|
aldantefax posted:Run a megafunnel for your west Marches game. This is a concept from Dungeon Crawl Classics which has a bunch of regular people with random stats and very cursory equipment get started and there are no superheroics. Zero HP and you are done. Then, put them in circumstances that are intentionally unfair but not mean, and whoever comes out the other side is now a level 1 character. Really sets the tone that danger is everywhere. Imo the 0th level adventure in the back of the DCC book would make a great West Marches starting funnel (although I've only read it and haven't run it); it provides hooks at the end that can *very* easily be translated into cool nearby locations and encounters (there's a dryad wood nearby!), and the whole "you went through a star portal" thing can even provide a reason as to why a bunch of idiot farmers have become murder hobo interns intent on exploring the dangerous wilds.
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2021 21:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 13, 2024 19:53 |
|
|
ok also also, I think a good west marches campaign should incorporate some board gamey elements (half sandbox, half boardgame?); I've been thinking of doing stuff like allowing my players to "invest in the town" in order to increase the starting level of future adventurers should their current crop die. oh and does anyone have any favorite programs for creating pretty hex maps?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 11, 2021 21:57
|
|
|
mellonbread posted:If you're running three hour sessions and travel to/from the dungeon consumes most or all of a session, then no, there's no reasonable expectation that the players will get back to town by the ending. Unless you set up a system whereby players can move quickly through locations they've already explored, possibly with a reduced chance of encounters, to reach new areas. So moving through a few hexes and returning to town might take an entire session at first, but in future sessions you can traverse those hexes with a single die roll and expenditure of the appropriate exploration resources, leaving the rest of the session for exploring new areas or dungeon crawling or whatever was at the end of the original journey. since most of the games that I am (and presumably a lot of you are) a part of are virtual, I think it's a lot more feasible to move some of the travel stuff to the pre-game. E.g if you have a map available for the players then they can decide where they want to go ahead of time; you can abstract some of the travel encounters and just present them with results/choices at the start of the session ("you run into some magical quicksand; if you don't have a rope to toss to The Fighter then they take stress/hp damage/lose equipment as they struggle to get out"). This can go a long way to keeping your session focused on the destination (if that's what you want)
|
|
#
¿
Jan 12, 2021 23:13
|
|