Campaign Advice
"Where are all the heroes of old who would ride forth to vanquish all Evil? The gallant knights have turned into mercenaries selling their swords for the highest bidder. Instead of inspiring others through example and a pious and humble life, today's priests spend most of their time directing hate speeches against other religions while living luxurious lives supported by the donations of the urban poor. And the archmages do no longer spend their times contemplating arcane mysteries in isolated towers, only venturing forth when their knowledge and wisdom is needed - now they use their intellects to figure out how to harvest the last bit of life energy from those living in our slums.
So, where have our saviors vanished to? Will we ever see their likes again? Or were they nothing more than a myth in the first place?"
- Krond Gjerten, RevolutionarySo, where have our saviors vanished to? Will we ever see their likes again? Or were they nothing more than a myth in the first place?"
While the world of Urbis is big and diverse enough to run more traditional adventures, such as dungeon crawls and wilderness exploration, Urbis has many unique themes and elements that need discussion and that can help the DM making his campaign truly memorable.
Major Themes
"You Are Bigger Than Life - But The City Is Bigger Than You": While cities in most fantasy worlds are considered notable when more than 10,000 people live in them, most cities in Urbis have populations ranging in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. All these people have their own hopes, dreams, and agendas, and exist independently of the PCs. The adventurers should therefore constantly meet new NPCs that sometimes help them, sometimes hinder them, but above all serve as a reminder that the PCs are not alone in this city, let alone the world. To avoid player boredom when their PCs meet yet another group of generic NPCs, the DM needs to give all of them interesting personalities. Perhaps the NPC in question is an immigrant from another region, perhaps he is a member of a society that serves a worthy, villainous, or just plain strange cause, or perhaps he has had an unusual life story that he is all to willing to share with the PCs over a pint of ale. Unless he wants something from the PCs, or the PCs have reached epic levels and notoriety, he shouldn't treat them as the center of the universe, but just another passing acquaintance. If the PCs never meet him again, then that's fine - giving the players a broader view of the game world is useful in its own right. On the other hand, if the PCs do become interested in him for whatever reason, he can become a hook for future adventures...A corollary of this is that it is perfectly possible to run an entire campaign within a single city, instead of moving from town to town as it is common in other fantasy worlds and campaigns. There is so much to do and experience in a single metropolis that there need never be a shortage of adventures.
Campaign and Character Level
The average level of the adventurers will have a strong impact on the campaign - both in the goals the PCs can realistically set for themselves, and how the rest of the game world will react to them."Faces in the Crowd" (Level 1-3): People of the PC's power level are a dime a dozen, and the impact the adventurers can make on the world is minimal, as are the rewards and the fame they can expect. But this doesn't mean that their actions are meaningless - just that they have to scale back their expectations of what they can achieve. Even a paladin should be happy when they manage to rescue a few people from slavers and get away with it, instead of foolhardy declaring war on the entire organization.
"Grunts in the Field" (Level 4-6): The adventurers have become powerful to become somewhat useful to someone, but not enough to be trusted with truly dangerous or sensitive matters. They might be hired as guards, patrols, or to take out minor monster infestations - though, with PCs being what they are, things will rarely be as "minor" as they appear to be. Or possibly a minor official in some organization wants them to become his personal agents, simply because he cannot afford to hire anyone better. Note that anyone but the most caring employers will consider them to be expendable - it is pretty easy to find replacements for them.
"The Specialists" (Level 7-9): Now they are experienced enough that it isn't easy to replace them, and thus most employers will treat them as an useful resource instead of just pawns to throw away. If they have proven themselves, they will be trusted with sensitive, secret, and thus dangerous matters. If they have proven themselves loyal and trustworthy towards an employer, he might even pay for raise dead spells, though this isn't universal.
"Free Agents" (Level 10-12): By this time, the PCs are powerful and wealthy enough to be choosy about what jobs they accept - and even set their own agenda. Of course, their power and wealth means that they will inevitably come to attention of even more powerful people, who will go to any length to involve them in their schemes and intrigues to help their own agenda. Adventures at this level should involve lots of hidden plans, conflicted loyalties, and confusion about everyone's secret agenda. The DM should by no means feel compelled to give the PCs all the answers unless they work hard to ferret out every secret - they are up against people who have played the games of intrigue for many decades, and who always have another ace in the hole...
"Movers and Shakers" (Level 13-20): While the intrigues of past levels continue and even intensify, the PCs are now free to start some serious plotting on their own. With enough persistence and effort, they might be able to run a guild, a regional church, a crime cartel - or even rule one of the city-states! The DM's role is to find out what the PCs want - and make the efforts to get there challenging, but not frustrating.
"The Road to Immortality" (Level 21+): At epic levels, there is nearly no limit to what the PCs can do. Rule a city-state? Create a new city-state from scratch? Unify a whole region? Start an off-world colony, or carve their initials into the moon? Other powerful individuals have made their marks in the history books of Urbis, and now it is the PCs' turn.
Of course, any foes the DM throws at the PCs had better be worth their time. From "ordinary" epic level humans to Ancient Horrors from the Dawn of Time to full-fledged invasions from other planets or dimensions... the only limit is the DM's imagination.