Another great way to utilize a Ruin in your campaign, is by using it as an alternative to the "you all meet in a tavern" beginning. Tell the players in advance that they will be meeting at a Ruin, and give them the Ruin's history. Let them decide why each of them is there, and let that develop into why they work together.
Great idea. It might be just for flavor, or each might have a connection to the ruin that leads them to discover something about it that's unknown. And the adventure begins!
I am forced here to comment. Just found you. I am really digging your content. Lots of it! I find we appear to have similar d&d philosophies and styles. Also, I am no prude or Puritan but it is refreshing to listen to someone for more than 3 minutes and not hear 4 F-bombs. Thank you. Keep up the good work brother.
Glad to hear you like my stuff! It's funny you mentioned the swearing: I used to teach creative writing, and I would always tell my students to come up with something more creative than constant F-Bombs and MF's for their characters to say. And they thought up way more interesting dialogue! So I have to walk the talk.
I chose to make Hibernia, (Ireland), the setting for my current campaign. In the mythology the "Lebor Gabala Erena",(the book of Invasions), lists five previous civilizations that inhabited the island. Today the island is dotted with abandoned hill forts, barrow mounds, passage tombs, abbeys, henges and menhirs. It's easy to add in the occasional nemeton and ley line intersections. I created a NPC, Digby, "Digger" O'Dell, a Drow Elf from the Tir na nOg, (the underground otherworld), who can supply the team with bits and pieces of information, in exchange for favors.
I love this sort of set up. You have a current civilization for the PC's, but then a whole history through which they might have connections and plenty of storylines. And some of these hill forts and barrow mounds are well known, but others long lost, until of course the players find them!
@@DDHomebrew I play a little loose with the dates but around the 8th century is a golden time, when myths and history intermingle. The Western Roman Empire has collapsed, but the Church of the Light, (Rebranded Christian) has been established on the island for about 300 years. The Druids are still present because they weren't exterminated by the Romans. I figure at about level 10-12 the island will get too small for them and I am already planning moving the campaign to Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, England and Brittany.
@@neutronjack7399 It's always cool when you can mix in actual history with the geography and history of your homebrewed world. Is your world technologically in the 8th century? D&D campaigns tend to be more like the 12th to 14th century. Though again people play fast and loose with dates and technology. It's a game!
@@DDHomebrew Charlemagne is the current ruler of Frankia. The Muslims have control of most of Iberia. The Saxons are still a Heptarchy. Plate armor hasn't been invented yet, nor the heavy crossbow, (but there are rumors of gnomes working to correct that.) Back to the idea of ruins. The Roman city of Londinium sat deserted for about 300 years, after the Romans left. The locals were afraid to venture into it, (because of the ghosts).
@@neutronjack7399 This sounds like a great campaign premise. The idea of Londinium as a haunted, deserted city would be a great source of adventures and story lines.
I could see a ruined Fortress/Castle/Palace being investigated and the party taking it over and rebuilding/restoring it to it's former grandeur. Thusly, turning it into a private/secured base/residence for them.
I'm writing a call of Cthulhu campaign that is a continuation of the edge of darkness scenario and this was really helpful. I now have my players exploring an Aztec temple that has been abandoned, and I'm leaving hieroglyphics that give my players clues about the dark magic power the conquistadors used to wipe out the Aztecs from 1545 to 1550. it's going to be artifacts made of the bone marrow of an ancient dead god that died on earth before history began. The storyline is thah the cultists the players contend with are trying to bring him back by using dark magic and they need to retrieve parts of the dead gods body. The players will find 1 artifact in the temple and have to fight to escape the cultists and then learn about the whereabouts of another artifact in Europe. Thanks for this video, it had a lot of helpful ideas.
I'm glad I gave you ideas, though I think you've got some great ones here. Tying in the conquistadors with dark magic is very cool: the fact that they were able to conquer such a vast empire makes more sense with diabolic help! And the bone marrow of an ancient god is really cool as well. I have the Cthulhu books but have never played in a campaign: it's on my bucket list.
@@DDHomebrew My last game shop nearly 20 years ago, I haven't game since 2012. Sooner or later Ravenloft fear/horror/madness wisdom check happen in all our games along with some form Cthulhu lore monster creeping up doing temporary wisdom damage. Be it D&D, Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire, werewolf, changeling. Along with Star Wars. 2.) Meat Grinder survival horror, .. translate ever player starts the adventure with four to six PCs, and expect that a few PCs will get one hit kill for dramatic effect. Such as peaking with one eye around a corner and getting that side of your head wack off by a spear or thrown axe. a.) Return to dungeon such of such place. Bronze age mini campaign, .. looters/adventures exploring a ruin that is 2,000 years old when Egypt is still a new raising power. every four or five months you rerun the same adventure, by have the players found the dead dried out bodies of their former PCs that were a TPK. Adds a creep factor. After six confirm TPKs, with 2 years of real time passing, we drop our Star Wars mini campaign PCs into the ruins. One player running a Scout/scoundrel/ Force Adept/ Jedi with 3e rules, said, " I have a Bad Feeling about this place, we go in and we all are going to die." Vader walks in like a Boss. Ruins set up to TPK multiclass 15th-level PCs that had been number crunched meta power gamed. CoC monsters to the Nth-degree. 3.) AD&D2ndE box campaign, " Night Below." dealing with fish people. We ran the stats of Star Wars EsB of the movie character level of Luke just before the battle of Hoth being chased by Vader and a legion of storm troopers. The horrifying ways the imperials died as 4hd soldiers/thug was just sad. Slims, molds, psionic fish men, deep purple worms, jellies ooze. 4.) Mind flayers, 900ft spelljammers/ or outright 300m starships, .. Gith raiding a star destroyer and having gith or MF battle Vader. illthid high jack ship crews, take genetic samples from them to clone and release the crew with memory lost that is slowly recover over a few games afterwards. a.) PC escapes from their pod and explore the ship they are on. Are they the original PCs or are they experimental clones ? Otherwise roll for psionic/Force wild talent. b.) Make or keep mind flayers as deep space night terrors ghost stories told by deep space pilots. Visitations where crews wake up with missing time & memories. Short mini game of an imperial patrol system ship slowly finding out they are a bunch of lab rats.
