How would you run a Viking campaign?

[Jeivar]

I'm tempted to see if I can get my friends to play a Viking-inspired D&D campaign, either in 3.5 or 5.

But how to go about it? Most of the classes don't seem to fit with the aesthetic, including all of the arcane ones. Viking paganism wasn't about nature worship, so no druids, stealthy rogues are a poor fit for a culture with very little urbanisation, monks are right out and I'm not even sure about clerics.

Weapons and armour would of course need to be restricted to what was available during the Viking Age, and I'm wondering whether to just scrap the alignment system entirely; I just don't know what to do with being honourable and just at home but a brutal pillager abroad.

And then there's the issue of how to handle sailing.

Any suggestions? Is there a Viking supplement out there that has simply passed me by?

[Whyrocknodie]

I just don't know what to do with being honourable and just at home but a brutal pillager abroad.

Recognition for honourable behaviour isn't generally relevant when the flip side is going a-viking. Regular alignments expect vikings to be Evil, they be the bad guys. You could just ditch the alignment system for maximum ease, or you could go all-in and say 'yes, you're reprehensible scum' and roll with it. They are 'honourable' at home because the alternative is being gutted alive by their better armed and supported overlords.

If you want viking themed heroic entertainment just make the party norse heroes who aren't vikings but are fighting against an evil king, dragons, ettins, etc etc. And maybe the evil king sends out the vikings or something!

[Yora]

What part about Vikings do you want in your game?

Do you want D&D with Scandinavian elements, a fantasy version of Scandinavia, or a mostly historical campaign in actual Scandinavia?

Do you want legendary heroes fighting mythical monsters, or raiders plundering human settlements.

There are a lot of very different ways to bring Viking stuff into D&D.

One of the most fascinating Viking games I've ever read is Saga of the Icelanders, which deals a lot with village politics and has Viking wives and Viking children among the PC options, as well as slaves and several other not usually seen characters for players. It seems really fascinating and completely different from D&D.

[Razade]

Why does it need to be D&D exactly? There's a game called Saga of the Icelanders that's all about living as Vikings settling Iceland.

[Duff]

I'm tempted to see if I can get my friends to play a Viking-inspired D&D campaign, either in 3.5 or 5.

But how to go about it? Most of the classes don't seem to fit with the aesthetic, including all of the arcane ones. Viking paganism wasn't about nature worship, so no druids, stealthy rogues are a poor fit for a culture with very little urbanisation, monks are right out and I'm not even sure about clerics.

Weapons and armour would of course need to be restricted to what was available during the Viking Age, and I'm wondering whether to just scrap the alignment system entirely; I just don't know what to do with being honourable and just at home but a brutal pillager abroad.

And then there's the issue of how to handle sailing.

Any suggestions? Is there a Viking supplement out there that has simply passed me by?

Do you want the story Vikings or actual Vikings?
Because the story Vikings were written by the people getting raided so they went long on the brutal pillage and light on the self grooming and having women warriors etc.
So if you go actual history, the brute away/honor at home becomes less an issue since they still have honour when raiding. OTOH, if you go full story beserker, they can be brutal thugs at home as well.

Fighters, rangers and scouts (either 3.5 scouts or scout variant rogues) should work just fine. Lack of Clerics for healing in 3.5 would make recovery from battle slow (Which might be a good thing if you want a more historical feel) while 5th will have more of a movie feel as characters who don't die will be fine for the next day. But either way, D&D clerics shouldn't be in longships (maybe staying back at home, but I think not even then)
Bards OTOH might work, but they'd be the only spellcasters I'd allow, and I'd probably edit the spell list

Alignment - What does it add? It adds nothing to class features, it's not going to define who's side anyone's on, there's no spells to target it. Unless your group need it as part of their character description, it's just clutter

[Pauly]

For the martial classes:
Fighter - yes
Barbarian - yes
Ranger - yes
Paladin - not really, but possibly available for Varangian Guard types. Maybe for NPCs or a class that can only be accessed by working for the exotic empire.

