I just really want to showcase off the elements that I love about this setting to my PCs, and quite frankly that's all of it! When all is said and done, I think I'm going to settle with starting the adventure as a location-based thing in Kalaman at around 5th level, or perhaps the Dragon Isles and have the characters be forced to come to Ansalon. This latter approach is a good one for introducing people who are completely new to the setting--both they and their characters get to discover elements of it simultaneously.
In the end, this made me wonder what sorts of campaigns that the gamers on this board intend to run. Will it be a localized and political game? Or one spanning the entire continent--or even the entire world into Taladas and any other new lands that might pique your creativity?
Basically, I want to showcase the conflict of magic. I want all sorts of elements dealing with that.
For the time being, my players are in a homebrewed town I have called Dragon's End (mentioned in my Knight of the Heart write-up). The players are searching for the Ghost Blade (from the DLCS), which they believe will help them out somehow with the River of Souls. They've just hooked up with a new cell for the Legion of Steel.
I'm not quite sure where this is going yet, but it should be fun. Granted, taking my best friend's half-elf, and having the tunnels under Qualinesti trap him for hours on end was quite fun. Hee hee.
Originally posted by Andre La Roche
So Cam and I were talking, and we really agreed that one of the hardest part of running a DL campaign is deciding where to launch it from and what to do. There are just so many different elements to utilize for one's own campaign, as well as great styles for campaigns. Do I run a location-based adventure set in a certain area of the campaign? Or do I encourage regular free-roaming all across the continent? Or should I buckle down and wait anxiously for Chris's Key of Destiny as a jumping-point?
The way I see it is this. You, as a DM, are a person who operates a theatre or a cinema. You are the one responsible for putting on the act, but it is the audience that decides which pictures they are going to see.
So let the players give the initiative. You are just there to entertain. Show them the movies they wanna see.
Originally posted by ferratus
The way I see it is this. You, as a DM, are a person who operates a theatre or a cinema. You are the one responsible for putting on the act, but it is the audience that decides which pictures they are going to see.
So let the players give the initiative. You are just there to entertain. Show them the movies they wanna see.
I used to think more like you in terms of giving the players a maximum amount of control over the story, but have since come to view the player-DM relationship quite differently. It's not a case of either railroad players or sit back and let them do the heavy-lifting, being a DM, like any role, requires a diverse amount of adaptability--to know when to step up to the plate as well as knowing when the player's are having a blast carrying the campaign on their shoulders.
I think that ultimately the duty of carrying initiative to keep a campaign movingIs oe that's shared by the PCs and the DM, each one realizing when it's wiser to followthe other's lead. Being a DM isn't about being there to "entertain the players" but fulfilling your own equally important role to contribute to a fun and memorable experience for everybody at the table--even yourself. In this day and age we're often persuaded to try and think of ourselves last, but there's no harm in paying attention to our own needs, and you'll find that many people aren't necessarily happy merely sitting back and acting almost exclusively in the capacity of "rules arbiter."
In many ways, the DM is also the "world arbiter", deciding exactly what it is about the campaign world that the PCs see. It's a tricky relationship, and one that's unique to each group. My own DMing style tends to set up a main focus initially, with many, many sidepaths for the PCs to take, as well as "grab bag emergency material" in case I need to ad-lib down a path that I hadn't even foreseen at all. The further the PCs get down said path, the more I focus on once again re-orienting the meat of the situation and story to their current situation, and once more rebuilding side paths to let them know that just like in the real-world, there's always a lot of room for choice. It's about trying to navigate game interaction in such a way that both sides feel like they're having fun and accomplishing things. The exact nature of the relationship between you and your group is one that's comfortable and fits you, but is hardly universal.
I'm very much about making the players the stars of the movie, however the stars can't do much without a set designer there putting up backdrops and props for them to interact with. These backdrops and props translate out to adventure hooks and the general feel and theme of a campaign, and ultimately I need to decide the exact nature of said hooks--should I aim for ones more epic and geographically expansive, or local and politically dense?
That's the sort of thing that I was aiming at--seeing what "props" people have in mind for their own campaigns.
Fast forwards to post wotl. The gods came back but these folks didnt care. They venerate three gods, The holy flame, and his sons Vengeance and Honor (sirrion, sargas, and kijo). Then the KoT started invading. The elders decided that this threat doesnt fit their worldview, so they sent some super minor underlings to mainland ansalon to find out where these metal knights are coming from, and put a stop to their nonsense. This involved a huge ritual of teleportation, to the last place they remembered on the mainland, istar =)
Course, they missed, and ended up in port balifor, where they discovered a plot hatched by the KoT, a black robe, and a Black Dragon to turn local gladiators into spawn.
The PCs, having never met any non human, non elian, are shellshocked by all this and decide to stop it. Thats where we are right now. The next phase of the campaign involves going to Khur, and helping Morgan di Kyre prevent the land from becoming a giant spawn factory.