Your Campaign Just Ended - Now What?
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- How do you evolve your campaign world for your next campaign? What can you do to set another game in the same game world you've loving created without having to start from scratch? When the game is over - what is next? This... this is next.
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i have a group that have been playing in an alternative timeline of "faerun" for like 15 years now...
former PC are historical figures, or renowned heroes. One has even achived godhood and is currently a minnor god on the dwarven pantheon.
Players love to see that past campaings afect current ones.. one time the party entered a place where one of the older characters died, and there was a moment when one player found hers old character body. (they still talk about that moment).
Elias Vernieri this is awesome because I am doing the same thing in Faerun. We started with Princes of the apocalypse, and the player actions have affected the realm in ways I never imagined. One member of our group actually received a shard of divinity from his deity, The Raven Queen, and was tasked with helping her collect souls to send to their appropriate afterlife. Sadly, the player playing that character passed away, but his character will live on forever in my world.
We had a 10+ year campaign where our DM recycled the old characters from when he was a player. These were epic level NPCs who didn't interact with us very often but were out in the world. His old pc started out as our patron. It's really neat to interact with characters you've heard many stories about
@Ian Robertson It's easy enough to deal with and work around imo. It's similar to, how in a world with established npcs like FR, how you'd explain why characters like Elminster and Blackstaff don't swoop in and save the day all the time. It also turned into a "sins of the father" overarching theme, in which the consequences of things they did/didn't do fell into the lap of the next generation. It was really interesting narrative wise. It also plays into what Guy said about what happens when you fast forward the timeline after one campaign ends.
It's like every time my campaign is coming to a particular stage, you release a video on exactly what is going on. You, my good sir, have impeccable timing.
Guy, I would totally watch you run a campaign of, "My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria".
XD
Friendship is Magic
and Magic is *_HERESY!_*
Interesting ideas of throwing in a world shattering event into an established world.
Looking back through what I've played, that pretty much describes the best campaigns I've played in, although I'd never noticed it until now.
Thanks for opening my eyes.
I think I've mentioned this before, perhaps only on discord, but could you perhaps make a video on running an evil campaign? I enjoy your rants, and it would be funny because I know you're not there biggest fan of evil characters when it may not make sense, but I truly need advice on this subject. You're my favorite UA-camr for this information, and you've got the best advice. My players like to be evil as a group typically, and I really don't know the best way to keep them busy in a story of following the villains instead of the heroes.
Okay, top tier advice (in my experience) is to remember and remind Players that Evil characters are ego-driven and self centered... Most truly great villains work out that way... not brain damaged or necessarily stupid.
Just because the Joker is so famously well done and documented as a madman, doesn't make him part of the rule rather than the exception... great villains are relatable, too... not just rampaging around recklessly murdering and stealing everything and everyone "because they're evil". Those are psychopaths with serious mental disorders.
Take Hitler as your best example. His elevator arguably didn't reach the top floor either... BUT he carried charisma, noticed worthy investments in others, rewarded desired behavior and dug into people's very tribal nature of patriotism... He didn't engage in needlessly murdering his fellow party members to gain his own rank, either.
He just didn't give much of a care who was in the way of his campaign or what other consequences his ruthless conquest would bring about... as long as it wasn't German (or Arian) he couldn't care any less about them... simple as that.
He was documented fairly well as a religious man, Catholic if I recall... AND quiet when he wasn't at a podium unless there was a need to be loud. Most indicated him to be polite (in spite of what the movies suggest) and passionate... ALL qualities we tend to think highly of.
The brutish madman who nearly wiped out Jews and Gypsies for no good reason isn't entirely adequate either... He led people... who brutally wiped out Jews and Gypsies for his scapegoating. There is a difference.
OR perhaps Genghis Khan, according to most of the outside world, a horrible person... BUT Mongolia regards him as a folk hero. He WAS definitely a man of reason and principle... Even outlawing torture.
Everyone likes to be the hero of their own story... even when they claim "the ends justify the means" over the most horrible criminal and evil activities...
Psycho's work for murderhoboing... BUT that's not even a technical villain-form. It's just the kind of thing a normal society would regard as an outcast... controversial at the best of times, even in retrospect...
For this one, look at Musashi Miyamoto, Japan's one and only Kensei or "Saint of the Sword". Just as many current experts argue he was a filthy dog in life who couldn't have expected much more than a quiet death on a mountain for not serving a Lordship or the Shogun... and that he sought out duels simply to pass his time, rather than anything honorable. Samurai (proper) held their ranks for being regimental in everything and proper to public appearance as well... while Musashi was often unclean and uncouth.
Yet, he is still famous as THE Kensei.
Perspective is everything in D&D, and narratively villainous campaigns still star the PC's as their own heroes, even if the whole rest of the civilized world is genuinely decent and only out to kill them for their own crimes and mischief...
Thus... we can dispense (if you're more into a morally grey area, than villainy) with anything alignment related, and let all the consequences correspond to whatever is considered criminal, and whoever witnessed it... evidence, etc... as one would normally in an other RPG. Some folks even prefer playing that "style", and I've nothing against it, so long as you remember that any and all artifacts and relics that might also have alignments are no longer subject to the rules... or anything regarding an ego-contest (they still have those rules, right?)...
If you keep alignment, however... it should carry consequences as a PC "acts out of alignment" to serve in part as a deterrent... AND in part as a narrative toolkit for changing that alignment.. The DMG has a few good ideas there, but nothing to serve as a great mechanic... thus my love for ego-contests even beyond their application with intelligent weapons. Hope it helps in between now, and Guy giving evil Campaigns a new shot. ;o)
Guy's already made his opinions on evil PCs pretty clear in the past:
ua-cam.com/video/nVe86MTk_60/v-deo.html
I also direct you to this - rather old - video:
ua-cam.com/video/JrhZPLpgWbg/v-deo.html
Personally, I'd advise you to start where all campaigns should start: talking with your players about what kind of game they actually want to play. Get some kind of premise that they can all buy into to give the campaign some structure.
What do you even mean by, "My players like to be evil as a group typically." anyway? Do they want to conquer the kingdom rather than liberate it? Rise through the ranks of the Thieves Guild? Engage in banditry on the highways or piracy on the high seas? Or do they just want to run around randomly screwing with things in a consequence-free environment before devolving into a PVP crapfest?
This is coming up soon, thanks Guy!
This is quite a soothing thing to hear. Our campaign is finishing in the new year and I'm incredibly attached to the world. It's going to be hard to move away, but I like the take-home message that, really, just because play ended doesn't mean the world is gone.
I've run three separate campaigns in my world set in three different periods of history, and it's made for a really memorable world/story!
I’ve had to do this twice for my home brew world of Thöll. I expect after my players resolve (or not) their plans to overthrow a kingdom by allying with a Hobgoblin Khanate, my map will change again.
I'd totally be down for the cybereldritch horrors and friendship that a sci-fi/Call of Cthulu/My Little Pony game would entail. ^_^
Out from the easy bake oven your group of space scavengers have been able to resemble. You see a glowing cupcake with tentacles protruding from it. Looking up at you with puppy dog eyes. A mechanical barrel touches the back of your temple you hear a monotone voice tell you to "consume the eldritch consumable or face extermination and your body will broken down to a molecular level and all useable parts will be made into a weak level adhesive paste" you hear from inside your mind "do not eat me for it will kill you. Obey me and we shall summon the slumbering one from the dream realms quelishing these mechanical abominations" you attempt to facepalm but your hooves sicken into your fat horse face leaving an imprint of your shoe on your face
I ended my first campaign last saturday, so this is realy fitting :D
"Sci-Fi-Thulhu My Little Pony"
How did you know that's what I was going to do next
I win the comment initiative! (Childish, yes - but it doesn't happen often!)
Rather than running the clock hundreds of years forward, I'm a fan of running it forward only a few decades. This allows you to take up the next campaign from within the borders of a kingdom that later faces war with the nation your previous group of heroes owed fealty to and THAT leads to your new group eventually having to split the party for a multi-pronged mission where some of your players appear as thier old characters (advanced in age and now defending themselves from the new ones). In this way, you add a final chapter to the lives of some of the old heroes while setting others up to become an ongoing threat where each conflict between the two is both a rush of epicness and a twist of the knife in the gut. It also let's you have times where the players can spend a week (where not everyone can attend) playing from the other side as you gear up for more battles between those who survive.
I've just ended my 3-year-long campaign a couple of days ago, is the world trying to tell me something?
yes
@Ian Robertson I do get what you're saying, but I still feel like I can't wait to make another campaign, where I increase my standards and show them how much I've improved. That campaign was my first, maybe that's why?
I've never made it to the end of a champagne. I didn't know there was an end.
I suppose popping bottles at the end of a campaign makes sense. It's up there with winning some world championship or graduating.
Yes, I think the GM skill "How to end your campaign gracefully" is something often forgotten...
But! Campaigns ending are more common than they seem at first glance. -> 3 Classic ungracefully campaign endings:
(1) The TPK (Total Party Kill) for one reason or another there are no characters to carry on.
(2) Player dropout, too few players for it to be interesting to continue.
(3) Campaigns set on pause, but are never started up again.
I'm nearing the end of my current campaign. Just waiting on the heroes to gather their army to fight the evil queen and reveal the true final boss. Afterwards I'm planning on a time skip but had no idea what to really do next. This video greatly helped me out so thank you so much man :D
The kingdom is saved, then
Roll D6
1) An extra dimensional threat to the kingdom occurs...
2) Build up the land the king gave to you and create a noble house.
3) King orders you to explore the rumors of a new land.
4) An ancient evil awakes.
5) The king gets assassinated by a rival kingdom.
6) The king dies of natural causes twenty years later, and his son banishes you because he is jealous of your power or some other unstated reason.
ARGH now I want to make a sci-fi-thulu!!!
A Sci-fithulu My Little Pony mashup sounds awesome
sci-fi-thulu-mlp...for some reason that actually sounds interesting...
My solution is find completely different players and drop them into the world at the start again and run again and have a completely different experience.
Sci-fi/Thullu/Pony? I've got my next campaign!
I simply say, "Next campaign? You have one? Great! I'll take a much needed break and YOU get to DM for
The
Next
2
YEARS...
Chapter 1 - The Birth of Heroes
Chapter 2 - The War for the High Throne
Chapter 3 - The Death of Magic
Chapter 4 - The Warriors of the Stars
Chapter 5 - The Rise of the God of Evil
Hmm... thoughts anyone?
All of these evoke some ideas - even if the chapter names are pretty well-trodden paths, there is nothing wrong with that.
I started playing in Eberron a few months back and while every group starts with the same premise and actors (Kings, Houses of Sharn etc) as soon as the player characters arrive, timelines shift and it's not Eberron anymore, it's Ourberron. Or Yourberron, whatever.
Sci-fi-cthulhu-my-little-pony themed campaign sounds great to me! 😆
I know someone who like knitting, she knits Cthulhu monster dolls for her two kids to play with!
I like the idea of doing a campaign several centuries in the future and not let the players know until several months in. Either let them think it's a new world, or don't tell them time passed until the reveal.
Yes, there are some good ideas and options there:
Next campaign can use another RPG system. - Good way to upgrade system without having to change world!
Next campaign can be set sufficiently far out in the future so the world and technology have evolved enough to be interesting and give plenty of new options and things to look into.
Wait. There are people who don't have ideas for their next campaign already?
Yes, those who wish to step down from the GM position, for a while, may deliberately keep their mind free of such ideas for not to be tempted to break their promise to themselves, about taking a pause.
@@larsdahl5528 i couldn't keep my mind clear of ideas of future campaigns even if i tried, they just creep up on me.
(to be fair though over half of the campaign ideas i have i would want to play in but alas nobody will run it for me.)
Top 10!
Sometimesyou need to burn the world after the pcs run through it.
Sometimes there isn't even enough left to burn the thing after they've had it a while. ;oP
Sometimes the PCs have already taken care of that for you. XD
My Little Pony could be an awesome rpg campaign.
Jed Miller So you mean like the existing rpg,the homebrew and also Ponyfinder? My local gameshop has a group that plays it out of the basement. xD
The 4 members of the party in action: ua-cam.com/video/FIY41LrvMFQ/v-deo.html
Tales of Equestria is totally an extant RPG.
I'm only watching this video in the fantasy that I'll finish my first one and my players actually like it...
May be worth to consider how good your "How to end your campaign gracefully" -skill are.
And the sooner you test it, the sooner you get to start a new campaign!
When Giant Bananas attack
Great, MLP Campaign confirmed.
woot! my little pony!
Now you go and make memes about it, of course.