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gm_rand
2008-04-03, 11:36 AM
Ever since I saw Shrek I’ve wanted to try and run a Fairy Tale game for a group of adventures from a D&D setting. So after seven years I’ve finally tried it out.

Fist problem was finding the right group of people to play it. The group consists of long time friends and family, most of them very experienced players.

I had to find a way to bring the party. I could have simply had them encounter some wizard that banished them to another land. While a total cop out it may have worked out better then what I went with. Impassible mountains range even by magical means that a dwarven kingdom had eventually managed to dig trough the other side off. The party is part of a hand picked expedition group.

First adventure was Little Red Riding hood. Replaced the big bad wolf with a werewolf. I also had the local dialect be common just for the sake of being able to keep the game flowing. I did however make it to where it was a heavily accented so that there were some issues with communication. To give the game the right feeling I tried to keep the players off balance with some things. In this world pretty much all of your woodland creatures can talk (keeping with most fairytale stories/movies). I also made it to where all wolves where werewolves. The adventure ended with the party saving Red and having to fend off the rest of the pack when they came after them and then track down the packs Alpha Matron and take her out as well. I think the party would have liked a little more combat but the base of the game evolved a bit of role-playing and set up for the campaign.

For the Second adventure I did Beauty and the Beast. I tried to do the prep work to where the party could either make the adventure a fight with Gaston (from Disney version) or the Beast if they saw fit. In this game I put a lot of emphasis on Gaston and making him a non-noble aspiring to take over the town by making Belle (of noble blood but not rich) his wife. This game I used bandits for the initial encounter to start the story, a fistfight between one the main melee types and Gaston for the party to gauge his strength. And a final battle of Gaston’s thugs and an angry mob of Gaston insisted villagers followed up immediately with saving the Beast from Gaston. Due to time constraints on the session I was unable to play out the option of the part taking on the Beast but it all worked out well enough and the players had a good time.

The next part plot for this game is for the party to be introduced to the king. The Beast happens to be as cousin and will introduce the party to him. Now to tie in other fairytale stories I’ve decided that the king wants to get his sons married off for several reasons. Mainly to busy them with a wife and land of their own so they don’t start eyeing his crown. So basically the party is going to have to help the Prince Charmings save the Princesses. Each Princess is however is attached to a sorceress that has put whatever hardship upon them. These each will have to be defeated to free the princesses. So while the Princes get to break the curse with true loves kiss the party does all the dirty work.

The true arch nemesis of the party is going to be one of the kings’ sons. He’s always wanted his fathers crown but is too far down the line to ever hope of getting it and offing his brothers would be all too obvious. He however knows that the witches get the power to due the really nasty curses from their cauldrons and will use the party to collect them all for himself.

Yeah so now that I’ve run at the mouth…or keyboard for too long I come to the main point of this post. What princess should I use? So far I’m thinking Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella (will take some tweaking for enough combat) and possibly Rapunzel. The thing is I think I might like to have a few more then that. Any other suggestions or input? I’d like to try and have the number be around 7 but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it with out really stretching it for fairytales to rip off?

Totally Guy
2008-04-03, 11:47 AM
"How long have we been walking North? Three months? And we've not come across a single gingerbread house. What kind of campaign setting is this?"
- Rohias Lawful Good Human Fighter

bbugg
2008-04-03, 11:50 AM
Runplestilstkin could be modified such that he's a troll that has to be circumvented to get at a 'princess'. I'm not sure how to rig the 'guess my name' bit, but it could be done.

Hansel and Grettle could also me modified for a young prince and princess. I've always loved the candy forest...

RTGoodman
2008-04-03, 11:51 AM
I don't remember if she's really a "princess" per se, but you could use Scheherazade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade) from the "1001 Nights" or "Arabian Nights" (or whatever you want to call it). Basically, there's a king who takes a new wife each day and then kills here. Scheherazade volunteers to go one day, and manages to stay alive by telling the King (or Sheik or whatever he is) a new story each day. This could be an excellent opportunity to use some non-Western mythology/folklore/fairy tales, and will also give an opportunity for more role-playing. Also, if you have a Bard, he'll probably love it.

