Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Our Shared World Campaign

The most common difficulty people seem to have when trying to get a D&D campaign going is getting all the players' schedules to line up consistently.  My solution has been to run multiple groups (some with shared players and characters) in the same world.

Our home group tries to meet every other Friday, but logistical hiccups can easily lead to four or even six weeks between sessions.  My first solution to bridge the gap was to blend my kids' campaign with the main one.  The kids's characters could have their own adventures, but they existed in a shared world and could join up with the main group when the circumstances of the story and the schedule permitted.  Our home campaign actually started with another person DMing and I played Faerthurin, my wood elf assassin.  When I switched to DMing the main group, I originally intended for Faerthurin to become an NPC and resurface later in the story, but I found he was useful in the kids' campaign as a character anyone could use if they were sitting in on a session.  It all made sense in the story as characters joined the main group for a session or two and then left to have their own adventures.

Since then, we've added a third group.  I had a friend who I knew was somewhat interested in playing, and with a little nudge he got his brother and another friend to join in.  One player from our home group joined in with a new character and we were ready to go.  My impetus as DM (besides just getting to play D&D more) has been to run an epic length Tomb of Annihilation campaign.  I intend to use the hardcover adventure, all the Adventurers League modules, the Guild Adepts material, the Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan, a fair amount of bespoke material, and maybe even some conversions of other topical tropical adventures like the Isle of Dread, Isle of the Ape, or other X series BECMI modules.

I didn't like the primary hook in Tomb of Annihilation at all.  I think it really stretches believability when a powerful NPC hires some squishy nobody 1st level characters to undertake an important mission.  I also felt like teleporting to Chult was cheap and squandered the opportunity for a classic sea voyage.  I had my group start on the docks of Waterdeep, answering a posting looking to hire swords for the trip to Chult and back.  Our first four hour session covered roughly half the journey to Chult, including giant rats in the hold (as every squishy 1st level should have to deal with), a sahuagin attack, and lots of role playing interactions.  That was really a wonderful surprise.  Everyone in the group had differing levels of experience with different editions of D&D, from none at all to less than a year of 5e, and I sort of expected a pulpy, kill everything and take the gold adventuring style. But rather than diving into the rules and mechanics, everyone dove into their characters with wonderful results.  The potential boredom of the sea voyage ("roll for random encounters... None... Next day, roll again...") was eliminated as the characters spent the time between encounters interacting with the different NPCS in the crew.

Ah yes, the crew.  As the trajectory of this campaign arcs towards the Tomb of Annihilation, I wanted to have some replacement characters ready to go.  I made half a dozen NPCs on DnDBeyond and sketched out their basic personalities and possible secrets and motives.  Making them on DnDBeyond was an enormous time saver and won me over to that system completely.  Each character took roughly ten minutes to make rather than the traditional hour or more using pen and paper. I made them as approximate analogues for the characters the players made so that they could be easily substituted if anyone died.  The main party is a half-elf druid, orc fighter, tiefling rogue, and tortle barbarian.  The crew surrogates, if you will, are a halfling bard, genasi sorcerer, goliath cleric, human monk, and minotaur ranger.  The captain of the ship is a higher level dwarf fighter, and the rest are commoners (unless I need to develop one into an NPC for the sake of the story or as a surrogate).

The ship voyage is somewhat railroad-y.  I have specific encounters planned rather than going hex by hex.  But it will be up to the players to decide what to given their circumstances.  The first example of that is that the ship left Waterdeep with just enough food for the voyage, but the giant rats ate some of it and they're going to have to make an unscheduled stop to steal giant crabs and goats from the island of a cyclops.  I'm going to develop the island enough that the characters can Either get their crabs and goats and leave, or they can choose to explore it further.

I quite intentionally have not introduced the Death Curse yet.  MY plan is for the ship to dock at Port Nyanzaru for ten days, during which the characters can have adventures in and around the city.  However, this will open up a possibility that they will miss the ship leaving to return to Waterdeep, leaving them stranded in Chult.  If so.. So be it!  If they make it back to the ship, there's the possibility for more sea adventures and then some more action in Waterdeep like Rats of Waterdeep or Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.  I might use Cellar of Death by James Introcaso to initiate the Death Curse and push them back to Chult

But back to the main point! The home groups has found themselves in the Underdark.  The kids group is adventuring in the vicinities of Neverwinter and Neverwinterwoods, practically about the main group.  The Chult/Waterdeep group may find themselves drawn into the web of the others, or perhaps I'll just have little Easter eggs that pass between their stories.  Either way, it means a lot of D&D and a very good time.

No comments: