Destroy my campaign world

[Lord of Wyrmsholt]

Forgotten Realms was *everyone*'s setting, and for that reason it was important to add to it. That's also why so many people were annoyed that it was destroyed without asking them: hundreds of thousands if not millions of fans were not consulted about their special space.

The events surrounding the various changes in the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk over the years always struck me as more of a business decision (regardless of how well/poorly the changes were implemented by individual designers). These 'reboots' of the campaign worlds could be viewed as trying to encourage long-time enthusiasts to purchase more material as well as to lower the barrier for entry for new players who might be intimidated by the amount of material they felt they needed to learn to get started. Certainly individual DM's were not forced to adopt any of the world-shaking events into their own campaigns, but I also understand some of the hard feelings about these imposed 'cannonical' events.

Might I suggest you have several planets that your heroes travel to magically each scenario (example: the Deathgate Cycle by Weis and Hickman), where it is important for an overall reason for them to change each of these worlds? Like "the multiverse is out of alignment: only you, using the magical Transportichron, have a hope of changing these unbalancing factors... before it is too late!"

If the premise is "destroy the central premise of each 'setting'", then it's part of the setting.

An interesting idea I hadn't considered. My own thoughts were more along the lines of a reasonable length campaign in each. I hadn't envisioned a full 1-20 or 1-30 level 'adventure path', but enough so that players can explore a bit deeper than the one-line hook about each place. For example in the the world with undead overlords taking over an empire ruled by a death cult, you might imagine that individual areas might have a range of reactions to their new leaders. I also was playing around with thoughts about the development of a new 'ecology' in a land in which the dead (when not properly prepared) always arise as unintelligent undead. I find the name 'Eaters of the Dead' in such a setting to be particularly provocative.

But I could certainly envision a campaign along the lines that you describe: what I have been thinking of as the ultimate adventure in each world could be the only or the major adventure at each 'stop' along the way.

 

[Lord of Wyrmsholt]

I don't have any desire to "blow up" or end my world; I love it too much! But at the same time, I want it to grow and change. It's possible to have both options; change and stability!

Please don't get me wrong. I don't think all settings should be disposable or that being disposable is a criteria for a good setting. Consider this more of a thought experiment that I really, really would like to move out of the experimental realm for a campaign or two.

 

[Lord of Wyrmsholt]

This WAS my last campaign world!

Let's go with great minds think alike. Or at least I occasionally think like some great minds.

 

[S'mon]

I create themed worlds where the PCs can resolve the central conflict, they make a nice contrast to my primary long-term homebrew campaign world or to published worlds I use like the Wilderlands. I ran a long Mystara "Dawn of the Emperors" campaign for a Chaotic PC where the primary conflict did ultimately resolve because all the primary political actors, including the PC, were dead except for the nice-guy NPC Prince and Princess (the son of Emperor Eriadna and the daughter of Empress Thincol) - they married each other and instituted a golden age of peace. These two had survived the carnage because no one thought them worth killing - shades of "I, Claudius".

Edit: Sometimes the world is created for a single adventure: Werskara, where a deity PC aided Humanity in an apocalyptic war against the Wolfen, and recovered the save-the-world maguffins in an epic travelogue. Sometimes it's for a 20-30 session campaign, like my Willow Vale campaign where the PCs save a world resembling fantasy-dark-ages Earth from Bafomet the Evil One.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I always wanted to run a Midnight campaign which ended in a manner shamefully stolen from Moorcock's Elric: the party ultimately find the horn of change or similar artefact and the sounding of same is the death knell for Izrador but also for the world.

I had then planned to start a new campaign set in the world of Dawnforge, a new world built on the ruins of the Midnight world from before. I was also going to incorporate the "victorious" PCs from the Midnight campaign as immortals in the Dawnforge campaign.

Alas, that was my fantasy heartbreaker....

 

[Gilladian]

I have to admit, I'm running a Ptolus campaign right now. I have every intention of letting it go very GONZO at the end (by 9th-10th level as they're at 5th now) and then ending with a very big bang. So I guess I'm doing something similar there!

I've just never been able to enjoy world-ending threats in campaigns.

 

[LurkMonkey]

The recent posts about preferences for different published campaign worlds (I've always been a bit of a homebrew guy) has me pondering an idea that I've been kicking around for a long time now.

Much of the best fantasy has the main characters fundamentally altering the worlds they live in (Lord of the Rings probably being the most well known). So why not the same for D&D?

For me, the most successful 'disposable' campaign worlds will have a very distinctive characteristic with the pinnacle of the campaign being the defeat of whatever is responsible for this characteristic (whether or not it directly involves a final battle with an overall evil). I actually think of the War of the Burning Sky as one of these types of campaign worlds (or at least that's how I'd use it) and were I to use Dark Sun or Ravenloft, it would be with the goal of the PCs to 'fix' those worlds (or at least one of the demi-planes in Ravenloft) as well.

A few examples:

1. A world ruled by the undead whose entire existence is dependent upon an opened portal. The PC's role is to simply close the portal. [My notes on this world suggest that the portal was opened by an empire that worshipped the dead, much like the ancient Egyptians, and that the effect of the open portal was that all of the dead came back to unlife. The long dead, such as venerated kings, wizards, and the like, were intelligent; the recently and newly deceased always come back as unintelligent undead.]

I kind roughed one up like this as well. I had it as some evil power had caused the sun to morph into a gate to the Negative Material Plane (Rather than the Positive, which was the normal state of things). I had thought that the PCs would have to go on a planar adventure to acquire a Starseed, basically a means to 'rededicate' the Necrastra (the undead sun) to its former positive self. Of course, there would be undead forces that liked the current order of things, and would work at cross-purposes with the party.

If this scenario was used as a 'one-shot' as part of a larger planar campaign, I think it would be very interesting.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I had thought that the PCs would have to go on a planar adventure to acquire a Starseed, basically a means to 'rededicate' the Necrastra (the undead sun) to its former positive self.

If you run this, find another name for undead sun. That's quite clumsy when said out loud.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Per your request, we have dropped 10,000 Tarrasques with Laser Beams attached to their heads into your campaign world. They parachuted out over the major continents at 0600 yesterday.

We will be sending you the bill.