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Are there no premade campaigns?

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Are there no premade campaigns? Empty Are there no premade campaigns?

Post  SparkImpulse Tue May 14, 2013 2:24 am

I'm a sometimes-DM (DnD 4E, and have played in 4E and, recently in 3.5 DnD) who is a brony as well. The D&D crew is about half bronies or so, and since I like exploring new systems as well as being a furry I suggested Pony Tales ... Albedo would never fly Twisted Evil so it might happen that there will be a pencil & paper employing of the PT ruleset. One character sheet has already been most enthusiastically handed in to me.

But I was hoping to find some sort of base campaign so I'd know how to put something together. I'm writing something up (not expected to start for a month) and will be basing the initial story arc on "Rainbow Factory." Oh, I'll have to make it start out on the ground (in case, y'know, non-pegasi want to play Idea ), and supply suspiciously coincidental unicorns who know cloud-walk just in time to move to the factory proper.

That part I can do ... once I get enough to write up, say the first two encounters, a puzzle or two. I'm not real good, especially at puzzles / riddles, but the one time I felt I had the best luck, was in D&D 4E, and I had just finished NaNoWriMo, with the novel set in the universe described by the player's handbook (sadly, that NaNo Novel is lost to the recycled bits of cyberspace. I have the raccoon turned sweatshop worker and the vargr captain but not the dragonborn street urchin. \\PPshrug) So I sort of made the party follow after the main story character, and dropped clues about what they'd just missed. Of course they got totally side-tracked by the blind gnoll trying to summon Shothatug the blind idiot-god, but by then I could totally roll with it.

I'd be more than happy to just post what I've written so far for critiquing ... although there's a small chance my players would read it so ... THUNDERSCALE! NO READING THIS THREAD! 'k. I think we're cool.


Last edited by SparkImpulse on Tue May 14, 2013 2:26 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : OC name correction)
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Post  Paper Shadow Tue May 14, 2013 5:58 am

Sadly, there are no pre-made campaign stuff. It's on the to-do list for the developers, but it might take a while because we just had a boon revamp which might require tuning and they still want to make a proper Monster Manual (the monsters in the outdated PH guide are so-and-so, generally GMs will use this Monster Compendium someone here made and reflavour the monsters to how it is appropriate to the campaign). But if there is any help you require, just post here and we'll do our best to assist...
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Are there no premade campaigns? Empty how about you look over what I've typed?

Post  SparkImpulse Tue May 14, 2013 12:57 pm

here's what I have. How do the PH's on this forum feel about the level of detail? What would your players do that I've not even looked at?

---

Nominate a player: they're either local, or have local contacts who know this adventuring party. Contact complains of stolen goods but the guards say they won't help. Based on pattern to date, at least the orchard / warehouse is known, if not the exact target or point of entry.

fruit (or other foodstuffs; perhaps in a warehouse) stolen (more every night) by a band of escaped failures. (locals don't know anything about the thieves beyond how much goes missing)
they only strike at night, but next target can be predicted with discussion with farmer / forepony / etc. While discussing it with more of the afflicted changes the flavor of the responses none of the victims know more on this than another.

Guards, if queried, know of the complaint. There is no doubt valuables are going missing but there is no disernable point of entry or egress; always in high-traffic areas so hoofprints are to be expected, and any magic for discerning ponies who have been here is muddied by all the other ponies who were supposed to be there.
The thieves carry knives; guards know because fruit / boxes cut free, not torn or magicked open.
(low hit points as they're all undernourished) note: no stats for these "monsters" at this time...

Once they're out-gunned, they'll try to run. If they succeed they will hide in a summoned fort (DC20 arcana to know it is a pure magic construct, perception-20 to notice it only makes sense for pegasi as the opening is on the roof) which will be well protected by crossbows at arrowslits
Given enough rounds (1/pony inside) they will escape through a portal that will close behind them. DC30-arcana to recognize it's a summoned portal to an untraceable location. Any trained arcana, or DC15-perception (assuming _some_ exposure to pony magic) to tell it's the residue of a large, expended spell. Five minutes after the last thief gone, structure and all evidence will evaporate.

