Starting a PF Campaign, advice requested...

[Griffith]

Hi everyone!

I plan on starting up a Palladium Fantasy campaign after several of my players requested a more "classic" RPG experience.I have not played PF in years however, and was hoping to get some advice for setting up the new campaign. I own most of the line, including the 2nd edition rules, Old Ones, Western Empire and Eastern Territory, High Seas, Mysteries of Magic, Monsters and Animals, Wolfen Empire, Dragons and Gods and Library of Bleherad. Basically I have everything other than the Land of the Damned books. I also have a collection of Rifters that have fantasy issues, but not all of them.

I plan on setting the game on Palladium, probably in the Eastern Territory. I don't have a lot of time to work on the campaign ATM, so I was curious if anyone had suggestions on what published adventures I may be able to use to construct a campaign? I plan on starting the party off at 1st level. Any other advice for a GM who hasn't played PF in a while would also be greatly appreciated, including suggestions, house rules, etc.


Thanks!

[kiralon]

You could start in timiro, do a couple of the adventures in there and then move onto the island at the edge of the world

[Griffith]

You could start in timiro, do a couple of the adventures in there and then move onto the island at the edge of the world

I do have the Timiro official expanded info in the Rifter from last year so it is an option. I also have Island on the Edge of the world, but it's a first edition book, and I am not sure if I am up to converting it as my first campaign in 20 quite a while of PF.

[Cybermancer]

Define classic RPG experience?

[Griffith]

Define classic RPG experience?

Old School, non-unified mechanics, imbalance between classes and races, etc. I.E all the fun stuff that has been removed from "pasteurized" more recent RPGs. Hell, in the most recent version of DnD (which is quite good BTW), you can only "attune" yourself to 3 magic items at a time. I am looking for something less with an eye for balance and more for fun. Does that make sense to you?

[Justthis Guy]

To start a campaign I find that having a beginning adventure planned helps. scale your foes to match the party's level. Make the first quest fun and allow the party to gel into a cohesive unit. During this initial adventure you should be able to find a hook for an epic adventure. Perhaps an NPC mentions an item or they hear a tale in a tavern about a dragon someplace or a horde of orcs terrorizing a town. If you have alchemist npc, they are great for sending out your party to retrieve components he needs and can earn the party discounts on magic items or rewards of them for success.

I advise that you don't have a rigid linear campaign. No fun if each encounter is scripted. That's for AD&D players using boxed adventers! Use scripted encounters to jump off points to begin and then let the adventure be a dynamic and ever changing romp! Be flexible! You may have thought that the party was going to chase after the small band of ogres, but instead they decide to investigate the cavern they saw on yon hillside! go figure! That is not say that you cant use one of the several adventures in the PF books, like the Mystic Package for example.

[Griffith]

To start a campaign I find that having a beginning adventure planned helps. scale your foes to match the party's level. Make the first quest fun and allow the party to gel into a cohesive unit. During this initial adventure you should be able to find a hook for an epic adventure. Perhaps an NPC mentions an item or they hear a tale in a tavern about a dragon someplace or a horde of orcs terrorizing a town. If you have alchemist npc, they are great for sending out your party to retrieve components he needs and can earn the party discounts on magic items or rewards of them for success.

I advise that you don't have a rigid linear campaign. No fun if each encounter is scripted. That's for AD&D players using boxed adventers! Use scripted encounters to jump off points to begin and then let the adventure be a dynamic and ever changing romp! Be flexible! You may have thought that the party was going to chase after the small band of ogres, but instead they decide to investigate the cavern they saw on yon hillside! go figure! That is not say that you cant use one of the several adventures in the PF books, like the Mystic Package for example.

That's the plan, just looking for a few adventures to "frame" the campaign.

[Aaryq]

Borrowed this from my friend, Matt. It's a great jumping off point.

