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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 9:50 pm 
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wilcoxon wrote:
My home game is technically a living campaign game (though it's at my house and none of the players has any interest in playing Arcanis in an official living campaign event elsewhere).

I'm running an Arcanis group is Boston that is technically Legends of Arcanis but effectively a home game, just as Steve W. said he's doing. We're playing the Crusade story arc now. I've told my players about Legends of Arcanis and offered them chronicle sheets, but they don't really care. A couple of them one time did join in an on-line game, and since we're doing Legends they have that option if they want. For the most part, though, we're pretending like our results are the actual results in the game world. I'm also adding our own minor story pieces to connect the adventures in the order in which we play them. For some mods that we're skipping, I'm including mention of stories that other Irregulars tell them so they can get a little extra flavor.

If I were to run my own Arcanis home campaign aside from the shared Legends of Arcanis campaign, my first choice for players new to the world would be to run the Coryani Civil War story arc (from Living Arcanis days) with Pathfinder rules.

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Sestius Ovidius val'Mehan Comma and Khamat - psion patrician diplomatic legate and his Myrantian tutor
Quintus Ovidius val'Mehan - patrician military tribune
Amadi val'Abebi - Monk of Althares
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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 6:03 pm 
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I've been reading through the Blessed Lands book and thinking that it would be a cool place to set a home campaign (which I suspect is part of Henry's purpose in doing the book in the first place). Now we have a bestiary, plus the already published bestiary and at least one more to follow. So we have monsters covered. The published books give us the rules we need. What I see missing are two things, a gamemaster's book (which I agree would not sell as well but is still a darned useful item to have), and more importantly to my mind a book of plug-in premade NPCs. I run a SAGA Star Wars game every other Sunday and Threats of Galaxy has proven to be a very useful resource to me. Something like that for Arcanis would really help GMs thinking of running their own home game. I'm not sure if anyone else has brought that up so I thought I would. Also some stats or guidelines on the NPCs in the Blessed Lands book would be helpful as well. Now I can wing things but it's nice to know what an NPC knows and what their abilities are. With my Star Wars game I often look at an appropriate NPC out of the Threats book and tweak it a bit for my home game. Saves a LOT of time. While I love creating new characters for Arcanis I cringe at the work needed to create a whole bunch of them for a home game.

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Michael T. Hebert

Haakon val'Ishi, Beltinian Exorcist 2.7 [Divine]
Ursula val'Holryn, Grand Master of the Tralian Hammer 2.2 [Martial]
Arun of Tultipet, Holy Champion of Neroth 1.10 [Expert]
Rikitsa val'Holryn, Psion 1.9 [Arcane]


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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:40 am 

Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 5:01 am
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For Home Games, which pretty much all of mine end up being when we're not following the published modules, NPCs always have exactly the skills and knowledges needed for them. If it's a combat character they have appropriate levels in weapons, if it's a sage they know what's appropriate for plot. No real generation of character is needed unless it's a direct combat encounter where I need to remember HP and feats etc. Makes running on the fly much faster and an NPC only needs their description updated with an extra few words to remind me of what they do.


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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:08 am 
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Mininin offers great advice. No way do you need to stay out every NPC. Choose a Tier for them, select a list of trained skills...use the Bestiary's guideline for skill values/passive values and Shazam - NPC done.

If not running an episodic campaign, then you need a deep theme or set of events for the campaign to hinge on. I'm not sure what that would be in the Blessed Lands beyond the Coming of the Destroyer (...or the forthcoming War of Paragons). So despite the fact that the BL book is awesome I'm not sure I'd pick that as my first thought for a home campaign. What arc are you going to tell?

My personal opinion is that the two best places to center a home game would be Almeric or the western Lands.

In Almeric you can either play with the Divine destiny of Roderick to unify the Kingdom or you can take a page from the 30 years war and have power politics erode traditions and accepted norms. You probably need a personal answer for what happened to enable the double assassination and some kind of end game.

In the Western Lands you have the religious fault line of the MC vs the elemental faith & a three way "influence struggle" in the region between Whon Seremas and Coryan. You also have the Shadow Towns under the thumb of the val'Baucisz for the first time. You could definately run a home campaign centered on ending val'Bauciz influence in one or more of the Shadow Towns.

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AKA Ambassador Tukufu, man of letters, tomb raider and Master Sword Sage
. . . and Sir Szymon val'Holryn, Order of the Phoenix
Formerly Sir Jaeger val'Holryn. Weilder of the Holy Avenger: Thonanos. Gave his soul to help free King Noen


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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 7:41 am 

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Hi Eric,

I like your suggestions for Almeric and the Western Lands as campaign settings. I see a lot of opportunity in the Blessed Lands and the First City as well, depending on the kind of game and characters you have. There are plenty of opportunity for politics and intrigue across the spectrum from control of the city, to military oneupsmanship to clashes between the various religious factions, etc. There are layers upon layers of ruins, catacombs, etc to explore and discover on the plateau not to mention the various citadels. Want an epic tomb of horrors esc experience, the twin towers of Beltine and Neroth await! The collapsed pass by the Citadel of Cadic has been cleared? Why? And who holds the keys to one of the most difficult citadels to assault? Trickles of unusual items are starting to flow again from the depths of the plateau as the Jial, Emerald Society and Azure Way vie for control and influence - complicated of course by the schemes of the elorii and ssethrics who seek to reclaim their birthrights.

