Hello everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this post and any feedback would be most welcome. I have to start by saying if you have joined my Roll20 campaign Flagship please know that this will contain spoilers for the campaign, read on at your own risk.
I have been working on this story for a couple of years now, this will be my 3rd campaign I have run in my own homebrew universe, and am excited to continue fleshing out the world and history. I have reached a slight conundrum however, as I designed a specific introduction to this campaign to kick off the danger as well as getting your first glimpse at the main story. If you would please give your opinion from a player perspective as to whether you would feel shafted in this situation.
So my campaign is a high seas, early Era of gunpowder setting, with the western seas off the continent of Calradia being almost like the wild west in the early days of America's expanse. A place where a beggar may find their fortune and royalty may lose everything, governance is attempted throughout the western seas but seldomly works as the D'Haran Coalition simply doesn't have the resources to manage such a massive area. You find yourselves in the Western coastal town of Meharta, having booked the 6 month journey west to the newly discovered lands of Aboria, you'll be sailing through rough seas, pirate territory, and enchanted stretches of ocean that have sent many to their death.
The campaign starts with the party boarding the passenger ship known as The Crosswing, I have designed interesting NPCs for the party to interact with, both crew and passengers, as well as some random encounters to highlight the magic and mystery of the Western Seas. The party would be sailing for a few weeks before I kick off what may potentially be seen as railroading.
So little to the parties knowledge the captain of the ship is often the transporter of less than legal cargo. The party will have heard rumors of this by now, and heard of some mysterious cargo they are transporting. The cargo is a refined Radium crystal which has taken over 2 years to gather enough of the raw meteorite and another 5 just to complete the refining process. The crystal was designed by a man named Dr. Enzoriel, who lives in Aboria and is attempting to make some new type of ship with this refined Radium. However there are more groups of interest after this crystal, a pirate group know as the Curse of Atlantis also would like to retrieve this crystal as they believe they can use it to raise Atlantis from the depths and usher in the 2nd reign of Giants. This is obviously the main quest, the party will slowly learn of these pirates, hopefully have some high seas battles with their enchanted ship, and eventually cast the Giants back to the depths. However much of the campaign is designed to be a journey to Morodor type situation where getting to Aboria is half of the adventure filled with all types of shenanigans along the way.
I intended to have the pirates show up, Shanghai the crystal and sink the passenger ship, the idea is for the party to end up shipwrecked, having to gain allies and make their way to Aboria. The island they are shipwrecked on is where a merchant camps out during his runs, offering to take the party on his sloop to a nearby port town, for a large sum of gold of course, giving them the chance to be good people or steer into the pirate theme a little extra. I have no intention of forcing them into a sequence they cannot act in, this is just the series of events assuming the party didn't act in anyway.
My main concern is that I have created a situation that might seem to the party like their choices won't matter, or perhaps like I'm trying to beat them with some boss early on in the campaign. Should I just start the party shipwrecked, or perhaps at the first town that I have quests designed for their levels at? What are your thoughts of being shipwrecked as a player, and potentially having to gather a bit of food and fresh water before resuming your journey? Any feedback is most appreciated and feel free to message me with any advice, if you just wanna learn more about my campaign, or tell me about yours, I always love talking d&d. Thanks for your time it's appreciated!
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Hello everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this post and any feedback would be most welcome. I have to start by saying if you have joined my Roll20 campaign Flagship please know that this will contain spoilers for the campaign, read on at your own risk.
I have been working on this story for a couple of years now, this will be my 3rd campaign I have run in my own homebrew universe, and am excited to continue fleshing out the world and history. I have reached a slight conundrum however, as I designed a specific introduction to this campaign to kick off the danger as well as getting your first glimpse at the main story. If you would please give your opinion from a player perspective as to whether you would feel shafted in this situation.
So my campaign is a high seas, early Era of gunpowder setting, with the western seas off the continent of Calradia being almost like the wild west in the early days of America's expanse. A place where a beggar may find their fortune and royalty may lose everything, governance is attempted throughout the western seas but seldomly works as the D'Haran Coalition simply doesn't have the resources to manage such a massive area. You find yourselves in the Western coastal town of Meharta, having booked the 6 month journey west to the newly discovered lands of Aboria, you'll be sailing through rough seas, pirate territory, and enchanted stretches of ocean that have sent many to their death.
The campaign starts with the party boarding the passenger ship known as The Crosswing, I have designed interesting NPCs for the party to interact with, both crew and passengers, as well as some random encounters to highlight the magic and mystery of the Western Seas. The party would be sailing for a few weeks before I kick off what may potentially be seen as railroading.
So little to the parties knowledge the captain of the ship is often the transporter of less than legal cargo. The party will have heard rumors of this by now, and heard of some mysterious cargo they are transporting. The cargo is a refined Radium crystal which has taken over 2 years to gather enough of the raw meteorite and another 5 just to complete the refining process. The crystal was designed by a man named Dr. Enzoriel, who lives in Aboria and is attempting to make some new type of ship with this refined Radium. However there are more groups of interest after this crystal, a pirate group know as the Curse of Atlantis also would like to retrieve this crystal as they believe they can use it to raise Atlantis from the depths and usher in the 2nd reign of Giants. This is obviously the main quest, the party will slowly learn of these pirates, hopefully have some high seas battles with their enchanted ship, and eventually cast the Giants back to the depths. However much of the campaign is designed to be a journey to Morodor type situation where getting to Aboria is half of the adventure filled with all types of shenanigans along the way.
I intended to have the pirates show up, Shanghai the crystal and sink the passenger ship, the idea is for the party to end up shipwrecked, having to gain allies and make their way to Aboria. The island they are shipwrecked on is where a merchant camps out during his runs, offering to take the party on his sloop to a nearby port town, for a large sum of gold of course, giving them the chance to be good people or steer into the pirate theme a little extra. I have no intention of forcing them into a sequence they cannot act in, this is just the series of events assuming the party didn't act in anyway.
My main concern is that I have created a situation that might seem to the party like their choices won't matter, or perhaps like I'm trying to beat them with some boss early on in the campaign. Should I just start the party shipwrecked, or perhaps at the first town that I have quests designed for their levels at? What are your thoughts of being shipwrecked as a player, and potentially having to gather a bit of food and fresh water before resuming your journey? Any feedback is most appreciated and feel free to message me with any advice, if you just wanna learn more about my campaign, or tell me about yours, I always love talking d&d. Thanks for your time it's appreciated!