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Old 01-31-2020, 09:04 AM   #1
Astromancer
 
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Default Flying Ship campaign

The basic idea is simply to steal the story structure of the campaign form TV shows like Doctor Who, Stargate, or, and the source of my title, Star Trek. Each of these shows, and so many others, focus on a group of explorers, formal or informal, seeking adventure and knowledge.

The flying Ship can be an actual flying ship, surely it can be an artifact or something similar if the game rules don't fit PCs making one. However, magical portals, specialized wizard with otherwise unavailable teleport spells, or plain old ships sent out to explore, all work as well. Heck, merely having an expedition without special transport works. Every option having its own benefits and drawbacks.

The group can visit wildly divergent settings. If they like the setting, it can be reused or stayed with. If they loathe it or simply don't care, its never touched on again. The flexibility is the key virtue. For beginning players, who don't know what they like yet, and aren't those whom this game is aimed at, it's a buffet that lets them try everything and find out


Please give me your reactions, refinements, and techniques, for this idea and campaigns of this type.
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Old 01-31-2020, 09:55 AM   #2
martinl
 
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

I posted a way to do this with sailing ships in this old thread.
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Old 01-31-2020, 11:55 AM   #3
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

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Originally Posted by martinl View Post
I posted a way to do this with sailing ships in this old thread.
Sorry I didn't read that thread. And my sincere thanks for posting a link. Would you please tell me anything you noticed about how it made things easier for beginning players.
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Old 01-31-2020, 04:30 PM   #4
martinl
 
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Would you please tell me anything you noticed about how it made things easier for beginning players.
I've never used that particular setting, so no idea.
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Old 01-31-2020, 10:32 PM   #5
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

I've used similar ideas before, the most enduring had another layer of exploration built in.

The PC's had found a kit set portal as the final loot when "conducting archaeological research" at what was the old abandoned imperial capital (magical Rome analog) which had become a place of unstable magic etc (centralised magic plus natural disaster).

What the group discovered was an escape route made for the imperial family, assemble the portal and you have a means to escape to a magically sustained cavern located somewhere. The portal would automatically follow them.

The bolt hole had been abandoned for centuries as well and had many secrets, including an outdated map in a poorly understood language that served as the means to set the destination and reactivate the portal.

The game ended up with a hacking vibe as the members of the party with the appropriate skills and spells just rigged the old enchantments.

Cough Tardis cough
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Old 02-01-2020, 05:03 AM   #6
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

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Originally Posted by (E) View Post
I've used similar ideas before, the most enduring had another layer of exploration built in.

The PC's had found a kit set portal as the final loot when "conducting archaeological research" at what was the old abandoned imperial capital (magical Rome analog) which had become a place of unstable magic etc (centralised magic plus natural disaster).

What the group discovered was an escape route made for the imperial family, assemble the portal and you have a means to escape to a magically sustained cavern located somewhere. The portal would automatically follow them.

The bolt hole had been abandoned for centuries as well and had many secrets, including an outdated map in a poorly understood language that served as the means to set the destination and reactivate the portal.

The game ended up with a hacking vibe as the members of the party with the appropriate skills and spells just rigged the old enchantments.

Cough Tardis cough
Sounds fun.
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Old 02-01-2020, 09:36 AM   #7
Yssa
 
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

I did this accidentally in my current campaign.

In my second campaign as GM, two of the four players had to duck out early, and I was feeling shaky on running combat, so I decided to pause the main adventure and run a bit of fluff combat. I decided to flip to a random page in Monsters and had the two remaining PCs fight whatever I found there. Well, it was page 36 so poof, we have Horde Pygmies.

The Horde Pygmy description includes this line of color: "Rumor has it that horde pygmies inhabit a jungle-covered, trap-ridden island of evil “somewhere in the far south,” and somehow travel into and out of dungeons via weird portals provided by the dark god that empowers their shamans."

About a year on and and after encountering some more Horde Pygmy portals spread across the continent, the party decided to hijack their network as a shortcut home. After a quick jaunt across the Jungle Island that is the Pygmies' home base and portal hub (where the cleric was nearly taken out by a Redthorn (Monsters 2, page 36 (a total coincidence))), the Party made it back to their home kingdom.

After jumping out of the final portal, they had to decide whether they wanted to destroy the sacrificial altar (which opens the portal) to prevent the Pygmies from pursing them. Instead, they decided to leave it be: The prospect of continuing to employ the portals to explore all over the world without weeks of trekking between locations too tempting!
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Old 02-03-2020, 10:50 AM   #8
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yssa View Post
I did this accidentally in my current campaign.

In my second campaign as GM, two of the four players had to duck out early, and I was feeling shaky on running combat, so I decided to pause the main adventure and run a bit of fluff combat. I decided to flip to a random page in Monsters and had the two remaining PCs fight whatever I found there. Well, it was page 36 so poof, we have Horde Pygmies.

The Horde Pygmy description includes this line of color: "Rumor has it that horde pygmies inhabit a jungle-covered, trap-ridden island of evil “somewhere in the far south,” and somehow travel into and out of dungeons via weird portals provided by the dark god that empowers their shamans."

About a year on and and after encountering some more Horde Pygmy portals spread across the continent, the party decided to hijack their network as a shortcut home. After a quick jaunt across the Jungle Island that is the Pygmies' home base and portal hub (where the cleric was nearly taken out by a Redthorn (Monsters 2, page 36 (a total coincidence))), the Party made it back to their home kingdom.

After jumping out of the final portal, they had to decide whether they wanted to destroy the sacrificial altar (which opens the portal) to prevent the Pygmies from pursing them. Instead, they decided to leave it be: The prospect of continuing to employ the portals to explore all over the world without weeks of trekking between locations too tempting!
You seem to have crossed the "Flying Ship"/ Episodic campaign with the saga/long story campaign. It's like the Tardis is a dangerous thing to cross (which it has been in some of the novels) and the means to go from one adventure to the next.
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Old 02-03-2020, 03:50 PM   #9
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Default Re: Flying Ship campaign

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Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
. . . a dangerous thing to cross. . .
This is off topic, but a fun (for me) element of this is that in my spur-of-the moment addition of the portals, I decided that they were opened by sacrificing a living being. Now the party, a generally righteous, moral, law-abiding(ish) crew, need to justify murder every time they want to take the shortcut.
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