Question for Veteran DMs

For those of you with 10+ years of Dm experience...

What is the most successful (fun, long running, personally satisfying) campaign you've ever run? Please provide a brief summary of the campaign and a list of specific things that you think made it successful (like memoriable NPCs, cool monsters or plots, personal qualities of the players involved, specific books or materials used). In other words, tell us about the best campagin you ever ran and what made it successful...

Thanks

For pointers I would humbly suggest that you check out Sagiro's story hour and Piratecats storyhour (also "defenders, the early years".

These will give you tons of information about very long running campaigns that provide lots of fun for players and onlookers.

Cheers

My long-running Champions campaign.

It was internally consistent, had a cast of hundeds of NPC's (whose personalities I could do at the drop of a hat) and had the almost rabid support of the players.

Also, everyone brought snacks and booze nearly every session.

Superhoeroes is the only genre I think I truly get

It was all good

Urghs

Had none. The best ones were running merely 5 years.

Teflon Billy said:

My long-running Champions campaign.

It was internally consistent, had a cast of hundeds of NPC's (whose personalities I could do at the drop of a hat) and had the almost rabid support of the players.

Also, everyone brought snacks and booze nearly every session.

Superhoeroes is the only genre I think I truly get

It was all good

Click to expand...

Wow, Wish I was there.

My Rifts Camapign has been going on for a Dozen years now. The thing that makes it is the Player (it helps to keep a game together with only one PC and one GM). Rifts has a specific timeline and some world shattering events. So, that is what the campaign is all about. Right now her character is a Norse Godling.

THe thing that makes it is the plots. THere is so much going on. We have all the problems that Rifts Earth has, all he rspecific problems because she's a godling and interfering with the other pantheons. I use all the gods from every source I can find be it Palladium, TSR, or just a book. THe game is really about the gods and how they deal with mortals who have high technology.

We do have great NPCs. Rifts Earth is a vast setting with many things going on, so each NPC has it's own interests.

It started as a pick up game, I called it the Eye of Lolth. Simple plot, destroy the item.

Players come across a caravan being destoryed by giants and hobgoblins. Most of the combat was over but they see a few surviors running to the woods (where they were watching - no LG in this group).

The Ranger rushes forward to help, followed by the Fighter. The last man a priest by dress has been shoot by arrows, with his dying breath hands them a bag and tells them to find 'The Cat' in Kel.

First part of the adventure was them running from the giants and hobs. Mostly it was to build up levels for them but I used the time to work on history of the land, build landmarks and work with the players.

The second part was interaction between NPC and the finding out what the Eye was. Opened a gateway for Lolth every 1000 years but only if it was in the hands of a Drow priestess. I had the date coded which the players had to solve.

Part three was them trying to destory it.

I think the game worked so well is because I took the time to build history and work with the players. Each had something happening to them in the game.

probably my current birthright campaign is my most successful. it has survived two different sets of players (only one has been in both). but it's to the point now where players are starting to play the offspring of former players and NPC's. that is the formula for success. the NPC's. if they are engaging, interesting and the players want to interact with them, then it's fun for everyone.

also, there are still mysteries that are unsolved from earlier in the campaign. one of my PC's had an NPC sister who disappeared, and later briefly reappeared - only to give a cryptic warning. though that PC is dead, what happened to his sister still remains unclear.

NPC's, mystery, and the ability of the PC's to change the world as they interact with it. those are the most important parts - IMHO - to a good fantasy campaign. NPC's are definitely the most important. they add so much complexity and "realism" if done properly. long after you players have forgotten about the killer trap that did-in a certain PC, i guarantee they'll still talk about the NPC who reminded them of larry flynt.

Well, we had a Rifts campaign that lasted two years that was extremely successful. A few things really made it stand out:

1. At the end of each session, the PCs would write a quick character journal. If it was at least one page long, they got an XP reward. This journal meant that everyone was on the same page, no matter how long we rested between game sessions. (we would read them aloud the next game) Eventually, the personalities of the PCs really started to come through in the writing.

2. When the rules don't work, drop the bad rule and keep moving. Make something up if you must, and work it out later.

3. Memorable NPCs make a big difference. Have some return, kill off others for instant PC motivation (revenge).

I've taken what I learned in this campaign and applied it to my current D&D 3E campaign. It's been going 10 months and is our best yet.

Good luck and have fun!

The best I had lasted about two years, I think.

The basic plot was this -
The PCs were given a task by a wizard (who was really a lich) to stop a guy known as the Fire Knight. This Fire Knight had recently stolen the Mask of Johydee, and planned on using it to infiltrate the political system of the largest town in my world. The mask allows the wearer to assume a disguise that is impenetrable by everything except for the monocle of Bagthalos.
So, the players had to find the monocle and stop the Fire Knight - except that they didn't know where the monocle was. But they knew where the Herald of Mei Lung was! The herald was an ancient tome way up north guarded by monks that recorded every event in the history of the world. So, they headed to the shrine, read the book, found the monocle, traveled two continents away, killed an ancient dracolich (with the help of a protection from lightning scroll) and got the monocle. They then headed back to the town, found the knight, killed one of his major henchman - a halfling assassin that had been following them all over the world, but the knight finally got away (through the portal that the halfling opened from his amulet of the planes). In the end, the party followed him into Sigil, and learned that he had made his way into Baator (hell), but decided it just wasn't worth trekking into Hell for the guy.

The game was successful because of the NPCs mainly. The Fire Knight was part of a large fire cult, so the PCs were always running into fire cultists.

That, and I pretty much let the players decide where they wanted to go. There was an overarching plot, but where they went to get from point A to B was up to them.