Help needed with campaign idea

[Glorelendil]

Another thread gave me an idea for a set of connected adventures, in the spirit of Darkening of Mirkwood: a mission to create a new settlement in some dangerous corner of Middle Earth, like Vales of Gundabad or the North Downs. Adventure ideas include:
- Receive task from White Council
- Scout out a new location
- Fight off current monstrous inhabitants
- Make peace with neighbors
- Explore nearby creepy ruins and chase out denizen
- Win patronage of local supernatural Power
- Deal with overture(s) from the Shadow
- Find needed resources
- Survive brutal winter
- Go on trading journey for supplies and establish route
- Answer war levy from nearest lord
Etc. I'm imagining that there will be several mini-games/subsystems (e.g., the Long Winter), and new rules for followers and mass combat. So sort of "Middle Earth meets Civilization."

The thing I can't figure out is: I just don't find it realistic, either from a real-world or a Tolkien-esque point of view, that a committee would be in charge. There would be one person with ultimate authority in the settlement. How to do this with multiple players?
- It could be that formally one of them is "chief" and the others are his/her closest advisors, but I really feel the others are then missing out on part of the fun of this concept
- The chief could be an LMC, but then all of them are missing out on the core concept
- It could be designed as a solo campaign, with LMC's for the top advisors. But designing to exclude the vast majority of gaming groups seems...unwise.

Any good ideas for how to solve this conundrum?

[poosticks7]

Well I'm assuming your intention is a modest sized community, a village or hamlet. I really don't think there is a problem with a committee. A council of elders would be a perfectly acceptable form of leadership for such a community and as the players are the founders that puts them in that position.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, having a 'council of elders' or some such is every bit as likely as a single leader.

And if you really want a single leader, you can always have one PC be that and the other their top advisers. That works pretty well if the group's okay with it.

[Finrod Felagund]

Hello All

First ever post! Really nice to join such a great group of people who love such a fab game!

For my sins I am an (amateur) early medieval historian, and the only real life (British & Irish examples) I can think of are early Saxon clan groups or one of the 120 or so sub-reguli (minor kings) in Celtic Ireland. In these cases a petty Lord would rule an extended farm set-up (hold) with around 20 or so extended family members. So why not set up the players as a ruler of their own hold close to their friends and see what happens. Good examples of such holds in LoTR are perhaps the woodmen and Beornings in their early days. I also liked the description of Morwen's hold in the Story of Turin Turambar in Unfinished Tales. In real life these hold groups didn't last; for example the sub-reguli in Ireland answered to over-Kings, and the small groups in my own county of Hertfordshire (such as Braughing for example) were soon absorbed by the Kings of Mercia or Essex. In other words a time of disruption gives the player the opportunity to become Lords of their own groups, and then this evolves over time as they grow or are consolidated by more powerful rulers.

A key issue is why the players would do this? In real life its dangerous and hard work. It seems to me that you could have fun by setting up the players as those fleeing to the vales of Gundabad from Viglund for example; this gives plenty of hooks for both political conflict as Viglund tries to get them back, fending off the Goblins, making alliances with Beorn, trying to attract more people from Viglund in order to grow their realm (isn't Viglund a slaver?), and all sorts of other interesting things.

Hope this helps

[poosticks7]

Welcome to the forums Finrod.

Good to see new folks coming to the forums.


Oh by the way Glorelendil, I forgot to say - great idea for a campaign, intrigued to hear more.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, interesting. So players could actually hold their own moots to make big decisions, and each can track their own households individually.

Hmm...

[zedturtle]

It occurs to me that the Sceacedune, with no clear leader (Black Tom is just first among equals) and more powerful lords (Beorn and Viglund) trying to get alliances, would be an ideal place. I think that is what Finrod Felagund is suggesting as well.

[Matthew]

How about a semi-autonomous group of Rangers run on a form of military campaign - a guerilla like level of activity tasked with scouting, investigating rumours/ incidents, keeping vigil around certain areas whatever the time of year and ocassionally reporting back to the 'troop' leader. maintaining secret places like Dunedain refuges or even establishing and preserving new ones might count as a form of commune or minor holding. The story of Turin Turanbar has already been mentioned as potential source material.

I see the Dunedain at this point in Tolkien canon as operating like spies in the early stages of the second world war - what Churchill referred to, in part, as the 'wizard war.' Some units had carte blanche to operate independently (to disrupt) whilst others needed to report what they discovered. Presumably both Gandalf and Elrond relied on getting information from all sorts of sources including from scouting missions.

I had a cover story for my Dunadain Ranger in that he was trying to establish a trade route so that he could scout and investigate the Mirkwood region without alerting Sauron to his identity as a ranger and his cultural heritage. He was looking for his man who led the first trade pack horses but went missing. The plan was for my ranger to stay around for two adventuring phases before going back to Rivendell (thus managing limited hope more effectively). You could even have such a trade route as you 'mobile' commune - after all there is now a president in one of the stories from Ruins of the North...

[Glorelendil]

That's a good premise for a traditional campaign, in the sense of there being an ongoing reason for a group of people to hang out and have adventures. But I am imagining a setting in which the purpose is to grow a community; where the thrill of pursuing bad guys and looking for treasure is balanced by the need to attract more settlers and keep them fed and safe. Where at the end of the campaign (is there such a thing?) your success is measured by the size and affluence of that community.

One thing the Moot...or Thing...suggests, in contrast to the term "council" is that sometimes the leaders will be at odds with each other. Without trying to encourage open hostility or PvP, some amount of tension between the player-heroes could be narratively rich. Such as the introduction of a potential spouse, an LMC character that will attract the interest of most/all of the heroes. More subtly, I'd love to have some moral quandaries ("do we make peace with the hill-men, or just kill them?") that will result in long-running debates, with either path having future negative ramifications.

This could be really fun.

[Finrod Felagund]

As a newby I'm always wary about saying too much on forums, but here are a couple of last ideas;

I also think you could have internal tensions amongst your people - perhaps a charismatic NPC who threatens to take away many of your folk and set up a rival settlement for example. Some could be quite amusing (i.e. 2 NPCs squabbling over a Goat).

Any new settlement is going to have trouble surviving as the War of the Ring approaches - therefore success might mean the players retire and Grimbeorn becomes their king for example. Failure presumably means slavery and torture in the Orc dens.

Hope this gives some food for thought.