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so, my idea is that the part is evil, and trying to take over the world. you can have a cleric that follows any evil god, a i oath of glory/oathbreaker/something else palidin. so anyway, i need help. how would the plot work? any ideas for charactors? please sugest your ideas!
beyond the basic conceit of "the players are trying to take over the world" this kinda strikes me as a more player driven campaign. let the players decide how they want to go about trying to take over the world, since there are so many ways. in terms of general structure it'd probably look something likeQuote:
Originally Posted by ominak
early campaign (1-5ish): the players establish a power base to support their takeover. this is where the players decide how they'd like to enact their plan, and as such the exact power base they setup will be affected by their intended plan. if they want to be secretive then the early levels would be about establishing some kind of secret society/hidden guild. if they're more interested in conquest, perhaps they have the opportunity to take over a small kingdom/city/region. if they're interested in being duplicitous, they could even, potentially, spend these levels earning some kind of duchy or city from a nearby noble/royal that they eventually intend to build up.
In terms of gameplay some of these options could lead to a campaign that looks...somewhat normal. i.e. they do favors for some noble/ruler in exchange for titles and eventually land. if they're wanting to be more secretive, they could spend much of these early levels getting the funds together to build such an organization from scratch. or perhaps they decide to climb within an organization, take it over, and use its existing power structure to spread their influence.
from there its just a rinse and repeat. build up the powerbase to be strong enough to take on the next tier of land. a small kingdom isn't going to knock-over a city like waterdeep right out the gate, after all. The trick would be to prepare new challenges as they go up, to keep things from getting repetitive.
Make sure cleric temples and druid circles count. Both inside them, and outside them. On how they'll react. But it's an easy in to have 1-3 of each in your world, and maybe more. And let them disagree a bit too.
Also, the basic thieves guilds. It's not like there's just one per city, because there's many people, powerful or not, that know a person that knows a person. They'll do good and bad on the party, depending on what they're doing anyway, and the party's actions.
And then typify your populace on their outlooks on the above. Different places, different folks, different strokes. It helps create a world easily, even on the basic 3 of "we have background stories included so we can interact with in this world" classes.
Is this the same campaign where you are playing a lore bard, or is this a campaign where you are the DM?Quote:
Originally Posted by ominak
If taking over the world, rather than just being evil generally, is the goal here, the campaign should start at Level 10, at the very least. Low-to-mid-level characters shouldn't have goals that broad.
Or, if you do want to have them begin at low level, have them start as underlings to a much more powerful would-be conqueror, in which the low levels are quests to further his schemes. As the players become more powerful, they can scheme to depose him and take over whatever resources and power he commands, and then begin conquering the world for themselves. If it doesn't occur to them to depose him, the overlord probably realizes that they are threats to him and tries to do away with them anyway.
i don't like this take, especially in light of your continuation. its like saying that teenagers shouldn't have goals that include major accomplishments, like becoming president, or getting rich. Obviously a low level character is unlikely to be able to achieve their goals, as a low level character. but there's plenty they can do to work towards those goals. in fact, if you're aiming for a lofty goal, its highly recommended that you begin laying the foundation when you're younger/weaker.Quote:
Originally Posted by Catullus64
I really wouldn't want to force the players down a specific path. if the entire conceit of the campaign is going to be based on personal ambition, then the players are going to be far more invested if they're the ones that setup how that ambition looks. If you try to set it up with a motivation in place, the players will often find themselves wanting to pursue a means that is outside of that, just as a matter of course. which can lead to meta level frustration and friction.Quote:
Or, if you do want to have them begin at low level, have them start as underlings to a much more powerful would-be conqueror, in which the low levels are quests to further his schemes. As the players become more powerful, they can scheme to depose him and take over whatever resources and power he commands, and then begin conquering the world for themselves. If it doesn't occur to them to depose him, the overlord probably realizes that they are threats to him and tries to do away with them anyway.
IMO its far better to pitch this as a "take over the world" campaign. and if the players go for it, you talk to them about how they might want to go about doing it. This also offers them the opportunity to build their characters in such a way that it suits the campaign. Or start them off as kinda generic adventurers with the far more nebulous goal of taking over the world. and as they navigate the first 5ish levels, lets them work out how they might enjoy going about taking over the world. in other words, sandbox over linear.
The times we did this, soon rather than later will the party try to get an army of bandits, thugs, monsters, or what have you. Usually go to a bandit/goblin/orc encampment and convince them to join/follow them either thru negotiation or strength (once they staged a high security prison break which was very fun). And from there its taking/razing hamlets, towns, and higher and higher, since its unlikely they'll go from having conquered nothing to having conquered/razed the entire world (if it so happens they manage to, in my group it never happened but some of the parties did conquer/raze many kingdoms).
You should think about how you are gonna handle things once the party already rules over sizable lands, if they take over a kingdom with gold mines, how are you gonna handle that? We devolved to something akin to a 4x style for the most part, the lands they had determined how many troops they could feed, and arm, and this was in turn part of what kept the story going, they had more troops than they could feed so they needed to take over food producing lands, and while they had money to "buy" arms and armor for a lot of troops, there just wasn't enough iron in their lands, so they needed to find a source to arm their new troops and stuff.
The other thing you need to keep in mind is how you'll handle armies combat, the time we did this in 5e we tried using the UA rules for mass combat, but ended up modding them to the point they had little to do with the original rules, still they served as a decent starting point, and I'd recommend them if you haven't done this sort of things yet.