Fantasy Campaign Ideas

[Funksaw]

Anyone go some good fantasy campaign ideas? I don't just mean quests or dungeons that would fit within a D&D/Tolkien framework... , I mean, complete world creation...

[Fitz]

Re: Fantasy Campaign Ideas

 

I've always fancied doing a campaign based on Zelazny's Lord of Light in which all the PCs, using a combination of natural (psionic?) talent and augmentation technology, pose as avatars of the Hindu gods.

 

For those who haven't read the book (and I recommend that you do), the protagonists are the crew, or descendents of the crew of a generation ship which has created a colony on an alien planet. I forget the exact rationale as to why they started posing as gods, but now it's entrenched and the main population are kept purposefully ignorant -- the hero, Sam (the Buddha-oid), and his friends and confederates are rebels against the status quo and are attempting to force their fellow "gods" to let the population advance socially and technologically.

[The Hyborian]

Re: Fantasy Campaign Ideas

 

I think the best way to come up with setting is to think first in terms of Theme. Whats it all about? What does the story ultimatly mean? Its fairly easy to dream up/steal/paste together fantasy set peices and make a "setting", it much harder to make it all add up to something. Start with what you might want it to add up to.

 

For example I'm working on a homebrew fantasy setting myself right now. There are several thematic elements that I want to include. One major theme is mortality. The campagin world has no ressurrection magic, and no contact with "the other side". Necromancy exists, but extending the lifespan always ends up in rather ickey undead states. Death is inevitable, permanent, and common.

 

A second theme is the idea that the world is wonderous, but also basically hostile. Life is a hard struggle, and its a major challenge to find your place in it and just survive, let alone thrive.

 

Third, religion, although widely practiced, is not a major force, at least in arcane terms. Gods dont show up incarnate, miracles dont happen. Ok, I realize that this may sound a bit like Conan the Existentialist, but the point is that the campaign has a thematic base, a mood and feeling that it is going for, and some ideas to explore in the storytelling.

 

Starting from these themes and ideas you can start building world elements. Enemies might include a death cult, necromancers, and lots of undead. Dealings with other people will always be fought with peril and betrayal. Trust should be rare, and charcters will have to learn how to handle NPCs, either through force, suble coersion, or making them belive that they have something in common. Politics thus might be important.

 

The geography can also echo these themes. There should be areas of wilderness with long fallen civilizations. Travel should be hazardous, but also give a sense of grandure. I see a world of small kingdoms with heavly guarded borders, vast forests, deserts, and canyons, long but profitable trade routes.

 

Theme can also tell you want not to include. I dont see any bloody bloody bloody hobbits in this world. (thank goodness) No small races with a thing for practical jokes. No fairies with little wings and silly illusions. No broad rollng green hills covered with wild fruit trees and happy little singing peasants. No elves with their eternal optimisim and love of starlight. The Wilderness is dangerous, civilzation in scattered, and you cant always trust them not to put a knife in you when you get there.

 

Anyway, this is just sort of spitballing off the top of my head, but you can see the process. Start with theme, and the set peices sort of suggest themselves.

[Funksaw]

Re: Fantasy Campaign Ideas

 

Actually, I'm not looking to know how to create one for myself. I just want some quick-and-ready concepts that we can brainstorm and then I can figure out for my own.

 

Indeed, I love exploring themes. But I find it's better to come up with a cool idea and explore the themes that would result from that rather than come up with a theme and then try to base a cool idea around it.

 

I do it all the time when coming up with sci-fi, modern, conspiracy campaigns -- I'm just a bit weak when it comes to fantasy... mostly because I don't get much call for fantasy gaming that's not D&D. Really - most fantasy campaigns are exactly the same, thus, my attempts to point out how HERO can broaden the scope.

 

 

My friend once had a idea for a game where characters played literary tropes and cliches and themes... the idea is that you play, say "The local boy done good" or "The Beast (of Beauty and the Beast" or "The Tortured Genius" (The Archetypes from Unknown Armies might be a good start...)- and you, as characters of fiction, are able to travel to different realms - Romanticism, a place of natural beauty and idyllic life, Modernism which could have a quasi-retro art, Dystopianism and Utopianism - twin cities... and the characters are fighting off all-consuming PostModern Myth -- the idea that there are no more new stories to be told.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Fantasy Campaign Ideas

 

I'm building my world based on ideas common in the American Colonial era. I'm trying to tailor my magic system to seem like it's just stepping out of occultism and into science (while still remaining magic, if that makes any sense). I've got savages, both noble and bloody, devils and witches, wild animals (some of whom are preternaturally clever), supernatural justice...

 

When the Hyborian started talking about themes, I got that old English class twinge (I always hated the idea of themes in that class...why does a good story always need to be analyzed to death? "Good vs. evil, and the good guy wins" is as in depth as I ever needed to get). But as I read further, I decided that most of his themes applied well to my world. I suppose I'd been doing unconsciously what he came out and named. I'll fully agree that a world that is built with a certain feel in mind comes out much better than a hodge-podge D&D world.