D&D Campaign

Spee · 2004-03-22, 10:03 PM

Anyone here play D&D? If so, read on, as this is the only forums my friends dont go to. Feedback is appreciated on the idea.

I was reading the monster manual last night, and came across an Eye of Gruumsh. An eye of gruumsh is an orc who, in thier fervor for thier religion, gouge out thier left eye, and can only do so while remaining completely silent. If they make a noise, they fail the test, and are out an eye. this results in the eye's of Gruumsh being a large horde of pure asskicking.

Thus, I had an idea. all the player character wake up in a castle hall, which is littered with the bodies of orcs and humans. Blood is sprayed everywhere, etc. The characters are in relatively good armor, but wounded heavily, thus the cause for thier unconciousness, and amnesia. at most, theyd have 2 HP. At least, 0. it would be interesting for a large group of active people to carry around an unconcious, but alive, body.

Anyhow. Im going under the assumption that the eyes of gruumsh are moving in a bid to expand the orc world's borders, and this castle was in thier sights, thus the cause for major bloodshed. Considering the frontlines of the battle have moved far awya from this isolated, but important structure, there are only a few orcs left, and those are the scavenging small ones that pose as much of a threat as a small pack(3 or 4) cave rats.

So, these characters have to find a way to heal. If there is no cleric in the party, Im going to place a cure light wounds object somewhere in the cellars of the basement. If there is a cleric, Im going to increase the general strength of the monsters still present in the castle.

Once moving from the castle towards the town that the building watched over, they find it is under orc occupation. Not heavy presence, but enough to make one worried. It's the players' goal to infiltrate a humans house, which is devoid of any orcs, and grill them for information regarding wtf is going on.

Once satiated with information, they can choose to go about trying to remove the orc presence from the city and liberate the townsfolk for the time being, and reap the rewards of the mayor's gratitude, or they can simply leave. If the former, they shall have to do so under cover of night, using stealth and shadow, along with brute force and surprise(Slitting ones throat in a dark alley, versus breaking through a window and cleaving 4 orcs in half with a broadsword before they can react)

The buy/steal some horses, and go southbound, and go by a makeshift temple, erected hastily, for the purposes of wounded orcish warriors and to help the spirits of the orc townsfolk. Choice of either burning it down/slaughtering everyone inside(who brings weapons into a church?!) or just leaving it alone, and leaving relatively unknown.

Now, stealing an idea as to why Rome was built where it was, Im going to say that the Orc Capital, lets call it... Gul-Nazkipp, or some other gutteral assname, is surrounded on three sides by mountains which stretch at least a mile into the sky. the terrain is mostly volcanic rock, and the one side that isnt covered by a mountain is sloped downhill, this giving attackers a disadvantage. Here, at the capital of the Orc world, they sneak in, take any supplies that are needed, and search for the centre of the city, for there is a massive temple located there, and the eyes of Gruumsh are trained there.

Needless to say, infiltrating the main temple will be either an excersize in complete brute force, or neigh-paranoid sneaking about. Through eithe rmethod, they gain entrance to the catacombs of the temple, which lead down a good 400 feet or so. One they reach the bottom of, essentially, a massive circular staircase with floors branching off of it, there is a long stretch of hallway, perhaps about 400 meters, ending in a glowing red light. There are no other doors in the corridor, so the only choice to proceed is forward.

There, after they reach the main chamber, Will be The Eye of Gruumsh, the deity himself. I plan on levelling up the spellcaster only to a sufficient level where if he sends other people into the astral plain, where the gods live, that sorcerer will die. So, he does, and the fighters and party members are sent through that portal to fight Gruumsh, who is responsible for fueling his champions' urge to expand thier borders, thus resulting in the boundless slaughter of hundreds of thousands. Towns, etc. Gruumsh is a tough motherfucker, and I will not be satiated until at least 2 members die, leaving only 2 survivors in the group.

