As we were recording the last segments of our new Dungeon Master Guys podcast (it’s coming, we promise), Newbie DM’s subject was how he dealt with players requesting a PC change during a campaign. I’m sure you’ll like the approach he presents on the show.
Here’s my way of addressing it, “What if…? style”.
The Epic x year old campaign
One of the things that still bewilders me after nearly 30 years of RPGs is how many of us insist on following specific conceits that were rarely, if ever, hardwired in the rules. For instance, what’s with having such long campaign lengths and the necessity to stick with the same PC as long as it remains alive? I’ve talked to so many people online and during cons bemoan that they can’t try a new class or a new RPG because ‘we’re playing this one epic campaign, maybe after…’
Say What? Why must so many campaigns be these epic tales lasting x amount of actual real life years? Why is it so important to ‘get to the end of the game’? Who decides that the goal of the game is to reach level 20 (D&D 3.x) or 30 (4e) with the same character? And more importantly, must all players of a group adopt the same philosophy?
(Rhetoric questions here… I know why… so do you… I’m just challenging the ‘must’ of it all)
Not that there’s anything wrong with the model. There’s a definitive sense of accomplishment in bringing a group of PCs from the bottom to the top of a game’s scale. Hell, my group still reminisces fondly about that level 1 to 18 D&D 3.x campaign that we played for a big chunk of the mid naughts (It included a full run in Monte Cook’s Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). Yet, I’ve been around long enough to see people play the same campaigns for so long, without arguable fun and enthusiasm, for years for reasons that baffle me:
- We don’t feel like starting at level 1 again (who the hell says that you have to?)
- We don’t want to switch game system (one of my friends plays D&D 2e once a year, because the DM spent hasen’t used his material yet)
- We want to see the logical end to our stories (that’s actually a great reason… but do you ever challenge if that story played out like 2 years ago?)
- People played like that in 19XX and so do we (I respect that, just not the fanatic orthodoxy of it, moving on)
- Because that’s how my DM wants to do it (Ah yes. Trickier. Dying is a good solution here)
Now if you’re reading this and are saying “well you don’t have to” or “we don’t do that” orthen I’m not targeting you specifically. All these are either conscious choices or not so obvious mental barriers. Yet, believe me, as obvious as they are and as easy it is to criticize them from outside, such barriers are hard to acknowledge or break down.
Back when I played D&D 3e (and its arguably legitimate sibling 3.5), it was assumed by our gaming group that the way to play that game was to go 1-20 with the same PCs and start anew at 1st when the campaign eventually collapsed on itself somewhere between the 6-24 month point (at level 10-15). One of my frustrations with the gane was that all those cool splatbooks were coming up and we couldn’t try all the new classes and options that came out because we were ‘stuck’ in our campaign model.
So when 4e came out, I decided otherwise…
The Short Mini-Campaign.
I initially posted the idea about 2 years ago. It basically asked a series of, you guessed it, What if… questions.
What if D&D campaigns only lasted as long as it normally takes to play an average full-length published adventure (ex: Thunderspire Labyrinth)?
What if time passed between those campaigns where PCs would not be adventuring?
What if they could pursue other story-related interest?
What if some PCs would retire and others join the party (at the same level)when they are next called into action?
What if we did this at least as long as we felt like exploring the game’s leveling up process?
We did all that… and thus, we’ve been able to switch most of the party to PHB2 classes when it came out and we’re now considering adding PHB3 classes (on top of Mike’s Monk) to our Gears of Ruin lineup. We got to play with the toys we bought as they came out! And it still fits our current needs for story. Especially with the use of my party creation template which cuts tremendously in the time needed to get the party/players to mesh together as a group.
We’ve been doing this for 2 years now and I’m highly satisfied with the result. In instances where the story gripped us by the throat (especially in my Primal/Within and Gears of Ruin campaigns), it was exceedingly fun. In some instances however, the short gaming periods prevented to establish clear stories and goals for the PCs and the game felt more like cardboard cutouts of generic fantasy campaigns. The initial campaign concept will affect the effectiveness of the technique.
