12/27/2019 How to make an Indiana Jones-like campaign - Tribality

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Tomb of Annihilation
Thumbnail art by Rafael Chies
Tales from the Yawning Portal

Last month I nished Tomb of Annihilation as a player. Being a big fan of the adventuring style
Storm King’s Thunder
Indiana Jones-vibe genre in pretty much any media I completely adored the adventure. I am pretty
tired, however, of WotC modules and would like to recreate something of the sort myself someday.
Curse of Strahd

I went rewatch the Indiana Jones movies and decided to write down the core aspects to make that Rage of Demons: Out of the Abyss
genre come to life in RPG adventures. Hopefully, these will be useful enough for you to introduce in
your next story arc or campaign: Elemental Evil: Princes of the
Apocalypse

Exploration is the key element Tyranny of Dragons

Out of the three D&D pillars, Exploration is the one which should be the most prominent in this kind
of campaigns. No matter if you are crawling through temples, traveling through the desert, tundra or
jungles, or inspecting a weird pyramid from a forgotten god, you should not forget to make use of the TRIBALITY
other two pillars, though. Exploration will work as your main core throughout your sessions, but it
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could not be easier to implement Combat and Roleplay.

What is it the players will be exploring for? Are they looking to uncover a myth? Maybe they were paid
to gather some treasure before it falls into the wrong hands. Were the players led to discover what is
causing beasts to mutate in a region? Plenty of these adventure hooks speak about possible enemies,
leading to combat. However, they could always talk their way out of these troublemakers or scare the
beasts away through roleplay. This leads us to our next topic:

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It is not necessary to have a present villain or antagonistic organization against the players. Traps and TRIBALITY PUBLISHING

monsters can do the work. Another possibility is to have di erent villains varying depending on the
zones they are located in. If they reach some strange city that doesn’t allow strangers to pass its
doors, you could have some key to a temple be in there to make that city government be (in a way)
the villains. Not only that, but you could also pull o a Heist in there.

If you do want to have a long-lasting villain, there are some well-known tropes you could use. A secret WHAT IS TRIBALITY?
organization is looking for the Lost arc, just like the players do. It’s only a matter of fact of who gets
the MacGu n rst. What if there is an antique civilization trying to stop the players from getting a
[Link] is an ENnie nominated webs
treasure from their hands? Maybe the nal boss is just a super powerful death knight awaiting the
which provides a collection of advice,
players. Why is that person the villain? You decide!
homebrews, tools, research, news and ot
fun tabletop RPG stu for Gamemasters a
Adventure Hooks Players.

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Why would a player character spend an entire campaign’s time exploring the wilderness or forgotten
tombs? Make sure to create adventure hooks for the players to build characters around those. You REQUEST AN ARTICLE
can even ask them to come up with good ones to use. There does not need to be some world-ending
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event like in Tomb of Annihilation going on for the PCs to adventure. All of them could have a pretty
di erent reason. As long as the reasoning behind the adventuring doesn’t become a bother for the ADVERTISE ON TRIBALITY
rest of the player group there is no problem for that player to choose it.
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RECENT COMMENTS

Gary Benva
A Guide to Roleplaying Goblins
Fantastic!!!! Awesome article, Thanks so much!
And Happy Holidays!
yesterday

Goblintrain
Gunslinger Archetype: The Musketeer
Art by Kyle Maurer I'm not sure what other class features you
were using as a reference point, but i am wonde
if you might be too conservative on the armor.
Create a reason for puzzles to exist Medium armor is perfect for this character -but

