4e West Marches & general discussion

Is it just me or does 4e seem very well suited to a west marches style game with a large player base and multiple DMs? The internal character balance is very easy to control as magic items are factored into level progression, there is a focus on teamwork to encourage a party getting together to go adventuring and encounter design has well constructed guidelines for many DMs to be able to make comparable games in a shared world.
Has anyone tried this? If not would anyone be interested in such a thing?

This thread is also for more general 4e discussion about what you liked about the edition, for sharing fun tidbits of PoLand lore and for giving general advise for running 4e for those who would like to try it.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=gXC-jJhFaUI
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Bumping for interest

What is this West Marches thing?

I'd love to do something like this.
You would need people who want more than the main draw of 4e, its balanced combat, but I'm sure those rules to encourage West Marching are either already present or are easily hacked in.

The largest problem, other than finding the players, is how to reconcile the West Marches gold=EXP of earlier editions for the kill monsters for EXP.

Reminder to use MM3 math for encounters, use integrated bonuses and give out the Expertise feat on chargen.

A group of players and DMs who have a shared world usually run from a central hub town. When players want to play they gather a group and contact a DM to set a time and place. Usually the central hub is surrounded by an open world, so if the game has more than one DM, then each could have their own area that they have fleshed out and run. So for example a group of players would gather together and want to go to DM1's adventure local, the caves of chaos, so they contact DM1 and organize a time to play and then go on an adventure to the caves of chaos. They come back to town and when next the want to adventure they might want to go back to the caves of chaos and contact DM1 again, or maybe they want to go to Castle Amber designed by DM2, in which case they contact DM2 and go to play castle amber. Meanwhile the Caves of chaos have been changed slightly from the players go in, so the next time a group of layers go there, they will see the impact left by the first group of players. Maybe the monsters are more wary and better prepared for intruders, or maybe they are more open to negotiations depending on the approach the first group of players took.

If we can get enough interest in this thread then we can start setting something up. Unfortunately I have to go soon, but will be back in about 6 hours so if we can keep this thread going, maybe find some people interested in playing and some interested in DMing then I will be able to contribute more. Maybe create a shared world in this thread or otherwise use PoLand as a default setting.
Keep the thread alive and I will return for more worldbuilding and/or planning for adventure design.

Is this not a plotless MMO on tabletop?

Why even bother? Can you even have a coherent storyline if the GMs and the players change all the time?

Is this all just dungeon crawling with a revolving door party?

>4e seems well suited to a west marches kind of game!
>is this not a plotless MMO on tabletop?
wew lad could not have planned that better myself

I'm planning to do something similar IRL, good luck OP!

It is. I ran a pirate campaign with 16 players after I took over for another DM and it worked far better than 3.5 would have.

test

I have never encountered it in a way where the GM changes, and I don't know how that works.

But through communication amongst party members, rotating players does not hinder plot as much

Hexcrawls are older than dirt, you tasteless fucking narrative-fattened pleb. The West Marches is just what fucking everyone playing D&D used to do.

>The West Marches is just what fucking everyone playing D&D used to do.
You mean dungeon crawl and kill monsters with no real story.

There's nothing wrong with a plot lite game. Some people want to kick down doors, kill monsters , loot treasure and explore dungeons. They don't want to be forced to play through the DM's unpublished, unfinished novel.

They should play video games.

Well, the main thing about vidya is that it's very difficult to even roleplay the character you're playing. Tabletop can allow you to do that while also kicking down doors, killing monsters, looting treasure and exploring dungeons. Besides, it's not like there can't be plot in a plot-lite game.

The whole point is that the players, through telling tales of their exploits and working at their own pace, form the plot on their own.

Have you ever heard of socialization? It's healthy to have activities where you talk to other humans

>wants a railroaded plot
>posts gay anime shit
>probably a pathfaggot
At least you’re consistent

I've wanted to do this, but with a megadungeon instead. No overarching plot, but I'd want players to cultivate personal stories, asking them why they're delving into this dungeon and what kinds of people they know in the nearby town.
>Kind of like pic related.

West Marches doesn't mean devoid of plot, it just centers the plot on what the characters DO instead of some sort of world-ending lich or whatever. Just remember to make factions and characters players can interact with, and don't just wing it.

DW's "fronts" system could fit a west marches style game pretty well.

Thinking about it, DW has a bunch of nice things to plunder. Although I don't think the town rules fit its own game very much, for such a living world type thing it could work.

OP here, finally back.
Well, I am also planning out a mega-dungeon for this sort of game, if you like we can begin to collaborate to flesh out the world around the town and mega dungeons.
I think this kind of game works best when multiple DMs work together to create a shared world where players can go to one dungeon, explore as far as they can and then share their findings with the next group to go that way.

