I was a player in this campaign (Mike actually mentions me - I played the wizard who wanted a tattoo). This is still my favorite campaign I’ve ever played in. Mike ran one hell of a game and brought some cool people together during a challenging moment in modern history and that group provided me with a lot of fun times. Thanks for posting this video, Mike. I’m starting my own West Marches campaign next week so I can’t tell you how awesome it is that this content is so timely for me!
Sam! I’m so glad to hear you’re starting a West Marches game, that’s awesome! I had an awesome time with you, and keep your eyes peeled for the invitation to another game - maybe West Marches, maybe something else - in the next year… ;)
A pretty decent way of making sure that a west marches campaign isn't super overwhelming is to have multiple dms. Having a team of dungeon masters working together on a single world would take a lot more bookkeeping to keep everything straight with all of them but the reduced workload would be worth it. I'd personally recommend 1 dm to every 5 to 6 players. Also, a mega-party going out to take on the high level monster of the area sounds really cool.
Yea this has been a huge part of the west marches discord games ive been a part of. You as a player sign up for a quest and then a DM signs up to DM it its like mercenary work lol
I have to say how much I appreciate you saying explicitly stuff like "I chose to include that because I just like that kind of thing." I need to allow myself to just throw in stuff I enjoy BECAUSE I enjoy it. It's easy (for me, anyway) to fall into the trap of believing that I can only include stuff that reinforces themes my players have shown an interest in. It's important for the DM to have fun too.
14:08 you'd LOVE Ald'ruhn from Morrowind. All the houses are built from shells of an ancient crab species, and the big main governmental building is a HUGE crab with basically an entire maze-like city underneath it. It's crazy.
It's my belief that you are one of the only people to actually run a west marches campaign. People love theorycrafting them but rare to see an actual AAR. Thanks for putting this together
In regards to the discussion about XP at the 6 minute mark: I've been using gold spent as XP in my campaign, and it has been a great experience. It felt a bit forced for the first few sessions, but the moment the players got back to town to use the treasure they had gotten, it was like something just clicked into place in their heads, and they were fully immersed in the world from then on out.
@@arnovanboxem2519 Yeah pretty much, and the higher level they get, the bigger things they need to spend money on to get levels, which means they automatically impact the world more.
I agree that experience points feel more appropriate for WM style. I appreciate how you shared guidance you received and what you did, and then what you'd change if you did it again. Great video!
I have been running a campaign with multiple parties with the same objective, it's called Kobold Avengers, and it's a "find and kill the heroes that murdered our dragon" campaign. And I'm setting up a "west march-ish" setting, and you've just inspired me with a couple thing I was struggling with.
I was in a West Marches-ish campaign during lockdown too. We had multiple GMs who had characters, who would become NPCs which drove the adventure for the session. You're right on the downtime - a few of us started writing extensive short stories about the things they go up to; for instance when my character proposed to his NPC partner, and later the funeral for a brother of hers, killed in a session. Players built communities according to their background. My character, a super-smart Tony Stark-esque artificer, established both a university and a guild (we used third party rules). It was tough to administer and the DMs did eventually burn out. We levelled up rapidly and finished with a climactic battle. The key is having as many DMs as possible, each perhaps responsible for a different region. The main downsides were we let groups get too large, meaning it was tough to finish an adventure in one session, creating the same scheduling nightmares normal D&D has.
Love the West Marches style and I would be perfectly fine with it generally breaking up into 3 or 4 ongoing campaigns in the same world that occasionally mix-and-match with each other. It's a dream for world-builders and ideal for DMs who are good on their feet with drawing inspiration during a session for future plot hooks, twists, etc. The ONLY drawback (and the reason I don't run one) is just what you experienced - too many nights gaming too often. To pull it off, I think you'd have to have pre-set playing dates/times each week. Like playing from 6-10 every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday or something like that. Something to structure your time so you're not constantly prepping for the next session around the corner to the detriment of non-D&D priorities in life. Alas, there are only 24 hours in a day. Thanks for (yet another) inspiring video!
I'd call this type of videos "Insight" videos, lots of insight about running games, types of games to run, etc., all with little addendums from experience or your thoughts on a particular matter. I can tell personally that I'm learning something new every time, especially since I'm seeing things in a way that I wouldn't have thought of by myself, and it lets me open up to the notion that I can also come up with these things by myself, and since I'm struggling with trying to set up an adventure and all that, it's all really helpful. It also really helps me rediscover my own creativity and creative drive. If I had the chance to get involved in this campaign style, I absolutely would, at the very least as a player. I'm completely new to the hobby, and I've never played myself; I feel that this could be a really interesting way, particularly for me, to just jump in the water. Some of the things you mentioned, like the players keeping and maintaining a map of their own, simply made me smile with how awesome they sounded. Also the drowned maiden idea is awesome and if you do run a campaign with this setting please share some stories from that.
When you randomly watch some recomended video and suddenly out of the blue you learn the name of what you are already been doing. And hearing the descriptions of your experience... dejm, i feel called out xD Especially with the "can't get into the headspace for reading adventure, find it esier to just create my own, but its... a lot..." part xDD
Discord is for sure the king of West Marches organization! Along with a shared OneNote that makes use of the cross-linking feature to essentially build a collaborative wiki that includes a big hyperlinked map
One thing I've thought of with travel time that could be awesome would be to make a Teleportation Grid, a series of pre-built circles that players could activate for the whole of the campaign. They'd get to name it and the players would have much easier travel times due to it. It would make the world open up a lot. You'd want to make the circles few and far between, but imagine being part of the team that opened up a circle and watching everyone use it.
My off-again and-on-again run a 20 + lvl dungeon delve West Marches type of game. I have elevators and teleportation options that players can unlock to help speed travel to the level they want to get to and get back from. Some of the biggest memories for my players were unlocking the first two elevators that take you from level 1 to 3 or 5 or level 1 to 6 or 8. Never mind the stairway out in the open that takes you from level 1 to lvl 10 or up and out into the bay for a swim. This dungeon is partially based on the first D&D campaign dungeon of Arneson.
This sounds like a really cool Idea for running a STALKER/Roadside Picnic style game. New Loner stalkers coming in from the border would explain their lack of experience and gear, and you can keep stuff fresh by adding to the world map with newly emerging anomalies. I think I need to start writing some stuff down...
I'm starting a west march style game for two different friend groups I hang out with. The style of a west march sounds amazing for getting a big group invested in a story. Your adventures sound really cool and descriptions too. I'm gonna have to check out the adventure posts you were talking about.
I like a discord channel for asynch communications about the game. I can't vouch for how well it works for other groups with other players. I agree that west marches and open table campaigns demand XP leveling. Starting up a campaign on the 5E conversion of Isle of Dread that will include additional hexploration components and tons of places to add content. The idea is west marches-like, in other words to emphasize single session objectives and drop-in play.
I will say, one thing that I found successful for West March styled campaigns is actually setting up a discord, I was apart of a Pathfinder group and in their community it was often referred to as "Living World" where the world would move day by day just like real life
Thanks for the video! I'll be running the first session in a new crime based west marches game in like 2 hours. Your input is gold for the work ahead, thanks again!
I am 100% in the same boat as you when it comes to running an adventure I created versus a published one. Even if I don't put everything in print, I still know what my intent is and how it fits into the overall setting.
Should have called this a Retrospective because it focuses on what went well, what didn't go so well, and what you would do differently next time. Great discussion. Thank you for posting! Tons of great inspiration and insights here.
This was a great Campaign Post-mortem! I am currently DMing a play-by-post adventure using WhatsApp and Dnd Beyond, but aside from a large number of players, some aspects of this style resonated with me. Thanks!
This was super interesting and useful! I've been thinking about running a West Marches game, and anything I can learn from other people's experiences helps a lot for planning. Thank you!
There is kinda of a reason why the old school games like this were in fact campaigns with multiple DMs and record keeping . 1 to 1 times certainly helped too.
I'm definitely considering a West Marches Style Campaign. I'm planning to use the XP system from DnD Basic/Expert (Moldvay/Cook). Basically, most of the XP comes from getting treasure into the safe place and a small amount comes from defeating monsters (not necessarily killing them). The actual leveling up happens in the safe place and takes a week, in order to encourage each player to make a stable of characters.
Yep, and make sure a good chunk of the treasure is somehow locked behind the objective (you'll find gems in the monster's horde that also has the maguffin, or just straight up you're getting paid for quest completion) This way you're getting the B/X benefit of exploration being more worthwhile than combat, because you'll find more treasure, but also the players are incentivised to try to complete objectives because 1/3 the value of the whole Dungeon's loot is contingent on success
I think a true West March style game would work best with 2-3+ GMs running together. Each one can choose to take on a new adventure, and share prep notes together. In the same way that the players are collaborating the GMs will collab. This was an idea in Matt's video.