For the “urban” classes.
Bard - yes (skald is the famous iteration).
Rogue - yes, Vikings did use spies, and Loki is a Norse God. They just aren’t common or respected.

For the religious classes.
Neither Druid or Cleric is a particularly good fit. I would pick one and let the other fall. Because the Viking era is dominated by small villages and sea travel where reading and understanding nature is critical I would pick Druid and let Clerics fall away.
Monks - hard no.

For the arcane classes.
Wizards - hard no
Warlocks - Viking culture had no equivalent of pacts with outsiders.
Sorcerer - Norse myths do have magic users who were descended from Gods/Giants. So the innately magical fits the genre. The problem is that it is a low magic setting so an arcane PC can upset the balance. In the myths magic users are almost always hidden because they are considered dangerous and untrustworthy, so you could add a huge social interaction penalty for a party that includes one.

Weapons and armor are fairly easy.
Magic Items should be very hard to come by. Scrolls should be non-existent or only used by NPCs from foreign cultures. Simple healing potions and minor buff potions are easily made, but any esoteric potions that mimic spell effects shouldn’t exit. Magic weapons should be straightforward e.g. +1 swords, returning throwing spear, but no swords of flaming death or bows that shoot electric bolts. Or if they do exist they exist only as a major boon handed out by a Deity as a reward.

Alignment. From inside the culture the alignment system works. LG adventurers are seen by Orcs as brutal pillagers. The viking raiders saw themselves as the good guys going out to earn some money for their families by taking on the greedy foreigners. They also had a very strict code of honor, although that didn’t apply to interactions with foreigners. In D&D morality terms it would be like having a human kingdom surrounded by Orc, Goblin and Gnoll. If the surrounding kingdoms are human, just tell the PCs they are evil.

Sailing can be handled 2 ways.
1) use it as a hand wave quick travel event. Add some delays about waiting for tides and winds, as well as stocking, supplying and maintaining the ship to stop the PCs treating it as magical teleportation. You can also roll for random encounters/weather events a set number of times per unit of travel - so long voyages become more risky.
2) go full hardcore and make ship management a vital part of the campaign.
For early levels I’d stick with (1) because at those levels the party won’t have their own ship. Then if the players want it move to (2). If the players don’t want to do ship management they can always hire a captain to handle it for them.

Monsters
Most monsters should be straightforward. Avoid puzzle monsters that have a specific weakness as most of those weaknesses can only be exploited by a high magic setting. When you do use puzzle monster make sure to give the party enough foreshadowing to prepare.

Edit to add: There is a 2nd edition ADnD sourcebook for vikings published in 1991 or so. Gurps of course has a sourcebook.
Just checked. The sourceboom is available on PDF at drivethrurpg as well as the companion sourcebook Charlemagne’s Paladins which gives the opponents of the Vikings.

[LibraryOgre]

Troll Lord Games has Codex Nordica for Viking games in Castles and Crusades.

Castles and Crusades is a great system, a well-established offshoot of d20 that's been around almost as long as the SRD (2004). While above is the 7th printing, the earlier stuff is all compatible. Personally, I like to replace the default "add your level to class abilities" thing with 5e's proficiency bonus, creating a less stark difference between level 2 and level 10.

[Bunny Commando]

I'm tempted to see if I can get my friends to play a Viking-inspired D&D campaign, either in 3.5 or 5.

But how to go about it? Most of the classes don't seem to fit with the aesthetic, including all of the arcane ones. Viking paganism wasn't about nature worship, so no druids, stealthy rogues are a poor fit for a culture with very little urbanisation, monks are right out and I'm not even sure about clerics.

If you're willing to use Pathfinder 1E material, there are some viking-friendly classes and archetypes.
E.g. there's the Skald, the Brawler, the Shifter and others. It's quite compatible with 3.5.

