Monthly Archives: March 2023

Basic Gameplay “Loop”

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So, what do I have set up for my players? Having a world is fine and all, but what great challenge is going to face the players? Many Dungeons and Dragons campaigns have some epic story behind them. Perhaps a clue to a long lost Dwarven fortress has been discovered. The adventurers must race to find this fortress before another power claims them. Or perhaps a dragon cult is trying to resurrect their dragon god. The adventurers must foil these plans for the good of the world. Or perhaps the adventurers have been stranded in a dark realm ruled by a vampire king. They must unravel the mysteries of this place if they are to have any hope of survival. So what great story will my campaign entail?

The Basic Loop

At first there won’t be some epic quest. In essence they will be the fantasy version of contractors, exploring dungeons and returning with magic items. But, fairly quickly I will have the group come to the attention of those in charge of the settlement. This will get the group a bit more direction in what dungeons to explore, and possible side objectives.

The basic “gameplay loop” I am going for is this: players get assigned/chose a dungeon to explore. They travel to the dungeon and clear it. Upon returning to town the characters get a week “downtime” to have fun and get in trouble. Then repeat the loop.

But of course, nothing ever goes according to a smooth plan. Normally this would be where I would tell you what big twist awaits the players. But as of yet, no twist exists. Mostly this is because when I made this setting I was trying to make a giant “sandbox” for the players to play in. So how will I get my twist?

The Twist

If I have no twist planned, how will I get one? One of three ways. I will go in order of most preferred to least.

backstory

This one is fairly simple. Each player will make a backstory for their character, and I can draw on those backstories to create new points of tension or conflicts for them to deal with.

For instance, a player may be searching for parts of an ancient, broken, magic item. Maybe the pieces have been discovered by another group. How will the player go about getting them? Will they even involve the rest of the party? Or maybe another player’s past catches up to them in the form of a competing adventure’s party. Or even more complicated quests could arise.

it is a sandbox

This one is the most organic. Put simply, given enough rope an adventure’s party with either: 1 hang themselves 2 accidently kidnap someone they shouldn’t have or 3 recreate the Gordian Knot. Any of these can turn into an interesting adventure, and basically only relies on me to react to what the party does with either “Yes, and…” or “No, but…” aka, the two most useful phrases in improv.

Kick the nest

The final one is the one I least want to use. If the players refuse to create problems (or solve problems too quickly) I can have the island throw a problem at them. One idea I had to this is as follows.

During one of the party’s down days the alarms begin to sound. A giant lumbering beast has been spotted approaching the settlement. Too large and fast to face head on they wait at the barricades to face the beast and turn it back. But as it grows closer, it looks… strange, not quite right. Until it gets close enough to realize it is fake, a “trojan horse” monster. It heaves itself over the walls, ignoring the punishment it is taking from the defenders, before disgorging a horde of goblins into the settlement. These goblins are not here to fight, but to steal everything they can get there hands on before running away.

How will the party react to this? Will they get something of theirs stolen too? Who built the mechanical monster that breached the walls? All things to kick off an adventure. The only question now being: Which adventure will they find/create in this sandbox.

Populating My World

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Now, the setting for my campaign is a brand new island, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be people here. While it is true there won’t be any natives (at least as far as anyone is aware) plenty of people have an interest in this island. Some for a fresh start. Others to plunder the riches of the dungeons. Some for the mystery of this place. And a few have arrived to safeguard against the potential danger this place represents.

Primary Settlement

The first group my adventuring party is going to encounter is the primary settlement created by the adventures exploring this island. This settlement is split into two sections: the civilian flotilla and the adventure’s stronghold.

The Flotilla

The flotilla is a collection of ships and semi-permeant floating structures a few miles off shore. Viewed from the outside it looks like a small floating city, with almost all the accommodations you would expect from a well established settlement. Blacksmiths, eateries, tailor shops, housing, a town square, even a hospital all exist in this floating city. As for why the civilians live off the island, that’s simple. The Island is dangerous. Seemingly random beasts sometimes appear, and it is safer for the civilians to just not be in harm’s way. Not to mention easier for the adventures to drive off the beasts.

Adventure’s stronghold

The stronghold is the on land coastal settlement of the adventures. While it doesn’t have as many of the accommodations that the flotilla has, it is hardly bare bones. One giant bar services the adventures, with enough partitions that it functions as almost 5-7 bars. Several weapon and armor shops with gear from all over the multiverse. Many so called “general stores” with all the gear an adventure could want. And then you have the administration.

This is a stronghold after all, so those in charge had to fortify it. Several barracks line the impressive outer walls, with enough semi-retired adventures living in them to fight off several Dragons if it came to it. For those adventures not in the full time business of defending the settlement there are boarding houses randomly distributed throughout the settlement… At least they appear random, until you note the even distribution and a few other patterns that guarantee whatever threat the settlement faces: someone will be on scene quickly. Finally we have the administration of the entire settlement, flotilla and stronghold both.

