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Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[FallacyofUrist]

Sea monsters of a variety of types should be one.
Cabin fever/temporary madness might also be one...
Rats in the hardtack!
Oh look, a meteor OH DUCK!
Was that a mermaid? Or a kelpie?

[sjm9876]

Might well be worth splitting the encounter tables up into separate events if you're struggling for cards.  Would also streamline things a little. Hell, you could even split the shore/shallows/deep up, and dispose of the clear sailing cards entirely - just have them only take effect in the relevant area. Though that would risk some spoilers perhaps (though no more so than having an event for each on the same cards).

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

How about flying creatures, islands rising from the deep, or bad omens?

[scriver]

An island with a wreckage and/order lots of treasure that is actually a mimic adapted to coasts!

[SOLDIER First]

An island full of benevolent [X extremely dangerous, hostile creature] that act that way fo ko apparent reason?

[BlackHeartKabal]

An island that is actually just a sleeping Tarrasque?

[Neyvn]

A lot of things sound great. How about some LowMagic events as well. Not just monsters and magic.

Might well be worth splitting the encounter tables up into separate events if you're struggling for cards.  Would also streamline things a little. Hell, you could even split the shore/shallows/deep up, and dispose of the clear sailing cards entirely - just have them only take effect in the relevant area. Though that would risk some spoilers perhaps (though no more so than having an event for each on the same cards).

Not struggling for Cards persay. More filling in the events, I have an idea of some basic ones like posted FallacyofUrist, but its more of the things that you would see around the place that are more unique. The goal is to have around 40-50 cards, 40% are Clear Sailing, 10% are Bad Events, 10% are Good Events, 5% are Unique Events and 35% are Encounters, be they other ships or landmasses like I gave in the example before. Thing is that they also need to be spread over the 3 locations, some will be doubled up simply such as Sails on the Horizon could easily appear on all 3 in one go, but others would make more sense seeing them in the Deep then the Shoreline such as a Treasure Ship or Monster Encounter...

[BlackFlyme]

DM wants everyone to have an exact copy of their character sheets for him to keep, and for us to make new ones to give to him every session thereafter. So he can adjust the campaign's balance as needed, supposedly.

More likely, he's concerned about cheating. Possibly my fault for constantly changing my mind as to what I want for my character, and it being too much for people to remember. Or he's concerned about people using disallowed materials. Such as pretty much every book for Pathfinder.

[Neonivek]

DM wants everyone to have an exact copy of their character sheets for him to keep, and for us to make new ones to give to him every session thereafter. So he can adjust the campaign's balance as needed, supposedly.

More likely, he's concerned about cheating. Possibly my fault for constantly changing my mind as to what I want for my character, and it being too much for people to remember. Or he's concerned about people using disallowed materials. Such as pretty much every book for Pathfinder.

Or on the positivity approach he wants to mold the game according to the characters and their abilities and needs them as a reference.

[BlackFlyme]

Not This Guy. He'll happily have his DMPC wipe an encounter by himself. He had a side story all about how this DMPC is destined to destroy an ancient immortal Prismatic Dragon.

This is the bad DM/Problem Player I've been complaining about again, and again, and again, and etc.

Seriously though, he'll ban stuff, but still use it for himself. Or without actually checking if it is as broken as he claims.

The only player who is truly overpowered, other than the DMPC, is the Ranger/Paladin. The only other characters that can clear an entire room by themselves are the DMPC and the Wizard/Arcanist if he gets good damage rolls on his Fireball.

[My Name is Immaterial]

A lot of things sound great. How about some LowMagic events as well. Not just monsters and magic.

Have you played Sunless Sea? I think you might find some inspiration there.

[highmax28]

Not This Guy. He'll happily have his DMPC wipe an encounter by himself. He had a side story all about how this DMPC is destined to destroy an ancient immortal Prismatic Dragon.

This is the bad DM/Problem Player I've been complaining about again, and again, and again, and etc.

Seriously though, he'll ban stuff, but still use it for himself. Or without actually checking if it is as broken as he claims.