Now, heres the interesting thing - I plan to give them all MASSIVE bonuses in innocuous skills - 40 points to rope skills, 30 points to riding, knowledge of all languages, etc. These mundane skills will come in extraordinary use later in the campaign.

Im leaving out a few cities, but what do you all think?

Bighoss · 2004-03-22, 10:36 PM

do not play D&D I tried for like a month and than realized it was a retarded waste of time. It will always, I mean always be like this.
http://www.cybermoonstudios.com/8bitDandD.html

MilitantB0B · 2004-03-22, 10:45 PM

Originally Posted by Bighoss

http://www.cybermoonstudios.com/8bitDandD.html

Firefly · 2004-03-22, 10:57 PM

Couple of guys in my outfit and I play D&D together. Anyone in MD/VA/DC area is welcome to join us.

JakeLogan · 2004-03-23, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by Bighoss

do not play D&D I tried for like a month and than realized it was a retarded waste of time. It will always, I mean always be like this.
http://www.cybermoonstudios.com/8bitDandD.html

That was ripped off of summoner. (After I heard the guy talk about being in the bar I knew it was so)

AztecWarrior · 2004-03-22, 10:38 PM

No vikings. You need vikings. Any D&D campaign needs either sex with elves or vikings.

(Take this lightly. I neither play D&D nor read your campaign.)

Derfud · 2004-03-22, 10:42 PM

Sounds cool, as a fellow DM, I can say that is quite a great prospect. Is this campaign set in any specific setting (Forgotten Realms, planescape, etc..)? Also, what level at the characters starting at? What level will they be finishing at? Also, don't forget to give them a chance to muster up some aid before attacking the Orcish capitol. For example, creating a series of sidequests for them to aquire an artifact, that a group of mercenaries would accept in order to provide some kind of distraction so that the PCs can enter the city, or (if it is a particularily large group of merceneries, they could seige the city). This also comes to an option of gaining the favour of a beseiged kingdom, to help attack the orc capitol. Perhaps also, my favourite way of getting some aid, is to get the PC's to stumble upon a Hermit's shack near an ocean, he appears to be old and at first glance, but posesses quite a hefty stash of valuables in a chest. What the players do not know is he is really a transformed Bronze dragon, who is the head of a Draconic council, that wishes to rid the land of the orcs. Whether the players attempt to help the hermit initially, or decide to try and plunder him, will either create a new group of sidequests, or a battle with a particularily fierce bronze dragon. These are some of my ideas for gaining an alliance for seiging the city. I know players usually like to feel that they have gained some kind of favour with NPCs, and that it is not just them alone fighting through hordes of orcs. Seiges on a finale locale seem to add alot of needed massiveness to the story.

Spee · 2004-03-22, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by Derfud

Sounds cool, as a fellow DM, I can say that is quite a great prospect. Is this campaign set in any specific setting (Forgotten Realms, planescape, etc..)? Also, what level at the characters starting at? What level will they be finishing at? Also, don't forget to give them a chance to muster up some aid before attacking the Orcish capitol. <snip> These are some of my ideas for gaining an alliance for seiging the city. I know players usually like to feel that they have gained some kind of favour with NPCs, and that it is not just them alone fighting through hordes of orcs. Seiges on a finale locale seem to add alot of needed massiveness to the story.

well, considering the PC's survived a raid in which EVERYONE ELSE DIED, I'd assume theyre somewhat strong. Level 5, at the least. At the end, I'll try and have most at level 21, because it gives that sense of "OMG I R UB4R 1337"

That Mercenary idea is relaly quite nifty. I shall pen that in. Perhaps there is a leader of a private militia in the second city. if the PC's dont clear the first town of orcs, they shall have to find him manually. If they do clear it, they get a pass of some sort to a well-hid tunnel far form town, which leads to a small complex beneath the city, where the militia guy resides. Perhaps, by gaining his favor, he may grant a request at a later part of the campaign?