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12/27/2019 How to make an Indiana Jones-like campaign - Tribality
personally, i do not see anything wrong with
 jus
The Indiana Jones/ Tomb Raider/ Uncharted genre would not be as good as it is, in my opinion, if
scrapping...
there weren’t puzzles for the protagonists to solve. That is why you need to think of a reason for
2 days ago
there to be puzzles to nd in your exploring with which you can reward your players. The trope I like
using the most is having some antique civilization living long ago that were fans of trying explorers to
Brandes Stoddard
see if they deserved their treasures. Super cliché, I know. However, you can add your own twist to it: Is Long-Term Pursuit
it because they are looking for “The chosen one”? Do they just use riddles as a way to venerate some Yes, this is interstitial material that manages
god? Maybe they are just looking for someone to decipher “The ultimate puzzle” they could never tension for you between other encounters.
solve. one week ago

Luke M. Marchant
Traps Long-Term Pursuit
My initial thoughts are that there aren't any
actual choices for the players to make; it's all the
Possibly one of the most important aspects of this genre is the dungeon crawling. In addition, we all
rolling the group checks determined by the
know that no ancient civilization’s temple can exist without some sort of deathly traps collection. complication. If there are no choices, I'm of the
Blades appearing from the side, submerging tunnels, closing walls and collapsing structures are only opinion that there is no gameplay. This is
some of them, and you can steal millions more from movies, series, books or videogames. As this was something that...
not enough, both the DMG and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything have entire sections dedicated to one week ago

traps, both simple and complex. Gather some of them up. You will need them to exterminate the PCs.
Brandes Stoddard
Long-Term Pursuit
If you do, let me know how it goes!
one week ago

Tomás Giménez
Long-Term Pursuit
This is nice It never occurred to me to run the
classical "We must evacuate the whole city by fo
scenario. With these rules it could become a pre
memmorable experience! Awesome stu . I migh
consider adding a scenario like this in future...
one week ago

Cuix
DARK ALLIANCE – D&D Video Game
Announced
oh boy more Drizzt
one week ago

Tomás Giménez
DARK ALLIANCE – D&D Video Game
Announced
Yeah, the character's graphics do look like PS2 o
That may be because they could have used the
same models they use during gameplay (which
Art by Eddie Bennun
don't need to be perfect as the camera is far aw
from them and one can't notice the details).
Exotic cities for side missions However, it...
one week ago

It would not be weird for your players to get tired of all the exploring and want to do some city
Tomás Giménez
activities. A big issue many had with the Tomb of Annihilation adventure from WotC is that there were DARK ALLIANCE – D&D Video Game
not many places for the PCs to sell the stu they nd. I preferred the adventure that way, giving a Announced
greater sense of being lost in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, I get why some people can get fed I believe they are just trying to branch the Forgo
up from all the journeying. Realms lore by creating the best kind of gamepl
for the story they want to tell. Maybe the story f
Create some exotic cities for your players to nd in the middle of nowhere. Look through the internet this game might be too boring for the pen & pap
or for some kind of Baldur's Gate like...
for how cultures from di erent countries work and implement them. If you are scared you may be too
one week ago
insulting to those cultures by not being able to fully represent them, just grab some weird activities
and mash them all up in one settlement. The kind of media we are trying to imitate in this adventure
Wyvern
often introduces recluded societies whose cultures are pretty di erent from ours. DARK ALLIANCE – D&D Video Game
Announced
I actually don't nd the graphics all that bad; the
problem is the jerky camera motion, which is cle
a failed attempt to capture the frenetic nature o

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12/27/2019 How to make an Indiana Jones-like campaign - Tribality
battle. It's a stylistic choice that's easily corrected

you look at still frames,...
one week ago

Art by Eddie Mendoza

Additional things

Hexcrawl
POPULAR STORIES
Exploration adventures and hexcrawls go hand in hand. What exactly is a hex crawl? I won’t go into
full detail now as it is not really the point of this addition (but may do an article about them sometime D&D 5th Edition Resources
soon). What you need to know about it is that you need to show a map to your players of the area to
explore without providing important details in it. For each day they travel, there is going to be a high Player Build Guides (D&D 5e)
chance of a random encounter to happen. This makes the exploration aspect much more engaging,
while also easier to track the progress. Classes & Subclasses (D&D 5e)