I agree the ones you suggested are probably most ready to pick up and run with, but I think there are a lot of other options just as easy to build.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul


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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:47 am 
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When starting a home game I always start off with a brainstorming session to find out what sort of game the group is looking for. That sets the stage for everything else. For example we decided that our Star Wars SAGA game would focus on the scum and villainy side of Star Wars and that it would be set right at the end of the Clone Wars. That defines a lot. You could do the same with Arcanis. The Game of Thrones motif works fine for Almeric. The Blessed Lands to me seems more about exploration if you are out in the Blessed Lands itself, while the city is more intrigue and investigation. Dungeon crawls could be found in both areas. It really boils down to what the group wants. The last thing you want to do is go to all the trouble to do all the work for one sort of campaign only to find out they really wanted to do something different. Nice thing about the Blessed Lands book is we have a fairly detailed area to work with.

As for using the Bestiary, yeah that's helpful but not near as much as a book of pregenerated NPCs are. I have a pdf of Threats and can cut and past and make changes as needed. Don't even have to do the math. Which I like. :) Call me lazy but i like to save my effort for the story. :)

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Haakon val'Ishi, Beltinian Exorcist 2.7 [Divine]
Ursula val'Holryn, Grand Master of the Tralian Hammer 2.2 [Martial]
Arun of Tultipet, Holy Champion of Neroth 1.10 [Expert]
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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 10:58 am 

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Jumping in kind of late....

Folks that I have introduced the ARG to have often commented that they like the system, but feel it is too closely married to the Legend's of Arcanis campaign for home game use. Perhaps when I see those folks again, I will ask them to elaborate.

But I think home games will become more common once the 5th ed rules come out. The reason I think so, is that the Monster Manual and GM's guide are real limitations for ARG home games. But in 5e land, those books are already written. All that are needed are the more popular players guides.

Also, home games tend to be based in home worlds. Even if the starting point for a world is a standard theme such as Arcanis, or Greyhawk, once players start mucking around the world the map and NPC layout tends to change. I know as a GM I am reluctant to run parallel universes where the plot differs from the campaign. But using Onara for the starting point of my own world or plopping in Arcanis Cosmology and classes into a home brew world is a lot easier.

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There once was a gnome called Oozy,
Who kissed a Yaricite floozy.
But rather than wed,
She drowned him instead,
Now he is a Yaricite toosey!


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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 11:57 am 
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Eric's got me to thinking. I'm thinking about running a 5E campaign this summer (if I can work out the logistics with the players). My original plan was to use the Forgotten Realms setting since I am most familiar with it and some of the adventures are already set there. But I recall the Nentir Vale from 4E along with the Elsir Vale setting from Red Hand of Doom (one of my favorite 3.5 settings). If I can make a 5E/Arcanis game work in those settings I might just use them instead. If I can sell it to my players. But they are interested in trying 5E so it may yet work (one of the players was active in the 3.5 Arcanis campaign). I'll let you folks know how it works out.

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Michael T. Hebert

Haakon val'Ishi, Beltinian Exorcist 2.7 [Divine]
Ursula val'Holryn, Grand Master of the Tralian Hammer 2.2 [Martial]
Arun of Tultipet, Holy Champion of Neroth 1.10 [Expert]
Rikitsa val'Holryn, Psion 1.9 [Arcane]


Last edited by Haakon_val'Ishi on Sun May 01, 2016 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Home Campaigns
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 12:06 pm 
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I found this on Wikipedia about Nentir Vale:

Nentir Vale

Nentir Vale is the sample community provided as a default setting in the 4th edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Most sourcebooks refer to the cosmology this community exists in as simply "the D&D world" though this appears to be an informal term. The overall setting is one in which great empires of various races, including tieflings and dragonborn, have long ago or recently fallen.

Towns and other civilization centers are described as "points of light" in an otherwise dark age, with the DM encouraged by the guidebook to leave the rest of the world largely unplanned, vague and unpredictable. The deities presented in the 4th edition Dungeon Master's Guide are a combination of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and newly created gods. What cultural uniformity exists beyond the Nentir Vale, other than the Material Plane-wide worship of some or all of these figures, is little


This "points of light" bit (part of 4E) makes me think that setting a home campaign in the Shadowed Age between the fall of the 1st Imperium and the Time of Terror/Rise of the Coryani Empire might be a good time setting for a home campaign. A lot less back story for new players to absorb and they learn about the world by exploring what lay beyond their home village or city.
The only downside would it would be hard to include Ss'Ressen and Dark-kin, and I imagine gnomes would be rare to non-existent. Still it might be fun to give it a try. :)

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Michael T. Hebert

Haakon val'Ishi, Beltinian Exorcist 2.7 [Divine]
Ursula val'Holryn, Grand Master of the Tralian Hammer 2.2 [Martial]
Arun of Tultipet, Holy Champion of Neroth 1.10 [Expert]
Rikitsa val'Holryn, Psion 1.9 [Arcane]


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