The Apple Core Inn, it's on the northern border of the Eastern Kingdom and the Great Northern Wilderness. When the players stop there they get snowed in - that is, all of the major passes are impassable from the snow. The owner of the Apple Core Inn is a former adventurer (Sailor type) named Nate. He offers the PC's room and board until the passes clear in exchange for helping him out around the inn. He's a crotchety old cuss and not much for conversation. Manual labor is most of it: Fixing a barn, repairing a bridge (when the passes clear this bridge could be a plot tool). Of course, there is that nasty band of (insert appropriate monsters here) that, due to the foul weather decided to set up camp in the woods near the inn. The PC's will be asked to escort Nate to the woods to take them out. Nate isn't much of a combatant due to his age but being able to put on armor and swing some steel reminds him of his glory days and as they return to the inn he starts talking about his adventuring days. During the story he reveals plot information relevant to your campaign. In Matt's campaign he gave them a deed to his old ship (which was very far away and a treacherous journey with lots of plot twists and turns) but any number of jumping off points can be used for Nate's inn.

[Hotrod]

My general strategy for running a campaign:

The first adventure is like a shakedown cruise. The characters come together and must navigate and survive in the setting (wilderness, city-centric, or sea-based tend to be the most common). This generally involves several days of surviving and navigating through a wilderness, fighting some minor threats (and having to recover/heal afterwards), interacting with NPCs, and overcoming some obstacles. The idea here is to ensure that the characters have the skills, equipment, and abilities they will need in the campaign to come. There are many skill checks (+25 xp) and some basic problem solving, but the characters shouldn't be in mortal danger unless they do something really bone-headed. This is usually an hour or less.

At the end of the first adventure, I give the players the option of swapping skills and equipment on their character sheets to address shortcomings that came up in the initial adventure.

The second adventure is fairly scripted. This is where I throw in some long-term goals, usually based on the character backgrounds (but not necessarily). This is where the long-term campaign tends to take shape. Although I don't much care for a railroaded campaign, I do like to provide some sense of mission to the group. Collection (Osiris' body parts and Castledrake are good examples), revenge (Domingo Montoya), mystery (Highlander's "Where do I come from?!"), or liberation (of their people/family from slavery, collective curse, whatever) can all be good long-term motives. These goals tend to work best when they can be done one step at a time.

From there on in, it's up to the group as to how to proceed. I'll have a few planned events associated with the group's long-term goals (the villain's fortress, a plot twist or two), but these are responsive events triggered by the group's choices.

[Library Ogre]

I tend to steal heavily. If pushed into running something off the cuff, I usually use the plot from Quest for Glory 1: You're snowed into a small valley that's having a bandit problem. A powerful ogress has cursed the valley, raised dead in the graveyard, and, of course, there are native monsters about. There's a number of things you CAN do, places you can go, and most of it remains pretty static until you start upsetting things.

[kiralon]

I tend to steal heavily. If pushed into running something off the cuff, I usually use the plot from Quest for Glory 1: You're snowed into a small valley that's having a bandit problem. A powerful ogress has cursed the valley, raised dead in the graveyard, and, of course, there are native monsters about. There's a number of things you CAN do, places you can go, and most of it remains pretty static until you start upsetting things.

Quest for glory, that's almost as old as my favourite start.
My favourite start was the Curse of the Azure Bonds start, everyone wakes up in an in with no equipment except their clothes, a whole chunk of money and a bunch of magical tattoos on their right arm, so you have to buy your equipment, find someone who knows about the tattoo's and figure out why the tattoos make you try to kill certain people.

[URLeader Hobbes]

Nothing says old school RPGs like a good ol fashioned dungeon crawl!

I say run em through the equivalent of the Tomb of Horrors. When they all die at the end of the first session hand over blank characters sheets and say "Great now roll up a family member who is concerned that your prior character never came back."

That should give ya a couple of weeks to come up with a solid tie in. LOL

[The Dark Elf]

I just posted this elsewhere but here are my notes for an Eastern Territory campaign I ran a while ago (I searched for the characters name to find it).

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=112550&hilit=zartec

[MADMANMIKE]

I like to pick a town or city at random from Book II and read through the descriptions; it usually gives me several ideas for a campaign start, and then I let the players decide where to go from there; basically I feed them the surroundings and let them decide what hooks to follow, then act as though it was the plan all along.

[Tyberius]

I have been toying with starting a PBP campaign of my own. Going to keep the beginning to Tegyn Penninsula, and have sketched ideas for the surrounding areas, including the Flonery Island Chains, Eastern Timiro, and parts of the Eastern Kingdom, and see where it goes from there. I am trying to fill in some fun ideas of the Land of THe South Winds as that's a huge open opportunity to create something. But start with the fleshed out areas to begin with.

