What is...The Island Resort and Casino and Spa?
The Island Resort and Casino and Spa (IRCS) is a D&D campaign module that I designed and ran back in late Summer-early Fall 2019. My motivation coming up with the Island was to make this the most fun possible for the players.
IRCS is a combat-aggressive module intended for a party of 4 player characters at 10th-11th level. It is a 5-day gauntlet against teams of CR 7-13 creatures, monsters and people alike, taking place throughout 8 playable map locations across the Island.
I'll introduce it with the pitch:
"IRCS is a Battle Royale island that functions on a combat-first basis. The party receives in response to their notoriety a direct invitation to come stay at IRCS from a devil concierge. But the players learn almost immediately that IRCS is no vacation, and they're thrown into the middle of a ranked team-based anarchy of fight and survival."
Imagine all of the elements that make up a Shonen anime Tournament Arc, including the emphasis on fun, themed teams. Here are a few examples: Slaad the Impalers, The "Yeet-i" Efreeti, Revenge of the Gith, Four's Company, and so on.
The IRCS module takes place over 5 in-game days and follows this general outline and pacing:
Day 1: Thrown into the mix; battle at once, assassin in the night, constant danger
Day 2: Receive pamphlet with a formal description and rules; introduction to the Island's NPC inhabitants
Day 3: Headliner fight direct challenge; "Casino" with defective magic items
Day 4: Mysteries! Shop prices double? Leaderboard #1 Dracula not on the island? NPC ally Jonesy disappears!
Day 5: Finale! No zone is safe, shops are closed, final boss
Epilogue: The party has survived and the coliseum institution is dismantled -> what next?
My intent was to create an inherently fun setting that allowed for flexible gameplay. And I had several ideas in trying to achieve this.
Firstly, the premise is to strip down the game to the basics and reintroduce more complex elements throughout the story. In this case, "the basics" is referring to combat. Though combat is just the stepping-on point, and in response to how the players approach the island, the DM adds in pieces of intrigue.
Day-by-day, the players discover an underground and unregulated magic item market, get involved in the shady happenings of born-and-raised IRCS-ers, and soon after everything is amiss. The Leaderboard rankings must be fraudulent: the party is always lower than they should be, and the perpetual #1 Dracula has never been seen by anyone on the island. And then the party learns that the pamphlet is a lie! There are no safe zones, no point system, no law and order...
Apart from the introduction and story progression, there are several other design factors I incorporated into the Island. The party is supposed to be able to play however they want. This is because the module is on a timer: 5 days, and then the Island institution is dismantled. So aggressive players can fight to make the top of the Leaderboard. And cautious players can stay out of trouble, survive, and investigate the mysteries. Meanwhile, everything still runs smoothly, and the campaign concludes satisfyingly (in theory; my players played the aggressive route).
There is a lot of freedom, as well, for the DM to customize the campaign. The 5-day timeline and story beats are guidelines and provide a framework to inject original story developments and campaign-recurring NPCs and more, in place of or in addition to what I wrote for the Island. The combatant teams also can be easily swapped out or nerfed/buffed in order to account for lower/higher level players (I include in the Module notes a few examples for alternate teams).
IRCS was a fun, and I'd say, successful, experiment. It helped teach me the important lesson as a DM to not over-complicate things. IRCS starts out at a very base level: fight to survive. And then it is free to evolve from there, depending on what works for the players and their decisions. IRCS also avoids certain roadblocks and railroading that may occur for a more linear or prescribed story with objective-based progression. I was a fan of how the 5-day time scale and handful of simple, automated background events played out.
What do you think? Does this sound like a campaign module that you'd want to run or to play?
How do you think that your players would approach the challenges of the Island? Or, if you are a player, which team would you challenge to combat first?
More importantly, what's your team name? My players settled on "Dio's Holy Divers," after their rogue Dio.
And what could I do better with designing this campaign? More story? More quest goals? More sandbox-style and less prescribed events? More or less than 5 days in the timeline?
Let me know your thoughts. I hope I've piqued your interest. And feel free to reach out if you want a copy of my resources to run the campaign.
