Running a campaign

[Sir Hackalot]

First off, love the Conan RPG.

I would like to continue on with my campaign but I find myself running into some complications.

My players want to do more than just go from adventure to adventure, fighting, getting treasure, getting drunk and losing it again and then continue with the same thing overand over again. Two of my players want to become leaders and carve out their own kingdom, one player, a Khitan scholar wants to have a more stable place to live in instead of doing alot of travelling.

I will have to admit that most of the posted adventure I have read in this particular forum seem to present a non-stop out-of-the frying-pan-into- the-fire and although these are fun, I think my group is looking for more substance and stability.

What do you suggest? Have you had any problems with this?

 

[Halfbat]

Haven't had any problems with either. In fact, Conan seems to lend itself quite well to characters having ambitions and working to achieve them.

For example, some characters in my campaign are (still) trying to establish themselves as a trading corporation, another almost as an ambassador, another as a captain whilst one is quite happy to be the drinking, ale-swigging, ferocious barbarian.

The whole merges quite well. It gives a good framework for scenarios, for example by giving the group constant problems in defending their ambitions/corporation from threats and trading interruptions, finding out who raided their ship (pirates - a nemesis) when they were on shore dealing with another issue, or even trying to find out who raided their mansion and took off with some loot, hurting their retainers.

The key, afaik, is to keep letting them achieve steps towards the eventual goals, so there are constant steps forward, whilst at the same time they are continually faced with problems achieving those goals.

 

[Lord Jolly the Scribe]

Try to getting them involved in some long term political problems and such, such as overthrowing certain merchants in Shadizar or warring with the priests of Ibis against the minions of Set. I am planning such things for my future campain.

If you are following the idea of Conan always getting stuff then losing it, he did acquire a throne and a kingdom and still adventured. I would give them a nice place and such, and still have them adventure. Give them old friends who ill come asking for their aid and have them go off adventuring, hoping to make it home again one day. Heck, help them prevent an assassination on one the nobles and be given titles, land, and slaves, but in exchange help the noble on certain trips and keep him safe from plotters. You are Gamemaster, you can run the game as you wish, so if you want to break the p0attern of "earn and lose it later", go for it.

Good luck with the game.

 

[Daz]

I'd go with what they want. There's plenty of stories of Conan involving himself in internal politics of various kingdoms.

Maybe go something like this:
Adventure 1: Shit goes down in a local area and PCs help that and in exchange get a position in the household of the local lord.
Adventure 2: Local lord sends his lackeys to do stuff for him. PCs rise in position to captain of the guard.
Adventure 3: Assassination attempt is launched against the lord. Maybe the PCs stop it and get promoted, maybe they fail and get framed for it and have to flee the area swearing to return to get revenge.
Adventure 4: PCs have a sizable local repudation, local enemies that they want to kill, maybe some local foreigners and do some stuff to try to cement local support to try to get some real political power. etc. etc. etc.

Also maybe have a year or two of game-time pass between each adventure that way your players will start out as teenaged recruits and age as the campaign progresses to grizzled generals also have their various ambitions be expensive so they have to spend money on various things (weapons for lackeys, spondoring a festival to make the locals like the, etc. etc.) so that they're not swimming in cash to by gear with and are sometimes quite cash-strapped or even deep in debt.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Two of my players want to become leaders and carve out their own kingdom, one player, a Khitan scholar wants to have a more stable place to live in instead of doing alot of travelling.

Why, that's great! I'd definitely encourage that. Conan is _the_ game for royal ambitions.
The Khitan soldier is pretty modest even. Shouldn't be much of a problem. Maybe he could get a position as Captain of the Guard or something for one of the more ambitious characters once they have established a base of operations.

Do the two would-be kings already have the leadership feat? I'd say that's kind of a prerequisite.

What levels are they, anyway?
I'd say they might be suitable as military leaders from level 11 or so onward, and getting in reach of political leadership around level 15+. Level 18 might finally be a good time to actually give them what they want.

 

[Sir Hackalot]

I think they are about 8th level now.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Well you could now start to let them keep some of the wealth they accumulate, and establish a base of supporters in the area they want to set up their kingdom. Let them make small steps, maybe some setbacks here and there, but be careful not to make them mark time. They will need the feeling of success.

Keep in mind that later on, when they set up an army of their own, they will have to pay for the equipment. You figure how that can rack up.

 

[emirikol]

I've been running Conan campaigns for many years. We've done it both ways regarding episodic or storyline based.

If you want a longer campaign, you have to have longer plotlines. Choose a bad guy or two from the marvel universe CONAN files as well as some parallel plot goings-on.

I've also been running some DUNGEON adventures in sequence. That works well as long as they're not too "in-the-dungeon" all the time.

Here's the hard part: PLAN ON CONTINUATION FROM PC DEATH. If your players do not have relevant back up characters to continue along the plotline then you'll be kind of shot.

jh

 

[Lord Jolly the Scribe]

PC Death sucks. Fate points good.

I usually try to have my players give me a background of family and such to help get a replacement involved from their old home or city to replace them. With a simple, "I am so and so's (insert title here)", we are back at it again without skipping too much of a beat. Doesn't always work though if the family member lives so far away.