[Palanan]

Pathfinder also has the oracle, which might fit better than druid or cleric, and should be able to handle healing as needed. An oracle with the Time mystery could work for a völva, although with powers beyond foretelling. The Pathfinder witch might also be an option for an arcane caster (although potentially quite strong), and the hunter and slayer might also find a niche.

As for rogues, I agree they’d be uncommon and not always well-respected, but there’s still plenty of room for them. Kattegat looked like it had several thousand people at least, which is town enough to support a few, and of course rogues are often on the move.

Depending on the cultures involved, I’d say even a cleric could be feasible, if the cleric was kidnapped and brought to live with the Viking-esque culture.

[oudeis]

Just don't forget the Spam.

[Tobtor]

Kattegat looked like it had several thousand people at least, which is town enough to support a few, and of course rogues are often on the move.

Kattegat is an ocean... so no one lived there.

(I know what that crazy American series might make you believe, but its WAY off on most accounts - way more than most "medieval" films).

That said there were towns in Scandinavia during the Viking era (Ribe, Hedeby, Birka, Dublin was a Viking town). Not huge towns, but they where there. Also rogues could also function as spies and scouts and similar.

Viking era magic:
They believed in magic, bot spells, curses and runic magi. In general you have two kinds of magic Seiðr (connected to Freya and thus women) and Galdr and Odin. In some stories both general protective spells and various curses and a few "attack" spells (acid/poison rain over enemy ships comes to mind) are described.

So you could definitely have magic. Galdr and runes are the "lore"-based option, while Seidr might be more intuitive/inherent.

Vikings also did have "priests" (clerics). There did they sacrifices andrituals etc, but were otherwise more normal "vikings" and thus often went to war and so on (so looking more like DnD clerics than Catholic priests do).

[KineticDiplomat]

I might add the almost obligatory suggestion to use Blade of the Iron Throne or Song of Swords.

Skills and melee are great weaknesses of D&D - and a Viking game is almost certainly going to be centered on melee and using skills. You can hack and tweak and fiddle with D&D to get a slightly less bad version of skills and melee, or you can use a system that does them really well.

[denthor]

High fighter barbarian ranger count.

For every 20 of the above thief or cleric.

For every 100 of the fighter some sort of arcane caster.

Paladins would be every 30

[Eladrinblade]

Most of the classes don't seem to fit with the aesthetic, including all of the arcane ones. Viking paganism wasn't about nature worship, so no druids, stealthy rogues are a poor fit for a culture with very little urbanisation, monks are right out and I'm not even sure about clerics.

Weapons and armour would of course need to be restricted to what was available during the Viking Age, and I'm wondering whether to just scrap the alignment system entirely; I just don't know what to do with being honourable and just at home but a brutal pillager abroad.

So the party will not use half the classes from the book, no big deal. Druids would be fine, forget about "nature worship". Stealthy rogues would fit in just fine among vikings, as scouts and black ops stuff, just remove trap-related stuff if you're not using dungeons and replace it with something else like wilderness rogue stuff. Clerics would be fine too, just pick gods that fit vikings. I would say allow sorcerers, but not wizards. Monks beyond level 2 or so wouldn't fit, I agree.

"Honorable at home, brutal abroad" is just evil, don't be fooled. Big deal; play evil characters.

[zinycor]

As it seems, DnD is a poor fit for the game you want to run. I recommend saga of the icelanders, specially made for this and would suit your needs much better.

[Razade]

Why does it need to be D&D exactly? There's a game called Saga of the Icelanders that's all about living as Vikings settling Iceland.

As it seems, DnD is a poor fit for the game you want to run. I recommend saga of the icelanders, specially made for this and would suit your needs much better.

Oh hey, me too! It's a shame people are so dead set on making D&D do a thing that it's not designed to do and miss out on things that are made to do exactly what they want.

[Tawmis]

I'd say 5e would work.