@@krispalermo8133 Wow! There's a lot to unpack here. I've never thought of running a continuing storyline with different systems. And yet if you think about the long history of the world, different cultures (or games systems!) have by definition visited ruins. The 1922 expedition that rediscovered King Tut's tomb could easily be a Cthulhu campaign, while another set of explorers could be from space. The thing I especially like here is the PCs exploring the ruins of their earlier characters! Something meta about this I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe just to me but it's very cool!
I ran a LOTR game where getting in and out of Moria was the toughest part of the dungeon ruins because the only available entrances were webbed burrows dug by gigantic spiders
Those are such iconic ruins and so full of opportunities for adventure hooks. So much of the whole dungeon concept of D&D comes from that very section of the book.
It was said in a comedy movie, but I love the quote "Evil doesn't die so easy". The very stones of this unhallowed ground is infused with evil energy. Who knows what terrors lie beneath.
That was an excellent level of information, thank you. And being a Britain I've spent many a time as a child playing on ruined castles and abbeys on holiday with my parents. Now my own kids get to do the same it is just as magical.
That's one thing about the States: we don't have many ruins. I lived in Europe for 4.5 years and I loved visiting ruins. From the Romans to Medieval: tons of cool sites. I would have loved it as a kid. Plus I used to read M.R. James stories as a kid and his heroes were always visiting old abbeys and castles.
Funny enough I love ruins so much I put at least 3 or 4 fallen empires in the history of the world just to have an excuse to have players explore more ruins. Also i like to play echos of the roman ruins from assassins creed cuz i feel that has the best ancient ruin ambient feel
I've always felt that ruins tie into the whole ethos of D&D. The idea that there were ancient, fallen realms and civilizations is just cool in itself, and it's been a part of the fantasy literature that inspired the game.
Fantastic video, and wonderful content. Subscribed. I’m gonna be that guy though. The fact that the Nazgul confronted the party at Weathertop was entirely coincidental. The only reason they were there is because they were drawn to the ring, and the ring was there. Aragorn picked Weathertop because he knew Gandalf might use that path through the Wild (he did, too, and left the rune marker some 3 days earlier). It was chosen because it was the most likely meeting place or place he could discover a message to determine where to go next, and also to be able to survey the surrounding lands from the watchtower. The Nazgul were no more drawn to Weathertop for any other reason than they were to The Prancing Pony, Buckleberry Ferry, The Shire or anywhere else-the ring was their magnetic north.
You are exactly right as far as the Nazgul are presented as fictional characters. They would have taken the ring wherever they found it. What I should have said was "It was no coincidence that Tolkien staged the confrontation with the Hobbits and the Nazgul at Weathertop." Because as fictional characters they operate at Tolkien's discretion. Of course, there are rules of fiction, so if it were clear that the Nazgul "let" the Hobbits get away just so they could have a battle at Weathertop, readers would have thought "this doesn't make sense" if they understood the dynamic between hunter and prey: the Nazgul will take the ring wherever they can get it. And I'm always thinking of my player's reactions to NPC's and monsters in this light as a GM: don't fudge things for narrative reasons! But in terms of narrative power, Tolkien gives us close calls at the ferry and the Prancing Pony to build tension, then the battle at the fortress where Frodo is injured is the first true confrontation, then the loss of their horses at the river Bruin forces the Nazguls to back off for a while and ends this first chase. The Nazgul don't make these decisions: their decisions just have to make sense. And I'm saying that Tolkien chose Weathertop in part for this first true confrontation because of its connection to the world that the Nine Kings once inhabited to enhance his narrative flavor, So as GM's we can make our stories richer using ruins and the ghosts/undead of those who once dwelt there but still walk the world thanks to magic. Of course, in a D&D setting the players also write the narrative through their actions. So, the Nazgul (wraiths) might get the ring at the ferry or Prancing Pony if the chase were staged in a D&D setting, or the players might avoid Weathertop and take another route. So we might put some item at Weathertop the players need, and then the wraiths appear in their former fortress for a battle and it's cool. I'm glad you watched so carefully and to the end! Thanks for the comment and subscription.
I once had players exploring ruins, and they found an entrance to a labyrinth. Not inside the castle, but in the town outside. It went deep, deeper than the castle's dungeons, and were of a strange and unsettling architecture, nothing like the city above had been. Found some Underdark denizens down there, but they weren't happy to be there. They were on edge, frazzled, harried. Turned it into a real nasty horror adventure, with custom, very abstract dark Fae things at the bottom level.
The abandoned nature of ruins makes them creepy and weird to begin with, which makes it perfect that the creatures the players living down there are strange as well.
@@DDHomebrew The idea was that the original ruins became abandoned when a fae labyrinth opened up beneath the town. Cribbed from House of Leaves, which I couldn't finish reading because it started echoing in my real life.
@@LetholdusKaspyr House of Leaves blew my mind back in the day! Turning the book sideways to read certain pages as I remember. And I'm not sure I ever finished it either.
@@DDHomebrew I was reading it in a dorm room, late at night, and during one particularly stressful scene in the book, it mentioned the time. 3:55am, if I recall. As soon as I read those numbers, my eyes slowly dragged over to my alarm clock. It matched exactly. Yeah, no.
@@LetholdusKaspyr I was a college professor after I read that book, and as I wrote and reviewed articles for academic publications I kept thinking back on certain sections House of Leaves. The guy was spot on in his satire. And it was a scary book, which I love.
Spot on, ruins are great, especially since they can be right under your feet and not even know it. A slight curiosity could have trwmendous importance. I would also like to say that you can very much use the powers within the ruins either the items or defenses or layer effects or whatever... They can be justifiably week for a low-level party but it's still be the tower of a grand ultra wizard or some s***. Ruins are campaign scale adaptable and that's really fun to me.