[Griffith]

Awesome comments thus far guys!. After looking at Old Gods I think I am going to start them in Timiro. Eventually one of the PCs will find out that a relation in the Eastern Territory has died, leaving him a fiefdom that he will need to secure.

So, how about house rules? Any alterations or tweaks for running the game that any of you can suggest?

[Hotrod]

I'd tailor the rules to your own preferences. My own preference is to give characters some inherent advantages over your average enemy or "mook". Character weapons generally do damage direct to hit points, while mook weapons damage characters' SDC first. Characters benefit from the GI Joe rule, so a hit that reduces armor to 0 SDC won't carry over its extra damage onto the character. Important NPCs get the same treatment. Unarmed combat is always SDC damage first (unless a death blow).

Shields are more important in my games than in the rules as written. Players with shields get an AR bonus to all but attacks from behind (AR bonus depends on the size of the shield). Shields can parry arrows without penalty, and characters can "cover" with a shield to totally protect against arrow attacks from one direction. Covering reduces movement to 1/4 and prevents the character from taking most other actions. Finally, shields automatically allow wielders to dual wield the shield with any 1-handed weapon.

I allow players to select any OCC their character's race allows. If attribute requirements are a problem, I let them bump up the deficient stat to the minimum allowed.

Although Palladins keep their special attacks in my games, I prefer to swap their skills with knights. This gives the Palladins more of an "anti demon" slant than a "like a knight, but better in every way, plus powers" canon.

I allow mystic herbology and druid OCCs from Rifts: England (with appropriate skill adjustments). This is canon-supported in the main PFRPG book (end of the Elemental Magic section), but it isn't included in the standard Palladium Fantasy books.

Hand-to-hand: Assassin has no alignment restrictions, though it's still restricted to Man At Arms OCCs and has the same cost as Martial Arts. Using poison isn't totally restricted to evil characters (it's more about the circumstances of its use).

I allow characters to choose if they want Major psionics or not, rather than rolling the dice. They have to accept the penalties that come with that choice.

Finally, I reward players for fleshing out the backgrounds of their characters by letting them choose a perk at first level, such as minor psionics (not done randomly in my games), a few extra skills based on their characters' background, a family heirloom, a permanent ward sewn into their skin or Danzi magic tattoo, or something else.

[Gallahan]

Hi everyone!

I plan on starting up a Palladium Fantasy campaign after several of my players requested a more "classic" RPG experience.I have not played PF in years however, and was hoping to get some advice for setting up the new campaign. I own most of the line, including the 2nd edition rules, Old Ones, Western Empire and Eastern Territory, High Seas, Mysteries of Magic, Monsters and Animals, Wolfen Empire, Dragons and Gods and Library of Bleherad. Basically I have everything other than the Land of the Damned books. I also have a collection of Rifters that have fantasy issues, but not all of them.

I plan on setting the game on Palladium, probably in the Eastern Territory. I don't have a lot of time to work on the campaign ATM, so I was curious if anyone had suggestions on what published adventures I may be able to use to construct a campaign? I plan on starting the party off at 1st level. Any other advice for a GM who hasn't played PF in a while would also be greatly appreciated, including suggestions, house rules, etc.


Thanks!

Griffith, this is the *CLASSIC* situation where the Handy Dandy Random (HDR) Adventure Generator for Palladium Fantasy comes in handy. You have most of the books, so any location you randomly roll-up can be developed, short of the Lands of the Damned, since you don't have those books. BUT, you really don't even need the sourcebooks, though they come in handy.

Take a look at the Fantasy tables in this forum, and I recommend randomly generating...

4 locations
4 NPCs
4-6 recent events

These might generate some creative thoughts in you, when your mind makes connections between the people, places and events you randomly generate. Heck, it's worth a shot, and is a bit of fun, too. If you do this, I'd be really interested in the elements you get, and how you put them into the beginnings of a campaign, or at least an adventure.

[Griffith]

Gallahan, I'll use your tables to generate my intro adventure and post the results!