Also, if you want another mini-adventure to throw in at some point, my old Russian roommate introduced me to the fairy tale of Baba Yaga, which could make an interesting session or so (since kidnapping children is always fun!).

riddles
2008-04-03, 11:56 AM
make the ugly sisters hags with class levels!

batsofchaos
2008-04-03, 12:10 PM
You could modify Through the Looking Glass to suit your purpose. I'd suggest Looking Glass over Wonderland, because of the chess game. It's not really directly mentioned in the text, but Alice is clearly a pawn, and when pawns reach the last row of the chess-board they become Queens. Just make her a little older, add in some assistance necessity from the party (Jabberwocky fight!), and you've got a good little adventure!

Little Mermaid could be adapted, but does require water-breathing, which may be an issue.

Princess and the Pea, maybe.

Wizard of Oz could potentially be adapted, but would require some intense work, if only to make it a love story.

That's all I got for now.

Kol Korran
2008-04-03, 12:10 PM
the above post actually gave me an idea (arabian nights)- if you want to go towards the desert setting, why not Jasmine? Aladin's sweetheart? the king wishes to marry one of his son to a wife that will be very, very, very far away, and sned the adventureres (with or without prince) to woe her. instead of a sorceress, there is a sorcerer this time (Jafar), who sends them on some quest, and then perhaps betrays them (the lamp's cave). the party gets out, vanquishes the sorcerer, and get the countrie's sheik to marry his daughter. hurrah!

and as to aquatic campaign- how about the little mermaid? the witch protecting the mefork princess either battles the characters, with a host of marine creatures, or alternetavely asks them to get rid of a tiny close by neighboring kingdom, who hunts merfolk for sports.

just as an idea for Repunzal: the tower is either very, very, very tall, or it might even be an actual mountain! the hair of repunzel could be found anywhere, and could assist with support. as to enemies- gargoyles, giant eagles/ rocs, other flying beaties? you could maek the hairs be cursed, and work as assisn vines at times, just to add a creep out feeling.

another classic is the castle that fell asleep because of a poisoned thread. (or is that sleeping beauty, got all of my fiary tales mixed up). this could be a dungeon with a time limit- the longer they stay the sleeper they get... but where is the princess in this enourmeous castle? as to enemies- plants, oozes, perhaps incorporeal undead? perhaps animated objects? outsiders the sorceress summoned?

jusy my ideas. hope they help. it should be a great campaign, if the players are of the right feel...

bbugg
2008-04-03, 12:13 PM
Must they be from fairy tales, or could you use other princess stories as well?

I'm pictuing dozens of turtles, owls and other Mario related things protecting the captured princess...

Dervag
2008-04-03, 12:16 PM
Must they be from fairy tales, or could you use other princess stories as well?

I'm pictuing dozens of turtles, owls and other Mario related things protecting the captured princess...
Sorry, Mario! Our princess is in another castle!

Darrin
2008-04-03, 12:20 PM
Yeah so now that I’ve run at the mouth…or keyboard for too long I come to the main point of this post. What princess should I use? So far I’m thinking Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella (will take some tweaking for enough combat) and possibly Rapunzel. The thing is I think I might like to have a few more then that. Any other suggestions or input? I’d like to try and have the number be around 7 but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it with out really stretching it for fairytales to rip off?

Sleeping Beauty would be the easiest to adapt, and the narrative structure lends itself more easily to D&D. Beautiful princess is cursed, entire castle is encased in evil plant creatures, heroes must fight their way in, avoid traps/monsters left by the witch, find the princess, remove the curse, and restore the kingdom. You can also tweak things a bit with the princess, requirements of the curse, etc... perhaps none of the PCs are "virtuous" enough to provide the all-important kiss, or the princess isn't interested in men, or she wakes up and doesn't want to go back to the prince (she knows he's evil, she's an evil demon herself, or has fallen in love with some other inconvenient suitor). Actually, you could probably adapt Palace of the Silver Princess with a little effort:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20020121x7

Snow White would be difficult to adapt, unless the queen has sent them to deliver a special "Fruit of the Month Club" gift and the 7 dwarves in question were tipped off that "hostile" PCs were on their way. They take Snow White back to their heavily fortified and trap-laden mine... [deep movie trailer voice] the dwarves were clever, yes... but greedy, and they dug too deep. They awakened Durin's Bane...

