Help with Campaign!

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princessbunny99's picture
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Help with Campaign!

So I just introduced my group into Planescape from the Prime, and I was hoping to use that as just an introduction and then have the group make Planar characters so I could run Modron March and Dead Gods, but now they like their Prime manifestations and want to keep them! They're too high of a level to start out on MM, and I'd much rather have Planars go through that adventure.

I'm thinking of just doing "Doors to the Unknown" with these Primes, and then having the group make new characters once that's done, but does anyone have any other ideas?

The story so far: The characters are from my prime world of Oerth that you can find described in The Chant under a Primer on Primes (Not Greyhawk...I named this one before I knew about that being a published world Laughing out loud). We've got a Half-Orc Urban Ranger, a plane studying Ranger, a player who's playing a Cleric for the first time, a Fighter, a Paladin and a Planar Bleaker Bard (who's set up his iPod to play Tom Waits for all of his songs Laughing out loud)

The 2 rangers, fighter and the cleric were all in the city of Brookwood when they heard that one of the students from the Academy had mysteriously disapeared. They had an investigation of her close friends and realized that she had been lost in a strange old house. They found the house, realized it was a student of Westram's and were sucked into a one-way portal to Baator.
There they found the Bleaker trying to suck some chant out of a Spinagon, who the Urban ranger speared. Leaving him for dead, they travelled across a river of blood to a crazy old witches house. The witch told them how to find the Pillar of Skulls. there, she said, they could find a portal out of the plane.
They found the Pillar, where the Paladin had been dropped off by a demon on his home plane. They tried to get the information about the portal, but all it tried to do was eat them. They had to travel back to the witch to find an answer to one of it's questions and then were given some mixed up info on where to go.
They decided to follow a path south where they passed Bel's fortress and were almost spotted by an army heading to the Blood War. The party had to steal a brick from the road to activate the portal which was about a mile away. They snuck in, took the brick, and were spotted by a patrol of red and black abashai. The party took to their heels and the Cleric was almost captured due to his slow speed. The Paladin, with his Boots of Striding and Springing came to his rescue. The half orc with the wooden leg also fell behind, but was aided by his wolf companion.
They made it to the portal, where they thought they could escape, but standing in front of it was a dark man. He invited them to step through, but only if they took an orb with them. The fighter insisted everyone else go through, and then planned to throw the orb back while still in Baator, but the abashai in disguise pushed him through to Sigil.
They appeared in the Market Ward, where the Bleaker ran off to return to the Madhouse, planning on finding them later.
The rest of the group stood there, covered in blood and smelling of sulfur when a small dirty halfling offered to be their tout. A bariaur followed soon after, displaying the three blue ring tattoo of the Touts (I forgot the name of the guild from the Planewalker Handbook...but I felt that title fit as good as any Laughing out loud) He offered his services and the party took him up on his offer.
They're currently staying in an hotel in the Lady's Ward where they've ordered some new Sigilian clothes, and they're researching how to get home.
The Bleaker's player is the one that lent me all the Planescape books in the first place and he's been trying to help me a bit. Right now we're thinking that the Bariaur has been clipping all of his charges, and I might have the party find that out. Then of course, he has to kill the party. He can't loose his position in that Guild due to the meddling of some Primes! Then the Bleaker steps in and saves the day.

But then what? Doors to the Unknown would give them something else to do, and also allude to the Modron March that would happen soon after...but does anyone else have any ideas? I want to keep my group happy Laughing out loud

-pb-

OpheliaWhispers's picture
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factotums
Joined: 2005-05-27
Help with Campaign!

Try looking through Kyto's Hooks. There are some really great ideas in there. Laughing out loud

Rhys's picture
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factotums
Joined: 2004-05-11
Help with Campaign!

Interesting idea:

Dead Gods sends the PCs to the Last Spire on Arborea, where they see a glimpse of the past. The events of the past are played out through temporary PCs who find out what is inside the Last Spire. The temporary PCs, though, don't live to tell the tale, as they are killed by natives, and so the only record of their encounters is preserved in a recording sphere. Then, the recording ends and the action picks up with the regular PCs.