I’m beginning a West Marches style campaign (already kind of started with my take on Lost Mines of Phandelver) and am really excited to pull my players from highschool and new ones too. Loads of Session Zeros. I have a similar issue where I put WAY too much effort into prep. Return of the lazy dungeon master has helped a Lot. Two of the characters from LMoP pooled their gold and resources into building an Adventure’s Guild in the area and we are using that as our base of operations and a place to have hooks and rumors. My live in partner is wanting to start DMing as so we are splitting responsibilities on some of the book keeping (another Huge help). Reddit has been on my mind and I think this video will make that choice easier for me. I also Loath FB. Anyways, cheers and happy gaming!
Great video! Something to help combat the prep aspect would be using existing maps; either from places like Watabou's dungeon generator, or Dyson Logos' site. An evocative location name, a pre-made map, and some broad ideas of the type of story/enemies in a place I find does a LOT of the heavy lifting when it comes to prep, and it's easier to improve in the gaps then.
I'm definitely considering this kind of campaign in the nearish future. My current main campaign is coming to a close soon and i have another group that i was running a campaign for but the challenges of coordinating everyone's time led to that game sort of sputtering out. But once this campaign finishes i've thought about combining my 2 groups for a west marches style game since several of the players already know one another and I can invite other players i know but havent run for before. This video was really helpful alongside the matt colville one in giving me a more solid idea of how one might actually go about running this kind of game, especially getting it off the ground
Thanks for the insight this was very informative! Currently I'm trying to get together as much info on west marches/living world campaigns as I can because I plan on running one for a D&D club. Over the summer I ran a 5 person regular campaign to develop the setting and test travel rules, time keeping, etc. but I still have a lot to learn about west marches specifically that I will probably just have to figure out through experience. I especially like your method of coming up with new missions. Usually I am hyper player focused and will integrate everyone's character arc into the story, which is something I'll have to move away from in such a campaign I'm afraid. Thanks again for the tips!
I really liked hearing about your experience with this. I've been mulling over the idea for a while - something about the shared world, specifically, appeals to me. I kind of figured that an attempt to prevent cliques from forming via strict rules against it might be a problem, even from the perspective where there may be a duo that wants to stick together for scheduling reasons or whatever (thinking spouses, co-workers, etc.). Maybe what I'd rather do to dip my toes in is to try running two simultaneous games in a shared universe. Perhaps with a layer of secrecy, so either party thinks that the world events I update them on come from my brain via some NPC party that keeps getting in their hair somehow. Could be a fun reveal to schedule an overlapping game and have the parties meet up, maybe to take down some big-bad that would be too much for either smaller party. It'd need some more workshopping and consistent scheduling so that the timelines didn't get too out of sync. Could maybe even use the old idea of actually having game-time pass between sessions. Hmmm.
I help admin a Discord West Marches game (we just used Toril because multiple DMs and existing lore) but do allow anything official from other books. It's super fun and while we lean more into small scale one to two shots, we have had DMs do arching plots across multiple groups. However you run it, West Marches style is super fun.
This is a style of play I haven't run across and I appreciate the discussion. While I am intrigued and would happily play in a campaign like this I don't think I am ready to DM this.
XP instead of milestone A-b-solutely *sounds* like the best choice. Nobody can say how it /would have went/, but I think since, people were encouraged to move around, and consider it more like your world was a 'server,' then a 'game mechanic' like XP makes sense. Esp since you could have awarded that as well or instead of inspiration on the subreddit. neat video. i'm binging.
I started my west march in June of 2019 and while we took a break from 2020-2021 (gee i wonder why...) we restarted the game in the beginning of this year. I too was greatly influenced by the Colville video on this style of game and decided to give it a go. The way I avoided that insane pacing of sessions was through tying the game calendar to the real calendar, just like you mention in your latest video. The way that scheduling mechanic forced the players to wait until the same time passed was, and still is, crucial to the success of my game. I use a discord server as opposed to a subreddit for the information sharing hub and role playing center and have found it to be very successful. I can set up channels for various locations in the town which gives my players ample places to interact with each other and share the information the glean from the world. I too set a limit on group size, mine being no less than 3 and no more than 5. I have allowed for a handful of sessions to break that rule, but for the most part that's been a good rule to follow for me and my players. I try to ask my players to shake up their parties and vary who the venture with and the calendar really helps to facilitate that spirit. The only draw back comes when a certain area is discovered that is out of reach for the parties current power level and getting a crew of sufficiently powerful PC's to agree to a date can be a challenge. But that's also kind of the fun and it saves me from having to prep like mad to keep up with my players. In a way I've flipped that where I prep things to be too difficult and make the players figure out how to bring themselves up to the level. I'm curious about how lethal your game world was as I feel that is a vital part of this style of game. I've had quite a few characters die in my game but each and every time the players came back for more. The fact that death is on the table makes my players really think twice about getting too far over their heads. Great video man, I just came across your channel and I look forward to digging through the rest of your back catalog and catching the new ones as they arrive.
Thank you so much! The lethality question would be a big one for me to address and have an answer to for the next time I run a game like this - I WANTED to be more lethal but totally chickened out when a TPK almost happened 😂 I would just have to commit to the tone I was going for, and stick to my guns! But that’s also why it’s important to clarify the lethality level when pitching the game, which I just didn’t do. All lessons for next time!
@@SupergeekMike I hear ya on that, it's tough to kill characters but setting lethality was one element that resonated for me between the Ars Lundi post and the Colville video. My first session I killed two characters in the first combat, against blights of all things! Helped to set the tone and create that tension that can be lacking from other more linear narrative focused games. Highly suggest you lean into that concept if you run another west march.
I am hoping to run a LIGHT game like this-a sprawling, solar-system wide West Marches game that plays like a rules-light Destiny TTRPG. I’ve got 8 ready players, but we’re playing Curse of Strahd and Symbaroum right now.
In icewind Dale the first part had mini missions and your first couple levels were based on how many of those you completed. So instead of doing XP each mission could have a value. Like 1 intro mission to get to 2 and 3 total to get to 3.
I created a Westmarch-Styled campaign! I made quite a number of changes to the traditional style, but I run almost exclusively online over Discord and the new Forum features to post adventures or let the players post their own adventure hooks in. My premise is that the Players are to this fantasy world, what we would view as Super Heroes. Like Superman or Captain America. Adventurers have gained this supernatural ability to grow in power rapidly (my take on the meta joke that players can in game go from levels 1-20 in like 3 months) the average villager would see adventurers as these crazy powerful beings Thus I’ve created what is essentially a super hero school meets hogwarts meets capitalism setting.
On experience gain: In AD&D and earlier, the vast majority of experience gained was for *gold*. If all you did was kick in doors and beat up monsters, you wouldn't get very far; you had to solve the puzzles hiding treasure away in order to get your XP. This would likely be a good solution to your milestones-or-XP dilemma.
I'm starting to organize a multi-dm West Marches campaign. I've got a group of 4+ other DMs and am giving a portion of my world to them to build more-or-less whatever they'd like. I'm just wondering what problems could crop up with this many people. There's the obvious some people won't get along with each other, min-maxing players in parties without, and creating coherent themes and stories, but what are some of the problems you experienced?
Hmm...I'm feeling the creative juices start to flow. Been looking heavily into the Cypher system and I've got what I think is a badass idea for a westmarch style group. Numenera runs on the Cypher system and that one's a masterclass on how to do 'ancient magitech' and post post post apocalypse, so let's roll with that. The players are among a group of survivors of some kind of cataclysm (natural or war or whatever, doesn't matter) waking up from some kind of stasis or suspended animation. The world is overgrown and mutated beyond recognition and no one can makes heads or tails of anything, but the facility the players wake up in is more or less safe and very defensible. The campaign would revolve around exploring the world and figuring out what happened, finding ancient tech and maybe the odd survivor or semi-civilized holdout. On the GM side I'm thinking just slap together a completely blank map with topographical features, put down a list of stuff the players can stumble across during exploration on a few tables sorted by biome, then let them go wild. ...actually that would just be nice as an open world campaign...I'ma go back to learning the system, this might be something. Thanks for the upload, my guy. Taught me a lot about a campaign style I've been poking at for years.
One of the most important parts of the original Westmarches game that I've never seen anyone do in their own is there was no set DM. When people wanted to play one of them would be the DM. It didn't all rely on the work of a single person. I always check out posts and videos on Westmarches games looking to see someone do it this way, and I've yet to find it.