Cinderella... hard to do, if you assume the primary events have already happened: mysterous woman shows up to the ball, disappears, leaves the prince with a glass slipper, and he demands that the PCs "find her!" I'd probably do it as a social intrigue/investigation scenario, where the PCs are tracking down attendees at the ball, questioning them, and running into tight-lipped antagonistic nobles who resent the low-born PCs while trying to cover up a domestic slavery ring of some sort.

I'm not sure what I'd do with Rapunzel... kinda hard to build an entire scenario around one single DC 10 Climb check.

Here's one that might really throw your PCs for a loop, if they're not familiar with it... Madame d'Aulnoy's "The White Cat":

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/1892/whitecat.html

Will they do as the White Cat demands, and brutally murder her? Then again, that's usually not a problem for most PCs.

Acrux
2008-04-03, 01:16 PM
The "Fables" comic book graphic novel series might be another good resource to steal ideas from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fables_%28Vertigo%29

Pronounceable
2008-04-03, 01:53 PM
Hey, I made a whole campaign with this premise. Though I twisted all tales. It was great but sadly ended in a TPK thanks to player stupidity.

1001 Nights has a truckload of princesses, but most would be unfamiliar. Peach and/or Zelda could be good choices, considering they're extremely recognizable. One would have armies of turtle and mushroom monsters, while other had a very powerful elf guardian.

More tales for you: Pied Piper. Frog Prince. Puss in Boots. Peter Pan. Ali Baba and 40 Thieves. Sindbad. Pinocchio. Alice in Wonderland. Wizard of Oz. Ugly Duckling. Treasure Island.

Now that there's an oppurtunity, I'll shamelessly tell about my fairy tale ripoff:


It had a village beset by rats, where a mob was about to burn a wandering minstrel (who played a pipe) at the stake. He was rescued. But unfortunately he was actually an evil necromancer looking for a major artifact; and he was the cause of rat plague. Because he was a wererat. Later on, he found that artifact and razed the village. Then raised its population as the familiar undead horde.

There was a woman wearing a red cloak who hired the party to escort her through the dangerous forest to her granny's hut. There was an invincible wolf monster.

The granny turned out to be a a witch who proceeded to curse the party. She wanted them to go to a rival witch's castle on an island. The witches had cursed each other: this one couldn't leave the hut and other was put to sleep. To break her curse, the crone needed the other's familiar captured. Party's task should've been easy since other witch was incapacitated. She didn't mention other witch could only be woken by someone working for this witch. She also didn't mention the familiar was a magical cat who (among other things) could disappear bit by bit, leaving its grin behind.

As Murphy would have it, party woke the other witch once they reached her. Unlike the crone, she was stunningly beautiful and rich. Not to mention as rotten as the other. She struck a deal with the party to assasinate the crone. Which they did, freeing themselves of her curse.

Party (while trying to get to the witch's island) got mixed in a war between two famous pirates. One had a hook for a hand, and the other had one leg and walked with a crutch. Main reason for this was being tricked into it by an infamous rakshasha who had shiny boots.

Party was saved from the pirates (and subsequently captured) by the Kingdom's army, which was responding to a mad necromancer's rampage. Which was of course the piper. The general leading the army was a dwarf, who was one of the several (seven, to be exact) extremely powerful people (all dwarves for some reason) of the Kingdom. The army defeated the undead horde, but the piper was long gone.

The Kingdom was ruled by a pale princess, who was famously the fairest in the land.

Unfortunately as they were about to be rescued thanks to some scheme of the aforementioned rakshasa, one player managed to piss off the dwarf general so bad they got executed.

The final boss of the campaign was going to be the Snow White (who was a very capable, if a bit wicked, witch), who had been secretly having beautiful girls/women murdered to uphold her reputation. The seven powerful dwarves were her willing slaves, enslaved by her succubusy "talents". She was posessed by the magical mirror, though.