Any attempt to talk the thieves down may succeed. Things they might explain: They're just stealing to eat, they're officially dead, they're terrified of the guard and by extension all the goverment, and unwilling to meet with free ponies (locals, rest of the adventuring party, etc) -- pegasi doubly so.
If a party pegasus overcomes the thieves' initial aversion, they'll explain they all failed their flight test final and were expelled.

DC10 for a pegasus, or DC20 for a non-pegasus unless thorough exposure to Cloudsdale culture has been had: party knows that around the time of early adulthood, pegasus ponies are expected to pass the flight skill test, with failure resulting in complete loss of credibility. Any pony between this, and the next level of knowledge is aware upon reflection they have never personally met a failed pegasus -- even among the homeless and crazies.

DC15 for pegasi (+2 bonus for growing up in Cloudsdale) or DC30 for non-pegasi that don't have applicable 'freaky knowledge'
Failures are expelled not just from school, but exiled from society. They are sent to produce commodity goods for the good of Equestria but only in a far away town where their shame will not reflect poorly on their relatives. Their shame is deep enough that Cloudsdale residents never speak openly of the failures, treating them as if they had died. No one knows where this town actually is; the winged guards who load up the failures even say they don't know.

DC30 for pegasus, DC40 otherwise: there are rumors, never substantiated, of escapee colonies of pegasus ponies who believe they're fleeing for their lives. Any such claims of a campsite has always, when searched by adventures (or guards, or simply curious neighbors) to be nothing more than an area of field trampled by local wildlife, not ponies.
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Post  Paper Shadow Tue May 14, 2013 3:15 pm

Just a few quick points I've noticed...

Take care with low health creatures which you want the players to talk with. Player Characters in Pony Tales tend to do a surprisingly high amount of damage for newer GMs. In the first fight I ran, a player got a 12 Crit with Critfisher and Derpy's Lightning (both are generally used together in a luck-based build which relies on critical hits, but his build wasn't 100% dedicated to that) and managed to do 18 damage to all of the thieves, and an additional 4 to one of them. Another player dealt 21 damage on his first turn with a item you can buy at Level One. Basically, don't be surprised if someone manages to do 15 or more damage on Turn One. Chances are they won't do as much damage on Turn Two (if any at all), but still...

How do the players get past the summoned fort? Athletics to break it? Arcana to dispel it? Entering the fort itself? Via combat?

The final checks you talk about, are those History or Streetwise (or both)? How will you prompt players to make those checks. For some reason, my players don't make those checks that much for some reason...
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Post  SparkImpulse Tue May 14, 2013 3:42 pm

Paper Shadow wrote:Take care with low health creatures which you want the players to talk with

Noted. I hope to make it work if they all get killed anyway ... first rule of GMing I learned ... expect PCs to have a scorched earth policy. s'cool. I just want to have them have something to say if one of the players specifies they're interrogating the thief.

How do the players get past the fort?

I'm ... working on that. If any discussing between thieves and players happens, then the unicorn sympathizers will return to discuss things later. If the (any) PCs enter the fort (by any means possible ... scale, fly, teleport ... I'll even allow breaking and entering but it would take Big Mac two rounds of applebucking to break that wall) everything switches to melee and there'll be a chance to overcome the thieves and interrogate. Or at least go through evidence left behind (streetwise or arcana depending on what they're looking at and what questions the PCs give me).

Basically I would hope to present the contents of the fort as interesting, and play by ear what the players tried. As to those final checks ... I think I'd accept streetwise, certainly from any Cloudsdale native / expatriot, or History if not. Probably history if they just asked me what their characters already knew about what the thieves said of themselves.
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Post  Dusk Raven Tue May 14, 2013 3:45 pm

Seems like an interesting campaign... beyond the fact that I don't like Rainbow Factory, but all the same...
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Post  ZamuelNow Tue May 14, 2013 3:46 pm

I think a good idea would be for some to work on some campaign material while the designers are working on other things. In a way, it might be best to work with the material provided. The Ponyhandler's Guide has two scenario concepts so perhaps those should be expanded into more detailed plots.
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Post  SparkImpulse Tue May 14, 2013 3:52 pm

ZamuelNow wrote:The Ponyhandler's Guide has two scenario concepts so perhaps those should be expanded into more detailed plots.

Oh, so now I'm supposed to read ...? (insert rarity leaping onto couch and whining loudly)

I ... got halfway through that book. I think. There is campaign material there? with suggested DCs? I'll look through it!