I didn't get into that but you're exactly right. You can have defensive magic that prevents players of a lower (see inappropriate) levels from investigating areas they're not ready for. And since ruins are site specific they make a perfect one shot or 2-3 session adventure that is plug and play with a little scaling.
@@DDHomebrew absolutely. One of the best ruins I have seen implemented that did just that were by paizo publishing. The three adventures Falcons hallow, rise of the kobold king and return of the kobold king (if I'm not mistaken about the names) mind you these are all low-level but they were done in the stages as you described where you keep coming back
Its like the cooler magic weapons that have back story and a quirky power or interesting circumstance. A demon moved in ? I do have an Elven tree castle that has been grown around an ancient invaders fortress. That Fortress is almost 5000 years old. Beside it a new structure was built next to this ancient ruin, incorporating some of it in their more modern palace. Then 1800 years ago the Elves starting growing this palace around the two more ancient structures. Little hints in both structures of the past including an adventure hook to the desert where this old CIV once existed. Thanks good topic. it gives your world a litlle more flavour.
Listening to this video made me think what if people had to evacuate a certain area or location, either recently or long ago, and were only able to bring with them the high level treasure or magic items and some less powerful magic items and / or treasure could still be there. There could be rumors or sent on a quest to go retrieve some of this stuff.
I've done a few videos that relate to this: a weather event that causes an evacuation, a volcanic eruption, a magic catastrophe that renders an area uninhabitable for a time. Maybe it's time to consolidate those ideas in one video? Hmmm.
Regards to Ruins and meta gaming plot points, .. a.) 1990's AD&D2ndE had a campaign booklet title " Reverse Dungeon " that had a ten level dungeon starting off with goblins defending the top of a foot hill cave tunnels, and you play as goblins defending against stander demi/humans adventures. It was compatible with Complete guide to Humanoids handbook. b.) My two gaming shops from 1998 to 2012 blended multiple gaming systems into their house rules. b.i.) AD&D had optional initiative rules of Weapon Type speed modifiers, along with Armor vs Weapon Type. Such as two hand grip spears and crossbows gain a +4 to hit from equipment bonus. b.ii.) Heavy crossbow has a draw/impact of 700 to 900 to 1,000lb, in short you are getting punch in the head by Mike Tyson with a screwdriver but at 3x the speed that a pro boxer can move at. I don't care how good your helmet is that can bounce a heavy xbow bolt at point blank range, that is still a lot of kinetic energy that your neck is taking. b.iii.) Watch a few videos of cross bows against plate armor, the wooden shaft of the bolt shatters and the splinters are still moving at speed to go into a full face helmet. Case of friendly fire to the front ranks manning the shield wall. c.) WotC Star Wars 3e came out with Short Rests being 15minutes cause Force Users/Jedi spend Hp/vitality as temporary Hp to power Force skill/feat powers. Critical hits go direct to base constitution score doing temporary con dmg. Know anyone that pop a knee playing football at home ? Critical fumble on dodge roll. 2.) History of the World/Earth, .. Bronze age, most of the copper & tin that fueled the Greek/Trojan War came from Scotland. Even before the raise of Mediterranean Sea city states or Egypt, Smoked oysters and copper was being traded for Israel beer which was before silver or gold coin induce by the Persians denar, decompose wine/beer resin coating on pottery in graves or mittens. Of note the coastline between Egypt and Turkey has been controlled by Egypt, Turkey, etc.. Military/politically the so called Old Kingdom was never in power, they were always a client state. 2.a.i.) YT video on The End of the Bronze Age, earth quakes ran from Turkey down to the Horn of Africa. Along with a volcano going off on a Greek island. The story of Mose fits within this 200year time frame, sorry to say, Rames II wasn't the pharaoh of Egypt at that time. A few times each century, drought rolls through, follow by sand storms pushing locus from the desert, follow by heavy rains, then red clay washes down from southern Egypt/Sudam highlands turning the Nile red as blood. Egypt has a myth were Bast the lioness goes on a murder rampaging and her father Ra turns the Nile into Blood beer to get her drunk for a few days to calm her down. The current multiple dams on the Nile prevent the flash flooding and the washing of red clay down river. b.) DA gon and DaGON, west coast/ Israel was a sea fish god and his month was when the fish schools migrate the coastline. As for the east coast Iran/Babylon Dagon was a Grain god that came in with the planet Venus saying to was springtime to plant grain. Catholic St. Valetine day was the tradition day celebrating spring in Rome to plant grains. In France/ Gaul it was May 1st. " May Day." b.i.) When in destress send out a May Day call. Past few years in France a group of people riot and set cars on fire on May 1st. b.ii.) Interesting after near 60years of debate and arguing over old Latin pre Roman empire records on trade languages of the Sea People, Welsh is a related Semitic language/ hench early copper age Hebrew. " Phoenicians" Bad news there are close to 15 dialects of Welsh and the five dialects spoken of the east coast of Scotland are so regional they are Barely able to communicate with the Welsh. More non interesting stuff, the Greek Phoenicians/ Philistins that the old kingdom fought against with Goliath, you know the story of David ? A weight sling casting a flint skipping stone becomes a lethal ninja star going into your face or busting rib bones. b.iii.) Call of Cthulhu Dagon fish god and copper trader could have had a cult network from Egypt, Turkey/Black sea and up to Scotland and Demark. You never know what can be found under Roman ruins in northern Europe or an old church. Also Roman had a problem of Eastern Snake cults. 3.) Fae, fairy mounds or ancient burial mounds, .. Other than the stack stone hearth that heated the hut, root cellars to keep food stocks were half ground dug outs that the farmers stack field stone, river stone, or brick and cover in dirt for temperature control. Over time after the land went empty, bird droppings or rodents burry seed/nut clutches grew trees over the old root cellars. Creating camp side ghost stories of fairy mounds. a.) Take a break from high heroic adventure, run a stone age mini campaign. With 3e multiclassing rules have a rogue/ranger for Tracking and stealth with 4 level of sorcerer or druid casting only 2nd-level spells, .. maybe 3rd -level. Feat craft wondrous item/magic trap rules in DMG. Stone blade/spear that can power up as a +1 weapon, Mend, so other minor spell of 1st or 2nd-level. A flaming stone spear that resist chipping, remains sharp, and can drive off minor monster/undead like Chill Touch. Or a deer/bear/bull hide of warmth with the spell Element Endurance: cold, Mend, or something else fancy. Along with a normal peasant clay cooking pot. that has Create Food & Water. Since all items have +1 magic weapon/bless or Mage Armor with +4Ac. They are difficult to easily to break or burn away. Run a few stone age games, then go back to stander gaming. After a few months, have them investigate the ancient mounds or goblin sight and grant them the magic items their old PCs created. Hence letting your own players create the campaign history. 