If you want a similar feel game that’s a bit more manageable-maybe invent something like an “east marches campaign”. You just have a table of four or five players and yourself DMing, but each player has 2 to 3 characters that exist in the setting, and the players mix and match what characters are going on what adventure. You get that grand campaign feeling, with a reliable core group of players
Just starting a West Marches Adventuring Academy run, really like the idea of threads for different adventures! Probably works better on Reddit... Using channels in discord in my case. Anybody have any advice here for discord users?
I've been considering running with a system that's primarily treasure returned to civilization = XP for the hexcrawl/sandbox campaign I'm thinking of running. (With minor combat XP, and some XP for discovery and roleplay.) Then I just have to find stuff for the characters to spend gold on.
I'm currently running a sort of semi-west marches game with XP for gold (and minor XP for combat) and I can vouch that it works well. Treasure is a hard, quantifiable goal, which makes it an effective motivator that players can easily and reliably plan around; and it's something PCs already want anyway, so it doesn't create any perverse incentives. It can also tend to result in greedy characters, which isn't a huge deal but is worth keeping in mind. One of the difficulties of having lots of gold is that you need a place to store it where it won't be stolen. Early on you can just lock it in a chest but eventually players may want to build a vault or even an entire castle, which can be a great money sink. Another thing I've seen some DMs do (but haven't tried myself) is a carousing mechanic, where players can basically waste gold at a tavern in exchange for 10% bonus XP on that gold; this serves both as a thing to spend money on, and as a way of motivating a certain style of play. You might consider doing a similar thing with other activities depending on what sort of play style you're going for.
I'm currently planing on running west marches. And I'm thinking about exp for leveling. I'm thinking awarding exp for game session, and for completing ambitions. Ambitions I stole from warhammer roleplay (4e I think) and this is basically mission objective (for character or for party).
I had thought about doing a game similar to this but instead of everyone starting in a city I thought of putting everyone in a random part of the continent
A lot of your “rules” could be resolved with various mechanical “penalties” For example, the four player limit could be (equal shares for 4 players, for each player above 4, there is a penalty to exp by 10% and an additional 10% increase to cost of living in order to prevent hunger or other hindrances due to reduced resources)
I am planning on running something similar to a West Marches. I've been developing a homebrew campaign while our forever DM finishes his current campaign. However, our current campaign is really beginning to suffer from scheduling conflicts after about 2 years of playing. (7 players and DM, approx every 2 weeks with 2 months off during the holidays.) My campaign has some underlying Christian themes, so lots of angels, demons, and dragons. It will also be country/continent wide. In researching and asking others for advice on my Discord, I will still have a BBEG with generals and lieutenants controlling different regions. I will run everything close to the capitol city initially, with their base (safety) being a tavern. As they progress I think I will give them an airship to use as base and travel to other regions. I plan to pretty much run one shots and then return to base. This way I can somewhat maintain an overarching campaign and PC/player driven side quests with whatever players are available on a given week. I'm not going to stress my main plot, but will drop rumors and hints while they explore the world and their own backstories and goals. Hopefully this all will work out well. None of us have ran or participated in a campaign like this before, so it's going to be a massive experiment. Any tips, recommendations, or ideas are greatly appreciated.
For everyone who wants to DM a West Marches campaign and think it is a lot of stuff to do I fully recomend the alexandrian blog. They have a séries of Hexcrawl articles that shine light on the topic, plus articles bout refined ways to prep for sessions in general. It is a great source of information, but I have to say Hexcrawl in general seem to require more work when you DM on line, specially if you use maps instead of theater of the mind.
I couldn't DM one of these West Marches campaign because it seems has a lot of work behind it but I would give it a try as a player, just out of curiosity because I never heard of them before.
In getting to run a westmarch game for my friends. You said you'd change things about the distance scaling on the map. Did you find a better way to do it?
I‘ve actually realized this is kind of a larger issue I struggle with, which is trying to figure out how far apart to put adventures, and where to introduce settlements. So, sadly no, but we’re on the right track by identifying the problem!
I have a video about my house rules :) ruclips.net/video/Fy5Ht7jkYFw/видео.html Nothing out there about my campaign worlds right now because I’ve tossed out a lot of detail about those worlds, and the good stuff will probably sneak into my next world, which is currently in development
I am running a game very similar to this in person and I'm looking to expand it to online or even make a video about it myself. Comments from me if you ever want to try it again with what I have altered: 1. I don't use XP or milestone levelling (not exactly anyway) - I take from OSR/old DnD by making Gold captured = XP earned, ie 1,000 gold = 1,000XP. Players are incentivised simply by gold, quests (what I call your 'missions') clearly have the gold amount shown before a session. And I make clear how difficult a session will be (higher difficulty = higher chance of gold), it is known in the universe that dungeons hold a lot of gold, as do intelligent monsters. Gold is a very big part of the campaign used during downtime to not only buy stuff, but also to learn spells or get services (such as paying a hefty amount for a use of clairvoyance). Gold is then also used to incentivise session note taking, map drawing or other desirable behaviours. In person I use numbered casino chips for gold since I find having physical representation leads to people thinking about it more. 2. I use rotating DMs to manage the time aspect, I am a DM amongst 3 others. We share our overarching thoughts on a 'metaplot' over sessions though DMs can do sessions without sharing any info, to avoid perpetual DMing as DMs can then also play 3. I have avoided the west marches notion of players decide what to do as the next quest mostly (though still accept player desires to do certain things or go certain places) - I find players are much more engaged with simply being handed an option upfront. This also helps considerably with planning. 4. The universe for my campaign is in real time outside of play. This means that when a week passes IRL it passes in game, this then means that your characters living costs have to be paid inbetween sessions, which incentivizes regular returning play for those who don't want to see their gold diminish
You mentioned a document listing the pantheon and their domains. How extensive would you recommend going on a similar document for a campaign? Would the amount of information you give be proportional to the number of deities, or would it be the same for each God, regardless of number in the pantheon?
Ooh you hit my kryptonite - I love making up gods for pantheons. My big influence is still how the gods were presented in the 4e books (the same way they appear in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount), so just a paragraph or two would be plenty - but that’s more for my notes, or to share when players ask. As an introduction, I just do the same thing as Mike B., I share a chart with the gods and their domains, the way they look in the Player’s Handbook. I have a lot of feelings about not going overboard in the info I give my players (here’s a video about that ruclips.net/video/wzQWdnS52-I/видео.html), but… I don’t always practice what I preach lol
For what it is worth, here's what I did for the primary pantheon for one of my homebrew campaigns - 2 pages in a Word doc file: 3.5/LM - Andalos! Andali (Human) Pantheon Borok Skyfather, The Horned God, Huntmaster Greater Deity, Neutral (biased towards Chaos - clerics may be CN, NG, N, NE) Domains: Air, Animal, Fire, Strength Favored Weapons: any Spear, Sling Bonus Feat: Track Tana Earthmother, The Green Goddess, Hearthmistress Greater Deity, Neutral (biased towards Law - clerics may be LN, NG, N, NE) Domains: Earth, Healing, Plant, Water Favored Weapons: any Club, Quarterstaff Bonus Feat: Endurance Druagak Devilking, The Scaled God, Lord of the Nine Hells Greater Deity, Lawful Evil (clerics may be LE, LN, NE) Domains: Evil, Law, Trickery, War Favored Weapons: any Flail, Morningstar Bonus Feat: Run Kyrmyr the Jester, Prince of Spring, God of Happiness Intermediate Deity, Chaotic Good (clerics may be CG, NG, CN) Domains: Chaos, Good, Luck, Protection Favored Weapons: Rapier, Shortsword Bonus Feat: Lightning Reflexes Hamato the Calm, Prince of Summer, God of Victory Intermediate Deity, Lawful Neutral (clerics may be LN, LG, LE) Domains: Law, Luck, Strength, War Favored Weapons: Battleaxe, Halberd Bonus Feat: Iron Will Warin the Crafty, Prince of Autumn, God of Wealth Intermediate Deity, Neutral (clerics may be N, LN, NG, NE, CN) Domains: Knowledge, Luck, Magic, Travel Favored Weapons: any Hammer Bonus Feat: Improved Initiative Thodin the Wise, Prince of Winter, God of Long Life Intermediate Deity, Neutral Good (clerics may be NG, LG, CG) Domains: Good, Healing, Luck, Protection Favored Weapons: any Mace Bonus Feat: Great Fortitude Ithalla the Seeress, Dream Weaver, Star Goddess Intermediate Deity, Lawful Good (clerics may be LG, LN, NG) Domains: Good, Knowledge, Law, Magic Favored Weapons: Longspear, Longsword Bonus Feat: Scribe Scroll Seluna the Fickle, Maid of Changes, Moon Goddess Intermediate Deity, Chaotic Neutral (clerics may be CN, CG, CE) Domains: Animal, Chaos, Plant, Travel Favored Weapons: Scimitar, Sickle Bonus Feat: Quick Draw Retrika the Temptress, Queen of Demons, Night Goddess Intermediate Deity, Chaotic Evil (clerics may be CE, CN, NE) Domains: Chaos, Evil, Magic, Trickery Favored Weapons: Net, Whip Bonus Feat: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Net or Whip) Yama the Pale, Lord of Vampires, God of Death Intermediate Deity, Neutral Evil (clerics may be NE, LE, CE) Domains: Death, Destruction, Evil, Strength Favored Weapons: Dagger, Scythe Bonus Feat: Blind-Fight Ushana the Bright, Dawnbringer, Sun Goddess Lesser Deity, Lawful Neutral (clerics may be LN, LG, LE) Domains: Destruction, Law, Protection, Sun Favored Weapons: Unarmed Strikes Bonus Feat: Improved Unarmed Strike Clerics of these deities are mostly human, as the pantheon arrived in the campaign area with the arrival of humans, however a few nonhumans have taken up service with one or another of these deities, who grant them power just as they do their human servants. The three greater deities are the parents of the rest of the pantheon. Druagak Devilking and Tana Earthmother are the parents of Yama the Pale, Borok Skyfather and Tana Earthmother are the parents of the remaining deities. According to the priests, the “birth” of Ushana the Bright is relatively recent, only a few centuries ago, before which her Sun domain was the province of Borok and Tana, with Borok having custody during the day and Tana having custody during the night. Prophecy foretells that Ushana the Bright is destined to become Queen of the Gods - most believe that She was born to rule them all, though Druagak claims that if she “rules” it will be as His consort, with Him as ruling King. In any case, as with many families, there are plenty of rivalries, squabbles, and temporary alliances, though Borok and Tana tend to remain above such things, while trying to mediate between their offspring when necessary. In Andalos, none of these deities are officially outlawed, though the worship of the Evil deities is usually secretive in nature, and many of their practices are indeed against the laws of the various realms. (The sacrifice of sentient beings is especially frowned upon!) The Temples of these deities - which is the Andali term for the religious hierarchies of their clerical followers and other servants - are generally open to any who wish to join, though most do have some screening process to keep out undesirables, or at least to make special note of them. Not all priests of a deity are clerics or monks - but all clerics and monks must indeed be priests of a specific deity. (Monks may not be able to cast spells, but they can perform religious services etc.) ----- Edit: Note that in that 3.5 campaign, clerics and other full casters were by necessity multiclassed, with at most 2/3 of their levels advancing their primary casting ability, and clerics used the armor, shield, and weapon proficiencies of their other class(es). The bonus feat was gained at cleric 1, replacing normal cleric proficiencies. While the other classes were not specifically defined, most clerics took levels in classes that matched the tone of the deity.
This is something I was never happy with in our online play. Our solution was to have one player keep a master map and add everything he read about in the other recaps, but I would much rather have something the group could edit as a community. If you’re playing on Roll20, in theory anyone can draw on that page and build a map that way, but I haven’t been able to come up with a better solution than that…
I disagree on the experience points, I think in reality (although realism isn't fun but that's not my point) sometimes you learn and grow the most when you fail or lose. And we've all been so steeped in RPG stuff that we can forget what experience is originally intended to represent: Gaining experience which helps you grow and become stronger. I feel like regardless of what happens there should be a ballpark of how much experience, and if they do things that really surprise you could add "Experience Bonuses" for the whole party. You'd still have to balance it so there'd be a max and how much it can change.
I would tend to agree - my first instinct was actually opposed, since I felt like accomplishing the goal should be prioritized and rewarded, but then I considered that succeeding in the mission will already probably come with things like loot, connections etc that will already reward success, so still receiving experience even when failing is perfectly reasonable
Has anyone gone with buying level ups? Say your homebase has a location to level up and you spend the gold with them to do so. Your main town person say the mayor rewards the players with gold for exploring, gathering intel, slaying a beast, writing new info about the world, archeology investigation notes, etc. This would create a balanced and great incentive structure. The players would each be given a magic coin only purse that only they can access. No theifing. This would also make them a skyrim hoarder picking up many items. However its a westmarches. Realism is key. Have a modified encumbrance system. Maybe 10 small items. 5 medium. 1 large. Annd or combos of each. etc its Simple. This is a More of a your pack can only fit x amount of size not weight in pack. Another benifit is now you have introduced two major choice systems into the game. Each branching into many other choices. Now gold actually has meaning and should it be spent on goods, supplies, crafting, or leveling up. Selling items can flood economy and have diminishing returns. Do you collect that sword, or do you collect the ore? I would also have downtime be a way to make money. If you can't make it to a session your wizard can chill at the college and have a fee for magic item identification Or brewing potions. This income would be less than actually going out into the world but it doesn't penalized a busy adult. One last thing I would have would be a snadbox element hidden from the players, they would get a guild token. (Stole this from the infinite world series yep) this token never leaves them. If you die the token gets a hole in it. And they are trackable sorta from the home base. They have a bounty on them. But if player murders another PC (sandbox baby) their token is branded a traiter. They have a bounty on their head. If that character returns to the town they are executed. However they could form their own stronghold in the wilderness, and now its a new side enemy and fortress to fight. Idk i have thought long and hard about this and no one has been able to answer is a buying levels a good thing. I think yes if you have it with the right table, right home rules, and the westmarches. What do you all think?
This idea is FASCINATING. I have no idea if it would work either, and there are a few things I might adjust before deploying it, but hoo boy it got my wheels spinning…
Haha heck yeah! I've been kicking it around for a while and would love to try it. I don't have many players so it seems unlikely. Side note: do rangers suck because all they do is shoot out of an infinite quiver? Would tracking arrows in a west marches game be more powerful? Would them being able to craft arrows like ammo in monster hunter world make them cooler?
@@Peyto23 I do think that resource management is important in a West Marches-style game. I have a video in the works about those sort of resource management mechanics, keep an eye out for that one later this month ;)
I was a player in this campaign (Mike actually mentions me - I played the wizard who wanted a tattoo). This is still my favorite campaign I’ve ever played in. Mike ran one hell of a game and brought some cool people together during a challenging moment in modern history and that group provided me with a lot of fun times. Thanks for posting this video, Mike. I’m starting my own West Marches campaign next week so I can’t tell you how awesome it is that this content is so timely for me!
Sam! I’m so glad to hear you’re starting a West Marches game, that’s awesome! I had an awesome time with you, and keep your eyes peeled for the invitation to another game - maybe West Marches, maybe something else - in the next year… ;)
I hope your game went/is going well!
This is SO wholesome! How did Sam's campaign go in the end?
A pretty decent way of making sure that a west marches campaign isn't super overwhelming is to have multiple dms. Having a team of dungeon masters working together on a single world would take a lot more bookkeeping to keep everything straight with all of them but the reduced workload would be worth it. I'd personally recommend 1 dm to every 5 to 6 players. Also, a mega-party going out to take on the high level monster of the area sounds really cool.
Yea this has been a huge part of the west marches discord games ive been a part of. You as a player sign up for a quest and then a DM signs up to DM it its like mercenary work lol
I have to say how much I appreciate you saying explicitly stuff like "I chose to include that because I just like that kind of thing." I need to allow myself to just throw in stuff I enjoy BECAUSE I enjoy it. It's easy (for me, anyway) to fall into the trap of believing that I can only include stuff that reinforces themes my players have shown an interest in. It's important for the DM to have fun too.
14:08 you'd LOVE Ald'ruhn from Morrowind. All the houses are built from shells of an ancient crab species, and the big main governmental building is a HUGE crab with basically an entire maze-like city underneath it. It's crazy.
It's my belief that you are one of the only people to actually run a west marches campaign. People love theorycrafting them but rare to see an actual AAR. Thanks for putting this together
In regards to the discussion about XP at the 6 minute mark: I've been using gold spent as XP in my campaign, and it has been a great experience. It felt a bit forced for the first few sessions, but the moment the players got back to town to use the treasure they had gotten, it was like something just clicked into place in their heads, and they were fully immersed in the world from then on out.
How does that work? Are they more incentised to get money and to spent money? The money must flow
@@arnovanboxem2519 Yeah pretty much, and the higher level they get, the bigger things they need to spend money on to get levels, which means they automatically impact the world more.