So I’m telling you. The campaign does NOT have to be a day to day account of the PCs’s adventures from level 1 to 30. Feel free to add months and years where PCs settle down, become heralds/ambassadors or warriors. They don’t gain levels because they aren’t being truly challenged by what they do… which would eventually push them back to the adventuring life.
So what’s your default campaign mode? Multi-year things? A few months? As long as it doesn’t crash? Hyper gamer ADD mode that last one session?
Would you consider my proposal? You tell me!
See ya after Pax.
It was on a podcast when I first heard your idea about swapping out characters of the same level through the course of a campaign, and my reaction was, predictably, “What?! You can’t do that!” Then another part of my brain said, “Why can’t you do that? Shut up!” And then my spleen got involved and it was a huge mess.
Anyway, this is a perfect slice of genius. Sometimes it’s necessary for some voice in the wilderness to give permission to the rest of us. You have been heard!
Crazily long games are kind of a natural mode for me. The first game world I ever played in was my father’s AD&D world from college. The game he set there lasted for more than twenty years, through 400 years of history and four complete generations of characters. Many of these were played straight from 1st through 16th level or so; but others started at a higher level, cameoed or died early. Playing in a campaign like this can be pretty awesome. But there’s a lot of hidden traps to it that can kill the fun, and long epic stories in particular have lots of pitfalls.
One thing to remember is that long-running worlds really do work best with a more episodic story, rather than a really complicated, evolving, and intricate tale of intrigue. Not only do you need to keep topping yourself along the course of a story arc, but a lot of players don’t remember what happened two weeks ago, let alone last year. If you are weaving a very tangled tale, you need to play very regularly (I’d say weekly, or biweekly at the absolute minimum). The primary theme or goal of the campaign should be fairly simple and come up in play often. It also helps if lesser objectives are mostly short-term – Otherwise, people start to lose focus on what is going on. And it really *really* helps if one of the PCs hoards maps, takes assiduous notes, and has a fantastic memory.
One big hit against epic stories is that some people get bored of characters and constantly want to shuffle out. Story or no, it is entirely understandable that they would want to do this. For that reason, and because they might die, its very dangerous to make a given PC the lynchpin of the story. One way to make this work better is for the party to acquire a cohesive group identity by which people can know them. For example. if you’ve ever read any of Glen Cook’s Black Company series, usually only a few of his villains care in the slightest about (or even know the name of) any particular protagonist. The thing that puts them squarely in the bad guys’ camp is usually a grudge or scheme against the Company as a whole.
Another pitfall is that changing characters works on a very case-by-case basis. Sometimes you need to start them at a higher level, because the player wants to try a new prestige class or weird character concept. Sometimes a character *should* start lower than the rest of the party. Maybe you have a new player who might be turned off by the complexity of a high-level PC, or folks who want to take over a favorite henchman, or somebody trying a complicated class they’ve never played before. Except that then you get to deal with the headaches of a mixed-level party. And how well *that* works depends a lot on what you are playing. I suspect the main reason people don’t do much mixed-level adventuring anymore is because recent editions are very poorly scaled for it. 4e makes starting low a good bit harder, because the enemies you face will quickly reach a point where a 1st-level character can only hit them on a 20. And in anything based on 3rd you should probably give up on any difference of more than two or three levels. On the other hand, the various flavors of old-school D&D are good for starting low because the statistical benefits of levels scale slowler (and slow to a *crawl* once you hit name level), and the mostly-doubling-every-level experience requirements mean anyone who’s behind will just about be caught up by the time the others advance a full level.
One good way to have the best of both worlds is to run several short campaigns in the same setting. If there’s a little narrative distance between your old characters and your new ones, you avoid having the retirees constantly meddling in the young whippersnappers’ business. The old endgame of strong characters building a stronghold and retire to it is incredibly convenient for that, but disappearing into the sunset or being away on business often is pretty good too. There’s lots of awesome potential in the occasional crossover, but you generally don’t want to overdo it.
