[DF] Y'all Naked in the Woods

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

I've done similar adventures, but:

- in two cases case, the campaign started this way, and all the players knew that was how it was going to go. One was a pirate game, the other a post-apocalypse game.

- in my fantasy game, I made a "get through this dungeon-like obstacle course with nothing but Ordinary Clothes to start with" challenge for the PCs. They had to compete with another group, NPCs, for the glory of their respective patrons. They weren't thrilled by it, but because they chose to do it (well, chose the patron, and had someone to complain about in game) it went over well.

In no case have I had a "you all wake up without your stuff and I just declared that this happened" game go over well. I hate that kind of stuff no matter when it happens to me - it's very different if the players choose it. Or, if the alternative was death, and they caused both the situation that got them in that predicament (no surprise attack by overwhelming force) and had reason to be grateful they weren't dead. Even then, it wasn't as enjoyable as other adventures, and was (rightly) seen as penance for getting beaten in a fight.

[Dwarf99]

I really like the premise of this myself. Probably helps that I play characters that are more character focus and less gear focused though.

[Angle]

Idea: Don't take away their stuff, but make the environment waaaaaay more hostile. This doen't screw with people who need their gear to do stuff, but should make things more challenging for everyone. Dump them on an alien world or a far elemental plane or someplace like that, where they take a -6 to their survival and face a multitude of unknown threats. Give them lots of sweet loot to balance it out, though.

[NorphTehDwarf]

Ah crap. Should have mentioned this was planned as a campaign start. "You've all been robbed, go get your stuff back" would be a hard sell mid-campaign. If I was gonna do this mid-campaign I'd want to give them some ooc warning and ask if they're down. It'd definitely need buy in.

[Dwarf99]

Originally Posted by NorphTehDwarf

Should have mentioned this was planned as a campaign start.

Oh I thought that was already obvious...

In any case, I think there's an unnecessary hangup on people's gear.

[Mathulhu]

I really like this as a kid campaign shake up, with one big caveat though everyone needs to accept the gm is messing with the players.
Their play style will have to change, no more ignoring combat as the swashbuckler destroys everything. No more assuming the party are fully healed between every encounter.

[Phil Masters]

A character's gear being to some extent part of the character is one of the traditions of dungeon fantasy as a genre. It may well be a bit silly, but it's there like holes in the ground full of monsters and loot.

Starting a campaign off with the characters gearless is thus saying "You start with minimal characters" - which is, broadly speaking, another tradition of the genre. So long as the players are warned, and told not to spend points on starting wealth, that should be cool.

(Actually, they could be permitted to spend points on Wealth if they wished - so long as they explicitly accepted that it would do them no good whatsoever when they started out on that first scene. Later, when they started accumulating gold and gear, the Wealthy characters could find more of it sticking to them in various ways - making it a worthwhile purchase in the long term. But that mostly makes it a good place to spend bonus points.)

[Not another shrubbery]

I vaguely remember a D&D adventure something like this... one of the Slave Lords modules?

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by NorphTehDwarf

Ah crap. Should have mentioned this was planned as a campaign start. "You've all been robbed, go get your stuff back" would be a hard sell mid-campaign. If I was gonna do this mid-campaign I'd want to give them some ooc warning and ask if they're down. It'd definitely need buy in.

Is the campaign going to continue once they 'get their stuff back' as a fairly standard DF campaign? In which case I'm not sure what the point is?

From the premise you're likely to bias the party composition away from those who need a load of equipment (Knight, Scout, Thief maybe), to those who don't need equipment (unarmed Martial Artist), those who can make do (Druid, Barbarian maybe), or those with the right sort of powers (primarily a Wizard, give him Create Object and he can make clothes for everyone on a daily basis, by passing one of the scenarios main problems!).

If those who need equipment get to start with (and keep) Signature Gear, the Knight and Scout, etc. will ensure their main weapons and maybe armour are SG and simple bypass that problem.

Sample Party:
A Dead Broke unarmed Martial Artist, wilderness biased Barbarian and Druid, and a Wizard with Create Object and a few other carefully selected spells - Do they really need to go and get their mundane gear back?

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I vaguely remember a D&D adventure something like this... one of the Slave Lords modules?

A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. It's a tournament module, though, so strongarming the PCs into a situation isn't really a problem - it's meant as a challenge to player skill, not to players + long-run characters.

And if this is a campaign start, it's probably fine - it's not hard to get buy in when it means you get to skip fretting about equipment.