Massive Zelda Campaign Plan - Help I'm New

[Cosmosis93]

Hello Everyone,

I'm brand new to FG but I've played D&D once, and from the start I always wanted to make my own campaign. I believe FG might have most of the tools I need to make it happen just bought an Ultimate license with no clue what I'm doing or where to start

I really want to make a campaign inspired by Zelda 2D Game elements. Oracle of Ages, Seasons, and A Link to The Past

I want to be able to make the Harp of Ages to travel between Past and Present Versions of a map (or between 2 separate areas)

The Rod of Seasons to switch between seasons (again changes the surroundings or moves to a new map that reflects changes, for example a lake turns to Ice to walk over, or Vines grow to make a cliff scalable, The Sun dries up a lake to reveal a dungeon, etc)

Portals to a Dark World, a flipside alternate world, for example a fiery volcano type dungeon would be an ice mountain dungeon in this alternate map, with enemies and items reflecting this Binary.

With time travel being an aspect I'd like certain events in in the past to affect the future.


I need to know everything I'd need to get this started, I don't even know which rulebook to use or anything about rulebooks. I am total beginner with a vision in mind but no idea how to implement it. I'd appreciate any help and advice, maybe a link to any existing Zelda campaigns I can watch to get an idea.

Anything helps, Thank you,
Cos

[Zacchaeus]

Well you are certainly jumping in at the deep end.

You'll first of all need to decide what ruleset you are going to use (assuming you aren't going to write your own). AFAIK there's no Zelda ruleset (not entirely sure what Zelda even is) so you'll probably be looking at the CoreRPG or MoreCore rulesets. You'll find details on MoreCore here https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...eCore-Rulesets

Mapping is a whole other ballgame and I'd suggest that you start with Josh's tutorials on the Fantasy Grounds YouTube channel. He also streams once or twice a week, Sign up with the Fantasy Grounds newsletter or facebook pages to get details of when that happens.

Some links here https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...geId=996704381

And you should probably read the user manual as well https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassia...ty+User+Manual

[LordEntrails]

None of these things (portals, time travel, magic, ...) are a problem except when you say "Massive" and "I need to know everything".

And that's not a problem with FG, it's with the practicalities of running a RPG campaign. Your campaign CAN BE epic, it can be all of those things. But EVERY campaign starts small. The characters (and players) only know the very beginnings of what might be. Trying to build an epic campaign before you start playing is a mistake. That's my opinion based on over 40 years of playing RPGs.

An epic campaign, a massive world and setting is something built through play and interaction with the characters.

Start small; what races, classes, and backgrounds are you going to allow your players to use? Get or create a regional map of the starting area. Get or create a map/panoramic for the starting location. Outline (not detail!) 3 organizations; their motivations and resources. Outline 3 current events that may draw the party in (rats in the basement, a missing grandfather, a reward for the return of an heirloom). Don't prepare more than you need, and what you prepare should be modular so that you can re-use it when your party goes in a different way (i.e. don't write a story you expect the players to follow).

Most of this is not just me saying this, you can find lots of similar advice in this post I put together with links to GM resources.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...6014-GM-Advice

[Cosmosis93]

None of these things (portals, time travel, magic, ...) are a problem except when you say "Massive" and "I need to know everything".

And that's not a problem with FG, it's with the practicalities of running a RPG campaign. Your campaign CAN BE epic, it can be all of those things. But EVERY campaign starts small. The characters (and players) only know the very beginnings of what might be. Trying to build an epic campaign before you start playing is a mistake. That's my opinion based on over 40 years of playing RPGs.

An epic campaign, a massive world and setting is something built through play and interaction with the characters.

Start small; what races, classes, and backgrounds are you going to allow your players to use? Get or create a regional map of the starting area. Get or create a map/panoramic for the starting location. Outline (not detail!) 3 organizations; their motivations and resources. Outline 3 current events that may draw the party in (rats in the basement, a missing grandfather, a reward for the return of an heirloom). Don't prepare more than you need, and what you prepare should be modular so that you can re-use it when your party goes in a different way (i.e. don't write a story you expect the players to follow).

Most of this is not just me saying this, you can find lots of similar advice in this post I put together with links to GM resources.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...6014-GM-Advice

Hi LordEntrails,

Thank you for your reply. As far as quest, story, areas, characters, I have that all planned, I just don't know how to put that into FG

[Trenloe]

As has been eluded to above - there are many different RPG systems out there. What RPG system are you thinking of using for your campaign? D&D 5e? Pathfinder? DCC? Another system that is already supported on Fantasy Grounds? Or thinking of using the bespoke, fan made RPG system designed for Legends of Zelda: https://reclaimthewild.net/ that doesn't have a FG ruleset.

I know you're a total beginner, so this may be a big leap in terms of asking what underlying rules you'll be using. If you played D&D before, and you enjoyed the system, then it's probably best to look at using that - it's very well supported on Fantasy Grounds, and you have the main ruleset framework and OGL data included with your FGU license.

[LordEntrails]

Hi LordEntrails,

Thank you for your reply. As far as quest, story, areas, characters, I have that all planned, I just don't know how to put that into FG

Ah, ok. Look at the link in my signature to "Adventure Module Creation". You will want to break things up into multiple development campaigns. Perhaps by region, faction, or timeline. Maybe one for each time/season? You will have to think about that and decide based upon where you think the logical break are. Depending on how you break things up, you might also want one for all your magic items and NPCs, that way you can use them in multiple other development campaigns without copying them.

[Cosmosis93]

Hi Trenloe,
I'm unfamiliar with any rulesets, I just know the 1 campaign I played was Pathfinder. Looking for suggestions on what ruleset to use. I'll take a look into that Reclaim the Wild Rulebook. Is it easy to transmit that to FG?

[Cosmosis93]

thank you, I'll look into that

[Trenloe]

I'll take a look into that Reclaim the Wild Rulebook. Is it easy to transmit that to FG?

I'm unfamiliar with the mechanics of that ruleset myself - I found it 20 minutes ago by doing an Internet search for "Zelda RPG"

[Cosmosis93]

Looking through it now, a lot of it sounds like gibberish to me and there's a lot of things from it I'd want to add to my campaign, and a lot I don't want. Can I pick and choose things?