BellaOnline
Posted By: Knarf Campaign Advice - 04/23/06 04:55 AM
Hi, I'd like to have some advice or point of view from experienced DM.

I'm making a campaign on a continent were Dragons are the rulers.I'll give my character rules for now and more things later as I come up with it.

Race: Human
Classes: None
Starting Languages: Common and Draconic
Abilities: All = 8
Alignment: Neutral
Character Slot: 1

The point is they'll start in a human village that is situated between two dragons territory. Probably a Green Dragon and a Bronze Dragon. The first session will be at their teenagers stage and that's why I put 8 everywhere and no classes.

After the first session they'll choose a class and buy abilities with 32 points to spend in them. I think I wont allow some classes in the beggining because of the area they are situated in. Sorcerer, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue Ranger and Druid should do. I'm not allowing the Bard because it doesn't fit with situation (the village is terrified and doesn't have time for festivities), I'm not planning on having a Wizard NPC in that village so the players wouldn't be able to learn wizardry, the Paladin must have special training and this training is not found there, there's no monestary for Monks and since it is a civilized village there's no Barbarians either.

For the alignment I'd like to try something like the game Fable were your alignment change by your actions. I'll probably do some solo-missions were the aligment will be judged by the choices they take and maybe these missions could be the training in their chosen class.

Now you probably wonder what is this Character Slot. I'd like to incorporate that so my players can have more than one character for the campaign but only one by session. Maybe I'll do a headquarter like in the Shining Force game because I'm planning on having a war in that campaign at some point. That's why I only allow Humans in the beggining too. They'll be able to recruit other characters of other races as they go along so if one of their characters die, they'll have another one right away.


Well I think that's it for now. If you could give your opinion, taughts, advice or anything it would be appreciated. I'm not sure if I'm being too strict or not.
Posted By: RPG_Lloyd Re: Campaign Advice - 04/28/06 08:56 PM
You might want to check out the Dragonstar RPG by Fantasy Flight Games. In that universe, Dragons rule everything, too. You might get some interesting thoughts on how dragon rulership impacts things.

You might also want to check out the old Dark Sun box set for thoughts about handling multiple characters. It addresses some issues you might not have considered, like how fast the inactive characters level up.

You might want to consider adding some classes to replace the ones you're disallowing, since you'll be denying players who enjoy those classes their favorite options. Maybe allow the warlock or a war mage instead of a wizard. The Midnight RPG had a monk-like character who didn't have anything to do with a monastery.
Posted By: Knarf Re: Campaign Advice - 04/28/06 09:23 PM
I'll have plenty of quests with all of their characters so while some characters do something, the other ones will do something else so two game sessions would take place at the same time game wise so exp. isn't a problem.

And for the "disallowed" classes I explained why they weren't in the begining choice but they will be able to have characters of those class later.

And may I ask what type of game is the Dragonstar RPG and what is the old Dark Sun box set?
Posted By: RPG_Lloyd Re: Campaign Advice - 05/01/06 01:32 PM
Dragonstar has been described as "D&D in space." When it came out, I had several groups at my store jump in with both feet. They had a good time.

Dark Sun was a D&D setting back in 2nd edition. You can read more about it at www.athas.org, the official Dark Sun website. It was set in a sort of post-apocalyptic world, with vast deserts and little metal for weapons or armor. The flavor was sort of Mad Max meets Thundarr the Barbarian.

Characters were high-powered in abilities, started at 3rd level, and all PCs had psionics. However, you could die of thirst in the desert.

In some ways, Dark Sun was my favorite campaign setting. It was designed with adventuring in mind--the character tree concept I mentioned is a perfect example. It lets you switch characters between adventures, so if the party needs a wizard, you just put the druid away for a week and whip out the wizard. Between things like that and the high power, players loved it.

But DMs loved it, too. Most population was bottled into seven city-states, and the rest of the world was wilderness, which means lots of places to drop a dungeon or set of ruins. It was the first setting I've seen where players respect and fear halflings, because halflings would eat you! It was thick with flavor, and it begged epic adventures. Great setting.
© BellaOnline Forums