First 4th Edition Campaign

[Behold_the_Void]

Firstly, I've seen how much a lot of people seem to hate 4e, so we can safely assume I get the message and you needn't bother posting.

Anyway.

I'm curious as to what people are planning on doing for their first 4th edition campaign. I've decided that since it's a new edition, I want to craft my world using their baseline setting of points of light in the darkness, but I think I may have gone a bit further than intended.

I'm making a world that lives in constant fear, with cities being small settlements of humanity (or whatever race or races happen to be there) huddling miserably in their dwellings fearing the outside. There are ruins of empires everywhere, but few people have the courage and ability to travel from one place to another, and even those that do seldom return. Some cities have nominal trade with each other if they're connected by waterways or on close islands, but even the sea and rivers are dangerous.

I'm also removing the existence of magic item traders and removing the material component for the disenchant ritual. All magic items will be found in the ruins and pits of evil or will be crafted by the party.

The point of the campaign is going to be a standard expansion from a small quest to an epic prophesied heroes saving the world and driving back the darkness. Sure, cliche as all hell, but this is a new edition and it's been forever since I've done a swords and sorcery saving the world game. Sadly, I won't be able to start it until September when I'm back at university, but that gives me the whole summer to plan it.

What about you guys?

[HeirToPendragon]

I recently reread Bone because it's amazing and I'd really like to bring about something that feels similar to that. I'll be bringing back an evil Vampiric Red Dragon God that I made last game (should be fun to customize that thing) to be the proverbial Lord of Locust.

I also have a Tower of Time idea where I'll have the players levels fluctuate randomly throughout their journey through it. This is something that was impossibly difficult to do in 3.5 but insanely easy to do in 4e since all it really does is change a few numbers and kill a couple powers. Assuming things like their ability scores and what they are currently carrying don't change (you don't get uglier the earlier you are in level) I should be able to make it work in an interesting way.

[Tola]

...First thing that comes to mind:

In a situation like that, anyone with the kind of strength even a Level 1 has....is going to be kept around. Yes, even the tieflings.

They are almost as gods in the community(They keep the bad things away....repeatedly. Would you treat them as anything else? I'm assuming that those born with powers are fairly rare.), and that can lead to....just about anything.

Though...it could just end up meaning you've got 'minions' of your own in combat, at least for a little while. Hangers-on and the like. Think of your standard 'Gang of hoodlums': several weaklings and you, the tough 'boss'.

....I wonder if, in a world as you describe, simply growing a village would be a worthy quest-line? Imagine. A town's lucky enough to not have one or two 'powers', but a whole bunch at once. They're actually able to clear out some of the monsters about, and word, for once, gets around. People actually start being able to travel. Word spreads. People start coming. More 'powers' are amoung them. Or maybe you subjugate enemies, and the town grows that way. Or roving bands, like your own town, but more nomadic, attack....

regardless, taking your home, and making it truly great....

Good grief. Where did all this come from?

[Human Paragon 3]

My first campaign is actually going to be a little bit like yours, taking the points of light to an extreme.

The setting is 100% underground, one giant dungeon. It takes place in what could be called the underdark. The world is an extremely vast sub teranian cave system, partly 'man'made and partly natural, ruled by powerful orc and drow kingdoms with the PC races on the fringes, survivng by raids and by doing orc/drow dirty work. In other words, a complete inversion of the normal race hierachy.

Worst of all, these poor creatures were all born underground, and haven't ever seen the sky. The existance of the sun and the surface world are a myth, and as far as anyone knows the caves extend infinately in all directions.

The action will come from a variety of places. Firstly, survival. Getting enough to eat and feed the people of the small fringe settlements is an enormous and constant challenge. Second, there is a generations-long war between the drow and the orcs that is coming to a head now that an orcish messiah has risen up from the ranks of their shamans. There are also many ancient secrets and treasures throughout, demons rising up from below, and new areas being uncovered by earthquakes. If the PCs manage to survive all that, they may even discover the terrible secret that has forced them to live in darkness since time immemorial.

Should be fun.