And since Rainbow Factory is pretty well known, I figured it would be a good start for a pony-centric campaign. If folks want I'll post the rest of what I put together ... maybe someone more familiar with the system can clean it up ... add it to an FAQ or something... that'd be cool to be immortalized just because I'm an early adopter.
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Post  Paper Shadow Tue May 14, 2013 4:05 pm

SparkImpulse wrote:I ... got halfway through that book. I think. There is campaign material there? with suggested DCs? I'll look through it!
They don't have suggested DCs, they are just pony versions of popular D&D campaigns. There is a section that talks about DCs, but those ideas don't come with suggestions...
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Post  ZamuelNow Tue May 14, 2013 4:12 pm

Ninjaed but...

SparkImpulse wrote:There is campaign material there? with suggested DCs? I'll look through it!

No DCs for the broad scenarios. My suggestion was to actually expand them with DCs, branching paths per player playstyles, and other things. May attempt it but I'm behind on some of the archetype work I was attempting a while back, plus I need to work on a tabletop campaign in a different system and an upcoming pbp campaign in AoH so my time has been limited. Plus the generic newbie flag I have to wave around.
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Post  SparkImpulse Tue May 14, 2013 8:07 pm

So, I was talking with a coworker at lunch ... who has fairly extensive experience in writing up DnD campaigns on the spot (or nearly so) and based on his understanding of the goals of this system, he recommended looking at Call of Cthulhu ... not for particular missions, but that theirs has a much greater emphasis on non-combat puzzles. Clues are laid out, and clues are described as to how players might know to look in the library ... and what to look for. Who to talk to about the oddity that is the crux of the storyline, and what triggers count as irretrievable failures (local contact clams up and won't offer needful advice or tools to complete the quest)

ANYWAY ... after lunch I wrote a bit more, trying to flesh out what happens in the first segment. I think it needs to look something like this...

After the inital thief encounter is complete, party returns for reward from farmers. If there are dead thieves the guard marks their bodies but leaves them for further investigations in the light.

If the party had any successful, non-hostile interaction with the thieves, then the following morning, when they're are both visibly and audibly separated from 'outsider' ponies, a unicorn will teleport to them, and offer some explanations. There there are indeed three or four (Unicorn is cagey about revealing details) whole cities at the fringes of the country populated by pegasi who both failed the flight school final exam, and then ran away. The guard, or some version of them, is still hotly pursuing these ponies, as demonstrated by how quickly they go permamently missing if they let themselves be found -- flying above tree level, writing to loved ones, or even just going to town to buy food. When one is found, she'll say, the royal guard will descend on suspected "brigand campsites" which, with rare exception, will be evacuated by a portal spell such as the one the party witnessed last night.

She goes on to say that unicorns who lend their horn to assist these poor wretches are throwing their life away too ... aiding and abetting this crowd, then getting caught results in a kangaroo court (no offense to modern day kangaroos) and capitol punishment -- public execution for helping ponies who can't fly very well.

She says that her time is growing short, and offers two obvious paths. Forsake life among friends to help the downtrodden steal food from the government, or forget this ever happened and go back home. Without waiting for an answer, she teleports out (party notices now, if they didn't before, that she has honed her powers ... there is almost no flash, nor any crackle of energy)

At about that time, whatever door separates the party from others, is intruded upon -- with a knock, if possible. A captain of the town guard has come to congratulate the party for bringing brigands to justice. Given their great success, the captain has been told there is a large bounty for bringing the rest of them to justice too ... a message from the Pegasi Protection Ponies, a governmental department of elite guards that answer directly to Celestia herself. She wants this stain on her fine kingdom removed.

Any attempt to find duplicity in the captain fails. He only knows there are brigands terrorizing Equestria, and elite forces are willing to hire mercenaries / bounty hunters to do the legwork of clearing them out.