But the most critical thing to bear in mind is how to keep the Main Thing the Main Thing. What makes a long game attractive is getting to continue the story, and *see* the really long-term results of your actions. Taking lots of off-camera downtime is often a boon for this – although again, that’s often hard to do if you are running a story-driven adventure. Generally to have a compelling story, you need to have some sort of time constraint to keep the drama pressing. But if you are running a long game? Slow down the pace. Stick ten years in between two set of characters. Or a hundred. The payoff is that much more awesome – from the immortal Lord Evilwizard still bearing the terrible scar your old thief gave him in a duel; to your graying fighter keeping bar at the Convenient Waypoint Inn; to your cleric retrieving the Holy Dingus of MacGuffin from the bottom of the temple well, and having to deal with the devious traps your archwizard planted there five years back.
I like to run longer campaigns that stretch multiple level ranges. However, I’m not against players swapping out characters during the campaign. We just had that happen in my current group, as we wrapped up Keep on the Shadowfell and I set hooks for the next big arc. There was a time where I probably would have resisted the idea, but I’m older and wiser now. 🙂
.-= Kameron´s last blog ..The Gulthias Tree =-.
@Dixon: Thanks man. Happy to have helped ya 🙂
@Mc Bigstrong: Excellent analysis that probably beat my own word count by a slight margin (Which I highly encourage by the way!). In essence, my post is one of those that point to a more subtle version of one-trueism in the classic heroic/dark-fantasy rpgs.
When you say that you can build the overarching story by having multiple smaller campaign in the same world, this is exactly what we did. Our Primal/Within story had 2 mini campaigns, the pre-election campaign and the City of the Overmind one. We already concluded our Gears of Ruin prelude and I predict at least one awesome mini-campaign coming up.
As for level, I agree with you. I just happen to be in a time in my gaming life that the whole XP/level thing bores me to tears and I have my whole group level by fiat when the story makes it most likely and everyone seems to have mastered their abilities.
Great comment!
@Kameron: It’s cool that you allow this. It’s the resistance I was challenging here and like you, I finally moved on to more flexible pastures. 🙂
“As for level, I agree with you. I just happen to be in a time in my gaming life that the whole XP/level thing bores me to tears and I have my whole group level by fiat when the story makes it most likely and everyone seems to have mastered their abilities.”
Heh. If I’m running a 3e/4e campaign, that’s often what I do too. Those games don’t handle mixed-level parties well anyway, so there isn’t much point to a more granular scale than plain old level. If you want mixed-level parties, though, having some kind of XP system is useful for offloading the pickier details of advancement onto the players without them realizing (muahaha). And sometimes I do like me some mixed levels. The hero/sidekick interplay can actually be a lot of fun if the players are really into it.
Or for spellcasters. Watching a new guy play a 3.5 druid and leaf through ten pages of stats the first time he tries to wild shape kills a little of my soul every time.
And I would never ever want to make someone to play a wizard they hadn’t played up from 1st. The guys who start spellslingers at 5th always seem to feel kind of lost after they’ve spent their high-level stuff. The scrabble-from-nothing phase at first level is where you really learn to squeeze the most use out of your cantrips, utility spells, illusions, summons, and charms. Not to mention its where they really develop that devious sneaky streak the best of them get.
Then again, I like tourists in Nethack, so its also possible that I’m just crazy.
The things you can do with a +5 Blessed Hawaiian Shirt and a Credit card man!
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Night’s The Only Time Of Day =-.
I think every single player of mine has swapped out a character or class during the campaign (with the exception of one stickler, but I think he enjoys being the exception at this point). Here’s my question in terms of changing the game: How do you handle throwing all that plot out the window?
I try to write my campaign around the characters and the players. Everyone has a big role to play, and every time they talk about changing characters I cringe. I put a lot of work into the destinies for these people, and then I have to go throw it all away and start again.
For the most part, I know, I just have to let go. But let me give you this example, and ask how you would handle it:
I have a player whose character is the mortal incarnation of the Raven Queen (and doesn’t know it yet). If her PC decides to quit the party, I would be completely flummoxed as to how to wrap up that plot point.