@@bikzimusmaximus5250 that's relly cool and a good system in a political /west marches style game
I agree that experience points feel more appropriate for WM style. I appreciate how you shared guidance you received and what you did, and then what you'd change if you did it again. Great video!
Thank you!
I have been running a campaign with multiple parties with the same objective, it's called Kobold Avengers, and it's a "find and kill the heroes that murdered our dragon" campaign.
And I'm setting up a "west march-ish" setting, and you've just inspired me with a couple thing I was struggling with.
I was in a West Marches-ish campaign during lockdown too. We had multiple GMs who had characters, who would become NPCs which drove the adventure for the session.
You're right on the downtime - a few of us started writing extensive short stories about the things they go up to; for instance when my character proposed to his NPC partner, and later the funeral for a brother of hers, killed in a session.
Players built communities according to their background. My character, a super-smart Tony Stark-esque artificer, established both a university and a guild (we used third party rules).
It was tough to administer and the DMs did eventually burn out. We levelled up rapidly and finished with a climactic battle. The key is having as many DMs as possible, each perhaps responsible for a different region.
The main downsides were we let groups get too large, meaning it was tough to finish an adventure in one session, creating the same scheduling nightmares normal D&D has.
I have been running West Marches for 3 years now. I will never go back. This is so much better IMO then modern game styles.
Love the West Marches style and I would be perfectly fine with it generally breaking up into 3 or 4 ongoing campaigns in the same world that occasionally mix-and-match with each other. It's a dream for world-builders and ideal for DMs who are good on their feet with drawing inspiration during a session for future plot hooks, twists, etc. The ONLY drawback (and the reason I don't run one) is just what you experienced - too many nights gaming too often. To pull it off, I think you'd have to have pre-set playing dates/times each week. Like playing from 6-10 every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday or something like that. Something to structure your time so you're not constantly prepping for the next session around the corner to the detriment of non-D&D priorities in life. Alas, there are only 24 hours in a day. Thanks for (yet another) inspiring video!
I'd call this type of videos "Insight" videos, lots of insight about running games, types of games to run, etc., all with little addendums from experience or your thoughts on a particular matter. I can tell personally that I'm learning something new every time, especially since I'm seeing things in a way that I wouldn't have thought of by myself, and it lets me open up to the notion that I can also come up with these things by myself, and since I'm struggling with trying to set up an adventure and all that, it's all really helpful. It also really helps me rediscover my own creativity and creative drive.
If I had the chance to get involved in this campaign style, I absolutely would, at the very least as a player. I'm completely new to the hobby, and I've never played myself; I feel that this could be a really interesting way, particularly for me, to just jump in the water. Some of the things you mentioned, like the players keeping and maintaining a map of their own, simply made me smile with how awesome they sounded.
Also the drowned maiden idea is awesome and if you do run a campaign with this setting please share some stories from that.
When you randomly watch some recomended video and suddenly out of the blue you learn the name of what you are already been doing. And hearing the descriptions of your experience... dejm, i feel called out xD Especially with the "can't get into the headspace for reading adventure, find it esier to just create my own, but its... a lot..." part xDD
Discord is for sure the king of West Marches organization! Along with a shared OneNote that makes use of the cross-linking feature to essentially build a collaborative wiki that includes a big hyperlinked map
One thing I've thought of with travel time that could be awesome would be to make a Teleportation Grid, a series of pre-built circles that players could activate for the whole of the campaign. They'd get to name it and the players would have much easier travel times due to it. It would make the world open up a lot. You'd want to make the circles few and far between, but imagine being part of the team that opened up a circle and watching everyone use it.
My off-again and-on-again run a 20 + lvl dungeon delve West Marches type of game. I have elevators and teleportation options that players can unlock to help speed travel to the level they want to get to and get back from. Some of the biggest memories for my players were unlocking the first two elevators that take you from level 1 to 3 or 5 or level 1 to 6 or 8. Never mind the stairway out in the open that takes you from level 1 to lvl 10 or up and out into the bay for a swim. This dungeon is partially based on the first D&D campaign dungeon of Arneson.
This sounds like a really cool Idea for running a STALKER/Roadside Picnic style game. New Loner stalkers coming in from the border would explain their lack of experience and gear, and you can keep stuff fresh by adding to the world map with newly emerging anomalies.
I think I need to start writing some stuff down...
I'm starting a west march style game for two different friend groups I hang out with. The style of a west march sounds amazing for getting a big group invested in a story. Your adventures sound really cool and descriptions too. I'm gonna have to check out the adventure posts you were talking about.
I like a discord channel for asynch communications about the game. I can't vouch for how well it works for other groups with other players. I agree that west marches and open table campaigns demand XP leveling. Starting up a campaign on the 5E conversion of Isle of Dread that will include additional hexploration components and tons of places to add content. The idea is west marches-like, in other words to emphasize single session objectives and drop-in play.
I'd call these types of videos "A Retrospective of my West Marches Campaign."
I will say, one thing that I found successful for West March styled campaigns is actually setting up a discord, I was apart of a Pathfinder group and in their community it was often referred to as "Living World" where the world would move day by day just like real life
watching this made me really want to play in a west marches game.. :D
Thanks for the video! I'll be running the first session in a new crime based west marches game in like 2 hours. Your input is gold for the work ahead, thanks again!
I am 100% in the same boat as you when it comes to running an adventure I created versus a published one. Even if I don't put everything in print, I still know what my intent is and how it fits into the overall setting.
Should have called this a Retrospective because it focuses on what went well, what didn't go so well, and what you would do differently next time. Great discussion. Thank you for posting! Tons of great inspiration and insights here.
This was a great Campaign Post-mortem! I am currently DMing a play-by-post adventure using WhatsApp and Dnd Beyond, but aside from a large number of players, some aspects of this style resonated with me. Thanks!
I really want to run a West Marches game. Thanks for this video and your insights!
This was super interesting and useful! I've been thinking about running a West Marches game, and anything I can learn from other people's experiences helps a lot for planning. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
There is kinda of a reason why the old school games like this were in fact campaigns with multiple DMs and record keeping . 1 to 1 times certainly helped too.
Would love to see the recaps of the west marches games you ran/will run in the future. Please and thank you.
3:30
Couldn’t agree more, I’m the same way lol. It feels more genuine this way to me.
I just watched every video on your channel and I gotta say, really looking forward to more content from you! :)
Thank you!
I'm definitely considering a West Marches Style Campaign. I'm planning to use the XP system from DnD Basic/Expert (Moldvay/Cook). Basically, most of the XP comes from getting treasure into the safe place and a small amount comes from defeating monsters (not necessarily killing them). The actual leveling up happens in the safe place and takes a week, in order to encourage each player to make a stable of characters.
Yep, and make sure a good chunk of the treasure is somehow locked behind the objective (you'll find gems in the monster's horde that also has the maguffin, or just straight up you're getting paid for quest completion)
This way you're getting the B/X benefit of exploration being more worthwhile than combat, because you'll find more treasure, but also the players are incentivised to try to complete objectives because 1/3 the value of the whole Dungeon's loot is contingent on success
"I just hate Facebook so much." I feel you brother.
Skul Doug made me laugh out loud. And also thank you for being the most helpful resource for my planning my own West Marches campaign.
Thank you!
Gearing up for a hexcrawl sandbox, sorta west marches sorta not campaign. Doing some research, and this video was quite helpful. Thanks!
When first heard of West Marches I wasn't so sure, but after this video I can't wait to run one
I think a true West March style game would work best with 2-3+ GMs running together. Each one can choose to take on a new adventure, and share prep notes together. In the same way that the players are collaborating the GMs will collab. This was an idea in Matt's video.
Thanks for this video, great and timely inspiration as we're going to be running a Westmarches games set in the mournlands in Eberron
Ooh let us know how it goes!!
I'm already popping off in the first minute. A campaign where the PCs set their own goals??? And THEY schedule the sessions???? god what a relief
I’m beginning a West Marches style campaign (already kind of started with my take on Lost Mines of Phandelver) and am really excited to pull my players from highschool and new ones too. Loads of Session Zeros.
I have a similar issue where I put WAY too much effort into prep. Return of the lazy dungeon master has helped a Lot.
Two of the characters from LMoP pooled their gold and resources into building an Adventure’s Guild in the area and we are using that as our base of operations and a place to have hooks and rumors.
My live in partner is wanting to start DMing as so we are splitting responsibilities on some of the book keeping (another Huge help).
Reddit has been on my mind and I think this video will make that choice easier for me. I also Loath FB.
Anyways, cheers and happy gaming!