There was gonna be a whole lot more stuff, but I've blabbed enough as is.

Smiley_
2008-04-03, 02:02 PM
Now that there's an oppurtunity, I'll shamelessly tell about my fairy tale ripoff:


It had a village beset by rats, where a mob was about to burn a wandering minstrel (who played a pipe) at the stake. He was rescued. But unfortunately he was actually an evil necromancer looking for a major artifact; and he was the cause of rat plague. Because he was a wererat. Later on, he found that artifact and razed the village. Then raised its population as the familiar undead horde.

There was a woman wearing a red cloak who hired the party to escort her through the dangerous forest to her granny's hut. There was an invincible wolf monster.

The granny turned out to be a a witch who proceeded to curse the party. She wanted them to go to a rival witch's castle on an island. The witches had cursed each other: this one couldn't leave the hut and other was put to sleep. To break her curse, the crone needed the other's familiar captured. Party's task should've been easy since other witch was incapacitated. She didn't mention other witch could only be woken by someone working for this witch. She also didn't mention the familiar was a magical cat who (among other things) could disappear bit by bit, leaving its grin behind.

As Murphy would have it, party woke the other witch once they reached her. Unlike the crone, she was stunningly beautiful and rich. Not to mention as rotten as the other. She struck a deal with the party to assasinate the crone. Which they did, freeing themselves of her curse.

Party (while trying to get to the witch's island) got mixed in a war between two famous pirates. One had a hook for a hand, and the other had one leg and walked with a crutch. Main reason for this was being tricked into it by an infamous rakshasha who had shiny boots.

Party was saved from the pirates (and subsequently captured) by the Kingdom's army, which was responding to a mad necromancer's rampage. Which was of course the piper. The general leading the army was a dwarf, who was one of the several (seven, to be exact) extremely powerful people (all dwarves for some reason) of the Kingdom. The army defeated the undead horde, but the piper was long gone.

The Kingdom was ruled by a pale princess, who was famously the fairest in the land.

Unfortunately as they were about to be rescued thanks to some scheme of the aforementioned rakshasa, one player managed to piss off the dwarf general so bad they got executed.

The final boss of the campaign was going to be the Snow White (who was a very capable, if a bit wicked, witch), who had been secretly having beautiful girls/women murdered to uphold her reputation. The seven powerful dwarves were her willing slaves, enslaved by her succubusy "talents". She was posessed by the magical mirror, though.

There was gonna be a whole lot more stuff, but I've blabbed enough as is.


Beautiful!

Anywhoo, How would one make the ugly duckling into a campaign?

"The ugly duckling was really ugly. People would come from all over to see the ducks and say, 'what a fine bunch of ducks, exapt that one. It's really ugly.' But thr ugly duckling didn't mind. He knew he would grow up to be a swan igger and better than anything else in the pond.

Well, turns out he was just a really ugly duckling and he grew up to be a really ugly duck."

A half fiendish pseudonatural paragon duck!

RTGoodman
2008-04-03, 02:19 PM
Anywhoo, How would one make the ugly duckling into a campaign?

Well, that's what baleful polymorph (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/balefulPolymorph.htm) is for! Just turn your most bigoted player/character into an ugly duckling, and then teach him that even if someone's ugly/different, they could turn out to be an unfortunate adventurer. Or a were-swan.


A half fiendish pseudonatural paragon duck!

Or that. :smallbiggrin:


Also, the Pied Piper story is an awesome idea. The Piper can be a NE or CE Bard with a set of Pipes of the Sewer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicitems/wondrousitems.htm#pipesoftheSewers) and who specializes in mass enchantment spells. Oh, and stealing children.

Telonius
2008-04-03, 02:33 PM
(Jabberwocky fight!)

I suppose it hardly needs mentioning that this alone would give actual grounds for a Vorpal weapon to be used in the campaign.

hamishspence
2008-04-03, 03:54 PM
Ugly duckling growing up to be really ugly duck has been written, is the first in a compilation of spoofed fairy taled, entitled Yucky Ducky.

That said, fairy tales are great sources. Modifying them can lead to fun, if perhaps a little tongue in cheek, adventures.