[Behold_the_Void]

...First thing that comes to mind:

In a situation like that, anyone with the kind of strength even a Level 1 has....is going to be kept around. Yes, even the tieflings.

They are almost as gods in the community(They keep the bad things away....repeatedly. Would you treat them as anything else? I'm assuming that those born with powers are fairly rare.), and that can lead to....just about anything.

Though...it could just end up meaning you've got 'minions' of your own in combat, at least for a little while. Hangers-on and the like. Think of your standard 'Gang of hoodlums': several weaklings and you, the tough 'boss'.

....I wonder if, in a world as you describe, simply growing a village would be a worthy quest-line? Imagine. A town's lucky enough to not have one or two 'powers', but a whole bunch at once. They're actually able to clear out some of the monsters about, and word, for once, gets around. People actually start being able to travel. Word spreads. People start coming. More 'powers' are amoung them. Or maybe you subjugate enemies, and the town grows that way. Or roving bands, like your own town, but more nomadic, attack....

regardless, taking your home, and making it truly great....

Good grief. Where did all this come from?

Actually, people of PC-level are around, just mainly in the heroic tier. Some travel, most of them stay in the cities and defend them. A lot of the cities also have some fairly clever fortifications and tactics to use against roving monsters. Most of the REALLY nasty stuff live in dungeons and certain concentrated areas.

The idea behind the PCs is that they're special. At first it might not seem like much, but as they start progressing it'll become readily apparent. For example, paragon-tier characters are the stuff of legend, and epic-tier characters are unheard of.

[Attilargh]

Okay, anime fans in the Playground: Who else expected Gaurd Juris's campaign idea to end with "...and then a bleeping huge robot comes crashing through the roof, chased by a heavily-armed girl in a bikini"?

[Oracle_Hunter]

The OP's setting reminded me a bit of Rifts, to be honest. It's a perfectly workable setting, and remember that the PCs are just the new kids on the block - and the current "gods" of the cities may not take kindly to competition

My campaign is a reflection of what I don't like about 4e: Dragonborn and Tieflings. Why I don't like them, I won't get into, but because of my feelings about them, I've made them central to my campaign.

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This is a bottom-up campaign setting, based in the remnants of a human kingdom (let's call it "Arcadia") that had been shattered by a conflict with the Dragon Legions. In my world, the Dragonborn are an off-shoot of regular dragons, and as such have formed a kingdom ruled by a Council of Dragons (elder dragons made a pact eons ago to try and work together. I'm thinking this resulted in a LN-style civilization, ruled by this dragon oligarchy. Fun!). Using powerful divination magics, they had ruled their kingdom wisely for centuries but one day a prophecy revealed that a bloodline from a now-dust kingdom would destroy the world one day.

Turns out, that "lost kingdom" is where Tieflings developed. After their kingdom was shattered by an "unknown cataclysm" the survivors emigrated south and married into what later became Arcadia. The Tieflings never really integrated with Arcadia well (one of my gods hates Tieflings, and people generally didn't get over the fact that Tieflings look, well, fiendlish) but their natural powers could not be denied. It so happens that the "fated bloodline" that the Council of Dragons so feared was given lands in an untamed fringe of Arcadia so that the family would not be able to threaten the balance of power back at the capitol.

The Council of Dragons, identifying the location of this bloodline (let's call it "The House of Usher"), mobilized their legion of Dragonborn (the Dragon Legions) to invade Arcadia, coming down through the borderlands that Usher controlled. But, since the fate of the world was at stake, they wouldn't stop until every man, woman, and child in Arcadia was dead, dead, dead, so that no bastard of Usher would be left to fulfill the prophecy.

Unfortunately for the Dragon Legions, the current Lord Usher was a powerful (and LG) Warlord and his forces were able to keep the Dragon Legions from attacking his lands, while the other border forts of Arcadia crumbled under the power of the Dragon Legions. Eventually, the King of Arcadia grew so concerned with the invasion that he asked the Academy (a brain-trust of wizards and warlocks) to devise a spell that could assassinate the Council of Dragons, and thus leave their despotic society headless. The Academy researched and cast such a spell, destroying the Council in one fell swoop, with the arcane backlash ripping through the front line of Dragonborn and Arcadians alike, effectively destroying the main force of the Arcadian Army.

