I had a crazy idea recently.
You see, I had talked awhile back about my on-going 4e pirate-themed game coming to a halt. I TPK'd the group and was burnt out. They made new characters, we pressed on, but I was still burnt out. I wasn't having fun. Luckily my group still was and when I addressed where I was at with DMing, they were super supportive, even offering to take over DM duties.
Then I had a crazy idea. I had promised to introduce them to other editions of D&D and figured, why not use this burn-out with 4e productively and run them through some Swords & Wizardry to show them how 0e worked.
Turns out, they quite liked it. Our first session was filled with 2 (count 'em, two) TPKs. But they loved it. It was fast, furious, deadly, and different. They still loved 4e (understandably so) but appreciated S&W and 0e for what it was. Our second session was awesome, too. Another player joined us and no further TPKs were experienced.
Really, starting with the super simple Swords & Wizardry Complete helped alleviate my DM burn-out. That and reading other games like Dungeon World and Stars Without Number also helped. My brain needed a break. But along the way, I also found my new love that I foresee myself hacking and slashing to pieces for the foreseeable future (even if it never sees play): Swords & Wizardry White Box.
Now, I'll move on from here or else I could turn this post into a rant about how much I love White Box. About how it's brilliant and in many ways perfect. It has inherent balance in its design and... See, there I go.
Let's get back to my crazy idea. It started with running my regular group through Grimmsgate, which is a fantastic and simple introductory module to S&W that isn't so simple a pro wouldn't enjoy it. Honestly it has a little bit of everything for a intro module, some wilderness dangers and a good dungeon crawl. It's got good bang for its buck, though I wish it had wandering monsters for the wilderness sections (which is something I myself added when circumstances made sense. Like when the party camped out near the recently dead corpse of an ogre.)
Regardless of having Dungeon World and Swords & Wizardry and Grimmsgate on the mind, I still was thinking about my 4e pirate campaign that is on hiatus. I have been wanting to get back to it, as it is something that my group and I created together. Everything from the setting, to the gods, to the lands themselves. There was a lot of player buy-in in the world and it was great. After "The TPK" the group rolled up new characters and were having fun when my burn out struck.
So my idea was this: what if, instead of dying or being slain or converted to Lizardfolk slaves, for some arcane reason, the snake goddess Kekekuala had decided to send the party back to the days when the Ancient Seas were not so ancient. When the Trade Navy and Empire were but a dream. When the pirates were unaligned and there was no Pirate Lord, when they were as chaotic and wild as the seas themselves. When dark cultists roamed the islands, looking for sacrifices and converts. When one power reigned supreme: Kekekuala.
The plus side would be that those well-characters that grew through our collaborative efforts would still be alive, though in an admittedly foreign world. But how would I do this without being cheesy and not relapsing into 4e burn out?
As this is an ancient and primeval time, set millennia in the past from the "collaborative present" in-game, what if this was reflected mechanically as well. This is a time when magic worked differently. It was more arcane (in all senses of the word) and archaic. The lands were untamed and uncivilized, truly dangerous. So the idea was to recreate these characters in-spirit using the Swords & Wizardry rules.
Now, this does require some work on my part as DM in either liberally re-fluffing some existing classes, or creating new ones. Which is fine, this is something I'm eagerly willing to do for my ever-patient group.
But the idea pressed on in my mind. What if the party would jump through time every so often, battling Kekekuala and her forces throughout the time line, hampering her progress as they fight towards and for the present, leading to a climax when they finally return. Which means that they can directly effect where their back-up crew left off. They can mold this world by its past. The different eras of the Ancient Seas would be represented by different mechanical changes as precedented already by this idea.
Mechanically it would go as follows, serving as a tour through the editions: 0e (Swords & Wizardry Complete and Core) ==> AD&D 1e (via OSRIC) ==> AD&D 2e (luckily I have these books!) ==> 3e (debating between 3.5 and Pathfinder for this one) ==> and finally returning to 4e
It's ambitious, I know. But I think the payoff will be awesome. As it is already a collaborative setting, I don't feel like a dick by asking my players to help me track some of these things. AND it gives them an opportunity to tour through the editions as I promised and play some beloved characters they thought were dead.
Whew.
So that's the plan for now. I'm excited, it should rock. Now to just finish up Grimmsgate and maybe run a 1-shot (or more!) of Dungeon World and get this bad boy started. And somehow eventually find time for a Barbarians of Lemuria game as well!
Until next time,
-blob
You can follow me on Twitter @Sorcerer_Blob or via the hash-tag #legend4ry. You can also find my blog and others at the Fourthcore Hub and at the RPG Blog Alliance.
No comments:
Post a Comment