You mentioned no Rogues - but there were, I imagine, plenty of scouts and murderous thieves among Vikings. So Rogues would fit.
Rangers would be the scouts of Viking era (though I am not sure how you'd handle certain "trees" Rangers can take such as Beast Master, spells, etc).
I think Druids would be the Viking's Priests/Shaman, while Clerics would be the Catholic type priests.
Barbarians would be the crazy vikings. Fighters your standard Vikings.
Bards would be the more peaceful, history keepers.

Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks would be hard to fit.

[Belac93]

I'd recommend checking out Sagas of the Icelanders or Ironsworn for this, they're made for it!

[Dienekes]

I'm tempted to see if I can get my friends to play a Viking-inspired D&D campaign, either in 3.5 or 5.

But how to go about it? Most of the classes don't seem to fit with the aesthetic, including all of the arcane ones. Viking paganism wasn't about nature worship, so no druids, stealthy rogues are a poor fit for a culture with very little urbanisation, monks are right out and I'm not even sure about clerics.

Weapons and armour would of course need to be restricted to what was available during the Viking Age, and I'm wondering whether to just scrap the alignment system entirely; I just don't know what to do with being honourable and just at home but a brutal pillager abroad.

And then there's the issue of how to handle sailing.

Any suggestions? Is there a Viking supplement out there that has simply passed me by?

What part of being a viking did you want to present in the game? I did some of my grad work on the Danes. In general, I wouldn't really think they'd make much of a good fit for a campaign, unless you were going for a very very toned down version of them, or you're up for some very despicable PCs.

Like right at the start, I am uncertain what makes you think the vikings were "right and just at home." Many of the Icelandic Sagas depict people who would become famous and great kings getting their start as petty murderers as we'd see them today. It's just in how they went about being murderers that made you great or not. Whether you let others (especially other free warrior men) disrespect you. If you were ever in the receiving roll in sex, be it consensual or not.

I will not get into the Norse religion on these boards for obvious reasons. But I will say even here most people tend to not have a good idea how it worked and how brutal some of the rites were. And even historians who've studied it far more than me can point to huge gaps in what we think we know about it.

As for mechanics. I can't give you any specific game, personally. But I can say how I've made ship combat work in my games that my players find fun. It's very much not realistic though. At least not for the time periods my games are set.

If you're going to go the ship route, make certain all of the players have a job that can effect the outcome of any naval encounter. Having one player direct the movement of the ship. Another essentially be the mechanic that can apply boosts (I would re-fluff this to be someone directing the rowers on the ship.). Another can be a gunner/loose arrows at the opposition trying to take out key opponents on the other side. So long as everyone's involved and needs to make a decision and a roll on their turn, they can be fun.

[Misereor]

I'm tempted to see if I can get my friends to play a Viking-inspired D&D campaign, either in 3.5 or 5.

But how to go about it? Most of the classes don't seem to fit with the aesthetic, including all of the arcane ones. Viking paganism wasn't about nature worship, so no druids, stealthy rogues are a poor fit for a culture with very little urbanisation, monks are right out and I'm not even sure about clerics.

Weapons and armour would of course need to be restricted to what was available during the Viking Age, and I'm wondering whether to just scrap the alignment system entirely; I just don't know what to do with being honourable and just at home but a brutal pillager abroad.

And then there's the issue of how to handle sailing.

Any suggestions? Is there a Viking supplement out there that has simply passed me by?

A few suggestions.


Arms and armor.

- Historical viking designs

- Semi-historically accurate designs (Roman, Greek, Turkic, etc. from other time periods)

- Mythically correct designs by Dwarves, Elves, and legendary smiths like Weyland



Classes

- Bards can be run as designed, singing heroic epics.

- Clerics can be tweaked to represent the Godi type priests, focusing on the spiritual needs of the community (buffs, blessings, healing, and judgements/will of the gods)

- Druids, armed with deity preferred weapons and focusing more on shape-shifting than summoning, can represent an older, wilder type of priests

- Fighters, Rangers, and Barbarians can be run as written

- So can Rogues

- I would drop the Paladin class, and possibly tweak a warlord type class as a replacement

- Sorcerors and Wizards. I would probably go the Conan route and use them as NPC adversaries, unless there was too much player whining.



Honorable expedition types

- The braggarts toast (bragar-skali). Taking a drunken and holy oath to undertake some heroic endeavour in the presence of witnesses. Very honorable, but huge honor hit if you don't carry through.

- The gold-giver's oath. Receiving a gold ring from a prominent person to render some type of service. Also very honorable, but carries huge stigma if you don't carry through.

- Free trader. Tax represents subservience, so Vikings don't pay tax to inferior peoples (i.e. everyone else). If someone (like an English tax-collector) tries to take a portion of your goods while you are in harbor, they are pirates. They can be struck down at leisure, and you can take their stuff (and that of their fellows while you're at it) and still consider yourself a lawful individual.

- Arriving with an army and demanding the locals either submit to your authority and pay tribute or give battle was deemed socially acceptable at least from the Vikings' ancestors were subjects of Atilla and up until modern times, although said taxation in later periods would be described as "trade treaties".

- The Blood Feud. Who hasn't played a character out for vengeance/justice? Even Prince Valiant chased someone across the Atlantic in a Longship, and accidentally discovered a new world.

- The religious feud. Franco-Christian pretender murdered the king, slaughtered all the priests, and burned down the temples? Better go teach the emperor a lesson by raiding his coasts and demolishing Paris.

- The inheritance. Your uncle died in Constantinople and left a sizable inheritance. Bank transfer or money-wire are not options. Time to form a heroic expedition.



Dishonorable expedition types

- Let's go kill someone and nick their stuff. The stereotypical Viking raid. First considered somewhat dishonorable, and carried out by crews of un-landed, lawless, or lower class individuals under the command of a Sea King. Eventually the honor thing faded into the background, and it became the standard for anyone who wanted a bit of money or a wife with nice Celtic genes.

[CharonsHelper]

Unless you're going for a high fantasy version of Viking campaign, I really wouldn't use D&D as your baseline. D&D is great, but it's very much aimed at high fantasy, which isn't what most people are likely thinking about for a Viking campaign.

There are multiple solid TTRPGs designed specifically for Viking settings of various flavors.

[Morty_Jhones]

Well personly it would depend on the stile of game i was going for...

High fantisy . bowolf saga / Epic high drama's then I would go with 3.5

However if i was going to go for a supper gritty crunch raider play.........
I would use Warhammer and mod the setting... way easyer than trying to take the magic out of D&D.

[Razade]

Beowulf isn't High Fantasy at all.

[KineticDiplomat]

^^^
What he said. Beowulf is more sword and sorcery/low fantasy.

As a rule of thumb, if there are infinite disposable monsters who people regularly kill then it’s likely to be high fantasy. If the one monster is terrifying and actually needs a hero as opposed to today’s crop of turnip farmers to kill, then it likely to be low fantasy.

[Corsair14]

Go on DMs Guild or its brother site and pick up HR1 Viking Campaign Sourcebook. Its a 2nd edition book but goes into DND detail on how to run a campaign in the wide era of Vikings including how to use classes and so forth.

[Razade]

^^^
What he said. Beowulf is more sword and sorcery/low fantasy.

As a rule of thumb, if there are infinite disposable monsters who people regularly kill then it’s likely to be high fantasy. If the one monster is terrifying and actually needs a hero as opposed to today’s crop of turnip farmers to kill, then it likely to be low fantasy.

Beowulf is not sword and sorcery either. I wouldn't call it Low Fantasy either since the author didn't write it to be viewed like we view modern Fantasy of which all these labels apply. That's also not how High/Low fantasy is determined.

High Fantasy: If it's not on Earth or outside of Earth. Lord of the Rings is High Fantasy.

Low Fantasy: Takes place on Earth where the magic or mystical is an intrusion on the natural order. The Dark is Rising is Low Fantasy.