Having lost the military that kept Arcadia together, the kingdom fractured. The Western Counts, being removed from the main conflict, fell to fighting amongst themselves for control of Arcadia, while the bureaucrats and elites in the capitol tried vainly to maintain control over the populace in the city.

And the House of Usher? Sadly, Lord Usher was killed in a fierce battle an elite Dragonborn strike force, but his son survived and took over control of his lands. Finding themselves cut off from the rest of the kingdom (thanks to the remnants of the Dragon Legion who, having nowhere else to go, have settled down in their conquered areas of Arcadia, and even today wait for a chance to fulfill their ultimate mission), the new Lord Usher sent messengers to the other nobles he could reach, asking for them to support him as a temporary "king" until their forces grew strong enough to throw back the Dragon Legions and reunite Arcadia. Although the other nobles distrust Tieflings to various degrees, the strength of Usher allowed those lords to keep their lands, and even though the war is over, a strong hand is needed to deal with the new threats that have eaten away at the corpse of Arcadia.

My PCs will be adventurers called upon by a local lord in Usher's "kingdom" to help deal with goblin raiders from forest lands once belonging to a Lord Drake. During the Dragon War (as it has been called), Lord Drake cut off all contact with the other local lords, and refused to send forces to assist in the fighting. Rumors borne by peasants fleeing from his land claim that Lord Drake has entered into a dark pact that has granted him immortality and terrible powers. Soon after the flow of peasants stopped, villages at the edge of Lord Drake's domain came under assault from goblin raiders, and woodsman claim that the forests which bridge Lord Drake's lands and Usher's "kingdom" are now home to terrifying monsters and the walking dead.

Bwahahahahahaha!

Heh. A world where the Dragonborn are the hated (but misunderstood) enemies of humanity, and Tieflings are universally distrusted but grudgingly relied upon? And where said Tieflings might bring about the end of the world, despite their good intentions? Golden.

[Behold_the_Void]

Okay, anime fans in the Playground: Who else expected Gaurd Juris's campaign idea to end with "...and then a bleeping huge robot comes crashing through the roof, chased by a heavily-armed girl in a bikini"?

Hey, if it helps that kind of game happen, I would totally stat a drill.

[Aron Times]

Is anyone planning on running an IRC-based 4E campaign? The nearest FLGS is three counties away, and with rising fuel costs, I don't think it will be feasible for me to join a weekly or even a bi-weekly game.

By the way, I plan on playing a fighter/wizard or a warlord/wizard.

[RTGoodman]

Is anyone planning on running an IRC-based 4E campaign? The nearest FLGS is three counties away, and with rising fuel costs, I don't think it will be feasible for me to join a weekly or even a bi-weekly game.

By the way, I plan on playing a fighter/wizard or a warlord/wizard.

Check down in the Finding Players (Recruitment) forum. I believe several people were talking about doing IRC games about a week ago. Also, I'm willing to bet people will do some Play-by-Post 4E stuff too.

EDIT: I guess I can actually answer the OP's question while I'm here. For my first game, I'm just going to be doing the generic 4E D&D "Points of Light" setting (i.e., generic fantasy that includes all the standard flavor and stuff from 4E core), and I'll probably be running the Heroic-Paragon-Epic modules as the come out. I might also be playtesting my RHoD conversion, but I doubt that'll be the FIRST thing I do.

[Drammel]

Getting set to start my 4e campaign in a few weeks. The upshot of it is that I didn't like how Asmodeus became a god in 4e. I swear they edit the Nine Hells so much I'm beginning to suspect actual diabolic interference.

So I decided to base a campaign on the politicking in hell as of Fiendish Codex 2. The heroes are unlucky adventurers who get inexorably caught in the myriad plots of hell, are forcefully compelled to serve the devils, and (as with everything else in hell) end up accidentally serving the schemes of Asmodeus, fueling his ascent to godhood. The heroes are classic good guys trying to make the best of a bad situation by undermining the Archdevils as best as they can without seeming to break with the terms of their service. They eventually find a loophole that allows them to escape their servitude and thwart Asmodeus just as he fulfills his eons long dream of godhood.

