I have a couple, though they need some work. I have ideas for a dungeon crawl involving giants - well suited for the Bono/Milo/Inky crew, a bunch of bruisers as they are... I have some ideas about setting it up that I have to work on as well. I was thinking you could do a lot of background stuff by making up Information Cards - 3x5 cards with a fact or event or rumor or whatever written on them. You collect a bunch of them, then pass them out, when characters do something - when time passes, or they roll a check, or they look for something or ask a question. I think adventures turn into campaigns, and build character personality and so on by building the world around the adventure - building that stuff out is a way to do it. Though in the end - it's all to get that bunch to go fight giants and monsters and whatnot...
Another idea, that might work nicely on Roll20, would be a maritime adventure where everyone starts with Nothing. Basically the idea is - the PCs are all locked in the hold of a ship. They could get there different ways - maybe they are prisoners; maybe they are stowaways. They could be prisoners of pirates, they could be pirates themselves, they could be passengers on a ship, etc. The idea though would be that the ship they are on is taken by pirates - then caught in a storm, and abandoned by the crew, leaving the PCs trapped in the hold/brig etc. With no gear, no tools of their own, etc. They would have to get out of the hold, deal with whatever is left on the ship, maybe get to shore before it sinks, etc., while collecting the equipment they would need to operate.
That would be the starting point: once underway, it could stretch out into a full maritime themed adventure. Fighting pirates and sea creatures, searching for the people who locked them up maybe, getting involved in whatever intrigues they find. I think it has potential...
sailing to a new land, taking up new identities, putting their troubled past in the rearview... hopefully.. that would be good
ReplyDeleteI think if we tried this, it would be well worth spending some time building out backgrounds, motivations, and so on - it would work really well for a more socially oriented adventure I think.
ReplyDeleteI do agree its time to start playing off backgrounds more. I've seen bits in the Strand stream where they have, and it really adds to the storyline. It seems to facilitate non-combat encounters. I think that new Force Grey one uses them well too. I think Chris Hardwick's Will Whee-Tawn is the one that struck me. He's a wizard just out of his books and at the first sign of another person "magic missile!" It was just one of those moments where you say "yes, that's just what his character would do." It made me realize how little of that we've incorporated.
ReplyDelete