Great video! Something to help combat the prep aspect would be using existing maps; either from places like Watabou's dungeon generator, or Dyson Logos' site. An evocative location name, a pre-made map, and some broad ideas of the type of story/enemies in a place I find does a LOT of the heavy lifting when it comes to prep, and it's easier to improve in the gaps then.
Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts.
Very inspiring and useful!!!
I'm definitely considering this kind of campaign in the nearish future. My current main campaign is coming to a close soon and i have another group that i was running a campaign for but the challenges of coordinating everyone's time led to that game sort of sputtering out. But once this campaign finishes i've thought about combining my 2 groups for a west marches style game since several of the players already know one another and I can invite other players i know but havent run for before. This video was really helpful alongside the matt colville one in giving me a more solid idea of how one might actually go about running this kind of game, especially getting it off the ground
1:29 Preach it, for Facebook does suck
Thanks for the insight this was very informative!
Currently I'm trying to get together as much info on west marches/living world campaigns as I can because I plan on running one for a D&D club. Over the summer I ran a 5 person regular campaign to develop the setting and test travel rules, time keeping, etc. but I still have a lot to learn about west marches specifically that I will probably just have to figure out through experience. I especially like your method of coming up with new missions.
Usually I am hyper player focused and will integrate everyone's character arc into the story, which is something I'll have to move away from in such a campaign I'm afraid. Thanks again for the tips!
I really liked hearing about your experience with this. I've been mulling over the idea for a while - something about the shared world, specifically, appeals to me. I kind of figured that an attempt to prevent cliques from forming via strict rules against it might be a problem, even from the perspective where there may be a duo that wants to stick together for scheduling reasons or whatever (thinking spouses, co-workers, etc.).
Maybe what I'd rather do to dip my toes in is to try running two simultaneous games in a shared universe. Perhaps with a layer of secrecy, so either party thinks that the world events I update them on come from my brain via some NPC party that keeps getting in their hair somehow. Could be a fun reveal to schedule an overlapping game and have the parties meet up, maybe to take down some big-bad that would be too much for either smaller party. It'd need some more workshopping and consistent scheduling so that the timelines didn't get too out of sync. Could maybe even use the old idea of actually having game-time pass between sessions. Hmmm.
I would love to see a recap video on your next West Marches style campaign
Thank you for sharing that experience. I feel more prepared :)
This game does inspire me. I'd love to play - as a player or a DM - at a table full of ppl who are thrilled to play
I help admin a Discord West Marches game (we just used Toril because multiple DMs and existing lore) but do allow anything official from other books.
It's super fun and while we lean more into small scale one to two shots, we have had DMs do arching plots across multiple groups.
However you run it, West Marches style is super fun.
This is a style of play I haven't run across and I appreciate the discussion. While I am intrigued and would happily play in a campaign like this I don't think I am ready to DM this.
XP instead of milestone A-b-solutely *sounds* like the best choice. Nobody can say how it /would have went/, but I think since, people were encouraged to move around, and consider it more like your world was a 'server,' then a 'game mechanic' like XP makes sense. Esp since you could have awarded that as well or instead of inspiration on the subreddit.
neat video. i'm binging.
I started my west march in June of 2019 and while we took a break from 2020-2021 (gee i wonder why...) we restarted the game in the beginning of this year. I too was greatly influenced by the Colville video on this style of game and decided to give it a go. The way I avoided that insane pacing of sessions was through tying the game calendar to the real calendar, just like you mention in your latest video. The way that scheduling mechanic forced the players to wait until the same time passed was, and still is, crucial to the success of my game.
I use a discord server as opposed to a subreddit for the information sharing hub and role playing center and have found it to be very successful. I can set up channels for various locations in the town which gives my players ample places to interact with each other and share the information the glean from the world. I too set a limit on group size, mine being no less than 3 and no more than 5. I have allowed for a handful of sessions to break that rule, but for the most part that's been a good rule to follow for me and my players.
I try to ask my players to shake up their parties and vary who the venture with and the calendar really helps to facilitate that spirit. The only draw back comes when a certain area is discovered that is out of reach for the parties current power level and getting a crew of sufficiently powerful PC's to agree to a date can be a challenge. But that's also kind of the fun and it saves me from having to prep like mad to keep up with my players. In a way I've flipped that where I prep things to be too difficult and make the players figure out how to bring themselves up to the level.
I'm curious about how lethal your game world was as I feel that is a vital part of this style of game. I've had quite a few characters die in my game but each and every time the players came back for more. The fact that death is on the table makes my players really think twice about getting too far over their heads.
Great video man, I just came across your channel and I look forward to digging through the rest of your back catalog and catching the new ones as they arrive.
Thank you so much! The lethality question would be a big one for me to address and have an answer to for the next time I run a game like this - I WANTED to be more lethal but totally chickened out when a TPK almost happened 😂 I would just have to commit to the tone I was going for, and stick to my guns! But that’s also why it’s important to clarify the lethality level when pitching the game, which I just didn’t do. All lessons for next time!
@@SupergeekMike I hear ya on that, it's tough to kill characters but setting lethality was one element that resonated for me between the Ars Lundi post and the Colville video. My first session I killed two characters in the first combat, against blights of all things! Helped to set the tone and create that tension that can be lacking from other more linear narrative focused games. Highly suggest you lean into that concept if you run another west march.
I am hoping to run a LIGHT game like this-a sprawling, solar-system wide West Marches game that plays like a rules-light Destiny TTRPG. I’ve got 8 ready players, but we’re playing Curse of Strahd and Symbaroum right now.
This sounds like so much fun I’m very interested in joining something like this if you do another in the future
Same here
I love the dragon turtle squeleton city!
My next campaign is called "Oathmark", each party (3 from the beginning) are members of Jager Core, specialist that work outside the city Oathmark.
In icewind Dale the first part had mini missions and your first couple levels were based on how many of those you completed. So instead of doing XP each mission could have a value. Like 1 intro mission to get to 2 and 3 total to get to 3.
I created a Westmarch-Styled campaign! I made quite a number of changes to the traditional style, but I run almost exclusively online over Discord and the new Forum features to post adventures or let the players post their own adventure hooks in. My premise is that the Players are to this fantasy world, what we would view as Super Heroes. Like Superman or Captain America. Adventurers have gained this supernatural ability to grow in power rapidly (my take on the meta joke that players can in game go from levels 1-20 in like 3 months) the average villager would see adventurers as these crazy powerful beings
Thus I’ve created what is essentially a super hero school meets hogwarts meets capitalism setting.
Thanks for the video.....Going to run a west game now.
😁😁😁
Another great viddo, and congrats on getting a job!
Thank you! That job was actually bad so I left it after exactly 1 year, but I’m at a much better one now :)
I would love to play in a game like this, maybe even run it. Some of my friends seem interested too, but I know that I don't have the time right now.
Facebook group works amazing, easy to set up game alerts, Share lore, plan. My dnd groups are the only reason im still on Facebook.
Best video on West March Campaigns I saw so far! Thank you!
On experience gain: In AD&D and earlier, the vast majority of experience gained was for *gold*. If all you did was kick in doors and beat up monsters, you wouldn't get very far; you had to solve the puzzles hiding treasure away in order to get your XP. This would likely be a good solution to your milestones-or-XP dilemma.
I'm starting to organize a multi-dm West Marches campaign. I've got a group of 4+ other DMs and am giving a portion of my world to them to build more-or-less whatever they'd like.
I'm just wondering what problems could crop up with this many people. There's the obvious some people won't get along with each other, min-maxing players in parties without, and creating coherent themes and stories, but what are some of the problems you experienced?
Hmm...I'm feeling the creative juices start to flow. Been looking heavily into the Cypher system and I've got what I think is a badass idea for a westmarch style group.
Numenera runs on the Cypher system and that one's a masterclass on how to do 'ancient magitech' and post post post apocalypse, so let's roll with that. The players are among a group of survivors of some kind of cataclysm (natural or war or whatever, doesn't matter) waking up from some kind of stasis or suspended animation. The world is overgrown and mutated beyond recognition and no one can makes heads or tails of anything, but the facility the players wake up in is more or less safe and very defensible. The campaign would revolve around exploring the world and figuring out what happened, finding ancient tech and maybe the odd survivor or semi-civilized holdout. On the GM side I'm thinking just slap together a completely blank map with topographical features, put down a list of stuff the players can stumble across during exploration on a few tables sorted by biome, then let them go wild.
...actually that would just be nice as an open world campaign...I'ma go back to learning the system, this might be something. Thanks for the upload, my guy. Taught me a lot about a campaign style I've been poking at for years.
