Poll
Recent blog posts
Recent comments
- This seems like a great idea
2 weeks 1 day ago - There's a free 'clone' of
4 weeks 2 days ago - Nice job! I really like
6 weeks 18 hours ago - We decided to remove scrolls
7 weeks 3 hours ago - What effects do Fatigued and
7 weeks 3 days ago - A quick peek at eBay doesn't
8 weeks 2 days ago - Excellent!
For my kobolds I
11 weeks 5 days ago - I love it. It motivated me to
11 weeks 6 days ago - Nitpick away and well
12 weeks 2 days ago - Cool. The hex grid could just
12 weeks 2 days ago
Where to go, what to do...
So I have this idea.
Well, actually I have two of them, but the one that is long term bumps around in my head like a zombie looking for braaaaaainnnnns... (and if I had any, I'd probably not have to think too hard about this.)
I decided to dip my toe back into RP'ing mainly because of the Ultima series of CRPGs. You see, back when I was living in my Tolkien-based fantasies through the DnD Basic blue book, I also discovered the Ultima series of games. This was on the Commodore64 computer. I remember how carefully my friends and I would clutch our 5.25" plastic floppy disk holders while heading to the school library or back home to load up Ultima II or Ultima III and live our adventures in thrilling 16 color. Although I lost interest in the series around Ultima IV, I never lost my memory of how *cool* it was to dive into the 8 levels of dungeons or how thrilled I was to finally defeat Minax or Exodus.
I never caught onto the MMORPG thing - a $300 monthly bill from playing the old AOL Neverwinter Nights cured me of that really quick. So I stuck with solo CRPGs, and now have come back into pen and paper.
I've never left Ultima though. And I want to bring that story to life.
So as I rediscovered DnD early this year, and as I began to plumb the depths of 3e, I started reconstructing Sosaria and Ultima I. Here would be the beginning of a grand adventure! I would capture the epic feel of the series. I would be faithful to the feel of the series as it progressed from simple beginnings to more powerful endings...
... except that about a third of the way through writing the various encounters and scenarios, I discovered I had created a huge mess. I had a wonderful railroad, with plenty of stops, but what happens if the players decided to NOT go after the Gelatinous Cube? What if they wanted to go to Montor first?
Even worse, I got caught in the 3e trap of Encounter Levels and Challenge Ratings and how much gold vs. experience. The characters would be third level before they even made it about a third of the way through and yet how could I have them face a lich and...
*sigh*
The problem with recreating the Ultima series in a 'faithful' fashion is one of progression. In the CRPG, you kept diving and killing to get more gold, more experience and more HP. You kept returning to the flagpoles to pump up your stats and get advanced weapons. Most CRPGs are classic railroads to me, that I've played. I didn't play many of the cool DnD adventures like Planescape or Baldurs Gate (I started that one), and the old Gold Box adventures were definitely railroads. Ultima was too, for the most part.
So what to do?
I still want to do this, and I want to do it as a microlite20 adventure. The problem is this - I could provide a sandbox with a progressive world that keeps evolving as the players participate. This would definitely mean that the timeline and series of events will most likely vary from the games, unless I get the players hooked, or I just handwave other offscene NPCs doing the work of killing Mondain.
I could do it as a flowchart type of adventure - provide 'modules' of the various towns and major encounters with the flowchart showing an overall 'flow of events' to the end.
The other problem is levels. I'd like to be faithful to the series and the major BBEGs, but lets face it - Mondain and Minax were serious opponents if you think about them in tabletop terms. I figure Mondain was very high level in order to manipulate the Sun Gem into the Gem of Immortality, create Exodus and go back in time. Yet if I want to provide a series of adventures that span Ultima I through III (and hopefully beyond), then I either have to scale Mondain down, or provide the characters with a BFG type of weapon to take Mondain down with... and I don't know if that would be fun.
So I'm kinda stuck. I have great ideas, I have created some really cool scenarios and with all the reading and poking around I've done, I've got some ideas, but I'm not sure what to do next.
