Topic: What is the tone of your SW campaign?

[kyussopeth]

My campaign's tone is dark & frankly paranoid. The tone is somewhere between the BBC version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy & The Parallax View. With a heavy dose of Babylon 5 & Tom Baker era Dr. Who thrown in.

What does this mean? I focus the campaign on what is called the "Metaplot", but with emphasis on the players direct ability to affect it. The first session (back in 2013) introduced the PC's to the forces behind Frelik's usurpation, the existence of the Priests Arnak [Dansart] (still my favorite evil organization in SW), & introduced them to the Neng.

Each session since has drawn them deeper & deeper into the labyrinth of back stabbing & conspiracy that is the Politics of Jaiman.  They've at various points thought that Jorun of Yarmuth to be a sinister influence on Rhakhaan, allowed Tatiana Faslurin, Raif Maglean, Raelen Thirok, & others to be mudered by a Herald of Night, & tore open the Tower of Yarthraak by utilizing the powers of the Gryphon Sword against it. They've assiduously avoided facing any Shards, but have done battle twice with Doombringers & won.

The players second guess their every move & barely go an hour without utilizing Awareness or Intuition spells. They've fled in terror of Lorgalis & negotiated with Sulthon Ni'Shaang. They've faced 4 different kinds of Messengers, but have only just heard of the Thalan. They kept a Temple to Zanar from being built in Lethys, but allowed the Y'kin in Tanara to be exterminated.

I use the Timeline (Campaign began on the 1st day of Winter 6050 3rd Era) in the various books as a guide for what & how the setting would be if the PC's did nothing. They've already had an impact, but the Osaran is still 2nd in the church of Orhan despite their best efforts & the Pale Man still haunts Tyrus Faslurin's dreams. They know nothing of Ondovol & the assault on the Northern Eye will soon bring them stark terror.

My players are convinced the Loremasters are villains, the Navigators are dicks, & the Alliance should be feared. They go to Nomikos every time they get enough cash & spend entire sessions doing research on the forces of darkness & everything they learn makes them more afraid.

[Druss_the_Legend]

ur campaign sounds cool!
iv set my rm campaign almost exclusively in sanctuary thieves world.
the tone is realistic and gritty. intrigue and suspicion are common companions for players. there are many factions on both sides of the law who operate in the open and sometimes secretly.
magic is rare and powerful. spell users are treated with a mixture of fear and mistrust.
at this point in time the characters are working for a crimelord who has been overtakenin power by a rival, formerly his friend and advisor.

current factions involved in the plot are:
A thieves guild called 'The Big Fish Gang'
An assassins guild called 'The Order of the Black Lotus'
A cult of fanatical priests 'The Bloody Hand'
A magicians guild 'The Order of the Blue Star'
A gang of mercenaries called 'Hawkmasks'
A rival crimelord called 'The Beggar King'
A group of elite soldiers called "Hell-hounds' who are the personal guards for the cities prince governor Kidakithis.

The players have been recruited by the crimelord Jubal and are embroiled in a gang war type battle for control of the city.

we have a small, experienced group. GM (me), three players. Characters professions are Burglar, Barbarian and Assassin.

[kyussopeth]

Damn I wish i lived near you

ur campaign sounds cool!
iv set my rm campaign almost exclusively in sanctuary thieves world.
the tone is realistic and gritty. intrigue and suspicion are common companions for players. there are many factions on both sides of the law who operate in the open and sometimes secretly.
magic is rare and powerful. spell users are treated with a mixture of fear and mistrust.
at this point in time the characters are working for a crimelord who has been overtakenin power by a rival, formerly his friend and advisor.

current factions involved in the plot are:
A thieves guild called 'The Big Fish Gang'
An assassins guild called 'The Order of the Black Lotus'
A cult of fanatical priests 'The Bloody Hand'
A magicians guild 'The Order of the Blue Star'
A gang of mercenaries called 'Hawkmasks'
A rival crimelord called 'The Beggar King'
A group of elite soldiers called "Hell-hounds' who are the personal guards for the cities prince governor Kidakithis.

