Mid-Colonial Island Adventure Setup & System HelpHello fa/tg/uys and a happy new year. I'm planning a new campaign and would appreciate your collective wisdom. I'll lay out the pitch and would like your thoughts, ideas, and especially system recommendations.The year is roughly equivalent to the early 1700s. The players are new arrivals or long-term residents of an island colony. Mere weeks after their arrival it becomes apparent that no ships from the homeland arrive. Ships sent out for help or trade simply vanish. The colony is now utterly isolated. Resources are finite, society is beginning to crack, and the unexplored interior holds ancient secrets.>Resource ScarcityNo contact with the outside world. Every nail, bolt of cloth, and ounce of gunpowder is precious. Gold is the main currency, and it matters—for buying scarce supplies, hiring help, bribing officials or mayby hiring trainers if gold can be tied to character advancement.>Low-to-Mid MagicMagic is rare. Players won't be casting spells at the start. It's something discovered in the forest ruins or bargained for with strange spirits mid-campaign. Church sanctioned magic is the exception with high ranking members of the faith having access to considerable magical power.>Healers for Hire There are a few lowly priests of the faiths that can perform rudimentary healing rituals but demand some gold or favors. This type of healing and warding, especially against diseases, is used by the church to maintain power and influence. They're NPCs, not party members, at least initially and the most common source of magic.>Zero to HeroI would really like for the player to start really low powered. More akin to semi-skilled commoners than competent adventures and it should take time for them to actually become strong and capable. I would like for them to eventually become big players in the island. Maybe even hold titles or positions of power.
>>97271332Part 2Faction Tensions:>The Loyalists The Governor and his men. They want to maintain order, uphold colonial law, and "keep the faith" for the day rescue comes. Desperate to maintain control. >The Separatists Colonists, planters, and merchants who see the isolation as an opportunity to throw off the distant emperor's yoke and rule themselves. >The Natives Not a single group. Some tribes trade cautiously, others are hostile, while others have been half-integrated(and converted) to colonial society as menial labourers and all know the island's secrets better than the colonists. I'm looking for system recommendations. I need a system that can offer detailed resource and gold management, dangerous combat , decent skill/profession systems and most importantly a satisfying progression from low-powered to highly capable plus optional magic rules that can be introduced later. The zero to hero journey is important to me. I would also like some ideas to steal. Adventures and conflicts that may arise in the island. Majour NPCs and maybe some antagonistic forces. The gist of it is that the players will be free to pursue their own goals and interact with the factions as they wish but I would like for a critical path to exist. Something the players can fall back to if they feel lost. Btw the reason behind the isolation shouldn’t be that important to the adventure. The focus will be on its effect.
>>97271332I have a suggestion. Start with the PCs being shipwrecked. That way, resources are limited, and you have an 'out' in that they can find caches that have washed up onto the shore or fight people to get the stuff. Like the ship probably had cannons or something, but they're somewhere elsewhere on the island now.
>>97271341This, also have the survivors be spread out too. Founding a colony from scattered survivors and supplies in a deadly frontier sounds more interesting than managing some poor shitheap that was already there.
>>97271332>>97271337Sounds interesting but I question whether people would be using gold as currency in this scenario instead of being concerned strictly with things that help their ability to survive in the immediate future. Are people going to be trading something they can eat or fight with for something they can't?
>>97271341>>97271405I didn't imagine the colony as poor. Not necessarily thriving but still an established colony with at least one main city and farms and outposts spread out. Also If I go with the shipwreck route the fact that the island is suddenly cut off from the world will be irrelevant and the plot of separatist group taking advantage of the situation will be thrown out along with how the various native tribes would react to a sudden swift in power. It will be a different situation altogether. More Robinson Crusoe and less Aguirre.>>97271449Food isn't the issue. There is plenty of food. What becomes rare are things that you needed to import. Like rare metals and gunpowder. Such things will skyrocket in price but you would still need a medium to trade with. I don't think that gold would lose it's value. Plus there is no guarantee that the situation is permanent, and if trade returns the ones hoarding gold will be better off that the ones hoarding potatoes.
>>97271531I see, this sounds like a perfect setup for a classic Westmarch game>City with some surrounding civilized hexes>Mostly unknown frontier, some good native settlements but also monsters and ruins full of ancient evil (maybe undead Aztecs) to explore and pacify>As players grow in power and influence they can start playing into the factional politics
>Chief hands over the party the peace pipe, do you accept his offer and roll for buffs On a more serious note, this sounds interesting, what about monsters? you plan to have them in your game?, there are plenty of creatures in native american folklore the most common being the wendigo which everyone knows but there are plenty of others most being evil hag witches, cannibal dwarfs, flying heads and bird or snake monsters that prey upon mainly dumb children that run away from tribe into woods
>>97271554Yeah something like that.>>97271671> what about monsters? you plan to have them in your game?Sure, monsters are neat and beyond that I would really like to make the wilderness feel strange and dangerous, especially at the early game.>cannibal dwarfsDidn't know about them. They sound cool as fuck. I already had this idea of cannibalistic tribesmen like Bone Totem. These dwarfs could probably play that role.
>>97271773https://www.legendsofamerica.com/teihiihan-cannibals/Yeah, they known as the Teihiihan, could be a scary dangerous encounter for the players to face
>>97271773If you want a Westmarch style 1700s game with rare magic then I would recommend two systems>Old-School EssentialsA fan made expansion of pre-1e dnd. Has a big emphasis on sandbox play and factions. Early spell casters are weak, only knowing 1 spell. Explicitly tells you at what stage players should form their own settlements and have faction-level power>ACKSSame as the former, but much more autistic and granular
