10-24-2018, 07:18 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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TFT Campaign Ideas
So what is everyone's plans for their kick-off campaign setting? I know some of you have been running TFT for quite awhile but its been a 30+ year hiatus for me. Since the return of TFT was announced, however, I've been thinking a lot about running a metropolitan city-based fantasy campaign because I've never done that before. I've used cities in other games of course, but never as the primary setting.
This got me thinking about Monte Cook's Ptolus setting... I've always wanted to run it, but never did because we were always playing on Faerun (D&D) or Golarian (Pathfinder), occasionally the Lost Lands (Frog God Games). I think it would be easy to adapt since the vast majority of the material is system-agnostic. It also seems like the tone would fit TFT quite well.
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
10-24-2018, 08:14 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
I'm a month or so into a fresh campaign set in an old TFT setting of mine that I started re-organizing and expanding last summer. The basic idea is a sprawling, complex city of many districts, under which is a complex of sewers and interconnected dungeons of roughly 1000 rooms in size, and a nearby volcanic plateau that entombs a cyclopean ruin of a very ancient city, with a surface decorated by several dozen small dungeons, forts, etc. created by the nasties that now live in the desolate landscape. Plus a few other details. It is basically a massively complicated sandbox. Most of our sessions start without a plan, other than continuing whatever nonsense the players were up to the session before. It's been a glorious few weeks so far; just a lot of fun.
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10-24-2018, 08:23 PM | #3 | |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
Quote:
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
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10-24-2018, 10:56 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
Thanks! I'm the first to admit that the basic architecture of the place isn't original - the huge adventure land is a pumped up version of Runequest's Big Rubble; the city itself is Lhankmar meets Thieves World meets every city in every Conan book; the dungeon beneath the Raj's castle is a ~200 room version of Death Test. But it feels creative because all the details emerge during play rather than being planned out.
Expert hack: these days it is surprisingly easy to get the bones of such a campaign put together yourself. Over the last several years I've swapped out most of my old hand made maps (which had tons of gaps because I have a job other than writing dungeons!), and replaced them with a massive ensemble of Dyson's Delves maps, which I drop into a graphics program and modify to meet my needs. The result is that a surprisingly large sandbox space is mapped to a surprisingly great depth of detail, so players can literally go anywhere and try anything and I'll have a concrete answer for them. The stocking is trickier because you have to use your brain; there I'm relying on a ton of old NPCs and encounter tables Ive made over years. There are so many of them, many with some history of use in prior games, so it is pretty easy to ad lib. And once you get used to doing that you really don't need to pre stock much. |
10-25-2018, 08:17 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: Louisville, KY
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
I <3 custom encounter tables. Also <3 them in excel using randbetween and lookups to produce stocking-on-demand. From there, if I use it enough, migrate the logic to the application I’m building (.NET Windows desktop app—nothing super fancy to look at but the back end has some good core elements. )
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“...if one knew where to go, he could step through a shimmering portal today and be in Cidri . . .” The Fantasy Trip Resource Hub |
10-25-2018, 09:12 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Jul 2018
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
I'm working on a campaign set in an alternate-universe 1970s UK, focusing on the children of Jen Mnoren.
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10-25-2018, 10:22 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Idaho Falls
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
I have this little idea for doing a dungeon crawl, something very "classic" but then the characters discover that the "dungeon" environment is in greater danger from a different threat and must decide to either abandon their original quest, or work with some of the dungeon denizens to save the dungeon itself.
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10-25-2018, 10:33 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
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10-25-2018, 11:01 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Jul 2018
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
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10-26-2018, 09:59 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Near Milwaukee, WI
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Re: TFT Campaign Ideas
Thirty years ago, the mighty Ogrelord reigned terror over the borderlands; finally, he was beaten back and destroyed by the Knights of the Order of the Star.
One month ago, an army of Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins and Ogres, bearing the banner of the Ogrelord charged through the Borderlands, taking the Keep and the nearby village. Survivors fled to a series of abandoned caves to the northeast, where they are trying to regroup and defend themselves against raiders from the Keep, and protect themselves from the horrors still dwelling deep in the caves. Yes, a reversed "Keep on the Borderlands", with the Village of Hommlet being the nearby village that was also overrun. Because, why not? (The Ogrelord was a foe in a campaign one of my brothers ran for another sibling; I thought it would be nifty to bring him back (technically, a descendant, as the original Ogrelord was defeated) |
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