Travellar
12-17-2007, 08:35 PM
I'm not sure if anyone else here has ever tried this, but my friends and I have done some self run D&D campaigns in the past. The rules are fairly simple, and you need a couple people able to DM if nessicary. It does mean that all players can play, instead of needing an odd man out to GM.
Campaign cards!
The basis of a self running campain is the three stacks of cards we drew up. We used a bunch of 3x5 index cards, and highlighted the edges for three different colors.
Quests
Quest cards are just that. Whenever the charecters arrive at a point where a quest might begin, we draw one. Each card has a basic quest outline on it, usually of a very cliche quest. Monsters besieging a town, loss of an artifact, recovering a kidnapped princess... The most important part there is that the cards be a little generalized. That way, as the plot unfolds (I asure you, it will), we can fit these things into it.
Events
Event cards are even more cliche than quest cards. For every day of travel we draw one. If we arrive in the city, we draw one. If we stay in town, we draw one. If the pizza arrives while we're in th tavern, we draw one. We decided that 20-25% of our cards would refer us to the random encounters table. The rest were everything from a roadblock, finding a dying adventurer along the road who asks that we finish his qquest, to arriving at our destination to find the entire city dead and burned to the ground. (hey, THAT starts some fun questlines without even drawing the cards!)
Moosey fates
these were the most fun, the most sadistic, and the most hilarious set of cards we drew up. Do to the freelance nature of the campaign, we knew we just might get our PCs killed. If you died, and the rest of the party couldn't help you, you drew a card from the yellow stack. Some of them were good, such as your deity sending you back to complete your work. Some of them were bad, such as coming to on an abandonded beach, stripped of gear, with no idea how you got there. Some were worse, "You are dead. Period. draw up a new charecter." And then there was my favorite, where you come to, bound, gagged, and roasting on a spit over a fire for a tribe of canibals.
I'll warn you, the freelance nature, and lack of a dedicated GM takes a certain amount of discipline from the players, lest you give yourself too much freedom. "You kill the goblin raiders and find thier stash. Each party member get one million elemental pieces, and a magic cloak". On the otherhand, without a GM to restrain us, We could run our charecters with reckless abandon. More than once, the entire party went evil. Instead of rescuing a village terrorized by a local monster, we slaughtered it, and sold the children into slavery.
Campaign cards!
The basis of a self running campain is the three stacks of cards we drew up. We used a bunch of 3x5 index cards, and highlighted the edges for three different colors.
Quests
Quest cards are just that. Whenever the charecters arrive at a point where a quest might begin, we draw one. Each card has a basic quest outline on it, usually of a very cliche quest. Monsters besieging a town, loss of an artifact, recovering a kidnapped princess... The most important part there is that the cards be a little generalized. That way, as the plot unfolds (I asure you, it will), we can fit these things into it.
Events
Event cards are even more cliche than quest cards. For every day of travel we draw one. If we arrive in the city, we draw one. If we stay in town, we draw one. If the pizza arrives while we're in th tavern, we draw one. We decided that 20-25% of our cards would refer us to the random encounters table. The rest were everything from a roadblock, finding a dying adventurer along the road who asks that we finish his qquest, to arriving at our destination to find the entire city dead and burned to the ground. (hey, THAT starts some fun questlines without even drawing the cards!)
Moosey fates
these were the most fun, the most sadistic, and the most hilarious set of cards we drew up. Do to the freelance nature of the campaign, we knew we just might get our PCs killed. If you died, and the rest of the party couldn't help you, you drew a card from the yellow stack. Some of them were good, such as your deity sending you back to complete your work. Some of them were bad, such as coming to on an abandonded beach, stripped of gear, with no idea how you got there. Some were worse, "You are dead. Period. draw up a new charecter." And then there was my favorite, where you come to, bound, gagged, and roasting on a spit over a fire for a tribe of canibals.
I'll warn you, the freelance nature, and lack of a dedicated GM takes a certain amount of discipline from the players, lest you give yourself too much freedom. "You kill the goblin raiders and find thier stash. Each party member get one million elemental pieces, and a magic cloak". On the otherhand, without a GM to restrain us, We could run our charecters with reckless abandon. More than once, the entire party went evil. Instead of rescuing a village terrorized by a local monster, we slaughtered it, and sold the children into slavery.