I thought I might use the summer to go epic, make a big splash for the new edition. Probably going the full tilt from 1-30. I've got some mucho homebrewing to do.

[Goober4473]

I'm hoping to do something location-based, which is essentially the concept of the "super adventure" that the DMG talks about. It would take place in a valley that exists in the normal world, the Shadowfell, and the Feywild. The players would occaisionally shift between dimensions, but remain in the same place, since the border between worlds is weak.

The valley has only recently appeared. Before, the area was just forest. In the valley is a city. In the normal world, the city is mostly empty, maybe inhabited by wild animals and a few small tribes of humanoids. The adventure will begin as an investigation into the valley in the real world, but the characters will later be trapped when they valley dissapears, and they are sent to the Feyworld version: A wild and dangerous place. And worse, they will occaisionally shift into the Shadowfell version, which is essentially a horror movie made real.

[KillianHawkeye]

I was kinda thinking of doing something in a jungle setting (think ancient Aztec, with pyramids and such, but using the default races/gods/etc.), but I really like a couple of these ideas...

....I wonder if, in a world as you describe, simply growing a village would be a worthy quest-line? Imagine. A town's lucky enough to not have one or two 'powers', but a whole bunch at once. They're actually able to clear out some of the monsters about, and word, for once, gets around. People actually start being able to travel. Word spreads. People start coming. More 'powers' are amoung them. Or maybe you subjugate enemies, and the town grows that way. Or roving bands, like your own town, but more nomadic, attack....

regardless, taking your home, and making it truly great....

and

I'm hoping to do something location-based, which is essentially the concept of the "super adventure" that the DMG talks about. It would take place in a valley that exists in the normal world, the Shadowfell, and the Feywild. The players would occaisionally shift between dimensions, but remain in the same place, since the border between worlds is weak.

The valley has only recently appeared. Before, the area was just forest. In the valley is a city. In the normal world, the city is mostly empty, maybe inhabited by wild animals and a few small tribes of humanoids. The adventure will begin as an investigation into the valley in the real world, but the characters will later be trapped when they valley dissapears, and they are sent to the Feyworld version: A wild and dangerous place. And worse, they will occaisionally shift into the Shadowfell version, which is essentially a horror movie made real.

[Sequinox]

If your last name is Gingras, Eames, or Hudson, dont read this. Please. From your DM.

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I'm using the points of light idea too, but not as much as everyone else is, it seems. I'm using my 3.5 world... But two hundred years into the future. Everything that was going on went wrong. To end my 3 year long 3.5 campaign, the players killed a godess's lover, and she sealed off every way out of the giant underground cavern for them. As revenge, she said she'd tear the world to pieces.
My one giant megacontinent was torn into countless pieces and enlarged sinificantly. The starting minicontinent is a desert that once housed an empire that was obliterated by civil war 150 years ago. Somehow an undead plague was started and now the undead roam the desert. Gunslingers a la the Dark Tower go from town to town killing undead or going on drawn out, boring quests. A face from 3.5 will be revealed after 5 or 6 levels of play and by 13th or 14th level the players will meet their old 3.5 characters converted into 4e. (The poor gnome bard... What will happen to him?) After that the players will be playing both characters. Thusly we will have a big enough party for once! Not that its mattered before...

*Whew* megaposts are something I rarely do... and for a reason, I see.

[Dhavaer]

I was thinking of using those guys from Tome of Magic who hate the sun as my BBEGs. The basic essence of their plan will be to free the platonic essence of forging so that it can make them giant, heatproof grappling hooks to affix to the edge of the world and catch the sun with, thus preventing it from rising. Prior to this, they will have to find and kill the platonic essence of green, which is holding the essence of forging prisoner for some reason. Everything green suddenly losing its colour (I'm not sure whether they should become grey, or just splotchy blue and yellow) should make for an interesting plot hook.

[HJFudge]

My first campaign is going to be a 'points of light' type setting as well.