I also allow them to play a character along the same experience level of the last character, though I usually drop them a level to the midpoint of experience needed to acquire the lost level again so to make it a little more challenging for them. :twisted:

 

[Sutek]

I would like to continue on with my campaign but I find myself running into some complications.

My players want to do more than just go from adventure to adventure, fighting, getting treasure, getting drunk and losing it again and then continue with the same thing overand over again.

Well, running adventure after adventure does not a campaign make.

A campaign is a series of adventures that have a linked narrative and a predictable or defined end. What you can easily do to turn your series of adventures into a campaign is to look at the elements that stand out in several of the adventures (villains, artifacts, monsters, etc.) and come up with something that links them. Maybe the PCs found an artifact that they obtained by killing a monster that, now, an old adversary wants to get ahold of to further his political machinations somewhere. If that seems a little two-dimensional, then his actions could be influenced by a third party, or he could be the lacky to a third party who is, in fact, beholden to an even more powerful individual pulling the strings.

I don't even flesh out stuff like that fully, but I come up with the links and then let my players figure them out on thier ownand put the pieces together over time. Maybe come up with a few adventures that harken back to some early escapade and have the players suddenly realize, "Hey, wait a minute...isn't that the guy who...?" Moments like that, and how the players react to them, give me further ideas so that I can come up with more links, NPCs, thier plans and deceptions. Usually, I'll even find something that the characters are really, really sure of, something that they've figured out 100% and...change it. Then thy have the basis from all thier other adventureing suddenly come into question, and that fuels more imaginitive fires for all of us.

As far as starting thier own kingdoms and all that, the best way is to create a tyrant that needs altruistic toppling, you know, because he's just such a bad, bad guy, and then have the PCs work towards toppling him. That means they'll have to fight armies and stuff, so it's likely that they aren't ready, but at least they'll know what they're up against and can go for feats like Leadership to gain cohorts and all that. Let them know that they're up against high, but surmountable odds, and that getting to being a Lord takes preparation and not just slaying. Making political alliences and working deals with opponents of the bad guy can lead to weeks of zero-combat role play, but those are the kind I like best.

 

[Ichabod]

First off, love the Conan RPG.

I would like to continue on with my campaign but I find myself running into some complications.

My players want to do more than just go from adventure to adventure, fighting, getting treasure, getting drunk and losing it again and then continue with the same thing overand over again. Two of my players want to become leaders and carve out their own kingdom, one player, a Khitan scholar wants to have a more stable place to live in instead of doing alot of travelling.

I will have to admit that most of the posted adventure I have read in this particular forum seem to present a non-stop out-of-the frying-pan-into- the-fire and although these are fun, I think my group is looking for more substance and stability.

What do you suggest? Have you had any problems with this?

My first thought is that it helps immensely if the PCs have goals, except your players already have that covered.

Where do they want to carve out kingdoms? Why? For instance, is it to be an absolute dictator, for the benefits of some group, for the challenge, etc.? If there's some sort of external motive, like making the world safe for albino, half-demon Iranistani, that's going to lead to a particular sort of experience.

How? The way you wrote it could or could not be a sign. You said they want to be leaders ... and carve out their own kingdoms, as if the leader part was as important as the kingdom part. Do they want to climb a ladder? Gather a horde and coup? The two make for different sorts of adventures. The former seems more appropriate to more civilized regions and the latter to areas already in chaos or easily put there.

The scholar wants to settle but assumedly also wants to have adventures. That sounds like there should be one primary city where lots of stuff happens. Maybe the group settles in some city with one of the players joining the army and another befriending nearby peoples. City comes under attack, army PC gets promoted for valor, other PC brings in non-city cavalry, scholar advises sagely and gains favor, making enemies of other advisors in town. Whole thing becomes highly political with the PCs dealing with various messes (which could be any level of supernatural) to retain political favor. As an out, they can run to their country allies, maybe coup if someone particularly bad is in charge.

Anyway, why doesn't the scholar want to travel? Just to have more resources at hand? Maybe having the scholar develop some apprentices and having the apprentices make stuff would satisfy to free up the scholar for expeditions into lotus regions.

As people have mentioned, recurring villains = good. If the PCs can't be clear in their goals, your villains can be and can, therefore, drive the campaign. Villain steals children from village to sacrifice - saved or not? Not - demon summoned to assassinate king blah blah blah - successful? Yes - power vaccuum that PCs can fill or whatever. At some point slay villain - then that was just a servant to a more powerful villain. And, so forth.

In our current campaign, our group had nothing to hang its hat on besides survival for quite some time. Eventually, they made it to civilization and had nothing in particular they wanted to do, so ... they made a mess of things and didn't clean up the messes. Random diversions to "seek treasure" while ignoring any current plot threads or whatever just meant the various demons being unleashed were left unchecked. Eventually, the GM decided we had been sufficiently delinquent that we either had to continue to turn the world into a hell or quest to get the book that would help us close various gates opening up around the world. Our group has come very close to just going with the hell idea, but we have the book and are trying to get back to civilization with it.