Thanks guys!
Michael, I would give these tips:
1.) A lot of people drop out during the course of a game, so have alternates and have them be involved even slightly. In our campaign there was a camp following the adventurers giving them support for the first half. This meant that when players dropped out their characters had a logical place to go and that the alternates could easily volunteer to help the beleaguered party out. During the second half of the campaign we had so many plotlines going on that it was easy to have someone pick a suitable way to leave or enter the campaign. Ask often for alternates if people begin to lag in their posting.
2.) As a DM you must post often and regularly, even if only one of your PCs have responded. Otherwise the game will peter out. The DM is responsible for maintaining the game's energy, more so even then the players. Still, sometimes your game will peter out anyway as two or three people will dominate a game and the others will for some reason post less and less frequently. For example I ran two teams of six for a Ptolus campaign. During the course of this I found that two or three folks on both teams posted regularly while the others only posted during combat. After four dropped out I merged the groups together and had them meet. Again, only two or three dominated while the others posted less often and eventually dropped out. At that point the characters were so integral to the plot I had to drop the game entirely, which was another lesson learned.
3.) Allow your characters to be in some control of the plot. They are the heroes, so make them be able to greatly affect their world. Last Stand of the Dorinthians was set-up with a destroyed nation where the leadership was greatly eliminated so that first level characters were suddenly considered strong and important. Because the NPCs often looked for them for protection and leadership, the PCs' decisions affected the fate and attitude of the survivors they protected. Also, with the vacuum created I planned that each character could rise to about 5th+ level and become arch-mage, general, king, and so on if they so desired in the end. I also took some liberties that I learned from playing OD&D back in the day and gave them whatever powers I felt like to create a sense of mystery connected with the overall campaign. Gnomes with elemental earth powers, noble horsemen suddenly possessed with the spirit of a god, a cleric whose eyes were taken from him but who then began to see like 'Daredevil' from the comic books and had visions of the present and future, etc...
4.) Have a plan that is flexible. I had an overall plot, but did not railroad the characters. I let them run it however they wanted, and many ideas I created on the fly to get the characters get back on track. This allowed both myself and my players to use our creativity and design more details of the world. My players would come up with long and descriptive posts and sometimes tell me what happened. They never abused it and so I never needed to reign this in.
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Favorite moments? There are so many, but I'll throw out a few off the top of my head.
1.) When Rix the kobold rogue led his companions into an abandoned town the refugees wanted to claim, but found a colony of kobolds had overrun it. Instead of fighting, the party made an agreement to find the kobolds a new home. This set the tone of using negotiation to solve problems rather than combat. We still had plenty of combat, but I often gave the players an option out of fighting after this.
2.) The time that the characters snuck into a different kobold and mad gnome lair and were tricked from opening a coffin full of treasure by a simple magic mouth spell.
Then the giant spiders started falling onto them.
3.) The large posts and dialogue as the mad gnome used the enhanced powers of a crystal to cause illusions to try and drive the party away. The party pushed on and had to confront his guardian, a flesh golem. The party mage of all people rammed the golem and rolled great for his charge, slamming both himself and the golem over the edge of a pit full of flame. The mage caught the edge and made it out. The golem did not.
4.) My adjusted skulks. In the book they are too much like lizardmen and are a bit boring, but they have sooo much potential. So I added that they could climb walls, spit acid, and camouflage with the rocks around them.
5.) The ogre-mage battle. I gave the party some help by a swarm of birds and took away the ogre-mage's ability to cast
cone of cold. I still almost killed the party off and we had some great dialogue between the sides. I never did introduce his other brothers and father... This battle led to the party finding out about the Locusi, an ancient human civilization that treated other lands like locusts treat crops. The party mage was shocked and disgusted to find that the bronze locusts inside the Locusi temple were actually alive and frozen from magic. The party left quickly, but missed the dungeon underneath.
6.) The orc invasion and the way the players handled rallying the soldiers and defending their town. It got pretty chaotic as the party would become separated and lead bands through the streets of their town. They did pretty well.
7.) The party reaction to freeing the Lord of the Mountain and setting him against the orc nations. They found out the Lord was a tarrasque only after they freed him.
8.) When the party went to march againt the Imperials, only to find that the elves sent them on a wild goose chase as the Imperials were being killed off by a magically disease. And because the Imperials were human, the characters caught the magical disease also. The elves did not predict the rise of the believers of Festios, however, and the characters had to run through the dead city hounded by Festios zombies.
9.) The ending. I love how Dartis realized that one of his previous actions meant that The Rider manifested and saved the Dorinthians during their darkest hour as prophesized. The characters found a way to peacefully end the war with the elves and bring the cure to humanity. It was fun thinking of the personalities of each character and taking two hours to write "What happened after."
They gave Dartis such fits all game.
Maybe I'm thick-headed but I never knew. I just knew it was incredibly big and destructive.