In fact any good fantasy should be minable for ideas, from old, to recent.

Swarms of glimmerlings: scary fairies!

Randel
2008-04-03, 08:06 PM
The Big Bad wolf would be a shifter (or werewolf) druid who goes around using Control Winds to blow apart houses and other unnatural structures.

=======

The goose that layed a golden egg would be almost a minor artifact, owned by a local farmer Baron named Humphry Dumpty. The son of the origional farmer, he has the golden goose safely hidden away where he collects the gold eggs and melts them to make bars. He also has a very very large farm and lots of animals, namely geese (he's trying to see if another golden goose shows up).

However, someone finds out about the goose and trys to capture it. Humphry sets loose a bunch of other geese so the theives have to grab them as well since they can't tell which is the origional.

He contacts the PCs and offers a reward for them to get all his geese back and stop the thieves. Though he doesn't want them to know the nature of the one he really wants and its a race against the clock because the gold goose will be found when it lays its egg the next morning.

========

Geppeto could be a wizard who manages to create a warforged scout (its like a warforged but small sized) people find out about it and want to steal pinocheo to learn about his construction and make a tireless army of soldier constructs.

The blue fairy is a powerful fey who is bound to a passing comet, for only a few nights per hundred years she can be summoned by a mortal wishing as they sees her prison fly by. She hopes to gain her freedom somehow.

========

During an ocean journey, the PCs find three men adrift in a wooden tub, the only survivors of a shipwreck brought about by sirens.

Naturally, they are a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker.

=========

A disagreeable witch prides herself on having the grandest garden imaginable. growing all sorts of plants, herbs, plant-like monsters and even flowers that grow up into beautiful maidens who help her in her work.

A prince wanders by and becomes enamored by one of the maidens who finds him hansome in turn. When the witch finds out, she flat out refuses to let them see eachother and has plant monsters chase the prince away. Locking up her wayward plant-maiden in a tower, she trys to cure her of the ailment that makes her think shes human.

The witch relocates her other plant-maidens to keep them from going wayward as well, which wrecks havok with her scheduling and leaves her little time to deal with the one in the tower. Rapunzel (as she's called) has plenty of water and sunlight and a little soil (but no human food) so she's perfectly fine though her hair does grow very long due to not being trimmed regularly.

The PCs might find the prince who needs their help getting past the guardian plant monsters and the vicious thorns at the towers base. They might manage to 'rescue' Rapunzel but cursory examination shows that she is a plant instead of human. Though a polymorph spell or Wish from a genie or the Blue Fairy should net them a happily ever after.

The witch is very protective of her garden and would need convincing to let Rapunzel go. If any of the PCs show an interest in the other plants they see they need to be very flattering and show at least some knowledge of arcane horticulture to get her to help them with anything.

Oh, and for a laugh, reveal that the witches name is Mary Mary. Shes quite contrary and is understandably secretive of the methods she uses to create her more prized plants, beuitiful bell-shaped flowers made of pure silver, large bivalve flytraps that capture intruders, and of course her pretty maidens who seem most at ease standing in a row awaiting her orders.

========

If your players run into a castle siege, add a seige golem to the battlements guarding the outer wall named Humpty Dumpty by the soldiers. Able to put up a fight with heavy ranged attacks, naturally if the wall were to crumble and send their faithful golem crashing to the ground there would be a great reward to anyone with the skill to repair it to full operation again... none of the kings men possess the skill to do so unfortunately.

Pronounceable
2008-04-04, 05:27 AM
If your players run into a castle siege, add a seige golem to the battlements guarding the outer wall named Humpty Dumpty by the soldiers. Able to put up a fight with heavy ranged attacks, naturally if the wall were to crumble and send their faithful golem crashing to the ground there would be a great reward to anyone with the skill to repair it to full operation again... none of the kings men possess the skill to do so unfortunately.

That sounds like a work for Gepetto!


