Do you always need to save the world

[Oldehouserules]

In a game, it's anything the characters find worth fighting for, even if this means their wallet! There's something charming about Conan throwing in for gold and a good time...

Really, it should vary by group. Survey your players and see what their characters find meaningful and create adventures that appeal to this. The player buy-in is well worth it!

Actual, world-threatening catastrophe should be VERY RARE!

 

[pogre]

My current campaign was a save the world kind of set-up. The PCs were in a small town of an evil empire where they made contact with an insurgent group of druids and elves.

The long term goals were built into the campaign. Rise up - destroy the BBEG - and free the lands under the Empire.

My PCs started gaining the attention of the forces of the Emperor. The heat was on.

That's when the PCs did the unexpected - they left town - they left the country.

Our campaign is now revolving around tomb raiding in a desert of a long forgotten civilization. A long, long way from my precious evil empire. Oh well, they're having fun and I have completely let go of any concepts of an overarching plot.

You can bet your tail agents from the evil empire will make an appearance at some point!

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I don't like save the world games. There's just too many of them for starters. Then there's the inevitable detachment from the internal logic of the game when you start asking questions like "How come all this falls on me and my guys?" and "Why aren't we getting more help here?" And lastly because, as was said up thread, they're just too impersonal.

I would much rather have my PC fighting for their loved ones in a very real, up close sense. And when I GM I find my players, even those who generally love a "the whole world depends on us" story, get very involved. Much more so than when they are saving the world.

 

[gamerprinter]

Personally, I hate "you need to save the world" stories for metagame reasons. When the whole world/universe is at stake, its basically a given that the PCs will win. The end of the world, after all, would also be the end of the campaign. On the other hand, "save the region" or even "save the city" put real tension on the PC's. My players know that I will blow up a few towns on them if they drop the ball, because the next chapter can be picking up the pieces.

I actually prefer campaigns to end eventually (and sooner rather than later.) It's probably been more than 20 years since I ran a multi-year campaign, the last one taking up the better part of 4 years in participation. Since that time, I've only run short campaigns that last 6 months to a year - and there's always an end. As a player, I get bored with playing one character longer than a short campaign, I want to play different people, different concepts and different overall story. I don't just want to play a different character in the same campaign. As a GM, and I prefer to GM, I enjoy seeing telling a story that has an end, however an end that doesn't end the world. When the PC's story is done, the world is still in place, and though actions may have changed elements of the world within the scope of PC participation, but such events aren't effecting the entire world and most likely the PCs actions aren't generally known to the rest of the world.

 

[Umbran]

Really? Tell that to Nik Wallenda.

Yes, well, note what I said about it being poor design. You know, as in *game* design? Nik Wallenda's not playing a game - he's providing performance entertainment, so the statement doesn't apply. Whether such things happen in real life is not relevant, as I'm not running a simulation of real life.

 

[Mloren]

I'm completely sick of the save the world plot, also pretty sick of playing a stereotypical hero.
I would much rather play a peasant struggling to achieve small but personal things than be involved in huge world changing events.

 

[delericho]

Why this is the case is, imo, obvious. Save the world stories are easy to tell and easy to understand. The sides are clear cut, there is no moral ambiguity and its easy to dehumanize the oppositions. Even if they are humans, why feel bad when killing someone so evil and deranged that he wants to destroy the world?

Actually, I don't think it's as clear-cut as all that. I think there's an aspect of sequel-itis in there as well: the first time you tell the story, you get to set the stakes; the next time everything needs to be bigger and better; and the next, and the next, and... The end-point of this, of course, is the stakes become "the end of everything". Problem is, there's not really anywhere to go after that.

So I want to know what type of stories do you run?

A whole bunch, but I don't think I've done a "save the world" for a very long time. (Despite what some of my players would say - in at least one case they were convinced the TPK led to the destruction of the world, but that was never the stake; all that happened was a very big, very nasty dragon was let loose.)

Most of my recent campaigns have been local stuff. Even the campaigns that went to Epic level were about making a fundamental change to the underlying setting, but not about saving the world.

Let's think...

"Shackled City" isn't a save-the-world plot - save-the-city certainly, with a side-order of defeating a powerful BBEG, but not one intent (and able) on destroying or enslaving the world.

"The Company of the Black Hand" was a WFRP (2nd Ed) campaign that was based on the "Black Company" novels, and that dealt with the well-being of a region. In that case, the PCs' victory actually made things worse - the BBEG was evil, but she was also a very strong ruler for a city in a precarious position; by removing her, the PCs left a power vacuum that destabilised the region.

"The First Rebellion" was a Dark Times SWSE campaign that started with the PCs (and, in particular, the Jedi PC) fleeing a Star Destroyer as Order 66 was issued, and dealt mostly with survival. They did organise a fight-back, but it wasn't going to end well. (Though the campaign fizzled before we got into that - at the end, the PCs had just been betrayed by their main allies.)

"Cavcari's Last Incantation" was a FR 3.5e campaign that was based on an underlying (non-canonical) 'truth' that "everything that has a beginning must have an end" - including the deities. Thus, the PCs were going to have a choice - do they remove that limitation, or not? (That campaign died quickly; I may recycle much of it for my current group.)

"Tracks of Lightning" was a 3.5e Eberron campaign set in the Mournland, and dealing with efforts to reconnect the Lightning Rail. The BBEG was the Lord of Blades, though due to a contraction of the timeline he was merely headed off rather than destroyed. Still, a regional problem.

"The Eberron Code" (again, 3.5e) was a 3 year campaign that did reach high levels. This one was ultimately about the demon bound within the Silver Flame, and left the PCs a choice: do they extinguish the Flame, leave it as-is, or attempt to bind the demon more tightly and thus 'cleanse' the Flame. Regardless of their choice, the world would be changed by their actions, but it wasn't being saved.

"Imperial Fist" was another Dark Times SWSE campaign, in which the PCs were cast as Imperial agents charged with hunting down and eliminating Jedi terrorists. This was a regional, not universal, issue.

And I think that's all the campaigns I've run in the last decade (false starts excluded). Guess I'm due for a "save the world"!

 

[Gamgee]

Not at all.

 

[Razjah]

I don't like save the world games. There's just too many of them for starters. Then there's the inevitable detachment from the internal logic of the game when you start asking questions like "How come all this falls on me and my guys?" and "Why aren't we getting more help here?" And lastly because, as was said up thread, they're just too impersonal.

This is one of my biggest issues with saving the world. Where is the help? At least LotR gave a reason why there wasn't an army of dwarves, elves, and men taking the right back to the mountain.

But most games it doesn't make any sense. "You are the troubleshooters." is not a good enough validation. The fate of the whole world lies in the hands of a few people and no one gives them more support? In a war campaign, if the PCs are going to destroy the enemy super weapon they should have ground support, diversion(s), air support, armor forces, overwatch, and transport/evac. Not given some more ammo and slightly bigger guns.

Am I the only one who finds it crazy when a king's support is upgrading the party's +4 weapons into +5 weapons and nothing else?

 

[RangerWickett]

Sir, it'll cost 18,000 gp per person to upgrade your weapons to, as you put it, "plus five." For that price we could hire six hundred soldiers for fifty days. Perhaps you'd find those more useful?

(Each soldier is 3 sp/day x 50 days = 15 gp. Add in equipping them each with leather armor, a light wooden shield, a spear, a sling, 10 slingstones, pushes us to 30 gp. 600 x 30 = 18000.)