Recommendations? You know, just in case.
Great article!
In our group, we tend to play “campaign arcs” of 6-12 sessions, then switch settings/systems/GMs and play some other campaign arc. Sometimes a campaign arc will build off a previous one, but sometimes not. In between arcs we squeeze in a few one-shots or two-shots. All of this switching helps keep the GM fresh, helps us to experiment with new gaming styles and new characters, etc., and doesn’t prevent us from stringing together campaign arcs into a longer story if we wish. Even in a long-running epic campaign I would recommend breaking things up into these sorts of campaign arcs, with a few one-shots in between (run by some other GM), in order to give the GM a break and allow players to switch characters (if they want).
@Jenny: Stop planning so far ahead. Take a page from the writers of modern shows like Lost and BSG. Create long ranged, simple plots that are settings based and shorter character based ones. Don’t go more than 4-6 sessions ahead of yourself.
Focus on episodic character development. Make each adventure run around one or 2 PCs that will see their story unfold a bit and then close most of them leaving a few unanswered questions for when you refocus on them.
As for the Raven Queen thing? How about Orcus sending an exarch to destroy a RQ temple in some far off country that the rest of party doesn’t care about, then the PCs pops out, running to her.
Hell… when dealing with the Raven Queen, I’d just make the PC’s bed empty one morning, with a few black feathers and move on… letting the other players work it out.
And then dropping a Solo Augmented Owlbear that may or may not :
a) have eaten the retired PC
b) Be the retired PC
c) Be completely unrelated to the whole thing.
I could go on for hours 🙂 Also, your fast cycling players may not be the best suited for your own DMing style. You got to think about that too.
But the trick is to accept that like NPCs, plots are secondary to players in RPGs and to find techniques that you as DM are comfortable with and allows you to have fun.
Otherwise we’d spend our evenings in drama class and book clubs. 🙂
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Night’s The Only Time Of Day =-.
Heh, thanks! Funnily enough,as soon as I asked, I started coming up with some of the same scenarios. As far as whether my PCs suit my DMing style–since this is my original group, they often more or less define my style, something I am entirely comfortable with. We make jokes that the DM is the ultimate leader class–I’m there to support them and their adventures, and make sure they are having an awesome time, and I really really enjoy that. So if my Avenger / Goddess incarnate gets tired of her character, that’s totally her call. I just sometimes get paranoid that my ability to come up with plot may some day tap out.
However, I also like planning huge arcs of plot for my players-even if they never pan out. I just need to remember the lesson of George R. R. Martin and know that it’s totally okay to murder any of the characters in your play without just cause, and often makes the plot more poignant or epic.
.-= Jenny Snyder´s last blog ..Development snapshot: Maps and Encounters =-.
Jenny:
Another thing you could try is to come up with a handler that doesn’t break the plot for each of the three basic scenarios you might hit: Character stays; character leaves but is still around; and character dies.
What would further the plot about her leaving? Maybe one of her enemies learns what she is and captures her. Maybe she starts having dreams of a strange, darker destiny and becomes compelled to fulfill it. Maybe before incarnating, she set up some elaborate scheme to have herself abducted and brought around by one of her own agents. Maybe something triggers memories of who she is and she just leaves in search of her past.
And what would further the plot about her dying? Maybe she incarnated in some weird scheme to sacrifice herself to herself for obscure ends, or maybe her death would simply revive her in another vessel. Maybe it would completely screw up her reincarnation and she would have to appoint a mortal champion to finish her work. Or heck, maybe due to her nature as an avatar, she simply can’t be killed by mundane means, only inconvenienced.
Another solution to the character fatigue problem is to let players bring in a new character under the same name.
While it doesn’t work for players who get tired of their characters’ personalities, I have zero problem at all with a player just rebuilding a character from scratch, but leaving the character fluff exactly the same. You can easily carry over storylines for a character, and completely rebuild him as a different class.
