Embrace chaos! (Or "Campaign/Adventure Building in 13th Age")

 

I am currently running my 2^nd campaign for 13^th Age. I usually start writing a 13^th Age campaign only after the players created their characters, particularly their Unique Things and Icons Relationships.

My usual creative process for adventures is preparing an introductory game session (with 3-4 combat encounters at most and two longer social or explorative encounters). I leave things quite open to account for Icon Rolls and usually present the main issue in a vague way (an imperial fort needs help, an elven noble needs protection, orcs are pillaging the region, etc.).

I usually use Icon Rolls at the start of an adventure and then every two to three game sessions. The first session of a new adventure also has a montage, where my table usually insert all kinds of madness and I start fitting those into my own planning. With the foreknowledge of Icon Rolls and the result of the Montage, I fit everything within my planned campaign. I usually create adventures around themes or arcs. In my last campaign the second arc was “a basilisk was loose in Concord and is wrecking chaos, the PCs are sent to deal with it” (this occupied a good chunk of game sessions and included minor encounters and quests).

With my 2^nd campaign I started asking for Icon Rolls basically at the beginning of every game session (unless it was really a short session or one where basically nothing happened). I love creating all kind of main and side plots for my players to explore (and tons of NPCs). I usually know where the campaign is going to, as I usually start sketching where I want the PCs to be at Champion and even Epic Tier.

So, that is my modus operandi. That said, what I noticed in my 2^nd campaign is that I often found myself struggling between the craziness created through Montages and my initial campaign arcs and planning. After some hesitation at first, the table really started liking Montage and the creation of NPCs through Icon Rolls. To give you an idea, during the campaign I got a flying saucer abducting the party’s ranger (so that he could be transported a few miles and meeting the rest of the team), magic prostitutes (yeah, your heard that right), the legendary King of Snakes (friend of the Elf Queen)… the most tame thing that ever came out of my players’ feedback was a party of drow druids (which soon became infiltered derro but let us not get ahead of ourselves).

I was planning to run a campaign dealing with the rise of the High Druid, the war between civilization and nature around New Port, and hopefully the Stone Thief. Then it hit me: my players are having a blast creating all kind of NPCs, plots, and other stuff that I never imagined. They are loving it! And I’m having an amazing ride by not knowing what is going to happen. Better yet: I don’t need to prepare “my campaign”. I just need to embrace chaos. And I did precisely that. I stopped writing. When I run out of material, I just prepare a new Montage (or wait for one or two Icon Rolls and more NPCs/factions). They are creating everything for me and it was never so liberating to run a campaign where I really don’t know what is going to happen (it is like running a hexcrawl/sandbox without all those mechanical tables getting in the way). I will probably never prepare a 13^th Age game again (at least not in the common sense).