4.) AD&D2ndE gate keeping purist or just jerks back around 1997 to 2000 just before WotC. AD&D magic sucks. 12-level wizard to cast 6th-level spell Enchant Magic Item and becoming a Lich at 18th-level with a bunch of nonsense along still needing a Wish spell. With WotC 3e, a 3rd-level caster can take a feat Craft Wondrous Item/Magic Trap creation rules. Along with being a 11th-level caster to become a Lich. But for spell list from AD&D to become a Lich falls in line with being a 13th-level sorcerer. a.) With other gaming systems from the 1990's such as Whitewolf/World of Darkness(WoD) werewolf, mage you only need 3dots/level in main sphere/school of magic to create fetishes or minor items carry a 2nd-level spell power. Needless to say about my first gaming shop, once WotC came out we drop the AD&D gate keepers for the new system, but they whined, " That's Not D&D ! " b.) WotC 3e Star Wars really stream line cross over WEG west end games Star Wars d6 system. So TMNT and Marvel Wolverine, Star Wars in Ravenloft. Vader vs Strahd. Castle Ravenloft tall spiral staircase towers, multiple dex/balance/tumble checks to skate board or large steel shield surf down the steps at high speeds.
A lot of stuff here! I do remember the reverse dungeon adventure from the distant past, though I never played it. Interesting ideas on goblin society and playing them in opposition to an adventuring party. An interesting concept was the players as "co-GM" in that they had the map to the dungeon and could set up traps for the exploring group. AD&D had all sorts of optional weapons rules that played up realism (I think!) at the expense (in some players minds) of immersion. I always liked combat and optional rules as a player, but sometimes as a GM they got complicated. Lots of interesting history here in terms of Europe and the Middle East cross-pollinating trade, culture and myths. I'm no historian, but the ideas here could be used for similar links in a D&D campaign. Never thought about a stone age campaign! Some cool stuff here: the idea of the original group finding the remains of this ancient campaign is interesting. I wonder how players would respond? It seems that you ran a game store and had a lot of experience with different versions and people's reactions to those systems. The more things change the more they stay the same!
@@DDHomebrew You got a new Sub, along with me back tracking your old videos. Had a DM just love to start the adventure one way, then flip us over to PCing the monster and having us make it up as we go along. DM is just rule refence referee and guiding the points to a given story. Flow with it. Imaginative players are a must to flip multiple PCs in game. Random index card draws with pre made N/PC is a way for an actor to play around with character personalities. b.) Immersion vs complications, remember whatever the player wants, the DM n/pc rivals can also use against the party. c.) As for .. history, .. my grandparents had a lot of picture books. Audio coset tape listen as you read. Had a couple of bad years back in the 1980's of being drag by my mom to a Southern Baptist Church that was very Anti-Catholic. As a teenage I start majoring in history to prove people wrong. D&D basic box set in the late 1980's during junior high school. I had to cross AD&D and TMNT and run the game as a TMNT cartoon action, or my teenage peer group would just beat each other with plastic baseball bats. d.) Stone Age campaign, .. cowboys & indians. i,) Start game off as Maya hunters, after a few games Indiana Jones shows up. ii.) Stone age is normally a break from high adventure, game story revolve around basic hunter gather survival. Be it as humans, lizardmen, or halfling riding wolves calling themselves elves. Campaign setting " Elf Quest " comics. iii.) Did a mini campaign with 3e as stone tool using chimpanzees figuring out fire to make fire harden stone scrap spears. After a few short games, I had on chimpanzee get a water ear worm in a salt brim tidal pool. He turn into a mind flayer. The players were in total awesome shock on being on the mind flayer home world. It was chimp vs mind flayer chimp with psionic/ sorcerer wild talents. Then bronze age city states of god kings of psionic vs sorcerer/ wizard arcane magic, and the cross blends. Other wise a four way cultural warfare, which lead into a Spell Jammer campaign, skipping centuries or thousand of years. e.) Easter Eggs, of location where their past PC already explored or died in. Or a magic item they created in another game. Doing timelines and legacy characters helps create a history for easter eggs. Haven't met a player that didn't like easter eggs. f.) Never ran a shop, just a backup DM, or rule lawyer that has a nack of power gaming and bending the rules till they break to create fun PCs. My style of narrating creates over the top tension that people only want to deal with once or twice a month. I was the guy to create pre made PCs and setting to adventure. In any group of six or more, you have the story teller DM with basic judgement ruling, and one or two backups to speed read the rule books to determine how far we are bending the rules. And some time two others to lead the over arch story another to run the action thrill of combat. I am that guy that amps up combat modifiers. Our gaming shops were big enough to run player vs player group action and DM are just referees. eight orc barbarians vs stander run of the mill adventures. Got that covered.
Another great way to utilize a Ruin in your campaign, is by using it as an alternative to the "you all meet in a tavern" beginning. Tell the players in advance that they will be meeting at a Ruin, and give them the Ruin's history. Let them decide why each of them is there, and let that develop into why they work together.
Great idea. It might be just for flavor, or each might have a connection to the ruin that leads them to discover something about it that's unknown. And the adventure begins!
Nice!
@@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 Glad you liked it!
I am forced here to comment. Just found you. I am really digging your content. Lots of it! I find we appear to have similar d&d philosophies and styles. Also, I am no prude or Puritan but it is refreshing to listen to someone for more than 3 minutes and not hear 4 F-bombs.