What sort of a,mega dungeon are you planning? They can be draining if you don't prep for them.
Or are you suggesting we collectively build the megadungeon?

I have a plan for a mega dungeon built over the chained body of a god at its very bottom. First few levels will be cultists and then get progressively weirder the deeper you go. Also possible to skip the first few levels by go through a series of flooded underground tunnels filled with undead that feeds into the sea/river nearby.
Haven't fully fleshed anything out yet, so if you like we could build together.

Sounds like a promising start!
Sure, collaborative building is always fun.

Alright, so what plan do you have for your mega dungeon?

Are we each making a megadungeon, or just general areas of the March for the players to adventure in?
Having multiple megadungeons on the map might be a bit much. But if we're doing that, how about this:
A city-crawl megadungeon, fallen remnants of a vertical city destroyed by, in essence, a magic nuclear Far Realm device. Think 'This Is Not A Place of Honor' mixed with Frostgrave. Lots of room for ancient remnants, forgotten mutant tribes, Far Realm and demon incursions, crumbling walls and ancient defenders. Easily scalable to different levels, multiple paths of approach, and a semi-hard 'edge of adventure' at the city limits to make session wrap-up and forward base planning easier.

Sounds great, we could always have the two mega dungeons become interlinked, increasing the depth and complexity of each while saving time an effort of our part.
The rest of the march could be more sparse but still contain some smaller dungeons and interesting areas with the primary focus being on the mega dungeon.

bump for the night

get that pedo shit out of here nigga

>no real story
You build locations so the story is inherent.

I've been talking to a friend about doing something in that style for a long time in 5e.
My problem is that 5e is perfect for it in like tier 1 and early tier 2, after that though the power begins to ramp up pretty quickly. I could of course, just make the game very lethal so high level characters would be very likely to die. (I also think that could be really awesome if you're a level 2 and you find out the A-team of level 8 PCs got TPK'd in their last delve.)

People kinda miss that. You don't need a huge overarching plot from the get go, exploring a dungeon and figuring out simple tales might just about be interesting enough.

If anything, you should be asking your players what the motivations for your characters should be and adding in factions, NPCs, and locations to support those motivations. It doesn't work as well in a lethal OSR-style game (the default motivation is get rich or die trying anyways) but it would definitely work in a WotC-era D&D game where character death is somewhat less common. If those PCs do bite the dust though, those factions, NPCs, and locations are still there to build off of. Even in a West Marches game where none of the adventure happens in the town, that doesn't mean you won't have bands of merchants, travelling salesmen, orc armies, wizards, and other such characters with their own areas, agendas, and reactions to the party. It's a lot to prep beforehand, but if you start small and slowly build on your framework it'll go from "tabletop MMO" to "actual living world".

If you guys had to make a centralize plot for a West Marches campaign, how would you guys do it?

Enemy armies moving toward the city, party has to delay them, sabotage, scout, set up traps and defenses, kidnap officers, assassinate officers, rescue pows, evacuate towns, defend vips, disrupt supply lines. That’s a whole campaign worth of stuff to do alone

Rip off Darkest Dungeon

I can imagine it now

>Low level party
We can deliver an important message to send reinforcements and fight off any scouts we encounter
>Mid level party
We were told to escort the women and children to safty and kill any enemies we encounter. What the high level party doing?
>High level party
youtube.com/watch?v=gXC-jJhFaUI

Perfect, that fits brilliantly well.

Perfect, that fits brilliantly well and makes everyone useful.

I can imagine the high level battle is going to be a bunch of lv1 monsters with a few high levels in the mix. Might take 3-4 hours of real time to finish it, but it will be epic.

>High level party
>not going full Illiad and having the party ignore the battle to deal with the gods secretly trying the sway it in their favor
Helm's deep was a mid paragon tier fight at best. Aragorn was still being a pussy about what he should pick for his epic destiny.

Me and two other DMs are starting our own west marches campaign.

What's a good amount of hexes for the area to be before we start? I'm thinking 9x9, but the other two DMs want to make it much larger and have a bunch of crazy fantastical elements.

What do you guys think?

9x9 is fine
you get like, 30 hexes each

Yeah and it's easy to make locations connected.

Minions, mate.
I mean, epic level is going to go like fucking mythology, isn't it? Throwing a spear and hitting a dude from behind the horizon line, hitting an enemy general with so many arrows his body can't reach the fucking ground...

Tabletop games provide more player agency and immersion than any video game could hope to accomplish.

I think it depends on the level your PCs start at. Higher level characters will have more mobility and therefore need more space. If they're all level 1 then you shouldn't need much space for the first several sessions.