Settings and Adventures

I've been thinking on D&D Classics recently, the various PDFs of old D&D materials from past editions. As I've reflected before, back in the day I made some mistakes in my purchasing - I should have skipped a great many of the rulebooks and splatbooks, and not dabbled in so many settings, and instead gone deep into a few chosen settings and bought more adventure modules. D&D Classics obviously offers a way to redress some of that.

Earlier this year, once the OGL fiasco was cleared, I bought up the remaining Spelljammer PDFs to complete my collection of that setting. I've now started gradually collecting the Dark Sun PDFs, and then I intend to invest in a set of the Ravenloft 2nd Edition books (unlike the other settings, Ravenloft had a really big presence in 3e, but I'm not going to bother with that).

I also intend to purchase a bundle of the Historical supplements, as those are regarded as being surprisingly good, and then a smattering of 1st Edition (and a few 2nd Edition) adventures - by no means a complete set, but those items that are regarded as being especially good.

But all of that is a long (ish) term project - I've had no time to read any of the Spelljammer materials, so I'm in no hurry to collect the rest. And, of course, if I'm not actually playing...

Is It Over Already?

For various reasons, we haven't met for a game for more than a month now. And, with Christmas now only four weeks away, it seems likely that we may not meet again this calendar year - certainly not this week or next, and almost certainly not the final week before Christmas.

But the campaign was also left in a bit of an odd position, where it isn't ideally placed for a long break - there was something of a cliffhanger in place, but also some heavier lore in play than we've used recently.

All of which adds up to a distinct possibility that the campaign may have fizzled out, and we might not get back to it.

And since this is the final campaign for this group (which is even more true if it has fizzled), and since there is no signs of my being able to get together any sort of new group, there's a distinct possibility that I've now played my final game, and I didn't even know it.

I guess we'll see, firstly in the next couple of weeks, and then really early in the new year.

The Unmaking of the Foundations of the World

I've been musing on a part of a setting. It's probably not going anywhere, but here's a basic concept I'm thinking on...

There's a supposed Golden Age, in which mortals dwelt largely in peace, guided by mostly benevolent gods. Then there is a tumult, as another band of mortals arrive bringing their own, mostly benevolent, gods with them. The two pantheons battle in a war that threatens to wreak utter destruction.

In time, the wisest and most powerful (or, perhaps, the most foolish and most powerful) of mortals band together and drive out all the gods - in their strife they have ceased to be benevolent protectors and have become destroyers.

But, alas, in doing so, those most powerful of mortals have unmade the very foundations of the world. And now, unbalanced, it all collapses into entropy.

There is scope, in this paradigm, for those foundations to be remade - all it would take is for a mortal to be sufficiently exposed to the pieces of them, and to bring them together. Unfortunately, that exposure renders the one engaging in it both more powerful and even-more inhuman in aspect. They become mutated monsters, and increasingly unfit to bring together the remaining foundations and thus to rebuild the world.

Anyway, that's what I've got so far. Though one problem with it is that it's fairly key to the setting, and therefore something the PCs would ideally know about, but I'm also keen not to have the gods (or rather, their absence) be a major element in gameplay - they're simply not present, the end.

So it's  bit of a tricky one, really.

What Would That Look Like?

I find myself stuck between two unsatisfactory notions. On the one hand, I'm very strongly disinclined to run another campaign with the current group, for a number of reasons not all of which I've laid out here. On the other hand, though, I really don't want to accept that this is an end of gaming for me.

I also find myself dissatisfied with the various campaign ideas, adventure notions, and other such things that have sprung to mind. So, in an attempt to make some headway, this post is an exercise in trying to work out what a satisfactory future for me for gaming might look like.

First up, any future campaign would need to be something quite different. I don't actually mean moving away from D&D, or even 5e, in this regard. But recent campaigns have been constrained by a 1-hour time slot and/or by being run online, and in both cases the campaign has therefore been extremely constrained. Essentially, the game has been boiled right down to the core experience and nothing else, with very little by way of social interaction or even exploration. I'd need that to change.

Tied in with that would need to be a change of format. As noted, sessions would necessarily need to be more than an hour in length, and gaming would need to be face-to-face. This creates serious issues, but I'm not going to dwell on those right now.

So...

Some sort of different campaign with a stronger social and exploration aspect than has been the case previously. I think an intent, once again, to run from 1st level up to something a good bit higher - 10th level at a minimum; perhaps more.

That, in turn, suggests either a home base for the campaign, or at least a fairly strong hub to which the PCs return again and again - I'd want them to have a stable core of characters that they regularly interact with. (Or, I suppose, they could take those NPCs with them...)

And I'm, frankly, rather sick of the "BBEG is rising to power, and you have to stop him" campaign structure. Let's have something more positive - the PCs have the opportunity to build something that will make life better, rather than fighting to avoid it becoming worse.

That's what I have so far.

Spelljammer: Beyond the Clouds

Noodling on another Spelljammer campaign premise:

The PCs are the last remnants of a dying civilisation - they are a completely cosmopolitan group of survivors whose history abruptly starts when their ancestors woke from a strange fugue with no memory of how they came to be there, but with a variety of skills well trained from long use. The world on which they live is a ruined wasteland, such that over the generations since all the other tribes have dwindled and died out, and the PCs are close to all that is left.

The world is bereft of a sun, with the sky permanently covered with thick cloud cover. The dominant feature is a broken tower made of an unknown metal, impossibly strong and impossibly thin.

And then one day a Spelljammer craft descents from the clouds and crashes.

Thereafter, the PCs investigate the downed craft, fight off some monsters, and come into possession of a damaged but workable ship, and a ship with a single ghostly survivor (to provide useful exposition).

Thereafter, they head into space to discover what is out there, and start unravelling the mysteries of how their ancestors came to be on Cinder, why they suddenly disappeared, and the nature of these towers. And, of course, there is the issue that they are being pursued - there is something about the survivors of Cinder that makes them of great interest to many less-than-friendly forces.

I think this one has legs... and yet I'll probably never run it. I can see a mid-section involving a tour of the Spheres, which should be good. I can see a finale involving a showdown with their previous captors. It's just linking those up that is potentially an issue, but that's workable.

One thing of note: in this campaign the PCs wouldn't have backgrounds, nor speak any language other than Common, due to the nature of their culture. I would therefore be inclined to instead let each PC create a custom not-background - pick two skill and two tool proficiencies, plus either the Skilled or Tough feat.

An Interesting Pattern

I was trawling back through old posts, and I noted some from early in the current campaign indicating that it has not been all I had hoped for (which is true).

What I find interesting there is that this is a campaign following on from "The Mists of Lamordia", which was a multi-year campaign that did go about as well as I had hoped. Further, with my previous group I ran a great "Eberron Code" campaign, and then had two subsequent campaigns that I felt fell short for one reason or another ("Imperial Fist" and "Dust to Dust"). And with the group before that I had a great time with "The Shackled City", and then found that we just couldn't get "Savage Tide" off the ground.

So it rather looks like there is a pattern at work there - one great campaign, and then it's time to form a new group!