Wednesday 28 May 2008

My Sparkling New Campaign Idea - Part I: Concept

I'm starting to think about maybe considering the possibility of just perhaps running a PBP or PBEM D&D Rules Cyclopedia game, so I can try out some of my recent crackpot ideas. The Big List of Things I Want to Include/Experiment With (TBLOTIWTI/EW) is as follows:

  • I want the campaign to be sandbox; There Shalt Be No Plot Arcs.
  • I want the flavour to be a kind of heady brew of Old School dungeoneering, Lovecraftian weirdness, Planescape-inspired philosophy-with-clubs, and 2nd Edition AD&D above-ground high-fantasy wilderness adventure.
  • I want it to embrace randomness, thus:
    • There will be random encounter tables galore, with a light smattering of random flavour event tables into the bargain.
    • There will be no Rolling of 4d6s and dropping the lowest or Rolling 3d6 and assigning to taste or any other such nefariousness; Stats will be generated on a "3d6-in-order, create-a-character from-there-and-make-the-most-of-it" basis.
  • I want to include rarely used (at least by me) monsters that my recent foray into the 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual has unearthed, such as:
    • Giant Crayfish (of course)
    • Crabmen
    • Aarakocra
    • Kenku
    • Medusae
    • Blink Dogs
    • Displacer Beasts
  • I want there to be henchmen and hirelings - see this post, which Sham coincidentally made at the same time I started thinking about the idea.
  • I want there to be an Adventuring Guild.

The last item is one I haven't brought up in this blog before, but it's a concept that has slowly been growing on me over the last year or two. Until recently I'd been keen to pooh-pooh the idea that adventurers actually thought of themselves as a profession; most of my games had involved 'ordinary folk' being thrust by the vagaries of chance into doing whatever they were doing - or, at the very least, ex-soldiers and wandering tinkers and the like who were 'adventuring' in an unselfconscious way. I still prefer that type of campaign, I think, but I'm ready to toy with the idea that there is a class of people in "Blah Blah World" (I haven't thought of a name yet) who see themselves as Adventurers with a Capital A and treat it as an actual way to make a living (and get rich, or whatever).

I'll expand on this concept some more in my next blog entry; there are lots of ideas floating around inside my head (mostly to do with the Adventuring Guild's internal politics, rules, tax/fee systems, and Library of Adventuring) but I need to get a better fix on them before I start committing them to (digital) paper.

4 comments:

  1. Hi!

    I think there are lots of us toying with the sandbox campaign idea, lol. If you haven't, please take a look at Ars Ludi blog. The West Marches series of posts give a lot of insight regarding this type of campaign.

    http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

    BTW: thank you for the almost-everyday reading!

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  2. Oh yeah, I'm a regular reader of the Ars Ludi blog. I love it. That post was part of the reason why I thought, "Hey, sandbox, there's an idea!"

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  3. Please move to Toronto and be my DM! :)

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  4. "I want the flavour to be a kind of heady brew of Old School dungeoneering, Lovecraftian weirdness, Planescape-inspired philosophy-with-clubs, and 2nd Edition AD&D above-ground high-fantasy wilderness adventure."

    Sounds great! This is essentially what I plan to do once the PC's have hit the 5-6 level range, and might be tiring a bit of megadungeon 24/7. In my opinion, this type of setting is a bit easier to truly sandbox once the PC's have some hit points under their collective belts (but it doesn't mean it can't be done from day one, clearly). Also, waiting a bit will give me the creative cushion I need to expend the time this approach demands. Nice post!

    ~Sham

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