Thank you. Keep up the good work brother.
Glad to hear you like my stuff! It's funny you mentioned the swearing: I used to teach creative writing, and I would always tell my students to come up with something more creative than constant F-Bombs and MF's for their characters to say. And they thought up way more interesting dialogue! So I have to walk the talk.
I chose to make Hibernia, (Ireland), the setting for my current campaign. In the mythology the "Lebor Gabala Erena",(the book of Invasions), lists five previous civilizations that inhabited the island. Today the island is dotted with abandoned hill forts, barrow mounds, passage tombs, abbeys, henges and menhirs. It's easy to add in the occasional nemeton and ley line intersections.
I created a NPC, Digby, "Digger" O'Dell, a Drow Elf from the Tir na nOg, (the underground otherworld), who can supply the team with bits and pieces of information, in exchange for favors.
I love this sort of set up. You have a current civilization for the PC's, but then a whole history through which they might have connections and plenty of storylines. And some of these hill forts and barrow mounds are well known, but others long lost, until of course the players find them!
@@DDHomebrew I play a little loose with the dates but around the 8th century is a golden time, when myths and history intermingle. The Western Roman Empire has collapsed, but the Church of the Light, (Rebranded Christian) has been established on the island for about 300 years. The Druids are still present because they weren't exterminated by the Romans. I figure at about level 10-12 the island will get too small for them and I am already planning moving the campaign to Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, England and Brittany.
@@neutronjack7399 It's always cool when you can mix in actual history with the geography and history of your homebrewed world. Is your world technologically in the 8th century? D&D campaigns tend to be more like the 12th to 14th century. Though again people play fast and loose with dates and technology. It's a game!
@@DDHomebrew Charlemagne is the current ruler of Frankia. The Muslims have control of most of Iberia. The Saxons are still a Heptarchy. Plate armor hasn't been invented yet, nor the heavy crossbow, (but there are rumors of gnomes working to correct that.)
Back to the idea of ruins. The Roman city of Londinium sat deserted for about 300 years, after the Romans left. The locals were afraid to venture into it, (because of the ghosts).
@@neutronjack7399 This sounds like a great campaign premise. The idea of Londinium as a haunted, deserted city would be a great source of adventures and story lines.
I could see a ruined Fortress/Castle/Palace being investigated and the party taking it over and rebuilding/restoring it to it's former grandeur. Thusly, turning it into a private/secured base/residence for them.
In my live session my group is in the midst of doing just that!
@@DDHomebrew That's Awesome!
I'm writing a call of Cthulhu campaign that is a continuation of the edge of darkness scenario and this was really helpful. I now have my players exploring an Aztec temple that has been abandoned, and I'm leaving hieroglyphics that give my players clues about the dark magic power the conquistadors used to wipe out the Aztecs from 1545 to 1550. it's going to be artifacts made of the bone marrow of an ancient dead god that died on earth before history began. The storyline is thah the cultists the players contend with are trying to bring him back by using dark magic and they need to retrieve parts of the dead gods body. The players will find 1 artifact in the temple and have to fight to escape the cultists and then learn about the whereabouts of another artifact in Europe. Thanks for this video, it had a lot of helpful ideas.
I'm glad I gave you ideas, though I think you've got some great ones here. Tying in the conquistadors with dark magic is very cool: the fact that they were able to conquer such a vast empire makes more sense with diabolic help! And the bone marrow of an ancient god is really cool as well. I have the Cthulhu books but have never played in a campaign: it's on my bucket list.
@@DDHomebrew My last game shop nearly 20 years ago, I haven't game since 2012.
Sooner or later Ravenloft fear/horror/madness wisdom check happen in all our games along with some form Cthulhu lore monster creeping up doing temporary wisdom damage. Be it D&D, Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) vampire, werewolf, changeling. Along with Star Wars.
2.) Meat Grinder survival horror, .. translate ever player starts the adventure with four to six PCs, and expect that a few PCs will get one hit kill for dramatic effect. Such as peaking with one eye around a corner and getting that side of your head wack off by a spear or thrown axe.
a.) Return to dungeon such of such place.
Bronze age mini campaign, .. looters/adventures exploring a ruin that is 2,000 years old when Egypt is still a new raising power.
every four or five months you rerun the same adventure, by have the players found the dead dried out bodies of their former PCs that were a TPK. Adds a creep factor.
After six confirm TPKs, with 2 years of real time passing, we drop our Star Wars mini campaign PCs into the ruins.
One player running a Scout/scoundrel/ Force Adept/ Jedi with 3e rules, said, " I have a Bad Feeling about this place, we go in and we all are going to die."
Vader walks in like a Boss.
Ruins set up to TPK multiclass 15th-level PCs that had been number crunched meta power gamed.
CoC monsters to the Nth-degree.
3.) AD&D2ndE box campaign, " Night Below." dealing with fish people.
We ran the stats of Star Wars EsB of the movie character level of Luke just before the battle of Hoth being chased by Vader and a legion of storm troopers.
The horrifying ways the imperials died as 4hd soldiers/thug was just sad. Slims, molds, psionic fish men, deep purple worms, jellies ooze.
4.) Mind flayers, 900ft spelljammers/ or outright 300m starships, .. Gith raiding a star destroyer and having gith or MF battle Vader.
illthid high jack ship crews, take genetic samples from them to clone and release the crew with memory lost that is slowly recover over a few games afterwards.
a.) PC escapes from their pod and explore the ship they are on. Are they the original PCs or are they experimental clones ? Otherwise roll for psionic/Force wild talent.
b.) Make or keep mind flayers as deep space night terrors ghost stories told by deep space pilots. Visitations where crews wake up with missing time & memories. Short mini game of an imperial patrol system ship slowly finding out they are a bunch of lab rats.
@@krispalermo8133 Wow! There's a lot to unpack here. I've never thought of running a continuing storyline with different systems. And yet if you think about the long history of the world, different cultures (or games systems!) have by definition visited ruins. The 1922 expedition that rediscovered King Tut's tomb could easily be a Cthulhu campaign, while another set of explorers could be from space.