One of the most important parts of the original Westmarches game that I've never seen anyone do in their own is there was no set DM. When people wanted to play one of them would be the DM. It didn't all rely on the work of a single person. I always check out posts and videos on Westmarches games looking to see someone do it this way, and I've yet to find it.
It just occurred to me watching this that my DM was totally trying to set up a West Marches game but only had enough players for one group lol
If you want a similar feel game that’s a bit more manageable-maybe invent something like an “east marches campaign”. You just have a table of four or five players and yourself DMing, but each player has 2 to 3 characters that exist in the setting, and the players mix and match what characters are going on what adventure.
You get that grand campaign feeling, with a reliable core group of players
Just starting a West Marches Adventuring Academy run, really like the idea of threads for different adventures! Probably works better on Reddit... Using channels in discord in my case. Anybody have any advice here for discord users?
interesting that aside from the scheduling aspects, this is basically how story in LARP works (at least the one I'm a part of)
I've been considering running with a system that's primarily treasure returned to civilization = XP for the hexcrawl/sandbox campaign I'm thinking of running. (With minor combat XP, and some XP for discovery and roleplay.) Then I just have to find stuff for the characters to spend gold on.
I know, right? I had a similar idea, but that’s a huge missing piece of the puzzle.
I'm currently running a sort of semi-west marches game with XP for gold (and minor XP for combat) and I can vouch that it works well. Treasure is a hard, quantifiable goal, which makes it an effective motivator that players can easily and reliably plan around; and it's something PCs already want anyway, so it doesn't create any perverse incentives. It can also tend to result in greedy characters, which isn't a huge deal but is worth keeping in mind.
One of the difficulties of having lots of gold is that you need a place to store it where it won't be stolen. Early on you can just lock it in a chest but eventually players may want to build a vault or even an entire castle, which can be a great money sink. Another thing I've seen some DMs do (but haven't tried myself) is a carousing mechanic, where players can basically waste gold at a tavern in exchange for 10% bonus XP on that gold; this serves both as a thing to spend money on, and as a way of motivating a certain style of play. You might consider doing a similar thing with other activities depending on what sort of play style you're going for.
Wasnt this done in AD&Ds early days? I know thry had tournaments, but i recal it saying it could be played with up to 70 players.
I'm currently planing on running west marches. And I'm thinking about exp for leveling. I'm thinking awarding exp for game session, and for completing ambitions. Ambitions I stole from warhammer roleplay (4e I think) and this is basically mission objective (for character or for party).
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
I had thought about doing a game similar to this but instead of everyone starting in a city I thought of putting everyone in a random part of the continent
A lot of your “rules” could be resolved with various mechanical “penalties”
For example, the four player limit could be (equal shares for 4 players, for each player above 4, there is a penalty to exp by 10% and an additional 10% increase to cost of living in order to prevent hunger or other hindrances due to reduced resources)
I am planning on running something similar to a West Marches. I've been developing a homebrew campaign while our forever DM finishes his current campaign. However, our current campaign is really beginning to suffer from scheduling conflicts after about 2 years of playing. (7 players and DM, approx every 2 weeks with 2 months off during the holidays.)
My campaign has some underlying Christian themes, so lots of angels, demons, and dragons. It will also be country/continent wide. In researching and asking others for advice on my Discord, I will still have a BBEG with generals and lieutenants controlling different regions. I will run everything close to the capitol city initially, with their base (safety) being a tavern. As they progress I think I will give them an airship to use as base and travel to other regions. I plan to pretty much run one shots and then return to base. This way I can somewhat maintain an overarching campaign and PC/player driven side quests with whatever players are available on a given week. I'm not going to stress my main plot, but will drop rumors and hints while they explore the world and their own backstories and goals. Hopefully this all will work out well. None of us have ran or participated in a campaign like this before, so it's going to be a massive experiment. Any tips, recommendations, or ideas are greatly appreciated.
I’m stealing “Skull Doug.” Yoink!
For everyone who wants to DM a West Marches campaign and think it is a lot of stuff to do I fully recomend the alexandrian blog. They have a séries of Hexcrawl articles that shine light on the topic, plus articles bout refined ways to prep for sessions in general. It is a great source of information, but I have to say Hexcrawl in general seem to require more work when you DM on line, specially if you use maps instead of theater of the mind.
How would you adapt this idea to a set group, 6 players total, where the plan is to rotate DM responsibilities regularly?
Tried to get into a west marches game sadly it fell apart before I ever got to play
I couldn't DM one of these West Marches campaign because it seems has a lot of work behind it but I would give it a try as a player, just out of curiosity because I never heard of them before.
In getting to run a westmarch game for my friends. You said you'd change things about the distance scaling on the map. Did you find a better way to do it?
I‘ve actually realized this is kind of a larger issue I struggle with, which is trying to figure out how far apart to put adventures, and where to introduce settlements. So, sadly no, but we’re on the right track by identifying the problem!
@@SupergeekMikethanks for the reply! i just found your channel and really like your content. i hope you end up finding a solution to your conundrum
Do you have any material to share, such as your houserules or details on one of your worlds?
I have a video about my house rules :)
ruclips.net/video/Fy5Ht7jkYFw/видео.html
Nothing out there about my campaign worlds right now because I’ve tossed out a lot of detail about those worlds, and the good stuff will probably sneak into my next world, which is currently in development
I am running a game very similar to this in person and I'm looking to expand it to online or even make a video about it myself.
Comments from me if you ever want to try it again with what I have altered:
1. I don't use XP or milestone levelling (not exactly anyway) - I take from OSR/old DnD by making Gold captured = XP earned, ie 1,000 gold = 1,000XP. Players are incentivised simply by gold, quests (what I call your 'missions') clearly have the gold amount shown before a session. And I make clear how difficult a session will be (higher difficulty = higher chance of gold), it is known in the universe that dungeons hold a lot of gold, as do intelligent monsters. Gold is a very big part of the campaign used during downtime to not only buy stuff, but also to learn spells or get services (such as paying a hefty amount for a use of clairvoyance).
Gold is then also used to incentivise session note taking, map drawing or other desirable behaviours. In person I use numbered casino chips for gold since I find having physical representation leads to people thinking about it more.
2. I use rotating DMs to manage the time aspect, I am a DM amongst 3 others. We share our overarching thoughts on a 'metaplot' over sessions though DMs can do sessions without sharing any info, to avoid perpetual DMing as DMs can then also play
3. I have avoided the west marches notion of players decide what to do as the next quest mostly (though still accept player desires to do certain things or go certain places) - I find players are much more engaged with simply being handed an option upfront. This also helps considerably with planning.
4. The universe for my campaign is in real time outside of play. This means that when a week passes IRL it passes in game, this then means that your characters living costs have to be paid inbetween sessions, which incentivizes regular returning play for those who don't want to see their gold diminish
You mentioned a document listing the pantheon and their domains. How extensive would you recommend going on a similar document for a campaign? Would the amount of information you give be proportional to the number of deities, or would it be the same for each God, regardless of number in the pantheon?
Ooh you hit my kryptonite - I love making up gods for pantheons. My big influence is still how the gods were presented in the 4e books (the same way they appear in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount), so just a paragraph or two would be plenty - but that’s more for my notes, or to share when players ask. As an introduction, I just do the same thing as Mike B., I share a chart with the gods and their domains, the way they look in the Player’s Handbook.
