I've been working on an adventure, and actually sticking to developing it pretty well. Still, I had a moment this past week where I realized there were several elements I wanted to develop, but the prospect of tackling that felt overwhelming. That got me thinking a bit about the process of making a campaign, and some options to use in collaborative construction.
This is an issue we've bandied about before, how to parcel out the responsibilities of being DM so everyone gets the chance to play as well as run. It struck me this week when I hit that wall of realizing how many more pieces I wanted as part of the adventure but didn't want to develop, that the solution was to go on here and share the responsibility. I could say… this needs a side trip to an old mine that's overrun by wolves, David, you do that… and a band of Drow to interact with, maybe to capture and interrogate, Stephen, knock yourself out.
It was an off the cuff thought by someone who just wanted to go to sleep, but it makes sense in principle. I think it might be worth trying on some level. Someone sits down, outlines an adventure, and pass out pieces for others to work on. Like your campaign, we're chasing Black Bart, but there are possibilities with pirates, or other bandits, and so on. With the infrequency of our sessions, it would make sense to pass some of that out.
You've got the main part developed, but want an encounter with pirates in Clamdigger Cove, or an encounter with a hill giant or some bandits or wild animals. You say, I'll work on the main story and the bandits, but you take the hill giants, and you take the wild animals. You can set up the overall story arc, and pick out the key features you want, but give up the reins on developing some individual encounters, and develop a more textured campaign without burning out trying to do it all. It also gives an opportunity for more "play" within an adventure where you still feel like the DM. You can be running the game play without running every encounter.
I think ultimately there is a fun possibility in coming up with an overall setting together, parceling out bits to everyone and running it in turns, but this might make a nice step toward that. The trouble with a grander scheme is that it relies more heavily on collaboration before working on any ideas. We seem to have limited time together, and more individual time to develop pieces alone. It would fit our current setup better to have one DM and delegated encounters.
Using the blog may be the answer to collaboration issues and brainstorming, but it still requires regular attendance and input to do that well.
That can work. Taking specifics - it would be nice to have a set of pirates hanging around Clamdigger Cove. We can set it up in general terms: while they were in town, they heard about a ship, the Beauclair, taken by pirates - one or two survivors - the rest - gone! the ship - taken! Where are the pirates? whether the main ship is in Clamdigger Cove, or just a detachment, sent to raid, or even look for a stronghold - they might have taken it over. Thus - if I'm working on the mine/Black Bart part of the adventure, someone could come up with something for the town.
ReplyDeleteI think a related way to develop the campaign (though less directly useful in terms of developing specific adventures) would be to all of us start developing specific groups or factions. Say - there are three bands of pirates - three main ships, with whatever allies and pals they might have. Each of us takes a pirate ship and works it out. Captain and crew and whatnot... Or - an orc band - NPC party - things like that... building all the pieces of a campaign, to be dropped together.
That sounds interesting. I've thought about pirate ships like that a little. How big do you think one would be? How many pirates would one ship have? Off ship you can use any numbers you want, but a crewed ship? What would be a good size to use?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question. From what I can find, the kinds of ships you would expect to find plying the deep water piracy trade - like the ones on most of the pathfinder maps - are caravels or carracks, small 3 masted square rigged ships, like Columbus' ships. They seem to require a crew of about 20-25 plus officers. The "Stormwrack" book from 3E says they have a crew of 30/watch of 7 (minimum necessary to make the ship move). That's probably about what you'd see here... Pirates, I imagine, would carry an extra dozen or two men as "marines" - boarding parties, fighters - and extra hands so they could sail captured ships. But that's kind of a baseline: an single ocean-going ship to ship raider; different from raiders who attacked on land (like Vikings), or smugglers or pirates operating on rivers or around harbors and bays. And probably just the baseline for ocean going pirate bands too - any given pirate band might be operating multiple ships, at least might have captured ships. So - making up a ship means - officers (captain, mate, quartermaster, bosun, cook - plus a few minor officers), crew (15-20 probably, plus whatever men at arms they have). Making a band starts with that, and then looks for whether they have other ships, or smaller boats raiding closer to shore or around rivers, if they have a base, etc. And gets into their possibly allies, grudges and so on - which I suppose requires developing the whole setting more, but that's all good.
ReplyDeleteI found an old 2E Thieves guide book - with instructions how to build a guild - I have to go through that; that's got some fun stuff too. Probably a fair amount of overlap between pirates and thieves guilds. (And there might be a plot waiting there - some ambitious pirate trying to create a kind of pirate's guild - actually, there's some of that in Pirates of the Caribbean, right? The later ones anyway, with the pirate kings and all that?)
Is that the Den of Thieves book? They also had a 2nd edition book called "Of Ships and the Sea" that dealt with those things.
ReplyDeleteThe Complete Thief's Handbook. Has a nice big chunk devoted to how to build a thieves' guild. Third Edition has it's Complete Scoundrel, which has a section on organizations - not quite the same, but interesting as well.
ReplyDelete