The thing I especially like here is the PCs exploring the ruins of their earlier characters! Something meta about this I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe just to me but it's very cool!
I ran a LOTR game where getting in and out of Moria was the toughest part of the dungeon ruins because the only available entrances were webbed burrows dug by gigantic spiders
Those are such iconic ruins and so full of opportunities for adventure hooks. So much of the whole dungeon concept of D&D comes from that very section of the book.
It was said in a comedy movie, but I love the quote "Evil doesn't die so easy". The very stones of this unhallowed ground is infused with evil energy. Who knows what terrors lie beneath.
Think of creepy an abandoned house is? We wonder what happened there.
@@DDHomebrew Haha, sure go down into the dark basement, like that is going to end well. : )
@@Marcus-ki1en Exactly!
That was an excellent level of information, thank you.
And being a Britain I've spent many a time as a child playing on ruined castles and abbeys on holiday with my parents.
Now my own kids get to do the same it is just as magical.
That's one thing about the States: we don't have many ruins. I lived in Europe for 4.5 years and I loved visiting ruins. From the Romans to Medieval: tons of cool sites. I would have loved it as a kid. Plus I used to read M.R. James stories as a kid and his heroes were always visiting old abbeys and castles.
Funny enough I love ruins so much I put at least 3 or 4 fallen empires in the history of the world just to have an excuse to have players explore more ruins.
Also i like to play echos of the roman ruins from assassins creed cuz i feel that has the best ancient ruin ambient feel
I've always felt that ruins tie into the whole ethos of D&D. The idea that there were ancient, fallen realms and civilizations is just cool in itself, and it's been a part of the fantasy literature that inspired the game.
Fantastic video, and wonderful content. Subscribed.
I’m gonna be that guy though.
The fact that the Nazgul confronted the party at Weathertop was entirely coincidental. The only reason they were there is because they were drawn to the ring, and the ring was there.
Aragorn picked Weathertop because he knew Gandalf might use that path through the Wild (he did, too, and left the rune marker some 3 days earlier). It was chosen because it was the most likely meeting place or place he could discover a message to determine where to go next, and also to be able to survey the surrounding lands from the watchtower.
The Nazgul were no more drawn to Weathertop for any other reason than they were to The Prancing Pony, Buckleberry Ferry, The Shire or anywhere else-the ring was their magnetic north.
You are exactly right as far as the Nazgul are presented as fictional characters. They would have taken the ring wherever they found it. What I should have said was "It was no coincidence that Tolkien staged the confrontation with the Hobbits and the Nazgul at Weathertop." Because as fictional characters they operate at Tolkien's discretion. Of course, there are rules of fiction, so if it were clear that the Nazgul "let" the Hobbits get away just so they could have a battle at Weathertop, readers would have thought "this doesn't make sense" if they understood the dynamic between hunter and prey: the Nazgul will take the ring wherever they can get it. And I'm always thinking of my player's reactions to NPC's and monsters in this light as a GM: don't fudge things for narrative reasons!
But in terms of narrative power, Tolkien gives us close calls at the ferry and the Prancing Pony to build tension, then the battle at the fortress where Frodo is injured is the first true confrontation, then the loss of their horses at the river Bruin forces the Nazguls to back off for a while and ends this first chase. The Nazgul don't make these decisions: their decisions just have to make sense. And I'm saying that Tolkien chose Weathertop in part for this first true confrontation because of its connection to the world that the Nine Kings once inhabited to enhance his narrative flavor,
So as GM's we can make our stories richer using ruins and the ghosts/undead of those who once dwelt there but still walk the world thanks to magic. Of course, in a D&D setting the players also write the narrative through their actions. So, the Nazgul (wraiths) might get the ring at the ferry or Prancing Pony if the chase were staged in a D&D setting, or the players might avoid Weathertop and take another route. So we might put some item at Weathertop the players need, and then the wraiths appear in their former fortress for a battle and it's cool.
I'm glad you watched so carefully and to the end! Thanks for the comment and subscription.
I once had players exploring ruins, and they found an entrance to a labyrinth. Not inside the castle, but in the town outside. It went deep, deeper than the castle's dungeons, and were of a strange and unsettling architecture, nothing like the city above had been. Found some Underdark denizens down there, but they weren't happy to be there. They were on edge, frazzled, harried. Turned it into a real nasty horror adventure, with custom, very abstract dark Fae things at the bottom level.
The abandoned nature of ruins makes them creepy and weird to begin with, which makes it perfect that the creatures the players living down there are strange as well.
@@DDHomebrew The idea was that the original ruins became abandoned when a fae labyrinth opened up beneath the town. Cribbed from House of Leaves, which I couldn't finish reading because it started echoing in my real life.
@@LetholdusKaspyr House of Leaves blew my mind back in the day! Turning the book sideways to read certain pages as I remember. And I'm not sure I ever finished it either.
@@DDHomebrew I was reading it in a dorm room, late at night, and during one particularly stressful scene in the book, it mentioned the time. 3:55am, if I recall. As soon as I read those numbers, my eyes slowly dragged over to my alarm clock. It matched exactly. Yeah, no.
@@LetholdusKaspyr I was a college professor after I read that book, and as I wrote and reviewed articles for academic publications I kept thinking back on certain sections House of Leaves. The guy was spot on in his satire. And it was a scary book, which I love.
Thank you! Very interesting, Now I have a lot of work to do and think about to make some ruins more interesting and meaningful
Start one ruin at a time!😁
Spot on, ruins are great, especially since they can be right under your feet and not even know it. A slight curiosity could have trwmendous importance.
I would also like to say that you can very much use the powers within the ruins either the items or defenses or layer effects or whatever... They can be justifiably week for a low-level party but it's still be the tower of a grand ultra wizard or some s***.
Ruins are campaign scale adaptable and that's really fun to me.
