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Hello everyone! I am putting together a campaign inspired by an anime I recently finished, Sword Art Online. In the show, players are locked in a virtual world until they complete all 100 levels of the tower Aincrad, but if their character dies in game, they die in real life. The people who will be playing have given me positive feedback to try a long-term campaign like this, but I'm going to need some help fleshing it out. Here are some of the concepts I've come up with so far

1- The campaign will run off the Pathfinder ruleset, basically D&D 3.5 for those who have never tried it.

2- It will use a modified leveling system to add more depth and give players a reason to continue playing after the first few floors.

3- A gathering and crafting leveling process is being worked out to give a slight MMO feel to the item creation in the game.

4- Multiple player parties will be running the same world at the same time. This way my different groups can hop into another session if they have to miss something, but they will still have a knowledge of the world without having to explain an entire backstory to them. This will also help simulate an MMO, and players will be able hear and ask about other players characters and accomplishments in the game.

5- Permadeath. Characters in the game will die when their HP is reduced to 0. No resurrections. Healing is also severely limited, forcing players to play smart and tactically in order to survive all 100 levels. When a player dies, they will have to start a new character with no items or money, however keeping a portion of their previous XP is being looked into (so a lvl 18 character isn't permanently behind the rest of the party because of a mistake). This XP percentage will probably be related to the number of floors cleared by all the players up until that point.

6- Persistent characters. Characters will be able to carry on certain tasks in between sessions, as if their characters are living out their own lives in the players absence. These tasks will be things like farm for gold on a lower floor, look for crafting materials, seek out potential questing opportunities, and so on.

7- Player housing and fortifications will use a similar style to the Pathfinder Kingmaker campaign setting. Players will be able to create a structure for their party or "guild" and expand and improve on it to provide better stores and item options. This will also be a potential way to make extra money during the campaign.



9- Each level will have its own miniature world map, and each will be different from each other similar to multiple planar realms. This is where I hit my first snag. Only 30 of the 100 levels have any sort of reference or detailing behind them, so I need help coming up with 70 different biomes and map ideas to fully flesh out this castle.

I understand most people on here aren't avid RPGers, but I'm sure there are enough of you here to help me come up with something, or at least point me in the right direction. Once I have fully fleshed this campaign out, I will post a link for anyone else who wants to play/run it to give it a go.

I'm familiar with the anime. I recall it being better than a lot of the ones I've seen, though that's not saying much.

Are you incorporating just the mechanics of the world in your game, or are you actually using the plot itself? Special abilities handed out based upon extraordinary stats or unconventional fighting methods comes to mind. I'm picturing how the protagonist was the only person who had two-weapon fighting, though I wouldn't restrict the use of a basic feat necessarily.

Usually MMO elements in roleplaying games makes things a bit cringy, at least, for me, as are completely replicating pre-existing plots, especially when other people might already know them, or know where they can read the plot for spoilers. If that's not a concern, then by all means.

One game I ran was in a demiplane where there was no ressurection magic (limited magic in general). It was created by wizards who put large numbers of people in there and watched how they interacted for "fun". It was somewhere between a game and watching a sports game on tv. They all had pet people they wanted to have succeed, and would quietly interfere with their lives to make sure they wound up better than the others, but not so much that any of the other wizards discovered. Really, it was a bit closer to the Riverworld Saga books than Sword Art.

Balance is another concern. I've found that the more custom stuff you throw into a campaign, usually the trickier it becomes to keep a level playing field. If you think you're up to the task though, good for you!

It sounds interesting at any rate. Hope it goes well for you.

It's mostly just using the world with hints at the series. I don't want to copy the story because that would give anyone who has actually seen the show an unfair advantage. By using Aincrad as the world the players use, the campaign will never get stale. Each floor can have its own minor plot, with different scenery and monsters to fight, with a major plot arcing across all 100 levels. No resurrection was just a fun twist that will make players approach scenarios more seriously.

I've never seen the anime, but did Aincrad still exist by the end of the anime?
I've found using the world of a setting after the event it was based around, allows for a much more creative approach and a little less of a chance of accidentally breaking the anime's canon. Just give a reason for people to still exist in the setting.

Here's an example of a possible setting if you're looking for one. What if several players were still in the game by the end of the anime and had to find a way out? Say, there's a hacker that got into the game and brought back some of these players to life and rule over them in the game. Same goal as the anime (escape), but with a different antagonist, he or she might have different tricks than the antagonist of the anime. From that example, there's a main antagonist (the hacker) a reason for Aincrad to be restored if it was destroyed (resurrected by hacker) and a reason for the characters to still be in Aincrad (resurrected by Hacker) This is just an example of course.

Best of luck and have fun!

 SkavenLord wrote:
I've never seen the anime, but did Aincrad still exist by the end of the anime?
I've found using the world of a setting after the event it was based around, allows for a much more creative approach and a little less of a chance of accidentally breaking the anime's canon. Just give a reason for people to still exist in the setting.

Yes and no. In Sword Art Online, there was a eponymous MMORPG computer game that also incorporated technology that directly linked the player's nervous system to the game. Spoilers below for people who care and have not watched it.



In actuality, playing this RP after the events of the anime would be missing the point.