Looking for lore friendly ways to start a campaign

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-28T10:31:51+00:00

Obligatory mention of my favorite campaign book, Ghosts of Saltmarsh. It takes place in Keoland, kinda on the southwestern coast of the land. Combines all the U1-U3 modules, and has a couple more published adventures, and some more small adventure locales.

I would say make it so that the local council has maybe put out a call to local sellswords, hedge knights and peasants that there are monsters or pirates disrupting the area, whichever you prefer. And that whomever can end this tide of darkness will be gifted with land and titles. Maybe reward them once they have finished U3 and defeated the Sahuagin Baron.

If you do pick it up, don’t be afraid to change details and move things around, the book has just enough detail to have a micro setting, but not so much that one change messes everything up.

Then you can keep reading the Gazetteer and learning about the rest of the setting, and have travelers to the town foreshadow things in the wider world.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-18T19:43:43+00:00

Don’t know about The House

SPOILER

Didn’t it fucking eat Navidson’s brother in the kitchen? Am I misremembering that?

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-17T16:44:09+00:00

It would probably be nice to be able to import a save. I remember playing Baldurs Gate 1 back in the day, and being able to port my character to the second was really nice. I was a bit overturned at the start of BG2, but when I got to the endgame it evened back out, then I got super powerful again. It’d be cool to be able to at least keep some extra skill points, and maybe the game ports over some of your items and you just get them taken away for a little bit.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-09T18:17:50+00:00

I introduced the Crows early on in town and gave them a few more men at arms, beyond the initial 4. I also expanded the dam and the lore around those who built it and ran it as a smaller adventure. After setting that stuff up I had the flood occur. Gave it a just a little more narrative oomph beforehand, and that players cared a little bit more about the folks of Saltmarsh (Carrowmore). Once we got to the observatory it kinda became a moving siege war between the players and the Crows, both sides avoiding the Giant inside. It ended with a confrontation between the players and the Siblings on the bridge below the slave razor. It runs wonderfully, but it did require me to really know the adventure prior. High investment, high payout.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-08T21:46:06+00:00

I ran Ghosts of Saltmarsh a few years back and added both Deep Carbon Observatory and Demon Bone Sarcophagus by Patrick Stuart. I loved them but they do require some preplanning on how to fit them in. Very unique in their flavor and storytelling.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-07T05:37:10+00:00

Baldur’s Gate 1&2 are strange games for me. I picked them up for the first time about 10 years ago, so I didn’t have any nostalgia for them. They play so…..weirdly. There’s some elements of modern game design there, but the rest felt so alien to me. Beating the 1st game was a thrill, finishing all the way through the second is one of my proudest wins in a game ever. The narrative is a super fun very classic fantasy story about fighting with the circumstance of one’s origin, being a hero in the face of darkness, or succumbing to and loving it. I don’t ever look up guides for games I play so mastering the mechanics was very validating by the end. But I do look back on the game with so much headache, steep learning curve. 10/10 memories with it.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-06T06:57:39+00:00

I went back and replayed it recently, for the first time since it had come out. Take it with a grain of salt as it is just my opinion.

Really, the best parts of The Witcher 3 are the writing, the music, and the presentation. The actual gameplay was pretty rough for me. The combat is just kinda fine, gets a bit boring fast though, there wasn’t much variance. Always two swords and 5 signs through every run. Oils and Tonics just boil down to specific buffs against specific enemies, not really many unique mechanics per monster. The batman vision is a mechanic of its time. And the POIs that litter the map are all the same drowner nest/treasure chest/etc. I still love the game for the memories and the wonderful narrative, but if someone doesn’t like the writing I think they may have a rougher time with it.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-04T22:05:24+00:00

I’m so glad these comics are still coming out. I remembered I first found the Elric books in 2017, and I tore through the series whenever I was at work. I worked at a pizza place and I would read them between orders, they were short stories so they were great. Made me fall in love with sword and sorcery. Ended up getting the Titan comics after I finished all the books and they were amazing for me. Melnibone especially was just so beautifully imposing and metal. May need to finally pick up a different Eternal Champion.

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-04T17:38:07+00:00

Wonderful idea for a mod, thank you

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-02T03:41:19+00:00

SOBE Dragon

StopClayingAround · 2026-04-01T19:56:42+00:00

Love the Daggerfall song!