You could have the regular PCs stumble onto the planes somewhere in the middle of Pelion, the third layer of Arborea. They wander through the desert until they find the Last Spire, and then go through the little adventure of those ruins. They don't make it out alive, and the scene closes.
"Many, many years later, in the City of Doors..."
Begin the Great Modron March with the new planar PCs, who only later discover what the hell that Spire is about. Maybe when they find the Orb of Kadu-Ra, just summarize what happens in the recorded experience as it happened in the events of the hapless Primes.

princessbunny99's picture
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Help with Campaign!

That's absolutely splendid! I might just have them do that.....

I'll have them level up quite a bit first ;D

It's neat because one of the guys in the group is the one that I borrowed all the books from and he's totally excited to play some of the adventures he's GMed Laughing out loud

-pb-

eldersphinx's picture
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Help with Campaign!

'Rhys' wrote:
You could have the regular PCs stumble onto the planes somewhere in the middle of Pelion, the third layer of Arborea. They wander through the desert until they find the Last Spire, and then go through the little adventure of those ruins. They don't make it out alive, and the scene closes. "Many, many years later, in the City of Doors..."
A warning from experience:

TPK as a method of plot advancement may seem wicked cool to the DM. Unless it's handled very very well, though, players are quite possibly going to be really, REALLY pissed. Players get attached to their characters, and don't like being steamrolled by the DM just to serve the interests of metaplot.

If I were throwing the PCs at the last half of Dead Gods using the Last Spire hook, I might TPK them, but then have the artifact resurrect them later, rather than passing their memories on to a different set of characters. From the players' viewpoint, little or no time passes between their arrival in Pelion and their departure - but where the rest of the multiverse is concerned, ages have come and gone. Of course, this does effectively end up shifting the campaign setting irrevocably, and destroying every bit of previously established backstory...

princessbunny99's picture
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Help with Campaign!

luckily, they're all prime characters, so their backstory has little to do with Sigil or any of that...I think I might end up running Doors to the UNknown, having them level up in between a bit or do some little adventures (they know something bigger is coming) and then have them sent to Pelion by Estevan. There they die, and then they roll up new characters for Modron March. I'm till not sure how they'll be reacting to Doors yet, so we'll see Laughing out loud I think that they'll still like it Laughing out loud I know that they're excited already Laughing out loud

Zuj
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Help with Campaign!

'eldersphinx' wrote:
A warning from experience:

TPK as a method of plot advancement may seem wicked cool to the DM. Unless it's handled very very well, though, players are quite possibly going to be really, REALLY pissed. Players get attached to their characters, and don't like being steamrolled by the DM just to serve the interests of metaplot.

I have found that the best way to counteract this is to allow their new characters to see signs of their old character's passing. With my original PS gaming group, we played a campaign for about 6 months, which ended at kind of an awkward point, as a few of the main PCs moved out of state. We got together a years later again, and rather than starting the old one again (which they all wanted to do), I made them create new characters, and fast-forwarded in time. One guy made the son of his old character (both of them paladins), and I allowed him to have his father's sword. The group went to Ribcage, where their previous characters destroyed one of the minor 'noble' houses there.

My point is, your players won't have a problem with a rebuild/TPK if you can link their old character to there new ones without too much cheese; or if you can show them the effects of their actions through the new characters' eyes.

All in all, it makes the setting much more real.

princessbunny99's picture
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Help with Campaign!

That's what I was hoping on too. I give out a pretty intense Character Questionairre at the beginning, and anyone who fills it out entirely gets a pretty badass item geared towards their character. For the PK'd characters, I'll alow them something hereditary if they wish.

For example, in another group I run, my friend has a Bariaur Anarchist who's working towards Order of the Bow initiate. He filled out his sheet telling of the boy that he spent all his money on (it's a dragonbone bow) and didn't have anything else. I have him a Quiver of Ehlonna and some bracers of armor (He had a 9 AC for a bit there) since he'd pretty much done the work for me. For the other characters though, it'll probably be a little more though out. I'm excited for the Tieflings writeup Laughing out loud

-pb-

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