The Ugly Duckling can be played out in several ways:

1) She's the only ugly child in a family reknown for the beauty of women. Ashamed, she runs away to become an adventurer. Then party finds and rescues her from bandits or something. She wants to join them. She's quite ugly, annoying, not very smart and very very stubborn. But she means well. Depending on the party's treatment of her, she'll become their lifetime supporter or nemesis. Of course, she grows up to be an extremely beautiful woman and a famous adventurer. The problem of time can be solved by getting the party trapped in stasis or cursed into sleep or something like that. There's surely stuff in some fairy tale that can be plot deviced to fast forward some years.

2) She was hideous. Her parents abandoned her. She worked in a travelling circus and people paid to see her. Growing up was a huge improvement, now she's merely very ugly. No one ever showed her compassion. She (undestandably) hates everyone, especially beautiful and/or handsome people. She still works at the circus, having nowhere else to go. Since she isn't ugly enough for the freakshow, but too ugly to be displayed, she does odd jobs and generally hangs around. Everyone secretly pities her, so they didn't tell her she's useless for the circus now. But she knows it, and hates them more for it.
She's a bottomless pit of hate, anger and contempt. And she found a way to get even with the world. She kills. She's smart and sneaky. She secretly sneaks off at nights, and kills people wherever they travel. Never more than a few and possibly looking like accidents. She tries to cause maximum sorrow; the baby of a newlywed couple, the father of nine little kids, the merry old woman everyone likes, the fairest girl/handsomest boy in town, the cutest little kid, the old wise priest everyone listens to...

3) She's ugly. At least, that's what she thinks. She's very beautiful, but say that to her face and see if you can survive her anger at "being mocked". She's an infamous adventurer with some weird issues. The problems stem from the fact that her sister is Snow White, the single most beautiful woman ever. For some reason, she fails to see that her beauty surpasses most women and the everpresent advances of men are certainly poor attempts at crude humor. Her inferiority complex knows no bounds. She's determined to show the world you don't *need* a pretty face to be famous and successful (kind of ironic, considering her pretty face).

...


Seeing this is as good a place as any, I'll keep babbling on the stuff I had for my short lived fairytale campaign:


There's the Archmage Oswald, who lives in a faraway tower with the famous road paved with gold leading to it. His price is steep, but he can do anything. Even send the PCs home who were mysteriously whisked away from their world into this weird one.

There's a rampaging golem blocking a major trade route on a mountain pass, slaughering everyone it encounters. It's probably made by the most famous artificier in the world (because it asks people if they've seen him before slaughtering them), who hasn't been heard of for years. There's a huge bounty for stopping the golem's rampage. Problem is, it's quite invincible. Only its maker would know how to stop it.

The artificier is alive and well. He's actually working on that problem. He considers the golem to be his masterpiece. He made it after his son caught a fatal disease, with the intention of preserving him. He successfully made a body and placed his son's brain in it. But there was something wrong, and golem went mad. It escaped. The artificier made a couple of large and powerful constructs, a fox and a cat, to restrain and bring his son back. Problem is, they're unfinished. He ran out of materials. The cat lacks eyes and the fox lacks one leg. Then he heard about his rampaging son and had to send out the unfinished constructs. The constructs need help if they are to find and apprehend the mad golem.

Once the golem is deactivated, fox and cat are going to take it back to the artificier to be repaired, who lives in his workshop: a collosal, clockwork whale wandering the ocean. But the if golem can be reverse engineered, it can be used to create unstoppable armies. Fox and cat will appreciate any help to protect the deactivated golem from ambitious wizards and their henchmen. Said wizards might reward anyone helping them however.

There's a large network of criminals, led by a secret mastermind known as the Father. His proxy is a band of forty hardened, elite mercs scouring the countryside. They appear and disappear seemingly at will. The Kingdom's spymaster (who happens to be a dwarf) needs the forty mercs found and killed. He also wants to identify the Father. What the dwarf spymaster needs is undercover agents.

There's a small band of thieves hanging around in a small forest. They are led by a bandit who's probably the world's best marksman. They steal from the rich, and give to the poor. They are good people. Problem is, their leader is a spy for another country who's actually creating a spy network in the Kingdom. His men have sympathy of the common folk, who hear much. He has recruited many informants, but he has few field agents capable of serious espionage. He needs help. On the other hand, so does the Kingdom.