If the party brings up the claims of the resistance but manages to avoid revealing their visitor, he replies that it's rubbish; he's never heard of an exile city just for not getting a school diploma (and he may add conspirotially that he himself didn't finish Earth Pony's high-school classes, and obviously he's both not a criminal, and also succusful in life) and besides, these particular ponies are wanted for crimes against Equestria ... he'll produce a document with a picture of one of the defeated thieves, offering a 200bit reward for bringing him to justice
(if players scrutinize the wanted sheet, arcana or mechanics check, DC35, to realize it was magically manufactured this morning. The captain denies it's relative age if brought to his attention, saying he's seen it in his office for weeks. (If the element of Loyalty is triggered on him, he hesitates about how long, precisely, it's been in his office. But he convinces himself it must have been there longer than just this morning)

The party is offered two choices by the captain: pursue the brigands (it will be alone, as his department is already strained to spread his ponies around) with what knowledge he has, and promises to put the party in contact with the PPP for further instructions ... or take the 200 bits and go home.

- - -
So, obviously now I need to add, what he does if the visitor's ... visit is revealed. Mostly the same but the party will be under pressure to accept his story, that she is indeed a brigand built of lies and slander. In particular, defense of her position or visit will result in the arrest of the whole party ... but they're taken to the PPP anyway, who offer much the same deal ... let us mind wipe you so this won't interfere in your working life, or work for us to clear your name ... and the country.
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Post  Dusk Raven Tue May 14, 2013 8:13 pm

See, now I actually want to be a part of this campaign, in a sense... in particular because I have a character whose special talent is uncovering secrets...
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Post  ZamuelNow Tue May 14, 2013 8:31 pm

SparkImpulse wrote:And since Rainbow Factory is pretty well known, I figured it would be a good start for a pony-centric campaign.

BTW, be very careful with that line of thought. Some fans like myself don't read fan-fiction so if you're choosing something for a specific in-joke or reference that may be problematic. However, it can be advantageous if the group isn't the type to be incredibly meta since it means some of the players can be genuinely surprised. I guess in the end, just make sure you have your own spin on it.
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Post  SparkImpulse Sun Jun 02, 2013 4:52 pm

So, I finally got ahold of some CoC material, and yes I think its style will work nicely for this kind of game.

With that in consideration, I'm amending the dinner scene (to be a lunch scene for reasons of my own devising Evil or Very Mad ) to resemble the following:


Nominate a player: they're either local or have local contacts who know this adventuring party. These relatives invite the party over for dinner. They operate an orange orchard, and offer a lunch of: mashed carrots, boiled radishes, and an apple caeser salad with avocado slices. Party should roll a streetwise check. Below 15, their first observation is: the carrots are bland, textureless, and probably weren't very fresh to begin with. The mixture of greens in the salad is, to an educated palate, at conflict with itself. In short, this isn't real tasty. Filling, obviously time consuming to make, but not tasty.

Any check above 25 (nominated party member gets a +5 bonus for knowing the farmers, however distantly) notices that, on an orange farm, there's not a single orange derived food on the table. The family appears to be eating somepony else's meal.

If both selfish and reasoned observations are voiced aloud, make a competing persuasion check between those who ask politely why there are no oranges, and those who ask about the blandness of the meal (If a pony gets the low-check and responds by asking for salt, this counts. This family is already touchy about the meal)

If a competing persuasion check occurs, note who won; this will change the tone.

Farmers complain of stolen goods. They still have enough to sell to stay afloat but can't afford to use the good part of the crop to make their meals. It's been going around for several years and has hit the orange farmers this year; they're relying on 'spare' foodstuffs from neighboring farmers. The guards say they won't help. Based on pattern to date, the next orchard / warehouse is known, if not the exact target or point of entry.

If the selfish / poor-check ponies won, the family pressures the party into persuing the source of this theft. Wild theories abound but nothing more than their shotgun approach to choosing the next target is actually known. They won't offer money (they're too poor to buy fresh carrots, after all) but one of the household ponies is good with mechanics (+15) and will for the next month, at a persuasion 15 check per instance, offer to repair devices brought to him. A failed check can be bypassed by paying half the cost of replacing it completely.

If the good-check ending is available, the family offers to scrape together 100 bits, and for the next month will aid in the repair of mechanical devices although any repairs costing more than 20 bits per instance will need to be covered by the party.

If the whole party falls between these marks, the family talks about the thieving, but does not expressly ask anything of the party, although they do name the captain of the town guard to whom they've spoken concerning the safety of their crop. No mention of the family member who is a master mechanic is made outright, although if asked for a boon, the family is willing to trade a future construction or repair for stopping the thefts.


Last edited by SparkImpulse on Sun Jun 02, 2013 4:57 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : darn you, spelt shucker!)
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