Solo Leveling turned RP Campaign

This week I’ve decided to create an RP campaign inspired by Solo Leveling!

Solo Leveling is a web novel written by Chugong that was popular enough to be adapted into a Webtoons comic which has gone on to explode in popularity; it now has hard copy versions of the comic, an anime series, a video game, and many more adaptions and spin-offs in the works.

If you are a fan of anime in general, I recommend that you check it out! Please note that it does contain a number of violent scenes that may not be appropriate for younger audiences, so viewer discretion is advised.

Premise

Gates/portals open up throughout the planet which allow horrible and deadly creatures access to reaching the world and destroying mankind. The only thing keeping them from doing just that is a portion of the population that has somehow developed the abilities to enter into these portals and fight these creatures. A similar concept can be found in the movie Pacific Rim, but this definitely has more of afantasy vibe rather than mecha science fiction.

Let’s Build a Campaign!

World Building

Since this is an “inspired by” campaign, we won’t be copy and pasting the lore and setting of solo Leveling. Instead, we’re going to set this campaign in the year 2035 CE. Since it’s in the near future, it’s a world not much different from our own and feels familiar rather than the alienness of your typical fantasy medieval setting.

People still have access to modern, if not slightly more advanced, technology, and there are still the same basic societal structures in place.

In order to keep this fun and an “escapist” experience (see my video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFgYT99zomI about my thoughts on the fantasy

genre being a form of escapism), we’ll be keeping real-world politics out of it and just

have a general understanding of a stable but stressed government entities.

In this world, gates began appearing about five years ago (2030 CE), and with it came the strange powers of magic. Only a small portion of the population is able to wield and manifest it, and your players are a part of that exclusive group.

The main race are humans, but you can add in elves easily by having them come through one of the gates; rather than fighting against the humans, the elves decided to make an alliance and now work together with humans to eradicate the monsters while trying to find out the secrets of how the gates began to open and where all these terrible creatures actually come from.

If anyone is curious as to why we would need magic in a world with modern warfare technology, the simple explanation is that technology as we have it is completely ineffective against these creatures and against the dungeons that these portals open into. Weapons and gear need to be crafted from the rare materials found only in the dungeons.

Game Play

For this RP we’re going to have a similar feel to the old D&D. This means that we’ll be lighter on the storytelling and character development, and heavier on the dungeon crawling/exploring/surviving. This will be ideal for power gamers, people who love to test out builds, or anyone who enjoys being combat focused.

With game play like this, the GM can really lean into the dungeon builds! Each dungeon can have their own themes and can be the perfect opportunity to test out one’s craziest dungeon ideas. Puzzles, riddles, sheer grinding...anything and everything can fit into this world’s dungeons thanks to the nature of the gates.

You could even add a surprise element to some of the gates, such as a triggering mechanism in the middle of a dungeon that suddenly changes the dungeon rating to be much more difficult. A word of caution for a fun twist like this – be aware that scaling too much can kill all the characters off and prematurely end the campaign in a rather unsatisfying way; tread lightly, especially if you’ve never run anything like this before.

For extra fun, you can even do some GM swapping during this campaign, with each one bringing in their own dungeon idea and special rewards to fruition. In addition to being more battle-focused, this is campaign would have an added layer of risk in that resurrections spells are not available. The world is similar to ours and even with the introduction of magic, there are no “undo” buttons when it comes to getting your character killed. Choices are important and consequences can be heavy. This will put the fear of true mortality in your players. Due to the high risk in this game play, you should take the opportunity to give your players high rewards. Defeating dungeons can provide them with certain feats or spells automatically, and don’t forget about the rare materials that they can find in the dungeons that wouldn’t be available anywhere else in the world. Maybe they could even find some cool magical items!

Characters

Go ahead and use your favorite system! D&D, Pathfinder, etc., but keep the

following in mind.

•  Magic – it’s a new development in the world and only certain people can wield it (the “Awakened).

•  Divine magic modifications – when in the portals, the characters may hear the whispers from the divines that they are unknowingly tied to/associated with.

•  Stats – civilians are a base 10 or lower, so any person with higher stats are “Awakened.” We recommend that your players choose classes that have some magic abilities to them, but it is possible to build a character from a simple melee class like a fighter. You will just need to be sure that the dungeon drops some cool loot for them, like something that increases their DR or increases their rate of healing by a small amount. Have fun and get creative if your players want to take on this challenge!

RP Opportunities

If you’re interested in running a campaign like this, here are a few things that you can consider that can add more depth to your campaign:

• Since magic awakens in the select few during adolescence, how do the different governments react? Do they force people to join into the military? Or do citizens get to choose to volunteer or not? Do they join guilds depending on how the magic manifests?

•  If you have a guild, the organization can be affected by the outcomes of the sessions. If the guild suffers losses, this can affect their ability to clear dungeons and earn income plus any precious materials.  Do the guilds try to cooperate with each other or government agencies? Are they global?

• How do the losses of other guild members affect your players? As the story progresses, your party can hear the stories of other strong members that have gone off to defeat a dungeon only to have never returned. Does this inspire your party or make them fearful? All the while, you can be slowing ramping up the danger of the dungeons and increasing the frequency of the portals/dungeons appearing to increase the sense of urgency and dread.

Don’t forget that even though this is a battle-heavy campaign, there is still some storytelling and character development that needs to happen. In between being called to duty, the characters can deal with personal life or even guild business. Let the players have a bit of fun, and encourage them to consider the consequences of their magic, and how their work effects all other aspects of their life.

Will This Style of RP Work?

Yes! After having read through the above, you can probably already see how it would and might even be brewing a few ideas of your own on how to run this kind of campaign. But it might be encouraging to known that I have personally (and successfully!) run a campaign in Battletech that used this mission-to-mission play style. My players were part of a merc unit that had an RP element, but every session or two was basically being sent out to combat.

As stated in the beginning, this campaign is most going to be enjoyed by a certain kind of player, but I believe that there is enough opportunities to make it enjoyable for all.

We hope that you found this Solo Leveling inspired campaign to be interesting! If you give it a try, please let us know how your party fared and what fun dungeon ideas you came up with. We’d also love to hear about some of your own anime inspired campaigns, so please comment on our YouTube video or in our Discord channel or even in the comments below.

Until our next adventure!

Credit: Written By Meraki Forest