The only player who is truly overpowered, other than the DMPC, is the Ranger/Paladin. The only other characters that can clear an entire room by themselves are the DMPC and the Wizard/Arcanist if he gets good damage rolls on his Fireball.

Most i had for a DMPC was the party's first NPC ally who eventually became guildmaster of the local thieves' guild. It was obvious he was getting absurd amounts of wealth because after some sidetracking, he returned to the party with a lot of magical gear, and went from wearing basic leather armor and common clothes to the best he can possibly get as a 5e rogue and elegant travel clothes.

He was gonna be the surprise final boss for the entire game, where the party follows leads on my world's equivalent of Jack the Ripper (or joker, your pick) who mass murders people (he took out the entire night crew of guards tailing a fellow criminal who's a PC) and steals the souls of people and feeds the soul gems to a demon lord who gave him immortality and power since hes a warlock. When the party finally found out he was the town sheriff, because he killed the real one and stole his identity (they had the same name, and the biggest thing about it, is that the sheriff was supposed to be alive for the majority of the time there while the DMPC took over.

One of the things that lead the party to investigate the sheriff would be the body of someone resembling the sheriff who was mutilated, and by then, the party had obtained two soulstones (one of a party member, the other of the sheriff, both would be unknown until this point) and then it would make sense by the soulstone being near the body as the spirit was finally set free, telling the party he was the real sheriff, and that the one there is an imposter.

The party would then hav to figure out how to get into the guild and start a rather linear but VERY VERY rewarding questline into the underground network of the city, killing/apprehending the fences, the contacts, and so on, until they make it to the guildhouse itself, where they would, not only find several loved NPCs they liked there, but alternate characters that they made and swapped to (which was a big mistake on my end). They would also make it to what looked like the seat of the guildmaster with the warlock on a throne of sorts, surrounded by gold and soul gems. He would then battle the party after dragging them into the abyss, and then after they slay him in normal form, he would rise up again as a half demon, and then the party would not end up killing him, but rather watch him get pulled into the abyss by the damned once defeated.

When that ended, the party would then head out of the empty guild hall, with three people stopping them from leaving: the guildmaster, the head fence who was the party's beloved merchant of everything but what she advertised (she was a shoemaker who had everything but shoes in stock), and the resident badass who was the mercenary muscle of the guild AND the head of the underground pugilist's guild. The party could only turn the merc over down, but only one character could do it, the fence would fight the party regardless due to her friends (the fences and guild member PCs) being slain/apprehended, and the guildmaster himself would battle because he knows that since he's the leader, he has to fight, as reluctant as he would be to fight his closest friends and companions.

The fight was to play out very chaotically, with the fence pulling out her signature weapon, a portable ballista, the guildmaster using two blades that he had custom made for himself, and the pugilist leader using the full extent of being a Way of the Four Elements monk.

Once the party completed this quest, the city they were in would start to go into anarchy, and, if the party killed everyone, the guild is erased, but the town's sources of income and such are brought to such a low that everyone would become poor, and the city would just collapse. If the party killed most (70% or more) of the guild, the city's economy would drop, but the remaining guild members would try to stabilize the economy back to primarily using adventurers to buy and sell gear, providing new adventurers with things, etc, and people would still come. If the party left 70% or more alive, the guild reforms, but doesn't go as extreme and expansionist as it did before, and the econcomy of the town is still stable. Sparing everyone save the hitman would end up having the guild return but the guildmaster would eventually turn the guild's profits into forming his own town, which was an entire city based on commerce.

I wanted to do this and bring it to fruition, but I would either get salty players or one of the most heart wrenching games I ever played

[scriver]

A DMPC isn't just any NPC, though. The term mostly refers just to characters played by the GM like PCs in the party alongside the other players, often for no other reason than to realise his own power fantasies. It is a 99.99% negative label - a dmpc that was handled well is unlikely to be called a such due to it not being bad.

_{also wouldn't a portable ballista just be a crossbow}

[Jimmy]

Ocean island adventures?

Barbarian Halfling Cannibals.

[MrRoboto75]

An abandoned ship with every possible surface covered in crows.

or any old abandoned ship