I have a lot of feelings about not going overboard in the info I give my players (here’s a video about that ruclips.net/video/wzQWdnS52-I/видео.html), but… I don’t always practice what I preach lol
For what it is worth, here's what I did for the primary pantheon for one of my homebrew campaigns - 2 pages in a Word doc file:
3.5/LM - Andalos! Andali (Human) Pantheon
Borok Skyfather, The Horned God, Huntmaster
Greater Deity, Neutral (biased towards Chaos - clerics may be CN, NG, N, NE)
Domains: Air, Animal, Fire, Strength
Favored Weapons: any Spear, Sling
Bonus Feat: Track
Tana Earthmother, The Green Goddess, Hearthmistress
Greater Deity, Neutral (biased towards Law - clerics may be LN, NG, N, NE)
Domains: Earth, Healing, Plant, Water
Favored Weapons: any Club, Quarterstaff
Bonus Feat: Endurance
Druagak Devilking, The Scaled God, Lord of the Nine Hells
Greater Deity, Lawful Evil (clerics may be LE, LN, NE)
Domains: Evil, Law, Trickery, War
Favored Weapons: any Flail, Morningstar
Bonus Feat: Run
Kyrmyr the Jester, Prince of Spring, God of Happiness
Intermediate Deity, Chaotic Good (clerics may be CG, NG, CN)
Domains: Chaos, Good, Luck, Protection
Favored Weapons: Rapier, Shortsword
Bonus Feat: Lightning Reflexes
Hamato the Calm, Prince of Summer, God of Victory
Intermediate Deity, Lawful Neutral (clerics may be LN, LG, LE)
Domains: Law, Luck, Strength, War
Favored Weapons: Battleaxe, Halberd
Bonus Feat: Iron Will
Warin the Crafty, Prince of Autumn, God of Wealth
Intermediate Deity, Neutral (clerics may be N, LN, NG, NE, CN)
Domains: Knowledge, Luck, Magic, Travel
Favored Weapons: any Hammer
Bonus Feat: Improved Initiative
Thodin the Wise, Prince of Winter, God of Long Life
Intermediate Deity, Neutral Good (clerics may be NG, LG, CG)
Domains: Good, Healing, Luck, Protection
Favored Weapons: any Mace
Bonus Feat: Great Fortitude
Ithalla the Seeress, Dream Weaver, Star Goddess
Intermediate Deity, Lawful Good (clerics may be LG, LN, NG)
Domains: Good, Knowledge, Law, Magic
Favored Weapons: Longspear, Longsword
Bonus Feat: Scribe Scroll
Seluna the Fickle, Maid of Changes, Moon Goddess
Intermediate Deity, Chaotic Neutral (clerics may be CN, CG, CE)
Domains: Animal, Chaos, Plant, Travel
Favored Weapons: Scimitar, Sickle
Bonus Feat: Quick Draw
Retrika the Temptress, Queen of Demons, Night Goddess
Intermediate Deity, Chaotic Evil (clerics may be CE, CN, NE)
Domains: Chaos, Evil, Magic, Trickery
Favored Weapons: Net, Whip
Bonus Feat: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Net or Whip)
Yama the Pale, Lord of Vampires, God of Death
Intermediate Deity, Neutral Evil (clerics may be NE, LE, CE)
Domains: Death, Destruction, Evil, Strength
Favored Weapons: Dagger, Scythe
Bonus Feat: Blind-Fight
Ushana the Bright, Dawnbringer, Sun Goddess
Lesser Deity, Lawful Neutral (clerics may be LN, LG, LE)
Domains: Destruction, Law, Protection, Sun
Favored Weapons: Unarmed Strikes
Bonus Feat: Improved Unarmed Strike
Clerics of these deities are mostly human, as the pantheon arrived in the campaign area with the arrival of humans, however a few nonhumans have taken up service with one or another of these deities, who grant them power just as they do their human servants.
The three greater deities are the parents of the rest of the pantheon. Druagak Devilking and Tana Earthmother are the parents of Yama the Pale, Borok Skyfather and Tana Earthmother are the parents of the remaining deities. According to the priests, the “birth” of Ushana the Bright is relatively recent, only a few centuries ago, before which her Sun domain was the province of Borok and Tana, with Borok having custody during the day and Tana having custody during the night. Prophecy foretells that Ushana the Bright is destined to become Queen of the Gods - most believe that She was born to rule them all, though Druagak claims that if she “rules” it will be as His consort, with Him as ruling King. In any case, as with many families, there are plenty of rivalries, squabbles, and temporary alliances, though Borok and Tana tend to remain above such things, while trying to mediate between their offspring when necessary.
In Andalos, none of these deities are officially outlawed, though the worship of the Evil deities is usually secretive in nature, and many of their practices are indeed against the laws of the various realms. (The sacrifice of sentient beings is especially frowned upon!) The Temples of these deities - which is the Andali term for the religious hierarchies of their clerical followers and other servants - are generally open to any who wish to join, though most do have some screening process to keep out undesirables, or at least to make special note of them. Not all priests of a deity are clerics or monks - but all clerics and monks must indeed be priests of a specific deity. (Monks may not be able to cast spells, but they can perform religious services etc.)
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Edit: Note that in that 3.5 campaign, clerics and other full casters were by necessity multiclassed, with at most 2/3 of their levels advancing their primary casting ability, and clerics used the armor, shield, and weapon proficiencies of their other class(es). The bonus feat was gained at cleric 1, replacing normal cleric proficiencies. While the other classes were not specifically defined, most clerics took levels in classes that matched the tone of the deity.
How would all the players edit a map, seen as they were playing virtually? Is there some way to have a Microsoft paint document that anyone can edit?
This is something I was never happy with in our online play. Our solution was to have one player keep a master map and add everything he read about in the other recaps, but I would much rather have something the group could edit as a community. If you’re playing on Roll20, in theory anyone can draw on that page and build a map that way, but I haven’t been able to come up with a better solution than that…
Notion might have provided a method to do this without Reddit or Facebook.
Thanks for the Dnd Rumors Twitter feed. Need a new place that posts regularly for ideas. I am terrible at finding a start point for plots.
I still go there when I get stuck on a story beat, it’s the best :)
Discord is a good alternative for people who have your visceral hatred for Facebook but find Reddit clunky for that particular style
Good God you're a machine lol. I can't imagine dealing with that # of players and games.
Lol well I couldn’t keep up with it, but if I had a lot of material prepared in advance of the game, I’d be totally down to do it again
I disagree on the experience points, I think in reality (although realism isn't fun but that's not my point) sometimes you learn and grow the most when you fail or lose. And we've all been so steeped in RPG stuff that we can forget what experience is originally intended to represent: Gaining experience which helps you grow and become stronger.
I feel like regardless of what happens there should be a ballpark of how much experience, and if they do things that really surprise you could add "Experience Bonuses" for the whole party. You'd still have to balance it so there'd be a max and how much it can change.
I would tend to agree - my first instinct was actually opposed, since I felt like accomplishing the goal should be prioritized and rewarded, but then I considered that succeeding in the mission will already probably come with things like loot, connections etc that will already reward success, so still receiving experience even when failing is perfectly reasonable
West march type games are great for the few and far between collaborators type gamers like me. - Brian.
Back again to watch this and prep a West Marches. for teens 😂 What am I in for??
Ooh interesting, I’ve never run D&D for teens so I don’t know how it will be different. But I’m sure they will enjoy the ability to be self-directed!
Discord in my mind is a much better tool for West Marches.
The Sweat River.
It was a salt water river that, I believe, ran down from some hills where the locals mined.
Has anyone gone with buying level ups? Say your homebase has a location to level up and you spend the gold with them to do so. Your main town person say the mayor rewards the players with gold for exploring, gathering intel, slaying a beast, writing new info about the world, archeology investigation notes, etc.
This would create a balanced and great incentive structure. The players would each be given a magic coin only purse that only they can access. No theifing. This would also make them a skyrim hoarder picking up many items. However its a westmarches. Realism is key. Have a modified encumbrance system. Maybe 10 small items. 5 medium. 1 large. Annd or combos of each. etc its Simple. This is a
More of a your pack can only fit x amount of size not weight in pack.
Another benifit is now you have introduced two major choice systems into the game. Each branching into many other choices. Now gold actually has meaning and should it be spent on goods, supplies, crafting, or leveling up. Selling items can flood economy and have diminishing returns. Do you collect that sword, or do you collect the ore?
I would also have downtime be a way to make money. If you can't make it to a session your wizard can chill at the college and have a fee for magic item identification Or brewing potions. This income would be less than actually going out into the world but it doesn't penalized a busy adult.
One last thing I would have would be a snadbox element hidden from the players, they would get a guild token. (Stole this from the infinite world series yep) this token never leaves them. If you die the token gets a hole in it. And they are trackable sorta from the home base. They have a bounty on them. But if player murders another PC (sandbox baby) their token is branded a traiter. They have a bounty on their head. If that character returns to the town they are executed. However they could form their own stronghold in the wilderness, and now its a new side enemy and fortress to fight.
Idk i have thought long and hard about this and no one has been able to answer is a buying levels a good thing. I think yes if you have it with the right table, right home rules, and the westmarches. What do you all think?
This idea is FASCINATING. I have no idea if it would work either, and there are a few things I might adjust before deploying it, but hoo boy it got my wheels spinning…
Haha heck yeah! I've been kicking it around for a while and would love to try it. I don't have many players so it seems unlikely. Side note: do rangers suck because all they do is shoot out of an infinite quiver? Would tracking arrows in a west marches game be more powerful? Would them being able to craft arrows like ammo in monster hunter world make them cooler?
@@Peyto23 I do think that resource management is important in a West Marches-style game. I have a video in the works about those sort of resource management mechanics, keep an eye out for that one later this month ;)
Discord channel would have been better. You can use channels to manage different aspects of the game.