I didn't get into that but you're exactly right. You can have defensive magic that prevents players of a lower (see inappropriate) levels from investigating areas they're not ready for. And since ruins are site specific they make a perfect one shot or 2-3 session adventure that is plug and play with a little scaling.
@@DDHomebrew absolutely. One of the best ruins I have seen implemented that did just that were by paizo publishing. The three adventures Falcons hallow, rise of the kobold king and return of the kobold king (if I'm not mistaken about the names) mind you these are all low-level but they were done in the stages as you described where you keep coming back
@@broke_af_games9661 I will check those out! I love mining adventures for ideas.
I love the idea of awakening forgotten ruins beneath your feet
@@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 That's what makes the world of RPG so great: that kind of stuff really happens!
Its like the cooler magic weapons that have back story and a quirky power or interesting circumstance.
A demon moved in ?
I do have an Elven tree castle that has been grown around an ancient invaders fortress. That Fortress is almost 5000 years old. Beside it a new structure was built next to this ancient ruin, incorporating some of it in their more modern palace. Then 1800 years ago the Elves starting growing this palace around the two more ancient structures. Little hints in both structures of the past including an adventure hook to the desert where this old CIV once existed.
Thanks good topic. it gives your world a litlle more flavour.
That's what ruins represent: the history of your world. And that history gives flavor to the current events.
Listening to this video made me think what if people had to evacuate a certain area or location, either recently or long ago, and were only able to bring with them the high level treasure or magic items and some less powerful magic items and / or treasure could still be there. There could be rumors or sent on a quest to go retrieve some of this stuff.
I've done a few videos that relate to this: a weather event that causes an evacuation, a volcanic eruption, a magic catastrophe that renders an area uninhabitable for a time. Maybe it's time to consolidate those ideas in one video? Hmmm.
Regards to Ruins and meta gaming plot points, ..
a.) 1990's AD&D2ndE had a campaign booklet title " Reverse Dungeon " that had a ten level dungeon starting off with goblins defending the top of a foot hill cave tunnels, and you play as goblins defending against stander demi/humans adventures. It was compatible with Complete guide to Humanoids handbook.
b.) My two gaming shops from 1998 to 2012 blended multiple gaming systems into their house rules.
b.i.) AD&D had optional initiative rules of Weapon Type speed modifiers, along with Armor vs Weapon Type. Such as two hand grip spears and crossbows gain a +4 to hit from equipment bonus.
b.ii.) Heavy crossbow has a draw/impact of 700 to 900 to 1,000lb, in short you are getting punch in the head by Mike Tyson with a screwdriver but at 3x the speed that a pro boxer can move at. I don't care how good your helmet is that can bounce a heavy xbow bolt at point blank range, that is still a lot of kinetic energy that your neck is taking.
b.iii.) Watch a few videos of cross bows against plate armor, the wooden shaft of the bolt shatters and the splinters are still moving at speed to go into a full face helmet. Case of friendly fire to the front ranks manning the shield wall.
c.) WotC Star Wars 3e came out with Short Rests being 15minutes cause Force Users/Jedi spend Hp/vitality as temporary Hp to power Force skill/feat powers.
Critical hits go direct to base constitution score doing temporary con dmg. Know anyone that pop a knee playing football at home ? Critical fumble on dodge roll.
2.) History of the World/Earth, ..
Bronze age, most of the copper & tin that fueled the Greek/Trojan War came from Scotland. Even before the raise of Mediterranean Sea city states or Egypt, Smoked oysters and copper was being traded for Israel beer which was before silver or gold coin induce by the Persians denar, decompose wine/beer resin coating on pottery in graves or mittens. Of note the coastline between Egypt and Turkey has been controlled by Egypt, Turkey, etc.. Military/politically the so called Old Kingdom was never in power, they were always a client state.
2.a.i.) YT video on The End of the Bronze Age, earth quakes ran from Turkey down to the Horn of Africa. Along with a volcano going off on a Greek island. The story of Mose fits within this 200year time frame, sorry to say, Rames II wasn't the pharaoh of Egypt at that time. A few times each century, drought rolls through, follow by sand storms pushing locus from the desert, follow by heavy rains, then red clay washes down from southern Egypt/Sudam highlands turning the Nile red as blood. Egypt has a myth were Bast the lioness goes on a murder rampaging and her father Ra turns the Nile into Blood beer to get her drunk for a few days to calm her down. The current multiple dams on the Nile prevent the flash flooding and the washing of red clay down river.
b.) DA gon and DaGON, west coast/ Israel was a sea fish god and his month was when the fish schools migrate the coastline. As for the east coast Iran/Babylon Dagon was a Grain god that came in with the planet Venus saying to was springtime to plant grain. Catholic St. Valetine day was the tradition day celebrating spring in Rome to plant grains.
In France/ Gaul it was May 1st. " May Day."
b.i.) When in destress send out a May Day call.
Past few years in France a group of people riot and set cars on fire on May 1st.
b.ii.) Interesting after near 60years of debate and arguing over old Latin pre Roman empire records on trade languages of the Sea People, Welsh is a related Semitic language/ hench early copper age Hebrew. " Phoenicians"
Bad news there are close to 15 dialects of Welsh and the five dialects spoken of the east coast of Scotland are so regional they are Barely able to communicate with the Welsh.
More non interesting stuff, the Greek Phoenicians/ Philistins that the old kingdom fought against with Goliath, you know the story of David ? A weight sling casting a flint skipping stone becomes a lethal ninja star going into your face or busting rib bones.
b.iii.) Call of Cthulhu Dagon fish god and copper trader could have had a cult network from Egypt, Turkey/Black sea and up to Scotland and Demark. You never know what can be found under Roman ruins in northern Europe or an old church. Also Roman had a problem of Eastern Snake cults.
3.) Fae, fairy mounds or ancient burial mounds, ..