Also, again, I can only recommend Saga of the Icelanders. Use Saga of the Icelanders.

[hamishspence]

Didn't Tolkien intend LoTR to be "On Earth, but in the far distant past"?

TV Tropes suggests that High Fantasy can be "on earth in the past or future" as long as the connection plays no part in the plot:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighFantasy

Setting: A world other than ours. It may have a nominal connection with present day Earth, such as being our remote past or future, but this plays no role in the plot.

[Yora]

A lot of old fantasy is supposed to be prehistoric Earth. The world of Conan is called the Hyborian Age for that reason, and not Hyboria or the Hyborian World.
There are also plenty of fantasy worlds where it's supposed to be Earth in the far future, when somehow for some reason technology disappears and magic shows up.

[Razade]

Didn't Tolkien intend LoTR to be "On Earth, but in the far distant past"?

TV Tropes suggests that High Fantasy can be "on earth in the past or future" as long as the connection plays no part in the plot:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighFantasy

Setting: A world other than ours. It may have a nominal connection with present day Earth, such as being our remote past or future, but this plays no role in the plot.

This would be the "Outside of Earth" qualifier. You didn't copy TVTrope's exact quote here. "A nominal connection" is about as accurate a term, their words, for how Middle Earth is related to our own. Middle-Earth has nothing recognizable to our Earth and it's only Word of Author that it is somehow related. That's not something you'd ever get from reading the books themselves. Lord of the Rings still counts as High Fantasy because the world isn't the real world, our primary world. It's a secondary world even if it's somehow linked to the first. That's how things like The Neverending Story is High Fantasy even if the real world is involved.

Also, I don't particularly care how TVTropes defines it. I'm aware it's a descriptor and it's changed over time as things are wont to do, but I'm using it as it was coined by Llyod Alexander. Which isn't even mentioned on the TVTropes page. So shame on them.

[KineticDiplomat]

Yes, I think we're all aware Beowulf is a heroic epic. And yes, the how/why/what of monsters doesn't define genre. But since "early proto-English epic" doesn't really translate to common RPG game systems and their relative strengths in regards to story-template, I think we can forgive couching it in terms relevant to "how should I run a Viking campaign". No doubt a professor somewhere could publish something tenure tracked about exactly the dividing differences...but a semantic circular firing squad is only called for here in relation to the game.

And in that context, how you treat monsters and character capability is a very good indicator of where you want your game/story to go- after all, most systems involve direct, dangerous conflict as a core part of their gameplay. It will define to an extensive degree the player and PC's place in the world.

High fantasy is classically less realistic, more magical, and has outsized heroes who are often Good and perform acts that would be extraordinary in a realistic setting as a matter of course. Such as chopping your way through a horde of orcs to get to some hobbits in time for the next point of plot advancement. The orc chopping is a sort of assumed competence, with only BBEG's and maybe some "boss fights" being of consequence. To be noteworthy, challenges need not only be magical or monstrous, but nearly absurd in power. And because of that, you need waves of lesser monsters/opponents to show just how amazing your guys are. This is very, very D&D. And very much not the basic feel of "Viking Campaign".

Low-fantasy/sword and sorcery (and yes, these are separate literary genres, no, it doesn't matter) typically sees reality to "Hollywood Human" as it's starting point and scales it's challenges accordingly. When Conan or Solomon Kane (books) win a duel with a single good swordsman or kills three men alone, this is an impressive feat on it's own, not the expected basis of his presence in the world. When someone gets stabbed in the gut, it is a really bad day. Or if there are perhaps three monsters in the entire epic, all three stay off screen for a good part of it and are individually terrifying in a world of pre-dominantly basic men - they aren't the natural evolution of getting from level four to level five. And so forth. That is much closer to what most people think when they hear "Viking Campaign" and is basically the opposite of D&D in how it approaches power.

So yes, for all purposes involved, how you treat opposition and conflict is a pretty decent indicator of what "genre" you want to be playing, and selecting the right game system.