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D&D suggestions
paigeoliver:
If you are familiar with dungeons & Dragons, (even the videogames are fine), then this is a thread for you, otherwise you'll probably find it boring and nerdier than arcade games even.
Posting this here rather than on my normal RPG board because none of my players read this board (although ALL of them play Robotron!!!).
My ongoing game has a time travel element, the players have been 1000 years in the past (relative to their own births for some time). One of my players recently guest dungeon mastered a session, and he seriously broke continuity of the game, and made radical changes to previously established areas, races and characters.
Rather than say it didn't happen, or ignore it, I decided to work it into my game. If things changed that is because something happened to make them change. I have pinned the blame on a (presumed dead) ex-PC who travelled to the far, far past and changed things.
So, the characters will be going way back, to the age of wonders. The current area is already before the middle ages hit humanity (humanity is all tribes and barbarians at this point), although most of the non-human races have middle age and rennaissance technology.
The age of wonders will be 10,000 years earlier, pre-human altogether, and before any of the dwarfs, halflings, and elves had gotten past the earliest tribal cultures. The EXACT change the actual character caused was to kill "Littleman" the archetypical halfling hero who was responsible for basically establishing halfling culture. (Littleman himself was actually a time traveller).
Anyway, I see the age of wonders as being really, really high fantasy, lots of giants, and dragons, and pixiefaeries, treants, and herds of Unicorns, that sort of thing. I have my plot firmly figured out, but I would love some suggestions on things to throw in along the way. Don't think normal D&D, think Labryinth, Neverending story, that sort of thing.
My basic plot is as follows. Characters find a message for them, from ONE of them, written in concrete, incredibly ancient. (Written with a finger in concrete/masonary) that was freshly poured at the time.
"I don't know if this will work, I know we walked past this spot before we went back. Everyone else is dead except for Megan and I, and Megan has been captured. I am leaving this message before I make one last chance at saving her. If this works then it will never happen. Don't open the red door. All the boxes after the portal are bad. He is only pretending to be friendly, but he is really a monster. Be sure and tell me I was right about waiting for the Unicorns, it was worth it. Julie (signed with a handprint and a footprint"
Obviously the warnings will be true, Julie is the least intelligent member of the group, and wasn't quite bright enough to think that the other characters would need to know who "he" is. The unicorns comment is something that ONLY Julie would understand (she has remained "pure" her whole life so that she can hopefully one day ride a unicorn.
The characters will then travel to the (one way) time portal and go back, navigate an area designed by the enemy to destroy them (with lots of EMPTY chests with nasty traps on them).
Once back there the following will need to happed, in one order or another.
Megan gets kidnapped/charmed (the enemy when he was a character was in love with her, and she constantly rebuked his advances).
Julie meets unicorns.
They meet the enemy in a non-combat situation.
They navigate the maze (Labrynth like scenario, with at least one area with a RED door, blue door, and green door). They should meet the enemy and his minions multiple times here. But he is playing with them.
Defeat the enemy, or give the appearance of a defeat (the appearance is better, always better, people like villians who come back).
They gain the ability to come BACK to where they were (magic scroll).
The male halfling in the group does what "Littleman" SHOULD have done to assure that his culture will be created the way it is supposed to.
Julie leaves the SAME EXACT MESSAGE to avoid any time glitches (she will have to be persuaded heavily, since she doesn't lie).
They come home.
Ok, I have the basic plot, I need filler, high fantasy filler, talking doors, talking trees, giants, I am ready to hear some ideas.
jbox:
--- Quote ---The male halfling in the group does what "Littleman" SHOULD have done to assure that his culture will be created the way it is supposed to.
--- End quote ---
"Uncle, does this hou-mon Gabriel Bell look like Sisko to you?"
And don't forget the little guy who lifts up the tile, shakes his fist, then turns it back the other way so the lipstick isn't showing. And of course, it's mandatory to have the two doors where one guard always tells the truth... ;D
Suggestions:
1. Julie could fall over at one point, and one of the *other* characters could write the message instead. Including the bad guy (ie. luring them here is part of the Master Plan because otherwise they would always be a loose end for him).
2. Otherwise, the characters are seperated, and the dark lord in his "Big Dark Armour"(tm) could tell her he had killed the others, then accidentily let her escape. Julie would *believe* they were all dead, write the message, only to discover later the other PCs had stolen the armour and set her up (to preserve time). This could also add tension to the group to role-play.
3. Could they find a dis-used simple portal (ie. local travel only), which leads to a supply cache containing boxes of food that have been left for so long they have "gone bad"? They would of course only discover this fact *after* they eat the food which gives them the runs, and when they look for herbs to help they get captured. Or it could be enchanted to make them fall asleep, pixies rob them and kidnap half their party (how they get seperated).
4. Otherwise some of the boxes could be living creatures (think Rincewind's luggage), who work for the dark lord, run around, change position (freaking them out), that sort of thing. Alternatively, you could create a kind of animal all cute and fluffy that shows up every now and then and follows the party around (right before they get into trouble/attacked each time). Then about 3/4s the way through the story while in the halfling village someone else spots one and kills it because "everyone knows that Buxes are bad". This twist now allows them to avoid the bad guy's spies and make some real progress.
5. Someone has to go through a red door. If the party splits up one group could consist of all day-mammals, who at one point are wandering around in the dark and *accidentily* open the red door.
6. Otherwise, a door could be covered in runes, and one of the party 'red' them incorrectly so something bad happens. This works if the (paladin?) isn't the best speller in the group, and again it still actually happens so that she will still be telling the truth.
7. Other puns are good ways to get the party to do something so that she can truthfully write the message without them being tipped off when it actually happens.
8. As part of the Master Plan the bad guy may require some standard piece of future equipment (like an axe/rope/whatever of certain quality) to get to the scroll. His plan was to trick them into coming back, kill them and take their equipment. Obviously the good guys should not learn this twist until later.
9. If you think it's funny, one of the halflings who worked with Littleman is running away frightened at the moment the characters incorporate. When he sees 'Littleman' alive (ie. your guy is a dead ringer, probably because Littleman's widow shanks him later on), he turns back to the village and this stops him from accidentily stepping on the butterfly he was about to squish (thus restoring the correct history).
10. Could the characters also trigger the end of the Age? Perhaps they use the scroll, then later on find some book that reveals it was the triggering of the scroll that allowed the extra mana to bleed away.
"Oh Lessa, Lessa, Lessa; where have all the great weyrs gone?"
jbox:
Just another quick one - the "monster" could be his character. Maybe they find this local forest guy who is just nice as pie, helps them out, doesn't even work for the bad guy. Then right before they leave they find out his real job is as a unicorn hunter!
HaRuMaN:
::)
maraxle:
Make the riding of the unicorn an essential part of their survival.