Other than the stack stone hearth that heated the hut, root cellars to keep food stocks were half ground dug outs that the farmers stack field stone, river stone, or brick and cover in dirt for temperature control. Over time after the land went empty, bird droppings or rodents burry seed/nut clutches grew trees over the old root cellars. Creating camp side ghost stories of fairy mounds.
a.) Take a break from high heroic adventure, run a stone age mini campaign. With 3e multiclassing rules have a rogue/ranger for Tracking and stealth with 4 level of sorcerer or druid casting only 2nd-level spells, .. maybe 3rd -level. Feat craft wondrous item/magic trap rules in DMG. Stone blade/spear that can power up as a +1 weapon, Mend, so other minor spell of 1st or 2nd-level. A flaming stone spear that resist chipping, remains sharp, and can drive off minor monster/undead like Chill Touch.
Or a deer/bear/bull hide of warmth with the spell Element Endurance: cold, Mend, or something else fancy.
Along with a normal peasant clay cooking pot. that has Create Food & Water. Since all items have +1 magic weapon/bless or Mage Armor with +4Ac. They are difficult to easily to break or burn away.
Run a few stone age games, then go back to stander gaming. After a few months, have them investigate the ancient mounds or goblin sight and grant them the magic items their old PCs created. Hence letting your own players create the campaign history.
4.) AD&D2ndE gate keeping purist or just jerks back around 1997 to 2000 just before WotC. AD&D magic sucks. 12-level wizard to cast 6th-level spell Enchant Magic Item and becoming a Lich at 18th-level with a bunch of nonsense along still needing a Wish spell.
With WotC 3e, a 3rd-level caster can take a feat Craft Wondrous Item/Magic Trap creation rules. Along with being a 11th-level caster to become a Lich. But for spell list from AD&D to become a Lich falls in line with being a 13th-level sorcerer.
a.) With other gaming systems from the 1990's such as Whitewolf/World of Darkness(WoD) werewolf, mage you only need 3dots/level in main sphere/school of magic to create fetishes or minor items carry a 2nd-level spell power. Needless to say about my first gaming shop, once WotC came out we drop the AD&D gate keepers for the new system, but they whined, " That's Not D&D ! "
b.) WotC 3e Star Wars really stream line cross over WEG west end games Star Wars d6 system.
So TMNT and Marvel Wolverine, Star Wars in Ravenloft. Vader vs Strahd.
Castle Ravenloft tall spiral staircase towers, multiple dex/balance/tumble checks to skate board or large steel shield surf down the steps at high speeds.
A lot of stuff here! I do remember the reverse dungeon adventure from the distant past, though I never played it. Interesting ideas on goblin society and playing them in opposition to an adventuring party. An interesting concept was the players as "co-GM" in that they had the map to the dungeon and could set up traps for the exploring group.
AD&D had all sorts of optional weapons rules that played up realism (I think!) at the expense (in some players minds) of immersion. I always liked combat and optional rules as a player, but sometimes as a GM they got complicated.
Lots of interesting history here in terms of Europe and the Middle East cross-pollinating trade, culture and myths. I'm no historian, but the ideas here could be used for similar links in a D&D campaign.
Never thought about a stone age campaign! Some cool stuff here: the idea of the original group finding the remains of this ancient campaign is interesting. I wonder how players would respond?
It seems that you ran a game store and had a lot of experience with different versions and people's reactions to those systems. The more things change the more they stay the same!
@@DDHomebrew You got a new Sub, along with me back tracking your old videos.
Had a DM just love to start the adventure one way, then flip us over to PCing the monster and having us make it up as we go along. DM is just rule refence referee and guiding the points to a given story. Flow with it.
Imaginative players are a must to flip multiple PCs in game.
Random index card draws with pre made N/PC is a way for an actor to play around with character personalities.
b.) Immersion vs complications, remember whatever the player wants, the DM n/pc rivals can also use against the party.
c.) As for .. history, .. my grandparents had a lot of picture books. Audio coset tape listen as you read. Had a couple of bad years back in the 1980's of being drag by my mom to a Southern Baptist Church that was very Anti-Catholic. As a teenage I start majoring in history to prove people wrong. D&D basic box set in the late 1980's during junior high school.
I had to cross AD&D and TMNT and run the game as a TMNT cartoon action, or my teenage peer group would just beat each other with plastic baseball bats.
d.) Stone Age campaign, .. cowboys & indians.
i,) Start game off as Maya hunters, after a few games Indiana Jones shows up.
ii.) Stone age is normally a break from high adventure, game story revolve around basic hunter gather survival. Be it as humans, lizardmen, or halfling riding wolves calling themselves elves. Campaign setting " Elf Quest " comics.
iii.) Did a mini campaign with 3e as stone tool using chimpanzees figuring out fire to make fire harden stone scrap spears. After a few short games, I had on chimpanzee get a water ear worm in a salt brim tidal pool. He turn into a mind flayer. The players were in total awesome shock on being on the mind flayer home world. It was chimp vs mind flayer chimp with psionic/ sorcerer wild talents. Then bronze age city states of god kings of psionic vs sorcerer/ wizard arcane magic, and the cross blends. Other wise a four way cultural warfare, which lead into a Spell Jammer campaign, skipping centuries or thousand of years.
e.) Easter Eggs, of location where their past PC already explored or died in. Or a magic item they created in another game. Doing timelines and legacy characters helps create a history for easter eggs. Haven't met a player that didn't like easter eggs.
f.) Never ran a shop, just a backup DM, or rule lawyer that has a nack of power gaming and bending the rules till they break to create fun PCs. My style of narrating creates over the top tension that people only want to deal with once or twice a month. I was the guy to create pre made PCs and setting to adventure. In any group of six or more, you have the story teller DM with basic judgement ruling, and one or two backups to speed read the rule books to determine how far we are bending the rules. And some time two others to lead the over arch story another to run the action thrill of combat. I am that guy that amps up combat modifiers.
Our gaming shops were big enough to run player vs player group action and DM are just referees.
eight orc barbarians vs stander run of the mill adventures. Got that covered.
First I’ve seen your channel, excellent presentation- instant subscriber
I'm glad you like it!
Awesome video
Glad you liked it!
excellent talk and advices, thx!
Glad you liked it!