Administration

The group primarily in charge of this settlement are “commonly” known as The Insatiable Scholars. This is a group I created for the backstory of an old character I once played. In short they believe Magic has no inherent morality, whether it be a firebolt, the magic to become an undead Lich that feeds on souls, or even healing magic. To them the magic itself is not good or evil, although the consequences of a given use may be. Along with this amoral stance is a generations long quest to learn all there is to know about magic. Understandably, an island connected to all the planes of existence, that seems to spontaneously create dungeons and magic items, presents an irresistible siren’s call to them. With their considerable resources, connections, and raw power they got themselves put in charge of the island’s exploration and investigation.

In game terms this means that the primary contact for my group is going to be a very powerful Wizard. This Wizard is going to be a bit absent minded and quirky, but have a bit more level headed wife to keep him on track. Both are very powerful, but so caught up in administrative work and keeping this place from falling apart that they can’t actually go and investigate as they wish. While they will provide the party with some support, they aren’t going to be able to wave their hands and make problems disappear for the party (the way a level 20 player might).

Everyone Else

This is getting a bit longer than I first thought, so I will give a quick round up of the other factions on the island at the start of the campaign. I may return to these and expand on them in a future post.

Goblins

Firstly there are at least 3 goblin tribes that disappeared into the Island’s interior and disappeared. Are they dead? Fractured into more tribes? Combined into one goblin empire? No one is quite sure. But it is known that at least some of them live on, as goblin raids and ambushes are not unheard of.

Creatures

Next up is the “local” fauna. Creatures from all over the multiverse appear to just… show up on the island. They struggle for dominance, some going extinct on the island before more creatures arrive to put everything into chaos again. Almost like the island itself is “borrowing” from other places to create a new ecosystem all its own.

Other Problems

It is speculated that some of the big boogeymen of the D&D world also have outposts on the island. Beings like the Mind Flayers, Cults dedicated to Dragons or Demons, covens of Necromancers or Vampires. Almost nothing is off the table. But by the same token almost nothing is yet written in stone.

Dragons (In my dungeons? more likely than you might think)

The last group I have decided will be part of the setting is a “lauth” of dragons. Long story short a “lauth” is a small group of dragons that have agreed to a common goal, becoming something close to a clan of dragons. These dragons need have nothing in common besides this singular goal, so traditionally good and evil dragons may align together.

In my case the lauth on this island will be comprised of several metallic, chromatic, and even gem dragons. No one is quite sure what their goal is, but tow things are certain. They seem to have the uncanny ability to know everything that is happening on the island at any given time. And they have made a habit of intercepting adventurers returning from a dungeon dive to take the magic item they retrieved. Curiously though, despite the dragon’s ability to simply overpower the adventurers and take what they want, they almost always offer a trade for the item in question.

Ideas for Settings

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When last I left off I promised some of the ideas I had for the setting I would be presenting my players. Unfortunately I got sick shortly after, but I am back now. I must admit, writing these out is only in part for the consumption of others. I also am doing this to force myself to actually write out my ideas rather than letting them fester in my mind. That way I might actually make progress.

Where to Begin?

First and foremost: What world are we playing in? Dungeons and Dragons has a large number of established worlds with their own societies, power structures, threats, etcetera. So which one am I using? None of them and all of them. And just to cut off the D&D experts in the crowd, no this is not a plane shift campaign (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it). Let me explain.

Objectives and Solutions

I had a simple objective when creating this world: Give my players an excuse to go dungeon diving. Inspired by a couple of fantasy stories I have been following, I started with the idea of Dungeons that self generated. But why would that happen? Magic obviously, but the more specific the better. And so I created an “Island”, on this island dungeons spontaneously generate with magic items at their core. Retrieve the item and the dungeon begins to collapse. What is in the dungeon? Almost anything from a classic stone dungeon filled with skeletons, to a cave with goblins and wolves, all the way to a full on “who done it” murder mystery.

You might have noticed I put “island” in quotation marks, that is because this island is on the larger size of that description. Somewhere between the size of New Zealand and Madagascar. AKA more than enough space to have just about anything show up. But where would this “anything” come from? Anywhere.

A little more backstory. In the lore of D&D there are multiple worlds, literally different planets, that compose what is called the “mortal plane”. Surrounding that are the other planes of existence, ranging from the Feywilds, to the Shadowfell, to the Elemental Planes, all the way to the outer planes of Order-Chaos and Good-Evil. Why is this relevant? Well, the back story for my island goes something like this.

Discovery

One day, a new island was discovered. No island should have been there, and it was too large to have gone unnoticed until now. Upon landing and exploring the island, the first explores found others doing the same. These people were strange, just a bit “off” from what was expected. But the Wizards of the expeditions all came to the same conclusion: they had each come from another world. It turns out that this island was somehow connected to multiple worlds of the Mortal Plane. Further investigation proved that this island in fact was connected to ALL the planes of existence. Upon discovering the dungeon phenomenon a kind of “gold rush” began. Spearheaded by adventures this gold rush was targeting not gold, but the far more valuable magic items at the core of the dungeons.

Upshots

With this set up I establish a few things. First a “sandbox” environment where anything can happen and the players are free to do just about anything. Next is two clear objectives: get loot and learn the mysteries of the island. And finally it makes the only requirement for a character created for this campaign to be “a reason to come to this island” place of origin, backstory, species, almost nothing is off the table as long as they have a reason to come here.