I'm running a sandbox campaign, and my players want to attempt to take over the world. I've informed them that a first step would probably be to find or create a capital city, or to create an alliance between several smaller villages. Different players have purposed different methods, including buying some wilderness and developing it, and finding a city with an "evil tyrant" and overthrowing them. One player is a changeling, so taking over and setting up a shadow government might also be a possibility, as well as recruiting some powerful creature, such as a dragon, to help conquer a city. What challenges might they face, what ways could they succeed, and how am I supposed to run this? Thanks (in advance)!
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Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
honestly there are a lot of ways you could start taking over the world
violently killing a ruler and installing yourself
getting a bunch of smaller villages to band together
killing the ruler quietly and imitateing them
BIG MONSTER
becoming well liked so when your unknown friends kill the ruler, people want you to be the new ruler((this one is my favorite) its so evil)
french revolution!
regular revoluti0n!
someone with the folk hero background(or for that matter, someone pretending to have said background) "fulfilling" their destiny to become the new ruler
as for challenges you could do...
a bigger kingdom trying to conquer the PCs new kingdom
an earthquake or other natural disaster
a magical disaster, sutch as
a wizard opening a portal to the far realm, causing unimagineable horrors to seep through
a star falling on the kingdom
a god feels they are not being properly honored by the kingdom
a wizard with Wish holding the kindom hostage by the magical nuclear bomb of Wish
a magical nuclear bomb for that matter
REVOLUTION
as for running it, TCoE has a section for running a guild, and you could do that on a larger scale
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About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
My current campaign started with a take on 'The Romance of the Three Kingdoms' - a Chinese classic where 3 different states/generals are vying over who controls the Empire (this on a smaller scale could be a starting point to your party's ascendance). Full disclaimer, we never discussed them actually taking over, they were always going to pick a side and help them, but there is no reason why they couldn't have tried if anyone had thought of it. Anyway, I can give you an insight into how my table played this.
I should begin by saying, we always had a specific area for the Empire - the only change would be if the 3rd state refused to join and whether to conquer them if they didn't. I think the first thing you need to clarify is what an empire consists of - several city states, a continent, the world? This is important for the next point. Do they intend to continue with the same characters once their empire is built (I would suggest here that while running a Civ 5 campaign might be interesting, it is not really what most people are looking for)? I offered my table the choice of beginning a new campaign, running new characters in the same (but changed) world or running the same characters. They chose to continue as the same characters which meant I had to SEVERELY restrict awarding XP to ensure I could continue offering them suitable, challenging adventures as the story continued.
As for the campaign itself, ours was structured around journeying about and accruing allies for a final decisive battle. Some examples:
They won the loyalty of a section of the army by defending an outpost from a wave of attacks.
They formed an alliance with the 3rd state by framing some members of his court as spies for the enemy.
They rescued a dragon's child from a hag - they both ended up owing the party.
They sought and found aid from an army of fey by building influence in a fey court.
Securing allies in among the Northern Horde with feats of strength and bravery.
There were many more opportunities for different allies or relationships and they could have ended up with none or all (some missed opportunities ended up fighting for the enemy) - I hate railroading a party.
Anyway, the key here was providing enough variety and not getting bogged down with constant political intrigue (we even took a sojourn to the Dread Domains to add some spice).
At the end there was the battle. I drew up the opposing forces and had the party assign allies to different contingents while they had to mop up the rest and march on the capital. I should state here that the final confrontation with their main enemy was role-played (he was a disguised Planetar, too powerful for my party but will appear again later as part of a bigger plot).
Anyway, that was my experience of running a similar plot. If I was installing the party as rulers I would probably have included a more rigorous reputation system to see if they would be embraced as rulers - legitimacy was also important in my campaign.
I hope this isn't too dissimilar and gives you some ideas, at least.
I'd suggest looking at MCDM's Kingdom's & Warefare book. It's a reasonable take on becoming "local powers" who mix adventure, armies, and influence. This would help the characters transition from an adventuring party to a focused group that wants to step up to that status but still adventure.