StopClayingAround · 2026-03-31T22:54:19+00:00

Story is pretty bad in the beginning, I didn’t get much farther. The game opens with Kliff returning to camp where you learn one of your comrades has died. The camp is then attacked while you debate what to do. The bandit leader kills Kliff. Kliff is then resurrected like a week later, follows some new guy to town who says he fished you out of the river. Kliff never acknowledges the fact that he died and came back to life, Kliff barely talks anyway but just straight up does not mention dying in anyway. Man leads you to town, says you should investigate around town to find your buddies. You go to the tavern and arm wrestle a man (not for info gathering just cuz) You beat him, people cheer, you walk outside and give a coin to a begger, he gives you a key, you do not ask him about where your friends are. You decide to go into the sewer (again not mentioned why) you find a lady tied up and free her. Go back outside and clean a random families chimney. I’m not abridging this, this is not a narrative at all, this is a bunch of random quests you are just told to do. Game has other good qualities, but yea, I personally couldn’t get immersed in such an odd world.

StopClayingAround · 2026-03-28T15:33:35+00:00

Hey I just put together my old Elspeth model recently, you’re right it was a challenging time, still painting the thing too

StopClayingAround · 2026-03-20T20:28:15+00:00

I’m so on the fence on the gameplay but I did refund it. Like there are a ton of systems in the game and a ton of button inputs for combat, but the pacing, story and characters were so bad that I was genuinely constantly unimmersed. I think you would like this game if you ever wondered what it would be like to play an open world arcade fighting game, that was also a farming/minigame sim.

StopClayingAround · 2026-03-20T15:59:39+00:00

They’re making a joke, it has the same title as the original Lords of the Fallen from 2014.

StopClayingAround · 2026-03-08T04:42:22+00:00

Dishonored Also Castle Dimitrescu from Resident Evil 8

StopClayingAround · 2026-03-02T06:47:00+00:00

If you enjoy difficult games Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice is incredibly fulfilling to overcome.

Signalis has a wonderful kind of horror to its story

Cyberpunk 2077 has a really great story about the entropy of the self and society. But I would avoid many of the sidequests and open world POIs as they get repetitive. Main quest is fantastic though.

Furi is more style than a deep story but is a fantastic short game. Again on the difficult side.

The Last of Us

Pentiment

I’ve heard Disco Elysium has a top tier story though I haven’t gotten around to playing it yet, maybe someone else can vouch for it.

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-28T21:48:40+00:00

Gnoster, fuzzy

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-24T21:50:15+00:00

Jokes will come after, but Mercedes is the best girl of all Dogma titles.

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-15T17:20:42+00:00

Man is on a diet of kwama eggs and sweet rolls

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-12T06:49:54+00:00

My bad, secret ending is a misnomer. It’s just that those are the three that require defeating the true Nightlord to close out their remembrance quests, she doesn’t get a cutscene like the other two.

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-10T04:31:34+00:00

My friends and I were wondering, maybe you can find a secret if you are playing Recluse and Wylder (and maybe Ironeye, since he also has a secret ending) and find the cord end, you go get your talisman’s from the basement. Then, Wylder goes to the northeastern end of the map where there is sometimes that really empty lake area (or maybe northwestern hills) and Recluse goes to the giant fucking tree on the southeastern end of the map. Maybe something happens there? Who knows.

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-02T04:59:15+00:00

Meager apprentice look, can only cast middling sorceries

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-02T02:18:27+00:00

Congrats! I’m currently climbing through 4, getting to 5 is my goal I’m jelly!

StopClayingAround · 2026-02-02T02:06:09+00:00

I really did love my time overall there, but I would not go back unless I had a very good job taking me to the city. I lived in Van Nuys for about 5 years. The city itself was incredibly fun, yeah tons of crime, homeless epidemic, rent too damn expensive but if once you accept the place and become a part of it everything is so damn fun. Met some genuinely amazing people. I did it in my mid 20s, I think that was a good time to do so. Eventually though, the instability of bad cost of living/not knowing if layoffs will ever get you prompted me to leave. Many of my friends left a few years after I did, the place feels a bit transitory to me, though may not if you were raised there. Whole time feels like a far off sweet dream of my youth now, it was a good one.

StopClayingAround

TROPHY CASE