I mean, if you break everything down to the basic mechanics, and ignore all the fluff, is there any particular reason that a rogue and an warlock can’t just be the same guy fighting with slightly different tactics? Even if it’s a change of role, like a paladin suddenly becoming a warlord, it’s a lot easier to explain than a character leaving, and immediately being replaced by somebody else.
Really, a complete overhaul of a character can even make for some interesting roleplaying options. Maybe the paladin who went warlord was injured in battle, and can’t do the front-line thing anymore, opting for a more supportive role. Maybe the rogue who went warlock lost his cool after a particularly traumatic event, and doesn’t have the patience for sneaking around.
This may present a best-of-both-worlds solution when players want to try something new, and GMs don’t want to have to write a favorite character out of the story.
Interesting, but I’m amazed at the people you know.
I know no one currently in a campaign over a year old except for one local Mutants & Masterminds campaign I played in but dropped out of.
I’d love to have the chance to belly up to the same table with the same characters for an AD&D game from level 1 to level 20 some day.
.-= Herb´s last blog ..Adding a Luck Stat to Classic D&D =-.
I’ve never had a problem with switching out characters. Not sure why, but starting from scratch and then leveling up to max sounds fun but also unnecessary. Eventually, I think I would get tired of always being the fighter or the healer. Some in my 3.5 DnD campaign like the familiar territory. One guy has never played anything except for a wizard type, at least for as long as I’ve been playing with this group. He simply likes magic users and while he has several chances to switch, he never has.
Myself, I like to switch all the time. I’m becoming infamous for making my next character completely opposite of my previous one. For instance, I had a slow Dwarf Cleric, so when he died, I made a fast Cleric (party still needed a healer) who was more reluctant to rush into battle, a problem the Dwarf never had. The only thing that is important is that I’m having fun and that each character has their own personality, something that has worked perfectly thus far.
Luckily, my DM lets us switch whenever we want or whenever we die. Some factors like party needs or story importance may play a small role, but there is not much restrictions on what you can pick. As long as you fill a role adequately and can figure out a reason for your character to leave, you’re fine. We also have some turnover with players, which makes it interesting when new people and new PCs come in, but haven’t had any difficulties creating a party. The story remains the most important part, so you have to figure out how to make everything work in a dramatic sense. Thankfully, we all like to spend time daydreaming, especially the DM, so we usually have the changes made by the end of the session, if not 5 minutes after we come up with the idea.
Lastly, we play in a high death campaign, which makes it easier too. My DM likes to kill characters and we like to kill monsters, so we have lots of changes in party. It helps to change ideas and relationships quickly, because you have to adjust to new people in the party every 3-4 sessions. One character survived for levels 1-6, which was impressive, since everyone else around the table had died at least once and some multiple times. And while character death can be sad, it does help to liven things up, especially when we all create characters months in advance, or at least constantly throw out new ideas. I think everyone has their next character mapped out in their head, even though we haven’t had anyone die yet. We all like to be prepared, I guess or else just really like making new characters and trying out new ideas.
I actually wrote about that today and its cool to see how our ideas differ and are still kind of the same any way check it out http://homeden.wordpress.com/
.-= dwashba´s last blog ..That new book =-.
Both models are good. I’ve been in a couple long campaigns, and they’re a lot of fun (though we tend to take breaks from them for DM sanity purposes). I’m very proud of my currently level 14 Eladrin Warlord, who’s fought his way up all the way from level 1.
On the other hand, the best campaign I ever ran (at least by popular acclamation in our play group) was a 4-5 session mini-campaign I designed to wrap up 3.5 for us before we moved to 4e. Everyone got to be level 17 to start the campaign, with the backstory that they were adventurers who had saved this coastal city about 5 years ago and retired to be the lords of the city. They were basically playing your typical high level NPCs from Forgotten Realms or something like that, except they had to dust off their gear and get back into PC mode to save the city from a strange prophesied threat (ended up being the Tarrasque). 🙂 Loads of fun, great character development, good story, lots of drama, and done in 5 sessions.
I like the mini-campaign model. In my group, we rotate DMing duties, so we get to choose whatever we like to play more frequently. Have a cool character in mind? Just tell the group so, and when the next DM steps up, play that.