The world had for 100's of years been ruled by a single empire (with minor rebellions and scuffles but nothing too major) that was connected over vast distances through a network of portals called The Nexus. Farmers would go to work each day to farm their families livelihood hundreds of miles away, then step back through the portal to get home in time for dinner. Everyone was able to go to nearly any of the cities simply by stepping through the portal.

The world prospered until, suddenly, the portals stopped working. Entire cities were stranded. Brother seperated from brother, families suddenly finding themselves a thousand miles apart. Most large cities simply starved, having relied entirely on food that had been brought in through the portal system from rich farming lands. Government quickly broke down into anarchy and people were desperate and did almost anything just to survive. No communication, no food, and no hope.

The campaign will start 10 years later, in the aftermath of this worldwide collapse of society. The survivors have started the long process of rebuilding. Unfortunately, most of the world did not have any maps of significance, as they were simply not needed. Each town, each city is an island, able to reconnect with only the nearest of neighbors. Our Heroes have been hired as Explorer's of this "new world", and they find that in the long reign of the empire, The Races have long ignored the world around them, and darkness has been growing in the untamed wilds...a darkness that is slowly destroying the surviving cities of the world and tearing down strongholds and bastions of civilization one by one.

[Goober4473]

Man, that is cool... I may need to use that somehow.

Any idea yet why the portals stopped working?

[Goober4473]

Woops. Double post. My internet was cutting out.

Anyways, I'm so using that. My city in the valley will most likely be a city who's population starved, left to find food, or were killed by creatures.

[shaka gl]

Mine`s similar to HJFudge`s.

Im basing it on a side-story they had on their last campaign: Looking to resucitate a lost comrade, they accidently set free a long lost Lich Druid.

More than 100 years later (still havent decided exactly how much), most of the known-world is dominated by this Lich. The rest of the world struggles for survival. And a prophecy dictates that the descendants of the heroes of old will rise against the tiranny. But, as the Lich himself knows this, the descendants have prices on their heads; and its up to the pcs to find them and protect them.

Its still on the works, but those are the basis...

[purepolarpanzer]

I'm actually starting a brand new spanking world for fourth- info will be in the homebrew later. The basic premise also uses the points of light, though i thought of this years ago and am just now fleshing out the world.

Basic premise is half the world is standard kinda stuff (farmland, cities, goblins, domestic monsters, ect), while the other half has completely gone to hell due to darkness shrouding and consuming the land(Shadowfell-like land- aslo thought of this before fourth). For hundreds of years people have lived in fear of a rising tide of darkness, while different political and religious groups struggle for dominance of the bastion of civilization. Suddenly a new cult springs up claiming to have access to a new land where people can escape to...

There will be excusrions into the dark lands, where the ruins of long lost magitech civilizations, ala Dark Tower, reside for the pickings of raiders who want to risk their lives for a buck. There will be drama in the civilized lands, with plenty of combat to boot, as well as exploration of the "new world". Should be fun.

[Indon]

If/When I start a 4'th edition campaign, it'll involve a team of special ops/explorers from a technologically modern world, similar to the setup of the Stargate movie and series.

Unlike Earth in Stargate, however, my modern world would be an imperialistic power interested in exploitation of foreign worlds. The PC's would be encouraged to loot, plunder, trick, and generally do whatever is best for immediate profit, and then move on.

The party would recieve experience not for killing things, but for achieving things for their nation - acquisition of technology and wealth, primarily, but I would reward things I haven't thought of most handsomely, if it pays off.

The combat system of 4'th edition is just about perfect for the setting - it has a heavy focus on tactical combat which would model squad-level fighting excellently, and I can re-introduce strategic and operational complexity into the system using a combination of the characters' military objectives and their modern equipment.

Since actual economic interactions are going on, I'm going to have to borrow extensively from community-modeling systems I saw and liked in a D20 setting (Ironically, World of Warcraft D20, which has much stronger simulationist rules than standard 3'rd edition D&D).

And, since the characters have modern educations which can't be modeled by the limited skill system of 4'th edition (as 4'th edition does not cover non-adventuring skills), I'm probably going to have to hybridize 3'rd edition's skill system into it.