How would you go about it?
My other project that is rattling around my head is a 'retaking of Khazad'Dum' adventure type of campaign, providing 'sections' of Moria that could be drop-in's or span a series of adventures. Strangely enough, that feels easier and would be a lot of fun, especially given my newly discovered fondness for the Games Workshop Mines of Moria set.
- By chgowiz at 05/21/2008 - 02:05
- chgowiz's blog
Navigation
User login
Search
Who's online
Syndicate
Basically, to hobble
Basically, to hobble Mondain's huge amount of power, you're talking about destroying the gem. Once the PCs do that, you're free to knock him down to a respectable challenge level for the heroes. When he's half-defeated, have him turn into a huge bat-winged horror, with some dragonish claw/bite abilities, just to keep it fresh. And then have him taken down. At least, that's how I'd do it.
Obviously, the goal here is to prevent the rules or the basic story from ruining your fun. Maybe by going through the Ultimas I, II, and III, you can get your players to the level that you want, ultimately, but it will be a long campaign. You'll want to cut out the loot and kill parts, or at least make them more interesting and not just there for the sake of "leveling." At least, that's my take on it.
...or provide the characters
...or provide the characters with a BFG type of weapon to take Mondain down with... and I don't know if that would be fun.
There's really no reason not to do something like this. However, it's more interesting if you make it part of the campaign. Mondain seems so powerful that there is no way anyone in the campaign world can think to directly defeat Mondain. However, there are rumors of a weakness or two that might be exploited to destroy Mondain. In the course of the campaign, the PCs could hear about this and decide to try to track down the rumors and out what actual facts (if any) are behind them. Eventually they would discover a weakness or two they might be able to exploit given some legendary item or great task that they would have to undertake.
There is a strong tradition of this in fantasy literature (dating at least back to Achilles unprotected heels in the Illiad). This is also how Sauron was defeated in LOTR -- they didn't go beat him in battle, they destroyed the basis of his power.
In the CRPG, you did that by
In the CRPG, you did that by destroying the Gem of Immortality, which will happen in this interpretation. Getting to it will be the trick :) I think I'm winding myself up too much, because in the game, you basically leveled to approximately level 15 in SRD terms to get powerful enough. I would like the campaign/characters to span several ultima recreations, not just one. I'm probably not explaining it well, am I?
I'd suggest you think of the
I'd suggest you think of the Bad Guy's level relative to the party at the time they meet them.
For example, Mondain might be level+4, all the time. that means if they stumble upon him when they're 1st level then he'll be 5th. Later on they might re-encounter him around 6th level, and he'll be 11th. That gives the impression that the NPCs are living, breathing creations that magically advance in levels, just like the PCs do! Bear in mind that you don't necessarily need to create full stat blocks for NPCs (even major ones) in M20, so an 11th level Magic-User (for example) might be:
Big Evil Wizard, 11HD (55hp), +13 Staff of Power +2 (1d8+2), AC 19 (Robes of Deflection, AC+6), Know+14, Others@+11. STR 10, DEX 13, MIND 18, Spells as per 11th level Mage
... and that's it!
It certainly beats spending an hour creating some dude in D&D who gets barfed in the first round by a lucky party attack. That's happened to me more than once, and it sucks.
If you've a roster of NPCs, just jot down their name and power-level relative to the party and work out the stats as you need them. The 11th level Wizard above took me all of a minute to write up - it's that easy in M20.
Hope that helps!
Since creating NPCs and
Since creating NPCs and monsters is so easy, I'd just create a map, the cities, the missions, the NPC names and the info they provide, and prepare fights as the players move through the adventure. So the toughness of the dungeons actually depends on the order you go through them, in a way. And the big boss at the end of the campaign might be anything from level 9 to 31, depending on the average party level.
I don't think manipulating an artifact to do this or that requires high class levels.
In short, don't let the rules be an impediment. The rules are a tool.
Post new comment