Author Topic: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir  (Read 3152 times)

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Offline Yapadekoi

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Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« on: June 21, 2012, 01:18:48 PM »
Hellooo
Well, Just to ask if someone starts a campaign BEFORE the fall of tarahir ?
I did it, the game start two month before the fall of tarahir ( and it took nearly twenty game session to reach it).
 after more than one year of playing (once or twice a week) The player finally reaches the ritual with the first tear of life.
It was very interesting.

I start the campaign earlier than advised for one reason:
The fall of the city and the magical arrival in belynar could be some very railroad story,
but they are very epic and my players love epic game.
The fell of the capital of an empire, the opening of the royal road are stuff of legend and I thought they deserved to be played  rather than just narrated.
I really congratulate the writers  of this setting for those ideas.
( Gavin Bennet, Tim Dugger, Heike Kubasch thank you :)! )
I stole your ideas shamelessly for gaming rather than background.

I tried very hard to left the player with a lot of freedom in the "rail road" of the events, they had their own adventures and objective while the Orsai advance.
They could see Greyson and some NPC trying to prevent the end of the city in the background while they made their own plot.
It Made the city very alive.

In my Game Greyson led some refugees only once the wall of the city fell and they escaped in total chaos trying to save belonging and friends.
I read Monarchies of God from Paul Kearney and about the fall of constantinople in 1453 at the hand of the turk and got a lot of inspiration from it.
The faces of my players when the Royal road opened !
(The scholar who knew about it and explain it to greyson was one of the player).
And the surprised when they arrived in the middle of a ruined city....
I felt that they would feel more implicated if they played the arrival in belynar in mid game rather that if I only told them about it in the introduction.

Of course the players couldnt have access to the cyradon setting to keep the surprise but it wasn't very difficult because they don't speak english very well.
( I'm not very bad in english just for fun it's not my mother tongue)
Does anybody make a similar choice for their campaign ?
If you 've got some player who know anything about the setting I advise you to do so I found it very rewarding and the players liked it a lot.
Now they feel very invested in the future of the city or to feed the few family and friend they manage to save.
But I feel a bit guilty about twisting the plot of cyradon that much, now i feel a bit disconnected of the game I read about in the forum.
Do you think i twisted the main plot too much by doing soo ? We played a lot and maybe I could have made better things during this length of time if we had only play post arrival in belynar.
does anybody advanced a lot in the post ritual event and had fun with it ?

Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2012, 09:30:23 PM »
Sounds like an incredible campaign.  Best of luck with it as you continue forward.

I don't think any of your twists were over the top, and you should be able to adapt around them going forward.
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Offline Bruce

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2013, 12:43:39 PM »
This is a great idea and you do have a point about being railroaded into what's going on without any real believable guidance other than background info. Why not give the characters to experience life altering events in game?
To be honest I wanted to do what you did but a few things held me back:
1. I didn't have the time to develop anything much less the general plot info beyond what was given in the books.
2. This was my first real HARP game in many (about 8 years) with people I didn't know very well.
3. The HARP rules just developed a serious update.
4. I didn't have a lot of RPG resources to go the distance with the campaign.

Now though a lot has changed and I would love to go back and do everything before the fall of the city. I have always wanted to do a major war campaign where the players can experience various world shattering events. I am planning one now but I am not sure what setting I will put it in. I could go back and do the fall of Tarahir but I would need a better reason than just to do it. I need a major plot hook.

Bruce
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2013, 07:39:35 PM »
I actually have a campaign roughly mapped out in my head that starts just before the fall of Numenor (Lord of the Rings).  You can do some interesting things in terms of plot when you do things like that.

The only thing I did that toyed with the overall plot line of LotR is I said that when Sauron went down with the island and came back his One Ring didn't come back with him... which put the rings of power into play without being a death magnet.  Basically the point of the campaign is to try and stop (or delay as long as possible) the One Ring from being re-forged.
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Offline Bruce

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2013, 03:34:41 PM »
I actually have a campaign roughly mapped out in my head that starts just before the fall of Numenor (Lord of the Rings).  You can do some interesting things in terms of plot when you do things like that.

The only thing I did that toyed with the overall plot line of LotR is I said that when Sauron went down with the island and came back his One Ring didn't come back with him... which put the rings of power into play without being a death magnet.  Basically the point of the campaign is to try and stop (or delay as long as possible) the One Ring from being re-forged.
That is a great idea. I hope to hear about it when and if you run it one day.
To be honest I have a slight fear of campaigning in the LoTR Middle Earth setting. It is such a beautifully enriched world between Tolkien's books and the MERP stuff ICE put out and I don't want to mess with that cannon to much for fear of changing things. It's more out of respect than anything, Tolkien is essentially the creator of my favorite hobby and the ICE stuff is just as amazing and inspiring.

Bruce
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2013, 07:02:23 PM »
That's kind of the nice thing about placing it in the time I would.  In Tolkiens history Sauron reforms with the ring, which I always thought was kinda lame personally.  He's dead, his body at the bottom of an ocean, but when he reforms non-physically how does he have the physical One Ring (which should be at the bottom of the ocean possibly buried in rubble)?  I know, I know... it's magic and the ring can find it's way back to him... but anyhow, I digress.

The point of the plot is that there is a gap in time between the various stories that I can play with.  Even if the players thwart the re-creation of the One Ring (which I'll say is related to Sauron trying to reform) in their own lives time frame there's nothing to say the attempt isn't made again or Sauron somehow obtains the original lost One Ring or that it does find it's way back to him somehow.  The point of saying the One Ring was lost is so that I can put all the various rings of power into play without Sauron having control or knowledge of the wearers.

Anyhow... I don't want to derail the thread here.  I just thought I'd mention what my idea was for Middle Earth as a slight comparison to tinkering with an existing settings history/plotline.
- Cory Magel

Game design priority: Fun > Balance > Realism (greater than > less than).
(Channeling Companion, RMQ 1 & 2, and various Guild Companion articles author).

"The only thing I know about adults is that they are obsolete children." - Dr Seuss

Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2013, 01:50:05 PM »
Oh, and the last part I forgot to mention...

If Sauron re-creates the One Ring (even if it's after my plot line time frame because the players do end up stopping him) then the One Ring which is chopped from Saurons hand and eventually destroyed by Frodo was technically not the original one which, unbeknownst to the world, is still at the bottom of the sea.  So, after the Lord of the Ring trilogy time frame it could make its way back to the land of men. (Que evil laughter).
- Cory Magel

Game design priority: Fun > Balance > Realism (greater than > less than).
(Channeling Companion, RMQ 1 & 2, and various Guild Companion articles author).

"The only thing I know about adults is that they are obsolete children." - Dr Seuss

Offline Yapadekoi

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #7 on: February 14, 2014, 03:04:53 AM »
Yeah a Lotr setting is also a good setting to make a war campaign.
The challenge for lotr or MERP was to find the good "gap" in the timeline.
Where ( or when) the PC can act without being caught in the crowded web of event wrote y the author.
If the PC are witness, i think they could be quickly frustrated if they don't have influence on things.
Concerning my tarahir campaign I'm working on making it readable in english and if it's approved submit it to the vault. Could it be possible ?

Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: Start a campaign before the fall of tarahir
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2014, 06:40:35 AM »
If you have a set of campaign adventures you'd like to share, you have 3 options:


1 - Submit to Nicholas for consideration for publication 
2 - Submit to The Guild Companion for publication in monthly issues of TGC
3 - Submit to The Vault for public consumption


Each requires a formal review process.
Email -    Thom@ironcrown.com