I also think my group appears to avoid the death of a character at all costs. Don’t think of it as a disruption to the story. Think of it as providing new plots.
.-= Vincent´s last blog ..Philosophers, dragons and harems =-.
I prefer long, “epic” campaigns. I grew up on the one-shots or small campaigns of only a couple of sessions. They somehow seemed lacking and I was drawn to the longer ones (ran one campaign for 11 years real time, same characters).
However, I understand the desire to play something different, explore a new class. In my current campaign I will be running a specialized adventure I am calling Seige Perilous (after the X-Men comic) wherein the party will be pulled into another reality wherein they will bne asked to assess themselves. After it is over they will allowed to change their race and class while maintaing who they are as a person.
A couple of weeks on my blog I wrote a couple of articles about Dynastic Campaigns. These are campaigns that are played out over generations and years of game time. You start with your first characters, accompish a few goals from the overarching plotline and then the quest is passed to your heirs. This happens over several geneations. It allows for an epic plot while also allowing players to swap up their characters.
http://bigballofnofun.blogspot.com/2010/03/dynastic-campaign.html
Long.
Not that that is right for everyone, or better than any other mode.
Very Long is my mode. Like, Big Mcstrongmuscle’s dad long.
I wrote some earlier settings for the first 7-8 years I played, then created my current setting. That was 1983. We wrote it with a high lethality, so sometimes switching out is easy…
The current campaigns in the Setting are:
Steel Isle (online over IRC just had session 31 last night.)
Igbar (live, 8 years, though a near TPK 3 years ago has spread things out)
Miston (live, 15 years, 3 original members, 3 others with 10+ yr old characters)
We also use skill based rules, so when a Priest of Lucky Ishma wants to learn about backstabbing, she may inquire through contacts how to contact the local Karin Machination Assassins. Handled within the rules.
But when you plan the kind of sandbox out, you do need to have storyarcs and themes written out way ahead of time. That is hwo I label them, Themes are the huge, overarching campaign-level stuff, Greater Arcs for long-term local affects, and lesser arcs for 2-6 session affects. Though I honestly thought my current Igbarians would not be still stuck on Lesser arc #1 after 3 years since the Near TPK.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Flaming Sphere =-.
My longest campaign has been an evil FR campaign that has gone from level 4 to level 16 but only two characters have survived from the start and they’ve retired twice – both ingame and IRL (us changing the game/campaign). My shorter campaigns usually just wither and die without achieving closure.
I play only in one campaign (Conan d20, http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/conan-ae/), and I’ve let three of my characters die instead of spending fate points to save them. I guess I like to try different characters.
This is a great idea. It’s something I think 90% could have thoughtup on their own, but would immediately dismiss before it reached their concious part of their brains… thats how subtle this is. I am going to use this advice for mini-adventures/campaigns, to propel the story by introducing the passage of time and also introduce from adventure to adventure, new characters but then again , bring back some old ones the players ‘let go’ and catch them up on the history and events surounding that old characters life now… specifically related to the story and propelling the campaigns as a whole.
This is such a fantastic comment. I’ve done both of these style games, and enjoyed both immensely. One a half-decade long super-epic campaign that ended with pretty much the same characters it started with and the other was a massively rotating cast for a Red Hand of Doom game. Both were incredibly satisfying, but for entirely different reasons.
One of the biggest benefits for the “miniseries” style games is seeing how different mixes of party work (or don’t work) together. As a GM, watching a variety of players bring a variety of character types and personalities to the table is a really awesome experience. I enjoyed it so much I’m tempted to run Red Hand of Doom again and flesh it out to add an element of West Marches-style scheduling and character competition to it.
Thanks, Chatty. This is a really great article.
.-= Jason Dawson´s last blog ..Core Tropes For Your Setting =-.
I think it’s a great idea, the mini-campaign, these epic ones are really becoming a waste when all this new material comes out and you can’t do anything with it.
I’ve come to the conclusion that shorter campaigns are better now as well. We just don’t have the time (3 hours every two weeks instead of 4 hours ever week) that we had in college to have an expansive campaign.