And I'll probably buff magic to make it worthwhile for a technologically modern world to study.

But so far, it would be easier to do all of that than to restructure the combat system of another game into something that a fire team could use.

[Jarlax]

my first adventure is going to take advantage of the conceptual idea of the shadowfell. having the PCs crawl through a ruined temple dungeon before finding out the BBEG is actually in the shadowfell mirror version of the temple, where it is still occupied and maintained and appears as it did in its prime.

it will be interesting because the PCs will be navigating through the same location more or less but with different enemies defending it. which gives them the advantage of knowing whats the next room looks like even if they don't know whats in there this time.

[HJFudge]

Man, that is cool... I may need to use that somehow.

Any idea yet why the portals stopped working?

Well I have a couple 'possibilities' but the two I am thinking is that either a) wizards studying the portal unleashed something horrible and to contain it they shut down the portal system (that didnt work though! The heroes are gonna have to stop it) or b) an old enemy of the empire, The Ancient Eldarin Empire, managed to shut it down and are seeking to release their old Gods, the Dragons, to exact revenge.

The first one would be a more straightforward adventure but the second would have the PC's working for the Eldarin at first, only to find out later and then have to stop the Eldarin from releasing the Dragons.

[Morandir Nailo]

Getting set to start my 4e campaign in a few weeks. The upshot of it is that I didn't like how Asmodeus became a god in 4e. I swear they edit the Nine Hells so much I'm beginning to suspect actual diabolic interference.

So I decided to base a campaign on the politicking in hell as of Fiendish Codex 2.

I've got something similar going myself. I'm using the PoL type idea, but coastal areas are fairly civilized and far more safe than the interior, so pretty well-established kingdoms have sprung up here and there (though they're still small, no more than what can be covered in a week or so on horseback). Anyway...

An Eryines (disguised of course) has been working for decades to establish a new religion in an area, worshiping the god Vestis, god of justice and fairness. This is really her master Levistus, and as the religion takes hold one begins to see that the values of Vestis are more about petty vengeance and using legalese to take advantage of the ignorant.

Anyway the plot has worked so far - one kingdom has made this its official religion. But then comes the fun part: the Erinyes manipulates some of the priests into accepting a variant form of the religion condemned as heresy by the establishment. Persecuted for their beliefs, they flee to a neighboring kingdom where they begin to proselytize. The Erinyes promotes the heretical sect from the top, in guise of the king's vizier.

Anyway, the point is to spark a religious war between the two kingdoms over each others' "heresy." As both kingdoms lie within an area claimed by Levistus (for the purpose of claiming souls), the war will cause a large spike in the number of souls going to his domain. This means more power for him, and a promotion for the Erinyes who's been orchestrating the whole thing. Furthermore, by promoting a god of "justice," the Erinyes hopes to keep this going for generations as the cycle of vengeance keeps the area locked in eternal warfare (think the middle east), promising a steady flood of souls to Levistus (and fast-tracking the Erinyes up the devil hierarchy).

The game starts a year or so before everything comes to a head. The cult of Vestis has been rapidly spreading throughout the second kingdom, and already believers on either side in the border regions have skirmished with one another over dogma. This will be just background at first, but as they level up the PCs will get caught up in the war, and will have to make a choice: take out the Erinyes and restore peace, or join her in exchange for Infernal power.

Though if for some reason they decide not to take the bait, there's always the Drow city-states in the jungles of Tural, who have been watching the stars for centuries, searching, waiting for...something. Now their long vigil has come to an end and they mobilize for war, with dreams of conquest in their hearts...

Mor

[Lycan 01]

Hmmm... Not too sure, actually. Since 4e will be my groups first serious DnD experience, I'm gonna go soft on 'em. At first...

I figure the first mission will be something simple. Somebody mentioned something about a wizard kidnapping children. I may use that idea...

Anyway, for the first few missions, they'll start in a town, purchase some items, follow up some leads, and go clear the local cave(s) of monsters or do whatever else needs doing.

After the first mission, the townspeople inform them of a nearby cave full of monsters that has cost many looters and fortune-seakers their lives. Yeah, cliche... but hey, gotta start small.

