So...my inspiration stops at the end of char gen... - OG Myth-Weavers

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So...my inspiration stops at the end of char gen...

   
So...my inspiration stops at the end of char gen...

Ragnarok is tearing reality to shreds. Gods are falling like dominos, and the world is in danger of total annihilation. One of the deities, Hati, has fulfilled her portion of the Prophecy and devoured the moon. Now, she lies dying. She gives birth in her last moments to a few brave heroes.

The campaign is d&d 3.5, level 8 gestalt. Hati is a wolf god, so characters must be wolves, werewolves (werewolf LA is waived, so you might as well), or capable of assuming the form of a wolf, like a druid with Wildshape or a dragon with Alternate Form.

They gather, staring at their mother as she utters a few, pithy last words...perhaps a call to adventure.

And then I'm stuck Where should we take this campaign after that?

Back to chargen for a better-suited system, if you ask me!

But let's skip that part, I'm not out to explain my deep persuasion why D&D sucks for Northern Myth stuff (especially since I don't expect you to listen). Let's get to the point.

So, what do heroes do in Ragnarok?
Well...the moon has been devoured, FFS! The prophecies are coming true! Pick a side, and decide whether you want to stop the tide of chaos, or hasten it.
After that, the options are quite different.
Heroes that want to stop it, have to start by imposing order. Monsters that are roaming the land, 'cuz it's Raganrök time! Someone's gotta stop the tide, and maybe then help the gods against the giants...Who better, than other monsters?

Or maybe you've got to unravel the last defences of the gods. Fenris still isn't free...and yes, the prophecy says he's going to break free, but it's not guaranteed he can do it without help. Start by amassing the antipodes of the objects that were used to craft his chain (and you google these, and decide how serious you want to go - because there's different options I can think of, here). Of course, you have to obtain the real craft secret of the chain first, by the dwarves... with subterfuge, or they are going to lie. Sounds like a work for monsters, doesn't it?

Eh, tried doing something like this in W:tA and just got completely bogged down because I wasn't familiar with the system. Picking up a new system is one thing, trying to GM a campaign in a system you've never even played before is something completely different. For some reason every time I've tried to GM W:tA I get bogged down in personality conflicts. A PC insists that they are the main character. A PC gets into a huge OOC fight because another PC is rolling a Nazi. PC is playing a sweet transvestite from Transylvania and weirds everyone out. PC rolls a cat and starts hitting on the wolves. The drama just never ends.

Thanks though, those are some interesting directions to take the campaign.

I wouldn't do it with WtA either. Vikings are Runequest to me, and yes, of course there is a supplement for them!

Either way, once you decide what direction you want the group to go, I can offer more suggestions. But the general direction should be predetermined before the players apply, as a "gentle(wo)man agreement", even if the campaign is to be a sandbox.

So, just a question. Is the end of the world truly what the prophecy predicts? Or is it a mistranslation? The 'age' of Shadowrun, is described as the Sixth World. The 'age' of Numenera is described as the Ninth World. Perhaps the 'End of the World' has been mistranslated, and actually indicates the end of an age and the beginning of a new one. Perhaps it is the character's place in the prophecy to see that the end of the world occurs so that the new world, the Age of Wolves can come to being. The first half of the campaign can be bringing about the apocalypse that is needed, and the second half can be the rise of the new age.

Ditto to tatteredking’s suggestion. Time to build a new world. Pilfer from Pathfinder’s Kingmaker rules and start gathering together survivors, build settlements, expand populations and deal with threats. Your godlings are ageless so they take the role of guardians and grow into heroes, demigods and then ascend into full godhood when they have nations worshipping them.

In a way, the system is irrelevant. What matters here is the age-old question you should always ask yourself when designing either a character or a game: "But what do they do?"

What's the motivation for these characters? What's gong to make them do anything at all?

One way to think of it is in terms of conflict. This is how stories are quite often constructed - the heroes are faced with some kind of conflict, and the story arc is about how they face it. In the first act this danger grows; in the second, they are faced with its terrible consequences. In the third, they overcome it, (hopefully) ending victorious.

This is actually not an awful model for a game. I remember reading some advice aimed at M&M (superhero-style) games, which is just as applicable here. Essentially it talked about putting obstacles in the characters' way - roughly proportional to what they wanted to do. So someone wants to go and get their superhero costume on? Sure, let them do that. Maybe occasionally, it's harder because they have to dodge people who are around to see them. But if they want to sneak into the bad guys' headquarters during a party? OK, they get mistaken for cake-decorators. How do they bluff their way through it? Then when they get out, guards spot them. Do they fight or talk their way out? etc. (You just don't overdo it; if they have to negotiate a million encounters just to buy milk from the store, they will get frustrated - hence the proportionality thing)

But to come back to the point, what you have is a great setting. It's the background to a game, but it's all scenery. You need some kind of conflict or something to motivate players into some kind of action. "Building a civilisation" could certainly count as a motivation; it's harder because it's more open-ended, but there are still plenty of challenges you can throw in people's way to make it interesting.

It's not even a setting. It's character creation. It heavily implies a norse game during Ragnorak.


Make a chart of what is happening (who is destined to kill who). Write two short sentences; one outlining party involvement thr other without. Decide if those things are set in stone.

Also ragnorak was never The End to the nords. They understood it was a cycle; many gods survived just not ones we hear about. Odin's grandkids supposedly live to this day (if it was true). Every person, god, era and world had it's fate written by the Norns and some gods knew their fate; some accepted it and died fighting. Some rebelled and died fighting.

Well, obviously they need to forge a new moon from the purest untouched Soul-silver on the Anvil of Eternity, using the Starhammer while holding it with Inescapable Tongs and then quenching it in the blood of the Night Dragon. And they better get that done fast, because the Machines are building their own Clockwork Moon to usher forth the Age With No Heroes, where men and women will be reduced to living lives that know neither the rush of glory nor the bitter taste of defeat. Quickly, sound forth the Horn of High Acclaim, so that those who still stand with the Wolf Goddess know that all is not lost! Oh, the Horn has been lost in the Dark Forest, where harpies prey on the bones of the righteous? Well, that sounds like a good place to start, then.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rena_ishtar View Post
It's not even a setting. It's character creation.
It's scene-setting; great games have started with less. The point is that what you're missing is any kind of aim or motivation. You can have oodles and oodles of setting info and still not have that.




 

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