Xoth Campaign

Placeholder for a possible Sword & Sorcery game using the World of Xoth Player's Guide (5th Edition) ruleset.

''In practice, the Jhaddar Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign became the S&S campaign envisioned here. In particular, its "solution" to gender-based differences is far superior to anything else I've ever seen, since it doesn't actually restrict any character, regardless of gender. Instead, it makes it more likely a strong character is male. This means the best of both worlds: most big strong warriors will be male but no female character is limited or held back in any way, shape or form!''

Use the World of Xoth Player's Guide (5th Edition) to determine what classes, spells and such are available in the campaign. It disallows some classes (no bards or clerics, for example) but adds a few new ones (such as conquerors and courtiers).

Download the PDF document here: http://xoth.net/publishing/freebies/world_of_xoth_players_guide_5e.pdf (Mild NSFW note: if you are at work, and you have "PDF preview" enabled, please note that clicking this link will display a cover image with nudity)

Themes and ideas:


 * In Sword & Sorcery, the world is not worth saving. Quests aren't about doing good. You're not the Chosen one(s) saving the world from a sun-eating evil. Instead the quest might be to save a princess from a monster-worshipping cult. And when you do, she might be angry you bring her back to her cruel father and slap you across the face. And the quest-giver, her cruel father, might be a corrupt king that you decide to behead... so now you're not getting any pay either. Oh well, let's just run out of town - there's always a new city state over the horizon.
 * However, just because you're asked not to create a lawful good paladin your hero does NOT have to be evil. And you do need to function within a group and be able to gain allies (your fellow party members). So you can do good deeds; just don't expect the story to require it, and accept that it's quite possible nobody will thank you for it.
 * To help you get into the mindset of Sword & Sorcery, here are some comparisons: 1) Like a Spaghetti Western but with fantasy trappings (swords not revolvers). 2) a Mad Max-like world where you're just trying to survive. Or be left alone. Yet somehow you're forced into wondrous adventure!
 * S&S heroes in literature commonly watch as gold is gained... then lost again. They are commonly (but not always) motivated by greed, yet never seem to be able to hold onto it. How do you reconcile this with a game where building up your character (levels, feats, magic items, and so on) is an integral part of the game? Risking your life for better magic items (gold, levels, etc) is a really strong motivator for many players. This should be kept since it encourages you to play exactly the sort of person that S&S stories are about! But as I said a trope of S&S is that "nothing lasts". Therefore the solution is to allow characters to "internalize" their loot. (A very brief example: Find - or buy - a really cool sword? Gain a +1 to attacks! That sort of thing. The idea is that you can lose the sword, but you still keep the magic +1 bonus somehow) This way I hope to avoid the stock D&D problem where heroes can't lose all their stuff or the math breaks. You are hopefully okay with losing your stuff if you get to keep what the stuff is FOR.
 * The next point is potentially controversial, so let's be up front about it. I want my S&S game to embrace, rather than shy away from, gender differences. Males can be big and strong. Females can be alluring and inscrutable. I do NOT mean "women are weak so play male heroes". In fact, since this is D&D, you know that your party is better off having different characters with different strengths, so a mixed party is probably best. D&D offers plenty of character archetypes suitable for S&S female heroes (basically everything that doesn't rely on bulging muscle) - including the "Dex Fighter" build!
 * "Men comes from Mars, women comes from Venus" is a theme in this campaign. Each gender holds power over the other. Yes, if you google sword & sorcery images you will find that a lot of images involve stereotypes, objectification and cheesecake images. Let's spin that as interesting instead of bad! Instead of "objectification" being a bad word, play uninhibited characters that objectify each other!
 * This ties directly into other themes of Sword & Sorcery. This is not a world of equality and fairness. Kings rule with absolute power. A beautiful princess is worth more than entire cities, including yourself and everybody else living there! Slavery and poverty runs rampant! Even the fundamental nature of "civilization" corrupts and degrades your mind and your body...!
 * I will have NPCs automatically assume characters with big weapons and big armor are more dangerous than unarmed unclad characters, so embrace this in your tactics. (If you want to view this as a kind of "aggro" mechanic, that's okay. I want players of female heroes to feel confident about striding into a group of soldiers wearing little to no armor. You don't need it, at least until you convince them you are the threat! Your big muscular male friends, however, do need armor. Unless, of course, they play Barbarians who don't need armor to gain a great AC!) This point does NOT mean the campaign assumes every woman needs to be "saved" by a man; only that men and women are good at different things and use different strengths to overcome challenges.
 * Campaigns and role-playing games where male and female characters are equal, where gender is not an issue, and where men and women can do everything equally well are perfectly fine and we have played a lot of those. This is meant to be something different. This is a campaign where the male ideal is being muscular and brave, though not every man is born that way. This is a campaign where the female ideal is being curvaceous and brave, though not every woman is born that way.

In 5E terms, I'm adding the following stipulations: As for effects that break the regular maximum of 20, and how those work when your maximum is 15: instead of going past 20 to 22 or 24, you go past 15 to 18 and 20.
 * male characters are recommended to adhere to a maximum of 15 to Charisma and Wisdom*. Males can use Intimidation in place of Diplomacy checks versus female opponents.
 * female characters are recommended to adhere to a maximum of 15 Strength and Constitution*. Females can use Diplomacy in place of Intimidation checks versus male opponents.

This might be a good time reminding you female warriors are totally still a thing, thanks to how generously 5E treats Dexterity warriors. Any kind of Dex-based Fighter (or Ranger, or Rogue etc) can be female and kick ass.