Gold & Glory Campaign
- What is the Look & Feel of your campaign?
Right there in the title buddy, Gold & Glory! Exploration & discovery, Mythic Wilderness, Mythic Underground. Magic is not a substitute for Technology. Technology is a substitute for Magic! A little S&S, S&P, and S&H. More Arduin, Mythic Europe, Otus, Howard. Less d20, Eberron, Elmore, Tolkien. - What’s the high concept of your campaign?
Are you brave or foolish enough to explore the Frontier in search of gold and glory? More to the point are you strong enough to survive its challenges and return body, mind, and soul intact? Fame, fortune, and adventure beckons! Will you answer the call? - What’s the core story? (or: “Lovable misfits who…”)
Tomb robbers, out of work mercenaries, professional scoundrels, holy men looking to save or be saved, seekers of forbidden knowledge, naive farm boys with dreams of glory, assorted ne'er-do-wells, and foreigners from near to far all congregate at the Goat & Wizard Inn. Milling about, they drink down the last of their coin, eye the competition, and chase up rumors or bar wenches. Eventually, a group gathers to explore another portion of the Frontier. If they are clever and careful most will return relatively unscathed. If they are lucky they will bring back ancient treasures, forgotten knowledge, and tales that will be retold across The Kingdom. - What rules will you be using in your campaign? Crap if I know. LL, SW, whatever the system there will be too many house rules.
- What are the big-scale social institutions or groups in the campaign? There is no organized religion only cults and lots of them, The Kingdom, black marketeers,
- Who are the major supporting cast? King Osric (who has opened the frontier for exploration and will be granting those who reach name level baronies), Baron Brok, Unamed proprietor of the Goat and Wizard, Lucious Lucimor hermit mage, and lots of hirelings, henchment, and torch caddies.
- What are the major threats in the campaign? The Grey, Cosmic Alien Intelligences and their cults, Toad Gods and their cults, Unseelie, Warangutans, The Dreaming Queen, not using a 10' pole, the player characters.
- Draw a map of the campaign setting. ok, but it's not that easy (for me) and ain't happening in 1min unless you Pick a map.
- Draft up your first adventure. It's a sandbox, choose direction and start walking.
Hi! I'm sorry it's not working out for you: to me, it looks a lot like the other sandbox versions of this that I've seen. (Check out "Ode to Black Dougal" and the sample sandbox in the original "9 Minute Campaign" post.)
ReplyDeleteIf I could make a suggestion, I think the High Concept is a little vague, which is to say, the Core Story isn't situated in any particular context. There are some hints of this with the threats, and in some of the supporting cast, but I don't see how they fit together in any particular way. Therefore it's not clear why doing this delve and going on these wanderings makes any difference to anybody, or how NPC's will react to the PC's antics. (In some sandbox games, this broader context stuff emerges from the players' antics, which is fine - but just be aware that it WILL come at some point, at which time you can plug it in and see if anything else changes.)
But anyway, obviously YMMV and I'm sorry it isn't useful to you!
Oh, I think it was useful. I like the idea and think it's a good one. Didn't mean to sound so negative in post. Was mostly thinking out loud, more of which is below.
ReplyDeleteI did notice the muleabides 9min was on a more or less sandbox and wondered why I was having difficulty. Which got me thinking maybe I need to sort some stuff out. I'm still thinking about it day later...
Definitely NPC's, institutions, and "Main Threats" aren't factors for me. And I really don't want to pre-determine much, rather let the characters and chance rule. "Embracing that randomness not only encourages me to approach the dungeon as a place that exists apart from the PCs which they can approach in any way they choose, but also forces me to be prepared for a wide range of possibilities." -- muleabides
All in game activity will occur in the (mostly) unknown, unexplored Frontier. The Kingdom and the rest of the civilized lands are civilized, therefore boring lacking tombs, ruins, monsters, adventure. They aren't "playable game areas".
I've been organizing the Frontier into Peoples / Factions, (past/lost)Empires / Regions, Places / Sites, and "Things" such as Toe Tags and my thoughts have been structured along those lines for weeks. It was difficult to switch gears in the 15-20min I spent writing this post. But, getting knocked out of your rut/safe zone is often a good thing.
The High Concept is nothing more than the original D&D premise. Explore. Gain experience, treasure, fame. Survive to name level, retire or build a castle/church/tower.
"Hey, I've created this world for you to come mess around in. The basic idea is that your PC is seeking fortune and glory. We'll riff off each other and see what kind of cool stuff comes out of it..." -- http://www.philotomy.com/
These two also apply:
"This is the story of a gang of insanely greedy, stupid, merciless cowards trying to bullshit their way to a wholly undeserved victory." -- muleabides
"In other words, we’re in the game to make mischief in a fictional world and keep each other entertained." -- muleabides