Majik · 2004-03-23, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by Spee

well, considering the PC's survived a raid in which EVERYONE ELSE DIED, I'd assume theyre somewhat strong. Level 5, at the least. At the end, I'll try and have most at level 21, because it gives that sense of "OMG I R UB4R 1337"

WTF 5 to 21....How many gaming sessions we talking here? If your players are advancing more than 2 levels, or 1 above lvl 9, per gaming session you are being WAY to easy on them.

Seer · 2004-03-22, 11:19 PM

The Complete Warrior has Eye of Gruumsh as a prestige class. It says these things:

1. The deity is simply named Gruumsh. He was blinded by an elven god.
2. Orcs wouldn't have a capitol. They are too tribal.
3. Eyes of Gruumsh tend to be the leaders of these tribes and work poorly with other Eyes of Gruumsh.

However,

"every few decades or so, several eyes of Gruumsh get the same idea in their heads--a crusade! (after all, a holy crusade involving hundreds of tribes under the command of dozens of eyes of Gruumsh is just the thing to inspire the younger generation to the deity's service.) When this occurs, the eyes of Gruumsh meet and declare truces between competing tribes by closing their left eyes all at once. Then they go out and try to eradicate some other kind of creature.

Derfud · 2004-03-22, 11:29 PM

He doesnt need to follow that rule. Perhaps the capitol was magically constructed by Gruumsh himself as a city for the orcs. He then lured the tribes there to inhabit the city under his rule. Also, as for leveling up a spellcaster to take them to the astral plane, instead there could be some kind of portal device in the room of confrontation room, constructed for messengers who would travel to and from the astral plane.

Happy lil Elf · 2004-03-23, 01:09 PM

I disagree. I've gotten and given as much as three levels in one sitting above level 15. But then it's because the PCs worked their asses off. We tend to go strictly by the awards as far as enemies go. If you figure out a way to kill enough crap to give you a large chunk of exp, you should be rewarded for doing so. Granted when we play DnD it usually ends up being an 8 hour session minimum with the average being closer to 11 or 12.

The key to DMing is to make sure your party has fun, which is not as easy as it sounds since generally people tend to enjoy different things. Something to keep in mind is that while yes, it is fun to kill off PCs when you're the DM, more often than not it also pisses off your players. Even if they end up at the end with a True Ressurection it just sucks to be dead and have to watch the rest of a fight while basically picking your ass. Personally, I usually shoot for a large number of encounters that are relatively easy (in that they don't completely drain the party's resources) with some encounters that damn near end them all mixed in. It lets them maul things for enjoyment, but still have to fight smart sometimes in order to survive. I regularily fudge die rolls, hps, stats, etc to infulence the flow of fights. If the PCs are killing things too easily for too long, they're gonna get bored. If they can'tbeat anything your throwing at them, they're going to get frustrated. So if it takes messing with a couple of die rolls so the fighter who's been doing admirably but is just a little low on HPs doesn't get dropped by the critical the monster he's fighting just rolled, so be it.

Now this is not to say PCs can't get themselves killed. Our Death Knight deciding to joust a Paladin head on, and getting killed in a single hit (Mounted combat feats+Smite Evil+Evil character with no bonus HPs from their Con=ugly) was chalked up as a lesson learned (and considering he had assasin levels to this day I don't understand what he was thinking). Always give the party an out though, or at least something they can recognize readily as a point of no return when entering an extremely deadly situation. Nothing is more teh ghey then a DM who sends a party in to a cave to kill orcs and springs a couple of Ancient Red Dragons as a "suprise".

In the end though the best thing to keep in mind is that you're there for their enjoyment, not yours. This is often best offset by having at least one or two others of the group run different campaigns, since constantly being the DM can get very very frustrating and boring.

Being a good DM is actually kind of like being a good boyfriend/girlfriend, in a sick twisted sort of way anyways. Sure, you can fuck around, constantly change the rules of the game, and just be an all around ass, but if you do you're going to find that only person you get to play with anymore is yourself.

Bleh, 'nuff rambling from me. I suppose I should actually get ack to that "worK' thing