From there, you could transition to the 2nd Edition D&D Birthright Campaign Setting. The Domain rules for Regents are essentially d20-based, and you can ignore all the lore and bloodlines stuff and still get a good system to handle national politics. This will get them into nation-building with a purpose and add several layers of diplomacy, intrigue, and outright warfare between true rulers. It also leaves some wiggle room to adventure and "solve it yourself" for them.
In summary:
Adventuring Party >>> Local Factions >>> Ruler of a Nation
Normal D&D >>> Kingdom's & Warfare >>> Birthright
It's a bit of shopping, but will open up all new avenues of play.
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I'm running a sandbox campaign, and my players want to attempt to take over the world. I've informed them that a first step would probably be to find or create a capital city, or to create an alliance between several smaller villages. Different players have purposed different methods, including buying some wilderness and developing it, and finding a city with an "evil tyrant" and overthrowing them. One player is a changeling, so taking over and setting up a shadow government might also be a possibility, as well as recruiting some powerful creature, such as a dragon, to help conquer a city. What challenges might they face, what ways could they succeed, and how am I supposed to run this? Thanks (in advance)!
Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
honestly there are a lot of ways you could start taking over the world
as for challenges you could do...
as for running it, TCoE has a section for running a guild, and you could do that on a larger scale
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
My current campaign started with a take on 'The Romance of the Three Kingdoms' - a Chinese classic where 3 different states/generals are vying over who controls the Empire (this on a smaller scale could be a starting point to your party's ascendance). Full disclaimer, we never discussed them actually taking over, they were always going to pick a side and help them, but there is no reason why they couldn't have tried if anyone had thought of it. Anyway, I can give you an insight into how my table played this.
I should begin by saying, we always had a specific area for the Empire - the only change would be if the 3rd state refused to join and whether to conquer them if they didn't. I think the first thing you need to clarify is what an empire consists of - several city states, a continent, the world? This is important for the next point. Do they intend to continue with the same characters once their empire is built (I would suggest here that while running a Civ 5 campaign might be interesting, it is not really what most people are looking for)? I offered my table the choice of beginning a new campaign, running new characters in the same (but changed) world or running the same characters. They chose to continue as the same characters which meant I had to SEVERELY restrict awarding XP to ensure I could continue offering them suitable, challenging adventures as the story continued.
As for the campaign itself, ours was structured around journeying about and accruing allies for a final decisive battle. Some examples:
They won the loyalty of a section of the army by defending an outpost from a wave of attacks.
They formed an alliance with the 3rd state by framing some members of his court as spies for the enemy.
They rescued a dragon's child from a hag - they both ended up owing the party.
They sought and found aid from an army of fey by building influence in a fey court.
Securing allies in among the Northern Horde with feats of strength and bravery.
There were many more opportunities for different allies or relationships and they could have ended up with none or all (some missed opportunities ended up fighting for the enemy) - I hate railroading a party.
Anyway, the key here was providing enough variety and not getting bogged down with constant political intrigue (we even took a sojourn to the Dread Domains to add some spice).
At the end there was the battle. I drew up the opposing forces and had the party assign allies to different contingents while they had to mop up the rest and march on the capital. I should state here that the final confrontation with their main enemy was role-played (he was a disguised Planetar, too powerful for my party but will appear again later as part of a bigger plot).
Anyway, that was my experience of running a similar plot. If I was installing the party as rulers I would probably have included a more rigorous reputation system to see if they would be embraced as rulers - legitimacy was also important in my campaign.
I hope this isn't too dissimilar and gives you some ideas, at least.
I'd suggest looking at MCDM's Kingdom's & Warefare book. It's a reasonable take on becoming "local powers" who mix adventure, armies, and influence. This would help the characters transition from an adventuring party to a focused group that wants to step up to that status but still adventure.
From there, you could transition to the 2nd Edition D&D Birthright Campaign Setting. The Domain rules for Regents are essentially d20-based, and you can ignore all the lore and bloodlines stuff and still get a good system to handle national politics. This will get them into nation-building with a purpose and add several layers of diplomacy, intrigue, and outright warfare between true rulers. It also leaves some wiggle room to adventure and "solve it yourself" for them.
In summary:
Adventuring Party >>> Local Factions >>> Ruler of a Nation
Normal D&D >>> Kingdom's & Warfare >>> Birthright
It's a bit of shopping, but will open up all new avenues of play.