 03:38 PM
A West Marches style campaign is much more of an exploration and discovery kind of game.

Think about the tales of famous adventurers going off to the South Pole or mapping out the Amazon river.

There will be ancient temples, strange and wonderous creatures, magnificent vistas...

In a "Marches" game, the story is about the brave adventurers who go out to tame the land, discover its wonders, and bring back treasures that will set them up for life!

No ticking clock to the end of the world. No scheming demigod attempting to steal the constellations from the sky.

Though...that being said.

I usually steal from 2-5 megadungeons and seed them throughout the land as well. These often have BBEGs going about their nefarious deeds away from the prying eyes of civilization. :smallcool:

But the characters will be totally unaware of these threats until such time as they uncover them in their exploration. :smallcool:

TridentOfMirth
2021-02-14, 02:43 PM
One of the benefits of a west marches style game is that you do not need a BBEG. You just need to seed the marches with interesting villains, antagonists, threats and mysteries. The overarching story is the players exploring an unexplored wilderness.

Something I have done in the past when designing West Marches campaigns is to create higher level areas within lower level "zones". Like, an ancient, foreboding tomb located in the middle of a valley infested with goblins and wolves. It makes your world seem to possess more depth and nuance than it otherwise would.