Races & Subraces (D&D 5e)

Make it a survival campaign
Player Tools & Links
Take a look at my past Making food, drinks, and weight important article for some tips on how to
make your campaign much harsher on the players. This not only adds an extra di culty element to
GM Tools & Links
the game but also creates some great story moments. Starving players may decide to kill some nice
creatures that have treated them well in the past just to steal their food. This creates great character Magic Item Guide (D&D 5e)
development scenes, as well as when they need to decide who should drink the last gallon of water
left. Just make sure your players are in for this kind of game before you throw it at them. Naval Combat Rules (D&D 5e)

Havoc points mechanic Additional Combat Actions (D&D 5e)

If you are looking to make this adventure more similar to the stories from the media we’ve been 9 Magic Items for Rogues (D&D 5e)
talking about you might consider adding in some havoc or swashbuckling story elements to it. Check
out the Havoc Points mechanic I created as a homebrew rule in my 5 Homebrew Rules for your
games‘ article to add in some of these chaotic things to your game.
TAGS
Read Tomb of Annihilation
 D&D 5e  D&D  rpg  dm

This WotC adventure is by far one of the best in my opinion for 5e. It greatly recreates the style of
 world-building  dungeon-master
game I am talking about and there are tons of things you can take inspiration from, if not steal, from
there. Make sure to give it a full read before creating a campaign of this kind (or just go with that  homebrew  path nder  dmg
adventure as it is also great).
 character  adventure-design

 unearthed-arcana  D&D 4e
Conclusion
 D&D5E  monsters  combat

The action-adventury-exploration sort of campaign we are recreating is an awesome one. You only
need to see at the huge amount of content that has been released based around that theme to
understand it. Lots of great stories can come up from them, as well as everlasting memories. Will your
character become the new Indiana Jones, or become an extra corpse in the trap- lled tomb?
NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

Tell me of your tomb, or wilderness exploring best memories in the comments below! Maybe there
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can be some idea for some other DM to use for their own adventure! Sign up to receive our newsletter in your
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TAGS DESERT EXPLORATION INDIANA JONES JUNGLE TEMPLE TRAPS TUNDRA

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D&D combines most of the things I love into one: acting, improvising, using your
imagination, games in general, game design, "programming" sessions, creating a
believable and story rich narrative, and much more! What's not to like about it?

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Creating New Prime Worlds A guide to Hexcrawling, Part 2:

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crimfan • 3 months ago

I've been running the classic Desert of Desolation, which is a
great story and setting. You can follow the main plot---with this
group I've been doing that due to the fact that they have the
"herding cats" problem in spades---but there's also lots there that
can really be cool side quests. One justification for all the crazy
dungeons in the game I put in was that they were built as vaults
to hold the Star Gems (aka the McGuffins that the PCs need to
collect to complete the prophecy from 1000 years ago). I highly
recommend it.

I really wish I'd banned all food creation spells and would
seriously encourage retooling character abilities that let the party
ignore challenges. The ranger should be good to have and a real
help but should not make it impossible to get lost. That's just not
good. I also think that the darkvision and easy light spells is a
huge barrier to getting that Indiana Jones feel. Again, these are
things I'd encourage people to change and be clear about in a
Session 0.
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Jesse • 3 months ago

From a logical aspect, traps are probably meant to be one of
several things:
- keep something out like the traps warding the tombs of the
pharaoh. These traps were meant to prevent others from stealing
the valuables there.
- keep something in. The complex could be riddled with traps to
discourage whatever's there from trying to escape. If the original
inhabitants are no longer there it could mean they died off or the
traps were ineffective against them.
- a failed puzzle turned deadly or a deadly puzzle.
- Also note that you wouldn't likely trap the areas around where
you sleep, as it would be hazardous to your workforce. Traps
would be in areas where there is treasure, supplies, magical
weapons, etc.
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Jeremy Forbing • 4 months ago

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