The next mission after that will be something of the same sort, albiet in a different town and with different monsters.

The next few missions will involve more serious issues and locations, like bandit camps and goblin raids.


Finally, once the group has gotten the hang of the game, and have a few recurring characters with a few levels under their belt, I'll start working on a serious plot. Maybe a Necromancer's building up an army to conquer a small kingdom with, and the group has been hired to infiltrate (read: kick doors down) their way into his lair and assassinate him. Cliche... I know! But still... I could spice it up, and maybe have a few possible sidequests available. Anybody read that "Horror Game" suggestion I gave?

[Suzuro]

I've decided to start DMing a game and I have an idea for it: Imagine, a floating city. A metropolis. The PC's would be basically a police force for awhile, until they met the BBEG who causes the entire city to crash to the ground. All the PC's wake up and the city is nowhere to be found, and the ground is kind of a post apacolyptic scene, barren wastelands and small communities. It's basically the PC's trying to find out about the "Legendary City" And where it is, and who the BBEG is.


-Suzuro

[gareth]

I don't have enough experience to actually run a campaign, but I did think of an interesting scenario.
The world looks mostly like the default 4e setting, except that the Shadowfell resembles the normal world more closely. Every building has its own Shadowfell equivalent, for example. Our heroes get a weird contract: go into the Shadowfell equivalent of a major city and do an architectural and astronomical survey. They have to fight off hordes of undead while carefully mapping both the city and the night sky. They report back to their client and he looks terrified at their results, pays them hastily and disappears. Now the campaign becomes a mystery: what's so frightening about a map of the Shadowfell? Further investigation shows that a few Shadowfell buildings don't have normal equivalents. But someone's planning to build a tavern next year, right where the spooky ruined tavern was. You can probably see where this is going...

[Tyrmatt]

My current ideas centre around a modified Faerun-styled land where the players can learn how to play, do a few fun one-shot dungeons and quest lines before picking up a serious storyline once they reach roughly Paragon Path levels and finish up entering their epic destinies (level 21) when this big bad is defeated.
The major villain is most likely to be my pet project lich, Malachai Skrant, a wizard driven mad by the loss of his wife and so he delves into the dark arts to first extend his life and then to try and bring her back so they can be together forever.
Other minor level building quests will be a classic "Clear the mines of Kobolds", perhaps a minor Thieves Guild war and a return to Trademeet where the local druids are clashing with a cabal of warlocks.
The world is in my mind, almost a hybrid of Faerun and Discworld, where the world teeters on the beginning of the industrial revolution. I get the feeling at least one of my potential players would need the introduction of gunpowder weapons to keep him interested in a fantasy setting, as he's a Wastelands/Fallout freak.

If folks are running IRC games and would like a relatively new player (I'm only DMing IRL as I'm marginally more experienced than the rest.) to fill out a party, give me a tap.

[Totally Guy]

I've been designated as the DM of our first th edition voyage. I've never DMed before.

I'm thinking of... actually, just a sec I'll spoiler it just incase someone that knows me pops by...

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I'd like to do it like Lost, say what you will about the show, I'd bet those players are having the best campaign ever. Can't do Island, that's now trite. So trapped in a dungeon is what I'd like to try.

I've got a minor villain all set up he's out to conquer the city by political blackmail and acts like a typical supervillain, except a greater villain is framing him, making his rituals look more threatening. His big plot succeeds on the use of a scrying ritual and a kidnap. Unless the heroes stop him.

Then bang, the bigger baddie opens a dungeon and the whole city is affected by levels changing everywhere.

I'm thinking of using 2 characters per player. That way we can have 2 parties, at set points they can tag team to the party that can play the next session. Also I can freely kidnap them without needing to worry about the player getting bored being in jail for the session plus they have emotional attachment to want to get the guy back. Then they can go into the room and "press the button that stops the world from ending" as an away mission.

[Swiftpaw Fatfox]

Our DM has something planed but don't know what, will have to wait till September. but hopefully he will let me use my variant hengeyokai race and I plan on being a ranger but more close combat ordinated.