That said, there’s something a bit missing if you start an Epic tier campaign at level 25 when you haven’t had those characters since at least early Heroic.
.-= Dean´s last blog ..Campaign Lengths and When to Quit =-.
Most of the games I’ve played typically fall into that ADHD mode. Sometimes they could last up to a year, most would crash inside of a month or two. Sometimes it was totally forseeable (like half the party having 4 weekly game commitments), other times it was just a handful of enthusiastic but very flaky players that constantly caused disruptions. Among my group skipping one session was pretty much the kiss of death. It might limp thru a couple more sessions, but it was a dead game walking.
@Jenny: If your player is the avatar of the Raven Queen, then it seems like the best way to get her character to achieve apotheosis is to get her killed. I mean, where else would her powers flourish than in her home domain of the Shadowfell? Or you could even have a side quest where a bunch of Shadar-kai track down the party for under-explained “reasons” to help them stop some chaos in the Shadowfell as the different lieutenants of the RQ are fighting who gets to rule in her absence. As the players go thru the portal, that particular player just never makes it thru. Lo-and behold, at the end of the mini-arc they re-discover their missing comrade as the reborn RQ trying to get a handle on her powers. Or even better, months down the line have a “cinematic moment” where one of the players is cruelly and arbatrarilly killed by some falling piece of scenery only to come face-to-face with their old friend who can give them a second chance (extra kudos if you make the sacrifical lamb be the same player as the current RQ incarnate, heh)
Hmm… maybe my next campaign will include reborn gods. Interesting concept. I’ve always felt that a truly immortal being would lose it’s impetus to act. Maybe every god has to go thru a “re-birthing” process every couple centuries just to keep the highest of motivators, the spectre of death.
@HartThorn those are some excellent suggestions! I think she’s pretty locked up into her character now, as she’s starting to fall in love with an avatar of Pelor. Suddenly the PC is all into it again ^_^
Most of my campaign has been dealing with the renewal of “the old gods,” ie the usual DnD pantheon. A new religion has taken over, with a single deity and a church-controlled state whose corruption is spiraling out of control. A lot of what the PCs are doing now is gathering the power to re-awaken Bahamut and unseat the false church.
Of course, there’s more to it than even that, but that’s mostly what their paragon tier will be concerned with. Epic will get world-ending-and-rebuilding epic 🙂
.-= Jenny Snyder´s last blog ..Level 30 Yinzer presents a tribute: The Axe Cop! =-.
Heh, now this would be a fascinating mind-screw for the epic tier: from levels 21-28 they are fighting against some world ending apocalypse scenario until some uber-wizened sage finally gets to the PCs and informs them that the apocalypse MUST occur, or reality itself will spin out and blink into nothingness. The re-boot is a requirement of reality, and has happened numerous times (kinda like the matrix), but it does still result in everyone the PCs know (including themselves) still dying, but the alternative is actually even worse.
yesss….. EXcellent….
You know you’ve done something good in the blogsphere when a post stays alive with comments well after it came up and without the author’s prodding.
I’m glad you all enjoyed the idea and/or that it sparked such cool discussions.
See you soon with new, non April Fools material.
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Lost Badgers and Kid Guards =-.
Wait… this was an April Fool’s article? DAMMIT!
No! The one about me doing a RPG for kids game with Luke Crane was 🙂 The Lost Badger one… 🙂
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Lost Badgers and Kid Guards =-.
I take my Campaigns on a Day-by-Day basis. I just take my trusty ol’ notebook and ask “What do I want to do today, and then tomorrow?” I write what Really big thing I want to do today and then describe some events or details about that. Then I make some vague plot point that this may tie off to, or if the player might complete today’s task/mini quest, I just think of some other big cool plot point that I could throw in, or something completely different. I just fill in the rest with improv and just rolling with what the player does but still keeping my main goal in mind. I play one PC campaigns so I have alot of breathing room with what I can do, and what my player can do. We have alot of fun too. so it all works out in the end I guess.