The players have been recruited by the crimelord Jubal and are embroiled in a gang war type battle for control of the city.

we have a small, experienced group. GM (me), three players. Characters professions are Burglar, Barbarian and Assassin.

I love Sanctuary & RM seems a great fit for this. Also small groups are best for intrigue.

[Druss_the_Legend]

its a complex plot with many opportunities for double dealing and spying... one of the pcs is a sleeper agent and is slowly being corrupted by a cursed sword... essentially turning into a vampire... he can operate during the day but sunlight hurts his eyes so he wears a mask.. The assassin is a member of a rogue faction of assassins who fell out with the larger faction and its evil leader... i allow the players to carry out individual missions where possible and each player has their own individual goals. They are all working for the crimelord Jubal... or at least that is how it seems on the surface but two pcs have rather different goals.

The rival crimelord known as The Beggar King was slain in the first adventure but then the pcs learned that it was his decoy that was slain... this was revealed to them in a hand written message from the Beggar King who was taunting them for their stupidity in thinking he was dead... most recently the party have learned that a group of necromancers known as Blood Mages have allied themselves with the fanatical cult of priests (The Bloody Hand aka The Dark Brotherhood) and plan to resurrect/summon a demon of unspeakable power.

I really enjoy the story crafting and immersing the players into a world of intrigue you created. Thieves World is the perfect setting for a campaign based on spies, betrayers and down-on-their luck opportunist characters.

It turns out the Beggar King has a number of corrupt city guards on his payroll who help keep his illegal operations runnings smoothly under the nose of the Prince Governor. Some of the thieves guild (Big Fish Gang) have even been posing as hellhounds (elite royal guards). The pcs were recently caught in a raid into the thieves guilds underground base by a group of well-armed city guards led by two hellhounds. They escaped into the Maze (the hellhounds are tough suckers... then there is the danger of getting branded a wanted criminal is you fight one, let alone kill one). The pcs later learned that the raid might have actually been staged by the Beggar King himself!

[Belgerond]

My players excited about Shadow World. As GM i liked it too. I own allmoust every SW campaign book and i started a multi campaign
in which we play for each of them! My plan is to link campaigns so, that the players are not fully aware of what campaign is going. Players have two party: the main group members are good guys and key persons of long story . They do not have the actual large campaign (main goal) but i linked campaigns with story.

Second party is the alliance of evil.  Wery dark characters who dont trust each other, but they have the ultimate goal (mighty artifact from Jaiman history, one of the six crowns).
This party dont get so many small campaigns but they may get a part of some same campaign what i use for good party.

What the players do not know is that the destinies of both groups intersect at some point.

Ps. Sorry my bad English..

[kyussopeth]

My players excited about Shadow World. As GM i liked it too. I own allmoust every SW campaign book and i started a multi campaign
in which we play for each of them! My plan is to link campaigns so, that the players are not fully aware of what campaign is going. Players have two party: the main group members are good guys and key persons of long story . They do not have the actual large campaign (main goal) but i linked campaigns with story.

Second party is the alliance of evil.  Wery dark characters who dont trust each other, but they have the ultimate goal (mighty artifact from Jaiman history, one of the six crowns).
This party dont get so many small campaigns but they may get a part of some same campaign what i use for good party.

What the players do not know is that the destinies of both groups intersect at some point.

Ps. Sorry my bad English..

I like this my group is about to be torn asunder as their competing desires & duties call them away from each other.

Each player has multiple characters so all players are involved in each story line even if their all characters aren't.

[tbigness]

I like players to have multiple characters in play at once. I usually have them in separate areas such as Norek and Sel-Kai but will have them venture forth in different sessions to have them all come together. I then let the players pick which characters go on different tasks and adventures from there as they are in the same proximity. I even allow them to control both characters in larger parts of the campaign and award XP for playing both personalities as they were developed. This is a lot of fun to watch from a GM point of view and allows for players to have multiple options to play once the characters are combined.